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TIIEANCHOR- Diocese ofFall River -Fri., September24, 1999
Actress works to improve lives of foster children ~
'Young and Restless' star Victoria Rowell is a foster child herself.
Theater in New York. Rowell later taught classical dance at several schools in New 'England, and then her striking grace and beauty led to television, first By Lou BALDWIN through the advertising medium CATHOliC NEWS SERVICE with commercials.for Ford, Burger PHILADELPHIA - Foster chil- King and AT&T, just to name a few. dren have a friend on television. This was followed by film and teleShe's Victoria Rowell, formerly of vision work with Bill Cosby, then the popular soap opera "The Young 'The Young and the Restless" and and the Restless," and now the as- ultimately "Diagnosis Murder" tute forensics expert, Dr. Amanda with Dick Van Dyke. Probably none of this would Bentley, on CBS-TV's "Diagnosis have happened without social Murder." She will do whatever it takes to workers and foster parents who recmake the life of children in foster ognized her talents and went the extra mile to help Rowell achieve care more pleasant. her poten"Th e y do need a . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - , tial. "I still voice and remember after all, I'm my social a former workers. foster youth They just myself," did 'so said Rowell, many bewho renevolent cently was things outphotoside of the graphed for profile of a promowhat would t ion a'i -be for a soposter for cial worker, 't h ' e' really archdiocesan Christian Catholic acts and a Soc i a I 'lot of outService's of-pocket Foster Care service so I Program. could re"I'm interc e i v e ested in helping the . ACTRESS VICTORIA Rowell of things withadvance- "Diagnosis Murder," in an interview out waiting mentoffos- talked ,about her childhood in foster six months ter family homes and her contil")uing interest in for a purlegisla- helping children in the foster care sys- chase order. Rowell, tion." tem. (eNS photo by D'Mont Reese, who now Posing makes her for the Catholic Standard and Times) . principal poster is a natural fit, because "I'm Catholic home in the Los Angeles area, dotes and I work with children, especially. on her own two children, Jasper, 2, foster children, so it makes a lot of who "loves trains," and Maya, 10, sense," Rowell said. who "loves horses and just made She spent her childhood - from her first Communion. They are infancy until age 18 - in foster great," she said. care in Maine and Massachusetts While at this point in her life under the supervision of the Maine and career Rowell is not a foster Department of Social Services. For parent herself, she is heavily inRowell, it was a positive experi- volved in both advocacy and philence. anthropic work for children in fos"I've been blessed with wonder- tercare. ful fortune and good support For the past 10 years Rowell has throughout my life," she said. "But also headed a foundation she crefoster care, in the best of circum- ated, the Rowell Foster Children's stances, is a fairly difficult exist- Positive Plan. The foundation ence for a child. Usually you Me funds participation for foster chilseparated from your siblings and dren in fine arts programs, includdon't know if you will ever see them ing her continuing love, ballet. again. And you are separated from Uniting brothers and sisters 'in your own mother and father even if foster care is important to Rowell. you had a chance to know them in While there were six ~hildren in her the first place." own natural family, she was united From the time she was very with only two of them a child. "I did a search about 10 years young, Rowell loved classical ballet, and her foster mother enrolled ago and reunited the family," she her in a ballet program for inner- said. "Now we have a family recity youth in Cambridge, Mass. She union every two years. I believe' a stayed with this program for eight search is wonderful. If some family years and ultimately won a full members aren't receptive, that's scholarship to'the American Ballet OK. You've done youq;art."~··:'
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New papal biography was a command performance from the pope himself By Lou PANARALE
on the project," Weigel said in an interview with Catholic News Service. ' 'He said the pope assured him they would meet as ' WASHINGTON - What's an author to do when the pope invites him to dinner and asks him to write the often as necessary, and the author would get any needed materials and have complete editorial control. pope's biography? Weigel said that arrangement allowed him to write For George Weigel, the answer was easy - not only because' Pope John Paul II asked him but because the "the first full-scale biography that presents the pope's life from 'inside' the convictions that have shaped that author had long wanted to write such a book. life." Three-and-a-half He said writing a biyears in the making, ography from the outside "Witness to Hope: The is a little like writing a Biography of Pope John biography of Einstein Paul II" will be available and ignoring or in bookstores by middownplaying the physOctober from ics. HarperCoIlins Publish''With John Paul II, the ers. theology, the Christian An imposing yet commitment that makes highly readable volume him the man he is, that that runs nearly 1,000 shapes his thinking, his pages, including footactions, his decisions, notes, the biography is and his encounters with the work of Weigel, a others, has to be the startCatholic newspaper coling point," Weigel said. umnist and senior fellow Regarding meeting at the Ethics and Public with the pope, Weigel said, Policy Center in Wash"We met 10 times, forington. mally, over meals, and had Weigel has written or several other more ~nfor edited 15 books, includmal encounters, amounting 'Tranquillitas Ordiing to about 20 hours of nis: The Present Failure , conversation in all. and Future Promise of Weigel said that a American Catholic year before the pope Thought on War and asked him to write the P.eace" and "The Final papal. biography, he Revolution: The Re~;is stated'in a column that tance Church and the historians would someCollapse of Commuday refer to the pope as nism." 'Pope John Paul II the He said the idea of Great. producing an in-depth "If that does become biography of the pope first came up in May 1995 in informal conver~ations . the case, it will be because, like Leo the Great and Gregory the Great, John Paul met the challenge of the with Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the pope's spokesman. For several months afterward, Weigel suggested barbarians of his time," he said. "He has championed ideas by mail and fax to Navarro-Valls on how he Christian humanism and defending the inalienable rights of human beings made in the image and likethought such a biography should be written. Then in December 1995, Weigel was back in Rome ness of God. 'This 'pope from a far country' has changed the to give a lecture when, to his surpr~se, the pope invited papacy and the course of 20th-century history, and set him to dinner. "In the course of the evening he made it clear, quite the course for world Catholicism well into the third vigorously, that he would be grateful if I would take millennium," Weigel said. CATHOUC NEWS SERVICE
Family film drought continues NEW YORK (CNS) - The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by the U.S. Catholic Conference Office for Film and Broadcasting. "American Beauty" (DreamWorks) Nihilistic black comedy in which a husband (Kevin Spacey) lusts after a blonde teen-ager (Mena Suvari), his shrill wife (Annette Bening) has an affair with a business rival (Peter Gallagher), and their teen daughter (Thora Birch) finds solace with a drug-dealing classmate from an equally dysfunctional family. Director Sam Mendes paints a corrosively bleak portrait of family life in which the increasingly desperate behavior of self-absorbed characters' culminates in murder. Briefgory violence, sexual situations and nudity, some profanity and recurring rough language. The U.S. Catholic Conference classification is 0 - morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association ofAmerica rating is R - restricted.
''B. Monkey" (Artisan) Violent tale in which a punky London thief (Asia Argento) tries to retire from a life of crime after she and a schoolteacher (Jared Harris) fall in love, but her criminal colleagues track the couple down to their rural hideaway with deadly results. The lovers in director Michael Radford's morally ambiguous tale of redemption seek a new life l:!ut ignore taking responsibility for criminal acts. Some violence, sexual encounters with full nudity, drug abuse and much rough language. The U.S. Catholic Confer-
Movies Online Can't remember how a recent film was classified by the USCC? Want to know whether to let the kids go see it? Now you can look film reviews up on America Online. Once you're connected to AOL, just use the keyword CNS to go to Catholic News Service's online site, then look for movie reviews.
ence classification is A-N- adults, with reservations. The Motion Picture Association ofAmerica rating is R - restricted. ''Breakfast of Champions"
(HoUywood) Surreal satire in which the American dream becomes a nightmare for a crazed car dealer (Bruce Willis) who turns to a cranky pulp fiction writer (Albert Finney) for a coherent philosophy of life when he can't relate to his spacey family and bizarre co-workers. As directed by Alan Rudolph from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s 1976 novel, the film's social commentary soon gets lost among many eccentric characters who become tiresome well before the gooey upbeat ending. An extended sexual encounter, brief violence, intermittent profanity and minimal rough language. The U.S. Catholic Conference classification is A-III - adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R - restricted. '