AUGUST 17, 2021 • ARCHGH.ORG/TCH
AYC RETURNS
texas catholic herald
AVE MARIA IN MUSIC
Teens turned out in force to celebrate their faith at annual youth conference ▪ SEE PAGE 12
September concerts celebrate Divine Mercy message ▪ SEE PAGE 19
Proclaiming the Good News to the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston since 1964
AUGUST 17, 2021
IGNITE
Donors help make Catholic education a reality for many
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VOL. 58, NO. 6
WHOEVER RECEIVES ONE CHILD LIKE THIS...
BY REBECCA TORRELLAS Texas Catholic Herald HOUSTON — The IGNITE campaign was established to build funding for individual parish needs, infrastructure and housing at St. Mary’s Seminary, strengthen faith formation, rebuild and fortify parishes and schools that suffered damage during Harvey, build a future disaster recovery fund, and provide assistance to families who wish to send their children to Catholic primary schools. “The IGNITE campaign helps to ensure that families who wish to send their children to a Catholic school can afford to do so with the help of tuition assistance, while also helping to form See IGNITE, page 6
MINISTRIES
New parish guide tackles racism, promotes inclusion Parishes urged to use guide at all levels BY ANNETTE BAIRD Herald Correspondent
CNS PHOTO
Pope Francis greets a child during his general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI hall Aug. 11. The pope continued his series of audience talks focused on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and reflected on what role God’s law to Moses plays in helping people encounter Christ.
As pandemic resurges, CSO, Catholic schools look to the future Just like in 2020, flexibility is the name of the game
HOUSTON — In the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council’s (APC) June 26 meeting about inclusion and racism, Family Life Ministry Director Ricardo Medina used the analogy of an iceberg to highlight how people relate to each other. He said people are like icebergs in that there are the visual markers — part of the iceberg above the water, and hidden markers — the larger part below the water. Medina, who led the virtual meeting, said while age, race and gender are the visual markers, the more meaningful markers are often hidden. See PASTORAL, page 8
BY REBECCA TORRELLAS Texas Catholic Herald HOUSTON — As summer comes to a close, the 11 Catholic high schools and 45 Catholic primary schools in the Archdiocese have begun the 2021-2022 school year. Due to the surge of COVID-19, especially the Delta variant, Debra Haney, superintendent of Catholic schools said in a Aug. 10 letter, “in an effort to ensure maximum learning time for students in the classroom, our Catholic schools will be requiring masks while indoors for all students in grades
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K to 12, staff and visitors.” “Decisions regarding other mitigation protocols will remain with the pastor/ president and the principal at each campus,” she said. “We believe this to be a temporary measure, and the pastor/president and principal will continue to monitor the status of COVID-19 and the variants; these reviews will occur frequently.” Haney said one of the big projects this year is the implementation of a new formative assessment program for all of
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the parochial schools. “We had about 10 schools pilot the use of the NWEA Map (Measures of Academic Progress) Assessment over the past two years, and we have decided to implement the program now in all of our schools,” she said. “The biggest change is that this assessment occurs over the course of the year multiple times rather than just once at the end of the academic year.” Haney said that in 2019, the Archdiocese began to look at academic progress in a different way,
BACK TO SCHOOL
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See SCHOOLS, page 4