ADDENDA

National Catholic Reporter, May 14, 1999

FR. ROBERT J. SILVA, a priest of the Stockton, Calif., diocese, has been elected president-elect of the National Federation of Priests' Councils. He will assume his responsibilities as president in July 2000 and serve through June 2003.

DePAUL UNIVERSITY'S record-setting fall enrollment has earned it the distinction of largest Catholic university in America. DePaul, located in Chicago, has increased enrollment over 50 percent in the last 15 years. This fall, the school enrolled 18,565 students, followed by St. John's University in New York at 18,336 students.

AN ORNATE STONE burial box believed to have once held the bones of the Jerusalem temple high priest who the New Testament says plotted against Jesus has been sealed shut to prevent Christian pilgrims from trying to open it to peek inside. Officials at Jerusalem's Israel Museum said May 3 they took the action to protect the ossuary, which is part of the museum's current exhibit about early Christianity.

DEFYING THE POLISH GOVERNMENT and Catholic officials again, militant Poles have erected new crosses near the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Kazimierz Switon, who has led the effort, said May 4 that 50 new crosses were being added to the almost 250 already at the site. Both the Polish government and Polish bishops have opposed the placing of all but the papal cross used during Pope John Paul II's Mass in 1979.

SOME 10,000 CHRISTIANS have visited a Catholic church in North Central Indonesia to see a reported image of Jesus on the church wall and a statue of Mary claimed to shed tears. Parishioners of St. Francis Xavier in Pineleng, in North Sulawesi, reportedly saw Jesus' image on the church's wall above the fourth station of the cross during Holy Week.