ADDENDA - news briefs from US Catholic dioceses - Brief Article

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 15, 1999 by Matt Kantz

THE LARGEST CATHOLIC elementary/high school and parish project in the United States was dedicated in the town of Draper, Utah, Sept. 26. The Skaggs Catholic Center was built at a cost of more than $43 million on a 57-acre campus. It is home to St. John the Baptist Elementary School, Juan Diego Catholic High School and Guardian Angel Day Care. Everything but the planned St. John the Baptist Parish Church is the gift of Sam and Aline Skaggs, founders of the Skaggs Family Foundation for Roman Catholic and Community Charities.

THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME has established an Institute for Latino Studies and appointed Gilberto Cardenas Sept. 22 as assistant provost, director of the institute and chair of Latino studies. Cardenas comes from the University of Texas, where he was an associate professor of sociology aNd executive director of the Inter-University Program for Latino Research, a national research and outreach consortium that has been relocated to Notre Dame.

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI CHURCH in San Francisco been declared a national shrine. The church was built in 1849 at the start of the Gold Rush that turned the small West Coast port town of 450 inhabitants into a booming city almost overnight. When the San Francisco archdiocese was formed in 1853, St. Francis was made the pro-cathedral until St. Mary's Cathedral could be built.

POPE JOHN PAUL II will meet with non-Christian leaders during his November trip to India, an encounter Vatican officials hope will help restore interreligious good will following violence against the Christian minority in the country. The main purpose of the pope's Nov. 5-8 stay in New Delhi is to unveil his final document on the Synod of Bishops for Asia.

SISTERS OF MERCY in St. Louis, the Oregon Catholic Press and an organization called American Church together have donated $330,000 to help launch Encuentro 2000. "Many Faces in God's House: Encuentro 2000," to be held July 6-9 in Los Angeles, will be the first national gathering and celebration of the U.S. church's ethnic diversity and broad multicultural perspective.

HUNDREDS OF CATHOLIC PROTESTORS staged a rally Oct. 4 against the controversial film "Dogma" that is being shown at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts as part of the New York Film Festival. In the movie, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck play two fallen angels who are scheming to get back into heaven.

TO MARK ITS 150TH ANNIVERSARY, the University of Dayton hopes to recruit 150 individuals or groups to perform 150 hours of community service each by Nov. 1, 2000. If they succeed, the commitment will total 22,500 hours and equal two-and-a-half years of nonstop, around-the-clock aid to the people of Ohio's Miami Valley and the agencies that serve them. The university's Center for Social Concern is sponsoring the campaign, called Celebrating 150 Years of Service in Faith. The Marianists founded the university in 1850.

ACTOR AND PEACE ACTIVIST Martin Sheen received a lifetime achievement award in Los Angeles Oct. 3 at the annual Mass for entertainment industry Catholics. "The older I get, the less I really know -- and the more I believe," said Sheen, who currently plays a U.S. president in "West Wing" on NBC. It was the seventh annual event in which the nonprofit group Catholics In Media Associates honored television shows and films that express clear Judeo-Christian values.

MORE THAN 19,000 teens and young adults joined Boston Cardinal Bernard F. Law on Sept. 25 for the Boston archdiocese's Pilgrimage 2000 kickoff at Foxboro Stadium in Foxboro, Mass. The kickoff event is the beginning of a seven-month preparatory period, aimed at Catholics from age 14 to 40, in which small groups will gather in parishes to reflect on the fundamental questions of Catholicism. Over 35,000 teens and young adults have registered for the preparatory period.