Catholic Standard Weekly Update

Yes folks (drum roll please), it is that time for the Catholic Standard Weekly Update.

Similiar to last week, this week's Standard has the overall theme of the Archbishop's letter on the New Evangelization. Now, I was way too busy to report on it and just skimmed over it last week.

+++++ Side Note +++++

So, as I see it (and I have not carefully studied it but skimmed over it), the New Evangelization seems to me to really focus on two areas: share the faith, but also look inside each of our parishes. There are a number of indicators which determine if a parish is healthy: Worship, Education, Community Life, Service, and Administration.

In my review of this, I noticed that there was no mention of what is to be done when there are dissident movements or priests within a parish or the diocese or , when the bishop or church groups honor those who go against our faith. There seems to be a silence that as Catholics we need to speak out about these.

+++++ End Side Note +++++

To that end, we have a new religion curriculum, something which I reported on a while back. The program "clearly states what participants in parish and Catholic elementary school religious education programs should be able to know, understand and do at each grade level." (Catholic Standard, Page 3). The program has six key elements: knowledge of faith, liturgy and sacraments; morality; prayer; education for living in Christian community (maybe it should be Catholic community) and evangelization and apostolic life.

We also have a story, which is linked to the New Evangelization, about Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian parishioners "taking it to the street." In other words, knocking on doors and invited folks to join them. We also see the Archbishop discussing it at the Labor Day Mass. And he visits GWU. And he shows off the New Evangelization poster to employees. He is all over the place.

Congratulations to St. John the Baptist Elementary School. They are a Blue Ribbon Award winner!!!

We have two articles on bullying both physical and cyber.

We also have Msgr. Holley's visit to Ghana (former Gold Coast) and Nigeria.

We do not have any information about how the bishops voted on CCHD, nor do we have any stories about the layoffs at St. Mark's School. Maybe there will be something next week. Maybe not.

Remember to pick up a copy of it at your parish, since they are required to accept a number of copies each week. And, drop a couple of coins in the basket to help pay for it.