Bulletin Board with News and Events

 I asked the Cathedral Finance Council, and they suggested that I expect the parish to put 10 kids through Catholic School this coming year from a second collection basket on September 8 & 9. Every parish has an obligation to support Catholic elementary school education. Holy Name Cathedral has no parish-funded school, but is fortunate to have the Frances Xavier Warde School doing a famously terrific job on our block. FXW is not a parish school; they are not on our operating budget. They charge a hefty tuition ($8,400 this year). They are dedicated to a mission of diversity – of races, nationalities, religions (1/3 are not Catholic), and economic classes – a reflection of the City of Chicago. Therefore, FXW relies on the “Children at the Crossroads Foundation” to support families that cannot meet the steep tuition price. The Catholic religious education at FXW School is among the best genuinely Catholic schools anywhere. Our parish’s second collection on the weekend of September 8 & 9 will help fund that Children at the Crossroads Foundation and the families who will benefit. We have identified 10 fictional kids Holy Name Cathedral is going to put through Francis Xavier Warde School in 2007-2008. Some of the real kids drew their pictures. Those masterpieces will be our rallying banners. On September 8 & 9 in a second collection, we hope to gather enough money to put just 10 of the 240 kids who will attend FXW through school this year. Those 10 students represent the Cathedral’s support of Catholic School elementary education. Come to the 9:30am Mass on September 9 to see a demonstration of the FXW School’s Catholic identity. Please, put something in that 2^nd collection on September 8 & 9. A significant gift to a Catholic School really would be welcome. Registered parishioners (those who regularly get mail from the Cathedral) will receive a letter and an envelope in a week or two. However, everybody who identifies himself or herself with Holy Name should be a part of this. We are putting just ten kids through Catholic School this year. We are doing something very good – very good. Please, join us.

In 1425 Lorenzo Ghiberti was commissioned to design bronze doors for Florence’s Baptistery. He labored on the task for 27 years, fashioning a masterpiece that Michelangelo called “truly worthy to be the Gates of Paradise” for its remarkable beauty and grandeur. For the past 25 years, Ghiberti’s gates have undergone extensive conservation, and they are now nearing completion. To celebrate the conclusion of this arduous project and its stunning results, 3 relief panels from the left wing of the Gates of Paradise and sections of the door’s frieze will travel to Chicago’s Art Institute. Until October 14, this exhibition (free with a regular Museum admission) will afford viewers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe Ghiberti’s work up close before the individual elements are reintegrated with the rest of the doorframe and put on permanent display in a hermetically sealed room in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence, never to travel again. For more information check the Art Institute’s website www.artic.edu/aic/.

Father Joe Noonan has joined the roster of priests living at Holy Name Cathedral rectory. Father Noonan, ordained in 1995, recently was appointed as the new Vocations Director for the Archdiocese of Chicago. Since 2001, he has been Vocations Director for Chicago’s Major Seminary at Mundelein. He now promotes priesthood among men of all ages with an assist from a priest in each of Chicago’s six Vicariates (geographical areas) who work for Fr. Noonan one day each week. He also has a priest working full-time at both the graduate seminary at Mundelein (his former position) and at the college seminary on Loyola’s Rogers Park campus. Additionally, Sr. Peter Mary Hettling, CSJ, will continue to direct Archdiocesan recruiting efforts for religious orders of sisters, priests and brothers from the Office for Religious. I hope that Father Noonan’s leadership will result in a vocations boom for Chicago. In his work which involves a lot of time on the road, he will not be around the Cathedral very much. Like Fathers Boland, Lagges, and Moriarity, Father Noonan will be one of the Cathedral’s “resident” priests – those who primarily work elsewhere. However, he will be here for some sacramental help and for some daily Masses. So if you have seen an energetic, smiling, not hairy, jovial and friendly priest you did not recognize at the Cathedral altar, that was Father Joe. I am sure he will be a benefit to the Cathedral. He was my Associate Pastor at St. Francis Borgia Church, his first assignment, on the northwest side in the late 90s. He did great, creative work; and we worked very well together. I am happy to welcome Father Joe Noonan to the roll call of priests living at Holy Name Cathedral.

I am going to be away from the Cathedral until Friday, August 24. On vacation, I will be at my father’s home on the northwest side of Chicago. Most of the time, I have been asleep. This coming week, I have tickets to see the Cubs vs. the Giants at AT&T Park in San Francisco. A lot of you know that I have seen major league baseball games in every current MLB park, a dozen parks no longer around, and over 50 minor league parks. That’s my hobby. I have been to AT&T Park before – when it was new and when it was Pac Bell Park. There are no new big league ballparks this year. So I have chosen to re-visit one of the prettiest. And I hope my Cubs give them a pretty big league headache!

On vacation, I look forward to being away from the phone and the office. I anticipate returning to the pastor’s saddle on the weekend of August 25-26 when the Parish Council will host Coffee-in-the-Courtyard that Sunday and will welcome the new seminarians residing at Casa Jesus, the formation house for Latin American young men discerning a possible vocation to the diocesan priesthood in Chicago. That program has produced many priests for Chicago. Holy Name is proud to be that formation program’s home. By that Sunday, our new Associate Pastor, Father Matt Compton will be back from his vacation. We providentially got a replacement for Fr. Paul Stein. However, we also got lucky. Father Matt Compton is a good priest. I’m anxious to have you meet him next weekend and forevermore. Come to Coffee-in-the-Courtyard. Please hang on to messages that need my attention until that late August weekend when I return; don’t leave phone messages! Call again, and you’ll get a quicker answer than if you leave a message. If you need things from Holy Name, I think just about all the rest of the pastoral and administrative staff will be around. Pastor-like decisions will go to Father John Boivin and Father Mike Novick. I’ll look for you at Mass on August 25 & 26. Come to the PPC-sponsored Coffee-in-the-Courtyard August 26.

Fr. Dan Mayall