November 30, 2012

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ADVENT: Preparing for the coming of the Lord with prayer, kindness PAGES 2, 14, 20

COMMUNITY:

PENANCE: Bishops approve document encouraging greater use of sacrament

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News in pictures from around the archdiocese

CARDINALS: Pope creates 6 new cardinals from 6 countries

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CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO Newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco

SERVING SAN FRANCISCO, MARIN & SAN MATEO COUNTIES

www.catholic-sf.org

NOVEMBER 30, 2012

$1.00 | VOL. 14 NO. 37

High court clears path for health reform challenges

Boston to group 288 parishes into 135 ‘collaboratives’ CHRISTOPHER S. PINEO CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

BRAINTREE, Mass. – A pastoral plan approved by Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley calls for the Boston archdiocese to organize its 288 parishes into approximately 135 groups called “parish collaboratives.” Led by one pastor, a group of priests, deacons and lay ecclesial ministers, called a pastoral team, would provide pastoral services to parishes in the collaborative. Under the plan, each parish in the collaborative group will maintain its separate identity and retain control of its own property and assets. Cardinal O’Malley said the new pastoral plan comes in response to current challenges faced by the Catholic Church in Boston, and could change if those realities improve. He approved the plan Nov. 15. “The plan to implement a new model of leadership at the collaboratives does not mean that we are leaving behind the model of a priest being assigned as the pastor of one parish,” he said. “It is my fervent hope, encouraged by a significant increase in seminary enrollment during recent years, that a greater number of ordinations to the priesthood will allow us to again assign priests as pastors of individual parishes.” SEE BOSTON, PAGE 21

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

discoveries in “space-time geometry,” prompting eminent physicists to assert the cosmos had to have a beginning and thus had to have a creator. On the occasion of Hawking’s 70th birthday in January, physicist Alexander Vilenkin, director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University, read a paper asserting just that. Science journalist Lisa Grossman, writing in New Scientist, pithily described Vilenkin’s presentation as “the worst birthday present ever.” If the rate of expansion of the universe is greater than zero – something virtually all physicists agree on – “at the end of the day we will reach an absolute beginning point prior to which the universe

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Nov. 26 for a federal appeals court to take up a Christian college’s challenge to the Affordable Care Act, reopening one of several lawsuits filed by religious and other groups who oppose elements of the law. The court ordered the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the argument of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., that the health care law infringes on the Christian school’s religious freedom. The court had rejected an earlier challenge by the university, made prior to the Supreme Court’s June ruling upholding the health care law. The university appealed again, asking for its challenge to be considered in light of the June Supreme Court ruling. The order came within weeks of separate rulings by federal courts in Washington and Oklahoma that addressed challenges to a Department of Health and Human Services mandate under the Affordable Care Act, which requires employers to include coverage for contraceptives in employee health insurance. On Nov. 16, a Washington-based federal judge granted a temporary injunction against enforcement of the contraceptive mandate in a suit brought by an Illinois-based Christian publisher. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ruled that Tyndale House Publishers, which produces Bibles and various Christian publications, did not have to comply with the new mandate while the group’s lawsuit against it moves forward. The mandate “affirmatively compels” the company to violate its religious beliefs, he said. Matthew Bowman of Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the Carol Springs, Ill., company, said in a statement that the judge’s ruling was the right one and that Bible publishers “should be free to do business according to the book that they publish.” Tyndale objects to the HHS requirement that most religious employers provide free coverage of contraceptives, sterilization and some abortion-inducing drugs free, saying it violates the company’s moral convictions. In another lawsuit against the mandate, a federal judge in Oklahoma City Nov. 20 denied a request for an injunction against the mandate by the Christianowned business Hobby Lobby, saying the arts-andcrafts stores must cover emergency contraceptives

SEE JESUIT, PAGE 21

SEE MANDATE, PAGE 21

(PHOTO BY RICK DELVECCHIO/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

Saving St. Boniface glass The signature Gothic realism of the German artisans who created the art-glass windows in St. Boniface Church in San Francisco is evident in this image of King David. The windows are more than a century old and long overdue for restoration. See Page 3.

Jesuit: Science points toward created universe PETER FINNEY JR. CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

NEW ORLEANS – Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer – a philosopher, accountant, former university president and leadership consultant – always has had a fascination with the intersection of faith and reason. He’s smart enough to have debated physicist Stephen Hawking, an avowed atheist, on national television over the scientific underpinnings of the beginning of the universe and the theological arguments for the existence of God. In a recent address in New Orleans, Father Spitzer said the exciting news for the new evangelization being called for by Pope Benedict XVI is the recent

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INDEX On the Street . . . . . . . . .4 National . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Opinion. . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Arts & Life. . . . . . . . . . .22


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