Newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis
Adopting kids with special needs
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November 4, 2010
The Catholic Spirit News with a Catholic heart
Catholic schools refuse to cower to bullies By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit
The horrors of bullying came alive for Jodee Blanco in the 1970s, when she became a victim in the fifth grade. It turned nasty two years later, when a group of students became her tormentors. “These kids in the back of the bus used to dip spitballs in Elmer’s glue and throw them at me,” she said of her seventh-grade year. “At least three days a week, my hair would be so caked in glue, my grandmother had to cut chunks of it off.” That same year, she once was See pinned to the ground during winter by three boys. Then, two girls related forced her jaw open and others editorial, started pushing snow down her page 13 throat. Still others crammed snow underneath her clothing and onto her bare skin. As the gruesome details flowed freely from her tongue, hundreds of students packed into the fieldhouse at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul Oct. 27 leaned forward in their seats. Blanco was invited to deliver a message to help students understand the effects of bullying — and to work against it. While recounting the winter episode, Blanco paused, looked at her audience and said, “What do you think they were doing the whole time? Laughing.” “Eventually, I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “Moments later, my mom found me shivering under the bushes.” She told the principal the next day, and the students were punished. But, she said, “that only made things worse.”
Helping students, parents School faculty members heard Blanco speak at the National Catholic Educational Association annual convention last April in Minneapolis. Laurie Jennrich, associate principal at Cretin-Derham Hall, was attending the conference and wanted to hear Blanco,
UST grad’s business helps families
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TheCatholicSpirit.com
Internal matters to dominate bishops’ agenda Catholic News Service
BULLYING: Aggressive behavior that is intentional (not accidental or done in fun) and that involves an imbalance of power or strength. Often, bullying is repeated over time. Bullying can take many forms, such as hitting or punching, teasing or name-calling, intimidation through gestures, social exclusion, and sending insulting messages or pictures by mobile phone or using the Internet (also known as cyberbullying).
PLEASE TURN TO BULLYING ON PAGE 24
Source: STOPBULLYINGNOW.HRSA.GOV
Put your Christmas prayer on paper for annual poster contest The Catholic Spirit invites youth in grades one through 12 to enter this year’s Christmas poster contest. Participants must be enrolled in the archdiocese’s Catholic schools or parish religious education programs. Home-schoolers may also enter. Prizes will be awarded to individuals with winning entries. ■ Artists are asked to finish the phrase: “This Christmas I’ll be praying for ____________.” The completed sentence must appear with a picture on each entry. ■ Artists may use markers, crayons, colored pencils and/or paints. ■ Entries must be submitted on 8.5-by-11inch paper. ■ The artist’s name, address, telephone number, school, grade and parish should appear on the back of each entry. ■ A first-place prize will be awarded in each of four categories: grades one through three, grades four through six, grades seven through nine, and grades 10 through 12.
■ The winning entries, along with honorable mentions, will be published in The Catholic Spirit’s Christmas edition, Dec. 16, and online at THECATHOLICSPIRIT. COM. A panel of Catholic Spirit judges will select the winners based on artistic skill, creativity and reproducibility. Each winner will receive a $50 Visa gift card. Entries must be postmarked by Friday, Dec. 3. Posters should be sent to: Christmas Poster Contest, The Catholic Spirit, 244 Dayton Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102. Questions? Call editor Joe Towalski at (651) 291-4455, or e-mail him at TOWALSKIJ@ARCHSPM.ORG.
When the U.S. bishops gather in Baltimore for their 2010 fall general assembly, there will be no blockbuster topics on their public agenda, unlike in past years when clergy sex abuse or the issue of Catholic politicians who support abortion took much of their attention. Instead, the Nov. 15-18 meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will be devoted primarily to internal matters — the election of new conference leaders, discussion of how their own statements should be pro- Bishops’ duced, budget- anti-poverty ary and structural questions and program i n f o r m a t i o n adopts about how they stronger can better integrate new media policies into diocesan — Page 10 structures. For Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, the meeting will be his last one as president. He has held the post for the past three years. If the conference follows past practice, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., will succeed Cardinal George as president. As USCCB vice president since November 2007, Bishop Kicanas will be among 10 candidates proposed for the posts of president and vice president. Once a president has been selected, a vice president will be chosen from the other nine candidates. Among the topics scheduled to come before the bishops for debate and vote in their public sessions are a proposed agreement on mutual recognition of baptism by the Catholic and four Protestant churches, guidelines on stipends and benefits for retired bishops, and revised regulations on USCCB statements and publications. Among the topics of oral reports expected to be presented are the church’s response following the earthquake in Haiti, the work of the Ad Hoc Committee on Defense of Marriage, ways to integrate new media into diocesan communications structures, World Youth Day and the needs of the U.S. Archdiocese for Military Services. Although its dates are Nov. 15-18, only 10 hours on Nov. 15 and 16 are scheduled for public sessions. The bishops are expected to spend up to 10 and a half hours in executive session or prayer and an hour and a half in regional meetings.