By Barb Arland-Fye The Catholic Messenger DAVENPORT — Dan Ebener was a college sophomore when he witnessed Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day, now on the path toward sainthood, accept the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award in 1972 in Davenport. On Sept. 13, Ebener emceed the ceremony during which Atiya Aftab and Sheryl Olitzky, co-founders of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, an international movement that builds relationships between Muslim and Jewish women, received the Pacem in Terris award. Gail Karp and Lisa Killinger, who co-founded a local chapter of Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, received the One Among Us Justice Award. The event took place at St. Ambrose University.
Gail Karp, who is Jewish, called her longtime friend Lisa Killinger, who is Muslim, to talk about the possibility of forming a local chapter of Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, which builds relationships between Muslim and Jewish women. Lisa loved the idea. “Salaam” is the Arabic word for peace and “Shalom” is the Hebrew word for peace.
SAVE THE DATE: Iowa Catholic Youth Conference 2024: We are happy to announce that the 3rd annual Iowa Catholic Youth Conference (ICYC) which targets those in grades 6-8 and their parents is set for Sunday, March 24, 2024. Mark your calendars! The event will take place at Regina Education Center in Iowa City and will feature nationally-known Scally Brothers Band (https://www.thescallybrothers.com/). More information will be available later this Fall.
OTTUMWA — Choosing life can be a difficult decision for women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. Heartland Pregnancy Center hopes to ease the decision by providing services and resources during pregnancy and afterwards, accompanying mothers as their children grow. “We want to walk through this with them,” said Becky Dalyrmple, the center’s longtime director. “None of these choices are easy.”
From hosting Ecological Way of the Cross liturgies to raising money for clean water projects overseas, Catholics in the Diocese of Davenport are finding ways to observe the upcoming Season of Creation. “We are all called to care for creation and also be courageous and creative,” said Deacon Kent Ferris, diocesan director of Social Action.
On Sept. 4, the U.S. will celebrate Labor Day, a 129-year-old federal holiday that pays tribute to the American worker. How are workers faring in 2023, as the nation moves toward a renewable energy economy? The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops believes that “the most effective way to build a just economy is to make decent work at decent wages available for those capable of working …” (https://tinyurl. com/2ytxu7em). The Catholic Messenger interviewed the director of the University of Iowa Labor Center and two labor leaders in southeast Iowa for their perspective on the well-being of Iowa workers.
By Barb Arland-Fye Editorial: Lorri Walker laughs when a journalist suggests that work has changed quite a bit at the rubber-manufacturing plant where she began work 35 years ago. The plant, which opened in 1915 to produce tires for the Ford Model T, changed hands over the years and in 2007 became Henniges Automotive, which supplies weather-strips for the automotive industry.
Editor’s note: The Catholic Messenger is publishing a series on the Tribunal of the Diocese of Davenport. This is the fourth article, written by Father Paul Appel, the diocese’s judicial vicar.
Editor’s note: The Catholic Messenger begins a series on the Tribunal of the Diocese of Davenport. The following introduction provides a compelling explanation of the Tribunal, based on an interview with Father Paul Appel, the diocese’s judicial vicar.
Editor’s note: The Catholic Messenger is publishing a series on the Tribunal of the Diocese of Davenport. This is the second article, based on an interview with Father Paul Appel, the diocese’s judicial vicar.
“Mission,” the third dimension, “is intended to enable the Church to better witness to the Gospel, especially with those who live on the spiritual, social, economic, political, geographical, and existential peripheries of the world,” Pope Francis said.
Encouraging people to participate in the life of the Church requires more than programming and bulletin announcements, panelists said during the diocesan Synodal Summit last month.
To welcome people and to make them feel as if they belong, “we need to get into the fielding position,” said John Cooper, pastoral associate and business manager at St. Anthony Parish-Davenport, as he crouched into position to demonstrate.
Candy Boucher’s heart ached when she read an anonymous prayer intention this past spring in which a youth described feeling alone and longing for others to know “who I really am.”
Catholics carrying banners, the Book of the Gospels and an icon of the most Holy Trinity led a procession into the Rogalski Center of St. Ambrose University for the Diocese of Davenport’s Synodal Summit on June 17.
Bishop Thomas Zinkula wondered why Pope Francis chose the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary for a moment of prayer in support of the upcoming Synod of Bishops in Rome in October. “Probably because the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth had synodal dimensions,” he said in a homily during a diocesan Mass on the feast day (May 31) at St. Paul the Apostle Church.
In my last column I included several images of the Church. In particular, I honed in on an image of the Church emphasized at Vatican II: the people of God. This image suggests that the Church’s identity is communal. In this column I want to highlight another image, that of the tent.
A single Catholic in his 20s in our diocese whose frustration with his job has its roots in loneliness, reached out on social media asking for help. “I need community,” he later told his loved ones. Loneliness is part of the human condition but its pervasiveness in today’s culture compelled the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy to issue an advisory last month. “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community” lays out the crisis and remedies...
As our diocese embarks on a yearlong journey to grow as a more welcoming Church that engenders a sense of belonging, we need to remember the married couples among us with spouses who do not share the same faith. How can we help them to feel welcome and to have a sense of belonging in our parishes, schools and other entities without the expectation that they must convert?