Vermont Bishop Moves to Protect Parishes

BURLINGTON, Vt. — To protect Vermont’s 128 parishes and missions from “unjust attack,” Burlington Bishop Salvatore Matano has placed each under a charitable trust. That means the titles to all parishes, once in the name of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington Inc., are now in the name of the parishes with the bishop as trustee.

“We are doing this to preserve parish assets as parish assets,” said Father John McDermott, chancellor. “The bishop and the diocese have a guardian role for the assets and must assure that they are used for the intentions which were the very source of their establishment.”

In a letter to all parishioners in the diocese, Bishop Matano said the action was taken “to protect these parish facilities from unjust attack and to ensure that the parishes have the freedom to continue their ministries and that the monies raised to support these entities are not diverted to or transferred for other purposes inconsistent with the charitable mission of the parish and the diocese.”

(CNS)

Graduates Receive ‘Supreme’ Advice

WASHINGTON — In separate speeches in Washington, D.C., the chief justice of the United States and an associate Supreme Court justice offered advice to graduating law students and members of Congress, while providing a glimpse into the court’s workings.

In a brief, mostly lighthearted address that dealt primarily with the role of consensus and disagreement within the court, Chief Justice John Roberts, a Catholic, told Georgetown University law graduates May 21 that in a society governed by the rule of law, being a lawyer is a special calling. He urged the graduates to “protect the rule of law while resisting temptation to substitute the rule of lawyers,” adding, “There is a difference.”

At a luncheon earlier in the week hosted by the National Italian American Foundation, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, also a Catholic, took Congress to task for trying to shape how the court makes its decisions, particularly with legislation dealing with the influence of foreign court rulings on U.S. jurisprudence.

(CNS)

Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue Discusses Eternal Life

WASHINGTON — Catholic and Lutheran scholars discussed death, judgment and resurrection at a four-day session of the U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue. The April 20-23 meeting in Phoenix was the second session of the 11th round of the dialogue. The theme for this round is “The Hope for Eternal Life.”

Among questions the group plans to address in future sessions are Catholic-Lutheran differences over issues relating to life after death, including purgatory, indulgences and Masses and prayers for the dead. “The members of the dialogue team have established solid foundations for further discussion and development,” said the Rev. Lowell Almen, secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Lutheran co-chairman of the dialogue.

Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba of Milwaukee, Catholic co-chairman, said, “One of the more illuminating and instructive aspects of the meeting was the manner in which both Lutheran and Catholic scholars were able to reflect on the developing history of their own respective practices since the Reformation.”

(CNS)