Closer to Home

THE NEWS-SENTINEL, Aug. 2 — The Diocese of For t Wayne-South Bend will transfer all eight of its seminarians this fall to Pontifical College Josephinum in Ohio from St. John's in Brighton, Mass., the seminary of Archdiocese of Boston, reported the Indiana daily.

Bishop John D'Arcy is an alumnus of and taught at St. John's, and had been sending his seminarians to Brighton since soon after leaving Boston to become bishop of the Indiana diocese in 1985.

The latest decision was based on the recommendation of a search committee of Fort Wayne-South Bend priests who preferred the Josephinum, based on the quality of its faculty and its location in a neighboring state.

Cardinal Pell's Boots

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, Aug. 3 — Sydney's Cardinal George Pell is turning a “disused” school building into a Sydney campus for Notre Dame University of Fremantle, reports columnist Paul Collins.

The cardinal has also “been a leading light in the foundation of Campion College, a liberal arts-theology faculty to be established soon in Parramatta diocese.”

The addition of these institutions “will mean four Catholic universities in greater Sydney,” which, says Collins, is “surely enough for anyone.”

Despite the secular nature of Australian society, the columnist sees it as yet-another example of the cardinal's “boots-and-all” effort to promote fidelity to Church teaching.

Christian Paper OK

CHRONICLE.COM, July 30 — The University of Oklahoma at Norman, settling a religious-discrimination lawsuit filed by two student editors of Beacon OU, a Christian undergraduate newspaper, has changed its policy on financing religious groups on the campus and awarded the students $2,500, said the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The university removed a policy that prohibits financing for “religious ser vices of any nature,” the grounds on which the newspaper was denied funding. In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that denying such financial support for a religiously oriented student publication violated the First Amendment.

East Timor Roundup

COUNTRY NEWS, Aug. 2 — Fuiloro Catholic College in East Timor is home to 32 cows and two bulls donated by ranchers from the Goulburn Valley region of Australia as part of East Timor's first mechanized dairy.

The newspaper speculated that cows are not a regular sight in East Timor, especially as local grasses “were not very digestible,” and that “local people formed a human chain to prevent the cattle escaping” while the cows were transferred from crates.

New Beginning

WAUSAU DAILY HERALD, July 30 — The Catholic schools of Wausau, Wisc., have united under a common logo, motto (“Faith in Education”) and name (the Newman Catholic Schools) in order to streamline administration and improve finances, which have been stressed.

The system hopes the name change — and a new emphasis on its specifically “Catholic” education — will help make the schools better known.

The system's flagship, Newman High School, is now Newman Catholic High School, St. Matthew Middle School has become Newman Catholic Middle School, and the elementary schools are each known as Newman Catholic Elementary School followed by the parish name.