Peter's Primacy

THE CATHOLIC REVIEW, May 30 — Unity between the Catholic and Orthodox churches could be achieved if the major Orthodox communities would put aside concerns about the pecking order of leadership, said Patriarch Mesrob II, the head of the Armenian Oriental Orthodox Church's patriarchate in Istanbul.

He made the comments while in Baltimore to receive an honorary degree from St. Mary's Seminary and University.

“We have no problem with the primacy of Peter,” Patriarch Mesrob said in an interview with the Baltimore archdiocesan newspaper.

To achieve Orthodox-Catholic unity, he proposed “a patriarchal synod [council], which would be chaired by the Pope himself as the chief patriarch.”

Chairman Hahn

PONTIFICAL COLLEGE JOSEPHINUM, May 28 — Scott Hahn has been appointed the Cardinal Pio Laghi chair for visiting professors in Scripture and theology for 2003-05 at the pontifical college in Columbus, Ohio. A well-known convert and apologist, Hahn also teaches at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.

The chair is named for the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education who earlier served as the Vatican's apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, the current apostolic nuncio and chancellor of the college, announced the appointment.

Truly Free

VENTURA COUNTY STAR, May 18 — A total of 77 students graduated from Thomas Aquinas College in May, making it the largest graduating class in the 32-year history of the liberal arts college.

“You are liberal in the original sense of that word,” Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, prefect of the Vatican's congregation for the laity, told the graduates.

“You are free,” he told the graduates, because, by finding truth in their studies, they had “also found freedom.”

The cardinal urged graduates to avoid the perception that science can answer all things.

“The technological, mechanical mind-set,” he said, “can never answer the mystery of being.”

Florida Bound?

AVE MARIA LAW SCHOOL, May 26 — The three-year-old Catholic law school in Michigan has graduated its first class, a group of 67 new lawyers.

With the school's parent, the Ave Maria Foundation, gearing up to move the undergraduate Ave Maria College to outside Naples, Fla., some in the media have wondered about a possible move by the law school to the same area.

Bernard Dobranski, dean of law school, told Catholic News Service that school officials are conducting a feasibility study on a possible move but cautioned that such a major change would require the approval of the American Bar Association.

Expanding Southward

THE STAR-LEDGER, June 5 — Jersey City, N.J.-based St. Peter's College will open a satellite campus in Middlesex County this fall in an effort to expand its reach into the central part of New Jersey, the Newark, N.J., daily reported.

The Jesuit college plans to offer 22 undergraduate and graduate courses at Cardinal McCarrick High School in South Amboy during the next year.

“There is a sizable Catholic population in that area,” according to Sister Jeanne Gilligan of the college's office of academic affairs, forming a key portion of a “potential pool from which we can draw.”