Bishop Offers Prayers as 2 More Coal Miners Die

MELVILLE, W.Va. — As two more West Virginia miners lost their lives in the state’s second coal mining accident in January, Bishop Michael Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston offered prayers and pledged the Church’s assistance to those affected by the tragedy.

Miners Don Bragg, 33, and Ellery Hatfield, 47, were found dead Jan. 21 after they had disappeared into the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Coal Mine in Melville, following a fire that erupted on a conveyor belt the evening of Jan. 19. Bragg and Hatfield had been part of a 12-member crew. The other 10 miners of that group were able to escape when the fire broke out.

“Once again this month Catholics join with fellow West Virginians in mourning a tragic loss of lives due to a mining disaster,” Bishop Bransfield said. “The announcement of the deaths of Don Bragg and Ellery Hatfield stirs our hearts and prompts us to offer our deepest sympathy and pledge of prayerful support to the families and loved ones these good men have left behind.”

(CNS)

Jury Finds Abuser Priest’s Killer Guilty of Murder

WORCESTER, Mass. — A jury Jan. 25 found Joseph Druce guilty of first-degree murder in the 2003 prison slaying of former priest John Geoghan.

Geoghan, a former Boston priest, was the serial child molester whose January 2002 conviction for groping a young boy helped spark the national clergy sexual abuse scandal and force the Church to adopt major policy changes.

On its second day of deliberations after a two-week trial, the jury rejected the insanity defense put up by Druce, who admitted killing Geoghan in his prison cell. The conviction carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole. Druce is already serving a life sentence handed down in 1989 for killing a man who allegedly made a sexual pass at him.

(CNS)

Ford Job Cuts Prompt Concern of Clergy

DETROIT — As Ford Motor Co. announced its intent to close 14 manufacturing plants and cut up to 30,000 jobs over the next six years, clergy in cities affected by the plant closings wondered how they were going to help their parishioners whose jobs and livelihoods were at risk.

Father Michael Savickas said he would remind parishioners affected by the planned closing of Ford’s assembly plant in Wixom, a Detroit suburb, of the symbol of the Church as an anchor.

“Our faith is a fixed point we can hold onto when things are changing around us,” Father Savickas, pastor of St. William Parish in nearby Walled Lake, said soon after hearing the Jan. 23 announcement that the huge plant within his parish boundaries would close as part of the automaker’s “Way Forward” restructuring plan.

Faced with a declining share of the U.S. car market and losses on its domestic business, Ford’s sweeping plan includes closing five plants by 2008, including Wixom. Ford is also closing an assembly plant in Hazelwood, Mo., outside St. Louis.

In a Jan. 24 statement, Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis said, “The impending closing ... is a matter of great concern both to me and to the Catholic Church in the St. Louis region.”

 (CNS)