News - March 2009 RSS Feed

A man of diverse talents and interests, Fr. Joseph Cocucci is a mentor to seminarians, young priests, Legatus members and novelist Anne Rice who has come back to the Catholic faith. He serves as vocation director for the Wilmington, Del., diocese and rector of The Cathedral of St. Peter. The founding chaplain of the chapter, Fr. Cocucci’s business background gives him unique insight, which the former Jesuit brings to Legates each month. In addition, he’s a musician and lyricist with a heart for Ignatian spirituality.

Advertisements for drugs that make your bones stronger are everywhere — in magazines, on television and in doctors’ offices. Actress Sally Field endorses a medicine that is so simple she only needs to take it once a month.

In January, I traveled to Philadelphia to mourn the loss of a fellow Legate, mentor and friend, Paul M. Henkels. As I attended Paul’s visitation and funeral Mass the next morning, I was struck by the tremendous impact this one man’s life had on so many.

In the person of Pope Benedict XVI, one of the most significant of Europe’s intellectuals is heading up the Vatican. Seewald, a journalist who has known the Pope since 1992, conducted the “longest interviews in Church history” with him for two best sellers.

Best-selling author and former investment banker Chris Lowney combines the proven practices of Ignatian spirituality with his business expertise to help each of us — regardless of career or current situation — discover our own purpose and develop a personal life strategy.

This dynamic 29-yearold author is spreading the Catholic faith with an intense, in-your-face approach that eclipses that of even the most passionate preachers. The subject of a recent HBO documentary, Fatica is known for his electric presence, showing a wide emotional range from joy to anger inspiring his audience to break free from their burdens.

If corporate executives and government officials considered this principle when making decisions, there would be no economic crisis. It is easy to see that many large corporations have been focused purely on profit. The meltdown of the financial industry is a perfect example of greed and profit-seeking trumping prudent leadership. These companies leveraged themselves to many times their worth. In the end, many of those companies have failed and others have received huge sums of taxpayer money in an attempt to survive.

The new bioethics document from the Congregation to the Doctrine of the Faith released last Decmeber, Dignitas Personae (DP), begins: “The dignity of a person must be recognized in every human being from conception to natural death” (# 1).

The credit crisis has morphed into an even more dangerous bubble involving lost credibility. Markets are bereft of confidence, unleashing equities deflation, job losses and factory closings that only exacerbate what is now a globally shared sense of fear and gloom.

Certain preachers have tried to scare the hell out of folks — hoping to scare them out of Hell. However, the Church has no authority to send people to Hell. But Jesus did invest the leaders of his Church with his authority to “bind and loose” (Mt 16:19; 18:18).

All that we know about St. Joseph — Mary’s husband and Jesus’ foster-father — comes directly from the gospels of Matthew and Luke. He was a carpenter (or stoneworker) in Nazareth.

It’s the oldest story ever told. Adam. Eve. The garden. The snake. We’ve heard the creation story since we were old enough to sit on our mother’s knee. God made the world in six days. On the seventh day, he rested. He looked at his work and pronounced it good.