(CNS photo/courtesy Franciscan University of Steubenville)
Franciscan University Makes Tuition Offer
Franciscan University of Steubenville is seen in this undated photo. In response to the unprecedented economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ohio university announced April 21 it will cover the remainder of tuition costs, after scholarships and grants have been applied, for the fall 2020 semester for all incoming full-time undergraduate students enrolled in its on-campus programs.
News in Brief
20% of Church entities that applied received SBA loans to keep staff
CLEVELAND (CNS)-The federal small-business loan pro- gram created in response to the coronavirus pandemic has allowed the Diocese of Nashville, Tennessee, to keep all of its part-time employees on board. For that, school superinten- dent Rebecca Hammel is grateful. She told Catholic News Ser- vice that 10 schools received loans under the Small Business Administration-administered Paycheck Protection Program. The House of Representatives April 23 passed legislation al- ready approved by the Senate that would allocate an addition- al $310 billion into the Paycheck Protection Program. President Donald Trump signed the legislation April 24. The funding is part of a $484 billion emergency relief measure developed in response to the economic fallout caused by the spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
Georgia public Masses still suspended; phased reopening of Montana churches
SMYRNA, Ga. (CNS)-In an April 23 letter to the faith- ful, the bishops of Georgia discussed the decision to suspend public liturgies through the end of May following Gov. Brian Kemp's announcement April 20 permitting some businesses to reopen. The decision was made after meeting with the colleges of consultors of the Archdiocese of Atlanta and the Diocese of Savannah. "This will extend through the month of May," they said. Across the country in Montana, Bishop Austin A. Vetter of Helena, in consultation with Bishop Michael W. Warfel of Great Falls- Billings and "with a mind for the safety of all," announced the phased reopening of Catholic churches, issuing detailed directives with several restrictions. The April 23 directives also emphasized parishes also must follow "any local governmen- tal determinations."
Chinese students in New York Catholic school arrange medical gear shipment
SOUTH HUNTINGTON, N.Y. (CNS)-Two Chinese students at a Catholic high school in a suburb of New York are looking to make a difference in helping to slow the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. In late March, senior Mengze Li and freshman Lixin Yan of the Franciscan-run St. Anthony's High School in South Huntington returned home to China, where they have since procured 10,000 sterilized medical-grade face masks and pro- tective clothing for distribution to international schoolmates who remain with their host families on Long Island amid the COVID-19 pandemic. They also have earmarked a portion of their supplies for hospital workers on Long Island, a COVID-19 hot spot with more than 61,000 confirmed cases as of April 24. Li and Yan are among the 247 international students from 16 nations who attend St. Anthony's, a school with an enroll- ment of 2,419. Half of the foreign students returned to their home countries after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered state schools to close.
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FRIDAY MAY 1, 2020
The Observer
(CNS photos/courtesy of St. Anthony's High School)
Mengze Li and Lixin Yan
Nation/World
Pope Postpones Three International Gatherings
Dutch Cardinal Expects Euthanasia To Surge Following Court Ruling
VATICAN CITY (CNS)- Pope Francis has agreed with a recommendation by the Di- castery for Laity, the Family and Life to postpone by one year the next gatherings of the World Meeting of Families and World Youth Day. Because of the current health situation and its conse- quences on the movement and gatherings of young people and families, the World Meeting of Families in Rome will be pushed back until June 2022 and World Youth Day in Lis- bon, Portugal, will be pushed back until August 2023, the Vatican announced. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, pre- fect of the dicastery, told Cath- olic News Service April 20 that nowisthetimehisicewould be signing contracts with ho- tels and airlines if the World Meeting of Families were still to be held in 2021, but no one knows what will happen, so it seemed prudent to push the meeting back a year. The dicastery also would not hold two large gatherings dur- ing the same summer, so that was one reason World Youth Day was pushed back, he said. Additionally, Pope Francis, the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Con- gresses and local organizers have agreed to postpone by one year the 52nd International Eu- charistic Congress, the Vatican announced April 23. Because of the coronavirus pandemic and its impact, the pope, the papal committee, congress organizers and the bishops of Hungary decided to hold the congress, to be held in Buda- pest, in September 2021, in- stead of this year. MANCHESTER, England (CNS)-A Dutch cardinal predicted that the number of euthanasia cases in the Nether- lands will surge after the coun- trys highest court gave the green light to allow the killing of dementia patients no longer able to give their consent. The Supreme Court of the Netherlands ruled April 22 that doctors could euthanize pa- tients with severe dementia and who could no longer express their wishes if they had left an advance request in writing to say they wished to die, Car- dinal Willem Eijk of Utrecht, president of the Bishops Con- ference of the Netherlands, said, adding the courts ruling would also put doctors under pressure to do so. One may fear that the Su- preme Courts judgment, though making physicians perhaps more uncertain in per- forming euthanasia in patients with advanced dementia, will not lead in general to a de- crease of the number of cases of euthanasia and medically as- sisted suicide, Cardinal Eijk said on behalf of the bishops conference. Physicians of nursing homes ... fear that they will be put un- der pressure by patients with dementia and their relatives to perform euthanasia as a conse- quence of the Supreme Courts judgment, he said. The court sought to offer clarity to potential ambiguity in the law following the pros- ecution of a doctor who in 2016 drugged a woman who had Al- zheimers disease after she re- sisted his attempts to give her a lethal injection.
(CNS photo/Michael Kooren, Reuters)
An unidentified man suffer- ing from Alzheimer's disease is pictured the day before pass- ing away in a nursing home in Utrecht, Netherlands.
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(CNS composite; photos by Paul Haring)
Bishop Michael W. Warfel, left, and Bishop Austin A. Vetter
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