Ad Multos Annos!
Denis J. Madden, CNEWA’s former Associate Secretary General, was ordained to the episcopacy on 24 August by Cardinal William H. Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore and Vice President of CNEWA.
One of three auxiliary bishops for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Bishop Madden will serve as urban vicar, overseeing 50 parishes, schools and hospitals.
Bishop Madden joined CNEWA asRegional Director for Palestine, Israel and Cyprus in 1994. Two years later he assumed greater responsibility, serving as CNEWA’s Associate Secretary General and as Vice President for its operating agency in the Middle East, the Pontifical Mission for Palestine.
Msgr. Robert L. Stern, Secretary General, led a group of CNEWA staff members from its national, regional and headquarters offices to the two-hour liturgy in the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.
“I’m happy for the church in Baltimore,” said Issam Bishara, Regional Director for Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, “but for selfish reasons I’m not too happy. He’s a special person we will miss.”
Bishop Madden, 65, was born in Carbondale, Pa., and had served as Associate Secretary General of CNEWA and Vice President of the Pontifical Mission for Palestine since 1996. He joined CNEWA as Regional Director for Palestine, Israel and Cyprus in 1994.
Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York, President and Treasurer of CNEWA, was among the ordaining bishops.
Msgr. Robert L. Stern, Secretary General, led a delegation of CNEWA staff members to the ceremony, including regional directors from Ethiopia, India, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine.
Presidential Recognition
Issam Bishara, CNEWA’s regional director for Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, was recognized on 14 July for his service to Lebanon by President Émile Lahoud.
The president presented Mr. Bishara with the Mérite Libanais argent avec Palmes, Lebanon’s prestigious silver medal for service.
Mr. Bishara joined CNEWA in 1987 as projects manager for the agency’s operations in Lebanon, later becoming associate director of the Beirut office. In 1991, he was promoted to Beirut office director and eventually assumed responsibilities for projects and programs in Syria and Egypt.
Talking Turkey
Msgr. Stern joined an international delegation of Catholic aid organizations, led by Dr. Otmar Oering of Missio, the pastoral agency of the German Catholic bishops, on a fact-finding visit to Turkey in September. The delegation focused on the status of religious minorities. In addition to meeting in Istanbul with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II, they visited Chaldean, Syriac and Roman Catholic leaders.Describing Turkey as a “complex mosaic of peoples…where little is black and white,” Msgr. Stern noted the eagerness of the secular, but overwhelmingly Muslim, country of 70 million to join the European Union.
Msgr. Stern said the delegation plans to present a report on Turkey to the meeting of Catholic donor agencies serving the Eastern churches convoked twice a year by the Holy See’s Congregation for the Eastern Churches.
Canada’s Catholic Women Meet
More than 800 delegates representing 99,000 Catholic women across Canada gathered in Vancouver, British Columbia, in middle August at the annual convention of the Catholic Women’s League of Canada (CWL).
CNEWA Canada’s National Secretary, Carl Hétu, met with a number of CWL national, diocesan and parish representatives, introducing them to the agency, its work and its incorporation as a Canadian charity led by Ottawa Archbishop Marcel Gervais.“It was a great way to get to know a great network of Catholics,” Mr. Hétu said. “They will be valuable allies in the future.”
Passage to India
For Robert Coleman, a retired public school administrator in Lutherville, Maryland, sponsoring seminarians through CNEWA is a family tradition. Many years ago, his mother had sponsored an Indian seminarian, Jos Kuruvila, who now serves as a priest in Sultan Bathery, Kerala. Recently, when Mr. Coleman’s seminarian, Samuel Puthupaddy, was to be ordained a priest for the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, Mr. Coleman decided to attend and, at the same time, renew his acquaintance with Father Jos.
Father Jos not only planned Mr. Coleman’s trip, he arranged for Mr. Coleman to visit with Sister Bency Treasa of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart, whom Mr. Coleman had also sponsored, and Tintumol Thomas, a child Mr. Coleman has sponsored through CNEWA’s needy child sponsorship program.
“Father Jos showed me the country,”
Mr. Coleman said, “but he also showed me – up close – the wonderful work the church is doing in India.”
CNEWA’s Leadership Gathers
The executive staff of CNEWA, CNEWA Canada and CNEWA United States assembled in New York in late August for its annual week of strategic planning.National secretaries and regional directors met with the senior staff of the Vatican agency’s administrative headquarters to discuss initiatives, review policies and coordinate programmatic and funding efforts.
Cardinal Edward Egan, Archbishop of New York and CNEWA’s President, encouraged their efforts, upon which depend the lives of so many in need.
Coptic Catholic Head Visits CNEWA
Stephanos II, the Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria, visited CNEWA’s New York headquarters on 8 September, part of his six-week pastoral visit to North America that included visits to Coptic Catholic communities in Brooklyn, Los Angeles and Montreal.
Elected in 1986, Patriarch Stephanos leads a church of some 240,000 people, most of whom live in Upper Egypt. An estimated 10,000 live in Europe, North America and Oceania.
The Coptic Catholic Church, an Eastern Church in full communion with the Church of Rome, administers a number of schools, clinics, dispensaries and vocational training centers throughout Egypt. Many of these institutions are supported by CNEWA.