Help for the Disabled
A center dedicated to the needs of the handicapped, especially the youth, has opened its doors in Amman, Jordan.
Our Lady of Peace center, a $2.5 million facility founded by Bishop Selim Sayegh, Latin Patriarchal Vicar for Jordan, will offer, free of charge, physiotherapy and basic medical and dental care. The center will also provide educational and counseling services. Plans are under way to establish a vocational training program.
Inaugurated in mid-April by Jordan’s Prince Ra’d bin Zeid and his wife, Princess Majda, advocates of Jordan’s handicapped, the center receives support from CNEWA.
CNEWA Aid to Iraq Continues
Agency assistance to Iraq is no longer restricted to emergency relief, which has succeeded despite lawlessness throughout the country.
Working with two communities of Dominican sisters, CNEWA is now focusing on health care, increasing its support of Al Hayat Hospital, a 27-bed facility founded primarily as a maternity hospital, and the much larger St. Raphael, which is planning to build a $1.2 million outpatient clinic for the poor. Both hospitals are located in central Baghdad.
CNEWA is proceeding with plans to open its prenatal and postnatal clinic in the northern city of Mosul. The facility, which will serve the poor, will offer pregnancy tests, blood work, ultrasound services, vaccinations, health exams and counseling to an estimated 40,000 patients a year.
Unexpected Help
Prompted by CNEWA’s award-winning magazine, the Orscheln Industries Foundation of Moberly, Missouri, surprised the agency with a $10,000 grant.
Spokesman Donald W. Orscheln praised the magazine, saying it gives “readers a perspective on current events seldom found in the secular press.”
The unsolicited grant recognizes CNEWA’s humanitarian efforts in Iraq and its assistance to famine victims in Ethiopia and earthquake survivors in India .
The foundation was established by Orscheln Industries, which groups retail, manufacturing and research and development concerns. Its Farm and Home stores are a family-owned chain with shops throughout the Midwest.
Understanding Islam
Bishops from 12 U.S. Catholic dioceses spent four days studying Islam as part of an effort to improve Catholic-Muslim relations.
The workshop, the second of three, was held in mid-March in Menlo Park, California, where the bishops studied and discussed Islamic history, the Quran and current religious and political issues.
The Subcommittee on Interreligious Dialogue of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sponsored the workshop with funding from CNEWA and the Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities.
New Staff Responsibilities
For more than 17 years, Msgr. Robert L. Stern, Secretary General of CNEWA, has acknowledged all gifts and bequests to CNEWA and has kept the agency’s friends and benefactors informed of its needs and programs.
On 1 May, Chorbishop John D. Faris, National Secretary, assumed this responsibility for donors in the United States. In early September, National Secretary Carl Hétu will assume the same function for those friends and benefactors living in Canada.
These changes reflect the reorganization of CNEWA and the creation of two new branches, CNEWA United States and CNEWA Canada, charged with promotional and fund-raising activities.
Msgr. Stern remains at the helm as Secretary General.
The Miracle of Ephpheta
The Paul VI Ephpheta Institute, a school for hearing-impaired children in Bethlehem, was the focus of two CNEWA United States fund-raising events in mid-April.
In the New York suburb of Bronxville, Bob and Joan Lunney hosted an event featuring Chorbishop John D. Faris and Mill Hill Father Guido Gockel, Associate National Secretary.
Father Gockel spoke about the Sisters of St. Dorothy, an Italian community who teach the children at Ephpheta to lip-read and speak Arabic.
In Phoenix, longtime benefactor Dr. Wendell Rossman and his family hosted a reception for Ephpheta, which CNEWA has subsidized since it was established more than 30 years ago.
Utilizing CNEWA’s person-to-person sponsorship programs, the Rossman family through its Ad Deum Foundation supports needy children, seminarians and novices.
Jewish–Catholic Dialogue
Co-chaired by CNEWA Vice President William Cardinal Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore, the semiannual meeting of the National Council of Synagogues and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs gathered in New York in mid-April.
Msgr. Stern addressed participants on “The Holy Land in Christian Theological and Historical Perspectives.”
CNEWA United States board member Basil Losten, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Bishop of Stamford, and Msgr. Denis J. Madden, Associate Secretary General, participated in the dialogue.