Leading Vatican cardinal visits schools (This'll make you smile: Arinze in Pittsburgh)

A joyous African celebration filled St. Charles Lwanga parish yesterday as boys drummed and girls danced to welcome Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze, who came from the Vatican to visit schools supported by the Extra Mile Foundation of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Four "Extra Mile" schools serve a black, non-Catholic student body in impoverished neighborhoods. The foundation, supported by many non-Catholics, subsidizes about 60 percent of operating costs, keeping tuition low.

"The school is a community of love, of caring, of training. The school ... wants to build you up in character so you will be a joy to your family, so that society rejoices because of you," [Arinze] told about 400 students.

"An organization to help the children who are disadvantaged from the financial point of view, an organization that is diocesan and that has behind it not just Catholics but Episcopalians and other Christians and Jews who are convinced of this good effort and who give and who serve on the committee -- I have not seen such before. This is good news," he said.

Archbishop Donald Wuerl...created the Extra Mile Foundation in 1988, to make sure the church continued to serve poor children in neighborhoods Catholics had largely moved out of.

Cardinal Arinze is one of the most powerful men at the Vatican. He runs the liturgy office, but worked in Catholic schools as a young priest and bishop in Nigeria.

...At. St. Benedict the Moor, a seventh-grade class asked how he became a cardinal, and what languages he spoke. He replied that his mother tongue was Ibo, but that he had learned English as a child, and his work requires him to speak Italian, French, German and Spanish. He described the many years of college and seminary required to become a priest.

I love to be a sharer of goodnews in the Church. There's a couple of audio clips at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette link, as well - good use of the newfangled technology.

1 posted on 09/29/2006 4:36:18 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o

To: AlaninSA; ELS; NYer; Coleus; narses; Salvation; Pyro7480

Arinze-is-my-hero ping.

2 posted on 09/29/2006 4:39:03 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("Pray (pray!) Oh yes we pray (Pray!) - We've got to pray just to make it today." ---- MC Hammer)

BTTT. Cardinal Arinze is a good shepherd. Our Father Amaliri in Tulsa was Ibo, too.

3 posted on 09/30/2006 4:59:52 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("There's nowhere to go and you've got all day to get there ... on some beach, somewhere.")

(Gently): I love to hear back from her whom I have FReepmailed at her request to answer knotty pro-life questions. Not mentioning specific names or anything.

Regards to Mr. D. God bless both of you and yours.

4 posted on 09/30/2006 11:12:33 AM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline of the Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Club)

To read later

5 posted on 09/30/2006 11:33:33 AM PDT by don-o (Proudly posting without reading the thread since 1998. (stolen from one cool dude))

Good news bump.

6 posted on 09/30/2006 2:44:07 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)

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