The Diocese of Raleigh is opening three new schools this fall, bringing to six the number of new schools opened in the eastern North Carolina diocese in the last three years. The Archdiocese of Atlanta has built four or five Catholic schools in the last few years and is planning on more. And this year, the Memphis, TN, diocese is opening, reopening, and expanding at least four Catholic schools. Another part of the country opening new schools is the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis where four schools were ready to open their doors.
Music for the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, was arranged and composed by Kenneth Dye, the University of Notre Dame’s director of bands. A 2,000-member international band of young musicians performed the music as the athletes entered the stadium, Dye told CNS. The group is the "largest band ever assembled as a single unit for a single event," Dye said, and the piece, which lasted 75 to 90 minutes, depending on the athletes’ walking pace, is "the longest marching band performance that has been done, as far as duration," he said. The parade music incorporated 42 musical compositions from the athletes’ countries.
Monsignor George G. Higgins, since the 1940s one of America’s most noted labor priests, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in White House ceremonies August 9. "For more than 60 years now, he has organized, marched, prayed, and bled for the social and economic justice of working Americans," President Clinton said in conferring the award. "His faith and his courage have strengthened not only our nation’s labor unions, but our American union. "Higgins, 84, is a Chicago priest who has spent most of his life in Washington working nationally and internationally on rights of workers and other social justice issues. The award citation focused mainly on Higgins’ work in the labor movement, but it also highlighted his pioneering efforts in Catholic-Jewish relations and his leadership in civil rights and religious tolerance. Fourteen others also receive the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor in the East Room ceremony. Among them were the Reverend Jesse Jackson; Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith; former Senator George McGovern, D-S.D.; and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y.
Mill Hill Missionary Father John Kaiser, 67, was found shot to death close to his car near the town of Naivasha, about 50 miles northwest of Nairobi. Kaiser, a U.S. missionary in Kenya, was an advocate for human rights. The government had ordered Kaiser’s deportation last November, but revoked the decision after an outcry in the Kenya media and appeals from the country’s Catholic bishops. Kaiser drew the ire of some members of government after testifying against two cabinet ministers in an inquiry on tribal clashes. The Kenya Episcopal Conference has demanded a full government investigation into the murder.
The power of World Youth Day came in its ability to strip away national boundaries, financial disparities or ethnic difference, said Riyadh Lewis Hermez, 31, an Iraqi. World Youth Day made him realize for the first time "that Christianity is still strong, and Jesus is still working his influence in our life," Hermez said.