Nation/World News 7-09-11

Festival enlivens spirit
OSHKOSH, Wis. (CNS) – A five-day Christian music festival called Lifest drew 85,000 people to Oshkosh for food, fellowship and opportunities for spiritual fitness. The crowd size was an increase of more than 15 percent over last year, according to Lifest’s marketing director, and a Mass celebrated July 10, the final day of the festival, set its own record with 800 worshippers. It was the largest gathering of Catholics in the 13-year history of Lifest. It also marked the first time a bishop was in attendance to celebrate Mass at the festival. Bishop David L. Ricken of Green Bay told the large assembly that he was thrilled to finally make an appearance at Lifest. “I thought it was a beautiful celebration, a beautiful witness of all these young people,” Bishop Ricken said following Mass. The Lifest spirit was evident throughout the festival grounds, including the Green Bay diocese’s camp headquarters. Visitors were welcomed each day for free lunches that featured “holy hot dogs” and “blessed brats.” At night, around the campfire, guests enjoyed “sacred s’mores.”

Catholic-Muslim dialogue important
BEIRUT (CNS) – Archbishop Cyrille Bustros will bring years of experience working with Muslims to his new job as Melkite Catholic archbishop of Beirut. Prior to his appointment as archbishop of the Newton, Mass., Melkite diocese in 2004, Archbishop Bustros served as bishop of Baalbek, an area in eastern Lebanon that is more than 80 percent Muslim. During his seven years as head of the Melkite Catholic Diocese of Newton, Mass., Archbishop Bustros often was invited to speak at universities and conferences on the issue of Muslim-Christian dialogue. Back in his homeland, however, dialogue will be an ongoing part of his ministry. The archbishop was to be installed as Melkite archbishop of Beirut July 22. As typical for the installation of a church official in Lebanon, Muslim clerics and dignitaries will be in attendance and will offer their congratulations to Archbishop Bustros.  Of Muslim-Christian coexistence, he said, “the basic principle in order to live together in peace is to respect each other, and to accept each other as different.”

Relief remains priority
WASHINGTON (CNS) – A new report from the Institute of Medicine declares that transforming the way pain relief is provided for Americans must become a national priority. But for Maria Gatto and others like her in Catholic health care, providing relief from pain has been a priority for years. Gatto, a nurse practitioner specializing in palliative care and director of palliative care for Trinity Health in Farmington Hills, Mich., is leading an effort throughout the fourth-largest Catholic health system in the United States to bring team-based interdisciplinary care that eases suffering to the bedside of every patient. The Institute of Medicine report found that chronic pain affects an estimated 116 million American adults and costs the nation somewhere between $560 billion and $635 billion each year. “This is everything palliative care has been preaching for years,” Gatto said. And palliative care can be summed up, she added, as what “Catholic health care has always supported as its mission – holistic, patient-centered, family-centered care.”