News - February 2017 RSS Feed

Over 60 persons with special needs were paired up with student dates from St. John Paul II High School and Bishop Garriga Middle Preparatory School at the Special Hearts Prom on Feb. 26 at St. John Paul High School Campus.

The Rev. Dirk Ficca, a Presbyterian minister and the former executive director of Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, will keynote the 6th Annual Dialogue and Friendship Dinner hosted by the Dialogue Institute of the Southwest. This year’s event will be held at the being held at the NorthShore Country Club in Portland at 6 p.m. on March 2.

In response to the recent rise in anti-Semitic actions that have taken place across the U.S., Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski, Bishop of Springfield and Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, has issued a statement expressing solidarity and support for our Jewish brothers and sisters, while also calling for the rejection of these hateful actions.

Incarnate Word Academy students are all the buzz for eighth grader Catherine Thomas and fifth grader Suzette Torres, who will be competing at the 2017 South Texas Regional Spelling Bee.

Incarnate Word Academy Elementary Level students welcomed members of the Corpus Christi Fire Department on Feb. 17 in the James R. Dougherty, Jr. Center. The first responders from Station No. 5 were on hand to provide the Little Angels with an educational presentation on fire safety and provide students with a close up look at the tools and equipment used by firefighters on a daily basis.

Principals from Catholic Schools attended a half-day seminar on Feb. 23 on the newest initiative in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Chromebook technology. Schools will begin using Chromebooks as teaching and learning tools. Students will be doing research in the classrooms and teachers will be teaching from various websites.

Terri Farley, the popular best-selling author known for her “Phantom Stallion” series and “Seven Tears into the Sea” young reader novels, visited Incarnate Word Academy on Feb. 17 to speak to middle level students about the conservation of American mustangs, how she finds her inspiration, as well as provided students with a personal, comprehensive writing session.

1. Prayer Box - On slips of paper write prayers of petition, praise, thanksgiving, joy on them. Reread during your day/week. Read again after Easter. 2. Intention Journal - Date when the intention is made then date it when the petition is answered. 3. Intention Crucifix - place intentions behind the Corpus. 4. Prayerfully consider one way you can continue the Year of Mercy in your life. 5. Create a prayer chair in a quiet place. Take time to just sit in silence on a regular basis.

St. Leo University has earned the 2017 Military Spouse Friendly School designation by Victory Media, publisher of G.I. Jobs, Military Spouse, Vetrepreneur and STEM Jobs resources. St. Leo, which has a campus at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, ranked fifth in the nation among private institutions with 10,000 students or more.

The Office of Catholic Schools has entered into a partnership with Texas A&M University Science Health Center which makes its students part of a $5 million grant from Texas A&M Health South Texas Program to reduce the highest impact diseases and their consequences, including diabetes, asthma and infectious disease, throughout a 27-county region in South Texas.

In early February, several media outlets reported that President Donald J. Trump is considering issuing an executive order establishing a government wide initiative to respect religious freedom. Multiple news outlets published a copy of a draft executive order. The President has not yet signed the executive order on religious freedom.

Bishop Michael Mulvey dedicated a new catechetical center and parish hall at St. Mary Mission in Robstown on Feb. 11. The new building was made possible by a $450,000 grant made by The John G. and Marie Stella Kennedy Memorial Foundation.

Easter is a moveable feast, so the date of Ash Wednesday changes every year too. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, occurs 46 days before Easter, which this year falls on April 16 so Ash Wednesday will be on March 1.

Since 1974, National Catholic Schools Week has been an annual celebration focused on the value of Catholic education, the contributions young scholars bring to the church, and the families that bring life to their communities.

Author Cecilia Garcia-Akers '70, IWA alumna and daughter of renowned Mexican-American civil rights leader Dr. Hector P. Garcia, spoke to first through fifth grade students on Feb. 2 at the James R. Dougherty, Jr. Center about her new book “The Inspiring Life of Texan Hector P. Garcia.”

For the past several weeks students from St. John Paul II have collected baby diapers and wipes and donated to the Hope House. The "Diaper and Wipes Drive" was in conjunction with the March for Life held in Washington D.C. on Jan. 27.

Twenty girls and five boys had inches of their hair lopped off by Supercut and ProCuts hair stylists at the annual event, "A Cut Above" held in Sherry Davis' Theatre Arts classroom at St. John Paul II High School.

The chairmen of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops committees on Migration, Religious Liberty and International Justice and Peace, along with the board of Catholic Relief Services issued a joint statement on Friday, Feb. 10, expressing solidarity with Christians and all those who suffer in the Middle East.

Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, and chair of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration, applauded an appeals court decision to uphold a lower court’s ruling that stopped the implementation of several key provisions of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order regarding admission of refugees into the United States.

Due to health reasons, the ordination and installation of Bishop-designate Louis F. Kihneman as the fourth bishop of Biloxi has been postponed.