• What faux pas next for LHSAA?
    What faux pas next for LHSAA?
    by Jonelle Foltz
    While you are reading this, the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s 2018 annual meeting will be or will have been taking place in Baton Rouge. There are no more items calling for additional separate playoffs for public and non-public schools as occurred in 2013 when the LHSAA voted to have nine football championships instead of five, or in 2016 with subsequent splits in basketball, baseball and softball.
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  • Ursuline again not fully well, but continues to win
    Ursuline again not fully well, but continues to win
    by Jonelle Foltz
    Ursuline Academy’s basketball team might be known as “the bad luck Lions,” but you’d never know it by watching Coach Andrea Williams girls in navy and white perform. As they enter District 10-3A play, the Lions have won 15 of 18 non-district games, the latest against 14-6 Ellender, 59-40, in the “Den” on Jan. 11.
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  • John Smestad Jr. receives ‘Proudly Pro-Life’ Award
    John Smestad Jr. receives ‘Proudly Pro-Life’ Award
    by Jonelle Foltz
    John Smestad Jr., archdiocesan executive director of Pastoral Planning and Ministries, was honored with the 2018 Proudly Pro-life Award at the 19th Annual Proudly Pro-Life Dinner sponsored by Louisiana Right to Life on Jan. 11. Smestad was honored for his work of beginning the annual CYO March for Life pilgrimage to Washington, D.C.
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  • New Orleans civic culture imbued with Catholicism
    New Orleans civic culture imbued with Catholicism
    by Jonelle Foltz
    This article in the Clarion Herald’s “River of Faith: 300 Years as a New Orleans Catholic Community” includes a few “random facts” on the early Catholic community in New Orleans. These form a small part of Catholic historian and author Roger Baudier’s “Historic Old New Orleans” column in the early issues (1933-35) of the Catholic Action of the South, which predated the Clarion Herald and was published until 1963.
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  • 300 years of school blessings
    300 years of school blessings
    by Jonelle Foltz
    As we begin the celebration of the city’s Tricentennial, it’s hard not to consider the growth of the Catholic Church in New Orleans in conjunction with the growth of the city for the last 300 years.
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  • Tom Brady rose from obscurity at a Bertolino camp
    Tom Brady rose from obscurity at a Bertolino camp
    by Jonelle Foltz
    It was early in 2000. At Muss Bertolino Stadium, a local television reporter and his photographer were doing stories on some of the draft prospects working out with trainer Tom Shaw. While we were taking pictures of some of the prospects, the father of an obscure quarterback came up to the reporter and introduced himself.
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  • Calendar – January 27, 2018
    Calendar – January 27, 2018
    by Jonelle Foltz
    Please send event announcements two weeks before each issue to calendar@clarionherald.org. (504) area code unless noted. Jan. 29-March 5: SCHOOLS- FEAST OF ST. JOHN BOSCO, Archbishop Gregory Aymond celebrates the Feast of St. John Bosco in a Mass, Jan. 29, at 9:30 a.m. at Archbishop Shaw High gym, 1000 Barataria Blvd., Marrero.
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  • Deacon Jarrell’s fallen buddy remains close to his heart
    Deacon Jarrell’s fallen buddy remains close to his heart
    by Jonelle Foltz
    Anyone who served in combat in the rice paddies of Vietnam and came home has lived two lives, one of which, understandably, is better kept in a lockbox. Deacon Bill Jarrell was raised as a Southern Baptist, but he didn’t have much of any religion as an Army helicopter pilot in 1967 after months of experiencing carnage that made it almost impossible to believe in “a loving God.”
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  • St. John Paul II was stalwart in faith, forgiveness
    St. John Paul II was stalwart in faith, forgiveness
    by Jonelle Foltz
    In its 300-year history, the City of New Orleans has been blessed to have several saints walk its streets, and the most recent, St. John Paul II, has lessons for everyone in the way he forgave his attacker following a 1981 assassination attempt, former Archbishop Alfred Hughes said in the opening talk of the Tricentennial Lecture Series Jan. 16 at Notre Dame Seminary.
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  • Prayers for the unborn
    Prayers for the unborn
    by Jonelle Foltz
    As students from Holy Name of Jesus School walked forward with red roses, Archbishop Gregory Aymond culminated a full week of pro-life activities Jan. 22 by blessing the new Holy Innocents Prayer Garden – for babies lost to miscarriage, abortion or other causes – at St. Patrick Cemetery No. 1, 5000 Canal St.
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  • Affordability of Catholic schools an ongoing challenge
    Affordability of Catholic schools an ongoing challenge
    by Jonelle Foltz
    We will celebrate 2018 Catholic Schools Week from Jan. 28 to Feb. 3, which always brings to mind the great blessings that Catholic schools provide to the civic community as well as the great challenges our schools face. Does affordability continue to be a major challenge?
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  • La accesibilidad a las escuelas Católicas es un desafío continuo
    La accesibilidad a las escuelas Católicas es un desafío continuo
    by Jonelle Foltz
    Celebraremos la Semana de las Escuelas Católicas en el 2018, desde el 28 de enero hasta el 3 de febrero, lo que siempre nos recuerda las grandes bendiciones que las escuelas Católicas brindan a la comunidad cívica, así como los grandes desafíos que enfrentan nuestras escuelas. ¿La accesibilidad, sigue siendo un gran desafío?
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  • In Chile: pope says cry of migrants is prayer to God
    In Chile: pope says cry of migrants is prayer to God
    by Jonelle Foltz
    Christians must be aware of the injustices and exploitation suffered by migrants and those seeking a better life for themselves and their families, Pope Francis said. On the last leg of his trip in Chile, the pope said the cry of the poor “opens our hearts and teaches us to be attentive.”
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  • Beauty in the works
    Beauty in the works
    by Jonelle Foltz
    New Orleans is home to some of the most beautiful churches in our nation. We need look no further than the Clarion Herald’s Bridal Registry to see images of the older churches with their Gothic or renaissance-revivalist architecture, stained-glass windows, ornate pillars and arches, and immense artworks.
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  • Retreats reveal that every student unique
    Retreats reveal that every student unique
    by Jonelle Foltz
    It’s 6 o’clock on a Monday morning. The habitual routine of waking up to the sound of the alarm and the smell of breakfast in the kitchen begins my day. The morning news blares in the kitchen as I eat my breakfast and drink coffee in my grey plaid skirt and stark white shirt. I walk out of the door at 7 a.m. Usually I do not leave for school this early, but I, as well as 14 other girls, are planning Ursuline Academy’s student retreats.
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  • Marching for life is not enough
    Marching for life is not enough
    by Jonelle Foltz
    What a wonderful sight to behold: From Capitol Hill as far as I could see, there was a sea of people on the march for life! But the recent 45th March for Life was bitter sweat. It was inspiring to see so many people, from so many states, marching on behalf of our unborn brothers’ and sisters’ right to be born. But it was sad to think that we have been marching for 45 years – with no end in sight.
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  • Pope: Don’t rush through silent moments at Mass
    Pope: Don’t rush through silent moments at Mass
    by Jonelle Foltz
    The silence that precedes the opening prayer at Mass is an opportunity for Christians to commend to God the fate of the church and the world, Pope Francis said. Departing from his prepared text at his weekly general audience Jan. 10, the pope urged priests “to observe this brief silence and not hurry.”
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  • Key proposals try to inch LHSAA back to normalcy
    Key proposals try to inch LHSAA back to normalcy
    by Jonelle Foltz
    There are 60 pages of agenda items for the LHSAA’s Jan. 26 business meeting. In those pages, printed in black and red ink, participating principals have introduced or offered 55 amendments to the athletic body’s rules book. Mindful that it now takes a vote of two-thirds of the state’s 400-plus member principals to pass a new proposal, the outcome of this meeting will either help the association move forward in a positive manner or keep the LHSAA loping on its usual treadmill to nowhere.
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  • Vietnamese Catholics to celebrate Year of the Dog
    Vietnamese Catholics to celebrate Year of the Dog
    by Christine Bordelon
    The Vietnamese community in New Orleans will celebrate its Lunar New Year a little longer this year than in previous years. Van Pham, pastoral council president at St. Joseph Church in Algiers, said even though this year’s Lunar New Year isn’t actually until Feb. 16, two local Catholic parishes with a Vietnamese population are hosting celebrations in January.
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  • New prayer garden memorializes ‘Holy Innocents’
    New prayer garden memorializes ‘Holy Innocents’
    by Beth Donze
    A statue of Rachel – the Old Testament mother who has become a modern-day touchstone for those reeling from the death of a baby – graces a new cemetery prayer garden dedicated to children lost through miscarriage, abortion or other circumstances preventing the burial of their remains.
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