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Resources

The prefect of the Apostolic Vatican Library, Monsignor Cesare Pasini, has reported that renovation work is on schedule and the library should reopen in fall 2010. The Salone Sistino, currently part of the Vatican Museum, will become once again a reading room of the library, but adaptations to the Salone will not be completed in time for the reopening.

The Vincentian Studies Institute of De Paul University in Chicago has announced the establishment of Via Sapientiae, an online digital library of initially over 20,000 pages of texts related to the life and work of St. Vincent de Paul (1581–1660) and St. Louise de Marillac (1591–1660) and their legacy of service to the poor. It can be accessed at http://via.library.depaul.edu .

The Passionist Historical Archives in Union City, New Jersey, has accessioned the archives from St. Paul of the Cross Monastery of Pittsburgh and St. Joseph’s Monastery of Baltimore, documentation from the forty-fourth General Chapter of the Passionists in Brazil (2000) and from the Passionist Overseas Missions, materials from the novitiates in Pittsburgh and Shrewsbury, Vestition/Profession books, Confraternity of the Passion, and other documents.

The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton under the leadership of its acting director, Professor John-Paul Himka, has undertaken to collect digital images of Ukrainian religious culture in art, architecture, and music. “Sanctuary: The Spiritual Heritage Documentation Project” seeks “to identify, codify, and digitize the spiritual legacy of Canada’s Prairie provinces.” Among the materials being digitized are old photographs, paintings, and videos. Also being documented are the exterior and interior of all churches, “paintings, carvings, church vessels, furnishings, banners, vestments, bell-towers, cemeteries, tombstones, and chapels in the Ukrainian prairie settlements.” To access this material, visit the Web site, http://www.ualberta.ca/cius/religion-culture/c-sanctuary-workshop.htm .

Anniversaries

The 200th anniversary of the birth of Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, O. S. B., on January 14, 1809, is being celebrated at Saint Vincent Archabbey in Pennsylvania, a monastery he founded in 1846. The abbot primate of the Benedictine Order, Notker Wolf, marked the occasion by delivering a keynote address there. [End Page 430]

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the calling of the Second Vatican Council on January 25, 1959, the Vatican Television Center has released a sixty-minute documentary DVD in English, Spanish, Italian, and Polish on the history of the Council.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the decision made on December 18, 1859, by Don Bosco and his seventeen young companions in Valdocco to stay together to serve the Lord, a year of grace was declared by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Among the special events is the inauguration in July of a worldwide tour of the casket containing the relics of Don Bosco that will end in 2015, the bicentenary of his birth.

Causes of Saints

Among the causes that are going forward is that of the Servant of God Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (1600–59), formerly bishop of Puebla de los Angeles in Mexico and of Osma in Spain, whose heroic virtues were recognized on February 21, 2009, during an ordinary public consistory held in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican Apostolic Palace. Miracles were recognized in the cases of Blessed Mary of the Cross (née Jeanne) Jugan (1792–1879), French founder of the Congregation of the Little Sisters for the Poor; of Blessed Zygmunt Szczesny Felinski (1822–95), archbishop of Warsaw; and Blessed Jozef Damien de Veuster, a Belgian professed priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (1840–89, known as the Apostle to the Lepers on the island of Molokai). They will be canonized on October 11, 2009.

Conferences

On May 7–8, 2009, the American Cusanus Society will sponor a number of talks at the Forty-Fourth International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Among them are “Nicholas of Cusa and Islam” by Marcia Costigliolo, “Preaching Crusade while Dreaming Peace: An Appraisal of Nicholas of Cusa’s Exegetical Treatment of Islamic Text” by Nicholas Jacobson, and “The Resurrection of St. Francis” by David D. Burr.

On May 23–31, 2009, the...

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