Catholic News Around Indiana
Diocese of Lafayette
Muncie students craft Nativity sets
for annual fall festival fundraiser
By Louisa J. Reese (The Catholic Moment)
MUNCIE—This fall, St. Lawrence School children have Christmas on their minds. Visions of angels, shepherds and Baby Jesus dance in their heads.
In art class, their little hands are busy rolling, stretching and shaping clay into Nativity figures that will be auctioned at the annual Fall Festival on Oct. 5-6.
Art teacher Liz Guntle is enthusiastic about the project. It is an ideal way for the students to learn more about their religion and develop new art skills, she said.
The project was made possible by a donation from Derik Ruttan, the grandfather of third-grader Caleb Hancock. Ruttan, with help from Caleb, also made wooden stables for the nine Nativity sets created by the preschool through eighth-grade classes.
Before they began sculpting, they talked about the main figures—who they were and their role in Jesus’ birth.
“They all wanted to make Jesus or an angel,” Guntle said. “The next most popular figures were the kings [because] they got to bring presents to Jesus.” The Blessed Virgin Mary was the first choice of several girls.
The children crafted the 6-inch-tall figures out of a firm polymer clay that holds fine detail and comes in many colors. When baked, it is glossy and very durable. To ensure consistent sizes, Guntle precut the clay for the students to shape and decorate.
Their favorite tool was the pasta machine to roll material flat, she said.
“They got really interested in wrapping color, stretching it out in this machine and winding it around their figure.”
They also used flower-patterned beads for decorating.
“Some of the children were so taken with the color and pattern of the multifiori [that] they applied the beads everywhere,” she said.
Kindergartner Katie Hunter said she was glad that she got to make Baby Jesus.
“It was really fun to make him,” she said, “because it’s really ‘consecrated.’ ”
Seventh-grader Angelika Norris crafted an angel in the middle-school art class.
“I learned how the angel guided the shepherds to Jesus’ birthplace. ... I think I understand the Nativity a whole lot more than I did last year,” she said.
The Nativity sets will be up for bid during the class auction on Oct. 5 and at the fall festival, the major fundraiser for the school and parish.
(The public is invited to attend the festival from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Oct. 5 and from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Oct. 6 at St. Lawrence School in Muncie. For more information, call the school at 765-282-9353.) †
Immigration forum looks at putting Catholic social teaching into action
By Kevin Cullen (The Catholic Moment)
WEST LAFAYETTE—Sara Gonzales is married and has five young children. During her 15 years in the United States, she worked, paid taxes and attended a Catholic church in Minneapolis.
Illiterate, unable to speak English and unfamiliar with immigration laws, she unknowingly remained an undocumented worker—an illegal alien.
In June, federal authorities arrested her at gunpoint and, eight days later, deported her to her native Mexico. Now she is living with her parents, while her husband and children remain in Minnesota. Her story—featured on Minneapolis- area TV—is being used to personalize flaws in U.S. immigration policy.
Dominican Father Jim Barnett, associate pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center in West Lafayette, discussed the case and replayed the TV report during a forum at the church on Sept. 19. The session, which focused on immigration and Catholic social teaching, attracted approximately 75 people.
Father Barnett lived in Central America for 14 years. He spent last summer serving the Gonzaleses’ parish, and tried to block her deportation.
Most adults in that parish are living in the United States illegally, but “as Catholics, we are not just Americans,” he said.
“We are part of the body of Christ. … People seeking asylum, whether political or economic, have a right to be protected,” he said.
“It’s a distressing story,” said Chuck Reardon of Lafayette, who attended the presentation. “As Father said, so much for our government’s family values.”
Sara Gonzales’ husband, a native of El Salvador, lives in the United States legally by renewing his work permit each year.
Sara mistakenly thought that she had attained the same legal status in 2001, but she actually signed a judge’s order to leave the country and missed a mandatory hearing. That made her a felon and fugitive, subject to deportation. Her children were born in the United States and are citizens.
Barnett said that an immigration attorney was called in to help. But after her arrest, Gonzales was jailed without bond and without a hearing. Letters of support from a U.S. senator, a congressman, her employers and the local archbishop did no good.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, such cases fall under the federal Department of Homeland Security. The director for the five-state region that includes Minnesota refused to intervene, saying, “We don’t know that she doesn’t have ties to terrorists,” Father Barnett said.
U.S. bishops have affirmed that nations have the right to protect their borders, but current immigration laws are too complex and anti-family, he said. Sara Gonzales had no interpreter and, because she can’t read at all, she didn’t know what she was signing.
The priest’s involvement is an example of putting Church teachings into action. Lynn Johal, chairman of the social concerns ministry at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center, called Catholic social teaching “very exciting, thought-provoking, radical, countercultural … rooted in Scripture and the compassion of Jesus Christ.” †