LOCAL NEWS

The Catholic Sun won first place for reporting on religious liberty and second place for www.catholicsun.org, among eight other honors during the June 19-21 Catholic Media Conference.

The hearts of Sacred Heart parishioners are heavy right now. Their pastor, Claretian Father Daryl Olds, suffered a massive stroke June 19. Two weeks later, he remains in intensive care in stable, but critical condition.

As the people of central Arizona mourned the deaths June 30 of 19 firefighters from the Granite Mountain Hotshots, hundreds of other firefighters battled the still-uncontrolled blaze that threatened the small towns of Yarnell and Peeples Valley.

As far as Fr. Raul Lopez can tell, the Yarnell Hill fire lines have not reached St. Mary Mediatrix Mission. Yet. The state of the Shrine of St. Joseph is unknown.

On June 14, the Arizona Legislature adjourned sine die at 12:59 a.m. after spending 151 days in session, capped by an emotionally charged debate focused on Governor Brewer’s Medicaid expansion proposal.

A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 26 that the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. Catholic leaders both locally and around the country called the 5-4 ruling tragic.

The U.S. Supreme Court had the chance to uphold the importance of marriage and its fundamental role in providing for our children and the future of the United States. By striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act and failing to uphold California’s Proposition 8, the Court has succumbed to our culture’s radical efforts to redefine marriage and, in a very real sense, is now engaged in the ongoing battle against families, society and people of faith.

In what continues to be a paradox in an immoral society, celibacy in the Roman Catholic priesthood is not a doctrine of the Church, but a discipline.

Fr. Kurt Perera knows his hands were made to do the Lord’s work. That’s how the moment he put his hands in the bishop’s became a key part of his priestly ordination.

By the world’s standards, Cristofer Pereyra was doing well. He’d emigrated from Peru at age 15, graduated from college and landed a good job, working as a reporter at Channel 33, the Phoenix affiliate of Univision, the Spanish-language television network.