BELLEVUE
ECHS receives anonymous $5 million gift

Eastside Catholic School announced that a donor has given a $5 million challenge gift in support of The Campaign for Eastside Catholic, the school’s fund to finance its new campus located in Sammamish, Washington.
The donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a new member of the Eastside Catholic community, the school reported in a news release. 
“We are extremely excited and profoundly grateful that this donor had a vision for the future to help build, broaden and motivate our school community and to encourage others to support our campaign to finance our new campus,” said Eastside Catholic President Jim Kubacki,
To date, the campaign has raised more than $31 million toward its $40 million goal.
Over its 27 year history, Eastside Catholic School has leased two different facilities from the Bellevue School District. The school plans to move to its new campus in Sammamish in the fall of 2008.

PORTLAND, Ore.
Oregon Catholics to focus on reconcilliation
Catholics from western Oregon, who weathered the end of an archdiocesan bankruptcy and a $75-million reorganization in 2007, will be meeting in homes and parishes during Lent 2008 to focus on healing and reconciliation.
Parishioners from the Archdiocese of Portland will read and study the Sunday Scripture readings, share faith and daily struggles and work toward making matters right in their personal lives, homes, neighborhoods, churches and the archdiocese. Catholics in the region have been occasionally gathering in recent years to pray for the healing and reconciliation of victims of clergy sexual abuse and everyone affected by the scandal.
The Lenten small groups will broaden that spiritual effort, seeking healing in all parts of life.
"We are not just talking about child abuse here, but reconciliation in families, in parishes -- anything that separates you from God," said Deacon Thomas Gornick, director of evangelization for the Portland Archdiocese.

SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.
From WSP to SHJM
Sister Susan Wells, a onetime Washington State Patrol supervisor who felt drawn to religious life as she went about simplifying her own life, professed final vows Dec. 8 in the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.
A member of St. Michael Parish in Olympia and later St. Mary Parish in Seattle during her years in Western Washington, Sister Wells, 47, professed her vows at Our Lady of Hope Church in San Bernardino, where she is a pastoral associate.
A native of Pasco, she worked for 15 years for the State Patrol in Olympia, the majority of that time as a commercial vehicle enforcement officer. She later supervised a detachment of officers in the Compliance Review Unit responsible for on-site safety audits of trucking companies.
She said in an e-mail that her calling to religious life evolved subtly after she attended a parish retreat at St. Michael’s and was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s words that “we all need to live more simply so that others can simply live.”
Applying those words to her own life, she slowly got rid of her material possessions and came to realize that they had been blocking her relationship with God.
“It was through the process of simplifying, speaking with a spiritual director, volunteering in ministries like the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center in Seattle and meeting with many different religious congregations that I finally felt certain in my heart that God was calling me” to the Holy Names Sisters, she said.
She entered her religious community in 2000, gained pastoral and mission experience in the Yakima Valley, and completed her master’s in pastoral studies at Seattle University.
“So often people have said to me, ‘how could you give up so much?,’ she said. “But my response is that I have not given up so much, rather I have been given so much.”
Those wishing to contact Sister Susan may email her. 

SEATTLE
SAM to host Renaissance masterpiece
Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Italian Renaissance masterpiece, the “Gates of Paradise,” will be exhibited Jan. 26 through April 6 at the Seattle Art Museum, First Ave. and University St.
The exhibition, comprised of three original, newly-restored panels from the doors of the Baptistery in Florence, Italy and four sculptures, marks the first time the celebrated panels have traveled to the U.S. since their creation over 550 years ago.
The three panels depict stories of Adam and Eve, Jacob and Esau, Saul and David and two prophets.
Ghiberti (1378-1455) was a goldsmith, sculptor, architect and writer who had a wide-reaching influence on Florentine art for centuries.
 
SEATTLE
Villa Academy purchases campus
Villa Academy has purchased its historic buildings and eight acres of the 26-acre property from the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, the school announced this week.
The 400-student, independent Catholic school, which offers preschool through eighth grade, has been leasing the site from the sisters since 1977.
Five years in the making, the purchase agreement included securing approval from the Vatican in 2005, said school spokeswoman Nicole Chism Griffin.
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, first American saint, founded what is now Villa Academy in 1903 when she and her sisters opened an orphanage and school in 1903 on Beacon Hill, moving it to its current site on a hill in Laurelhurst in 1914 after the future saint envisioned a “villa on a hill.”
The two historic, brick-clad buildings now used by the academy were designed by noted architect John Graham, Sr. and built in 1924.
The sisters closed the orphanage in 1951 but continued operating the school as Sacred Heart Villa until the mid-1970s when it was turned over to an independent lay board of trustees.
With this week’s purchase agreement, the sisters will continue to own the remaining 18 acres, leasing it to the academy.