PASADENA --- Members of the confirmation class from St. John the Baptist Church in Baldwin Park helped decorate the "Donate Life Rose Parade Float" during the week prior to the Jan. 2 parade in Pasadena.

Parish teens worked on the float to support class assistant Jolene Vargas as she awaits a kidney transplant. Organ donation "lets us live longer," said Vargas, who suffers from a hereditary disease that attacks the kidneys.

While working on the float, the teens (including Brande Cruz, pictured) were able to meet family members who donated the organs or tissues of loved ones who died, as well as people who have received organ donations.

San Francisco priest named to head Reno Diocese
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Pope Benedict XVI has named Father Randolph R. Calvo, a San Francisco archdiocesan priest, as the new bishop of Reno, Nev. Bishop-designate Calvo, 54, who was born in Guam, was pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Redwood City, Calif., at the time of his appointment. Bishop-designate Calvo replaces Bishop Phillip F. Straling, who retired in June. His episcopal ordination was set for Feb. 17 in Reno, with recently named Archbishop George H. Niederauer of San Francisco presiding.

Up to 28 more U.S. bishops
could retire for age reasons in 2006
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Following the Jan. 3 retirement of Ukrainian Bishop Basil H. Losten of Stamford, Conn., up to 28 other U.S. bishops, including five cardinals, could retire because of age this year. There are 14 still-active U.S. bishops, including three cardinals, who have already turned 75. Fourteen more, including two cardinals, will celebrate their 75th birthday in 2006. At age 75 bishops are requested to submit their resignation to the pope. Bishop Losten turned 75 last May 11. Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka, 78, who has been in Vatican service since 1990 and was formerly archbishop of Detroit, turned 75 Sept. 14, 2002. In 2005 Cardinals Adam J. Maida of Detroit and Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington turned 75. Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore will be 75 March 4, 2006. Cardinal Bernard F. Law, archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, will be 75 Nov. 4, 2006.

Judge rules Portland Archdiocese owns all its parishes
PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) --- A federal judge ruled Dec. 30 that it is the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, not its individual parishes, that owns all parish properties. In a statement released by spokesman Bud Bunce, the archdiocese expressed disappointment. "We feel strongly that this decision is not supported by the facts or the law and believe it infringes on the archdiocese's right and the parishioners' rights to freely exercise their religion," the statement said. At stake in the decision is the property of 124 parishes, including 40 parish elementary schools and three archdiocesan high schools, whose combined worth up may be as much as half a billion dollars. About 130 claimants seeking damages for alleged sexual abuse by priests in the Portland Archdiocese have asked to have the parish and school properties included among archdiocesan assets available for settling their claims. The archdiocese has argued that under church law each parish owns its own property and the archdiocese only holds those properties in trust for the parishes.

Vatican news agency reports 26 missionaries
murdered in 2005
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Although many of them were killed during robbery attempts, the 26 Catholic missionaries murdered in 2005 each died spreading the Gospel and serving the poor and victims of violence, a Vatican news agency said. Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, published its annual list of murdered church personnel Dec. 30. The agency said its tally, twice as many as were killed in 2004, showed that one bishop, 20 priests, two religious brothers, two nuns and one lay missionary died violently in 2005. In the 2005 list, Fides included a priest killed in Russia and one killed in Belgium. Although they were not working in mission territories, the Belgian, Father Robert De Leener, was included because of his work with immigrants; Slovakian Father Jan Hermanovski was included because of his work with the homeless in Russia. "The list includes not only missionaries in the strict sense, but all church personnel killed in a violent way or who sacrificed their lives aware of the risks they ran by not abandoning their commitment," the agency said.