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Parish nurse program looks at member care

Reservations are being taken for a training program to support churches that provide for the physical health as well as spiritual well-being of members.

The five-day Parish Nurse Course will open Feb. 14 at Castle Medical Center in Kailua. The course will also be given on Maui and the Big Island.

Carol Story, program director of Puget Sound Parish Nurse Ministries, will teach the class for registered nurses. Students will earn 43.5 continuing education credits.

Classes will be from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The cost is $200 but scholarships are available. Call Sue Pignataro, 247-2828, to register.

This is the fifth year of the class offered by the Seventh-day Adventist medical program. Several churches have parish nurses who provide health screenings such as blood pressure tests, present health education to members and act as liaison between the congregation and community services.

For information on the class at Waihee, Maui, from Feb. 28 to March 4, call Angela Quintero, 808-242-8568. On the Hilo class from March 14 to 19, call Phyllis LaForge, 808-962-9737.

Texas schools must allow religious gifts

PLANO, Texas » A federal district judge in Sherman ordered the school district in Plano to let students distribute "religious viewpoint gifts" at December parties.

Four families had filed the suit accusing the 52,000-student suburban Dallas district of violating the Constitution with "continual efforts to ban Christmas."

Last year, a student was told he could not give classmates candy canes with Christmas messages. And a Dec. 6 letter to parents at one school urged them to bring "approved items" including white napkins to avoid the seasonal red and green, though the schools said that came from a parent, not an official.

After the ruling a school official said the district "fosters acceptance of all cultures" and welcomes celebration of diversity at parties that occur in non-instructional time.

School attorney Richard Abernathy said the judge's order was unnecessary because a Dec. 1 policy change allows distribution of all materials, religious or otherwise, at parties.

The U.S. Justice Department is separately investigating the families' allegations.

Polish Catholics can party for New Year's

WARSAW, Poland » Poland's Roman Catholic Church has given believers the go-ahead to party this New Year's Eve even though celebrations will fall on Friday, a day of penance and restraint.

The Rev. Jozef Kloch, a church spokesman, said Monday that although Catholics should normally exercise restraint on Fridays, the day Christ died, bishops and priests may grant parishioners dispensations this year.

Poland is predominantly Roman Catholic and the homeland of Pope John Paul II, and the church plays a powerful role in everyday life. Several priests have been fielding questions from Catholics worried that it would be sinful to celebrate this Friday.

"For many it is a serious problem," said the Rev. Jacek Dadela, a priest at Warsaw's Holy Cross Church.

But Kloch said that canon law gives bishops and parish priests the power to grant dispensation from observing the traditional Friday rules, such as forgoing meat and dancing.

"The Church is not some ruthless, soulless institution which does not care what the occasion is," Kloch said. "The end of the year is definitely a sufficient reason for such dispensation."