Catholic lay workers finalize agreement

Edinburg, Texas — Four lay workers fired in a rare labor dispute involving the Roman Catholic Church finalized an agreement in state district court restoring their jobs and union benefits.

According to the deal announced Monday between United Farm Workers’ attorneys and the Diocese of Brownsville, the employees at Holy Spirit parish in McAllen will continue working under a union contract that is believed to be the first negotiated with a U.S. Catholic church.

“I’ve been getting calls from all over the country from people saying they had never seen an agreement like this happen,” Texas UFW director Rebecca Flores said. “We are going to be a footnote in the history of the Catholic church.”

The workers insist the termination notices by the Rev. Ruben Delgado on June 18 — Delgado’s first day on the job — were the church’s way of scuttling their efforts to unionize. Bishop Raymundo Pena has denied the allegations.

Utah city may name street after gunman

Bluffdale, Utah — City officials are considering naming a future street Porter Rockwell Boulevard after a controversial Mormon pioneer who was dubbed the “destroying angel.”

Orrin Porter Rockwell was purportedly associated with the Danites, an alleged secret, violent group of Mormons organized around 1838 to defend fellow church members. He was believed to have once had a home in what is now Bluffdale, where he also ran a stagecoach inn that sold whiskey.

“That’s a historical identity, good or evil,” Mayor Wayne Mortimer said. “He’s part of the past, and he played an important role, not only in Bluffdale, but also in this part of the state.”

City engineer Shane Jones says the goal of naming a street after Rockwell was to evoke “feelings and ideas of the pioneering heritage … early Mormon roots, Pony Express riders.”

Holocaust memorial dedicated at synagogue

Portland, Maine — The first public Holocaust memorial in Maine has been dedicated at Temple Beth El, honoring the lives and deaths of those murdered by the Nazis.

More than 300 people turned out at the synagogue Aug. 10 to mark the opening of the Jerry and Rochelle Slivka Holocaust Memorial, named for a Portland couple who survived the Holocaust.

Created by sculptor Robert Katz, the granite memorial was commissioned by the Slivkas in memory of their family members and the 6 million Jews exterminated during World War II.