11 20 15

Diocese of Fall River, Mass.

F riday , November 20, 2015

Diocesan prison ministry causing a ‘chain reaction’

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff beckyaubut@anchornews.org

FAIRHAVEN — Volunteers for the prison ministry program of the Fall River Diocese have been visiting the Bristol County Jail and House of Correction in North Dartmouth for almost 20 years, spending multiple weekends during the year on separate Residents Encountering Christ retreats for men and women inmates, and visiting weekly for follow-up meetings.

Passing more than 60 retreats at this point, longtime prison ministry volunteer and Spiritual director from St. Joseph’s Parish in Fairhaven, Deacon Douglas Medeiros said that the recent men’s retreat “was just unbelievable. I would say our retreats have just gotten better and better. The retreats are based

Miss America 2001 Angela Perez Baraquio (at left), now a Catholic school principal in California, was the guest speaker at last week’s annual Fall Scholarship Dinner of the Foundation to Advance Catholic Education. Joining her under its banner are Jane Robin of the FACE Cape Cod Office; Sandra L. Sevigney, Fall Dinner chairperson; and Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V. (Photo by John E. Kearns Jr.)

Joe Martino, a member of St. Julie Billiart Parish in North Dartmouth, and also a member of the Residents Encountering Christ prison ministry in the diocese, displays a cross made of two pieces of chain and fastened together into a cross to make a pendant for a necklace.

The crosses help raise funds for various diocesan ministries. (Photo from www.ChainCrossing.com)

on the Paschal Mystery, so Friday night is about dying, Saturday is about rising and Sunday is about Christ coming again into our lives. The talks are focused around those themes.”

This past men’s retreat also had a first for the program — a former inmate as a facilitator of the retreat “and that is the first time in our history where we’ve had a former inmate direct the retreat,” said Deacon Medeiros.

The program currently has two former inmates on team and during Deacon Medeiros’ past 10 years in the program, there’s never been any former inmates on team: “They are just incredibly powerful examples of what can happen when you let your faith be so part of your life, and you practice it,” he said.

“In the back of my head, growing up, I always wanted to be a pen pal to a person who was an inmate — I always had that little leaning there,” said Sister Marianna Sylvester, R.S.M., a member of Our Lady of Assumption Parish in New Bedford who has been involved in prison ministry for the past 18 years. “When I was asked to participate, I was still hesitant. What I discovered and what I had Turn to page 18

Attleboro parish to offer Year of Mercy prayer program

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff kensouza@anchornews.org ATTLEBORO — In honor of the Jubilee Year of Mercy announced by Pope Francis earlier this year, St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Attleboro will initiate a three-hour program of prayer and reparation on First Friday evenings and First Saturday mornings of each month. Catholic faithful throughout the diocese are invited to participate in this monthly First Friday and First Saturday program to fulfill the requests of the Sacred Heart

of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The program will begin on the First Friday evening, December 4, from 9 p.m. to midnight at St. Vincent de Paul Parish, 71 Linden Street in Attleboro. The program will provide the faithful with a solemn and prayerful opportunity to fulfill the requests of Our Lord to make the first nine Fridays in reparation to His Sacred Heart and obtain the 12 promises of His Sacred Heart.

The evening will begin with adoration, meditation on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary, hymns Turn to page 15

Anchor subscription drive kicks off in this edition

By Dave Jolivet Editor davejolivet@anchornews.org FALL RIVER — Anchor readers will notice that there is a subscription envelope insert included with this week’s edition.

As was mentioned in a front-page story in last week’s edition, because of the upcoming parish assessments beginning Jan. 1, 2016, The Anchor will no longer be subsidized by diocesan parishes. While this will put a strain on Anchor resources, the publication is appealing directly to subscribers, instead of going through diocesan parishes.

Current Anchor subscribers are encouraged to renew their subscriptions with this envelope insert.

By doing so, their current subscription will continue when it is scheduled to lapse. That would be a differ-

ent date for various subscribers, depending on when the subscriptions initially began.

There is a section on the insert for new subscribers to begin receiving The Anchor at their residences, and there is also an option for individuals to submit a tax-deductible contribution to keep the 58-year publication in production.

As was also mentioned in last week’s Anchor article, The Anchor, as of Jan. 8, 2016 will become a bi-weekly publication. With the change, The Anchor plans on carrying a much larger local content, concentrating on diocesan events, news stories and features. The paper will also continue to bring readers its fine lineup of local columnists.

The Anchor encourages all subscribers to renew their subscriptions, and to encourage others to become a member of The Anchor family by subscribing for the first time.

2

News From the Vatican

November 20, 2015

Pope Francis to Pro-Life activists: You are the world’s Good Samaritans

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — Pope Francis praised Pro-Life activists as “Good Samaritans” to the most vulnerable, citing their commitment to defending life at all stages and their role in affirming the dignity of women.

Meeting recently with members of Italy’s Pro-Life movement, the pope called on those present “to protect the most vulnerable people, who have the right to be born into life, as well as those who ask for a healthier and more dignified existence,” according to the Vatican Information Service translation.

“There is a need to work at different levels and with perseverance, in the promotion and defense of the family, society’s foremost resource, especially with reference to the gift of children and the affirmation of the dignity of the woman,” he said.

The pontiff ’s remarks came during a private audience with the 510 Pro-Life activists who were taking part in the November 6-8 Congress of the Movement for Life held in Sacrofano, Italy.

During the meeting, the pope affirmed the movement’s work in accepting the most vulnerable, regardless of their creed or nationality.

“The relevant number of women, especially immigrants, who attend your centers show that when women are offered concrete support, in spite of problems and influences, they are able to make the sense of love, life and maternity triumph within them,” he said.

“I encourage you to continue your important work in favor of life from conception until its natural end, also taking into account the conditions of suffering that many brothers and sisters have to face and at times submit to.”

Italy’s Pro-Life movement has gained momentum in recent years. Abortion has been legal in the Mediterranean nation since 1978. More recently, Italy has been confronted with efforts to enact legislation which would allow for euthanasia, beginning with the 2009 killing of young Eluana Englaro.

Pope Francis in his address called for the nurturing of “personal and social sensibility” to the “welcoming of new

life,” as well as towards the poor and the exploited.

Citing his encyclical Laudato Si’, the pope asked, “How can be genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo?”

He stressed the importance of recognizing human life as a gift to be defended, adding that “we must note sadly that there are many people who experience uncomfortable conditions of life, who require our attention and our solidarity.”

Pope Francis went on to laud the Pro-Life workers present at the audience for following the example of the “Good Samaritan” in their efforts to defend the lives and dignity of the most vulnerable.

“Faced with the suffering and need of our defenseless brothers, some turn away or move on, whereas others stop and respond with generous dedication to their cry for help.”

“Before the various forms of threats to human life, you have approached the frailty of others, you have taken action so that in society there may no longer be excluded or marginalized who live in precarious conditions,” he said.

The pontiff drew from the example given by Christ’s disciples, for whom “helping wounded human life meant going towards people in need, putting themselves by their sides, and taking on board their frailty and suffering so as to relieve them.”

“How many families are vulnerable due to poverty, illness, unemployment and homelessness? How many elderly people suffer the burden of suffering and loneliness?

How many young people are lost, threatened by addiction and other forms of slavery, waiting to rediscover trust in life?”

Pope Francis has spoken often in defense of life, such as in a recent address to Catholic legislators who he told to “be strong” against throw-away marked in mart by rejection of the unborn.

Earlier this year, the pontiff released an encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, in which he condemned attacks human life such as abortion, embryonic experimentation and population control.

Pope Francis gestures during lunch with the poor at the Mensa di San Francesco Poverino, a charity center run by Caritas, in Florence, Italy, recently. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano)

Tear down this wall: Holy Year calls for human barriers to tumble down

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — For a Spiritual leader who denounces a world divided by walls, a Church shuttered by cliques and hearts hardened to compassion, opening wide the Holy Door for the Year of Mercy will be a significant and symbolic moment for Pope Francis.

In Catholic tradition, the Holy Door represents the passage to Salvation — the path to a new and eternal life, which was opened to humanity by Jesus.

It also symbolizes an entryway to God’s mercy — the ultimate and supreme act by which He comes to meet people. Mercy is “the bridge that connects God and humanity, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness,” the pope wrote in “Misericordiae Vultus” (“The Face of Mercy”), instituting the Holy Year of Mercy.

Doors have always had a special meaning for the Catholic Church, according to the late Cardinal Virgilio Noe, the former archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica.

“The door of a church marks the divide between the Sacred and profane, separating the church’s interior from the outside world. It is the boundary defining welcome and exclusion,” he wrote in the book, “The Holy Door in St. Peter’s” in 1999.

The door is also a symbol of Mary — the mother, the dwelling of the Lord — and she, too, always has open arms and is ready to welcome the children of God home. Pope Francis is scheduled to open the door December 8, the feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

But the door especially represents Christ Himself — the One and only way to eternal life. As Jesus said, according to the Gospel of John (10:9), “I am the gate.

Whoever enters through Me will be saved, and will come in and go

out and find pasture.”

The Holy Year traditionally begins with the opening of the Holy Door to represent a renewed opportunity to encounter or grow closer to Jesus, Who calls everyone to redemption.

Jesus knocks on everyone’s door; He yearns to accompany and nourish everyone. “If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, then I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with Me,” the book of Revelation quotes Him as saying.

But doors are also narrow, Cardinal Noe wrote, and people must stoop with humility and “be brought down to size by conversion” in order to be “fit” for eternal life.

That is why passing through a Holy Door is part of a longer process of sacrifice and conversion required for receiving an indulgence granted during a Holy Year.

A plenary indulgence, the remission of temporal punishment due to sin, is offered for pilgrims who also fulfill certain other conditions: reception of the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, visits and prayers for the intention of the pope and performing simple acts such as visiting the sick.

This Spiritual process of encounter and conversion is made tangible in the elaborate rituals developed over time for the opening of the Holy Door.

The symbolic ceremony of opening a Holy Door came more than a century after the first Holy Year was proclaimed in 1300.

Pope Martin V, in 1423, opened the Holy Door in the Basilica of St. John Lateran for the first time for a jubilee. Next, Pope Alexander VI called for all four Holy Doors in Rome to be opened at Christmas in 1499 for the Jubilee of 1500.

Starting in the 16th century, the ceremony to open the door

in St. Peter’s Basilica included the pope reciting verses from the psalms and striking the wall covering the Holy Door with a silver hammer three times.

Masons completed the task of dismantling the brick and mortared wall, which represents the difficulty and great effort required to overcome the barrier of sin and to open the path to holiness.

Some have found meaning in the fact that Jesus had five wounds and St. Peter’s Basilica has five doors. Opening the Holy Door recalls the piercing of Jesus’ side from which poured forth blood and water, the source of regeneration for humanity. The Holy Door of St. Peter’s, in fact, is decorated with 16 bronze panels depicting the story of Jesus, in His mercy, seeking His lost sheep.

The symbolism of the hammer in the hands of the pope represents the power and jurisdiction God gives him to cast away the stones of sin, chink open hardened hearts and break down walls separating humanity from God. The removal of the wall also conjures up pulling away the stone that sealed the tomb of Lazarus, whom Jesus resurrected from the dead.

For the closing of the door at the end of the Holy Year, the traditional rite included the pope blessing and spreading the mortar with a special trowel and setting three bricks for the start of a new wall — a symbol of the Spiritual rebuilding of the Lord’s house as well as the ever-present human temptation to put up new barriers against God with sin.

While there have been some changes to those ceremonies over time, the Holy Door is always a reminder that because of God’s mercy, any obstacles can always be removed, and the door to hope and forgiveness is always there waiting.

The International Church

November 20, 2015

People in Paris form a human solidarity chain near the site of the attack at the Bataclan concert hall. (CNS photo/ Pascal Rossignol, Reuters)

Pope calls Paris terrorist attacks part of ‘piecemeal WWIII’

Vatican City (CNA/EWTN News) — day and for their families,” Cardinal André VingtThe acts of terrorism which took place in Paris Trois continued. He also called for prayers for the Friday night are the latest part in what Pope injured, those working to help those affected by Francis has called a “piecemeal World War III,” the crisis, and the nation’s leaders in order that describing the attacks as “inhuman.” they “remain together in unity and peace of heart.”

“There is no justification for these things,” the “We ask for the grace to be artisans of peace. pontiff said in a recent phone interview with TV We must never despair of peace, if you justice,” he 2000, the official broadcasting station for the Ital- said. ian Bishops Conference.

The BBC reports that French president FranSpeaking in response to the November 13 atcois Hollande has called the attacks “an act of tacks, which are the deadliwar” by ISIS. he Holy Father vigorest acts of violence the city The French president has seen since the World declared a nationwide state ously condemns vioWar II, the pope said he is of emergency soon after the lence, which cannot solve any“moved and pained” by what rampage began and closed the thing. He asks God to inspire country’s borders. happened, and expressed his closeness to those affected by thoughts of peace and solidar- Parisians were urged ity in all and to impart on fami- to stay in doors. the tragedy.

“I am close to the people This is the second lies in this trial and on all of the of France, to the families of and deadlier of two French people, the abundance of the victims, and I am praying sieges against Paris His blessings.” for all of them,” he said.

by Islamic terror“These things are hard to ists in 2015. Twelve understand,” he said, adding people were killed that he “loves France very much.” on January 7 when Islamic terrorists At least 128 people are confirmed dead and stormed the headquarters of satirical more than 180 wounded in terrorist attacks which newspaper Charlie Hebdo. targeted bars, restaurants, a concert hall, and a Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal football stadium in the heart of Paris on NovemPietro Parolin, sent a telegram to Cardiber 13. Around 80 people are listed in critical nal Vingt-Trois on behalf of Pope Francondition, according to the BBC. cis, assuring the archbishop of Paris of The deadliest attack came when militants his prayers for those affected by “horrific overtook the Bataclan concert hall, in which at terrorist attacks.” least 82 people were killed, after the terrorists had “The Holy Father vigorously conseized dozens of hostages. demns violence, which cannot solve Eyewitnesses reported hearing the terroranything,” the telegram reads, accordists cry out “Allahu Akbar!” — Arabic for “God is ing to Vatican Radio’s translation of the great!” The terrorists carried out the siege with message which was originally written in suicide bombs and semi-automatic weapons. PoFrench. lice have said all eight attackers are dead.

“He asks God to inspire thoughts of In the wake of the attacks, Paris archbishop peace and solidarity in all and to impart Cardinal André Vingt-Trois in a recent statement on families in this trial and on all of the appealed for the grace to be “artisans of peace.”

French people, the abundance of His He stressed that “we must never despair of peace blessings.” if we are to build justice.

The telegram by saying the pope “Faced with the violence of men,” he said, “we prays that God might “welcome the can receive the grace of a steadfast heart without victims into the peace of His light and hate.” The French prelate called for people to not bring comfort and hope to the ingive in to panic or hatred. jured and their families,” and assured “This morning I pray and I invite the Catholics his “Spiritual closeness” to the French of Paris to pray for those who were killed yesterpeople.

“T

Be sure to visit the newly-designed Diocese of Fall River website at fallriverdiocese.org The site includes links to parishes, diocesan offices and national sites.

3

4

November 20, 2015 The Church in the U.S. As Church demographics shift, Catholics urged to address ‘sin of racism’

NEW ORLEANS (CNS) — A “seismic shift in demographics” in society and the U.S. Catholic Church in the coming decades will create a Church that is far less white, Father Bryan Massingale recently told a New Orleans audience.

The Church will be unprepared to deal with that reality, he continued, unless it addresses “the ongoing struggle for racial equality.”

Father Massingale made the comments in an address to priests, seminarians and other officials of the New Orleans Archdiocese.

The author of “Racial Justice and the Catholic Church” and professor of ethics and theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, the priest said the Church must become “a proactive agent for racial justice” if it is to “remain viable and relevant in the 21st century.”

He said the issues of racism and racial justice are not spoken of frequently by priests because the topics are so sensitive.

“When we get together, there is a tendency for silence,” Father Massingale said. “We don’t dare say anything because we don’t want to say something wrong or make someone upset.

We don’t want to go there.

Most of all, as priests, we want to be liked. Your parish is your family. You don’t want to alienate people. So, you’d rather keep silent than run that risk.”

Just as the topic of sexuality is sensitive, discussions about race “become emotional and visceral.” In his years of teaching a course on racial justice at Marquette, Father Massingale said it’s not uncommon for “students’ eyes to glaze over.

They can’t take any more in.”

“We have to acknowledge those emotions so we’re not paralyzed or overwhelmed by it,” he said.

Acknowledging the issues surrounding race is important for the Church “because our faith gives us no other choice,” Father Massingale said. “Real-

ity gives us no other choice.

We must deal with the signs of the times.”

While the Church now is represented by a mix of 60 percent whites and 40 percent Latino, African-American and other ethnic groups, census figures indicate that by 2043, whites will no longer be the majority race in the U.S., he said.

“We don’t have diversity in the Church,” Father Massingale said. “We are a diverse Church (already). The landscape of the Church and society is being significantly and dramatically altered. If we are going to be Catholic, our future can only be a brown one.

The Church is browning. It’s inexorable.”

Those statistics have “wideranging implications” for the Church’s formation and evangelization programs.

The massacre of nine African-American worshippers in a Charleston, S.C., church is just the most recent reminder of the racial divide in America, he said. There is other “subtle racism” exposed when anonymous comments are posted online in response to news stories involving race and ethnicity, he said.

He showed a news and photo feed from The Associated Press after Hurricane Katrina that showed two pictures of people wading in chest-deep water with supplies. The photo of black individuals identified them as looters; the photo of whites described them as “finding bread and soda from a local grocery store.”

“They were engaged in identical actions at the same time and place,” Father Massingale said. “Neither paid for anything. One was described as ‘looting’ and the other as ‘finding.’ It simply went with what we know about each other. At times of crisis, we respond with what we know.”

The recent, high-profile police shootings of AfricanAmerican men prompted one news commentator to write about a heart-to-heart talk African-American parents need to have with their chil-

dren. “And it’s not about ‘the birds and the bees,’” Father Massingale said.

The story goes on: “This is about you coming home alive.

While we know you are just a child, to some people you are an adult, an adult who is dangerous and guilty of something, even if you’ve done nothing wrong. So, if a policeman stops you for whatever reason, don’t pull out your phone, don’t run, just put your hands up in the air. No, it is not right, and we don’t have the luxury of being right. We just want you home alive.”

Father Massingale said his white seminarian classmates were unconvinced of the reality of racial discrimination until they went with him to a local bar and the bartender refused to take their drink orders.

“You’re not welcome as long as he’s with you,” the bartender said.

“That was when their eyes were opened — when it affected someone they knew and they could enter into that sense of solidarity, that firm, persevering commitment to the common good,” Father Massingale said. “They had never seen it until it affected them through me.”

“Racism is a soul sickness,” he added. “It’s a profound warping of the human spirit that enables us to create or tolerate callousness or indifference toward each other. Racism is a soul sickness that says some lives are worth less than others and some are beyond our concern. We are called to lament, to grieve, to mourn, to be aware, because that’s what leads to racial conversion.”

Catholics can confront the sin of racism in a pastoral way by first recognizing their own “fears, blindness and need for

education, growth and healing,” he said. “But there can’t be fire in the pew if there’s ice in the pulpit.

“We have to be people of deep prayer or else we cannot engage in this work,” he said. “We can only do it with the strength and power of the Gospel.”

There is hope that things can change, Father Massingale said.

“Social life is made by human beings,” he said. “The society we live in is the result of human choices and decisions. This means that human beings can change thing. There is nothing necessary or fated about racial hierarchies or white racial privilege. They are the result of human agency; it does not have to be so. What humans break, divide and separate, we can — with God’s help — heal, unite and restore.”

Archbishop Chaput named as one of new members on synod council

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — The names of the 15 cardinals and bishops chosen to prepare for the next synod were recently announced by the Vatican — one of them being Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia.

The names of the new members of the synod council were announced in a November 14 communique from the Vatican.

The Council for the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops is charged with preparing for the Ordinary Synod, which takes place every three years to discuss a specific theme of importance in the Church.

Serving as an advisory body to the pope, the synod of bishops was established by Pope Paul VI in 1965 by the motu proprio Apostolica sollicitudo to “strengthen (the pope’s) union” with other bishops and to “establish even closer ties” with them.

It consists of a group of bishops from around the world who meet every three years “to foster closer unity between the Roman Pontiff and bishops, to assist the Roman Pontiff with their counsel and to consider questions pertaining to the activity of the Church in the world,” according to canon law.

Ahead of each gathering a

theme is selected by the pope, and the council prepares for the synod according to the topic chosen. The pope can also call an Extraordinary

Synod if he feels that the theme needs further discussion, as was the case with the 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family.

The synod council is composed of a permanent secretary general (Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri) and Undersecretary (Bishop Fabio Fabene), as well as 15 members — three from each continent, with Asia and Oceana (Australia) counted as one — and three appointed by the pope.

Of the 15 members 12 are nominated by the cardinals and bishops at the end of the ordinary synod meeting, and serve a three-year term. Once

their term finishes with the close of the Ordinary Synod, a new council is elected to prepare for the next one.

In addition to Archbishop Chaput, other members elected to prepare for the 2018 synod are: Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, Archbishop of Durban; Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation of Bishops; Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa; Cardinal Christoph Shoenborn, Archbishop of Vienna; Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay; Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Archbishop of Manila; Cardinal George Pell, prefect for the Secretariat of the Economy; Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster; Archbishop Mathieu Madega Lebouakehan of Mouila, Gabon, and Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto.

The three members appointed by Pope Francis himself are: Archbishop Louis Raphael Sako, Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon; Archbishop Carlos Osoro Sierra of Madrid and Archbishop Sergio Da Rocha, Archbishop of Brasilia and president of the Brazilian Episcopal Conference.

5

November 20, 2015

Bishops, in draft statement, call pornography ‘mortal sin’

WASHINGTON (CNS) — A draft statement on pornography that was considered for approval by the U.S. bishops at their November 16-19 fall general meeting in Baltimore calls pornography “mortal sin” and urges Catholics to turn away from it.

“Producing or using pornography is a mortal sin that needs to be confessed in order for the person to receive God’s forgiveness,” says the draft version of “Create in Me a Clean Heart: A Pastoral Response to Pornography.”

“Those who produce and distribute pornography harm the common good by encouraging and even causing others to sin,” it says.

The proposed statement, prepared by the bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, adds, “There are many victims of pornography. ... All child pornography is automatically trafficking and a crime, because it involves the sexual exploitation of a minor for commercial gain and it is against the child’s will due to the inability to give consent.”

It noted, “Many people struggle with pornography use, including faithful Catholics, people of faith, people of no faith, married and single people, fathers and mothers, the young and the old, clergy and those in consecrated life.”

The proposed statement, being introduced on the first day of the meeting, requires two-thirds approval by bishops to be accepted.

Using the penitential Psalm 51 for both the title and as a recurring motif throughout the proposed statement, it says in its introduction, “We have seen the corrosive damage caused by pornography: children whose innocence is stolen; men and women who feel great guilt and shame for viewing pornography occasionally or habitually; spouses who feel betrayed and traumatized; and men, women and children exploited by the pornography industry.”

Although U.S. courts have had difficulty in defining pornography, the proposed statement borrows from the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” to define it: “removing real or simulated sexual acts form the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties.’

“It encompasses what is sometimes distinguished as

‘soft-’ and ‘hard-core’ pornography,” the proposed statement adds. “This is an artificial divide; all pornography is harmful and wrong, while the effects on a person may vary on the intensity of the content.

Pornography is not art.”

It says, “Pornography can never be justified, even within Marriage.”

The proposed statement also links pornography to other sins, “especially masturbation.

Masturbation, which is deliberate, erotic stimulation often to the point of orgasm, commonly occurs together with pornography use. While our culture largely sees it as acceptable, masturbation is always gravely contrary to chastity and the dignity of one’s body.”

It noted pornography’s pervasiveness: “Erotic, oversexualized, and pornographic images are more present in American society than ever before.

Mainstream entertainment itself has become hypersexualized. Novels that at one time would have been classified as ‘erotica’ are mainstream, to say nothing of the overtly sexual romance novel genre.”

The proposed statement calls pornography “an industry of sin. Pornography is a big business. Estimates of revenue stretch easily into the billions of dollars every year. The pornography industry is aggressive, savvy and regulated only sporadically,” it said. “Other business, such as hotel chains, cable companies and drugstores, profit greatly from the widespread use of pornography and contribute to its accessibility.”

That pervasiveness leads to negative effects on people and society, according to the proposed statement.

“Men are particularly susceptible to pornography because the male brain is strongly drawn to sexual images, a kind of ‘visual magnetism’ aggressively exploited by the pornography industry,” it says, adding it can lead to addiction.

Women “use pornography for similar reasons as men,” it says, and are told wrongly that “using pornography is liberating for them.”

“Viewing pornography, usually combined with masturbation, directly affects the brain’s reward pathways and has been noted to have a similar effect on the brain as cocaine does on a person with a drug addiction or as alcohol on a person

with an alcohol addiction,” it says. “The moral culpability of an addicted person may be lessened depending on the circumstances, but the situation is particularly grave.”

Pornography filters down to younger people, accounting for the rise of “sexting,” sexually explicit text messages “associated with other risky sexual behaviors,” the proposed statement says, including “greater risk of getting pregnant as a teen-ager — or impregnating someone — or contracting an STI,” a sexually-transmitted infection.

In one section of the 35-page text, those who use pornography are urged to turn away from it and to recommit their lives to Christ.

To those who produce pornography, the proposed statement says, “The Lord, in His

great mercy and justice, is calling you to turn away from your sins and follow Him,” adding, “If you are also — or have been — engaged in criminal exploitation, we urge you to report your action and to hand yourself over to civil authorities. God can use your previous mistakes to help others.”

It tells men and women who use pornography to “ask for forgiveness. Many good people struggle with this sin. You are not alone; there is always hope!

Freedom from pornography is a daily choice and calls for ongoing formation.”

The proposed statement advises those harmed by their spouse’s pornography use to “seek solace in prayer, in receiving the Sacraments, and in Eucharistic Adoration.”

While “anger at your spouse is

natural and often justified,” it makes a suggestion to “set clear boundaries if possible, such as installing an online monitoring program, clearing the home of any pornography, taking care of your own health, and refusing to be used as an excuse for your spouse’s pornography use.”

It says a webpage of the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, www. usccb.org, will include updated resources, including a list of support groups for those battling an addiction to pornography, educational resources about its harmful effects and guidance for families and whose who work with children to protect youngsters from pornography.

The bishops approved the drafting of the statement in 2013.

U.S. bishops meet with president

Washington D.C. (CNA) — Leading Catholic bishops recently met with President Barack Obama at the White House and discussed a number of issues including religious liberty, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops confirmed.

“The bishops are grateful for this opportunity for candid, cordial dialogue with the president and vice president of the United States,” the conference said in a written statement after the meeting.

The conversation “continued the good will evident during the visit of Pope Francis,” the statement added.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, the president of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference; and Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. attended the meeting in the Oval Office, joined by Msgr. Ronny Jenkins, the general secretary of the conference. They met with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Among the issues discussed

were religious liberty, the refugee crisis in Syria and the Middle East, religious persecution, immigration reform, and prison reform, the U.S. bishops’ conference said.

The White House confirmed that the meeting was held “to follow up on Pope Francis’ visit to the White House earlier this fall.”

Press secretary Josh Earnest noted in the White House daily press briefing that “it was the president’s intent” to talk about “the wide range of areas where there is common ground” with the “priorities” of both parties.

“Those priorities include things like climate change, immigration reform, certainly our diplomatic efforts in Iran and Cuba,” Earnest noted.

“Broader issues related to social justice are priorities of the Catholic Church and are priorities shared by the administration.”

The meeting came just days after the Supreme Court decided to hear multiple chal-

lenges to the administration’s contraception mandate, including one by the Archdiocese of Washington and an appeal by the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Pope Francis visited the White House and met with President Obama on September 23 during his visit to the U.S. In an address to the president and a crowd of 20,000 on the White House lawn, he insisted that religious freedom “remains one of America’s most precious possessions.” He also stressed the “urgency” of responding to climate change and recognized the administration’s effort to fight air pollution.

He also made an unscheduled visit of support to the Little Sisters of the Poor home in Washington, D.C. later that day at their Jeanne Jugan Residence. “This is a sign, obviously, of support for them” in their court case, the director of the Holy See Press Office Father Federico Lombardi confirmed in a press conference that evening.

6

November 20, 2015

Anchor Editorial

We need your help

As you may have read in last week’s Anchor and on this week’s front page, we are in need of your help to continue being a source of news and commentary for the people of our diocese (and for people around the nation and the world). We are grateful for the generosity of the parishes that have supported us for more than half a century, helping us to spread the Good News of how the Gospel was being lived out in this corner of Our Lord’s vineyard.

Pope Leo XIII in an 1899 encyclical, Paternae, wrote, “It is also our desire, as we have already told you, that effort should be devoted to publishing and distributing Catholic newspapers since at the present time the people form their opinions and draw their moral guidelines from no other source than from the daily reading of [secular] newspapers.” Although nowadays many people form their opinions without the assistance of any newspaper, they do form them apart from any Catholic influence. The Anchor’s presence, in print and online, helps to offer a different voice, trying to imitate St. John the Baptist, who rejoiced to be a “voice” echoing the “Word” ( Jesus).

Pope Leo offered a challenge: “The style of your newspapers should be sharpened and the literary expression aroused so that frivolity may give way to truth and the minds of men may gradually follow the voice of right reason.” We believe that we seek to meet this challenge in each edition of the paper, as we look to see what we can improve so that Christ’s message can touch people’s hearts.

One hundred years later, in 1999, St. John Paul II told Italian Catholic journalists, “The tradition of Catholic journalism in Italy has had indisputable importance in the formation of generations of believers enlivened by sincere faith. How many journalists have left a deep mark and how many others continue to work with a spirit of sacrifice and skill in the ‘media’ sector!’” What he said about the situation in Italy is also true here. The Anchor has helped to form believers in the faith, thanks to the sacrifices of the lay people who have put their skills at the service of the Gospel.

Five years later, in 2004, the Polish pontiff told a similar group of Italian Catholic reporters and editors, “Diocesan weeklies effectively help to spread in families, parishes and cities the Christian values that account for a large part of the Spiritual heritage of the Italian people. I am thinking in particular of the protection of every dimension of human life, as well as of Marriage and the family, which a misunderstood culture of ‘personal rights’ is tending to distort, and lastly, of the values of truth, justice and solidarity.” Again, one can apply the Italian example to our own here in Massachusetts. Our news stories and commentaries help to show how our teachings are being lived out and they challenge us to further Spiritual growth.

St. John Paul offered some words that ring true as we head towards Thanksgiving: “Dear brothers and sisters, thank you for your service that, with your journalistic articles, contributes to the building of the ‘civilization of love.’ In this age of global communications, your mission is becoming more and more difficult. Do not lose heart, dear friends, because of the difficulties you encounter. Conscientiously persevere in preaching the Gospel of truth and hope from the special ‘pulpits’ of your diocesan weeklies, remaining ever open to the wide horizons of the Universal Church.”

Our employees are doing their best to do this. How can you help?

First of all, you can renew your subscriptions early, which will give an inflow of cash to help The Anchor through the initial transition away from the subsidies.

When you think of it, what publication can you receive for less than a dollar an issue with so much news and commentaries? It truly is a bargain.

“Christmas is coming,” as the stores tell us. A great gift would be a subscription to The Anchor. You could give it to friends or relatives — maybe it would be a good idea to send it to someone whom you think is in need of a boost in their Catholic reading (so as to help them understand better what our faith is all about). Or maybe you could send a subscription to someone who grew up here in the diocese but now lives somewhere else (thus giving them a little taste of home). Another idea would be to call your parish and see if they have someone who cannot afford to buy a subscription and then pay for it yourself as an anonymous donor. We know Jesus likes that form of charity.

Another way to help would be to purchase advertising in the paper. If you own your own company, please consider doing so. If you are an employee, please consider speaking to the boss about this. As a parishioner you could also offer to your pastor that you would purchase an ad on behalf of your parish for various events that need publicizing.

A fourth thing you could do would be to make a donation to The Anchor. We keep the subscription rates low so that most people can afford to buy the paper, but we truly are in need of much more money to keep it going. Donations to the paper, a non-profit institution, are tax deductible. As we come to the end of the year, we are mindful of the need to make donations in time for them to count on our 2015 taxes.

Thank you for your support of The Anchor and its staff. Please keep us in your prayers and pray to see how you can collaborate with us in spreading the Good News.

Pope Francis’ Angelus message of November 15 The Gospel of this penultimate Sunday of the Liturgical year offers a part of Jesus’ discourse on the coming final events of human history, geared towards the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God (cf. Mk 13:24-32). It’s a speech that Jesus made in Jerusalem before His last Passover. It contains some apocalyptic elements, such as wars, famines, cosmic catastrophes, “The sun will be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken” (vv. 24-25).

However, these elements are not the essential thing of the message.

The central nucleus around which

the speech of Jesus rotates is Himself, the mystery of His Person and of His death and Resurrection, and His return at the end of time.

Our final goal is the encounter with the Risen Lord. And I would ask, how many of you think about this? There will be a day when I will meet face-to-face the Lord. And this is our goal: this encounter. We do not await a time or a place, but we go out to encounter a Person: Jesus.

Therefore, the problem is not “when” will happen the warning signs of the end times, but to be found ready at the meeting. And it is not even to know “how” these things will happen, but “how” we must act now, OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER

www.anchornews.org

Vol. 59, No. 44

Member: Catholic Press Association, Catholic News Service Published weekly except for two weeks in the summer and the week after Christmas by the Catholic Press of the Diocese of Fall River, 887 Highland Avenue, Fall River, MA 02720, Telephone 508-675-7151 — FAX 508-675-7048, email: theanchor@anchornews.org.

Subscription price by mail, postpaid $20.00 per year, for U.S. addresses.

Send address changes to P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA, call or use email address

PUBLISHER - Most Reverend Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V. EXECUTIVE EDITOR Father Richard D. Wilson fatherwilson@anchornews.org EDITOR David B. Jolivet davejolivet@anchornews.org OFFICE MANAGER Mary Chase marychase@anchornews.org ADVERTISING Wayne R. Powers waynepowers@anchornews.org REPORTER Kenneth J. Souza k ensouza@anchornews.org REPORTER Rebecca Aubut beckyaubut@anchornews.org Send Letters to the Editor to: fatherwilson@anchornews.org

PoStmaSters send address changes to The Anchor, P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA 02722.

THE ANCHOR (USPS-545-020) Periodical Postage Paid at Fall River, Mass.

waiting for them. We are called to live the present, building our future with serenity and trust in God. The parable of the fig tree that sprouts, as a sign of summer drawing near (cf. vv. 28-29), tells us that the prospect of the end does not distract us from the present life, but it makes us look to our days in a perspective of hope. And that virtue so difficult to live: hope, the smallest of the virtues, but the strongest. And our hope has a face: the Face of the Risen Lord, Who comes “with great power and glory” (v. 26), which shows His crucified love transfigured in Resurrection. The triumph of Jesus at the end of time will be the triumph of the cross, the proof that the sacrifice of oneself for love of neighbor, in imitation of Christ, is the only victorious power and the only fixed point in the midst of upheavals and tragedies of the world.

The Lord Jesus is not only the culmination of the earthly pilgrimage, but He is a constant presence in our lives: He is always next to us, always with us; thus, when He speaks of the future, and propels us towards it, it is always to lead us back to the present. He stands against false prophets, the visionaries that say that the end of the world is near, and against fatalism. He is next to us, walks with us, He loves us. He wants to remove from His disciples of every age any curiosity about dates,

forecasts, horoscopes, and He focuses our attention on today’s story.

I would want to ask you — but do not answer, each answer internally — how many of you read the daily horoscope? Everyone respond. And when you feel the desire to read the horoscope, look to Jesus, Who is with you. He is better, He does better for you. This presence of Jesus calls us to waiting and vigilance, which exclude impatience as well as drowsiness, both the leaps forward as well as remaining imprisoned in the present time and in worldliness.

Even to this day there is no shortage of natural and moral disasters and adversity and hardships of all kinds. Everything passes — the Lord reminds us; only He, His Word remains as a guiding light, reviving our steps and always forgiving us, because He is next to us.

You need only look at Him and He changes our heart. May the Virgin Mary help us to trust in Jesus, the solid foundation of our lives, and to persevere with joy in His love.

I wish to express my sorrow for the terrorist attacks that bloodied France, causing many casualties. To the president of the French Republic and all its citizens I extend the expression of my fraternal condolences. I am close in particular to the families of those who lost their lives and those injured.

Such barbarity leaves us shocked

and we wonder how the human heart can conceive and create such horrible events, which have shaken not only France but the whole world. Faced with such acts, one cannot help but condemn this unspeakable affront to human dignity.

I want to reaffirm strongly that the path of violence and hatred does not solve the problems of humanity and that using God’s Name to justify this way is blasphemy!

I invite you to join me in prayer: we entrust to the mercy of God the helpless victims of this tragedy.

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy, inspire in the hearts of all thoughts of wisdom and resolutions for peace. We ask her to protect and watch over the beloved French nation, the eldest daughter of the Church, over Europe and the whole world. Let us all pray together in a moment of silence and then recite the Hail Mary.

Yesterday, in Três Pontas, in the State of Minas Gerais in Brazil, Don Francisco de Paula Victor, a Brazilian priest of African descent, the son of a slave, was beatified. A generous pastor, zealous in catechesis and in the administration of the Sacraments, he especially distinguished himself by his great humility. May his extraordinary testimony be a model for many priests, called to be humble servants of the people of God.

November 20, 2015

L

ast week I was asked by a 25-year-old coworker whether I was intending to see “Spotlight,” the movie detailing The Boston Globe’s investigative team’s month’s long Pulitzer-prize winning examination of the clergy sexual abuse of minors in the Archdiocese of Boston. She wanted to see the movie’s portrayal of the Church but worried whether doing so might be subsidizing antiCatholicism.

I was planning to go to see the movie, I told her, so that I might be able to respond to the various questions I was being asked by those who had already seen it as well as out of a sense of witness and reparation. When she asked me to elaborate about the latter, I said that I thought it would be important for movie-goers to see a priest to convey that the Church isn’t in denial about the evils committed and also to give them an opportunity to focus their anger if they should choose.

“You’re going to go dressed as a priest?” she exclaimed, evidently worried about my safety. I replied that for a priest, clerical garb is like a wedding ring for married people, an external sign of Sacramental identity, and that I had no desire to go undercover. Since 2002, I told her, I had gotten used to the occasional opprobrium, unprovoked insults, and, on a few occasions, spittle that have come to priests as a result of the abominations of some of our brothers, but that it’s important for priests to be able to take that suffering as co-redeemers with Christ, offering whatever comes up for victims and for the Church.

“Well, can I at least come with you?” she protectively asked. I told her that that last thing that people needed was to see a priest accompanied by an attractive young woman to a movie on Saturday night!

So alone I went to see “Spotlight,” plopping down $15, the going rate for movies in Manhattan. I was

Anchor Columnist Saturday night reparation

7

surprised to see the rather multiple references to how to light with regard to the legacy, that since 2002, large theater half-full for a the Globe had failed to treat Church’s obviously inthe Church in the U.S. has 6 p.m. showing and, alwith requisite seriousness adequate response to the gotten its act together in though no one should be the situation of the clerisexual abuse of minors. removing abusive priests startled to see young peocal sexual abuse of minors While the Church ought to hastily, initiating investigaple at a movie on a Saturafter a victim and a victim’s be treated by the same legal tions, caring for victims, day night, I was somewhat attorney had given substandard as all other instiand ensuring safe environshocked that many older stantial information to the tutions, I want it to be held ments. teens and young adults had newspaper in the 90s. to a higher moral standard.

As I was leaving the chosen to come to a movie It was neverthetheater, three boys on the about journalists less noteworthy escalator, juniors or seniors covering clergy for “Spotlight” to in high school, spotted me sex abuse when show the Globe’s and waited at the bottom Putting Into there were 15 other own learning curve for me to approach. I emothe Deep theaters simultaneon the issue, which tionally braced myself for ously showing more contextualizes the what they might say. With

By Father traditional Hollylearning curve of a thick New York accent, Roger J. Landry wood fare. leaders in the Arch- one asked something that I anticipated that diocese of Boston. surprised me: “Was all of “Spotlight” would There were a that true, Father?” be a rather one-sided porDavid F. Pierre’s imcouple of things I didn’t “While it obviously left trayal pitting saintly scribes portant book, “Sins of the appreciate. many parts of the story against corrupt ChurchPress: The Untold Story of I didn’t like the fact that out, both good and bad,” I men. But it was far from The Boston Globe’s Report“Spotlight” treated Richreplied, “yes, the movie is, a caricature. And there ing on Sex Abuse in the ard Sipe as a sage advisor sadly, substantially true.” were also many instances Catholic Church,” adds behind a telephonic curtain They paused for a few of gratuitous fairness and many more details in fair and uncritically presented seconds to digest the inforbalance. criticism of the Globe’s gen- as fact his biased research mation.

It introduced Cardinal eral coverage of sex abuse: on priestly celibacy — acThen one of them said Law not as a villain but as the double-standard in the cusing 50 percent of being to me with tender sincera civil rights hero willway the newspaper covunfaithful, and sinking to ity, “Thanks, Father,” and ing to suffer as a young ered the Church versus sex link celibacy to abuse — al- shook my hand. The other Catholic newspaper ediabuse in public schools; an though the movie did men- two, looking me in the eye, tor for his defense of the advice columnist’s repeated, tion twice that he had left did likewise. dignity and rights of black non-judgmental words the priesthood to marry a They didn’t state why Americans and someone about sex between teachers religious Sister and was not they were thanking me, but whose words after 9/11 and high school students; a dispassionate observer. it seemed to be more than drew rapt attention and its praise for the psychoI also thought the for just answering their positive reviews from the logical treatment of abusive movie’s final word was question.

Globe newsroom. priests that it would later inadequate: after menIt was for me a sign of The movie also went castigate; its praise of a tioning Cardinal Law’s hope that even after they out of its way to portray Boston street priest and his resignation and running a had spent two hours bethe Church positively on renegade ideas on sexuality lengthy scroll of all of the ing exposed to the worst of various occasions when it who later turned out to be dioceses in the world with ecclesiastical filth, they still didn’t have to: showing a a serial abuser; its positive abuse allegations against grasped that the Church packed Church rather than presentation of the founits priests — most, to some and the priesthood canan empty one; a young, dation of NAMBLA; its degree, coming to light not be defined by those enthusiastic priest rather encomia for several other only after the “Spotlight” who fail to practice what than someone tired and child molesters, like Roreport revealed systemic in- the Church preaches and old; the piety of a faithful man Polanski, even after adequacies in the Church’s Christ commanded. grandmother and the lively proven allegations of abuse. vigilance of clergy and Anchor columnist participation of children; None of Pierre’s criticare for victims — it could Father Landry can be the love of the Church and cism, however, invalidates have easily mentioned ancontacted at fatherlandry@ her good name on the part the facts the Globe brought other part of “Spotlight’s” catholicpreaching.com. of Catholic police officers, lawyers, businessmen and Paris violence won’t alter Church others; and a vibrant apoutreach to refugees, USCCB head says preciation of the charitable work of the Church. contribute.”

BALTIMORE (CNS) — of the U.S. Conference of It clearly showed the Archbishop Kurtz exCatholic Bishops, told reportChurch resettlement provirtues and the flaws of plained that any assistance ers November 16 during a grams in the United States two of the victims’ attorprovided to refugees and will continue to aid refugees midday break at the bishops’ immigrants is carried out who are fleeing violence and annual fall general assembly. neys, revealing the volaunder government contracts “We at the United States social ills despite calls that tility and evident human and that the vetting of the country’s borders should Conference of Cathoweaknesses of one and the newcomers will have been lic Bishops and Catholic slick complicity of another, be closed to anyone but Charities, we are always Christians. completed by government and didn’t hide the fact open to helping families The Church’s response is agencies long before Church that they receive a third who come into the United focused on people in need agencies become involved. of whatever the victims States in need of help,” he of food, shelter and safety “Our efforts are going to be receive in settlements. said at a news conference. and not their particular faith, to reach out to people and The movie even featured, “We have that tradition of Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz to serve them,” the archas a subtext of the drama, doing it and we’re going to of Louisville, Ky., president bishop said.

8

T

his weekend the Church celebrates the feast of the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe formerly referred to as “Christ the King.” Most of us Americans have a difficult time understanding this feast since we have not had a king in more than 200 years. Most Americans look at the monarchy as either a dictatorship or a figurehead.

To better understand this feast we need to look at why it was established.

In 1925 Pope Pius XI established this feast shortly after World War I. He instituted it as an antidote to secularism, a way of life which leaves God out of man’s thinking and living. If man did believe in God, and many at the time did not — even among the Christian

November 20, 2015

Christ our King

nations, He was placed “on ter a brief discussion Jesus answers, “My Kingdom the back burner.” does not belong to this The idea of the Kingworld. You say that I am a ship of Christ was not King. For this was I born.” new, if we look at the What is meant when reading where the prophet Daniel tells of his vision whereby he sees “one like a Son Homily of the Week of Man coming Feast of on the clouds of Christ the King Heaven, receiving

By Deacon dominion, glory Paul J. Macedo and kingship (over) all peoples, nations, and languages.”

The second reading from Jesus says that His Kingthe book of Revelation dom is not of this world? tells us that “Jesus Christ We must realize that is the Faithful Witness, His Kingdom is never in the Firstborn of the dead competition with other and Ruler of the kings on earthly powers who rule, earth.” Even in Psalm 93 because His rule is eswe hear that “the Lord is sentially above them. For King.” In the Gospel we His Kingdom, as Vatican have Jesus being quesII said, is one of truth tioned by Pilate: “Pilate and justice, of love and said to Jesus, ‘Are you the mercy. If we are to enjoy King of the Jews?’” and afHis Kingdom on earth,

as we hear in the “Our Father” — “Thy Kingdom come … on earth as it is in Heaven,” we must practice these qualities. Truth and justice should be part of our lives, love and mercy should come automatically.

Today’s Mass establishes the titles for Christ’s royalty over men. Christ is God, therefore the Creator of the universe and thus has supreme power over all things. Christ is our Redeemer, by dying on the cross and rising from the dead, He opened the gates of Heaven for you and for me and for all mankind.

Christ is also the Head of the Church. Since we are the Church, Christ should be our head.

In today’s society how much has changed since

1925? If we look around us, we see fewer and fewer people practicing their religion, we see where human life itself has lost its value by allowing abortions and assisted suicide. Our media tempts us to make earthly pleasure the goal of our life. We are told that we are number one, then after us, God and our neighbor.

Today’s feast reminds us that we need to put God “on the front burner,” to make God the center of our life, to love Him with our whole body and soul and to love our neighbor as our self. When we do this, we will obtain true inner peace and one day will hear the words “come into my Kingdom” for all eternity.

Deacon Macedo is assigned to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in

New Bedford.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Nov. 21, 1 Mc 6:1-13; Ps 9:2-4,6,16,19; Lk 20:27-40. Sun. Nov. 22, Feast of Christ the King, Dn 7:13-14; Ps 93:1-2,5; Rv 1:5-8; Jn 18:33b-37. Mon. Nov. 23, Dn 1:1-6,8-20; (Ps) Dn 3:52-56; Lk 21:1-4. Tues. Nov. 24, Dn 2:31-45; (Ps) Dn 3:57-61; Lk 21:5-11. Wed. Nov. 25, Dn 5:1-6,13-14,16-17,23-28; (Ps) Dn 3:62-67; Lk 21:12-19. Thurs. Nov. 26, Dn 6:12-28; (Ps) Dn 3:68-74; Lk 21:20-28. Fri. Nov. 27, Dn 7:2-14; (Ps) Dn 3:75-81; Lk 21:29-33.

W

alking through the narrow, winding streets of Jerusalem’s Old City on my first visit here in 15 years, I was powerfully struck once again by the grittiness of Christianity, the palpable connection between the faith and the quotidian realities of life.

For here, as in no other place, the believer, the skeptic, and the “searcher” are confronted with a fact: Christianity began, not with a pious story or “narrative,” but with the reality of transformed lives. Real things happened to real people at real places in real time — and the transformation wrought in those real people by those “real things” transformed the world.

The most transformative of those “real things” was the encounter with the Risen Lord Jesus, the One those real people had first known in this real place as the young rabbi Jesus from Nazareth. That encounter, and the radical transformation of lives that to which it led, remains, today, the greatest “proof ” of the Resurrection. For

The grittiness of Christian faith to ancient tradition, the events how else would a ragtag bunch that changed the world and the of men and women from the cosmos took place — Calvary bleachers of civilization have and the Empty Tomb. And found the commitment and the basilica itself is the very courage to go out and change embodiment of grittiness, for the world, had not something utterly unprecedented happened to them: something that shattered the boundaries of their expectations of the possible; something that demanded to be shared?

By George Weigel All that happened, just as the pre-Passion ministry of Jesus happened, amidst the daily there is no aesthetically pleasgive-and-take of life in the ing symmetry here, but rather bazaar that the Middle East was, is, and probably always will a hodgepodge of architectural and decorative styles, rangbe. There’s nothing etherealing from classic Byzantine to Gothic about Jerusalem’s Old delirious-modern-Italian.

City or its Christian focal Yet none of that matters, repoint, the Basilica of the Holy ally. For if the Son of God came Sepulcher: it’s all grit all the way down, as you walk past stall into the world, not to fetch us out of our humanity but to after stall of souvenir and curio redeem and glorify us in it, then stalls, their sameness broken the places most closely associatby the occasional spice shop ed with the Redemption should with its distinctive aromas of reflect the grubby diversity of cinnamon and cloves, en route the human condition. And so to the places where, according

The Catholic Difference

it is here, as pilgrims from all over the world hustle, bustle, and jostle their way toward the Twelfth Station, the site of the crucifixion, and the Aedicule that surrounds the Empty Tomb. The distractions don’t distract, though; the Twelfth Station remains the easiest place in the world to pray, in Brother Lawrence’s sense of prayer as “practicing the presence.”

Today, when the basic institutions of civilization are being deconstructed in the name of personal willfulness and “autonomy,” the Old City of Jerusalem is a powerful reminder that there are Things As They Are, and that the road to human happiness (which the Gospels call “beatitude”) lies through, not around, those givens in the human condition.

At a parallel moment in history, when the newly-recognized Christian Church was threatened by a Gnostic heresy that denied the goodness of creation

and imagined the Spiritual life to be an escape from grittiness, the Dowager Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, came here to find the True Cross — the hard, tangible fact of the Redemption; the emblem of Christianity’s utter groundedness in reality. What you find in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in 2015 has little to do with what Helena found here, in the sense that what you see here hasn’t much to do with what she saw here; it takes an extraordinary act of imagination to conjure up Golgotha and the rocky tomb in today’s ramshackle church.

But the basilica is here because she came here and became a special witness to the fact that Christianity begins — and continues — with lives transformed by an encounter with the Risen One, Who makes all things new.

And that makes all the difference.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

November 20, 2015

Monday 16 November 2015 — Port-O-Call: Plymouth Harbor — Vatican issues universal catechism (1992) turned the key in the lock of room No. 111 and entered. I had arrived at Miramar Retreat Center for the annual diocesan priests’ retreat.

You know me, dear readers.

I notice everything. My room was simple and neat. The walls were beige; the carpet, a darker shade of blue. The bedspread featured tropical palm trees on one side and generic stripes on the other. There was a desk and a blue upholstered reclining chair, with a pewtercolored floor lamp beside it.

There was a large window (with beige drapes) overlooking the beautifully landscaped grounds, but the shrubbery blocked the view. No matter.

There was a framed painting of a lighthouse on the wall. Of all the pictures in all the world, this one showed the Falmouth lighthouse (Nobska). I live in Falmouth. The picture was either a strange coincidence or the retreat house staff was exceedingly attuned to being hospitable. I immediately felt at home.

I spied on the desk a small booklet. “What’s this?” I asked

I

W

e are beginning to enter into a time of hurriedness, a time when all of a sudden we realize that we are knee deep into the holidays and drowning fast. Yet Thanksgiving begs us to slow down, to give thanks for all the blessings in our lives, to look around and truly appreciate all that is important to us.

Next week many of us will gather with family and friends, to enjoy some fellowship and give thanks. This is the time of year in which we are asked to reflect on all that we have accomplished, and to be grateful for the bounty of our harvest.

We are asked to share this bounty with others, and so we open our homes and hearts to those we love and care for, coming together in celebration of all that is good in our lives.

At this time, we must also keep in mind that so many will not enjoy good company, will go without, and feel as if they have very little to be thankful for. You and I cannot help everyone who is in need or alone at this time, but we can help someone we know.

Anchor Columnists Prayer and meditation for dummies less thoughts always buzzing myself, and began to thumb around in our brain. In order through it. It contained the to prepare for prayer, one has usual information: names and telephone numbers of the staff, to let go of these.

Repetitive methods were housekeeping details, times of stressed in the booklet — a meals, checkout time, location of the main office, instructions word or phrase that calms the mind and eliminates the in the case of emergency, etc.

Unlike booklets in hotel rooms self-talk. Awareness of one’s breathing enhances the exeraround the globe, this one also contained basic instructions on how to pray.

The Ship’s Log There were one-line Reflections of a Bible quotes, pithy Parish Priest sayings of Spiritual masters, and a list of

By Father Tim “symptoms” that your Goldrick mind and heart were ready to enter into cise of repetition, it said. Some prayer. Then, on page 14, it call this a mantra. You begin by began what I call “prayer and speaking the mantra out loud, meditation for dummies.” following the rhythm of your It was a simple list of tradinatural inhalation and exhalational Spiritual methods used tion. Then you move on to throughout the centuries — expressing the mantra interjust a paragraph or two on nally. Finally, you pray your each. “Why do I need this?” I asked myself. “I am a seasoned mantra in your heart, without any words at all. priest. I am no dummy to the The Eastern Catholic Spiritual life. Humph.”

Church favors the “Jesus The list began with classic Prayer” for a mantra: “Jesus, Spiritual techniques used to prepare for prayer. It suggested Son of David, have mercy on clearing one’s mind of the clut- me, a sinner” (or something similar). Another example of ter of constant self-talk. From repetitive prayer is the uniour earliest childhood, there versally known Rosary. What are unspoken words and end-

is called “Centering Prayer” is also quite popular these days.

The goal is awareness of the presence of God in the moment, in the here and now.

Some call this “mindfulness.”

Once attained, you have arrived (as T. S. Elliot says) at the still point of the turning world. You are ready to be with God; to enter contemplative prayer. Pick one that works for you.

You might choose a well-known prayer (a single “Our Father” for example) — and take a whole hour to pray it.

You can just “be” in the presence of God, without word (spoken or unspoken), without thoughts, without feelings. Just be. Simply bask in the Divine Light. It’s called contemplation. It’s really not as esoteric as it sounds.

One method culminating in contemplative prayer is “Lectio Divina.” I was trained in this method during my early seminary days. Lectio Divina literally translates as “Spiritual reading,” but that’s not the half of it. For your text, you might use the Bible, but “Lectio Divina” is not Bible study.

You might instead use some Spiritual classic. I stayed with

Give me a grateful heart

“Give Thanks with a Grateful Is there an elderly neighbor Heart” by Henry Smith. This whose family lives far away song begs us to look at life with or has no one left? Is there a a “grateful heart” which allows friend or co-worker who has us to see the world and everynowhere to go and may face one around us through the lens the holiday alone? Is there of love. To see each other and someone who has suffered a all of God’s creation as truly loss and feels that the holiday really does not matter or there is nothing left to be thankful for?

We may not be able to change the world, but we can make it

By Rose Mary a little less lonely for someone near, we can Saraiva change their immediate world.

When we reach out a gift, and to understand that to others, when we go outside so many blessings come into our comfort zone to help anour lives on a daily basis, even other, what we gain can never when darkness has set in. be measured. It is the small Another is “Thankful” by acts of kindness and compasJosh Groban, he too dares us to sion that we know can never be repaid that yield the biggest look beyond ourselves and “see the joy that surrounds us.” We bounties; it is these gestures are reminded in the song that that warm our hearts, giving “even though the world needs us the strength and courage to so much more, there is so much go on when we ourselves feel to be grateful for.” The events burdened or alone. of this past week, reminds us of There are a couple of songs how true these words are, but that always come to mind yet with all that is so tragiduring this time of year, one is

In the Palm of His Hands

cally wrong around us, there is so much beauty and blessing.

Even though there is so much sadness around the events that have transpired, we can be grateful for all those who responded, who dared to risk it all for the love of neighbor, who put themselves aside to help another.

Their unselfish response has made a difference to all those affected, both near and far. It is the big and small; the noticed and unnoticed acts of caring and compassion that we need to give thanks for.

Both of these songs challenge us to see beyond ourselves, to see beyond the darkness and uncertainties of life and to live with joy and love, even in the midst of turmoil and difficulty. Even our prayer life needs to reflect a change of heart. Recently I heard a homilist speak of prayer and how we approach our prayer life. Many of us have a list of those we remember in prayer, often forgetting our own needs,

9 “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas a Kempis for a year.

First you read (lectio) and then you ponder (oratio) a phrase or word that catches your attention; you pray over it. Then comes meditatio. You visualize (St. Ignatius was big on imagining yourself present in Gospel scenes). Lastly, you let all of that go and rest in God (contemplatio).

This booklet put it all together in words even a dummy could understand. Thomas Merton wrote, “Let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life!” Really?

It was already dark. I reached to turn on the floor lamp. Oh dear. The little plastic knob was missing. The metal stem was there, but no knob. I crawled around in the darkness on my hands and knees, feeling under the furniture. It was a sight to behold. I couldn’t find the knob.

I bumbled down to the office to report the broken lamp.

“Father,” said the receptionist very sympathetically, “Just flip that little switch on the wall.”

I felt like such a dummy.

Anchor columnist Father Goldrick is pastor of St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth.

putting all others first. As he described what may be a normal part of so many of our prayer routines, he challenged the congregation to start with gratefulness first. To share with God all that has made us feel grateful that day, all that we appreciated or made a difference; to truly look at the gifts and blessings that came our way. By starting our prayer with gratefulness, we begin to learn how to live gratefully, how to see everything and everyone around us with heartfelt gratitude.

This Thanksgiving, let us remember all that we are truly grateful for and may we learn to live our lives with grateful and thankful hearts. May the blessings we acknowledge at this time, fill us with love and hope. Happy Thanksgiving!

Anchor columnist Rose Mary Saraiva lives in Fall River and is a parishioner of St. Michael’s Parish, and she is the Events Coordinator and Bereavement Ministry for the diocesan Office of Faith Formation. She is married with three children and two grandchildren. rsaraiva@dfrcs.com.

10

November 20, 2015

Agnieszka Styczen and Marta Styrkowiec will be among the young people welcoming World Youth Day pilgrims to Lublin, Poland, for Days in the Diocese in July. They are pictured in room 208 of the main building of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, where the Polish saint gave his lectures as a professor at the university. (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec)

Polish dioceses get ready to welcome pilgrims before World Youth Day LUBLIN, Poland (CNS) — Agnieszka Styczen, 27, is beginning her career as a doctor, yet for months nearly all of her free time has been devoted to helping organize Days in the Diocese in the Archdiocese of Lublin.

Days in the Diocese invites World Youth Day pilgrims for an immersion experience the week ahead of the international gathering. All of Poland’s 42 dioceses, except for the Archdiocese of Krakow, will host pilgrims days before World Youth Day kicks off in Krakow July 25.

Days in the Diocese are designed for those from other countries to get to know the host country, its young people and the local Church.

Lublin will welcome up to 7,000 pilgrims, mostly from Belgium, France, Brazil and a few other South American countries.

“We are prepared to get to know other cultures the way others live, their lifestyles, their attitudes toward the modern world,” Styczen told Catholic News Service. But mostly, she said, it’s the chance for Catholic youths to forge new connections.

“Our main expectations are Spiritual ones,” she said. “We are going to share our faith, share our joy of being the students of Jesus Christ.”

Styczen said Polish young people want to be examples of joyous Christians to the hundreds of thousands of people expected for World Youth Day. “We want to express that nothing is more important than believing in Jesus Christ, especially in these modern times, in a time of secularization,” she said.

About 90 percent of Lublin’s population is Catholic, but Styczen and other Catholic leaders said Polish youths are

Supply is nearly sold out!

struggling to keep faith part of personal and public life.

The archdiocese’s preparations have included festive public events to promote participation in World Youth Day. Styczen said they are occasions to draw interest and chat with people passing by.

“We want to share our ideas, not only about the faith, not only about the Church, the Catholic Church in general, but our ideas about our future life.”

Pilgrims arriving in Lublin for the Days in the Diocese will find a city that is quite youthful. The city boasts five public universities, including the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, known as KUL. During the school year, university students make up nearly one-third of Lublin’s population.

The largest city in eastern Poland, Lublin is rich in history. For seven centuries, it has been at a crossroads of trade and culture.

The Days in the Diocese program offers pilgrims a choice of four separate sightseeing tours. One traces the footsteps of St. John Paul II, with an opportunity to visit the classroom where the Polish pontiff lectured at KUL. Another features city landmarks, including Lublin’s medieval castle and its Chapel of the Holy Trinity, showcasing a rare mix of Eastern and Western architecture and art and cherished frescoes.

There will be Masses and engagements with local parishes, a Polish language and culture workshop and outdoor recreational opportunities.

Keeping with the World Youth Day theme, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy,” pilgrims in Lublin will spend time in service. They will meet and assist children and adults in need, people with disabilities, refugees and the homeless.

Concluding the Days in the Diocese will be a pilgrims’ procession through the city followed by Mass with Archbishop Stanislaw Budzik and a folklore festival.

Styczen said plans are coming along well and pilgrims can expect a remarkable visit.

“We have prepared perfectly for (this) huge event, to build an atmosphere of a memorable time.”

11

November 20, 2015

W

hen the Church closes her year she does so with a flourish. Christ the King is celebrated as a punctuation to a year of Gospels that tell Jesus’ story from birth to death to Resurrection. Each year on this feast we hear a different description of Christ the King in the Gospels. Theologians turn themselves upside down trying to make sense of this humble Servant Who is anything but regal in His demeanor. Over the course of a three-year Liturgical cycle we hear three different reflections on Christ’s Kingship.

Last year we heard the memorable image of Christ describing the corporal works of mercy that will determine our final judgment. Next year we will hear about the two criminals hanging beside Jesus on the cross. The one who asks that Jesus remember him when He comes into His Kingdom, gives us an image of the reign that is to come.

It is the Gospel we hear this year that is very curious. In His exchange with Pilate, Jesus gives us a lesson on how to be subjects in His Kingdom.

“You say that I am a King. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.” When we put all three together we learn that we must take care of the needs of others, the Kingdom of God is a present and future reality, and one must listen in order to be a subject in this Kingdom.

Most Christians are very comfortable being doers of the corporal works of mercy, but can we say that equal emphasis is given to being hearers of the truth? In the exchange between Pilate and Jesus there is a great deal revealed to us about this Kingdom into which we are invited. Jesus tells Pilate that the people who hear His words become people of truth, but the truth for which He came was to simply make God known to us. The only way that we can be hearers of truth is to be people who pray.

Karl Rahner once described the human person as a living “prayer-er.” We focus so much of our energy in the Church on making sure that doctrine is handed down that we might be overlooking a far more important catechetical task. We should be placing our energy into helping people to recognize themselves as Rahner’s

The language of us homo orans: living prayer-ers.

God initiates prayer, not the other way around. As the letter of St. James says, “Whoever comes near to God; God comes near to him.” Prayer is the ultimate conveyance of human dignity for it lifts us out of the mundane and into the transcendent.

Prayer allows a person to face God, address God however one wishes, and speak to God about anything.

Human beings are hard-wired for prayer, and therefore we must direct our resources to helping people to develop this primordial connection to God. Prayer may not come as naturally to this generation as it did to our parents and grandparents. Those old customs of making the Sign of the Cross when passing a church; cutting a cross into a loaf of bread; placing a cross on the foreheads of our children, praying the Rosary, making a visit to sit before the Tabernacle; all of these were how they turned their everyday lives into

prayer. God is very interested in the mundane moments of our lives. Maybe we need the

grandparents to help us find our inner prayer life. After all, it is said that in countries where the faith was persecuted it was Christian grandmothers who handed it on.

God also likes prayers of petition. Rahner suggests that God delights in the arrogance that such little creatures as humans “have the impression that their prayers reach God.” Prayer is as simple as reflecting on all of the little and big things in our life; something that we do every day when we make note of what we have to do or what we just left behind.

Our thoughts become prayer when we begin a meditation

on our busy lives with “hey God listen to this,” and end with “please help me, God, I’m powerless.”

For us in this generation the sound of truth must be greatly muted since so many are walking around with no desire to enter this Kingdom where God is known. Hearing God is not so difficult if we learn God’s language.

Jesus bequeathed the Holy

Spirit to us so that God would forever be within. Prayer, then, is not to the ineffable God above but to the God Who dwells within. This is how we “hear” God, in a language that only we can understand, or as Rahner says, “God speaks us to ourselves.” There is no Rosetta Stone to learn the language of us, but we will become fluent with practice.

Anchor columnist Claire McManus is the director of the Diocesan Office of Faith Formation.

12

November 20, 2015

Refugees are God’s children, pope says in wake of Paris attacks

VATICAN CITY (CNA/ EWTN News) — Amid questions over whether European nations will reevaluate their migrant policies in the wake of last Friday’s deadly attacks in Paris, Pope Francis offered a reminder over the weekend that refugees are more than statistics: they are children of God, each with his or her own inherent dignity.

“Behind these statistics are people, each of them with a name, a face, a story, an inalienable dignity which is theirs as a child of God,” the pope said at an audience marking the 35th anniversary of the Jesuit Refugee Service.

In line with the hopes of JRS founder, Father Pedro Arrupe, S.J., the pontiff said the refugee service should “meet the human and the Spiritual needs of refugees, not only their immediate need of food and shelter, but also their need to see their human dignity respected, to be listened to and comforted.”

Pope Francis made these remarks one day after 129 people were slaughtered and more than 300 wounded in Paris by more than half a dozen Islamic militants.

Due to a Syrian passport found at the scene of the attacks, authorities believe at least one of the terrorists had passed through Greece, an entry point for many of the thousands of refugees into the continent, the AFP reports. Meanwhile, an Algerian asylum seeker has been detained in Germany in connection to the attacks, according to the AP. These developments come after months of escalating security concerns that terrorists are crossing into Europe alongside innocent migrants.

Until now, the EU has been working on policies to accommodate the refugees, enacting a quota policy earlier this year to disseminate the migrants across the continent. In the wake of the November 13 attacks there is speculation over whether nations will reevaluate their own refugee policies.

During Saturday’s audience with JRS, the pope acknowledged the mass increase in the number of

refugees fleeing Africa, Asia, and the Middle East in what has become largest-scale exodus since World War II. He lauded JRS’s presence in conflict and post-conflict regions, recalling the agency’s mission: “to accompany, to serve and to defend the rights of refugees.”

“I think especially of your groups in Syria, Afghanistan, the Central African Republic and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where you accept men and women of different religious beliefs who share your mission,” he said.

The pontiff went on to praise JRS’ focus on education for migrant children, such as the planned initiative for the Year of Mercy entitled “Global Education,” with the motto “Mercy in Motion.”

Education, Pope Francis said, “provides refugees with the wherewithal to progress beyond survival, to keep alive the flame of hope, to believe in the future and to make plans.”

By providing education, JRS is helping “refugees to grow in self-confidence, to realize their highest inherent potential and to be able to defend their rights as individuals and communities,” the pope added.

“For children forced to emigrate, schools are places of freedom,” he said.

JRS was established in 1980 by Father Arrupe, then superior general of the Society of Jesus and a survivor of the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bomb, an event in which he witnessed “the scope of that tragic exodus of refugees,” Pope Francis observed.

The pontiff concluded his address by calling those working with refugees to reflect on the Holy Family, as well as Christ’s words: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

“As you persevere in this work of providing education for refugees, think of the Holy Family, Our Lady, St. Joseph, and the Child Jesus, who fled to Egypt to escape violence and to find refuge among strangers,” he said.

“Take these words with you always, so that they can bring you encouragement and consolation.”

Aaron Eckhart and Finn Wittrock star in a scene from the movie “My All American.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Clarius Entertainment)

CNS Movie Capsules NEW YORK (CNS) — The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by Catholic News Service.

“My All American” (Clarius) Fact-based sports drama recounting the life and untimely death of undersized — and therefore unlikely — college football star Freddie Steinmark (Finn Wittrock). Just as he was achieving lasting fame as the starting safety for the undefeated 1969 University of Texas Longhorns, Steinmark was sidelined by aggressive bone cancer; he died in 1971. Working from a biography

by Jim Dent, director and screenwriter Angelo Pizzo downplays Steinmark’s devout Catholic faith, focusing instead on the player’s bond with his coach, Darrell Royal (Aaron Eckhart), as well as his chaste, supportive relationship with his girlfriend (Sarah Bolger).

The narrative surge that carried two of Pizzo’s earlier films, 1986’s “Hoosiers” and 1993’s “Rudy,” into the end zone is absent from this honorable but maudlin tale.

As a result, its doomed protagonist comes off as a bland and enigmatic figure. A single instance each of crude and crass language. The Catholic News Service classification is A-II — adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

“Spectre” (Columbia) The wrongheaded policies of the new chief of British intelligence (Andrew Scott) force iconic spy James Bond (Daniel Craig) to go temporarily rogue as he battles the evil organization of the title (led by Christoph Waltz). With his boss M (Ralph Fiennes) neutralized by bureaucratic infighting, Bond gets behind-the-scenes help from tech whiz Q (Ben Whishaw) and from M’s secretary, Miss Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), in tracking the daughter (Lea Seydoux) of an old adversary ( Jesper Christensen) who once served, but has since run afoul of, the villainous group. Director Sam Mendes’ follow-up to his 2012 reboot of the Bond series, “Skyfall,” features satisfyingly large-scale set pieces as well as the kind of globetrotting action antics moviegoers have come to expect from Agent 007. The film’s political theme

— a warning about the dangers of an all-pervasive security state — comes across as murky and somewhat out of place amid the formula fun. But the upward ethical path that finds Bond resisting the temptation to settle scores immorally and pursuing lasting romance in lieu of his more passing encounters — typified here by his brief dalliance with Italian sophisticate Monica Bellucci — will please faithful grownups.

Much stylized violence, a few harsher scenes involving torture and some gore, nongraphic but glamorized casual sexual activity, partial nudity, a couple of uses of profanity, a handful of crude terms. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults.

The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, November 22, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Rodney E. Thibault, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in South Dartmouth, and diocesan director of Pastoral Care of the Sick.

13

November 20, 2015

Parents and sex ed

W

hile some parents might be happy to avoid the awkward conversations that arise around human sexuality by allowing the school system to provide their children’s sex education, it is nonetheless important for parents to recognize that they are the most significant teachers and models for their own children as they mature sexually.

Instilling a healthy attitude about sexuality in young people involves a variety of considerations, including conveying a proper sense of constraints and boundaries. These boundaries arise organically through the virtue of chastity, by which a person acquires the ability to renounce self, to make sacrifices and to wait generously in consideration of loving fidelity toward a future spouse, out of self-respect, and out of fidelity to God. This critical process of developing sexual self-mastery is an area where parents are particularly well-suited to help their children.

At the end of the day, the parental duty to influence in a positive way a child’s upbringing around sexuality cannot be abdicated or delegated.

Parents know their children in

years afterwards, and helped a personal and individual way and are able to determine their me to reflect carefully on the right use of my sexuality.” Parreadiness for, and receptivity ents influence their children to, sexual information. Morein thousands of different ways, over, the reality of parental sometimes not even realizing love towards their children how particular comments or enables a parent to say certain “hard things” in love that may need to be said, in a manner that Making Sense only a parent may Out of effectively be able to say it.

Bioethics I recall the story

By Father Tad that a middle-aged Pacholczyk woman once shared with me about something that happened observations they make can when she was 12. She was at become highly significant to home watching TV with her their child’s thinking. mother, who was the strong Helping children to think authority figure in the famcorrectly about human sexuily. At a certain moment, a ality remains a delicate and scene came across the screen challenging task in the midst where a woman was removof a sex-saturated society like ing her clothing and dancing our own. Indeed, our thinkin front of a group of men. ing about human sexualHer mother glanced over at ity can easily go off the rails, her and without skipping a and sexual activity itself can beat said: “I’ll kill you if you quickly degrade into a selfish ever do that.” Her daughter and self-referential kind of understood, of course, that she didn’t mean it literally, but activity, even within Marriage, if we aren’t careful to attend to appreciated that her mother deeper realities. cared enough about her to be Spouses who have made very direct: “What my Mom a lifelong marital commitsaid on that and many other ment to each other in the occasions stayed with me for

presence of God are uniquely empowered to live in a way that exceeds merely viewing each other as objects or as a means to satisfying their appetites; they become called to, and capable of, a higher kind of love that involves friendship, sacrifice and self-giving.

Otherwise, a dominance of things over persons can take over, leading to forms of selfishness in which persons are used in the same way as objects are used. In the context of this kind of selfishness, a woman, for example, can become a mere “object” for a man, and children can be reduced to mere “hindrances” on the part of their parents.

The human sexual love that is nurtured within a healthy Marriage, meanwhile, generates communion between persons, as each comes to consider the good of the other as his or her own good. Marital sexuality is thus meant to go beyond merely existing with someone else and using them for selfish gain, and instead calls a person to existing for someone else through total self-gift.

As husband and wife seek to live out these truths of their human sexuality, they impart valuable and important lessons to their children about generosity, unselfish living, and chastity, where that chastity is seen as the Spiritual energy capable of defending love from the perils of selfishness and aggressiveness. Parents are in the unique position of being able to model for their children a healthy example of sexual integration, generosity, and self-mastery within Marriage.

Under these circumstances, parents also convey to their children the beautiful message that human sexuality reaches far beyond the biological, and touches on the most intimate core of the human person, particularly as experienced in his or her capacity for personal and radical self-gift to another in Marriage, faithful even unto death.

Anchor columnist Father Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, and serves as the director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. See www.ncbcenter.org.

Pope Francis: What will Jesus ask you on judgement day?

Rome, Italy (CNA/ EWTN News) — Pope Francis recently paid a visit to Rome’s Lutheran community, where he took questions and told attendees that what we will ultimately be judged on is how we cared for the poor and less fortunate.

“What will the Lord ask us on that day? Did you go to Mass? Have you prepared a good catechesis?” the pope said.

While these things are important, the deeper questions will be “on the poor. Because poverty is the center of the Gospel. He, being rich, was made poor in order to enrich us with His poverty.”

Jesus didn’t consider it a privilege to be God, but instead “humbled Himself unto death, death on a cross. It’s the choice of service,” Francis said.

It’s the choice we will be faced with when we meet Jesus face-to-face: “Did you use your life for yourself or to serve? To defend yourself from others with walls, or to welcome with love? This will be the final decision of Jesus.”

Pope Francis traveled to the Lutheran Evangelical parish Christuskirche, where he met with leaders and other members of the community, and participated in their Liturgy.

After answering three questions from members of the community in different states in life, the pope gave a brief homily on the day’s Gospel, taken from Matthew Chapter 13, in which Jesus speaks of how the end times will be.

In his homily, Francis noted how Jesus had to make choices, from calling the first disciples, to the sick whom He cured.

People listened to Jesus because “He spoke as One Who had authority, not like the doctors of the law, who strutted around” flaunting their knowledge, he said.

Jesus gained followers because He was authentic, and made His choices with love, as well as His corrections, the pope continued. “He always guided and accompanied.”

An example the pope gave was how Jesus walked with the disciples from Emmaus,

who were leaving Jerusalem.

In an act of “visible tenderness,” Jesus accompanied them and when the time was right revealed Himself, giving them back their hope.

Francis concluded his homily saying that the day’s passage has a lot to show us about Jesus, and asked the congregation where they, as Catholics and Lutherans, stand.

“What side are we on?” he asked, saying that all of us, as Lutherans and Catholics, have a choice to make: “the choice of service as He taught us being the Servant of the Lord.”

Jesus “also serves for unity, which helps us to walk together,” he said, noting how the two congregations had just prayed together, and in many situations “loved together” by working to care for the poor and the needy.

He closed by praying for the grace of “reconciled diversity (to be like) God Who came to us to serve and not to be served.”

Before his homily, Pope Francis took questions from a child in the community, a

Lutheran woman married to a Catholic man, and a woman who works in a project that helps refugees from North Africa.

When asked by eight-yearold Julius what his favorite thing about being pope is, Francis said that “honestly, being a priest, being a shepherd.”

“I don’t like the bureaucratic work, I don’t like interviews, protocol, but I have to do it.

But what I like most is being a pastor,” he said, adding that his favorite part of being a pastor is working with children.

He also said he likes to serve, and that he feels good when he visits prisoners and the sick, and is able to speak “with people who are a little desperate or sad.”

“To be pope is to be a bishop, to be a priest, to be a shepherd. If a pope isn’t a bishop, a priest and a shepherd, he will be very important, very intelligent and very influential in society but I think that in his heart he’s not happy.”

When asked by Anke de Bernardinis, a Lutheran

woman married to a Roman Catholic man, how she and her husband can be united in communion, Pope Francis said that the answer is “not easy.”

While someone with more background in theology might be able to give a better answer, Francis said that as Christians we all have the same Baptism, and that going to each other’s services is a way to participate in the Lord’s Supper together.

“You are a witness of a profound journey, because it’s a conjugal journey, the journey of a family, of human love, of shared faith,” he said, noting that praying together helps keep their common Baptism alive.

Francis said he would “never dare to give permission” on anything regarding Communion, because “it’s not my competence,” but again stressed that we all share “one Baptism, one Lord, one faith.”

The last question was posed

by Gertude Witmer, the community’s treasurer who helps out with a project supporting 80 young mothers and chilTurn to page 20

14

P

ope Francis has made great efforts to make people aware of the phenomenon of climate change. In his encyclical, Laudato Si’, the pope calls the climate, “a common good belonging to all and meant for all.” He states that, “a very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system.” To understand the issue of climate change it is important to look at the basic science involved. There is distinction between weather and climate.

Weather refers to the conditions in the atmosphere, such as temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind, etc., over a short period of time as in minute-tominute, hour-to-hour, or day-today. Climate, on the other hand, is how the atmosphere behaves over a relatively long period of time. For example, we expect the summers here to be warm and the winters to be cold. Our seasons result from the tilt of the earth on its axis (this is why a globe is always tilted on its stand). As the earth orbits around the sun, when the north pole is pointing toward the sun, the northern hemisphere is getting the most direct rays of the sun, and is warmer. The southern hemisphere is cooler because the south pole is pointed away from the sun. As the earth continues

November 20, 2015

The climate, it is a-changing

is trapped by the glass, so the to orbit around the sun in the greenhouse heats up. The greensame year, the southern hemisphere will be pointed toward the house gases trap the heat and radiate it back to earth keeping sun and will be warm while the northern hemisphere will be cool. our temperature livable. Without the greenhouse gases the average The temperature of the earth temperature on the earth would depends on the amount of be 320 F (00 C) instead of the energy that the earth receives current 60.80 F (160 C). As an from the sun and the amount example, the moon, which has no of energy that radiates from the earth back into space. It is our atmosphere that helps determine how much energy reaches the earth, and how much is radiated back out. Our

By Professor atmosphere is composed Robert Rak of 78 percent nitrogen gas, 21 percent oxygen gas and one percent other atmosphere, has a temperature gases. Among these other gases are heat trapping gases, known as range from 2230 F ( 1060 C) to greenhouse gases, such as carbon -2970 F (-1830 C). As levels of these greenhouse gases increase, dioxide, methane, water vapor, and nitrous oxide. They are called more heat is trapped.

Natural cycles, called Milagreenhouse gases because they nkovitch cycles, can also vary the participate in process known as amount of the sun’s energy that the Greenhouse Effect. Just as reaches us. These include changes sunlight passes through the glass in the size of the earth’s orbit, of a greenhouse, radiant energy changes in the tilt of the earth’s from the sun can pass through axis and wobble in the earth’s the atmosphere. This energy is axis. These cycles occur over absorbed by the material inside thousands of years. During the the greenhouse. The earth also past we have had major ice ages absorbs the sun’s energy. The every 100,000 years or so corenergy that radiates from the material in the greenhouse, or the responding to these cycles. There are changes in the sun’s activity material on earth, is in the form about every 11 years. Also, the of infrared, or heat, energy. In carbon dioxide and particulates the greenhouse the heat energy

Our Common Home

from volcanic eruptions have also affected the earth’s climate.

It takes a vast amount of heat to warm all of the oceans, atmosphere, and land, so a 1.80 F (10 C) change in the average global temperature is quite significant.

A 90 F (50 C) drop resulted in a major ice age 20,000 years ago.

Estimates of the temperature and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the past 800,000 years are gathered by studying thick ice cores taken from Antarctica. These indicate that the average temperature has risen 90 F (50 C) and fallen 180 F (100 C) in cycles over this period.

The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has varied from 180 to 300 ppm.

Over the last 250 years, the earth’s average temperature has risen 2.70 F (1.50 C) with 1.60 F (0.90 C) over only the last 50 years. NASA has studied these changes, as well as the changes in natural cycles, extensively using satellites and surface instruments, and has come to the conclusion that while natural causes are still in play, their influence is too small, or occur too slowly, to explain this rapid warming trend. Since 1850, the start of the Industrial Revolution, we have been using the fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas, which

have been locked in the earth for hundreds of millions of years, at an incredible rate. The burning of these fossil fuels has resulted in the release of large quantities of carbon dioxide. Farming practices, including increased use of commercial fertilizers, and changes is land use have released additional nitrous oxide and methane. This has added extra insulation to the existing atmospheric blanket and thus capturing more heat.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of thousands of volunteer scientists throughout the world, has reported that the scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal. Also, the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous acid have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 40 percent since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use change emissions.

The carbon dioxide level is now at 400 ppm, a level not seen on earth for one or more million years.

The scientific evidence is overwhelming that climate change is happening, and also, that humans have a big hand in that change.

Next time we will look at the consequences of our actions and lack of action related to climate change.

Anchor columnist Professor Rak is a Fall River native and a parishioner of St. Mary’s Parish in Fall River. He has been a professor of Environmental Technology and coordinator of the Environmental Science and Technology Program at Bristol Community College in Fall River for 18 years. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Holy Cross College in Worcester, and a master’s degree in marine biology from UMass Dartmouth. rrak@verizon.net.

15

November 20, 2015

Legality of daily fantasy sports debated

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent cmwilliams@ intheserviceoftruth.com

SOMERSET — “At DraftKings we play for glory, for bragging rights, for fantasy football supremacy, but we also play for this — the giant check.

The giant check is no myth, no mirage, no fool’s gold. It’s our trophy, and many hoist it playing our one-week games,” says the narrator in a commercial for DraftKings while the video shows players discovering that they have won million-dollar cash prizes and celebrating like they just won the Super Bowl.

“Are your dreams big enough to cash a giant check?”

Another commercial claims that winning cash is as simple as drafting a fantasy team — choosing a certain number of players from any team in a league with limits like a salary cap.

Players pick a sport and enter contests with entry fees ranging from a quarter to $5,000 and with prizes up to $1 million.

But opponents of DraftKings and other daily fantasy sports websites say that casual players face long odds.

In an opinion piece in The Boston Globe, Mark Gottlieb wrote, “Research published in the Sports Business Journal found that a mere 1.3 percent of players win 91 percent of total player profits.

These top players generally wager tens of thousands of dollars each week on hundreds of games. Their success relies on proprietary analytical software to choose their players and rapidly change their player lineups based on highlysophisticated algorithms.”

Gottlieb, executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law, told The Anchor that the highly successful players have “rigged the game” and that fantasy sports companies mislead the public through their marketing.

Opponents are quick to point out that daily fantasy sports competitions differ from season-long fantasy leagues.

They say the former relies more heavily on luck because they do not require long-term success. Gottlieb said these are games of chance, not skill as proponents say, and, therefore, are illegal under Massachusetts law.

“Massachusetts law (General Laws ch. 271, § 7) prohibits any lottery or gambling unless the legislature has specifically allowed it,” he wrote in the column. “Another statute, (ch. 271, § 16A) prohibits betting pools where winning is determined by the result of the performance of individual athletes, which it describes as any contest based upon ‘the skill, speed or endurance of man.’ This goes to the heart of daily fantasy sports games, where success derives from the statistical performances of the athletes chosen by fantasy players.”

John Tripp, head of No Casino Somerset, said the skill involved in fantasy

sports is no greater than in other forms of gambling, like poker. In both cases, too much relies on luck. A single fumble or interception could sink a fantasy team. “It’s definitely a game of chance.”

A DraftKings spokesperson refuted such claims, saying that fantasy sports is a legal game of skill, an opinion shared

by Gov. Charlie Baker, who has played fantasy sports on DraftKings. The Boston-based company has been transparent about its game structures and has implemented safeguards, such as “strict deposit limits,” to promote responsible game play, the spokesperson added.

Many sports leagues and teams seem to agree, striking deals with FanDuel and DraftKings. This season DraftKings opened up a lounge at Gillette Stadium, and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has an equity stake in the company.

So far, seven states have banned daily fantasy sports — Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, Washington and, most recently, New York, where 500,000 DraftKings customers reside. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently issued a ceaseand-desist order to DraftKings and its biggest rival, FanDuel. In a press release, he said that daily fantasy sports games “fleece sports fans” and cause “the same kinds of social and economic harms as other forms of illegal gambling.” DraftKings plans to fight the order.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has said her office has not yet completed its review of the new industry. Boston’s F.B.I. office has interviewed fantasy sports players. Other investigations are happening across the country, many of which were sparked by a controversy over a DraftKings employee hitting the jackpot on FanDuel.

Les Bernal, director of Washington D.C.-based Stop Predatory Gambling, said that fantasy sports games attract people in desperate financial circumstances who seek a quick fix but cannot afford it when they lose. The games are also particularly appealing to youth who are more likely to place a bet on their smartphone than go to a casino.

“The future of predatory gambling in Massachusetts and the entire country is based on turning an entire new generation into habitual bettors,” he said, adding that online gambling brings exploitative games of chance everywhere, including the privacy of people’s homes.

Stop Predatory Gambling released a report “Use Promo Code INEQUALITY” this month, which argues that regulating these predatory companies, as some have proposed, does not go far enough. The report calls on public officials to shut down fantasy sports operations.

Bernal, a Catholic and Lawrence native, said people of faith should oppose the exploitation of their fellow citizens.

“These kind of business practices are about loving yourself more than your neighbor.”

High court’s ruling prompts bishops’ pastoral plan for family, Marriage

BALTIMORE (CNS) — As a way to move forward in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling on samesex marriage this year, U.S. bishops are planning to develop a pastoral plan for Marriage and family life.

The pastoral plan, according to Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, N.Y., chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, will seek the input of the nation’s Catholic bishops.

He spoke about the plan November 16 in Baltimore during an afternoon session at the annual fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, said the Supreme Court’s decision was a “great disappointment,” but it was not unexpected.

In comments from the floor about the court’s decision and how the Church should proceed, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., said Catholic leaders need to approach the court’s decision much like they did the Roe v. Wade court decision legalizing abortion. He said the Church has been active in advocacy work and in getting its Pro-Life message public.

Bishop R. Daniel Conlon of Joliet, Ill., similarly said the court’s decision opened up opportunities for catechesis.

Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, Calif., said the Church also needs to look at economic reasons for why people aren’t marrying and reach out

to these couples.

In a report on this year’s observance of the Fortnight for Freedom, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, told the assembled bishops that the theme for 2016 will be “Witnesses to Freedom.”

“The Fortnight gives us an opportunity to remember those witnesses past and present through the Church, witnesses who testify to the meaning of freedom of conscience and the obedience of the truth,” he said.

The two-week event will include a nationwide tour of first-class relics of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, both of whom were martyred for their faith. Archbishop Lori said details of the tour have yet to be arranged, but that a schedule will be distributed when it is finalized.

The committee is producing a video on religious liberty that can be used by small parish groups and family gatherings to learn about the importance of religious liberty, the archbishop added.

The video’s release will coincide with 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, “Dignitatis Humanae.” An excerpt of the video was shown to the assembly and received a loud round of applause afterward.

Companion study guides and discussion questions are being developed to coincide with the release, the archbishop said.

The effort is being worked on in conjunction with the Knights of Columbus.

Attleboro parish offers Year of Mercy prayer program continued from page one

and reflections on the Sacred Heart, with Confession being offered at 11 p.m. and Holy Mass celebrated at 11:30 p.m.

The First Saturday devotions will commence on December 5 at 8:30 a.m. with Confession, Holy Mass at 9 a.m., adoration, Holy Rosary, hymns and reflection until noon.

The First Saturday program will seek to assist the faithful in fulfilling the requests of Our Blessed Mother to make the first five Saturdays in reparation to Her Immaculate Heart by making a Sacramental Confession and receiving Holy Communion in reparation for our sins and those of the whole world, with prayer and meditation on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary.

This event during the Jubilee Year of Mercy is an important opportunity for all the faithful to pray in this time of moral confusion and global insecurity. The faithful will be guided to renew their fervor and love to

these Sacred Hearts, make reparation to them for their sins and implore mercy for themselves, their families, community, nation and world.

On January 14 in Sri Lanka, Pope Francis mentioned the relationship of the Blessed Mother to humanity in promoting prayer of reparation.

He said, “In the wake of so much hatred, violence and destruction, we want to thank her for continuing to bring us Jesus, Who alone has the power to heal open wounds and to restore peace to broken hearts. But we also want to ask her to implore for us the grace of God’s mercy. We ask also for the grace to make reparation for our sins and for all the evil which this land has known.”

The jubilee, which is to be called the Holy Year of Mercy, will begin on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8. It will close on Nov. 20, 2016, the day celebrated that year as the feast of Christ the King.

16

Youth Pages

The fifth-grade students at St. Mary’s School in Taunton celebrated Veteran’s Day through word and song in a prayer service enjoyed by the entire school. Students, family, friends, members of the armed forces, first-responders and veterans were impressed by the students’ knowledge of Veteran’s Day and its importance to our nation. State Representative Shaunna O’Connell presented St. Mary’s School with a resolution in recognition of continued commitment, dedication, and compassion to those who have bravely served America.

Seventh- and eighth-graders at Holy Name School in Fall River recently used dry-erase boards to practice problems in math class.

The kindergarten class at St. Margaret Regional School in Buzzards Bay received certificates of merit for their excellent behavior at Mass. The school observed the Commemoration of all the Deceased of the Seraphic Order (Franciscans) with Father Bruce Czapla, OFM.

November 20, 2015

Students at St. Pius X School in South Yarmouth recently gathered around the flagpole to remember our nation’s veterans. A prayer service by eighth-graders focused on the meaning of service and the history of Veterans’ Day. During the service, names of service men and women related to the school community were read. Prayers were offered for these individuals, as well as all service members who have given to our country.

Students at St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro recently took part in their annual school talent show which was a benefit concert for the work being done by the Sisters of the Cross and Passion’s African Mission to help build a new school for the local kids. Forty-six students performed in 25 different acts.

Here, eighth-grader Thomas Salois played guitar and sang “Let it Be,” while the audience joined in for the finale.

Joshua Petty, a second-grader at St. Mary’s School in Mansfield received the “Light of Christ” emblem medal at a recent Mass.

The “Light of Christ” is a parishoriented and family-oriented program for Cub Scouts to see Jesus as a real Person and Friend. Petty is a member of the St. Mary’s Cub Scout Pack 6, Den 4.

Grades one through five from St. James-St. John School in New Bedford recently went on a field trip to UMass Dartmouth to view the “Bone Experience.”

November 20, 2015

A

Youth Pages Praying backwards

St. Ignatius of Loyola, s I write this article the founder of the Jesuits, I am on the Charis believed that the most imSeekers’ Retreat at Sacred portant prayer of the day was Hearts Retreat Center in the daily Examen. He sugWareham. The Seekers’ Regested that we each take 15 treat is one of four retreats minutes twice a day to look offered to young adults in back over the day. There are their 20s and 30s through many ways that the Examen the office for campus minhas been modified in the istry. past 450 years. The one that In my prayer life growwas used today on Seekers’ is ing up, I usually resorted to this simplified version: those prayers we say by rote Step one: Invite the Holy such as the Our Father, the Spirit to help you see the day Hail Mary, etc. While these are good and valuable to our prayer life, I often found myself just saying the words without much thought.

My mind wanders.

By Deacon That’s not good.

Frank Lucca As one of our team leaders last night stated, in referring to the as God sees it. Ask for help way we traditionally mark in seeing how God was presourselves as Christians, ent to you throughout the with the Sign of the Cross. course of the day. “[It] can become a mindless Step two: Think about the ritual, devoid of meaning. things you have experienced “It is,” she said, “somewhere over the last 24 hours. What between swatting a fly and slapping a mosquito. “And so stands out? What are you it has sometimes been for me especially grateful for. These with rote prayer — devoid of are the gifts from God; thank God for these gifts. meaning and in many cases Step three: Ask yourself a mindless ritual. We are, where God seemed to be however, called to pray with especially present to you. Pay intention.

One of the things I appre- attention to your feelings. ciate most about our retreats Where did you experience or witness love? Forgiveness? is that they are grounded Step four: Ask yourself in Ignatian Spirituality. where God seemed to be Throughout the retreat, hidden or even absent. Why various opportunities are do you think that was the presented for various forms case? God is a God of forof prayer. As I result I’ve giveness. Ask for His forcome to most often utilize giveness. one such form of prayer, the Step five: Finally, think Examen.

Be Not Afraid

The Anchor is always pleased to run news and photos about our diocesan youth. If schools or parish Religious Education programs have newsworthy summer stories and photos they would like to share with our readers, send them to: schools@an chornews. org

about what you are hopeful for. What are you looking forward to, or what are you not looking forward to today? Offer those things to God. God will accompany you the rest of the day.

Take a few minutes to pray through the past 24 hours, and toward the next 24 hours, with that fivepoint format. The more you pray the Examen the more you can make the format your own — what best works for you.

Remember, there is always something to pray about. If you follow this format at least once a day, there is never the question, “What should I talk to God about.”

Walk through the day backwards, hour-byhour, from place-to-place, from task-to-task, personto-person, thanking the Lord for the gift of every encounter.

You will always have the past 24 hours and the next 24 hours until the day we go home to the Father.

Anchor columnist Frank Lucca is a permanent deacon in the diocese of Fall River, a youth minister at St. Dominic’s Parish in Swansea, and a campus minister at UMass Dartmouth. He is married to his wife of 35 years, Kristine, and the father of two daughters and their husbands, and a 22-month-old grandson.

Comments, ideas or suggestions? Please email him at DeaconFrankLucca@comcast. net.

17

Pre-kindergarten students from Our Lady of Lourdes School in Taunton recently enjoyed a story from Miss Jessica, the librarian from the Taunton Public Library.

St. Mary-Sacred Heart School in North Attleboro recently celebrated its 22nd annual walk-a-thon with its 291 students. The event was held at the Bishop Feehan High School track and fun was had by all the students and faculty and staff of the school. Here a group of the younger students display a banner naming all the walk-a-thon corporate sponsors.

Sixth-grade students at St. Joseph School in Fairhaven recently posed with the seismic safe houses they created with teacher Misti Nordstrom.

18

November 20, 2015

Diocesan prison ministry causing a ‘chain reaction’ continued from page one

read is, you meet Jesus in the poor. If you want to have a relationship with Jesus, you need to be with the poor. I feel really, really appreciative of that because it’s absolutely the truth.

“You learn more about yourself, and your own relationship with God, being in the midst of this group of people who are beautiful human beings and who, from day one, were loved by God but somewhere along the line they got a different message from the people around them, and didn’t have a chance.”

The group meets Mondays with the women, and Tuesdays with the men, from 7-9 p.m.

Each meeting begins with a “hug line,” often the only loving physical interaction the inmates experience during the week. Then the group sits down and lays out the rules and guidelines: confidentiality, one person talks at a time and to listen to one another.

Singing is a huge part of the meetings “and they love it,” said Sister Sylvester. “They have this respite to be away from the confusion and the noise, and the negativity. They just look forward, from weekto-week, and they can’t thank us enough because they think they’re the scum of the earth, and we think they are beautiful people.”

Meetings also offer intercessory prayer, Scripture, and then sharing through group talks. Many inmates talk about how they’ve changed, said Sister Sylvester, while others touch base in a supportive way; if someone is being let out, the individual is

prayed over by the group and blessed.

“They do change,” said Sister Sylvester. “They become less angry, more accepting, the family begins to see changes — it is amazing. You do see the fruits of being in community.”

Joseph Martino was coming out of Mass at St. John Neumann’s Parish in East Freetown about seven years ago when he was approached by the parish’s deacon and asked if he wanted to join the prison ministry.

“My wife had just gone through the RCIA and it rekindled my faith; I learned so much about it. I was open to saying yes,” said Martino.

“I never had thought about people in prison, it wasn’t anything I was pursuing. I remember thinking before I went in — I had to go through a CORI process and training process — I thought I’d go in there and tell them about the way I try to live, and give them examples about how they can be successful in different things. That was my mindset going in.”

When a new person joins the prison ministry, their first introduction into the program after training is to attend a retreat. Martino said seeing the inmates sing, bear witness, participate in adoration and embrace a true appreciation of their faith overwhelmed him.

“I went in thinking that I would share examples of my life and I was completely blown away by the honesty that they shared, the compassion that they had for one another, the humbleness they

The Anchor spends nearly $2,000 in postage change fees each year!

The Post Office charges The Anchor 70 cents for notification of a subscriber’s change of address. Please help us reduce these expenses by notifying us immediately when you plan to move.

Please Print Your New Address Below

NAME: STREET ADDRESS: CITY, STATE, ZIP: NEW PARISH: MOVING DATE: Please attach your Anchor address label so we can update your record immediately.

Clip and mail form to: The Anchor, P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA 02722

displayed, the appreciation of their faith, the depth of their faith; it was jaw-dropping, and I realized I was onto something that was intensely close to where Christ is, and where His meaning is, and what He wants. I was just completely amazed, and I knew it was something I wanted to do,” said Martino.

About four years ago, Martino was asked to direct a retreat and he wanted to do something special, so he tapped into his creative side.

“It’s a learning process you go through,” said Martino, “and in preparation for this, I wanted to do something unique to show the respect and intensity of what we were doing. The main focus of the retreat was ‘breaking chains’ that repeat these people from falling into these traps in his or her life, and it affects their children and their children’s children.”

Martino got the idea of taking two pieces of chain and fastening them together into a cross to make a pendant for a necklace. It was a chance to “take something that is such a negative symbol, of being chained, and transform it into a symbol of love,” said Martino. “I obviously couldn’t give these to the inmates, but I could give them to everybody who helped me on the retreat.”

He was able to get a friend who was a machinist to help him fashion the two pieces of chain together. While Martino admits he’s “creative,” the mechanics of putting the chains together was a steep learning curve while working in the basement of his home: “We made two good ones out of every three or four; we created the way to do it,” he said, but the hard work and determination paid off when Martino presented the finished necklaces to the team during a meeting. They were in “awe.”

His display during the meeting held signs like “poverty and addiction” alongside the necklaces with the idea of promoting “breaking the chains” of these issues. He had his team members select a cross. After the retreat, Martino said he wanted to continue to share the message and “that we all have chains we need to break, and that God’s love transforms everybody.”

He consulted a lawyer

about trademark and configuration of the cross to protect the image, and has been selling them at St. John Neumann’s Parish, at St. Julie’s Parish in North Dartmouth, Heritage House in Brockton, the Lighthouse Christian Bookstore in North Dartmouth, and he’s hoping to get into the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro.

He also offers necklaces for different Catholic schools as a fund raiser, using the school’s colors, unique packaging and a message for its students, “and this way the students could give a student a scholarship, like an incoming freshman.” His full inventory is can be found and ordered online: www.ChainCrossing. com.

All proceeds go directly to the Faith Formation programs of the parishes that sell them, or other charities like the Jimmy Fund for cancer, food banks, “or whomever,” said Martino. “All I do is cover the costs [of materials], I’m not looking to make money on this. I’m just trying to get this message out.”

Martino now has the chains made in a small machine shop in Rhode Island, making it more economical. He uses a smaller chain and now “it’s compressed for an uplifting image,” he said. “It’s strong, it’s not welded, and it’s compressed together. I have them coated in different coatings. I created the artwork and different messages. I have done it all from the ground up.”

Sister Sylvester recently ran into a former inmate, who pulled her aside and shared with her that he was attending Bristol Community College, had an apartment and was back on track with his life. Having former inmates on team offers additional motivation for incarnated inmates, said Deacon Medeiros, who can see a former inmate who had lost so much but “that it didn’t stop him from putting his life together.”

“I’ve been a deacon for a long time and I don’t think there’s anything more important than this work,” he said. “A lot of the people who we’re working with don’t have anybody else. We’ll go in for a [weekly] meeting and they’ll tell us that we’re their only visit; they’ve burned bridges with family and with friends, or they just don’t have any-

body [local].

“To know that people need us to be there; Christ said that’s what we’re supposed to do, visit the imprisoned, to visit the sick, take care of the orphans and the widows — those are some of the most important things He said. When you do that work, you recognize Christ in these people who have forgotten themselves.”

And when you run into the former inmates on the outside and they’re just beaming, you feel a sense of warmth and joy that this little thing, giving up a couple hours a week and giving up a weekend every few months, have an impact in someone’s life, said Deacon Medeiros.

“The priests who come in and work with us are just so kind and gentle to the men and women, it’s incredible,” he added, sharing a story of an inmate who was suffering from cancer on a retreat. In tremendous pain, the inmate kept coming each day and doing his work in the chapel, and after Mass the priest helping during the retreat was asked to pray over him. It turned out that the priest had brought his oils, and was able to perform the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.

“Team members and inmates alike were extended healing hands,” recalled Deacon Medeiros.

Though there are restrictions and rules to follow in the jail, Deacon Medeiros admits it doesn’t even feel like the group is in jail and surrounded by inmates during retreats or at meetings. An inmate shared during a weekly meeting that he had never felt as much love as he feels during the meetings.

“They’re always trying to thank us and we tell them it’s a two-way street, that when you give, you receive,” said Deacon Medeiros. “It’s not what people think. When I talk about doing prison ministry, people [think] it must be hard. I say, not at all.

The hardest part is getting my butt out of my house at 6:30 in the evening after I’ve worked all day. When you get there, it all goes away. You think how could you question and want to sit home, watch TV and miss this? I don’t know how I thought that 50 minutes ago. It’s having that sense going there makes a difference. It’s what we’re called to do.”

19

November 20, 2015

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese Acushnet — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Evening prayer and Benediction is held Monday through Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

ASSONET — Beginning September 14, St. Bernard’s Parish will have Eucharistic Adoration every Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed on the altar at the conclusion of 9 a.m. Mass and the church will be open all day, concluding with evening prayer and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.

ATTLEBORO — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the Adoration Chapel at St. Vincent de Paul Parish, 71 Linden Street, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

ATTLEBORO — The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette holds Eucharistic Adoration in the Shrine Church every Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. through November 17.

ATTLEBORO — There is a weekly time of Eucharistic Adoration Wednesdays from 7-9 p.m. at St. John the Evangelist Church on North Main Street.

Brewster — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the La Salette Chapel in the lower level of Our Lady of the Cape Church, 468 Stony Brook Road, on First Fridays beginning at noon until 7:45 a.m. First Saturday, concluding with Benediction and concluding with Mass at 8 a.m. buzzards Bay — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street, Monday through Saturday, from 6:30 to 8 a.m.; and every first Friday from noon to 8 a.m. on Saturday.

East Freetown — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. John Neumann Church every Monday (excluding legal holidays) 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Our Lady, Mother of All Nations Chapel. (The base of the bell tower).

EAST TAUNTON — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the chapel at Holy Family Parish Center, 438 Middleboro Avenue, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. On First Fridays, Eucharistic Adoration takes place at Holy Family Church, 370 Middleboro Avenue, from 8:30 a.m. until 7:45 p.m.

FAIRHAVEN — St. Mary’s Church, Main St., has Eucharistic Adoration every Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Chapel of Reconciliation, with Benediction at 11:30 a.m. Also, there is a First Friday Mass each month at 7 p.m., followed by a Holy Hour with Eucharistic Adoration. Refreshments follow.

Fall River — Espirito Santo Parish, 311 Alden Street, Fall River. Eucharistic Adoration on Mondays following the 8 a.m. Mass until Rosary and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.

FALL RIVER — St. Bernadette’s Church, 529 Eastern Ave., has continuous Eucharistic Adoration from 8 a.m. on Thursday until 8 a.m. on Saturday.

FALL RIVER — St. Anthony of the Desert Church, 300 North Eastern Avenue, has Eucharistic Adoration Mondays and Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

FALL RIVER — Holy Name Church, 709 Hanover Street, has Eucharistic Adoration Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Our Lady of Grace Chapel.

FALL RIVER — Good Shepherd Parish has Eucharistic Adoration every Friday following the 8 a.m. Mass and concluding with 3 p.m. Benediction in the Daily Mass Chapel.

A bilingual holy hour takes place from 2 to 3 p.m. Park behind the church and enter the back door of the connector between the church and the rectory.

Falmouth — St. Patrick’s Church has Eucharistic Adoration each First Friday following the 7 a.m. Mass, with Benediction at 4:30 p.m.

MANSFIELD — St. Mary’s Parish, 330 Pratt Street, has Eucharistic Adoration every First Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., with Benediction at 5:45 p.m.

MASHPEE — Christ the King Parish, Route 151 and Job’s Fishing Road has 8:30 a.m.

Mass every First Friday with special intentions for Respect Life, followed by 24 hours of Eucharistic Adoration in the Chapel, concluding with Benediction Saturday morning followed immediately by an 8:30 Mass.

NEW BEDFORD — Eucharistic Adoration takes place 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 233 County Street, with night prayer and Benediction at 8:45 p.m., and Confessions offered during the evening. Please use the side entrance.

NEW BEDFORD — There is a daily holy hour from 5:15-6:15 p.m. Monday through Thursday at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1359 Acushnet Avenue. It includes Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Liturgy of the Hours, recitation of the Rosary, and the opportunity for Confession.

NEW BEDFORD — St. Lawrence Martyr Parish, 565 County Street, holds Eucharistic Adoration in the side chapel Fridays from 7:30-11:45 a.m. ending with a simple Benediction NORTH DARTMOUTH — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, every Tuesday from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., ending with Benediction. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

NORTH DIGHTON — Eucharistic Adoration takes place every Wednesday following 8:00 a.m. Mass and concludes with Benediction at 5 p.m. Eucharistic Adoration also takes place every First Friday at St. Nicholas of Myra Church, 499 Spring Street following the 8 a.m. Mass, ending with Benediction at 6 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 7:30 to 8 a.m.

NORTH EASTON — A Holy Hour for Families including Eucharistic Adoration is held every Friday from 3-4 p.m. at The Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street.

ORLEANS — St. Joan of Arc Parish, 61 Canal Road, has Eucharistic Adoration every First Friday starting after the 8 a.m. Mass and ending with Benediction at 11:45 a.m.

The Sacrament of the Sick is also available immediately after the 8 a.m. Mass.

OSTERVILLE — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, 76 Wianno Avenue on First Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to noon.

SEEKONK ­— Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish has perpetual Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the chapel at 984 Taunton Avenue. For information call 508-336-5549.

Taunton — Eucharistic Adoration takes place every Tuesday at St. Anthony Church, 126 School Street, following the 8 a.m. Mass with prayers including the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for vocations, concluding at 6 p.m. with Chaplet of St. Anthony and Benediction. Recitation of the Rosary for peace is prayed Monday through Saturday at 7:30 a.m. prior to the 8 a.m. Mass.

Taunton — Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament takes place every First Friday at Annunciation of the Lord, 31 First Street. Exposition begins following the 8 a.m.

Mass. The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed, and Adoration will continue throughout the day. Confessions are heard from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Rosary and Benediction begin at 6:30 p.m.

WAREHAM — Eucharistic Adoration at St. Patrick’s Church begins each Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. and ends on Friday night at midnight. Adoration is held in our Adoration Chapel in the lower Parish Hall. ~ PERPETUAL EUCHARISTIC ADORATION ~ East Sandwich — The Corpus Christi Parish Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Chapel is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 324 Quaker Meeting House Road, East Sandwich. Use the Chapel entrance on the side of the church.

NEW BEDFORD — Our Lady’s Chapel, 600 Pleasant Street, offers Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day. For information call 508-996-8274.

SEEKONK ­— Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish has perpetual Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the chapel at 984 Taunton Avenue. For information call 508-336-5549.

WEST HARWICH — Our Lady of Life Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Holy Trinity Parish, 246 Main Street (Rte. 28), holds perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. We are a regional chapel serving all of the surrounding parishes. All are invited to sign up to cover open hours. For open hours, or to sign up call 508-430-4716.

Thomas A. Rodgers III, noted philanthropist

BOSTON — Philanthropist and businessman Thomas A. Rodgers, III, 70, passed away November 1 in Boston, after a brief illness.

Born March 30, 1945, in Fall River, Rodgers resided in Tiverton, R.I., with his wife Gisela.

He was the son of Thomas A. Rodgers Jr., and Rita Hayes.

Rodgers attended St. John’s Preparatory School in Danvers, and graduated from Brown University in 1966. Upon graduation he went to work at the family company, Globe Manufacturing, which was founded by his father.

Under Thomas IIIs direction, Globe Manufacturing became the third largest supplier worldwide of Spandex and elastic fibers. He believed strongly in education and his Rodgers Family Foundation donated generously to organizations in Fall River such as Bristol Community College, the YMCA, and the Boys and Girls Club.

He was also a great supporter of the Fall River Diocese’s St. Mary’s Education Fund (now the Foundation to Advance Catholic Education).

The foundation also gave generously to Salve Regina University, where a donation helped fund the school’s graduate program in nursing. Rodgers also helped establish the Tashirat Foundation in Tepoztln, Mexico, which provides a home for abused children.

He and Gisela celebrated their 44th anniversary last January. He is survived by his wife Gisela; sisters Geraldine Roos (Portsmouth, R.I.), Maureen Bateman and her husband Ted (Stuart, Fla.), and Christine Fennelly and her husband John (Westport, Mass.); children Al-

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks Nov. 21 Rev. Stephen J. Downey, Retired Pastor, Holy Ghost, Attleboro, 1975 Rev. James F. Kenney, Retired Pastor, Corpus Christi, East Sandwich, 1994 Nov. 23 Rev. James E. Smith, Retired Chaplain, Bethlehem Home, Taunton, 1962 Rev. Msgr. Christopher L. Broderick, Retired Founder, St. Pius X, South Yarmouth, 1984 Nov. 24 Msgr. Daniel F. Shalloo, Retired Pastor, Holy Name, Fall River, 1991 Nov. 25 Rev. Philias Jalbert, Pastor, Notre Dame de Lourdes, Fall River, 1946 Rev. Dennis Spykers, SS.CC., Retired Pastor, Our Lady of Lourdes, Wellfleet, 1971 Nov. 26 Rev. James R. Burns, P.R., Pastor, Sacred Heart, Fall River, 1945 Rev. Charles Porada, O.F.M. Conv., 2000 Nov. 27 Rt. Rev. Patrick E. McGee, Pastor, St. Mary, North Attleboro, 1948

exandra Bonome and her husband Peter (Portsmouth, R.I.), Sarah McNeill and her husband Sean (Newport, R.I.), Melissa

Rodgers (Tepotzlan, Mexico), Thomas A. Rodgers, IV and his wife Carrie (Longboat Key, Fla.); and six grandchildren.

Around the Diocese

St. Elizabeth Seton Parish, Quaker Road in North Falmouth, will host its Christmas Fair on November 21 from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. featuring coffee and donuts, a luncheon at 11:30 a.m. serving lobster rolls, clam chowder and more, a country store featuring Christmas decorations including dried flower arrangements and wreaths, antiques and collectibles, jewelry, handmade items, baked goods, books and raffles with many prizes including a trip to Bermuda leaving from Boston.

St. Jude the Apostle Parish will be having its annual Penny Sale at the church hall, 249 Whittenton Street in Taunton, on November 21 at 6 p.m. Doors open at 5 p.m. In addition to three regular series, there will be specials, roll-ups, refreshments, a raffle on 15 turkey dinner baskets, and a money raffle with $1,000 as the first prize.

A Country Christmas Bazaar, presented by Corpus Christi Parish, 324 Quaker Meetinghouse Road in Sandwich, will take place November 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Come and see the many wonderful handmade creations by our crafters, the aroma of our homemade baked treats, and enjoy a delicious lunch at our café, take a chance at our Noella raffle and our handmade quilt raffle, and stop by to see many of your favorite vendors. This spectacular event will be taking place at the parish center including classrooms.

St. John Neumann Parish, 157 Middleboro Road in East Freetown, will be hosting a Thanksgiving Christ the King Taizé service on November 22 at 7 p.m. This is an ecumenical candlelight service of Scripture, music and chant, colors and meditative silence for folks to come together in faith to offer thanks and praise Christ the King.

Holy Trinity Parish, 951 Stafford Road in Fall River, will hold its Harvest Penny Sale on November 22 at 1 p.m. in the parish hall. Sponsored by the Holy Trinity Women’s Guild, the event will include door prizes and food. Admission is just $1.

A Novena of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception will be held from November 30 to December 8 at Holy Family Church, 370 Middleboro Avenue in East Taunton. Each evening at 7 p.m. in the church there will be Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, a talk by a different priest, Confessions available, praying of the Rosary, and Benediction. This year’s reflections will meditate on the gift of mercy and how to live it as we prepare for the Year of Mercy, which begins December 8. This is a powerful way to spend time in prayer, grow in one’s knowledge of the mercy and examples for us to emulate, especially fostering our devotion to Mary. This also helps us prepare for the holy day of the Immaculate Conception, and experience Advent in a very joyful and peaceful way.

The Catholic Women’s Club of Christ the King Parish, Jobs Fishing Road in Mashpee, will sponsor its Annual Christmas Fair on December 5 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the parish center. Featured will be a variety of crafters selling handmade items to include old world Santas, nautical ornaments, jewelry, knitted hats and scarves, gel candles, glass cheese boards, porcelain tiles and more. There will also be handcrafted live Christmas wreaths and seasonal arrangements, gift and cash raffles, unique gift baskets, baked goods and a shopping room for children with face painting and games, and the popular Holly Café.

A Mini Advent Retreat for Women will be held on December 5 beginning at 8 a.m. This Saturday morning retreat will include continental breakfast and presentations by Breadbox Media Radio host Allison Gingras and an opportunity for shopping! The event will wrap up by noontime. For reservations or more information, call 508-243-1133 or visit www.ReconciledToYou.com.

St. Margaret Regional School, Main Street in Buzzards Bay, will host its 10th annual Holiday Craft and Vendor Fair on December 5 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Attractions will include more than 40 tables of handmade crafts and catalogue vendors, fresh Maine wreaths, baked goods, concessions, and lots of raffle items (even a kid’s raffle table). The event is free with plenty of parking. For more information, call 774-269-4129 or email nutuck@ verizon.net.

20

November 20, 2015

What will Jesus ask you on judgment day? continued from page 13

dren from North Africa. She asked what Christians can do in order to eliminate walls and resentment toward refugees.

“There is a fantasy behind human walls, the fantasy of becoming like God,” he said, adding that this is also the

case behind the destruction of the Tower of Babel.

“The Tower of Babel is exactly the attitude of the men and woman who build walls, because to build walls is to say ‘we are powerful, and you are outside,’” he said. “Walls always exclude, they prefer power, in this case the power of money.”

Pope Francis said that the wall can be considered “the monument of exclusion,” and questioned attendees on how often “the riches” of vanity and pride have become a wall for them, separating them from the Lord.

He said the remedy for building walls is found in one word: “service.”

Jesus gives us the example of what this service looks like when He washes the feet of His disciples and serves those most in need, he said.

The human ego always wants to defend itself and its own power, Francis observed, but noted that in doing so, “it distances itself from the source of wealth.”

“In the end, walls are like a suicide, they make you closed.

It’s a terrible thing to see a closed heart, and today we see it,” the pope said.

In a final remark he noted how Mother Teresa’s effort to help the poor die in dignity has been criticized as not making a difference, but was rather a small drop in a vast ocean.

However, “after this drop the ocean is not the same,” the pope said, adding that “with service, the walls always fall on their own, but our egoism, our desire for power always tries to make them.”