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NAT IONA L CAT HOL IC R EGIST ER , J U LY 17, 2022

NATION

Questions Abound in the Wake of Msgr. Burrill’s Return to Active Ministry BY J U DY R O B E R T S REGISTER CORRESPONDENT

LA CROSSE, Wis. — A decision to restore Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill to active ministry in his home diocese in Wisconsin, less than a year after a scandal involving his alleged use of the “hook-up” app Grindr, has raised questions about the prudence of the move and the way in which it was implemented. Bishop William Callahan of La Crosse told members of St. Teresa of Kolkata parish June 11-12 that Msgr. Burrill would be their new parochial administrator. He further expressed confidence in his ability to accompany them in their journey toward Christ. However, although he said in a brief statement published on the parish website that Msgr. Burrill had most recently served the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, he did not mention the priest’s resignation last July as general secretary immediately preceding an investigative report in The Pillar. According to that report, Msgr. Burrill allegedly had engaged in inappropriate behavior and frequent use of Grindr, which describes itself as “the world’s largest socialnetworking app for gay, bi, trans and queer people.” The bishop’s statement also did not say what Msgr. Burrill did during an “extended leave” from active ministry other than to state he “engaged in a sincere and prayerful effort to strengthen his priestly vows” and responded favorably to every request made by Bishop Callahan and the diocese. Those requests were not specified. Finally, although the diocese had pledged full cooperation with the USCCB last year to investigate and address the claims against Msgr. Burrill, the statement said only that the diocese has received no allegations of illegal misconduct by him. Since the announcement of Msgr. Burrill’s appointment, there has been no apparent response from parishioners at St. Teresa of Kolkata. Nothing has appeared on the parish Facebook page, though a post about the appointment on the diocese’s Facebook page generated more than a dozen comments and reactions, most of them expressing surprise, anger or sadness, but none were identified as coming from a parishioner. Non-parishioner Monica Mohan responded to the diocese’s post

BACK IN A PARISH. Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill, shown reading a tally during the U.S. bishops’ June 2021 virtual assembly, has returned to active ministry in his home diocese in Wisconsin, less than a year after a scandal involving his alleged use of a ‘hook-up’ app. Screenshot via USCCB/YouTube with a link to an article about the appointment from LifeSiteNews, which contrasted Bishop Callahan’s support for Msgr. Burrill with his censure of Father James Altman, another priest of the diocese. Bishop Callahan removed Father Altman as pastor of St. James the Less parish and removed his priestly faculties last July after seeking to correct him privately for inflammatory commentary on multiple socialmedia platforms. Mohan, of Fall Creek, Wisconsin, also mentioned the Father Altman dismissal in a letter to the La Crosse Tribune, criticizing the bishop’s handling of both it and the Msgr. Burrill appointment. “A good bishop protects — is transparent,” she wrote.

Incomplete Accounting Father Gerald Murray, a canon lawyer and pastor of Holy Family Church in New York, told the Register he sees Bishop Callahan’s statement as lacking in candor and avoiding a plain accounting for the public scandal that Msgr. Burrill occasioned. It also leaves the impression, he added, that because no one sent the diocese allegations of illegal misconduct, there was nothing more to be done. Furthermore, he said, it raises such questions as whether an investigation was done by a qualified professional, independent expert, whether it covered the potential use of Church or USCCB funds for immoral activity and whether Msgr. Burrill sought and received professional help for a possible sexual addiction. Likewise, Father Murray said, there was no reference to the

Church’s Canon 1395-2, which provides for penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state, against clerics who publicly offend against the Sixth Commandment. Absent also from Bishop Callahan’s statement, he said, is whether Msgr. Burrill will be closely monitored by a diocesan official, whether parishioners will have a way to raise concerns about his behavior and where he will be residing. Efforts by the Register to obtain answers to such questions about Msgr. Burrill’s appointment have been met with silence on the part of the Diocese of La Crosse as well as St. Teresa of Kolkata parish. Repeated calls and emails have not been returned. “The assignment of Msgr. Burrill to a leadership position of pastoral responsibility without a full accounting for what he did and without a sincere expression of public regret by Msgr. Burrill himself,” Father Murray said, “strikes me as extremely imprudent and seems to follow the all-too-familiar pattern of bishops protecting clerics known to have engaged in grave sexual immorality while asking the faithful to trust their judgment.”

Clericalist Approach? Indeed, Andrew Petiprin, who wrote about the Msgr. Burrill appointment in a recent Catholic World Report column, told the Register that such situations reinforce the perception that the Church hierarchy has a problem of clericalism. “It just seems to me that Msgr. Burrill’s bishop has really put his concern for his priests ahead of the greater good for the people in his

diocese.” A former Episcopal priest who came into full communion with the Church in 2019, Petiprin said he is speaking as a concerned layman who believes the mercy shown to Msgr. Burrill needs to be balanced with the needs of the people of God. He said, “I think it’s important, obviously, for his bishop to care about him and desire the best for him, but he also has a major responsibility to care for the souls of the people in his diocese and also to care about the perception of things in the eyes of the world.” Petiprin said it’s not that some kind of rehabilitation is out of the question for Msgr. Burrill. “But it does seem a little strange that less than a year after he was exposed in a public scandal that he be returned to active ministry.” A priest with expertise in priestly formation, ethics and canon law who asked not to be named said he was less bothered by the brevity of time between Msgr. Burrill’s USCCB resignation and his return to ministry than by the lack of information being made available about the situation. “It seems like the People of God are being gaslit, as though this never happened,” he said. “This was made public, and, therefore, the public needs a response from the Church as far as what happened.” The priest said the statement that no allegations of illegal misconduct were received indicates passivity on the part of the diocese and not that there was an investigation. If an investigation did take place and it identified people who were involved with Msgr. Burrill, the priest said there could be reasons to keep it quiet to protect them. However, he said, there also is an obligation to clarify that the Church does not approve of this behavior and will not sanction it, meaning some penalty was inflicted

BY C AT H O L I C N E W S AG E N C Y

HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — Pope Francis expressed shock and sadness over the mass shooting that led to the deaths of at least seven people and wounded more than 30 others at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. In a telegram sent on behalf of the Holy Father to Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, the Pope condemned the “senseless shooting,” appealing for a rejection of all forms of violence. The telegram was sent on his behalf by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, reported Vatican News. Pope Francis asked the cardinal to convey his spiritual closeness to all affected by this attack. Robert E. Crimo III, a 21-year-old local, has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. He is

being held without bail. The Pope’s telegram said he joined “the entire community in praying that Almighty God will grant eternal rest to the dead and healing and consolation to the injured and bereaved.” “With unwavering faith that the grace of God is able to convert even the hardest of hearts, making it possible to depart from evil and do good,” the message continued, Pope Francis prayed “that every member of society will reject violence in all of its forms and respect life in all of its stages.” Pope Francis concluded by sending his apostolic blessing “as a pledge of strength and peace in the Lord.” Highland Park is an affluent suburb about 25 miles north of Chicago along Lake Michigan. In a July 4 statement, Cardinal Cupich said he was praying for the

victims and first responders. He also spoke out strongly against the scourge of gun violence. “What should have been a peaceful celebration of our nation’s founding ended in unspeakable tragedy,” the cardinal said. “Please join me in praying for the victims and their loved ones, who never imagined a July 4 celebration could become a killing ground. Pray too for the safety of first responders. ... They bravely rushed into the danger to treat victims and to protect others from harm.” On July 5, Cardinal Cupich co-celebrated a Mass for the grieving community at Highland Park’s Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. The parish became a safe haven in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, CBS 2 Chicago reported. Register staff added to this report.

Judy Roberts writes from Graytown, Ohio.

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Therapeutic Perspective Peter Kleponis, a licensed clinical therapist who has worked with priests, religious and seminarians and specializes in pornography addiction recovery, said he could not say whether Msgr. Burrill is being restored to ministry too soon. In some cases, he told the Register, a year of good, healthy sobriety may be enough to justify a return for someone who has struggled with sexual addiction. However, he said he sees several red flags in Msgr. Burrill’s case. Among these is that although the priest is not believed to have engaged in illegal activity, his alleged use of Grindr suggests a moral violation. “Did the diocese investigate that?” Kleponis said. “Morally, a priest who’s about chaste celibacy should not be on something like Grindr.” Kleponis said there also has been no indication that Msgr. Burrill received a psychological assessment, adding, “If a person is on Grindr every day, possibly there could be sexual addiction here, but that needs to be evaluated.” According to The Pillar report, a mobile device correlated to Msgr. Burrill emitted app data signals from

Grindr on a near-daily basis during parts of 2018, 2019 and 2020, and an analysis showed he also visited gay bars and private residences while using the app during that time. In being returned to ministry, Kleponis said Msgr. Burrill and his use of technology should be monitored regularly. “Where he goes and what he does needs accountability.” Because the availability of technology and the internet can make it easy to get involved in and addicted to pornography or apps like Grindr, Kleponis said he would like to see the Church institute more formal guidelines to help priests in such situations. “The Church needs some policy for helping these people,” he said. “A lot of dioceses just ship them away to a treatment center for six months, but even that is not helpful. There need to be new policies based on current research ... and every diocese needs to have a policy on how to handle these situations.” Helping priests does not necessarily mean they ultimately will return to ministry, because some may not be able to do so, Kleponis said, but they should not be automatically dismissed because they are identified as having such problems. “In my practice, I work with many priests who struggle with pornography addiction, and many of them come to me secretly. They don’t want their diocese knowing. They’re afraid of what will happen to them and afraid they will lose their ministry — and some have.” Nonetheless, Kleponis said he advises such priests to let their bishops know about their struggles. “It does lead to some being dismissed — and some should be. Some are so entrenched that they need to step away for a while. Some may even need inpatient treatment.”

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and instruments were put in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again. For example, he said, “I would have expected someone in authority to say that priests shouldn’t be using these apps, and the minimum would be that Msgr. Burrill has erased these apps from his phone.” The priest also said any sense of sin seems to have been lost in the way in which Msgr. Burrill’s case has been handled. “It would be helpful to have had a statement from him saying he is sorry and that he is committed to being a faithful priest.”

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WORLD

Exiled Nicaraguan Bishop: Ortega Regime Has Turned Our Country Into a Prison Auxiliary Bishop Silvio José Báez Ortega Decries Persecution of the Church BY J OA N F R AW L E Y D E S M O N D SENIOR EDITOR

MIAMI — When the Biden administration announced that the Summit on the Americas, held in Los Angeles, would exclude countries like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba that faced international condemnation for their autocratic policies, the president of Mexico refused to participate in the gathering and called out Washington’s legacy of interference in the region. But even as Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had a bone to pick with the White House, another voice applauded the exclusion of Nicaragua from the summit, held June 6-10. “The current U.S. administration said it would not invite dictatorships” to the summit, Auxiliary Bishop Silvio José Báez Ortega of Managua, now living in exile in Miami, told the Register in a June 20 interview. “As a bishop, I can say that the current regime in Nicaragua has made our country into a jail, a prison.” “It is a dictatorship in every sense of the word,” he stated in an interview that examined the treatment of the Catholic Church and the manipulation of popular religion by Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista leader who rose to power in the heady days of the 1979 revolution and has governed continuously since 2007, with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president. When Pope Francis ordered Bishop Báez to leave his native land in April 2019, the papal directive didn’t sit well with the outspoken prelate, who was committed to defending his flock amid growing religious and political persecution and appeared destined for a showdown with a government. But Bishop Báez complied with Francis’ decision to remove him from harm’s way, and he now ministers in Miami to a growing number of his countrymen who have also found safe harbor, fearing imprisonment or death if they stayed behind. In 2018, a political crisis ignited by the Nicaraguan government’s economic policies resulted in mass protests and a brutal response from the regime. At least 328 people died, and some 2,000 people were injured. Since then, a wave of political and religious persecution has struck fear in this predominantly Catholic country. The campaign of state-sanctioned harassment of all its perceived opponents has often been carried out by extrajudicial forces directed or tolerated by the government, according to human-rights groups. At present count, 190 churches have been attacked and desecrated, while bishops, priests and laypeople are frequently harassed, according to a new report, “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church? (2018-2022),” compiled by attorney Martha Patricia Molina Montenegro, a member of the ProTransparency and Anti-Corruption Observatory. “The report … reflects a broad panorama of the persecution and criminalization suffered by the Catholic Church in Nicaragua,” Molina told the Register in an email message. Church-state tensions reached a critical juncture in March 2022, when the regime expelled the Vatican’s ambassador to Nicaragua, Polish Archbishop Waldemar Stanisław Sommertag. The Vatican expressed its “sorrow” at the regime’s actions, while noting the nuncio’s role in the stalled “National Dialogue” designed to promote “reconciliation” between the Ortega government and opposition groups. For now, Pope Francis has opted to work behind the scenes as the regime’s repressive policies provoke public condemnation from humanrights groups and international organizations like the OAS. Bishop Báez, for his part, has defended the Pope’s public silence, telling a Nicaraguan media outlet in April that he provided documents on the plight of Nicaraguan political prisoners to the Pope during a November 2021 papal audience and was sure Francis would help secure justice for the prisoners. During that meeting, he told the Register, he also broached the topic of his own “uncertain” future.

CONCERNED SHEPHERD. Auxiliary Bishop Silvio José Báez Ortega of Managua arrives to celebrate Easter Mass, his last Mass at the Santo Cristo de Esquipulas Church in Managua, on April 21, 2019. Since then, the bishop has lived in exile in Miami. Inti Ocon/AFP via Getty Images “The Holy Father said, ‘Do not worry about your future,’ and this has occasioned in me a great confidence: God will provide,” said the bishop. At present, he teaches at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida. On Sundays he ministers to Nicaraguan refugees, many of whom are suffering from the trauma of political exile, even as they search for legal counsel to help them regularize their immigration status. Throughout his painful threeyear exile, the bishop has maintained a razor-sharp focus on the unfolding crisis in his own country, analyzing the shifting tactics that the government has employed to tap the power of faith in a deeply pious nation. The regime also sought to “present itself as Christian, socialist and in solidarity” with the people, he reported. “It invokes the name of Christ, uses Catholic terminology, and couches many of its statements in religious language.” As he sees it, Ortega hopes to tap the vitality and credibility of the faith to strengthen the power of the state. The bishop believes that these tactics also serve a secondary purpose: They sow division within the Church, with the regime’s supporters initiating religious activities that compete with parish-based efforts. This approach, he said, “was especially marked during the pandemic, when the Church had prohibited large-scale gatherings, and the government didn’t limit its own gatherings.” The early years of the Sandinista revolution coincided with the creation of small base communities supported by liberation theologians and others seeking a new model, a Church of the poor that defended and sustained the oppressed. But even as the first Sandinista-led government included three priests in cabinet positions, tensions between the Church and the new government steadily mounted during the final decade of the Cold War. The Sandinista-backed “popular church” was “openly attacking the Nicaraguan Church,” said Bishop Báez. Today, however, the regime no longer attracts support from theologians. And the Sandinistas are now “appropriating religion to serve their political ends in a more subtle way,” while professing “respect for Pope Francis and his teaching.” The bishop perceives “an element of syncretism” in the regime’s use of religious themes and symbols. “To captivate the religious imagination, they combine Catholic prayers with prayers to the cosmic powers, Christian symbols with pentagrams. It is designed to infuse religion into their criminal enterprise.” And though hardline Marxists within the Sandinistas’ ranks once sought the promotion and inculcation of a new kind of human being liberated from the opiate of religion, present-day government officials in Nicaragua are not wedded to leftist ideologies, said the bishop. They prefer to “improvise as they go,” he said. “They are not metaphysicians. They want a religion that is purely utilitarian, divested of

all ethics, to serve their criminal enterprise.” Since his departure from Nicaragua, the government has ratcheted up its campaign to suppress threats to its power. In 2020, it passed a law that essentially defined criticism of the regime as an offense akin to treason. Bishop Báez has kept abreast of these troubling developments, meeting with the grieving families of political prisoners, including those who were detained during the run-up to the 2021 elections who now face lengthy prison sentences. “Whatever popular legitimacy Ortega might have had pretty much evaporated” after government forces fired on protesters during the mass demonstrations in 2018, said Jared Genser, an international humanrights lawyer who represents imprisoned opposition leaders Félix Maradiaga and Juan Sebastián Chamorro. In the months ahead of the 2021 presidential election, the two men, both Catholic, were among a group of seven presidential hopefuls who mounted a strong challenge to the Ortega regime and pressed for political reforms in both national and international forums. Maradiaga is a member of the Political Council of Unidad Nacional Azul y Blanco (UNAB, Blue and White National Unity), the largest umbrella organization for the political opposition in Nicaragua, and a former cabinet member. An academic and entrepreneur, he is an important thought leader in the region. In 2016, Forbes magazine named him one of Central America’s most influential people. Juan Sebastián Chamorro is an economist and businessman who served in a number of government posts prior to Ortega’s return to power in 2007. The executive director of economic think tank FUNIDES, Chamorro served as a leader of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy (ACJD), an opposition group that gained traction after the 2018 crackdown, and represented the business sector in the 2018 National Dialogue. He is the nephew of the late Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, the editor of the country’s storied newspaper La Prensa, a thorn in the side of both the Ortega regime and the country’s previous dictator, the late Anastasio Somoza Debayle, who lost power to the Sandinistas in 1979. “It was clear that if there was a free election Ortega would not win,” Genser told the Register. In contrast to prior presidential elections, he noted, “the opposition came together” and decided “they would support the candidate who won the most votes.” Early polling suggested that Juan Chamorro would likely capture the most votes, said Genser. Instead, Chamorro and other would-be presidential contenders were detained, and Ortega won the election. The subsequent trials and convictions of the seven one-time presidential candidates on what critics call patently trumped-up charges have been widely viewed as a brutal move to secure his grip on power.

In March, both of Genser’s clients were convicted of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and have received 13-year prison sentences. Their families have strongly protested their trial and sentences, as well as their brutal treatment in prison. The two men have not been able to see their wives since their arrest last year and have experienced significant weight loss after allegedly facing lengthy interrogations and “psychological torture.” Their lawyer said that even requests for a Bible have been denied. Chamorro’s wife, Victoria Cárdenas, told CBS’ 60 Minutes this month that the regime’s actions constituted a “violation of basic human rights.” “It’s not only my family who is suffering; it’s more than 140 families who have political prisoners who are innocent and are living this awful situation,” said Cárdenas. Genser believes that “Ortega wanted to send out” a strong message designed to quash any resistance: “If you spoke out against him,” he said, “there would be serious consequences.” Bishop Báez issued his own sweeping indictment of Ortega’s legacy: “Under this regime, the value of a human life is directly proportionate to the value it has to this criminal enterprise and the extent to which it has submitted to the regime. If a person doesn’t contribute to the dictatorship, they have no value.” Pressed to explain why he characterized the Ortega regime as a “criminal enterprise,” Bishop Báez acknowledged that his language sounded “harsh” but that this judgment was not fundamentally political. Rather, it was the fruit of his pastoral accompaniment of his suffering flock. “This is a brutal regime that does not respect liberty and life,” he said. “It is a regime that has killed people peacefully protesting in the streets. People have been condemned unjustly and tortured.” And now the Missionaries of Charity have been expelled. As Bishop Báez tweeted June 28, “#Nicaragua. I am very sad that the dictatorship has forced the ... Missionaries of Charity of Teresa of Calcutta to leave the country. Nothing justifies depriving the poor of charitable care. I am a witness to the loving service of the sisters. God bless you.” Bishop Báez, like most Nicaraguans, is well aware that the world’s attention has been taken up with other more urgent matters, especially the protracted military battle to defend Ukraine against unprovoked Russian aggression. But a prophetic Church that looks to the peripheries, he said, must also stand with a “small, poor” nation like his own. “As a pastor, I believe in the power of the Resurrection,” he said. “Every Sunday, I exhort the people not to grow accustomed to the injustice that they are living, and I pray that the Resurrection will enliven the aspirations and hope of the Nicaraguan people to work for the common good of their country. “The regime wants them to consider this the new normal,” the bishop concluded. “It is not.”

NAT IONA L CAT HOL IC R EGIST ER , J U LY 17, 2022

BOOKS & EDUCATION

Christendom College Offers Scholarships for Military-Affiliated Students Liberal Arts School Extends Benefits BY A N N S C H N E I B L E

FRONT ROYAL, Va. — A Virginia-based Catholic liberal arts college is offering 100% scholarships for eligible students from military families, responding to recent legislation that limits students of non-government-funded institutions from receiving such benefits. Attending Christendom “helps me articulate some of the situations and experiences I had in the Marine Corps,” said Philip McShurley, who had taken four years between his freshman and sophomore years to serve in the armed forces. “It’s also a great way of reflecting, and it’s really definitely deepened my faith.” McShurley, a beneficiary of the new scholarship program, left Christendom after freshman year because he felt “restless” and “was looking for something to really challenge me.” Although he had his pick of colleges, thanks to the GI Bill, McShurley realized that, after leaving the Corps, he wanted to return to Christendom, which would not have been an option were it not for the scholarship program. “I felt like I had gotten my moral and spiritual challenge in the Marine Corps, and I was ready to build up after that,” McShurley said. “In this day in age, it is great to see a college have strong support for the troops and have an interest in giving them true wisdom,” said Adam Rockwell, another beneficiary of the new scholarship program being offered by Christendom College, a Catholic liberal arts institution in Front Royal, Virginia. “Giving these students this opportunity is creating a diverse environment at Christendom, inviting people from all different backgrounds to come and learn the

GRATEFUL NATION. Around a dozen students put to good use Christendom’s military scholarships in the 20212022 academic year. Sarah Jackson, courtesy of Christendom College teachings of Christ.” Rockwell, whose family had served in the military from World War II to Vietnam, told the Register that he considers it an “honor” to have served the United States in the U.S Army Reserve as a motor transport operator in the Transportation Corps before his time at Christendom. “These brave men fought [through] some of America’s biggest wars, leaving a legacy and inspiring stories that have been passed down my family line,” he said. Christendom College began offering the new scholarship after new government regulations, issued in summer 2021, limited benefits for military-affiliated students who attend educational institutions that do not receive government funding under Title IV. As a consequence, “new government regulations were issued in the summer of 2021 requiring that any school that accepts GI Bill funds meet the requirements for and participate in federal student aid programs under Title IV,” according to a statement issued through the col-

lege website. “As a result, GI Bill funds are now likely to bring with them the same bureaucracy, government control, and entanglement as other federal funding.” Prior to the 2021-2022 academic year, students could receive military benefits while attending Christendom through the GI Bill funds, as a benefit granted to individual veterans, even though the college rejects government funding. “Military service members and their children have been deeply connected to the college since Day One, and we have greatly benefited from their influence and commitment to our faith and our beloved country,” said Mark Rohlena, executive vice president of Christendom College. The 2021 legislation caused a “tension” between the college’s commitment to not accept federal funding and their “commitment to our veterans,” Rohlena told the Register. “Christendom College has always rejected federal funding since the day we opened our doors as an important way of preserving our independence and the type of

education we provide,” Rohlena explained. “We could not risk abandoning a bedrock principle of the college that has us rejecting federal funds each year for the real peril that we would be forced away from our mission, but we also knew that our veterans and their families could not be left out in the cold,” he said. “We are in the process of actively withdrawing from the system and have filed the necessary forms to do so,” said Zachary Smith, Christendom’s associate director of marketing and communications. Although the college is still listed on GI Bill websites, Smith explained that they had “ceased processing any GI Bill fund requests or paperwork, so no GI Bill funds for Christendom have been processed for the last year.” Between Christendom’s undergraduate and graduate programs, around a dozen students “have benefitted from the scholarship” in the 2021-2022 academic year, said Rohlena. “This includes active-duty military personnel, reservists, veterans and children of veterans,” he

said. When it became evident that government regulations would limit the benefits that military-affiliated students could receive, the college turned to benefactors for assistance, said the college’s vice president for advancement, Paul Jalsevac. “The response was quick and overwhelming,” Jalsevac said in an interview with the Register. “Our supporters love their country and the military who serve it and made it clear that they both supported our desire to remain free from federal funding and wanted to provide for the needs of our military families.” The objective of the new scholarship is to “mirror” the benefits that the GI Bill had to offer, Rohlena said. “Our goal is basically to mirror the GI Bill in terms of who can benefit from the scholarship.” With the new scholarship program, Rohlena said, “veterans and family members who still qualify to use the GI Bill would be eligible for our program.” Acknowledging the “incredible sacrifices” that military families have made “to protect our freedoms,” Rohlena said, “veteran families bring us extremely dedicated students who do very well in our liberal arts curriculum, and they go on to do amazing things in the world.” Rohlena added that students with military connections “often come to us with a keen awareness from their service of what can happen to a society when it abandons truth and gives over its freedoms to hostile ideologies that have no regard for human life and freedom.” “Our mission is to restore all things in Christ,” said Jalsevac. “As part of that mission, Christendom educates leaders who will make an impact on our Church and nation in so many different ways, including our military, so ensuring that our military have access to a Christendom education is an important way to impact our culture.”

McShurley recounted how one particular ethics class from the past academic year discussed how actions and habits affect how one views the world. In essence, he said, “you’re responsible for how you look at the world, and you’re responsible for how you view things and people.” He recalled having encouraged one of his fellow Marines to “CHRISTENDOM EDUCATES LEADERS WHO WILL MAKE AN IMPACT ON OUR CHURCH AND NATION IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS, INCLUDING OUR MILITARY.” — PAUL JALSEVAC, VICE PRESIDENT FOR ADVANCEMENT

take a break from viewing pornography and how the Marine had come to recognize the benefits of such a fast; as the Church teaches in the Catechism, pornography “offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense” (2354). “It all really hits home for me in a very experiential way,” McShurley said of what his coursework underscores. As for Rockwell, Christendom has helped him “learn to have a deeper trust in Christ during difficult moments and training,” he said. “Being at Christendom has allowed me to share this unique experience with my fellow classmates.” Ann Schneible writes from Virginia.

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PAID ADVERTISEMENT

Catholic Ministry Insists Poverty Relief Must Include An Encounter with Christ If you are like most people, you’ve probably never heard of Suchitepéquez, Guatemala. It isn’t home to the country’s capital city. It’s not a tourist hot spot, and it doesn’t have an abundance of the natural resources the world craves. Almost nothing about this remote part of Guatemala stands out as noteworthy or would draw your attention — except for its people and the miraculous material and spiritual work God has begun to accomplish there. “Suchitepéquez, Guatemala, has become an area of great interest to Cross Catholic Outreach, and we expect many in the Catholic Church will eventually celebrate its significance in the years ahead. We believe that people and communities are being transformed there, and the way that change is being achieved will soon be a model for ministries working to end poverty elsewhere in the world,” said Jim Cavnar, president of Cross Catholic Outreach. “Great changes have already taken place there, and I’m confident even greater advancements will be made in the year ahead.” Cavnar is also encouraged by how so many American Catholics have stepped forward to help with the mission work underway in Guatemala. His ministry — well known for its relief and development work around the globe — needs this support in order to undertake new initiatives and expand the diocese’s current outreaches to help the poor. (See related story at bottom of page.) Contributions from U.S. donors have

already helped Cross Catholic Outreach and the bishop of the Diocese of Suchitepéquez-Retalhuleu begin several community transformation programs that provide both material and spiritual blessings to families living in the area. “We believe there are two key factors that produce real, lasting change in poor

“...it takes an encounter with Christ to change lives and communities profoundly and forever.” Jim Cavnar, President Cross Catholic Outreach communities. Part of the process involves addressing the serious material needs of the people by ending extreme hunger, providing safer water sources, seeing that families have basic medical care, improving housing, educating children and doing other outreaches of that kind. Because poverty touches on many areas, you can only produce long-term prosperity in an area by having a relief plan that considers all of a community’s needs,” Cavnar said. “The other part of the process focuses on the spiritual condition of the people, and we consider it a critical reason for our success. Some try to attack poverty with only material solutions. While that may help for a time,

it rarely creates a healthy community or makes improvements that will last. Real transformation and progress are only possible when Christ is part of the solution. As people, we can offer temporary fixes to a momentary need, but it takes an encounter with Christ to change lives and communities profoundly and forever.” The work Cross Catholic Outreach has underway in Guatemala clearly reflects the development strategies Cavnar outlined, and many American Catholics have already shown their enthusiasm for the mission by supporting it financially. These contributions will continue to be important, especially in new communities that are still waiting to be helped. “Suchitepéquez is a rural area and most of the families living there are very poor, typically relying on subsistence farming to survive,” Cavnar explained. “The diocese is a reflection of the community and works with a very meager budget. It will continue to need our help to accomplish the social and spiritual outreaches local families desperately need. With our support, the diocese can feed the hungry, dig wells to supply fresh water, build houses for the homeless, set up medical clinics, provide educational scholarships, support spiritual outreaches and do the other things community transformation requires.” As these improvements take place and prove successful, donors to the cause often want to become even more involved, Cavnar added.

“In my experience, most American Catholics want to support meaningful outreaches to help the poor. But they are looking for something specific and they want to know their gifts will have a significant impact,” he said. “When they see what they can accomplish through Cross Catholic Outreach by empowering a diocese like this one, they often ask us, ‘What can I do next?’ They feel such fulfillment from the experience that they want to do more.” Readers interested in supporting Cross

Catholic Outreach’s outreaches to the poor can contribute through the ministry brochure inserted in this issue or send tax-deductible gifts to: Cross Catholic Outreach, Dept. AC02113, PO Box 97168, Washington DC 20090-7168. The ministry has a special need for partners willing to make gifts on a monthly basis. Use the inserted brochure to become a Mission Partner or write “Monthly Mission Partner” on mailed checks to be contacted about setting up those arrangements.

Cross Catholic Outreach’s “Day of Prayer” Blesses Catholics Spiritually Each year, one of the nation’s leading international relief and development ministries sets aside a special day to oﬀer prayer as a gift to those in need — particularly to Catholics in America who have been supporting its work overseas. It is yet another sign of the organization’s deeply spiritual approach to charity. “Since our inception, we have always set aside a day of the week to pray for those

who have shared their intentions, and those requests have typically come to us through the many priests who visit U.S. parishes to share about our mission during the homily of the Mass,” explained Jim Cavnar, president of Cross Catholic Outreach. “The Day of Prayer we celebrate in August is a full day dedicated to prayer for others, and it also includes a wonderful additional blessing. The prayer petitions we gather during that time

are sent to His Eminence Cardinal Konrad Krajewski at the Vatican, who intercedes for the many prayer intentions during a special Mass celebrated on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” Individuals interested in participating in the Day of Prayer are encouraged to use the ministry’s special internet page to submit their prayer intentions. It is found at CrossCatholic.org/dayofprayer.

“While Cross Catholic Outreach is best known for the many things it does to support Church missions serving the poor — delivering shipments of food and medicines, funding educational and house-building initiatives, and developing self-help projects that allow people to escape poverty — we are very intentional about serving the poor spiritually as well,” Cavnar said. “That is not always the case with charities, even religious

ones, but we believe communicating the Gospel of Christ and promoting the means of grace — including prayer — must be part of our relief and development mission.” “This approach is also in keeping with the points made in the Papal Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est,” he added. “It very clearly states that those of us who become involved in works of mercy must also be people of prayer.”

U.S. Catholics Help Poor Guatemalan Families Break the Bonds of Poverty There is a terrible and destructive myth about the poverty in Central America. It suggests that the poor families living there are unwilling to work hard to succeed and are eager to leave their communities to find an easier life elsewhere. “Nothing could be further from the truth, in my experience,” said Jim Cavnar, president of Cross Catholic Outreach, one of the leading Catholic ministries working to alleviate poverty in the developing world. “Yes, many rural families are mired in extreme poverty and desperately want to provide their children with a better way of life, but most men and women I’ve encountered want to find solutions at home, because they love their country, their communities and their families.” Cavnar has worked and traveled through South and Central America for nearly two decades, and his work with Catholic dioceses in countries such as Guatemala

they put an incredible level of energy into the work it involves. “When you improve a farmer’s crop yield so he can earn a higher income or you set up a pig-raising project so he can pay his bills and send his kids to school, you are triggering a major transformation in a family’s life. The economic chains that have bound the family in poverty for generations are broken, and a life of greater prosperity begins,” Cavnar said. “It’s an incredible experience to be part of that transformation — to see God restoring hope and opening a path to a brighter future for these precious people and their children.” According to Cavnar, this idea of addressing both a family’s material and spiritual needs is what has been fueling his ministry’s current efforts in Guatemala. (See related story at top of page.) “We believe this life-changing mission

Many of the poor families in the Diocese of Suchitepéquez-Retalhuleu live in fragile homes constructed from scrap wood, plastic or canvas sheets, and discarded metal. Few can afford even the most basic furnishings and most rely on wood-burning stoves that fill their tiny houses with smoke. They long to provide their children with a better life, so the Church is working to transform their communities and help them escape the bondage of this extreme poverty.

have proven out his sentiments. The poor are not looking for a handout but rather for “a hand up,” as he explained. Working under this premise, Cross Catholic Outreach typically supports diocesan efforts to provide both urgent relief with supplies of food and long-term development with self-help initiatives that allow families to improve their lot in life through agricultural and animal husbandry programs and other small business ventures. When families are offered access to opportunities like these, he says,

of mercy could sweep the globe and change millions of lives if we continue to be supported by American Catholics,” he added. For twenty years, donors to Cross Catholic Outreach have generously supported the ministry’s efforts to provide the poor with food and other urgent needs, and those objectives will remain an important part of the organization’s mission, but Cavnar hopes those same compassionate people will also want to support the long-term sustainable solutions the charity is undertaking.

“Together, we can partner with Caritas Suchitepéquez-Retalhuleu to help families grow their own food and increase their crop yields through improved tools and training,” Cavnar said. “These families are willing to work hard, and they want to become self-sufficient and prosper in their home communities. The Church should be helping them achieve those noble goals.” With the help of American Catholic donors, Caritas Suchitepéquez-Retalhuleu could double its agriculture program in the year ahead, he said. “In the past, Caritas successfully trained 200 families on proven techniques to grow healthy, sustainable home gardens, and the impact of that outreach was an incredible blessing. More recently, Caritas trained 400 farming families to grow native herbs, vegetables and local citrus fruits. This will help parents provide nutritious

meals for their children, and those families would also be able to sell their surplus crops to increase their income,” Cavnar said. “Catholic donors in the U.S. will play an important role in continuing this outreach. Their gifts will fund the technical assistance, cover the cost of seeds and

organic fertilizer, and purchase the fruit trees we will provide the next group of participating families. With these benefits and the spiritual support the diocese provides, these families can have hope again. Their dignity will be restored and their faith will be strengthened.”

How to Help

To fund Cross Catholic Outreach’s effort to help the poor worldwide, use the postage-paid brochure inserted in this newspaper, or mail your gift to Cross Catholic Outreach, Dept. AC02113, PO Box 97168, Washington, DC 200907168. The brochure also includes instructions on becoming a Mission Partner and making a regular monthly donation to this cause. If you identify an aid project, 100% of the donation will be restricted to be used for that specific project. However, if more is raised for the project than needed, funds will be redirected to other urgent needs in the ministry.

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Pregnancy CONTINUING PAGE ONE STORY

member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) and a practicing OB-GYN in Indiana, told the Register that “treating an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion; it is a procedure to save a woman’s life.” “It’s not even coded as an abortion in medical coding,” she pointed out. Francis explained, “When we treat an ectopic pregnancy, our intent is to save the life of the mother, and that is absolutely needed. Our intent is not to end the life of that baby. Now, we do those procedures knowing that the unintended consequence is that that child is going to lose their life, but we have not intentionally done a direct action on that preborn child in order to end his or her life. These procedures in no way will be outlawed by any state that restricts abortion.”

Debunking Narratives “Every state that I know of that has abortion restrictions that either automatically went into place when Roe was overturned or are debating potential abortion restrictions have life-of-the-mother exceptions, and many of the states actually have specific language in their laws that say an abortion is not referring to the treatment of an ectopic pregnancy,” she added. Since Roe was overturned, abortion bans are currently in effect in seven states with more expected to go into effect in the coming weeks. The existing abortion bans in Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin and West Virginia all include exceptions for the life of the mother and some even include language stating that the removal of an ectopic pregnancy is not affected by the law. In the case of a septic uterus, Francis said, “even if there’s still a heartbeat, our job as physicians is to intervene because that poses a threat to her life,” but “that can be done again in a way that doesn’t have direct action on that preborn baby, which many times can feel pain. We can induce her labor and allow her to

deliver an intact child who she can hold and grieve.” She said that in the case of a miscarriage, the “baby has already passed or its passing is inevitable, and in that situation then our duty is to the mother; and so that’s a situation that is not going to be impacted by the state laws.” A recent Pew article said that “some clinics already are refusing to use mifepristone to help women pass an early miscarriage because the drug also can be used in medical abortions.” Dr. Amy Domeyer-Klenske, an OB-GYN in Milwaukee who is vice chairwoman of the Wisconsin chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told Pew that without mifepristone, “doctors must either wait to see whether a patient passes the miscarriage on her own, or use less effective medications or perform a riskier surgical procedure.” Francis countered this was an “illegitimate concern” because although there has been “a push recently, mostly by abortion proponents within the medical field, to use mifepristone in addition to misoprostol for miscarriage management,” doctors “have been using misoprostol alone to treat that condition, and, in fact, I use that in my practice.” She referenced a 2018 study with 300 patients published in The New England Journal of Medicine that “claimed to show that if you add mifepristone to misoprostol for miscarriage management, it improves completion rates, meaning more women will successfully pass the baby and the placenta and any other pregnancy-related tissues.” However, Francis said the study also found “that the women who received mifepristone in addition to misoprostol actually had a much higher hemorrhage rate than women who received misoprostol alone.” Consequently, “the vast majority of OBGYNs are still using misoprostol” alone, Francis said. She pointed out that the thousands of members of AAPLOG do not “perform abortions as part of our daily practice and medicine,” adding that “we have been providing excellent health care to our patients for decades.” She said she wanted “to

calm the fears of so many out there that these laws that might restrict abortion are going to lead to women dying, when, in fact, we know that countries that have more restrictive abortion laws than the U.S. actually have better maternal mortality rates. So the data simply doesn’t bear out that restricting abortion is going to lead to the deaths of women.”

The Principle of Double Effect Dr. Lester Ruppersberger, a retired OB-GYN in Pennsylvania and former president of the Catholic Medical Association, told the Register that there are difficult cases, such as giving a hysterectomy to a pregnant woman with uterine cancer, curing the woman but ending the life of the unborn baby. In that case, a physician can ethically perform the hysterectomy under the Principle of Double Effect, where “one particular action has two particular outcomes: One is good, and the other is evil. The good effect is the saving of the mother’s life; the bad effect is the death of the baby, but the death of the baby is not a desired consequence. It is a secondary outcome of the primary treatment of saving the mother’s life.” Ruppersberger said that in treating ectopic pregnancy, the only ethically acceptable procedure is a partial salpingectomy, which is the removal of the portion of the fallopian tube where the baby is residing. “You’re removing a portion of damaged tissue, which is your primary surgical procedure and your primary intent. Within that damaged tissue there may be a living embryo, and your intent is not to kill the embryo directly, but the embryo will die if you remove the tissue because you’re cutting off its blood supply, but it is not your intent.” He said another treatment, utilizing the anti-cancer drug methotrexate, directly targets the baby based on how it works, so it is not generally acceptable. But, he added, the use of methotrexate could be ethically acceptable in cases where “you don’t see a fetal heartbeat in the fallopian tube, and you make the determination that there is a fetal demise.” The third treatment option is a linear salpingectomy, which is a surgical procedure where

you “make an incision in the fallopian tube and you go in and suck out or scrape out the baby and the placenta,” and it is not ethically acceptable because “you’re directly killing the baby.” Father Tad Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told the Register that “The Ethical and Religious ‘IT’S REALLY HARD FOR ME TO SEE THAT THE ABORTION ADVOCATES RIGHT NOW ARE IDENTIFYING ECTOPIC PREGNANCY LOSS AS ABORTION BECAUSE IT’S NOT. OUR FAITH TELLS US AN ATTACK ON HUMAN LIFE IS NEVER RIGHT. NOT ALL TREATMENTS FOR ECTOPIC PREGNANCY DO THAT, AND MANY BIOETHICISTS RECOGNIZE THAT WITHIN THE CHURCH.’ — MARIAH BUZZA Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops address cases of ectopic pregnancy, stating “no intervention is morally licit which constitutes a direct abortion.” He said that “morally permissible approaches to resolving an ectopic pregnancy can never involve a direct attack on the embryonic human being, but may involve interventions, like a salpingectomy, that indirectly or secondarily result in a loss of the life of the young human.” Pro-life legislation “should prohibit direct attacks on unborn human life, but should not preclude medical interventions that indirectly result in a loss of unborn life when the intention is to save the life of the mother and suitable alternatives are no longer available,” he said. “This is an example of the Principle of Double Effect, which is often misunderstood as permitting direct abortions in some cases.” Father Pacholczyk again cited the USCCB’s “Ethical

and Religious Directives,” which state, “Operations, treatments, and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child.”

Facing Ectopic Pregnancy Mariah Buzza, a Catholic mom and the assistant director of health policy at the Catholic health-sharing ministry CMF Curo, told the Register about being in a position where she had to weigh treatment options for her ectopic pregnancy in March 2020. At around six weeks of pregnancy, she received the diagnosis and described being apprehensive both because of the danger of the condition, but also knowing “certain treatments did not use abortifacients while others did.” She said after research she found that “a salpingectomy is considered morally safe because it doesn’t directly attack the life of the unborn child.” “It’s really hard for me to see that the abortion advocates right now are identifying ectopic pregnancy loss as abortion because it’s not,” she said. “Our faith tells us an attack on human life is never right. Not all treatments for ectopic pregnancy do that, and many bioethicists recognize that within the Church.” “When talking about ectopic pregnancies and medicine in general, the treatment we utilize must recognize the dignity and value of all human life,” she said. “I really believe my experience as a mother with an ectopic pregnancy taught me this.” Abortionists’ Poor Care Ruppersberger said he believes that bans on elective abortions will not “decrease the access to care because the clinics where abortions are done don’t provide those treatments. Planned Parenthood does not treat ectopic pregnancies; they do not provide care for miscarriages or missed abortions.” Another pressing concern for women’s health for Ruppersberger is the Biden administration’s lifting of safety guidelines on the abortion medication mifepristone in Decem-

ber. He said the pill can now be prescribed “without the patient ever even seeing or talking to a doctor,” and “there will be no confirmatory ultrasounds, so ectopic pregnancies will be missed in those women who are actually taking the medical abortion pill, which are the majority of abortions now in the United States.” Such a missed ectopic pregnancy could rupture, resulting in severe hemorrhaging and even death. He said abortion facilities, and not prolife physicians’ offices, are the places where women may not receive essential care, including screenings and patient follow-up. He recalled treating patients who had attempted surgical abortions at Planned Parenthood, such as one woman who “did not have a complete termination of her pregnancy.” As a result, he had to operate to “empty the contents of what was started partially at an abortion clinic, only to find out a day or two later when I cultured her in the emergency room that she was also positive for chlamydia.” He then had to follow up with antibiotics “to treat her for a chlamydia infection, which she was never screened for when the original abortion provider was providing the abortion.” In contrast, Father Pacholczyk said that respecting the dignity and value of all human life remains the focus of good health care, and Catholic hospitals are tasked with doing this in a preeminent way. “It’s a great urban myth that banning elective abortions will decrease access to appropriate care for mothers,” he said. “As a Catholic hospital treats and cares for both the mother and her unborn child, it remains committed never to crossing an important line: It may not directly take the life of an innocent human being as it cares for both patients. Catholic hospitals, nonetheless, are able to provide appropriate medical treatments that may result in the indirect loss of unborn life, tolerating that unintended loss when other alternatives are not available. Those admitted to Catholic health care institutions know one indisputable fact: They and their children will be treated using the highest standards of medical care, even as they remain safe from a direct assault upon either of their lives.”

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Groups CONTINUING PAGE 15 STORY

of WWMIN at parishes in the diocese, said Tim Mosser, the office’s director. The diocese had already planned to promote the program, but Mosser said urgency is good. “I don’t want to see one woman in North Dakota … thinking, ‘Okay, what am I going to do now? I’m just going to go somewhere else to find an abortion,’” he said. “I want every woman to know she’s loved and there is the help she wants and needs.” Mosser is also encouraging Catholics to become aware of women and families in their network, instead of waiting for those needing help to come to them. In turn, he and other diocesan personnel interviewed said their parishes have a heightened sense of awareness for any vandalism or violence that may result in the wake of the high court’s decision, but they did not want to give any other details about security plans. California Catholics are also being encouraged to accompany women and practice radical hospitality, Domingo said. “Whatever you’re already doing, this is another way to amplify those efforts, to gain additional people to be with you.” Catholics aren’t being asked to

OUR LADY OF HOPE. This statue showing the Blessed Mother caring the unborn Jesus at St. John the Evangelist in Wahpeton, North Dakota, was dedicated on the Solemnity of the Annunciation this year. The parish works to help women and babies in need through various initiatives. Courtesy photo do anything extraordinarily heroic — just to answer the Christian call to stand up for the sanctity and dignity of all life, said Kathleen Wilson, coordinator of pro-life ministry and Project Rachel for the Detroit Archdiocese. The archdiocese has partnered

with Catholic Charities to develop resources for parishes that have launched WWMIN programs, she said. “It’s not turning parishes into pregnancy-resource centers, but the goal is to let everyone in the pew know we are a church,” Wilson said. “We are a people of light that accompany women and families and children, and if someone came to us who is in need we know where to send them.” All women contemplating abortion are fearful, including of not having resources, Wilson said, adding that the Body of Christ has all the resources needed. “We may not feel like it, and that’s really the lie of the enemy,” she said. Michigan Catholics and other communities of faith are going to see that with the increased challenges come increased opportunities. The Great Lakes State has a dormant abortion ban on its books, but there are also efforts to enshrine abortion in its constitution. Wilson said the Holy Spirit will aid the archdiocese’s response. “It’s an ongoing work of mercy,” she said. “We have ongoing responsibility as Catholics to educate ourselves and to be inspired with how we live out this gospel of life.” Susan Klemond writes from St. Paul, Minnesota.

HOW TO HELP WalkingWithMoms.com

Pro-Life Kids CONTINUING PAGE 15 COLUMN

involved in the pro-life movement, from making care bags for pregnant moms to be handed out at pregnancy centers to helping “fill a crib” for a “Moms in Need” ministry, participating in life chains and marches, and attending baby showers for moms hosted by parish prolife ministries. Talk with your children about the pregnancy-care centers and pro-life ministries that you support financially, and encourage them to work and raise money to donate to these causes. Older children can begin to participate in their civic responsibility by learning to vote for pro-life candidates and policies and engage in letterwriting and other campaigning to further the pro-life cause. Parents can encourage teens and young adults to join pro-life clubs and student organizations. 2. Pray together! Pray regularly for an end to abortion in your family prayers. Utilize Fulton Sheen’s spiritual adoption prayer (online at SpiritualAdoption.org) to spiritually adopt an unborn baby as a family, pray for the conversion of hearts of those who do not uphold the sanctity of life, and bring your children to pray with you outside an abortion facility (even consider weekend hours when the business is closed, if needed, as those prayers are still fruitful on location and when many are gathered). Pray for pregnant mothers and their babies in utero, pray for adopting parents, pray for women in crisis pregnancies, pray for post-abortive healing for women and men, and pray for pro-life organizations and their ministry work. 3. Give your children an opportunity to love on babies! Whether that’s their own siblings — from tracking their fetal development in the womb to holding and helping them for the first time as a newborn — or other babies they encounter at church or among friends and relatives. Be open to life in your own home. Together, marvel at the gift and blessing that babies are to the world and the joy they bring to our families and communities. On a more somber note, allow children to mourn miscarriage with you, to hope in an eternal meeting with a lost sibling and to celebrate their life with you. 4. Teach your children about abortion. Talk openly and honestly about what it is, what God and the Church teach about the dignity of human life, the arguments that they will hear in the culture and how to respond to them in charity and truth. This begins by educating yourself, and there are some great resources to help you with this, including Trent Horn and Leila Miller’s book Made This Way: How to Prepare Kids to Face Today’s Tough Moral Issues, as well as materials from pro-life educational organizations like Live Action (LiveAction.org). Talk with older children about the Supreme Court cases impacting the country, and the political and cultural landscape, and implications historically and today. Expose them to videos that

BROTHERS AND SISTERS. Siblings enjoy kissing and playing with their new siblings. Shutterstock have a powerful visual impact, and equip them with resources to dialogue with others. 5. Read children’s books to your younger kids that teach and inspire the sanctity of life. Some great titles include Regina Doman’s Angel in the Waters, Pro-Life Kids! by Bethany Bomberger, Little Lives Matter by Elizabeth Johnston, and others. 6. Have conversations about the dignity of all human life — from conception until natural death — to encourage a pro-life view that encompasses even more than babies in the womb. Make special effort to love on the elderly you know, to care for the disabled, and take any opportunity to demonstrate to your children, through your own actions, Christ’s authentic

love for all his children, no matter their size, level of development, environment or degree of dependency. The culture does not define human worth: God gives every human being their innate worth. 7. Embrace the right attitude. Remember, children are naturally pro-life. It is part of their beautiful, God-given nature to embrace and share God’s love for every person he created. Help model this Christlike love with your own joy, courage and charity in spreading the message of the sanctity of life and human worth. Your witness is invaluable. Katie Warner is a wife, mother of four children, home-schooler and children’s book author. She writes from Georgia.

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ARTS & Entertainment ‘A Sound of Beauty, Truth and Goodness’

TV Picks

July 17-30 All Times Eastern By Daniel J. Engler SUNDAY, July 17, 10pm A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing EWTN This EWTN 2016 original documentary profiles the Marxist strategist Saul Alinsky (1909-1972), details the amoral and ruthless “community organizing” pressure and disruption tactics he devised to advance socialism in America, and calculates the damage to the Church and all of society that he and his leftist followers have caused to this day. TV-14.

WEDNESDAY, July 20, 7am-3pm How the States Got Their Shapes HISTORY These nine 60-minute episodes catalog the forces that created the boundaries of our 50 states, from geological events to religious and cultural factors to political deals. TV-PG.

WEDNESDAYS, July 20, July 27, 8pm Green Planet PBS Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, these new documentaries capture both glorious landscapes and extreme closeups of plants and insects in God’s creation.

THURSDAY, July 21, 5:30pm Remain With Us, Lord EWTN Personal testimonies and theological commentary is provided on the centrality of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in Catholics’ lives. Archbishops Charles Brown and José Gomez speak, as does Bishop Robert Barron. TV-PG.

SUNDAY-SATURDAY, July 24-30 Papal Visit to Canada EWTN With the theme “Walking Together,” Pope Francis will meet with Indigenous peoples in Edmonton, Maskwacis and Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta, on Monday and Tuesday. In Quebec City on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, he will meet with Canadian officials and Indigenous peoples. He will say Mass in Edmonton on Tuesday and at the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Quebec City on Thursday.

Upcoming

SUNDAY, July 31, 10pm A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing II: The Gender Agenda EWTN This two-hour, 2020 EWTN original documentary shows how Marxism, feminism and fake science have attacked God, Christianity, sexual morality, the family and marriage. TV-MA.

Catholic Musician Named Tennessee Composer Laureate

BY K .V. T U R L E Y

omposer Michael Kurek has been named composer laureate of the state of Tennessee. In 2007, Kurek became a Catholic revert, one who has returned to the practice of his faith as an adult. He cites St. (Padre) Pio for helping him “to understand that God truly loved and accepted me after I returned to the Church.” He added that that saint also helped him “to have courage going against the grain of academic music pressures.” He has also been influenced by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, among others. Their tales have influenced his composing. As a college professor, Kurek served for 14 years as chair of the Department of Music Composition at the Blair School of Music of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He retired in May 2020 in order to devote himself more fully to composing. It also allows time for his other great passion, namely, to popularize classical music. In 2019, Ignatius Press published Kurek’s The Sound of Beauty: A Classical Composer on Music in the Spiritual Life, a reflection on music theory through the lens of Catholic theology. The first appendix of the book offers a “beginner’s play list” for those who want “to develop a taste for classical music, starting with the most tuneful compositions.” Clearly, this is a man on a musical mission. The Register caught up with Kurek via email at his Nashville home.

MUSICAL MISSION. Michael Kurek, who has taught at Vanderbilt University, also represents his home state through music. Steve Green, Vanderbilt University Photography

only living state composer laureate at this time. England has a long history of such an office: Are you familiar with this history, and, if so, how does it influence your own perceptions for your new title? Yes, that composer is also known as “master of the queen’s musick (or king’s),” a member of the Royal Household of the United Kingdom. Since 1626, this composer has essentially been retained on staff to compose music for ceremonial occasions. I have offered to provide some of that kind [of] music, for example, at a governor’s inauguration, should it be desired. It feels right to have some kind of formalized recognition of the arts and artists by civic institutions and local governments as a collective statement that the arts are important to the culture and the ennoblement of that community. However, if the art that is fostered lacks beauty and is so esoteric that only a few elites can appreciate it, then I think it fails in that function, and people rightly do not want public funds to pay for it.

Music

You have been named “composer laureate” of the state of Tennessee by the house, senate and governor of Tennessee. What does this mean? I was told there are no required duties. Rather, it is awarded simply in gratitude for having already brought honor to the state through my national and international artistic activities. In practice, though, I hope the prestige of the title might open doors for me to be an advocate for beauty in the arts, both in and outside of the state. Is it common for U.S. states to have a composer laureate? To my knowledge, only four states have had one: Tennessee, California, Arkansas and North Carolina. All four of the most recent laureates are deceased, and so I am the

This comes as you are about to release your latest recording. What can you tell the Register about that release? Symphony No. 2: Tales From the Realm of Faerie is my longest and largest classical work to date — at 44 minutes, for a 92-piece orchestra — and it has been beautifully recorded in Europe and should be available through Amazon and others for preorder late this summer and early fall release. It is not the kind of moderniststyle music some might expect, though, but a lushly melodic, neoro-

mantic work that I believe anyone can enjoy. I have been much influenced by allegorical Christian fairy tale authors like Tolkien, Lewis and MacDonald and have tried to capture that spirit through music in this symphony. In terms of music, how has sacred music influenced your faith? All of my music is influenced by my Christian aesthetic, in that I strive for a sound of beauty, truth and goodness. There is a feeling of being on a journey with the goal of heaven, rather than the randomness one sometimes feels from modernist classical music. I also have a choral Latin Mass and an Ave Maria on the same album with the symphony, composed for a local parish choir. I aspire for this kind of music to be serious and reverent in a classical style, yet practical and easy enough for liturgical use by real choirs. (The sheet music is now available from CIRMusic.com.) How do you view contemporary sacred music? If by contemporary you mean socalled “praise and worship” music, I think it is fine for youth rallies or home listening, but specifically in regard to Mass, it can often violate some of the very clear and specific guidelines for music at Mass laid out in the documents on music from Vatican II and in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. I have a couple of chapters about this in my book from Ignatius Press, The Sound of Beauty. Is there enough networking between Catholic composers, musicians, patrons and festivals? As far as I know, any networking that exists happens rather by accident. It would be wonderful for the Church

(for example, through the USCCB) to create an official newsletter for the arts whereby those of us who might feel isolated can learn about each other and place announcements about our concerts and recordings — and [that can] serve as a forum for discussion of ideas. This would only be a starting point that might grow over time into conferences and Catholic fine arts centers around the country. As an educator, I would like to see faithful Catholic colleges and universities offer first-rate training in the fine arts, too. Most offer no music major at all and others only a practical course in sacred music. As the secular universities transition increasingly to new kinds of cultural values, Catholics might be looking for higher education in the arts that preserves our great artistic heritage and aesthetics. What are you working on next? I am working on a commission for a full-evening ballet for symphony orchestra in homage to the late professional ballerina Raffaella Stroik, who was a faithful Catholic and daughter of the noted architect and Notre Dame professor of architecture Duncan Stroik and his wife, Ruth. Like my symphony, it will be a fairytale ballet in the beautiful choreographic tradition of Tchaikovsky. What do you listen to that inspires? I am deeply moved by the purely musical narratives of Beethoven and Brahms that move through time with a purposeful feeling toward a climax and by the pastoral beauty and emotion of the early 20th-century symphonists like Vaughan Williams, Sibelius, Delius, Ravel, Rachmaninoff and Holst. I find that to compose music myself, to have something to say myself, I must devote a great deal of time to such listening, and with my full attention, not multitasking on other things. This is my wellspring. K.V. Turley is the Register’s U.K. correspondent. He writes from London.

Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California. SHUTTERSTOCK

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NAT IONA L CAT HOL IC R EGIST ER , J U LY 17, 2022

TRAVEL History&Saints The Light of St. Anne Shines Brightly

The Our Father Teaches Us How to Pray

unday, July 24, is the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Mass readings: Genesis 18:20-32; Psalm 138:1-2, 2-3, 6-7, 7-8; Colossians 2:12-14; and Luke 11:1-13. In giving us the “Our Father,” in today’s Gospel, the Lord is giving us a pattern for prayer. He is “teaching

User’s Guide To Sunday operative in our life.

Request Give us today our daily bread: Intercessory prayer is at the heart of the Christian life. Allow “bread” to be a symbol of all our needs. Take every opportunity to pray for others. When watching the news or reading the newspaper, pray the news. Much of the news contains people for whom we should pray: victims of crime, disaster or war; the jobless; the homeless; and the afflicted. Many are locked in sin, bad behavior, corruption, confusion and wrong priorities. Many are away from the sacraments and no longer seek their Eucharistic Bread, who is Christ. Pray; pray; pray.

MSGR. CHARLES POPE

Beloved Edifice Includes Largest Catholic Indoor Votive Shrine in Southern New England

Fall River, Massachusetts

BY J O S E P H P R O N E C H E N

our hundred miles directly south from the Shrine of St. Anne de Beaupré in Quebec, Canada, there stands another edifice dedicated to Jesus’ grandmother: the Shrine of St. Anne in Fall River, Massachusetts. Father Roger Landry of the Diocese of Fall River rightly says it is an extraordinary church. The magnificent twin towers of St. Anne Shrine are visible high above the city of Fall River. A city landmark for decades, the original parish of St. Anne was formed in 1869, when Fall River was growing as the country’s major producer of cotton textiles. With scores of French Canadians immigrating to work in the mills, the bishop of Providence, Rhode Island, requested a priest from Bordeaux, France, to head a French-speaking parish for this group of faithful. Initially, they were worshipping at St. Mary’s Church, now St. Mary’s Cathedral. As they were laying and blessing the cornerstone for their first small church, the wooden platform on which the pastor and dozens of parishioners stood collapsed. Some were injured, and the pastor prayed for St. Anne’s help for their recovery and continuation of building the church. “He promised St. Anne that if no one died, he would name the parish after her because, initially, the parish was going to be named after the famous St. Clotilde in Paris,” explained Michael Antaya, the shrine’s director of devotions. The year was 1872. “That was the initial novena that he made. After that, the novena became a staple.” Never has the novena been missed or skipped, even amid difficult times along the way. This year, the shrine celebrates the 150th anniversary of its solemn novena to St. Anne. In fact, the novena and devotion to St. Anne grew as the Dominicans were entrusted with the parish in 1887. The second Dominican pastor determined to build this present church that would also be a national shrine for pilgrims. His vision was sweeping, and on the feast of St. Anne, July 26, 1892, the first pilgrimage group arrived (although the new upper church had yet to be completed). By 1906, rising majestically in blue Vermont marble and in the grandeur of turn-of-thecentury architecture, the church was finally complete. On the French Gothic façade, Jesus appears as the Good Shepherd in one statue, while in a niche higher up, a 9-foot-tall statue presents St. Anne together with her daughter, Mary. At one time, pilgrims flocked to Fall River all year long to visit and pray at the church and shrine, which was open 24 hours a day. With busloads arriving, the shrine was so popular that, in 1928, Quebec-born Dominican Father Vincent Marchildon — who was considered the great apostle of the shrine — was named the first full-time director; he would spend 60 years leading shrine activities. (This year marks the 50th anniversary of his death.) In 1978, the Dominicans left St. Anne’s, and the church and shrine reverted back to diocesan administration. Then, on the Solemnity of Christ the King in 2018, the Diocese of Fall River closed St. Anne’s as a canonical parish. Quickly, laypeople came to the rescue, forming the St. Anne’s Shrine Preservation Society. With a lease agreement with the diocese and the blessings of the bishop of Fall River, St. Anne’s rapidly reopened as a shrine in July 2019 — just in time for the solemn novena to continue uninterrupted. Again this year, people will pray before the larger-than-life-size statue of St. Anne with the child Mary that stood in the upstairs church when the church was dedicated. This statue has been temporarily moved to the lower

us to pray.” Thus, while the words of the Our Father are precious, it is also important to look at the underlying structure implicit in the prayer. There are five basic disciplines taught in the Our Father, and they form a kind of pattern or structure for prayer. I use here the Matthean version of the prayer only because it is more familiar to most people, but all the basic elements are the same regardless of the version.

Repent And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. We need deliverance from our own sins and also from the deep structures of sin in this world. An essential element of our spiritual life is that we come to recognize the sins and the deep drives of sins in our own life so that we can beg deliverance from them as well as mercy. Then, too, we must also pray for the grace to show mercy to others so as to break the cycle of violence and revenge that keeps sin multiplying. Here then, is a structure for our prayer and spiritual life, contained in the Our Father. Jesus teaches us to pray and gives us a basic structure for prayer. Some may use this as an actual structure for daily prayer; if they are going to spend 25 minutes praying, they spend about five minutes on each aspect. Others may use this structure as an overall reference for their spiritual life in general, trying to reflect these disciplines in their overall prayer life.

Relate Our Father who art in heaven: We are not merely praying to “the deity” or “the Godhead.” We are praying to our Father, who loves us, who provides for us, and who sent his only Son to die for us and save us. When Jesus lives his life in us and his Spirit dwells in us, we begin to experience God as our Abba, our Father.

HONORING JESUS’ GRANDMA. Pilgrims have flocked to this shrine since before its completion in 1906. Courtesy of the Shrine of St. Anne

shrine church. Patterned after the original similar image in St. Anne de Beaupré in Quebec, which was lost in a fire in the early 20th century, it was carved out of a single block of wood and polychromed by Maestro Stalzenburg in Belgium in 1892 at the request of the Fall River Dominicans. Countless pilgrims and parishioners, over all these decades, have prayed before this image of St. Anne, petitioned for favors and meditated on her holy witness. Shown bedecked in a gold cloak with intricate designs, the portrayal of the child Mary includes a blue dress with designs reminiscent of fleurs-de-lis. Anne is shown looking on lovingly; Mary appears to be gazing at her mother attentively. Both depictions wear golden crowns. The golden heart within the rendition of St. Anne, suspended like a medallion, contains petitions. This image is a beautiful reminder of her family position — mother of Mary, grandmother of Jesus, wife of Joachim and motherin-law of Joseph. When the parish closed, this statue was transferred to the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption a few blocks away because the parish was merged with the cathedral parish. When the Preservation Society asked the rector if he would allow the statue to be restored to the shrine, he graciously said, “Yes.” After some necessary repairs are made in the upstairs church, St. Anne’s statue will be returned to its original place. In the meantime, the treasured depiction of Good St. Anne joins a second image of the beloved saint in the lower shrine church: She appears with her daughter — Ste. Anne et

Marie — before a sunburst of radiant glory. This image of the saint has drawn fervent attention from pilgrims and parishioners since it appeared in the original wooden church. Near the statues, the rows of crutches attest to the grateful people who have been healed of various maladies through the intercession of Jesus’ grandmother. The Dominicans kept books of responses and stories from the grateful people who claimed healings. This older statue of St. Anne is “often referred to as the miraculous image of St. Anne,” explained Antaya, also a member of Preservation Society’s directors. Noting that nothing was ever formally investigated for Church approval, he called these reports “favors granted here at the shrine — so much so that the Dominican Fathers kept three volumes of these records of people who wrote back to the shrine, saying that they had received some sort of healing or their prayer was answered in some way.” One of the most dramatic examples recorded was of a man born blind who came for the novena in the 1950s and was given sight on the feast of St. Anne. This year, the solemn novena, which runs July 17-25 with daily Mass, is being led by one of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. Fall River Bishop Edgar da Cunha will celebrate the solemn Mass for the feast of Sts. Anne and Joachim on July 26. After Mass, the traditional procession of St. Anne’s first-class relics — fragments of her bones that were acquired by the Dominicans — will wend its way around the neighborhood.

The church’s lower chapel went through a restoration in 2006. Not only is St. Anne honored, but other small chapels pay homage to her daughter, too, starting with the chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. This Lourdes grotto includes running water. There is also a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Fatima as she appears to Sts. Jacinta and Francisco and Servant of God Lúcia, who appear captivated by her message and beauty. The popular basement shrine honors other saints, too, like St. Jude and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Of course, the shrine also honors St. Joachim. He is remembered in the upper church, where his image in a niche faces the sanctuary, prompting pilgrims to invoke the intercession of the holy father and grandfather. With St. Anne’s hosting the largest Catholic indoor votive light shrine in Southern New England, with more than 3,000 candles of various sizes in both the lower shrine church and upper church, people often send in donations to have candles lit for their intentions. “Because this place is definitely a holy place, it has attracted people from various parts of the country,” Antaya said. And the intercession of Good St. Anne is sought on her feast day and always. Joseph Pronechen is a Register staff writer.

VISIT St-Annes-Shrine.org

Rejoice Hallowed be thy name: Our prayer life should feature much joyful praise. Take a Psalm of praise and pray it joyfully. Take the Gloria of the Mass and pray it with gusto! Rejoice in God; praise his name. “It is for this that we were made. God created us, so that we … might live for his praise and glory” (Ephesians 1:12). Receive Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven: At the heart of this petition is an openness to God’s will, to his instruction, to his plan for us and for this world. When Jesus lives in us, we hunger for God’s word and strive to know his will and have it

Msgr. Charles Pope is a pastor in the Archdiocese of Washington.

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