t eanc 0 VOL. 39, NO. 13 •
Friday, March 31, 1995
FALL RIVER, MASS.
FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSEnS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly
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511 Per Year
54th Appeal nears With the theme "Sharing is the Measure of Love," the: 54th annual Catholic Charities Appeal will be launched at a 7 p.m. Mass April 19, celebrated at St. Mary's Cathedral, Fall River, by Bishop Sean O'Malley. Appeal chairman Permanent Deacon Thomas J. Souza will speak at the end of the Mass and a reception wiII follow at the Cathedral school. The Appeal's Special Gift Phase will run from April I7 to May 6. The Parish Phase begins with a house to house campaign May 7, when 20,000 volunteers will visit 115,000 homes to solicit Appeal contributions. Contributions wiII be accepted through June 6, when final totals of the special gifts and parish phases will be determined. "A larger increase will be needed in the 1995 Appeal than in previous years to meet the ever-increasing costs of maintaining the
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services provided by the agencies, apostolates and ministries of the diocese," said Father Daniel Freitas, Appeal director."This can be achieved with the full cooperation of the priests, parishioners, and the thousands of friends of the Appeal." Bishop O'Malley emphasized that for over 50 years the diocese has demonstrated genuine care and concern for all human life, reaching out to those in need regardless of race, color or creed. Father Freitas is ~ssisted in directing the Appeal by Fathers Bruce M. Neylon and Robert A. Oliveira in the Attleboro area; Father Thomas L. Rita on the Cape and Islands; Father John F. Andrews in the Fall River area; Fathers Ralph D. Tetrault and Daniel W. Lacroix in the New Bedford area; and ¥sgr. Thomas J. Harrington and Father Paul A. Caron in the Taunton area.
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Captive nuns freed in Sierra Leone VATICAN CITY (CNS) Seven missionary nuns were released by rebels in Sierre Leone after nearly two months in captivity, church officials have reported. The nuns, including one American, were handed over "safe and sound" March 21 to Bishop George Biguzzi of Makeni. The missionaries, ranging in age from 35 to 65, were: identified as Sisters Adriana Marsili, an Italian with U.S. citizenship; Teresa Bello, Angela Bertelli, Agnese Chiletti, Anna Mosconi and Lucia Santarelli, all Italians; and Hildegard Jacoby, a Brazilian. The sisters, who used rosaries made of tied cotton and later of knotted jungle vines to pray their way through 55 days of captivity, gave one of the "bush-rope" rosaries to Pope John Paul II March 27. The seven missionaries were kidnapped Jan. 25 from the polio rehabilitation center they ran in the northwestern town of Kambia. Members of the Cnited Revolutionary Front kidnapped more than 100 teenagers and young adults from Kambia along with the missionaries and marched the whole group an estimated 120 miles into the jungle. The hostages wefi~ given no time to collect personal belongings, so to aid their prayer on the six-anda-half-day march, t.he nuns made little rosaries out of cotton strips. "Then we thought of making rosaries from the vines, and we said we would givl~ them as gifts when we were freed -- it was a sign of our hope," said Sister Bertelli. The missionaries would not go into details and seemed momentarily shocked illto silence when
Sister Bello explained that the cross on the rosary had a special connection to a hostage killed by the captors. Another long pause followed when a reporter asked the nuns how they knew some of the hostages from Kambia were killed. "We saw," Sister Bello said. About six weeks into their ordeal some of the capt~rs had thei; wives prepare extra food for the nuns, who had losta lot of weight and were becoming very weak. The nuns were sad to leave their fellow hostages. "They are still there," said Sister Mosconi. "The moment of the release was a very intense and religious one," said Sister Marsili in a telephone interview with The Catholic Free Press, newspaper of the diocese of Worcester, where she worked in the 1980s. She said that after a 12-hour overnight walk through the jungle to meet the bishop, their rebel guards - Catholic and Muslimhugged them and knelt before the bishop, asking for his blessing. "We did not leave any enemies," she said. "There is no hatred in our hearts. They are our brothers engaged in a struggle, but still our brothers." Sister Marsili said the nuns were not forced to carry heavy loads of loot like the other hostages were on the long trek i,nto the jungle. "Prayer life became so very important - the. only thing we could do," she said. Although the rebels had set conditions for the missionaries' release, they eventually w¢re freed unconditionally.
TENDER MOMENT: Pope John Paul II kisses a baby during one of his many trips abroad. He has said his new encyclical, "Evangelium Vitae," (The Gospal of Life), is designed to counter the: culture of death, manifested in attacks on unborn life, the elderly and the terminally ill. (eNS/ Reuters photo)
Pope urges "Gospel of life" ·over"culture of death" "Nor can any authority legitiWASHINGTON (CNS) - In mately recommend or permit such his new encyclical letter Pope John Paul II calls for a return to "the an action," he adds. The pope also invokes the auGospel of life" to overcome a thority of Christ and communion growing "culture of death." The long-anticipated encyclical with the world's bishops to conon the value and inviolability of . demn all direct abortion as "a grave moral disorder, since it is the human life was released March 30. deliberate killing of an innocent lt is titled "Evangelium Vitae" human being." "The Gospel of Life." By the same logic that applies to At the heart of the encyclical is an urgent plea to reverse world abortion, he says, "the use of hutrends toward social acceptance man embryos or fetuses as an object of experimentation constiand legalization of abortion and euthanasia":- attacks on life's value tutes a crime against their dignity as human beings." at its weakest points. The pope attributes trends to"By the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his suc- ward devaluing of human life in cessors, -and in communion with part to "a profound crisis of culthe bishops of the Catholic Church, ture," which he says has led many I confirm that the direct and volun- to lose their moral bearings. Condemning efforts to legalize tary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral," the destruction of life, he says, "Democracy cannot be idolized to the pope says. This means no one can permit the point of making it a substitute "the killing of an innocent human for morality or a panacea for imbeing, whether a fetus or an em- morality." He roundly condemns "powerbryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an ful cultural, economic and politiincurable disease, or a person who cal currents" today that have unleashed "a war of the powerful is dying," he says.
against the weak ... a kind of'conspiracy against life.''' Against those currents he proposes a return to the Gospel. He opens the encyclical with the declaration, "The Gospel of life is at the heart of Jesus' message." "Every human community and the political community itself' are founded on recognition of "the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end," he says. The encyclical caps years of strenuous papal efforts to revitalize the world's conscience to a new sense of human dignity and the sacredness of life. The pope sharply denounces abortion, artificial contraception, sterilization, infanticide and euthanasia - elements widely expected since 1991 when he announced his intention to write an encyclical on human life. But he challenges other threats to life as well, including capital punishment. In "a system of penal justice ever more in line with human dignity," he says, the extreme cases Turn to Page.13