05.15.09

Diocese of Fall River

The Anchor

F riday , May 15, 2009

Pope encourages Holy Land’s ‘little flock’ in Middle East pilgrimage

By John Thavis Catholic News Service

Father Leonard M. Mullaney

Msgr. John F. Moore

B y D eacon James N. Dunbar

Retirement does not mean being put on the back burner, Msgr. Moore, a New Bedford native, added. “One must remain creative and on course to stay alive and meaningful.”

While he will turn 76 on July 1, he said what’s in the “busy future” is assisting an old friend, Father Mark R. Hession, pastor of Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville.

“There are 16 Masses on summer weekends in Centerville including the church and the chapel, and I look to repay the dedicated service Father Hession gave me when he was my assistant in New Bedford,” Msgr. Moore added.

Another venture will be a “Coffee and Conversation” gathering he will hold Tuesday mornings, also at Our Lady of Victory.

He also plans to establish a faith-based mid-Cape Cancer Support Group for Catholics in Centerville, which will be sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. He founded a similar pilot program in his North Falmouth parish in 2001.

Turn to page 18

For retiring pastors, the couch won’t be part of their new lifestyle

CAPE COD — It seems that when Msgr. John F. Moore and Father Leonard M. Mullaney enter into retirement in the coming months, their lives will be anything but.

Msgr. Moore, who has been pastor at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in North Falmouth for 15 years, and who after 49 years as a priest will formally retire on June 28, says, “I’m really not retiring … just changing jobs.”

Father Mullaney, pastor of St. Anthony’s Parish in Mattapoisett for nine years, and rounding out 47 years in priestly ministry will retire on September 9, says he plans to remain active in ministry, do some traveling, as well as spend more time with his extensive family that includes many nieces and nephews.

“The most important thing about retiring is one’s mindset, and I have little interest in sitting back and watching liquid crystal display TV in my cottage in Cotuit — although I’ll be working from there,” said Msgr. Moore.

Catholic Charities Appeal in full swing — page 20

JERUSALEM — Pope Benedict XVI encouraged the “little flock” of Christians in the Holy Land to persevere as a vital presence in society and a witness to unity in the troubled region.

The pope met with the bishops of the Holy Land May 12 in the chapel of the Cenacle, which tradition says is the “upper room” of Jesus’ Last Supper and the place where the Holy Spirit descended

on the Apostles at Pentecost.

He sought to bring energy and hope to a flock that has decreased drastically. Over the last 40 years, the Christian population in the Holy Land has gone from about 20 percent of the population to about two percent.

In a speech, the pope said one key element for the Church’s future is an effort to build unity among its various branches.

The Christian presence in the Holy Land, he said, is of “vital

importance for the good of society as a whole.” The Church, though small in numbers, can act as a leaven in society, transforming hearts and shaping actions, and promoting a “climate of peace in diversity.”

The pope said the Church must avoid the temptation to “turn in upon ourselves in selfishness or indolence, isolation, prejudice or fear.” It should carry out its mission in the Holy Land with frankTurn to page 15

IN PRAYER — Pope Benedict XVI prays at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in the Old City of Jerusalem May 12. The pope left a written prayer in a crevice of the wall. It appealed to God to bring “your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family.”

(CNS photo/Catholic Press Photo)

Diocesan youth to be recognized for Church service May 19 at cathedral

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

FALL RIVER — Bishop George W. Coleman will call to light the fine work done by 53 Catholic youths at a prayer service ceremony at St. Mary’s Cathedral, May 19 at 7 p.m.

The eighth annual St. Pius X Youth Awards will be presented in recognition of teens who demonstrate service to their parish community with dedication, commitment and selflessness.

Recipients are nominated by their pastors. They are to have received the sacrament of confirmation, be at least a sophomore in high school and no

older than 19 years old.

The honorees will receive their awards in front of pastors,

FOR DEDICATED SERVICE — Fifty-three diocesan youth will be presented with the St. Pius X Youth Award this year. A list of the recipients appears on page 18.

family and friends, in what is always a very uplifting ceremony.

Two recipients will offer reflections on service to the Church. The speakers were not yet known at press time.

Music for the event will be provided by the St. Michael’s Parish music ministry from Fall River.

The bishop will join the honorees, their pastors, family, and friends at a reception following the service.

The award is named after Pope St. Pius X who established the Diocese of Fall River in 1904. He was known for his Turn to page 18

The Pope’s Visit to the Holy Land

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JOYOUS OCCASION — A nun kisses the hand of Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to a church at Regina Pacis center in Amman, Jordan, May 8. The center is operated by three Comboni Missionary Sisters and a team of teachers, therapists and volunteers who educate and care for Muslims and Christians with disabilities. (CNS photo/Muhammad Hamed, Reuters)

Pope opens Holy Land visit with call for tolerance, visit to disabled

B y J ohn T havis C atholic N ews S ervice

AMMAN, Jordan — Pope Benedict XVI began an eightday pilgrimage to the Holy Land with an appeal for tolerance and a gesture of charity.

Arriving in Jordan May 8, the 82-year-old pontiff expressed his “deep respect for the Muslim community” and paid tribute to interfaith dialogue initiatives launched by Jordanian leaders.

“We can say that these worthy initiatives have achieved much good in furthering an alliance of civilizations between the West and the Muslim world, confounding the predictions of those who consider violence and conflict inevitable,” he said in a speech at the Amman airport.

An hour later, the pope made the first stop of his pilgrimage: a visit to several hun-

The Anchor

dred men and women served by a Church-run center for the disabled in Amman. There he spoke movingly of the struggle to make sense of suffering and the Church’s effort to help the afflicted.

The pope was making his first trip to an Arab country, the first leg of a journey that was later to take him to Israel and the Palestinian territories. He was met at Queen Alia International Airport outside Amman

by Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who has championed interfaith dialogue and defended the historic protection of religious minorities in the predominantly Muslim country.

The pope commended Jordan for curbing extremism and said its leaders had promoted “a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam.”

Pope Benedict said he had OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER Vol. 53, No. 19

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come to Jordan as a pilgrim to visit Christian holy places, including Mount Nebo, from which Moses saw the Promised Land, and the Jordan River, where Christ was baptized.

He said the fact that he would bless foundation stones for new churches near the baptism site reflected well on Jordan’s respect for religion and protection of religious rights.

“Religious freedom is, of course, a fundamental right, and it is my fervent hope and prayer that respect for the inalienable rights and dignity of every man and woman will come to be increasingly affirmed and defended, not only throughout the Middle East, but in every part of the world,” he said.

The pope praised the country’s leaders for supporting efforts to find a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In late April, King Abdullah

met with U.S. President Barack Obama and urged him to make decisive moves for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, warning that a new Middle East war could erupt if no real progress is made over the next 18 months.

The king met more recently with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to try to relaunch serious peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis based on a two-state solution.

The pope favorably noted Jordan’s welcoming of refugees from Iraq. Jordan has absorbed an estimated 700,000 Iraqi refugees, including some 70,000 Christians, according to Church sources.

Outside the airport, hundreds of schoolchildren cheered as the papal motorcade passed.

Wearing kaffiyehs and papalvisit caps, they waved Vatican flags and held banners with various welcome messages written in Arabic.

The pope’s stop at the Regina Pacis center underscored the Church’s efforts to meet a serious health care need in Jordan.

It is estimated that 10 percent of Jordanian young people under age 19 suffer from a serious disability.

The ultramodern center is operated by three Comboni Missionary Sisters and a team of teachers, therapists and volunteers to educate and care for Muslims and Christians with disabilities free of charge.

The pontiff arrived at the center to loud cheers, and he waded into a huge crowd of well-wishers as a band played the “gerpe” — a Jordanian bagpipe — and tabla, or hand drums.

In a speech, he acknowledged that it’s sometimes “difficult to find a reason for what appears only as an obstacle to be overcome or even as a pain — physical or emotional — to be endured.” Faith in God and his unconditional love provides the necessary perspective, and prayer can help heal spiritual and emotional wounds, he

May 15, 2009 said.

The pope told the crowd at the center that, unlike pilgrims of old, he had not come bearing gifts or offerings.

“I come simply with an intention, a hope: to pray for the precious gift of unity and peace, most specifically for the Middle East,” he said.

Later, the pope met with King Abdullah, Queen Rania, his wife, and other members of the royal family at their palace.

The two leaders held private talks, posed for photographers and exchanged gifts.

En route to Jordan, the pope spoke briefly with reporters aboard his Alitalia charter jet, saying he hoped his pilgrimage would aid the Middle East peace process by highlighting the value of prayer and convincing people to leave behind factional interests.

“We are not a political power but a spiritual force, and this spiritual force is something that can contribute to progress in the search for peace,” the pope said.

As believers, he said, Christians are convinced of the power of prayer.

“It opens the world to God, and we are convinced that God listens and can work in history.

And I think that if millions of believers pray this is truly a force that can have an influence and advance the cause of peace,” he said.

The pope said it was a difficult time for the beleaguered Christian population in the Holy Land, but also a time of hope, of a “new beginning and new effort on the way of peace.”

Christian communities are an important component of the life of Middle Eastern countries, and the Church wants to encourage them to have the “courage, the humility and the patience to remain in these countries,” he said.

For their part, he said, the Christian communities contribute to society especially through their networks of schools and hospitals. Schools in particular — including the university the pope laid the foundation stone for in Jordan — help bring Christians and Muslims together, he said.

“They meet here and speak to each other. It’s also a place where a Christian elite is formed that is prepared precisely to work for peace,” he said.

The pope visited a major mosque in Amman the next day and spoke to a group of Muslim academics and international diplomats.

May 15, 2009

The Pope’s Visit to the Holy Land

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Pope keeps Iraqis in thoughts, prayers during Jordan visit

A GREAT DAY IN ANY COUNTRY — Children rejoice during an outdoor Mass with Pope Benedict XVI in Amman, Jordan, May 10. Dressed in white robes, children from Jordan and Iraq received their first Communion from the pope during the service. (CNS photo Ahmed Ja dallah, Reuters)

At first Communion Mass, pope preaches courage in following Jesus

AMMAN, Jordan (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI’s only public Mass in Jordan was a liturgy like that found in many parishes in May: It was first Communion Sunday.

Dressed in white robes and seated close to the altar platform, dozens of children from all over Jordan received the Eucharist for the first time during the pope’s Mass May 10 in Amman International Stadium.

Peter Mihko, 15, and his sister Cecilia, 11, were part of the first Communion group of 40 young people from Sacred Heart Chaldean Catholic Parish in Amman. Like many in the group, the Mihko siblings are refugees from Iraq.

“I’m going to receive my first Communion from the pope,” Cecilia said before Mass. “Wow! This is something really amazing; it’s a dream come true.”

Her older brother said, “Words cannot describe what I am feeling at receiving my first Communion from the messenger of God, from the messenger of peace.”

In his homily, Pope Benedict preached about the need for fidelity and courage in following Jesus, in discovering one’s vocation, in building a family, in promoting dialogue with Jordan’s Muslim majority and in carrying out acts of charity.

“Jesus knows what challenges you face, what trials you endure and the good that you do in his name,” Pope Benedict told the crowd in the stadium, which holds 25,000 people.

Standing in front of a picture of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, the pope encouraged Jordan’s 109,000 Catholics to trust Jesus, to trust in his love for his flock and to “persevere in your witness to the triumph of his love.”

People should be grateful, he said, for the love of God that can be experienced in the family, “from the love of our fathers and mothers, our grandparents, our brothers and

sisters.”

“May every Christian family grow in fidelity to its lofty vocation to be a true school of prayer where children learn a sincere love of God, where they mature in selfdiscipline and concern for the needs of others and where, shaped by the wisdom born of faith, they contribute to the building of an ever more just and fraternal society,” the pope prayed.

Noting that the local Church was nearing the end of a special year of the family, which included a focus on the dignity of women, Pope Benedict urged the people to recognize “how much your society owes to all those women who in different and at times courageous ways have devoted their lives to building peace and fostering love.”

“By its public respect for women and its defense of the innate dignity of every human person, the Church in the Holy Land can make an important contribution to the advancement of a culture of true humanity and the building of a civilization of love,” he said.

One of the mothers present at the Mass was Mariana Kardsheh, who came from Madaba with her husband and children, including eight-year-old Natalie, who was making her first Communion during the liturgy.

“It’s no coincidence” that Natalie was chosen to be among the children receiving the sacrament at the papal Mass, Kardsheh said.

She and her husband — childless at the time — were at Pope John Paul II’s Mass in Amman in 2000.

“I made my way to the popemobile. He looked at me, I saw his eyes and I made my prayer,” Kardsheh said.

Two months later she was asleep and dreaming, she said; “I opened my eyes and saw an angel and I knew it was a girl,” who would be born.

Kardsheh is convinced that Natalie’s birth was an answer to the prayer she made in the presence of Pope John Paul and that it was fitting that the girl’s first Communion Mass would be celebrated by Pope Benedict.

With Catholics attending the Mass from all over the Middle East, including the violence-torn Iraq, Pope Benedict said he knows that the region’s Christians are affected by “difficulties and uncertainties.”

“May you never forget the great dignity which derives from your Christian heritage or fail to sense the loving solidarity of all your brothers and sisters in the Church throughout the world,” he said.

Pope Benedict encouraged the people to stay in the Middle East, work for the good of their countries and remain solid in the faith of their communities founded by Jesus’ disciples.

“Fidelity to your Christian roots, fidelity to the Church’s mission in the Holy Land, demands of each of you a particular kind of courage: the courage of conviction, born of personal faith, not mere social convention or family tradition,” he said.

Being Christian means having “the courage to engage in dialogue and to work side by side with other Christians in the service of the Gospel and solidarity with the poor, the displaced and the victims of profound human tragedies,” the pope said.

Christians must build bridges to members of other faiths and cultures, opening a dialogue that will “enrich the fabric of society,” he said.

And in a region torn by violence and terrorism, Pope Benedict told those at the Mass that being faithful “also means bearing witness to the love which inspires us to lay down our lives in the service of others, and thus to counter ways of thinking which justify taking innocent lives.”

AMMAN, Jordan (CNS) — As Pope Benedict XVI made his pilgrimage through Jordan, his thoughts were also on neighboring Iraq and its struggling Christian population.

Several times during events May 8-10, the pope praised Jordan’s generosity in welcoming an estimated 700,000 Iraqi refugees over the last several years of war and civil strife in the neighboring country.

Outside the King Hussein Mosque in Amman May 9, speaking to an audience that included international diplomats, the pope warmly greeted Cardinal Emmanuel-Karim Delly of Baghdad and noted the Iraqi refugee presence in Jordan.

“The international community’s efforts to promote peace and reconciliation, together with those of the local leaders, must continue in order to bear fruit in the lives of Iraqis,” the pope said.

He thanked all those working to deepen trust and rebuild the institutions and infrastructure in Iraq. He urged international and local leaders to “do everything possible to ensure the ancient Christian community of that noble land its fundamental right to peaceful coexistence with their fellow citizens.”

Church sources said there were at least 40,000 Christians among the Iraqi refugee population in Jordan. Many of them were present at the pope’s Mass May 10 in an Amman soccer

stadium, and the pope greeted them after the liturgy.

Among the group was the Naiomi family, Chaldean Catholics who fled to Amman from Mosul, Iraq, three years ago.

“We want the pope to send a message of peace so that people can understand that the Christian religion is a peacemaker,” said Saif Naiomi, 24.

“I wish the pope could go to Iraq, but he can’t because there is no security,” he added.

Nidhal Joekarmo, a Chaldean Catholic from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., traveled to Amman to see Pope Benedict at the Mass. Joekarmo, who was born in Iraq but has lived in Michigan more than 30 years, said this papal visit was especially significant because it took place in a Muslim country in the Middle East.

“We need help,” Joekarmo said of her homeland.

“Now no one cares about Iraq” since the fall of former dictator Saddam Hussein, she said. “And now they want to kick the Christians out.”

Iraq’s Christian population has dwindled to approximately half since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Before the pope began his eight-day pilgrimage to the Holy Land, an Iraqi newspaper reported that the pope would make a visit to Baghdad. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, repeated in Amman that the report was without foundation.

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The Pope’s Visit to the Holy Land

May 15, 2009

Pope visits Dome of the Rock, urges expansion of interfaith dialogue

By John Thavis Catholic News Service

JERUSALEM — In a visit to one of Islam’s holiest places, Pope Benedict XVI said Christians, Muslims and Jews have a “grave responsibility” to expand dialogue and mend divisions.

“Those who honor the one God believe that he will hold human beings accountable for their actions,” the pope told Muslim leaders May 12 in Jerusalem.

“Undivided love for the one God and charity for one’s neighbor thus become the fulcrum around which all else turns. This is why we work untiringly to safeguard human hearts from hatred, anger or revenge,” he said.

The pope made his remarks during a visit to a complex of holy buildings that includes the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque.

Situated just above the Western Wall in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City, the complex is called the “Noble Sanctuary” by Muslims.

The pope removed his shoes before entering the Dome of the Rock, a seventh-century shrine that protects an exposed rock revered by Muslims as the place from which Mohammed ascended to heaven.

The pope was guided through the shrine by the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein, the Sunni cleric who oversees Islamic holy places in the city. Because of restoration work, however, the rock was not visible during the visit.

Later, the mufti hosted the pope in his office with other Muslim officials.

The pope, in his speech to the group, underlined the common ground shared by all three monotheistic religions: Each believes in the same God, each recognizes Abraham as a forefather and each has gained a large following

through the centuries.

In a world “sadly torn by divisions, this sacred place serves as a stimulus and also challenges men and women of good will to work to overcome misunderstandings and conflicts of the past and to set out on a path of sincere dialogue,” he said.

The pope said believers may engage in such dialogue with reluctance or ambivalence because it touches beliefs that are central to their lives.

“Yet we can begin with the belief that the one God is an infinite source of justice and mercy,” he said.

The pope said that as Muslims and Christians continue their dialogue, he hoped they would explore more deeply how “the oneness of God is inextricably tied to the unity of the human family.”

The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, said the mufti gave a speech in Arabic that touched upon issues of concern to Palestinians, including the Israeli occupation of lands, restriction of movement and subsequent disruption to the economy. But the spokesman said the mufti made his points respectfully and without an “aggressive” tone.

The text of the mufti’s remarks was not immediately available.

After the encounter, the mufti told reporters, “Our Palestinian people are deprived of the sense of safety and security and of its basic rights as a result of the Israeli occupation.” He said he hoped the pope’s visit would draw attention to the injustices suffered by Palestinians.

The day before, the mufti had been scheduled to speak at the Palestinian Media Center in Jerusalem, but Israeli police closed the center before the press conference could be held.

St. Joseph School, Fairhaven

HARROWING EXPERIENCES — Pope Benedict XVI greets Holocaust survivors in the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem May 11. (CNS photo/Ronen Zvulun, Reuters)

American who met pope was only Holocaust survivor from his family

By Judith Sudilovsky Catholic News Service

JERUSALEM — Edward Mosberg cannot forget certain images: A Nazi soldier ripping a baby from his mother’s arms and smashing the baby’s head against a wall; another soldier shooting through a rucksack to kill a hidden child.

Among the six Holocaust survivors to meet with Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to the Yad Vashem Hall of Remembrance on Monday, Mosberg, now an American and the only survivor from his extended family, said he would have liked a moment with Pope Benedict to tell him about his mother, father and two sisters, in addition to his aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents.

Mosberg, now 83 and a resident of Union Township, N.J., was 13 years old when the Nazis entered his native Krakow, Poland, and put his family into the Krakow Ghetto.

“We were so happy we were all together,” he recalled.

But soon his father was killed and, one by one, his grandparents were taken to the gas chambers.

When the Nazis liquidated the ghetto March 13, 1943, his remaining family was sent to the

Plaszow concentration camp, which was where German Catholic businessman Oskar Schindler drew up his famous list, saving the lives of more than 1,000 Jews.

Mosberg and his family, however, were not among those on the list.

From Plaszow, Mosberg’s mother and sisters were taken to the Nazi-run Auschwitz concentration camp, where his mother was killed in the gas chambers.

His sisters, Helena and Carolina, were taken to the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland. On the night before liberation, they were among a group of 7,000 young women the Nazis shot, killed and threw into the Baltic Sea. Mosberg said he survived because he was a strong teen-ager able to do all kinds of work. He was taken to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria and forced to work in the stone mines, carrying heavy stones on his back up and down 186 steps all day.

“If you stopped for a moment, they either shot you or they pushed you off the cliff to your death,” he said.

Although U.S. troops liberated Mauthausen May 5, 1945, the Nazis made one last attempt to kill the group of men Mosberg was with. Telling the men the

Americans were coming and that they wanted to save them from the soldiers, the Nazi guards rounded them up into a cave rigged with dynamite. Mosberg said it was a miracle that the dynamite did not go off, and he was saved.

Alone, 19 years old and ill, Mosberg spent eight months in Italy for medical treatment before returning to Krakow, where he met his wife, Cecile, and her father, the only survivors from their family.

Following their wedding in Belgium, in 1951 the couple moved to the United States, where Mosberg went into the construction business.

Mosberg said he had felt a special affinity for Pope John Paul II since the late pope was Polish.

They even had friends in common, some of whom Pope John Paul met with regularly when he returned to Krakow, said Mosberg.

Despite Pope Benedict’s German background and his forced membership in the Hitler Youth movement as a child, Mosberg said he sees “something good” in the pope’s face.

One cannot forget, said Mosberg, that the pope was a child when he was forced to join the Hitler Youth.

“He is German but I don’t see him as a German; I see him as a human being and head of the Catholic Church,” said Mosberg.

“I want to give him all the respect that I can. I consider it a big honor to meet the pope and shake his hand. I hope the relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people will get better.”

While he cannot forget or forgive what happened during the Holocaust — only the dead can forgive what was done to them, he said — he feels people must live in the present and future.

“We can’t go with what was in the past. We have to go to with what will be,” said Mosberg, who has three daughters — one of whom accompanied her parents to Israel — and six granddaughters.

May 15, 2009

The Church in the U.S.

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Catholics asked to pray for a nation on path to a ‘culture of death’

BLESS THE BEASTS — Bishop David L. Ricken of Green Bay, Wis., recites a prayer before a blessing of animals following a Rural Life Day Mass at St. John Church in Gillett, Wis. recently.

Holding the book of prayers is Deacon Manny Torres of St. John the Baptist Parish in Howard. (CNS photo/Sam Lucero, The Compass)

Rural life head outlines possible new directions for organization

By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The new executive director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference wants to make the organization live up more closely to the “national” part of its name.

Jim Ennis said the organization seemed to tilt more to an international perspective in recent years, but wants to build up domestic rural networking opportunities to be at least as strong.

And, from another point of view, “my perception of Catholic Rural Life is that it’s a Midwestern organization,” said Ennis, using a popular shorthand term for the organization during a recent interview with Catholic News Service.

He said his goal is to broaden familiarity with the rural life conference so that people across the country, “even Hawaii,” will want to join. He grew up in the San Joaquin Valley of California, where, he said, the conference was not exactly a household word in his formative years.

Ennis, who had been director for a St. Paul-based affiliate of the national Food Alliance organization, started his second year as head of the conference in April. He maintains his home in the St. Paul suburb of Roseville, and goes to the rural life conference headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, for a couple of days every other week to work with staff. He said that with five children he did not want to uproot their lives in Minnesota.

Telephone calls and email augment the visits to Des Moines.

He said the organization has conducted surveys over the past year to identify what needs exist among Catholics in rural America as part of a strategic planning process for the rural life conference; there are plans to conduct more surveys in order to refine the results.

Ennis said that, so far, 1,300 Catholics, including 133 priests, in rural America had been surveyed. “It’s a small sample size, but it’s really, really good information” gleaned from the priests, he added.

While rural community development seems to be an important issue among those surveyed, “we can’t be a development agency. If we don’t have the economic expertise, who can we partner with?” Ennis told CNS. “We can link with development agencies to help communities who are ready to undertake development.”

Ennis said he saw the rural life conference acting as a resource to priests in rural parishes. He added he wants the conference to do more linkage with Catholic universities. His own satellite office is at the University of St. Thomas, located in St. Paul.

“Can Catholic Rural Life be

a networking organization, or a way to connect?” he asked aloud, suggesting that the answer was yes.

Legislative advocacy will remain in the conference’s portfolio, according to Ennis. “That has been our bread and butter for the last 30 years,” he said.

“We’re viewed as the rural arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.”

The trick, he acknowledged, is the same faced by a lot of nonprofit organizations in the current sour economy: how to do more with less. “Giving to us is down 20 percent from last year,” Ennis said.

Ennis has a background in management, having worked for Pillsbury and Clorox in the Twin Cities area prior to working for Food Alliance Midwest, which helps farmers seeking to offer safe working conditions for their employees and humane treatment of animals, and reduce the use of pesticides on their land. The alliance also works with supermarkets, colleges and other institutions which wanted food grown sustainably to sell or prepare.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature at the Vatican told about 1,300 Catholics May 8 that they must pray for the U.S. political leadership to change course from policies leading the nation into an “anti-life” and “antifamily” culture.

During the sixth annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, U.S. Archbishop Raymond L. Burke also called the prospect of the University of Notre Dame granting President Barack Obama an honorary degree “the source of the greatest scandal,” and questioned the Indiana institution’s Catholic identity for honoring a politician who supports legal abortion.

Archbishop Burke, former archbishop of St. Louis, expressed his disapproval that a majority of U.S. Catholic voters cast their ballot for Obama in last November’s election and said they should reflect on the direction the country has taken since he has been in office. He mentioned a policy that allows funding for overseas family planning groups that provide abortions and moves by several states to make same-sex marriage legal.

He called on U.S. Catholics to have “open eyes to the gravity of the situation in our nation” and to be “clear and uncompromising” in a mission of ridding the country of the “great evils of contraception ... and so-called same-sex marriage.”

As the keynote speaker of the prayer breakfast that drew Catholics from around the nation — as well as politicians and ambassadors from several countries — the archbishop spent most of his speech denouncing Obama’s support for legal abortion and embryonic stem-cell research and Catholic politicians who vote for “anti-family” legislation, such as same-sex marriage.

In another apparent reference to Notre Dame, Archbishop Burke said Catholic schools and universities must not honor those who push an agenda that goes against moral law, adding that a university that would give Obama an honorary degree is “not worthy of the name Catholic.”

The archbishop — who is the first American to lead the Vatican supreme court — also said it is patriotic to vote based on Catholic values and said nothing could justify casting a ballot for a candidate who supports “anti-life” and “anti-family” legislation, which he

deemed “cooperation in evil.”

He called on members of the audience to pray the rosary and not to get discouraged in their fight to reverse the nation’s “culture of death.”

Judith Kimmerling of Portland, Ore., was among the hundreds of Catholics who gave Archbishop Burke a standing ovation as he concluded his keynote address.

“This is the first time I’ve come to this breakfast, and I felt that it was important for me to get here this year with all of the troubling things happening in our country,” said Kimmerling, a 59-year-old parishioner of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Portland. “This just highlights so many blessings we have during these very difficult times. I need this kind of thing to fill me up.”

Other featured speakers at the prayer breakfast included Latinrite Archbishop Jean Sleiman of Baghdad, Iraq, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, whose son — Father Paul Scalia of St. John the Beloved Parish in McLean, Va. — gave the invocation at the event.

The Catholic justice urged members of the audience to have the courage to practice their faith proudly, even when others suggest the virgin birth of Jesus and his resurrection are anything but miracles.

Scalia said he has heard people in “educated circles” say that traditional Catholics “are poorly educated and easily led,” but told the audience to hold on to their faith and “have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.”

On a lighter note, Raymond Arroyo of the Eternal Word Television Network cracked a few jokes about the U.S. Catholic bishops.

“There are 12 bishops in that kitchen,” Arroyo told the crowd just before breakfast was served.

“You should see (Archbishop Timothy M.) Dolan (of New York) flip those pancakes.”

He also honored the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, and paid tribute to three high-profile Catholic leaders who died in the past year — Cardinal Avery Dulles, a renowned theologian; Father Richard John Neuhaus, an author, lecturer and the founder of “First Things,” a journal published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life; and Thomas Dillon, the president of Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif., who died in an April car accident in Ireland.

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6

The Anchor Lessons from the Father Alberto affair

Over the past week, a scandal has ripped through the heart of Spanish-speaking Catholicism and spilled over into the national network morning television programs.

At the center of it is Father Alberto Cutié, a 40-year-old priest of the Archdiocese of Miami, who, though largely unknown to most English-speaking Catholics, has for a decade been the country’s most well-known Spanish-speaking cleric. He has been dubbed “Padre Oprah” for his work as a host of television talk shows on Telemundo, weekly programs on EWTN Español, call-in shows on Radio Paz and Radio Peace, syndicated advice columns in Latin America newspapers, and best-selling Spanish self-help books. He was also the popular administrator of a parish in the heart of Miami’s libidinous South Beach. His stardom had to do not merely with his skills in effectively articulating the wisdom of the Catholic faith in Spanish and English, but also, in a celebrity-driven age, because of his movie-star appearance. He made the Catholic faith attractive on multiple levels to the media and the masses alike.

Last week, Father Alberto’s parish and priestly apostolates were thrown into chaos as 25 paparazzi photographs of him amorously interacting with a 35-year-old divorced woman on a Miami beach appeared in a Mexican entertainment magazine. He was immediately relieved of his parish assignment and archdiocesan duties by Miami Archbishop John Favalora and given time and space for him to pray about his future. In a public statement, Father Alberto acknowledged the scandal and apologized to all those whose faith had been hurt by his actions. He seemed to recognize the truth of the old Latin aphorism corruptio optimi pessima, “the corruption of the best is worst of all,” and that his fall from grace is more than just another tale of a priest unfaithful to the promise of chaste celibacy.

At the same time, however, multitudes in the media and among some Spanish-speaking Catholics have rushed to his “defense,” energetically trying to place the blame for his predicament not on his infidelity to the promises he made at his ordination, but on the Church’s discipline of priestly celibacy. The Church needs to change its practice, they have argued in demonstrations, articles, and internet commentaries, or else it will lose talented and inspiring priests like Father Alberto, who has reluctantly become the “anti-celibacy … poster boy” for those who have long had issues with the Church’s discipline.

Father Alberto is now trying to discern what to do next. In two television shows since the photographs appeared, he has demonstrated that he has deeply conflicting thoughts and emotions. To Univision last week, he apologized that people had taken scandal, but showed no compunction over the sins that caused the scandal. “It hurts that the actions of a human being can hurt so many people,” he said. At the same time, he excused his actions “because I believe that I am a man. I never stopped being a man when I put on my cassock. … Do I regret having hurt people? Yes, but I don’t regret loving a woman.”

In an interview on the CBS morning show on Monday, however, it seems that the voice of his conscience was slowly making itself heard. “I don’t support the breaking of the celibacy promise,” he said. “I understand fully that this is wrong.” Whereas on Univision he had said he was looking for a situation in which he could peacefully reconcile his “love for God” and “love for a woman” — like leaving the priesthood and possibly the practice of the Catholic faith — by Monday he was admitting that among his options was ending the relationship. This latter outcome is one for which all Catholics should pray.

There are many lessons that those in the Church need to learn from Father Alberto’s fall from grace and the enormous reaction it has engendered.

First, we need to recognize that there are many who celebrate, rather than mourn, the failure of priests to live faithfully chaste lives and who are willing to take advantage of every priestly disgrace to try to dismantle the discipline of celibacy. The fundamental reason is not to try to embarrass the Church or to advance a married clergy, although these are sometimes present. The deepest motivation seems to be to show that the Church’s teachings on chastity in general are unrealistic or impossible. If priests cannot be expected to live by the teachings of the Church on chastity, then how can the Church expect teen-agers to be abstinent, engaged couples to wait until marriage, married couples to be faithful until death, divorced individuals not to remarry, and those with same-sex attractions to be continent their whole life long? The happily faithful chaste priest is an icon that the Church’s teachings on human sexuality, although challenging, can be lived joyfully, and many iconoclastically want to tear down this symbol to excuse or enable sexual license.

There is a second, more general, point about why many rejoice over and try to “defend” priestly sins. If a priest cannot be faithful in his promises to God, then how can others be held to fidelity?

When any member of the Church sins, the only adequate Christian response is to try to help the person — through prayer, fraternal correction, and concrete help toward rehabilitation — repent and seek forgiveness from God and others; it’s not to cheer the person on. Even though it obviously didn’t seem like it to him, Father Alberto objectively chose Barabbas-in-a-bikini over Jesus Christ, betraying him with kisses and worse over two years. Sins against priestly chastity are not so much violations of a “Church discipline” or a breach of loyalty against an “institution,” but a betrayal of Jesus Christ.

Third, the importance of priestly chastity as an eschatological sign has only grown in importance as our culture’s sexual morés have continued to unravel. The happily celibate priest shows the Church and the world that something is more important than the good of human sexuality, that someone is more worthy of love than even the most adorable human being. When a priest exchanges his covenant with God for earthly relations, when he turns his back on heavenly joys for earthly cathexis, those who seek to live for the moment rather than for eternity take solace — and their salvation is endangered.

Fourth, priestly love affairs are never victimless: a priest cooperates in sin with someone he is supposed to serve and help save. Rather than leading that person to God, he facilitates the person’s alienation from God for the sake of fulfilling his personal desires. By the nature of his supernatural fatherhood, every such affair is spiritually incestuous. By the nature of his chaste consecration, every such liaison is not just sinful but sacrilegious.

Lastly, it’s clear that priests in general need a far deeper chastity formation than they typically receive in seminaries. They need to be trained, specifically, in how to respond properly when they fall in love. Just like a husband who falls in love with a woman at the office needs to take appropriate measures to maintain his fidelity to his wife and to God, so a priest who falls in love needs to be trained how to respond in accordance with the sacred promises he’s made to Christ and his bride.

Father Alberto said, “I don’t regret falling in love because I never looked for love. I didn’t plan this.”

True, but while priests or spouses cannot help being attracted to others, they still have the freedom and the duty to be faithful to those to whom they’ve previously committed their lives — or else betray those people and those promises.

The Father Alberto affair is an opportunity for the whole Church prayerfully and materially to support both him and all priests — in the midst of a culture that often seeks to see them fall — to remain faithful to the Lord Jesus who called them and whose merciful love and grace will never abandon them.

May 15, 2009

Our Lady’s heroic child warriors

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spent the summer of 1996 in Portugal, ills, she asked that Russia be consecrated to her where Bishop O’Malley sent me to study Immaculate Heart and that people receive holy Portuguese at the University of Lisbon. Among Communion in reparation on first Saturdays. the many highlights and memories from that The third was a prophetic vision. An angel time was the privilege I had to travel to Fatima with a flaming sword cried out “Penance, penalmost every Saturday. I would hop on the public ance, penance!” as the children beheld a steep bus, introduce myself to a passenger who looked way of the cross through a city laden with the friendly, and ask whether he or she would mind corpses of martyred bishops, priests, religious serving as my Portuguese tutor and conversation and lay people, at the top of which was a “bishop partner for the 90-minute ride. Most turned out in white” who likewise was shot and killed. to be gracious and good teachers.

By means of the three visions, the children When I arrived at the sanctuary, I would saw the real consequences of sin — hell, a world spend most of the day praying and reading Por- in total turmoil, and a Church persecuted to the tuguese books about our Lady’s apparitions to point of martyrdom. They also saw the remedy the three shepherd children and the message she for sin and all its effects: consecration to Mary’s gave the world through them. I loved to pray Immaculate Heart. They learned that a pure heart in the Capelinha, the outdoor covered chapel which “sees God” in all situations, says “fiat” to enclosing the place where the Blessed Mother him at all times, treasures his word and acts on it, normally appeared. Since Mass, however, was is a stronger weapon that all the earth’s bullets, held there almost continuously, and the Portu- bombs and hijacked airplanes put together. The guese summer could be scorching, I eventually children took up the arms of prayer and sacrifice gravitated into the relatively cool basilica. There and heroically put them to use.

I would plant myself to meditate in a pew coinFrom that point forward, Francisco began to cidentally near the tombs of Francisco and Ja- pray almost constantly to “console Jesus for the cinta Marto, the two seers who died as children sins of the world.” One night, when his father within a few years of the appearances. discovered him sobbing in his room, Francisco The first cougave the reason: ple of Saturdays, “I was thinking I focused mainly of Jesus who is on the objective so sad because history of the apof the sins that pearances, what are committed Mary revealed, against him.” how incredulous Jacinta was so

By Father the people were, convinced by Roger J. Landry the impact of the vision of the the great miracle reality of hell of of the sun in the the importance presence of 70,000, and other parts of the mes- of saving sinners from it that she began to pour sage. Then I moved onto the subjective experi- herself into prayer and practice various corporal ence of the apparitions with the help of the Me- mortifications. “Pray, pray much and make sacmorias or recollections of Sister Lúcia, the third rifices for sinners,” Mary had told her. “Many seer who lived until 2004. souls go to hell because they have no one to pray Toward the end of the summer, however, and make sacrifices for them.” Jacinta respondI began to be drawn to the response to the ap- ed, as did her brother, by prostrating themselves paritions that occurred in the lives of the two in prayer for hours, kneeling with their heads Marto children buried next to where I was pray- humbly bowed to the ground. ing. Since Francisco had died at 10 in 1919 and When both caught the terrible 1918 flu that Jacinta at nine in 1920, I had not really given took the lives of tens of thousands, they offered them that much attention, figuring that they, as all of their sufferings for sinners. Having been children, probably had little to teach; they were, told by our Lady that she would take him to after all, far less famous than Sister Lúcia, who heaven soon, Francisco declined hospital treatfor nine decades was the living memory of the ment, bearing enormous pain with a smile and apparitions and whose writings were so central without complaint. Our Lady appeared to Jacinta to the propagation of the Fatima message. But and asked if she wanted to stay on earth a little because their mortal remains were beside me, I longer to convert more sinners. She said yes. So began to be filled with a desire at least to get to the little girl allowed herself to be dragged from know them better. I’m glad I did. After hitting clinic to clinic, to have two of her ribs removed the bookstores to find works devoted to them, without anaesthesia, valiantly sacrificing herself I soon discovered how mature these children as a victim for the conversion of sinners and for were in faith and virtue. the Holy Father, whom she knew from the vision When our Lady appeared to the three kids, would suffer much. she asked them to assume what most of us When Pope John Paul II beatified them in would presume to be grown-up responsibilities: Fatima nine years ago this past Wednesday, on to pray the rosary and to offer themselves as the 83rd anniversary of Mary’s first appearance victims of reparation for the conversion of sin- to them, he lifted them up as an example to the ners and the forgiveness of the sins of the world. whole world of what Christ-like and Marian love Despite Francisco’s being only nine and Jacinta for the salvation of others looks like. seven, they responded with childlike trust and He also stressed that their lives demontotal dedication to this charge. strate that children can be heroically virtuous Mary showed them three images to convince and reach “the heights of perfection” at a very them of the stakes of what she was asking them young age. Jacinta, in fact, is the youngest nonto do. martyred saint in Church history. Echoing the The first vision was of hell, where Mary told words of our Lady, the pope reminded all chilthem “the souls of poor sinners go.” They saw, dren, “Our Lady needs you all to console Jesus, as Lúcia recounted, “a great sea of fire” with who is sad because of the bad things done to “demons and souls in human form … amid him; he needs your prayers and your sacrifices shrieks and groans of pain and despair,” which for sinners.” made them tremble with horror. Had Mary not As we in the month of May experience the promised them that she would help them get to joy of seeing so many young children between heaven, Lúcia said, she thinks they would have the ages of Francisco and Jacinta make their first died of fear and terror. holy Communion, it’s important for us to reThe second image conveyed to them that member that they, too, are capable of great holiWorld War I would soon end, but Mary said that ness now, and not just in the future. God entrusts if people did not stop offending God a worse children, from an early age, with crucial roles for one would erupt in which God would “punish the salvation of others, because he in his wisdom the world for its crimes.” She warned that unless knows that they are capable of it.

Russia were converted, the communists would And what goes for them goes for all of us, no spread their errors throughout the world, caus- matter how young we are. ing war, annihilating nations, persecuting the Father Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Church and martyring millions. To avoid these Padua Parish in New Bedford.

Putting Into the Deep

May 15, 2009

T

From reform to revolution

porary Catholicism, which in he historian Steven Luther’s mind and in ProtesOzment describes the startling transformation a vis- tant propaganda was a perveritor to a Protestant city would sion of Christianity amounting to a false church. How did perceive just a decade or two after Luther’s revolt: the churches stripped and whitewashed; the The Fullness monasteries and convents closed except of the Truth for a few cloisters

By Father housing elderly religious who couldn’t Thomas M. Kocik be pensioned off; the clergy — those who were left — this come to be? married; the Sacrifice of the As we saw, Luther’s basic Mass replaced by a commuinsight was that man is justinion service. What started as fied, or accepted by God, not reforming movement within by his own moral effort but the Catholic Church became only by God’s grace received a frontal assault on contem-

I

through faith in Christ. On its face, this view of salvation was neither heretical nor novel. A thousand years earlier, St. Augustine, the “Doctor of Grace,” had stressed man’s impotence before God. But Luther and his disciples made “justification by faith” the sum and substance of Christianity, the one criterion by which everything in the Church was to be judged, as if Christian faith and devotion consists solely of the sin/ grace antithesis. (What about the Incarnation, our supernatural adoption, the promise of the “deification” of all things

Diversity in Catholic schools: Benefits and opportunities

diversity within our schools n the 2005 statement “Renewing Our Commit- not only benefits students but also presents opportuniment to Catholic Elementary ties to serve entire families, & Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium,” the Unit- strengthen the Church and ed States Conference of Cath- bring each of us closer to God. olic Bishops highlighted the Benefitting students changing face of the Church Catholic school students and the role of diversity in our Catholic schools. “Catho- have the opportunity to meet children and adults of diverse lic parishes and schools face backgrounds, including peothe challenge of addressing ple of many races and ethnicthe spiritual, educational, social, and cultural needs of a ities, those with various disabilities, and those of other new wave of immigrants.”

As we go forward to meet this challenge, The Value of it is important to remember that diversity Catholic Schools has been an integral part of Catholic idenBy Bishop Robert tity from the beginning. We need only F. Hennessey look to Scripture for guidance on the topic. faiths. As the bishops state: The parable of the Good “Catholic schools cultivate Samaritan tells us to care for healthy interaction among the all people. St. Paul accepts increasingly diverse populathe Gentiles as members of tions of our society.” the faith when others have Serving families rejected them. Christ says to When we welcome a child his disciples, “For I was hunfrom a different culture into gry and you gave me food, I our schools, we are helpwas thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you wel- ing an entire family make comed me” (Matthew 25:35). the transition to their new And our greatest guidance on home. Children adapt to new diversity comes from the very cultures more quickly than way Christ lived. Diversity is adults, which can result in at the heart of his message of parents being left behind. I was a pastor at Most Holy love, the message that drives Redeemer Parish in East Bosour mission as Catholics. ton, which has a large popuChrist’s message of love lation of people new to our is visible in the daily work country. While we extended of our Catholic schools as the hand of welcome to the we seek to provide children children at the parish school, of all backgrounds an exwe also welcomed the parcellent academic education ents, bringing them into the and grounding in the Cathocommunity and helping them lic faith within a safe and to find jobs and housing. nurturing environment. The

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The Anchor

Strengthening the Church We also help families to sustain their native cultures.

Our students study and celebrate the traditions of various racial and ethnic groups. In recognizing the value of the students’ countries of origin, the school is teaching students to respect their heritage and their parents. This helps families feel more at home, and it also strengthens the Church. Most people pray in their first language. Passing on traditions, culture and language is an effective way of passing on the faith.

Bringing us closer to God Perhaps the greatest benefit of diversity in our schools is that it helps us to better know God. The Vatican’s document “Instruction on the Pastoral Care of Migrants,” describes people of different cultures as “a visible sign and an effective reminder of that universality which is a constituent element of the Catholic Church.” God is present in each of us. Each different face is another face of God. The better we know and understand each other, the better we know and understand God. As we go forward to meet the challenges diversity brings to our Catholic schools, we may do so knowing that the work we are doing has a far-reaching impact, serving students, families, the Church and one another.

Bishop Hennessey is Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston.

in Christ, or our adherence to Christ for his own sake?)

Not only that, the principles of sola gratia (grace alone) and sola fides (faith alone) — two sides of the same coin — were understood as requiring certain departures from Catholic tradition.

In Luther’s perception the Mass and all other devotions were “works.” Baptism and the Eucharist were the only two sacraments with strong biblical warrant, although in the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520) Luther endorsed private confession as “useful and necessary” for distressed souls. The dead were not to be prayed for because they were either already instantly beatified by faith alone, or hopelessly lost for lack of it. Protestant theology attributed no special powers to priests and obliterated any real distinction between the clergy and laity. No longer was there any rationale for monasticism or religious vows. At Wittenberg, Luther’s friary became his family home as he married off the local nuns and eventually took as his wife a former nun, Katherine von Bora, who bore him six children.

Catholic theologians naturally reacted to assert those truths which the Reformation had denied or neglected.

Thus, when Protestants declared that salvation is entirely God’s doing, understood as if any effort on our part were useless, Catholics answered that grace enables human cooperation in the process of salvation. By the same token, when Protestants asserted that salvation is obtained through faith in terms that come down to denying the importance of good works, Catholics answered that true faith produces good works. When Protestants asserted that every Christian shares in Christ’s priesthood and is therefore gifted for a ministry of some kind, Catholics responded that Christ conferred on his Apostles a priesthood distinct, in essence and function, from that of God’s people as a whole. And when Protestants set Scripture over against the Church, and in particular against Tradition, Catholics defended the authority of popes, councils, and creeds, not in opposition to Scripture, but in order to prevent its true sense from being distorted.

But counterbalances came too late to avert the greatest schism in Christendom since 1054. By the time of Luther’s death in 1546, Germany was already divided between

Lutheran and Catholic states and was on the verge of religious warfare; Scandinavia and England had left the Catholic fold (though England, as we’ll see, was unique in its Reformation); and Protestant doctrines were gaining acceptance in the Netherlands, France, and elsewhere. It wasn’t long into the century when the Reformers discovered that they had, in Ozment’s words, “sown the wind.” Once the initial break with Rome occurred, there was no stopping the proliferation of Protestant sects, some far more radical than Luther could ever have imagined.

In Switzerland, Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531), a secular priest, led a partly independent reform at Zurich.

Like Luther, Zwingli believed that the Mass was not a sacrifice. But the two men disagreed on whether Christ is truly present in the Eucharist.

Although Luther rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation as unbiblical and irrational, he insisted that the elements of bread and wine are sacramental signs of Christ’s Body and Blood, meaning that they contain and communicate what they signify.

Zwingli, by contrast, repeatedly quoted Jesus’ statement that “the flesh profits nothing” (Jn 6:63), and insisted that the Lord’s Supper wasn’t a literal eating and drinking of Christ’s Body and Blood.

This was the first of many divisions within Protestantism.

Since Zwingli felt less reverence for the past than Luther, the change of appearance and worship in Swiss churches was more revolutionary than in the Lutheran churches of Germany. Zwinglian ministers faced the congregation, wore lay clothes, and distributed bread and wine from a table in the middle of the nave; whereas Lutheran ministers, initially at least, continued to face the altar, elevate the Host, and wear eucharistic vestments.

Luther and Zwingli represent the first phase of the Protestant movement. John Calvin (1509-64), a Frenchman at Geneva, represents the second. We’ll soon get acquainted with Calvin’s “Reformed” Protestantism, a name which first came into common use when opposed, not to the Catholics, but to the Lutherans. The Reformation turned its adherents into permanent revolutionaries.

Father Kocik is a parochial vicar at Santo Christo Parish in Fall River.

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The Anchor

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t has been reported that the theologian Karl Barth was once asked, after having been reminded of the number of books he had written, what was the most profound thought he ever had. Without hesitation he replied, “Jesus loves me.”

It does not take a great deal of diligence to note, in the second reading and in the Gospel passage for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, the pervasiveness of the word “love.” In a combined total of 13 verses, it is used 18 times. We would do well, then, to consider the kind of love we respond to in our obedience to Christ’s Commandments.

In his first encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est,” Pope Benedict XVI identifies three Greek words that mean love: eros, philia and agape. The pope notes that eros, an attraction or desire

May 15, 2009

A gift beyond measure

for another, is not used in “The God Who Loves You,” the New Testament while notes that romantic love philia is used in John’s (eros) as well as friendGospel to characterize the ship (philia) “perceives and unique nature of the friendresponds to some already ship between Jesus and existing value in the object his disciples. Prior to the loved ... they are attracted writings that comprise the by something, whether New Testament, agape was physical or spiritual” (page found infrequently in Greek usage — but Homily of the Week it is the word most commonly used by Sixth Sunday the Evangelists to of Easter convey the word

By Deacon “love.” In a way, the Joe McGinley New Testament writings present a new meaning to a formerly seldom used word so that 59). The startling and liberJesus’ teachings could be ating thing about God’s love effectively conveyed. The (agape), then, is that it is pope writes that in agape not a response or an attraclove “now becomes concern tion to something in us — it and care for the other. No is absolutely unmerited. longer is it self-seeking ...

The ultimate expression instead it seeks the good of of this unmerited love is the beloved” (No. 6). the cross. What could any Peter Kreeft, in his book of us possibly do to merit

the kind of love offered to us by the cross? And yet, as Pope Benedict writes, “By contemplating the pierced side of Christ we can understand the starting point of … ‘God is Love.’

It is there that the truth can be contemplated. It is from there that our definition of love must begin. In this contemplation the Christian discovers the path along which his life and love must move” (No. 12).

The knowledge, the acceptance, of God’s unmerited, selfsacrificial love becomes the impetus, the enabler, for us to love (agape) in the same manner. “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19). In “Deus Caritas Est” it is described as “Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to

others much more than their outward necessities.

I can give them the look of love which they crave” (No. 18). As a result, we become “fountains of living water in the midst of a thirsty world.”

Remarkably, when we are obedient to the command to love in this agapic manner, we are assured of complete joy. Dante alluded to this when he wrote, “In his will, our peace.” Peter Kreeft ends a rumination on the value of agape by concluding, “This ‘yes’ to God’s will, this word of love, is the whole secret of worship, understanding, sanctity, justice, contemplation, happiness, and peace … and it is free.”

And that is a gift beyond measure.

Deacon Joseph McGinley serves at St. Ann’s Parish in Raynham.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. May 16, Acts 16:1-10; Ps 100:2,3,5; Jn 15:18-21. Sun. May 17, Sixth Sunday of Easter, Acts 10:25-26,34-35, 44-48; Ps 98:1-4; 1 Jn 4:7-10; Jn 15:9-17.

Mon. May 18, Act 16:11-15; Ps 149:1-6a,9b; Jn 15:26-16:4a. Tues. May 19, Acts 16:22-34; Ps 138:1-3,7c-8; Jn 16:5-11. Wed. May 20, Acts 17:15,22-18:1; Ps 148:1-2,11-14; Jn 16:12-15.

Thu. May 21, The Ascension of the Lord, Acts 1:1-11; Ps 47:2-3,6-9; Eph 1:17-23 or Eph 4:1-13 or 4:1-7,11-13; Mk 16:15-20. Fri. May 22, Acts 18:9-18; Ps 47:2-7; Jn 16:20-23a.

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What ‘Church’ does Notre Dame belong to?

f all the commentary I’ve read on Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama to receive an honorary doctorate of laws as the university’s 2009 commencement speaker, the most disturbing came from Father Kenneth Himes of the Boston College theology department. In a Boston Globe story about Professor Mary Ann Glendon’s courageous (and correct) decision to decline Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal because the university had defied the U.S. bishops’ policy barring honors for pro-abortion politicians at Catholic events, Father Himes said this: “There are some well-meaning people who think Notre Dame has given away its Catholic identity, because they have been caught up in the gamesmanship of American higher

education, bringing in a star Glendon, or William McGurn commencement speaker even of the Wall Street Journal, or if that means sacrificing their Father Wilson Miscamble, values, and that accounts for CSC, of the Notre Dame some of this. But one also has faculty, or me, or other serito say that there is a political ous critics of Notre Dame’s game going on here, and part decision. For if Father Himes of that is that you demonize is suggesting that any of us the people who disagree with have demonized the president, you, you question their integrity, you challenge their character, and you brand these people as moral poison. Some people have simply reduced Catholicism

By George Weigel to the abortion issue, and, consequently, they have simply launched a crusade to bar anything branded him “moral poison,” from Catholic institutions that reduced Catholicism to the smacks of any sort of open abortion issue, or summoned a conversation.” crusade to eliminate debate at I trust Father Himes is not Catholic colleges and universireferring here to Professor ties, he is perilously close to committing calumny. Yes, there are self-serving nuts in the forest, some of whom have seized the Obama/Notre Dame issue for their own purposes. But why does Father Himes waste time bashing fringe crazies?

Why not engage the arguments of the serious critics? Why not attempt a theologically coherent defense of what seems an incomprehensible decision — awarding an honorary doctorate of laws to a man determined to enshrine in law something the

The Catholic Difference

Catholic Church regards as a gross violation of justice?

Another colleague (and Notre Dame grad), Professor Russell Hittinger, who holds the William K. Warren Chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, clarified one key facet of this controversy in an email. Notre Dame, he suggested, has adopted a “purely American low-Church position of [institutional] autonomy,” by acting as if the local bishop, John D’Arcy, has nothing to say to which the university must pay serious attention — although Bishop D’Arcy, a longtime Notre Dame booster, was speaking for the settled position of the American episcopate in asking the university’s president, Father John Jenkins, CSC, to reconsider his decision to honor Obama. As Professor Hittinger continued, this fracas “has nothing to do with academic freedom nor with ecclesiastical supervision of routine academic procedures and judgments.

It is ecclesiological all the way down — what Church is Notre Dame ‘in,’ if any? Notre Dame is speaking and acting as though it were not a member of the local Church, let alone Rome.”

That’s exactly right. There’s also a high-stakes “political game” here, though not the one Father Himes suggests. The Obama administration is full of very smart political operators. Reading last November’s electoral entrails, they’ve sensed the possibility of driving a wedge through the Catholic community in America, dividing Catholics from their bishops and thus securing the majority Catholic vote Obama received in 2008. And they’ve shrewdly judged that the soft underbelly of Catholic resistance to the Obama administration’s radical agenda on the life issues is composed of Catholic intellectuals, their prestige institutions (like Notre Dame and Georgetown), and their opinion journals — the very people and opinion centers who claimed last year that Obama was the true Pro-Life candidate.

It’s a clever move on the political chessboard, and barring extraordinary actions from the bishops, it will likely meet with considerable success.

Politics aside, though, the crucial question remains this: just what Church are Notre Dame and its supporters “in,” anyway?

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

Do not pass go; do not collect $200

Four parishioners who had Sunday 10 May 2009 — Port-O-Call: Bridgewater — by served on the Transition Task Force accompany me: MarPresidential Proclamation No. tina Grover, Nancy Goulart, 3537, Police Week begins t says, “Go to jail.”

Monopoly? No, dear readers, this is no game. I’m opening my Reflections of a email. Attached are Parish Priest directions to the Old Colony Correctional

By Father Tim Center, a medium/ Goldrick minimum security facility in Bridgewater.

Don Emond, and Jill Gurney.

Parishioner Jeanie Lahousse, We’re a bit apprehensive as we director of Treatment, has sent go to prison — but at least it’s the email. I’m going to prison only for the afternoon. to mark the refurbishing of the Soon two more vehicles arecumenical chapel. The chapel rive at the prison. Deacon John has been refurnished with pulof the Archdiocese of Boston pit, altar, and pews donated by the former St. Peter’s Church in drives one car. The permanent deacon is also a “permanent Dighton.

I

A

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The Ship’s Log

volunteer” at the prison. He seems to have a propensity for permanency. His passengers include his wife, Ann, and Father Thomas, a Benedictine monk from Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham. I know Father Thomas, but I’m unaware he serves on Cursillo retreat teams.

I’m also unaware that Cursillo retreats have been held at Old Colony for 18 years. In the second vehicle is Bishop John Dooher of the Archdiocese of Boston.

Bishop Dooher tells me he has served for 40 years as a priest of the archdiocese, and two years as an Auxiliary Bishop to Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

The facility is a secure

Love is an umbrella

for further insight into why it s Catholics we are is that we must first learn to all called to become love him and ourselves before lifelong experts in how to love. we are capable of offering true Specifically Jesus says that in “caritas” or unselfish, unlimited order to be his disciples we love to our neighbor. must learn how to love God The insight was given in and how to love our neighbor the image of love being like a as ourselves (Mark 12:30-32). large golf umbrella, capable Now that might sound pretty of protecting not just us, but straightforward when read from also our neighbors from the the pages of the Bible, but the downpours of life. In this word school of experience has shown me otherwise. Having been sub- picture, the waterproof canvas of the umbrella was composed jected to my own shortcomings in the areas of loving in general and in specific relationships, I recently began praying for a little help and insight.

God’s help came by way of a book I picked up on an impulse while

By Heidi Bratton at Wal-Mart. Titled, “Love as Way of Life,” it is written by Chrisof our love for God. Therefore, tian psychologist and author, the more we love God, the Gary Chapman. In this book, more expansive our umbrella’s Chapman offers an overarching canvas will be. The individual philosophy of why to become struts that held the umbrella a more loving person, and then open were formed by each of quickly breaks his philosophy the Christian virtues that we down into the following bitedeveloped in our lives (Chapsized virtues that anyone can man’s book listed seven, but develop: kindness, patience, there are more as well). Once forgiveness, courtesy, humility, we had a good grasp on how generosity, and honesty. to love God and ourselves, we The virtues Chapman lists then had a roomy, functioning are very similar to the Biblical umbrella under which we could fruit of the Spirit (Galatians offer space (or love) to our 5:22), so while the virtues neighbors. were not new to me, the ways I don’t know. Maybe I’ve Chapman applied them toward just been sharing one too many becoming being a more loving umbrellas on the sidelines of person were new. Not only one too many, rainy soccer that, but the real life stories he games this spring, but this love recounted were so encouraging, as an umbrella image really that for the first time in years spoke to me. It really helped me I had hope that loving better see that if my love for others could make a difference in the was not a natural extension of world and in my own life. After my love for God, and that if my reading “Love as Way of Life,” love for others was not fully God also answered my prayer

Home Grown Faith

supported by a virtuous life of my own, then my offering love to someone would be like offering them space under a very small, holey umbrella with a broken strut or two. Yes, it would still be love, but diminished in its actual capabilities.

So I thanked God for his help and insight, and I thought some more about everyone I knew who needed love. As I kept thinking, I realized that, what with already having a husband and six children, a large, extended family, a good-sized neighborhood, and lots of good friends at church and in school groups, not to mention work colleagues and strangers at the grocery who love to visit with my baby, what I really need is an umbrella the size of a circus tent, and I’ve only just rounded the corner into my 40s. What am I going to do when grandkids or, gulp, great-grandkids start showing up? I think I’d better start cracking open my Bible, a few more of Gary Chapman’s books, and a lot more on Catholic teaching right now, so that I’ll be ready when my teachers in the school of experience come looking for a shelter from the storm.

If you are interested in the many godly materials put out

by Gary Chapman, including a series on the “Five Love Languages,” you can visit his Website at www.garychapman. org and at www.fivelovelanguages.com.

Heidi is an author, photographer, and full-time mother. She and her husband raise their six children in Falmouth. homegrownfaith@gmail.com.

perimeter, which consists of double fences — 14-foot chain link fences topped with razor wire. Between the fences are high-tech motion detectors, part of a microwave system, which alerts tower and control room personnel when an intruder passes between the fences.

These devices are sensitive enough to detect the motion of rain falling or wind blowing.

Thirty percent of the prisoners are in for life.

The security guards greet our party politely. We are required, of course, to go through the standard procedures of inner perimeter security. These precautions are in place for a reason. I don’t mind one bit, especially since the staff is so courteous. It’s like airport check-in in overdrive.

Please remove shoes, jackets, sweaters, coats and belts.

Please turn all your pockets inside out. Please open your mouth so that we may check for contraband. Please may we see the soles of your feet?

Please divest of your watch, jewelry, cell phone, gum, cough drops, cameras, candy, coins, folding money, handkerchiefs, tissues, jewelry, etc. May we see a photo ID? Good, now please step through this metal detector. Fine. Now please allow us to stamp your left hand. OK. A heavy door is unlocked and relocked after we enter.

Now please wave your hand under this ultraviolet light. Great. Now please let us have your photo ID and wear this badge so that it’s visible.

Terrific. Now please gather in groups of four and you will be escorted.

In we go. Guards unlock and relock several doors until we reach our destination.

The prison chapel is very small, with a capacity of only 69. It’s packed with inmates.

Banners made by the inmates hang on the freshly painted cinder-block walls. The carpeting

is new. I spy the altar, pulpit, and pews from the former St. Peter’s Church. Nancy Goulart quickly finds her family pew, still bearing the memorial plate.

The chapel is set for Catholic worship. There is also a Protestant mode.

The hymn singing is lively.

One of the inmates plays keyboard. Bishop Dooher preaches enthusiastically. In his enthusiasm, he accidentally tips over the podium. I catch it (the podium, that is.) At the Lord’s Prayer, the inmates place their hands reverently on the shoulders of those in front of them.

The Communion procession in such a small space is a bit of a “flow problem,” but the inmates have done this many times before.

At the end of Mass, awards are presented to those inmates who had helped with refurbishing the chapel. Inmates who recently received the sacrament of confirmation are also recognized. Prison Superintendent Steven O’Brien thanks the people of Dighton for their well-appreciated gifts.

I’m bowled over by the whole thing. It’s truly a religious experience.

Afterwards, I mingle with the inmates and staff over coffee. “Would you be willing to come back to celebrate Mass with us?” asks a staff member.

Without a doubt. “Would you be willing to hear our confessions?” asks one inmate. Certainly. “It may take some time,” he adds. I understand. “Sounds to me like St. Nicholas Parish now has a prison chapel annex,” jokes Bishop Dooher.

The moment for leave-taking comes. “How do I get out of here?” I ask one inmate. “Father,” he responds, “It’s very easy to get into this place, but not so easy to get out.” We both laugh aloud. I leave; he stays for the rest of his life.

Father Goldrick is pastor of St. Nicholas of Myra Parish in North Dighton.

PUT TO GOOD USE — This is the ecumenical chapel at the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater. The chapel has been refurnished with pulpit, altar, and pews donated by the former St. Peter’s Church in Dighton.

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Faith pulls mother and son through devastating accident

By Michael Pare Anchor Correspondent

TRADITION — A 23-year tradition of the Easter Memorial Cross continues at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in New Bedford.

The floral design of the cross is done by parishioners during Holy Week and paid for by contributions made in advance. Here pastor Father Roman Chwaliszewski, OFM Conv., and Min. Provincial of St. Anthony of Padua Province Father Michael Kolodziej, OFM Conv., bless the crypt on Easter morning and unveil the Easter Memorial Cross.

Those prayers were answered. On that fateful second night in the intensive care unit, Jeff stabilized. His FALL RIVER — Ann Varley has written a book. journey to recovery had begun.

Ann wrote “Twice Born Son” from her heart. It It is called “Twice Born Son: Hope for Our Walking was not easy … nothing like the poems she wrote in Wounded.”

Published by Vantage Press this spring, its jacket grade school. This was so deeply personal, so deeply describes it as one “mother’s journey through the painful. The chapters follow Jeff from one hospital to aftermath of her son’s devastating accident. Varley’s another. There are starts and stops. There is definitely vivid descriptions and strong narrative tell how she, a frustration.

There is one poignant moment after another. single mother and schoolteacher, dealt with the tragic When Jeff first said “Hi mom,” and when he ate his circumstances.”

That is an accurate summary of the 60-page book. first cheeseburger. There were bad days along the But it only begins to tell the heartbreaking and heart- way. There are inspiring moments, like Jeff’s return to school, and ultimately, his graduation from high warming story of Ann and Jeff Varley. school.

It is a story with many parts.

But a recurring theme throughout the book is the It is the story of a mother’s unconditional love, a young man’s dogged determination to rehabilitate faith that carried Ann. It is the faith that guided her in writing about their experihimself, the amazing proence all these years later. fessionalism and talents of Sitting in the apartment an army of devoted health she and Jeff share in Fall care workers, and the imRiver, Ann is grateful for portance of putting one’s the strength God has given faith in God. both of them.

“Twice Born Son” is an “If I hadn’t had my honest book. It is a candid faith, I wouldn’t be here book that pulls no punchtoday,” she said. es.

Father Harrison, now Jeff Varley’s accident the pastor at Holy Name took place on a stormy afParish in Fall River, is ternoon on July 10, 1989. not surprised that Ann He did a dumb thing. summoned her strength He’d been drinking and he through God. drove. A carefree teen-ag“Ann has an indomier, he was speeding toward table faith,” he said. “She Assonet when he crashed was able to draw on a deep his car. reservoir of faith. That is Ann Varley got a call what sustained her. When from Freetown Police. She there was no hope, she put was told her son had been it all in God’s hands.” in an accident.

Father Harrison sees And so began the jourthe book as an example of ney. a mother’s unconditional The initial news at the love for her son. That she hospital was not good.

Jeff had suffered a severe ANCHOR PERSON OF THE WEEK — Ann wants to use the story to educate others is a fitting closed head injury. Doc- Varley and her son Jeff Varley. example of her selflesstors did not expect him to ness, he said. survive.

The desire to help others is something that mother Ann turned to God. and son share. When Ann finished writing each chap“Lord, take care of my son,” she prayed.

That first night at Grayson Memorial Hospital was ter, she would review it with Jeff. She wanted to be grim. It seemed at every turn, people were preparing sure he was all right with the details. Each time, Jeff Ann for the inevitable. Jeff would be transported al- said yes.

Now that it has been published, Jeff sees only good most immediately to Hope Hospital in Boston, where there was a bed available in the Surgical Intensive coming from it.

“I’d like to see this used to help other people,” he Care Unit.

That Jeff survived his first 24 hours was a miracle. said.

The book is keeping Ann busy.

There would be more.

She speaks at Bristol Community College to firstAnn continued to pray. She slept — or tried to time drinking and driving offenders who are required sleep — on a couch in his room.

“I was so close to my son, but so far from being to take a class there. She isn’t always sure if her mesable to help him — except by prayer,” she wrote in the sage is getting through. But when she sees essays that book. “I thought of Christ’s plea to his Father in the have been written after her talk, she realizes she’s hit home. garden, ‘Father, let this cup pass from me.’”

Ann speaks wherever she is welcome. She speaks She remembered the conclusion to that prayer: out for all those who have suffered head injuries, like “Not my will, Father, but yours be done.” so many of our soldiers. She now knows the difficult “I needed to embrace his will,” she said.

Later in the morning of the second day, Father road to recovery they face.

In a note at the beginning of the book, Ann says: George Harrison, who at the time was at St. John Neumann Parish in East Freetown, had arrived. He “It is my hope and prayer that those of you who read prayed over Jeff and administered the sacrament of this book, especially if you can relate to its content in any way, will be encouraged. If its words inform and the sick.

Ann remembers the scene vividly, even two de- make you feel less alone in your struggle, then it will cades later. In her book, she recalled feeling discon- have served its purpose. And for those who have been nected from her body, “a spectator looking on from spared this journey, may you have a deeper understanding and compassion for our walking wounded.” a distance.”

“Twice Born Son: Hope for Our Walking WoundShe wrote: “After the final anointing Father placed his hands on Jeff’s head, the cranial bolt protruding ed” is on sale at Baker Books on State Road in North between his fingers, and prayed, ‘Jesus, you know Dartmouth. It is also available at amazon.com.

To nominate a Person of the Week, send an email Jeffrey. You know his goodness. You can heal this message to FatherRogerLandry@AnchorNews.org. head!’”

It’s not the size of the dog

T

here’s a dairy farm on my daily walking route.

Nearly every time I breeze past where the cows and sheep graze, a small border collie rockets across the pasture to make sure I do no harm to his charges.

The pooch is no larger than a cow’s head, but there he is, yapping away, protecting his herd.

Emilie and I have dubbed him Little Big Dog. In the 1970 film, “Little Big Man,” Dustin Hoffman, as Jack Crabb, was raised by native Americans and received the Little Big Man moniker because

My View From the Stands

By Dave Jolivet

he was “short but brave.”

I thought about Little Big Dog last week when Red Sox great Dom DiMaggio passed away.

Being a Red Sox history buff, I was a big fan of Dom. He, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr, and Ted Williams were best buds — a story chronicled by the late David Halberstam in “The Teammates,” a must read for any Sox fan.

Dom was known as the “Little Professor,” because of his fivefoot-nine-inch stature and round spectacles. Despite his compact size, his lifetime batting average was just a shade below .300,

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May 15, 2009

collected more than 1,600 hits, and could roam center field like a gazelle.

Dom’s buddy Johnny Pesky stood a towering five-foot-nineinches, and he had a career batting average of .307 and collected more than 1,400 hits. And both lost three years of playing time while serving our country in WWII. Dustin Pedroia, current Sox second-baseman was A.L. Rookie of the Year two years ago and A.L. MVP last year. He stands a rousing five-feet-nine(?)-inches tall.

Red Sox Nation’s very own Jerry Remy was also a member of the five-nine club and he batted .275 while swiping more than 200 bases.

Boston is rich with “Little Big Dogs.” The Bruins’ Johnny “Pie” McKenzie was another five-niner, and he was tough as nails, averaged nearly 25 goals a season with the Bs and helped them to two Stanley Cup championships in the early 70s.

In football, Doug Flutie stood a towering five-foot-10-inches.

In a sport dominated by big men, Flutie gained recognition for his famous “Hail Mary” touchdown pass against the University of Miami in 1983 and went on to pass for more than 40,000 yards and 270 TDs in the Canadian Football League.

Moving to the hardwood one of the greatest Celtics of all time was the six-foot-one Bob Cousy — a man who passed the ball like he had eyes in the back of his head, scored more than 17,000 career points, and had more than 7,000 assists.

On today’s Cs, young Rajon Rando has the same stature as

Cousy, and is currently playing lights out for the ailing Celtics, shooting and passing his way to greatness.

It’s clear I’m partial to Little Big Dogs, being one myself. At a looming five-foot-six, I held my own on each of the four major playing fields. I was never a high school or college star, but among

my peers I could easily pass as a Little Big Dog. It’s in the blood. My dad, my brother, and I were usually the smallest guys in the class — as were my kids.

But just try to do harm to one of our cattle, and we’ll be nipping at your heels — just as long as you’re not a wolf or coyote.

CONSECRATED CHANTS — On May 3, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations to the Priesthood and Consecrated Life, the consecrated women of Regnum Christi came to participate in the annual Spring Choral Concert and Tea at St. Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford. The young women receive their formation in Greenville, R.I.

A CELEBRATION!

Father Pat will formally release his new DVD and CD entitled “Tears of Love” On Sunday, May 24th at 6:30 PM at La Salette Shrine Church, Attleboro, MA You are invited to join him on this momentous occasion as he radiates through his words and music the love our Blessed Mother has for all of us!

Admission is Free

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May 15, 2009

‘Angels and Demons’ fails to get free publicity from Vatican

By John Thavis Catholic News Service

WIDE-EYED — Giddy, left, voiced by David Cross, Mala, voiced by Evan Rachel Wood, and Lt. Jim Stanton, voiced by Luke Wilson, are seen in the animated movie “Battle for Terra.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Lionsgate)

CNS Movie Capsules NEW YORK (CNS) — The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Battle for Terra” (Lionsgate) Ambitious animated parable, set on a distant planet that’s being invaded by aggressive refugees from earth, in which a downed human airman (voice of Luke Wilson) finds his loyalties divided when he’s befriended by one of the peace-loving, tadpole-shaped locals (voice of Evan Rachel Wood) his warmongering commander (voice

of Brian Cox) is intent on destroying. Director Aristomenis Tsirbas’ feature debut is an honorable, if at times heavy-handed, cautionary tale about prejudice, violence and environmental degradation, but the battle scenes — especially as intensified by the 3-D presentation in some theaters — are too strong for the youngest viewers, and quasireligious aspects of the aliens’ culture may require family discussion.

Moderate combat violence and a suicide. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II — adults and adolescents.

The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

“Star Trek” (Paramount/ Spyglass) Exhilarating prequel to the “Star Trek” franchise as the youthful rabble-rousing James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) forgoes his delinquent ways to join the crew of the Starship Enterprise — including Leon-

ard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Sulu (James Cho) and Chekhov (Anton Yelchin) — where he soon clashes with rival Spock (Zachary Quinto) until they unite against the vengeful Romulan Nero (Eric Bana), intent on destruction. Director J.J. Abrams breathes new life into the series by skillfully balancing the well-executed action sequences with an absorbing human story, leavened with humor and optimism, and likable characters you care about, though some brief gratuitous sexuality and the use of several expletives restrict this to mature teens and up. Intense but not graphic action violence, a short but frisky bedroom scene with skimpy attire, some crude language and a single profanity, The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III — adults.

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

Dom DeLuise had great devotion to Our Lady

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Dom DeLuise, the Catholic comic actor who mastered the doubletake look of surprise on film, died May 4 at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., after a long illness. He was 75.

First bursting into national consciousness with guest appearances on TV’s “The Gary Moore Show,” he cemented his fame with his appearances in some of Mel Brooks’ zaniest movie spoofs, including “Blazing Saddles,” “Spaceballs,” “Silent Movie” and “History of the World Part 1.”

DeLuise also partnered with Burt Reynolds in several movies, among them “Smoky and the Bandit II,” “The End,” “The Cannonball Run” and “Cannonball Run II.” In a 2006 interview with Msgr.

James Lisante for the priest’s TV show, “Personally Speaking,” DeLuise told of his fealty for Mary.

“People give me Blessed Mothers,” DeLuise said in an interview “I have one here, I have one there.

I have them all over the house.”

“I said to my wife — before

we had all these Blessed Mothers — ‘I want a Blessed Mother, but only a small one.’ We pull over to the side of the road, and there’s a Blessed Mother. But the smallest one was only about three feet (tall).

“I don’t mind them. I like them.

They give me comfort,” DeLuise noted. “The Blessed Mother is someone that I pray to all the time, and in fact, I use her as a mantra.

When I’m in my car and there’s traffic, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace ...,’” he said, reciting the complete prayer. “I say it all the time. It calms me down.

“When I was having surgery, and I was uncomfortable, I said 11 of those in a row, and it just calmed me down,” he continued.

When the TV variety show and the daytime chat show were staples of the small screen, DeLuise was a much-sought-after guest.

Much of DeLuise’s work over the past 15 years had been in children’s media, acting on TV series, doing cartoon voice-overs and writing books. DeLuise wrote several cookbooks and children’s

books and occasionally appeared as a television and radio chef.

He or his voice had been featured in such movies and TV shows as “A Troll in Central Park,” “The Magic School Bus,” “Ren & Stimpy,” the “All Dogs Go to Heaven” and “An American Tail” series of movies and TV spinoffs, “Duckman,” “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch,” and “Bongee Bear and the Kingdom of Rhythm.”

Former film publicist Robert J. Elisberg, writing on the Huffington Post Website, said that in his 15 years of doing favors for Hollywood types, DeLuise was one of only two actors to have written thank-you notes. The other was John Houseman.

“Dom DeLuise was a big man in every way,” said Brooks in a statement. “He was big in size and created big laughter and joy. He will be missed in a very big way.”

His wife of 43 years, actress Carol Arthur, and their three sons, all actors, Peter, Michael and David, were at his bedside when he died. They survive him, as do three grandchildren.

VATICAN CITY — On the eve of its world premiere, “Angels and Demons” was a film in desperate search of controversy.

At a press conference in Rome May 3, director Ron Howard tried to pick a fight with the Vatican, suggesting that the long arm of the Holy See was somehow behind unspecified problems in shooting the film, a pseudo-religious thriller based in Rome.

The Vatican wasn’t taking the bait, though. The only real criticism in Italy on the eve of the film’s premiere came from a 102-year-old Italian bishop — not exactly the kind of publicity storm that marketing gurus dream about.

Tom Hanks, the film’s star, put his finger on the problem at the press conference when he was asked if the movie’s marketing people might try to exploit potential conflict with the Vatican.

“Every movie is exploited by the marketing people. There’s no such thing as a movie that is not exploited by the marketing people,” Hanks said.

“The marketing department of any studio would love to be able to create controversy over their films.

But they can’t do it on their own; they need a partner,” he said.

The movie, based on a novel by Dan Brown, premiered in Rome May 4, and was to open in the United States today. It tells the tale of a secret society that kidnaps papal candidates at the start of a conclave, forcing the Vatican to turn to the mystery-solving symbologist Robert Langdon, played

by Hanks.

Howard began the press conference with a string of vague accusations against the Vatican. It seemed, he said, that “sort of through back channels and so forth, the Vatican had exerted some influence” to prevent the crews from shooting scenes in a couple of areas where a particular church was in the background.

“I suppose we could have contested this. We didn’t,” he said.

He added that a screening

of the film — or a reception, he wasn’t quite sure — was moved away from a venue near St. Peter’s Square, “and I suppose the Vatican had some sort of influence over that.”

“Was I surprised? No. Am I a little frustrated by it at times?

Sure,” Howard said.

The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, declined to comment on Howard’s accusations, saying they were merely designed to generate publicity for the film.

Howard also cited the case of retired Italian Bishop Antonio Mennonna, 102 years old, who has signed a legal complaint saying the movie is full of historical inaccuracies and misrepresentations of Christianity.

Howard said his company had earlier offered to screen the film for some bishops and others, but that the invitation was never taken up. In any case, he said, if anyone feels the film will be offensive to them, they shouldn’t see it.

Howard, who directed “The Da Vinci Code,” also based on a Dan Brown novel, said that, whatever Church leaders may think of these books and films, many people find that it gets them thinking about what they believe.

In the book “Angels and Demons,” modern members of a secret society called the Illuminati plan to destroy the Vatican with antimatter. The Illuminati were a group formed in Bavaria in the late 1700s that historians say survived for only nine years. Conspiracy buffs have speculated that the Illuminati exist yet today, secretly controlling world events.

Movies Online

Can’t remember how a recent film was classified by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops? Want to know whether to let the kids go see it? You can look up film reviews on the Catholic News Service Website.

Visit catholicnews.com and click on “Movies,” under the “News Item” menu.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, May 17 at 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Msgr. Gerard P. O’Connor, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet

The Anchor

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May 15, 2009

news briefs

Court rulings, new policies seen as important changes for immigrants WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Supreme Court’s recent unanimous decision that said the government was wrong to prosecute illegal immigrants for identity theft in certain types of cases was the latest of several rulings and policy announcements that will effectively roll back approaches on immigration initiated by the Bush administration. In Flores-Figueroa v. United States, the court said the federal government was wrong to charge Ignacio Carlos Flores-Figueroa with identity theft when he was found to have used someone else’s Social Security and alien registration numbers in documents for employment. The case could have implications for other immigrants who faced similar charges under a tough prosecution strategy employed over the last year or two. That decision came three days after a federal district court ruling in California that ordered the federal government to reopen the immigration cases of dozens of foreign widows whose U.S.-citizen spouses died before their applications for green cards could be processed. In some cases, immigrants with pending applications for legal residency have been ordered deported after their spouses died before their cases could be processed.

New center aims to reintroduce St. Thomas Aquinas to modern world WASHINGTON (CNS) — A conviction that the 13th-century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas can foster a fruitful dialogue with contemporary culture is the true cornerstone of the newly built academic center and theological library recently inaugurated at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington. Participants in the inaugural weekend activities probed the challenges and possibilities the Thomistic tradition encounters in today’s world. The Dominican house is a landmark of Michigan Avenue in northeast Washington, adjacent to The Catholic University of America and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. When construction of the new building commenced, some wondered whether plans to attach it directly to the Dominicans’ much older building could succeed without damaging the property’s overall beauty and balance. But the architects succeeded well at blending the exteriors of the old and new. The new center houses the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, conducted by the friars of the Dominican order’s eastern U.S. Province of St. Joseph. Future Dominican priests, other seminarians and laypeople study there. Before many years, the center hopes to award theology doctorates.

Bishops discuss joys, challenges of shepherding rural dioceses ROCHESTER, Minn. (CNS) — Demographics may be the biggest challenge to bishops in rural-dominant dioceses. Dwindling priest numbers have a part to play in the struggle as well. Recently retired Bishop Bernard J. Harrington of Winona, who was ordained a priest 50 years ago for the Archdiocese of Detroit, said he fairly reveled in the ordination a year ago of four priests for the diocese in southwestern Minnesota. “Four priests ordained for Winona is like 40 priests ordained for Detroit,” he said during an interview with Catholic News Service at St. John Church in Rochester. Even so, the news is not all good. “I’m still a priest short” for the upcoming round of clergy reassignments, Bishop Harrington said. Many of the diocese’s parishes are already in cluster arrangements, sharing the service of one priest.

Bishop Harrington said Catholics in his diocese must face the fact of a growing Hispanic presence in the diocese. He said demographic data made available to him indicate there are some 36,000 Hispanics living in the Winona Diocese. He added that immigrant Hispanics are lured by the promise of work in the pork industry. Archbishop Jerome G. Hanus of Dubuque, Iowa, is also aware of the Hispanic presence in his northeastern Iowa see. The 30-county archdiocese also has clustered parishes to account for the shrinking number of priests and has also closed others deemed too small to stay open.

Irish cardinal criticizes use of violence to achieve united Ireland DUBLIN, Ireland (CNS) — An Irish cardinal criticized the idea of using violence to achieve a united Ireland. But Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland, also insisted that the goal of uniting Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic remains a “legitimate and still noble ideal.” He also said that peace in Northern Ireland is a fitting tribute to the men who gave their lives in the Irish revolution of 1916, known as the Easter Rising. Cardinal Brady spoke at the annual commemoration Mass at Dublin’s Arbour Hill cemetery, where the executed leaders of the Easter Rising are buried. Among those present at the Mass were Irish President Mary McAleese and other senior government representatives. The Mass commemorated the execution of 14 leaders of the 1916 rebellion when Irish Republicans seized many key government buildings and sought to gain independence from Britain. While initially unsuccessful, the rising precipitated the Irish War of Independence that led the British to grant independence to the 26 southern counties of Ireland five years later. The remaining six northern counties became known as Northern Ireland and remain part of Britain.

T

Ephesus

he city of Ephesus was that pagans can come to the Goshuge, the largest city in pel without first becoming Jews.

Asia Minor. It was rich, opulent When he left, he committed even, the site of one of the seven the Church to Timothy, a native wonders of the ancient world, the (1 Tim 1:3). famous Temple of Diana or ArSo, St. Paul asks, how do temis. The key to understanding Christians live among heaEphesus is, quite simply, paganthens? He says in this letter, be ism. Learning about Ephesus the Church and do so with joy as Paul knew it means learning and fervor. Learn and love the what it meant for a Christian to mystery of Christ. As he will do live in a hostile, pagan environin writing to the Colossians, he ment. “Diana of the Ephesians!” begins with a hymn, or at least a was a familiar cry in the ancient world; she was seen as a powerful godLiving the dess and her principal Pauline Year shrine was in Ephesus.

And not just hers, either.

By Father Andrew Ephesus was home to every other sect and cult Johnson, OCSO imaginable. Pagans were free to mix and match their religious practice as they canticle: Blessed be the God and wished. We might call it cafeteria Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, paganism. For us who live in a who has blessed us in Christ seemingly re-paganized world, with every spiritual blessing in the Letter to the Ephesians is a the heavens, as he chose us in valuable text. him, before the foundation of the Though addressed to Ephesus, world, to be holy and without it might have been more a genblemish before him. In love eral circular letter to Christians he destined us for adoption to in pagan cities than one written himself through Jesus Christ, in only to the Ephesians. If this is accord with the favor of his will, so, it has an explicit universal for the praise of the glory of his significance, and is easier for us grace. Paul would say that the to understand and appropriate. mystery of Christ spans everyAll the problems Paul addresses thing, from before creation to the are specific to a context wherein end times, and we are inserted almost all the Christians were in it by his grace, especially by pagan converts. “So I declare and baptism. What a vision to defeat testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do” (4:17). This was Paul’s great concern in Ephesus.

Acts 19 tells us that Ephesus was a church founded by Apollos, but still centering on John the Baptist and his teachings.

Interestingly, it was not really founded by Paul but refounded by him. He worked there three years. His suffering was not mainly from Jewish opponents, as was usual, but from the pagans. Eventually he was obliged to leave town, in consequence of a sedition stirred up by the pagan silversmith Demetrius and other makers of silver trinkets and ex-votos for the temple of Diana (Acts 18:24 ff.; 19:1 ff.) who saw that pagan converts to Christ would mean less money for them. Even the Jews of Ephesus were part paganized and practiced magic (19:14), as we see in the story of the seven sons of Sceva, with its memorable punch line: “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?”

Even the Jews are steeped in the pagan mind set of superstition and manipulation.

On the positive side, the right of pagans to the Gospel is not challenged at all. It was a major question early on; now it’s clear

paganism in Paul’s day and in our own. Our lives are spanned by no cruel fate, but by the merciful providence of a loving God. No astrology, but a Christology that gives meaning to every facet of human existence. To counteract the false mysticism of paganism, which is enticing, Paul wants the Ephesians to learn to live and love the mystery of Christ. To accomplish this, he gives them a mystical ecclesiology (1:15 through 4:24), in which he develops his themes. The Church draws her unity from Christ, and only from him. She is his spouse for whom he gave up his life in order to destroy sin, which is always the root cause of disunity.

The light of Christ illumines every aspect of human life and family, including especially that of wife and husband, Church and Christ (5:21-33).

Christian marriage has more than just value and dignity, says Paul.

It illumines the very nature of Christ’s love for his Church.

How to live as Catholics in a pagan or a neo-pagan age, according to St. Paul? Live and love the mystery of Christ and the Church, in all its richness and beauty.

Father Johnson is diocesan director of the Pauline Year and parochial vicar at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis.

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The Anchor

May 15, 2009

Book says Pope John Paul II kept sense of fun in his final years

By Jonathan Luxmoore Catholic News Service

WARSAW, Poland — Pope John Paul II sang and made jokes even at the end of his life, said a Polish archbishop who was one of the pope’s personal secretaries.

“The pope loved to laugh and could play innocent pranks,” said Coadjutor Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of the Latin-rite Archdiocese of Lviv, Ukraine. “He wasn’t exuberant and didn’t collect information, and he preferred to listen rather than talk.

But he also noticed it when you’d had a hard day or were in bad mood. He would wink at you and smile.”

The archbishop spoke recently to Poland’s TVN 24 about his book, “He Liked Tuesdays Best,” about life with Pope John Paul. He said that on Tuesdays during the papacy, Pope John Paul often would make discreet, unreported excursions outside Rome.

Archbishop Mokrzycki said the pontiff was addicted to fresh air and insisted on keeping his Vatican apartment windows open, even in cold weather.

The late pope rose regularly at 5 a.m. to watch the sunrise and “also liked sunset, during which he often cut himself off and became immersed in prayer,” Archbishop Mokrzycki said.

“When he had a worry, he’d ... sit on the terrace to pray in solitude. You could always count on him to remember you in his prayers. His secretaries placed the cards left in the Vatican with prayer requests on his chapel kneeler, and he read them all,” said the archbishop, who was ordained a priest in 1987 and named to his Vatican position in 1996.

In the Polish-language book published by Krakow’s Wydawnictwo M publishers, Archbishop Mokrzycki said he was often asked to sing Polish folk songs by

the pope, who “very much missed” his homeland, watched Polish TV news daily and supported Krakow’s local soccer team.

Pope John Paul also loved cakes, although nuns in the papal household tried to control his weight.

HE LOVED LIFE — “The pope loved to laugh and could play innocent pranks,” said Coadjutor Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of the Latin-rite Archdiocese of Lviv, Ukraine, said of his good friend Pope John Paul II in his new book “He Liked Tuesdays Best.” (CNS file photo)

“The Sisters didn’t usually serve dessert since the Holy Father was fighting (becoming) overweight, but he had such a sweet tooth he often signaled a request to them,” said Archbishop Mokrzycki. “We all knew the sign — he didn’t have to say anything. Without even looking at the nuns, he’d draw a circle with his finger on the tablecloth and keep on drawing it.”

Archbishop Mokrzycki said the pontiff found it “very hard” to accept his growing incapacity with Parkinson’s disease, during which he had to be helped with washing, dressing and eating.

“When he tried to stop his hand shaking and found he no longer could, he’d get irritated and hit the chair hard, as if wanting to say, ‘Why is this happening?’”

Archbishop Mokrzycki said. “We sometimes saw him do this during general audiences. Watching him, I realized how much he must be suffering. He’d always been strong, with so much energy and such an active life. Now, he had to get used to another, weaker self.”

The archbishop said Pope John Paul was “fully conscious” April 2, 2005, the last day of his life, blessing visitors and saying farewell to the dozen closest friends at his bedside.

He added that the pontiff’s face changed in his final moments and was “beautiful, smooth and without creases” at his death.

Among other details, Archbishop Mokrzycki said Pope John Paul always kept his parents’ photo by his bed, as well as images of “Christ the Merciful” and the painting “Ecce Homo” by St. Albert Chmielowski.

Among the pope’s key dislikes, the archbishop listed new shoes and having to wear ceremonial dress at official audiences.

May 15, 2009

Priest removed from parish and radio ministries over tabloid photos

MIAMI (CNS) — The Miami priest suspended from his parish and Catholic radio posts after photos of him with a woman on the beach were released by a tabloid magazine said he has had a romantic relationship with the woman for about two years and is in love with her.

Father Alberto Cutie, who had been administrator of St. Francis de Sales Parish in Miami Beach and general director and president of Pax Catholic Communications, spoke about the unnamed woman in a May 11 interview with “The Early Show” on CBS television.

The photos of the CubanAmerican priest — dubbed “Father Oprah” because of the advice he gives to couples on Spanish radio and television — were published in the Spanish-language magazine TVNotas May 5.

Father Cutie opened the “Early Show” interview with apologies to the Catholic community, Miami Archbishop John C. Favalora and his fellow priests for his actions, which he called “imprudent” and “stupid.”

“I don’t support the breaking of the celibacy promise,” he said. “I understand fully that this is wrong.”

Father Cutie said he was in the process of deciding whether to break up with the woman and recommit to his celibacy vow or to commit to the woman, perhaps leading to marriage.

“I need to pray and I need to think about things,” he said, adding that “I feel in my heart that maybe (marriage to the woman) is what God wants.”

Father Cutie said that although he supports celibacy he believes that “maybe it should be optional.”

“I do believe that people should

Pope encourages ‘little flock’ continued from page one

ness and courage, he said.

The pope commended the bishops for setting up assistance programs for local Catholics, and told them they could also count on his support. The Holy See coordinates funding for hundreds of projects and programs for the people in the region.

Pope Benedict cited Jesus’ words in St. Luke’s Gospel: “Fear not little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Afterward, the pope visited Jerusalem’s Latin-rite co-cathedral, kneeling in eucharistic adoration and greeting the 300 people who gathered inside. Before the pope arrived, seminarians briefly unfurled a Palestinian flag from a balcony.

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The Anchor

be given the option to marry or not to marry in order to serve God,” he added. “But the Church, see, has tradition and practices that are part of wanting to do what is right.

I think we all have ideals, and we have ways of living, and we want to do things right. But the truth is, sometimes we fall short. And I fell short.”

In a statement shortly after the photos were published, Archbishop Favalora said he was “deeply saddened by the news” and apologized “on behalf of the Church in Miami” to the parishioners of St. Francis de Sales, “to the listeners and supporters of Radio Paz and Radio Peace and to the entire archdiocese.”

Archdiocesan spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta said in a statement on the archdiocesan Website that Father Cutie is “no longer in charge of Pax Catholic Communications or St. Francis de Sales Parish.” But she added that he is “a great priest whose ministry has consoled, comforted and celebrated with thousands of people. Now is the time to ask those people to pray for him.”

Pax Catholic Communications consists of the Miami archdiocesan Spanish and English radio stations and La Voz Catolica, Miami’s archdiocesan Spanish-language newspaper.

In a personal apology on his Website — www.padrealberto.net — Father Cutie asked for forgiveness from those “who may be hurt or saddened by my actions.”

He said that since he entered the seminary at age 18 the priesthood has brought him great joy.

“The commitment that I made to serve God will remain intact,” he said, adding that he was grateful for the love and support he has received from the local community, parishioners and radio listeners “who have demonstrated great compassion and understanding toward me

as a human being.”

“I ask for your continued prayers and support,” he added.

After morning Mass May 7, about 60 St. Francis de Sales parishioners gathered outside the church to rally in support of Father Cutie, waving signs and chanting.

A parishioner who organized the rally told The Miami Herald, daily newspaper, that the rally was meant to show friendship and support for the work Father Cutie “has done in Miami and all around the world.”

Father Cutie, whose name is pronounced koo-tee-AY, was born in Puerto Rico to Cuban parents and grew up in Miami. He was ordained in 1995; four years later he developed an international following with his television show, “Padre Alberto,” which was first broadcast on Telemundo.

He has appeared on Spanish radio programs including the Miami archdiocesan radio station Radio Paz. The priest has also written newspaper advice columns and the 2006 self-help book, “Real Life, Real Love.”

In a 2002 interview with The Florida Catholic, Miami’s archdiocesan newspaper, Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, praised Father Cutie’s weekly television program on TeleVida, the Dominican Republic’s Catholic television network.

The program, “Padre Alberto y Sus Amigos” (Father Alberto and Friends) featured Father Cutie with a studio audience composed mainly of young people discussing topical issues with panels of psychologists and other experts. “’Padre Alberto y Sus Amigos’ has a vast audience among young people,” Cardinal Lopez said. “And I am sure many adults watch it as well, because he has the courage to discuss topics that are controversial.

He is not afraid.”

Thief absconds with Christ’s crown

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

FALL RIVER — Although Jesus was flanked by a thief on either side during his crucifixion, he probably never expected one of them to steal his crown of thorns.

An unknown person apparently took the crown of thorns from St. Anne’s Shrine sometime during the weekend of May 11-12.

The crown was openly displayed near a statue of Jesus Christ inside the shrine.

According to Father Marc Bergeron, pastor of St. Anne’s Parish, there were several Masses held over the weekend, along with a first Communion celebration, when the crown of thorns was stolen.

“I’m not sure exactly when it was taken,” Father Bergeron said. “Someone called it to my attention on Sunday. I just have

to wonder, what would they do with it?”

Since the crown has a monetary value of less than $100, Father Bergeron said no police report has been filed. But the icon is of great value and significance to the parishioners of St. Anne’s, who are all praying for its safe return.

This is not the first time something has gone missing from the popular shrine, which draws a steady stream of visitors on a regular basis.

“Anything that is not tied down will disappear,” Father Bergeron said.

Father Bergeron added that although someone has already offered to purchase a replacement, they are urging the culprit to return the crown of thorns to the shrine and no questions will be asked.

My Father’s House P.O. Box 22, 39 North Moodus Rd. Moodus, CT 06469 . 860-873-1581 Website: www.myfathershouse.com Email: sbsheldon@sbcglobal.net

* EVERY 1ST SUNDAY Catholic 12-STEP Healing Program with Fr. Bill (after the 1:30 Mass) & his team. Each Meeting will include teaching, 3:00-4:30 PM sharing & prayers for Healing; open to everyone (not just AA).

WEEKLY HOLY SPIRIT BREAKFAST with Mass * EVERY THURSDAY at 11:30 and continuing the study of St. Paul with the 10:00 AM - 2 PM encyclicals of Pope Benedict XVI includes lunch. * EVERY 1ST MONTHLY DISCIPLESHIP/PATRICIAN THURSDAY Meeting - MEN & WOMEN. Why not join us this 7:00-9:00 PM month? * EVERY 2ND ST. MONICA’S PRAYER GROUP to pray for our THURSDAY children, family, and loved ones before the 7:30-8:30 PM Blessed Sacrament. * EVERY 3RD HEALING MASS with Fr. Bill McCarthy and THURSDAY team, see our Website for exact date and 6:30 PM further details. * EVERY 4TH PRAYER CENACLE with OUR LADY, QUEEN OF TUESDAY the HOME — using the book of Our Lady’s Message 7:00 PM of Mercy to the World.

Check out our website at www.myfathershouse.com for upcoming Parish Missions

Call us to have your family reunion here. Lodging & meals available.

16

Youth Pages

May 15, 2009

St. Vincent’s Home remembers children lost to violence

CEREMONY OF HOPE — At a recent Stations of the Cross ceremony, the students of St. John the Evangelist School, Attleboro, celebrated the Stations of Hope. Fourteen people were honored symbolizing the 14 Stations of the Cross. These were people who helped carry on the message of the resurrection by giving hope to others through their actions. Among those recognized were Mother Teresa; Capt. Sullenberg (US Air Flight 1549); baseball great Roberto Clemente, who died in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve, 1972, bringing supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua; and the students of St. John’s School for all their sacrifices and generosity to the needy.

FALL RIVER — On May 1, St. Vincent’s Home celebrated the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) Children’s Memorial Flag Initiative with a flag-raising ceremony. Launched in 1998, the nation-wide initiative directs attention to the tragedy of violent child deaths as part of a national initiative to reduce child mortality. The symbol of the observance is the presentation and display of the Children’s Memorial Flag.

With poems read by the children and youth of St. Vincent’s, music by St. Vincent’s staff member Alex Dias, and the release of bubbles to children everywhere,

the Children’s Memorial Flag was raised at St. Vincent’s 2425 Highland Avenue location.

The flag is a simple red flag depicting blue, paper-doll like figures of children holding hands. In the center, the white chalk figure outline of a missing child symbolizes the thousands of children lost to violence.

Created by a 16-year-old student in Alameda County, Calif., the flag is flown throughout the United States and in other countries. The Children’s Memorial Flag honors each lost child and raises public awareness about the continuing problem of violence against children.

WORKING OUT IN THE GYM — As part of the eighth annual Comcast Cares Day, more than 100 local Comcast employees and their family members and friends gathered recently in Fall River at St. Vincent’s Home. The volunteers painted the gym and landscaped the grounds.

A GREAT DAY — St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis recently celebrated first Communion. Some of the communicants are pictured with Deacon Richard Murphy, rear, left, and Father Andrew Johnson, right. Also pictured are Teacher Assistant Angela McParland, left, and Teacher Joanne Dickson, right.

READY TO RECEIVE JESUS — Barbara MacKinnon, left, helps students Christopher George and Alexander Neri prepare to receive their first Communion at a recent Mass at St. John the Evangelist Church in Pocasset.

MEN ON A MISSION — Bishop Feehan High School seniors Patrick Vale, left, and Luke Sejkora, recently returned from Guaimaca, Honduras, with a mission team from St. Mary’s Parish in Mansfield. In addition to bringing donations from Feehan, the duo worked with seniors from other area Catholic high schools, helping to build an addition at a health clinic, as key interpreters in making medical home visits to the villages in mountainous and isolated areas, and teaching English and physical education at the local schools.

May 15, 2009

“L

et no one look down on you because of your youth, but be a continuing example of love, faith, and purity to believers. Until I arrive, devote yourself to the reading of Scripture, to preaching and teaching. Do not neglect the gift you received when, as a result of prophecy, the presbyters laid their hands on you. Attend to your duties; let them absorb you, so that everyone may see your progress.

Watch yourself and watch your teaching. Persevere at both tasks.

By doing so you will bring to salvation yourself and all who hear you” (1 Timothy 4:12-16).

This encouraging passage for young people is one my favorites. In his first letter to Timothy, St. Paul provides youth with the steps needed to live a life of service and discipleship in Christ and in faith.

He encourages them to step out of the norm and grow in awareness of their deeds and actions.

By Jessica Roxburgh Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON — Since March 1, Jon Leonetti and Jesse Weiler have been walking across America to call on young Catholics and people of all faiths and none to live life in a new way.

Leonetti and Weiler have been speaking at churches, schools and youth gatherings, encouraging young people to turn away from the false messages offered

Youth Pages Let no one look down on you

This is also the passage that of St. Mary of the Assumption 53 of our diocese’s own young has been on steady incline. This people will hear next week dur- is a remarkable recognition ing the eighth annual Pope St. that our young people should Pius X Youth Awards. be continuously encouraged Since 2001, high-schoolfor their service to the faith. It aged youth from across the allows them the opportunity to diocese have been recognized for dedicated service to their parishes and often their greater communities. These young people are servants and leaders in the

By Crystal Medeiros parish and several have assisted with various diocesan events such as the annual youth convention see that their voices are heard. and the YES! post-confirmation Our young people are the retreat. These ordinary young Church of today, not the Church people are extraordinary witof tomorrow. These young men nesses to their faith. and women are aware of their Each parish is asked to baptismal vocation and responnominate one young person to sibility for bringing the Good receive the award. Since 2007, News to their communities. the number of young people I have the privilege to read who receive the award during a what the pastors of these prayer service at the Cathedral young people have to say

Be Not Afraid

about them and their commitments. Each year, I am amazed at these teen-agers’ incredible witness. They are an inspiration to all of us, whether we are 17 or 70 years old. Our young peoples’ lives are hectic at best. Often, these young men and women are trying to balance their studies, MCAS and other exams, sports and other extracurricular activities — all while trying to discover who they are and what they want to be. Yet they still somehow manage to find time to say “yes” to their faith and serve their parishes at a variety of different levels.

Perhaps some of us adults could learn a lesson or two from them. Their youth, their vibrancy, their exuberance, are not things to be looked down upon simply because they may not have the life experiences

Walk across America aims to change hearts of young people

by the popular media and turn their lives toward Christ through a life of prayer.

Leonetti, who once thought he would become a priest, later came to believe he was being called to follow a different path.

“I felt inspired to do this walk in order to really touch the hearts of youths, parents and friends,” he said in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service.

When he first told Weiler, a

WALKING FOR HEALTHY HEARTS AND SOULS — Jesse Weiler and Jon Leonetti are pictured in Southern California in early March. The two men have been walking across America to call on young Catholics and people of all faiths and none to live life in a new way. They left Los Angeles March 1 and hope to reach Ocean City, N.J., sometime in August. (CNS photo/courtesy Jon Leonetti)

fellow graduate of Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, about his plan to walk across the country, “Weiler’s response was no way, that he had too many things to do,” Leonetti said.

Three days later, Leonetti received a call from Weiler saying that he couldn’t get this idea out of his head, and that he wanted to join Leonetti in the walk.

Leonetti and Weiler, both 23, intend to walk nearly 3,600 miles across America through 12 states. They left Los Angeles March 1 and hope to reach Ocean City, N.J., sometime in August.

Housing arrangements vary day to day. Although they raised enough money to stay in motels, “we typically stay with anyone willing to open their home to us, and we have spent nights in our car” and in tents, said Leonetti.

During the journey, Leonetti said he and Weiler have witnessed brokenness and alienation from God in the lives of many.

“Walking to Mass on Easter Sunday, we were offered drugs,” he said. After he and Weiler told the young man who they were and what they were doing, the man quickly apologized and spoke about the Book of Job. “He knew the entire story and said that despite the life he is living, he knows that Jesus is the light of his life,” Leonetti said.

“We just sat there and listened and sometimes that’s all you can

do.”

Leonetti and Weiler have received endorsements from Bishop Robert E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, and Jesuit Father Jim Kubicki, U.S. director of the Apostleship of Prayer. In Denver they met with Auxiliary Bishop James D. Conley.

Leonetti and Weiler post blogs almost every day about their journey, triumphs, hardships and experiences with people, especially those in need of a spiritual lift.

“There is no doubt in my mind that this MTV generation is as prominent as ever,” Leonetti said. “They’re doing an excellent job in telling us that we are inadequate if we don’t take the next drink, the next drug, have certain types of clothes and so on.

17 adults attribute to maturity.

Rather these are qualities to be embraced and nurtured within our parishes and school communities.

As Pope John Paul II wrote in “Crossing the Threshold of Hope,” “We need the enthusiasm of the young. We need their joie de vivre. In it is reflected something of the original joy God had in creating man.” For these young men and women will one day be mature adults, and it is to them we entrust our Church.

Let’s embrace and celebrate them.

Congratulations to the 2009 recipients of the Pope St. Pius X Youth Award.

Crystal is the assistant director for Youth & Young Adult Ministry in the Diocese of Fall River’s Office of Faith Formation. For comments or questions, send an email to cmedeiros@dfrcec.com.

Every day is filled with surprises. “We understood the physical toll this walk would have on us but we underestimated the mental difficulty like loneliness,” Leonetti said.

Since Leonetti took a serious fall near the California-Arizona border that resulted in a dislocated knee cap, the two decided after serious prayer and on the advice of doctors that they would walk in shifts. While one is walking, the other drives Leonetti’s car.

“This was a very difficult decision to make, but one that needed to be done,” Leonetti said. And it’s had an unexpected benefit.

“It is often during those periods of walking alone that we find ourselves being drawn closer to God,” Leonetti said.

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Diocesan youth to be recognized at annual awards ceremony continued from page one

great devotion to the Eucharist and sought to “Restore all things in Christ,” the motto of his pontificate.

Katherine Reney from SS. Peter & Paul Parish in Fall River is one of this year’s recipients.

She told The Anchor, “At first I was very surprised that I was going to receive the St. Pius X Youth Award. I feel as though I do what people should be doing for their parish community. I am deeply honored and grateful to receive this award.”

David Morin from St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet is the second member of his family to be honored. “About five years ago, my brother Billy won this award,” he said. “To me this means everything. I attend and volunteer at most of the functions at my parish. I’m very happy to receive it and I guess this means I’ll be sitting on the dunk tank in the fall for the parish festival. Every little piece helps. Like a good friend once told me, many hands make for less work.”

The event is sponsored by the Office of Youth & Young Adult Ministry, a part of the diocesan Catholic Education Office.

Cyrstal-Lynn Medeiros, assistant director of Youth & Young Adult Ministry, told The Anchor, “In a time when various studies and statistics show a steady decline in people actively participating in religious practices especially among young people, it is imperative to acknowledge the efforts of those teens who continuously live a life of service to their parishes and communities.

“Every year, when I announce the recipients’ names at the cathedral and see not only their smiling faces but the faces of their families and pastors, I walk away with a renewed hope for our Catholic Church. These young people are not the future of our Church, they are the here and the right now and we are blessed to have their passion and enthusiasm of the Catholic faith grace our parishes. These extraordinary young people are the epitome of our Catholic faith in action and they need to be recognized and encouraged.”

The recipients are: Attleboro Deanery Matthew R. Brawley, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish, Seekonk; Ryan Friedlander, St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Parish, Attleboro; Jonathan A. Howard, St. Stephen Parish, Attleboro; Elise Marie Kroll, St. Mary Parish, Mansfield; Joseph Leo Marino, St. Mark Parish, Attleboro Falls; Amanda McEnaney, St. Mary Parish, Norton; Justin T. Polion, St. Mary Parish, N. Attleboro; Kathleen Reilly, St. John the Evangelist Parish, Attleboro; Ryan Richard Santos, Sacred Heart Parish, N. Attleboro.

Cape Cod Deanery Emily Brunelle, Our Lady of the Cape Parish, Brewster; Kelsey Collett, St. John the Evangelist Parish, Pocasset; Amanda DellaMorte, Corpus Christi Parish, E. Sandwich; Christopher Doble, Christ the King Parish, Mashpee; Collin E. Fish, Our Lady of Victory Parish, Centerville; Caitlin Gwynn, St. Elizabeth Seton

NEW BEDFORD — Catholic Social Services’ Office for Persons with Disabilities and Work, Inc. Southcoast will present a seminar in Disability Estate Planning with Dan Surprenant of the law firm of Surprenant and Beneski, P.C. Some of the questions that will be addressed are: Do you have an inheritance you want to leave to someone with a disability and are afraid it will effect their benefits? Are you someone with a disability who will come into some money because of a settlement, inheritance, winning?

The event will take place June 2 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Work, Inc., 24 North Front Street, New Bedford.

This seminar will explore

the many laws associated with inheritance and ways to leave inheritance to someone with a disability without if effecting their SSI, SSDI, Medicaid, or Medicare. It will also explore how to protect money that someone with a disability might receive, whether it is inheritance, lottery winnings, a settlement, or a retroactive payment from Social Security.

The seminar is free, but attendees must pre-register by contacting Matthew Dansereau at 508-997-7337 or online at www.cssdioc. org/service s/d i s a b i l i t i es / reg.html. Refreshments will be served. Work, Inc. is fully accessible, and there is plenty of parking.

Catholic Social Services to host disability estate planning seminar

Parish, N. Falmouth; Sean Patrick Edward Hurley-DelVecchio, Holy Redeemer Parish, Chatham; Steven Martinez, St. Pius X Parish, S. Yarmouth; Kathleen J. Parker, St. Patrick Parish, Falmouth; Robert Peacock, Holy Trinity Parish, W. Harwich; Rebecca WoodleyOliver, St. Mary-Our Lady of the Isle Parish, Nantucket.

Fall River Deanery Kyle Brodeur, St. Dominic Parish, Swansea; Kelsey Marie Carvalho, Santo Christo Parish, Fall River; James Cawley, St. John the Baptist Parish, Westport; Vanessa S. Hicks, St. Mary Cathedral, Fall River; Matthew Scott Isaacson, St. Stanislaus Parish, Fall River; Peter Michael Jameson, St. Thomas More Parish, Somerset; Kristin Lachance, St. Anne Parish, Fall River; Brent Medeiros, Holy Trinity Parish, Fall River; David Morin, St. Bernard Parish, Assonet; Steven Edward Murphy, St. John of God Parish, Somerset; David Paul Rak, Sacred Heart Parish, Fall River; Katherine Hannah Reney, SS. Peter & Paul Parish, Fall River; Christopher G. Ross, St. Louis de France Parish, Swansea; Thomas Anthony Teixeira, St. Joseph Parish, Fall River.

New Bedford Deanery Patrick Robert Cabral, St. Julie Billiart Parish, N. Dartmouth; Brian Patrick Caton, Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. James Parish, New Bedford; Kyle Costa, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Parish, New Bedford; John Durocher Jr., St. Patrick Parish, Wareham; David Goncalves, St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford; Rayana Grace, Our Lady of the Assumption Parish, New Bedford; Patrick Grime, St. Lawrence Martyr Parish, New Bedford; Murphy Lester, St. Mary Parish, S. Dartmouth; Ashley McCormack, St. John Neumann Parish, E. Freetown; Lea T. Noonan, St. Mary Parish, New Bedford; Alexa Ann Pinto, Our Lady of Fatima Parish, New Bedford; Carlos Robledo Velazquez, St. Kilian Parish, New Bedford; Lauren Vieira, St. Mary Parish, Fairhaven.

Taunton Deanery Allison Almeida, Annunciation of the Lord Parish, Taunton; Patrick J. Craig, Holy Family Parish, E. Taunton; Michael Mekler, Holy Cross Parish, S. Easton; Claudia Thomas, St. Ann Parish, Raynham; Patrick Treacy, St. Nicholas Myra Parish, N. Dighton; Jeffrey Weickel, St. Anthony Parish, Taunton.

May 15, 2009

New retirees aim to keep very busy continued from page one

“I chose Centerville because it is close to the facilities offered by Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis,” Msgr. Moore noted, “and a place I have come to know well over the years.”

With two sisters having homes in Little Compton, R.I., and with more than 20 among the nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephew in the region — “the youngest of which is in the fourth grade — will offer me the opportunity to spend more quality time with them,” he explained.

Msgr. Moore’s new beginnings follow many years of wearing different diocesan hats at the same time. He spent 38 years writing for The Anchor, 28 years of them as its executive editor, while being director of Communications for the diocese, and director of the Permanent Diaconate program.

Following studies at Cardinal O’Connor Seminary in Boston and St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, he was ordained to the priesthood on Jan. 30, 1960 by Bishop James L. Connolly. He served as a parochial vicar at Holy Name in Fall River, St. Joseph’s in Taunton; SS. Peter and Paul, St. William’s, and at the cathedral, all in Fall River. He served as pastor at St. Mary’s in New Bedford and finally at St. Elizabeth Seton. Other diocesan assignments include various chaplaincies and moderators’ posts.

He also found time to earn a master’s degree in education from Bridgewater State Teachers College.

In 1999 he was named a chaplain to Pope John Paul II, with the rank of monsignor.

If there’s any riding off into the sunset to be done, it will be easier for Father Mullaney. He has the choice of a big Suzuki or the smaller Honda.

“I began riding a motorcycle during my first assignment as a priest to St. Patrick’s in Wareham,” the 72-year-oldpastor recalled. “The young men would ride throughout the cranberry bogs and so I began to join them. I’m still riding the bikes … just came in from riding one,” he said during a telephone interview.

Today, he tries to keep both motorcycles in good condition “and use the one that’s running the best on any given day,” he added.

Looking back at 47 years as a priest, Father Mullaney says those years since his ordination on Feb. 2, 1962 by Bishop James L. Connolly “were

very happy ones. I am a happy priest. I have had good assignments in several fine parishes — even sometimes while definitive changes were occurring in the Church — during my years of ministry.”

While at St. Patrick’s, he also was priest-in-charge at St. Rita’s in Marion for several months while remaining in his Wareham post.

From 1972 to 1974 he was parochial vicar at Our Lady of Fatima Parish in New Bedford, then served as parochial vicar at Immaculate Conception Parish in Taunton from 1974 to 1978 when he was named pastor at St. Bernard’s in Assonet.

He was named pastor at St. Anthony’s East Falmouth in June 1986, and became pastor of St. Anthony’s in Mattapoisett in June 1999.

He has served as an advocate and a pro-synodal judge in the diocesan Tribunal. From 1972 to 1983 he was director of Cathedral Camps in East Freetown.

Asked what he would be doing in retirement, Father Mullaney said, “Probably taking it a little easier, although I will be helping out in area parishes — and I have already been asked and committed to do that.”

Besides cycling he will also be doing another of his favorite things, quahauging, and “hanging out” with his extended family — including dozens of active nephews and nieces.

“I’m OK as a cook … and haven’t had a cook during any of my parish assignments,” he said. “It made it a lot easier not having a commitment to show up at a particular time for a meal. And very frequently people would bring me food and things to eat.”

Father Mullaney said he would be taking up residence in the Mullaney Family home in Westport with Jim Panos, retired former principal at Durfee High School in Fall River.

“Jim was married to my late sister, Margaret “Peg” Panos, and I’ll be working from the house there. Among our family are numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and nieces and nephews who I expect will continue to keep me pretty busy.”

A Fall River native, Father Mullaney is an alumnus of Morton Junior High School in Fall River and the former Coyle High School in Taunton.

He prepared for the priesthood at Cardinal O’Connor Minor Seminary and St. John’s Seminary in Brighton.

May 15, 2009

Around the Diocese Eucharistic Adoration: Eucharistic Adoration ACUSHNET — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Mondays 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Fridays 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturdays 8 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. Mondays end with Evening Prayer and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.; Saturdays end with Benediction at 2:45 p.m.

FALL RIVER — Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is held Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Lourdes Chapel at Notre Dame Church, 529 Eastern Avenue.

NEW BEDFORD — Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament takes place at St. Joseph-St. Therese Church, 51 Duncan Street, Mondays following the 8:30 a.m.

Mass until 1:30 p.m. For more information call 508-995-2354.

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

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

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

WEST HARWICH — Our Lady of Life Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Holy Trinity Parish, 246 Main Street, holds perpetual eucharistic adoration. For open hours, or to sign up call 508-430-4716.

Miscellaneous Miscellaneous:

ATTLEBORO — The annual procession and Mass in honor of the Holy Spirit will take place June 7 at Holy Ghost Church, 71 Linden Street. The procession will begin at 10 a.m. from 54 Cypress Road and the Mass will be held at the church at 11 a.m. Traditional free “sopas” will be served in the church hall following Mass.

CENTERVILLE — A Career Decisions Workshop meets bi-weekly at the Our Lady of Victory Parish Faith Formation Center. The next session is May 21 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Sessions will continue every other Thursday through June 30. All are welcome to attend at no cost. For information contact Kelley Spodris at 508-7755744 extension 113 or at kjs@olvparish.org FAIRHAVEN — Deacon Bruce Bonneau will lead a reflection on “The Great Themes of St. Paul,” at St. Mary’s Parish rectory conference rooms on Thursdays, May 21 and 28 from 7-9 p.m. For information call 508-678-2828.

FAIRHAVEN — The Annual Blessing of the Bikes to benefit St. Joseph’s School will be held Sunday beginning at noon (rain date: May 31) at St. Joseph’s Church, 41 Walnut Street. Sign-up begins at 10 a.m. in the rear parking lot of Fort Phoenix and the bike run will begin at noon, lasting about two hours and ending at the Ice Chest Bar and Grille.

FALL RIVER — Adoption by Choice, a program of Catholic Social Services of Fall River, Inc., will hold an informational session for individuals and families interested in domestic newborn or international adoption June 7 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Catholic Social Services, 1600 Bay Street. There is no charge to attend and refreshments will be served. Call 508-674-4681 to register or for directions.

FALL RIVER — The annual Espirito Santo Parish Feast, to be held on the church grounds on Alden Street, will begin May 22 at 6:30 p.m. with the procession of transfer of the image of Santo Christo from the parish center to the church. Following the procession, the feast will continue on the church grounds, with food, games and entertainment, until midnight. On May 23 the feast opens at 6 p.m. and will close at midnight. On May 24 a feast Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m. with Bishop George W. Coleman. That afternoon the feast procession will form at 3 p.m. beginning at the church on Alden Street and travel east on Warren Street to Pittman Street, Webster Street, Pleasant Street, Quequechan Street, and Alden Street back to the church.

Following the procession there will be Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and the feast will continue on the church grounds until midnight.

FALMOUTH — The annual Italian Mass will be celebrated at St. Joseph’s Chapel, Falmouth Heights Road by Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk May 24 at 2 p.m. All are invited.

NEW BEDFORD — A Holy Hour is held every Thursday from 6 to 7 p.m. at St. Kilian’s Church, 306 Ashley Boulevard.

NEW BEDFORD — The Daughters of Isabella will hold its monthly meeting May 19 at 7 p.m. at the Holy Name of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, 121 Mount Pleasant Street. For more information about the organization and membership, call Elizabeth Almeida at 508-728-9483.

STOUGHTON — A Mass and Healing Service will be held Sunday at 2 p.m. at Immaculate Conception Church, 122 Canton Street (Route 27). The celebrant and homilist will be Father Joseph P. McDermott. For more information call 781344-2073.

TAUNTON — An old-fashioned prayer meeting sponsored by the Diocesan Service Committee will take place May 18 at 7 p.m. at St. Anthony’s Church, 126 School Street. Guest speaker will be David Thorp of the National Committee for the Charismatic Renewal, with music and praise with Father Henry S. Arruda. For more information, call 508-822-2219.

WAREHAM — “My One Wild and Precious Life,” a women’s retreat will be held May 29-31 at Sacred Hearts Retreat Center, 226 Great Neck Road. The retreat is led by Peggy Patenaude of Taking Time Out. For more information, call 508-5489149 or visit www.timeoutretreats.com.

WAREHAM — St. Patrick’s Church, 82 High Street, will host the yearly Mass of Anointing on May 31 at 2 p.m., for all those who wish to receive the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. All family and friends are invited to participate. Following the Mass refreshments will be served in the parish hall.

Pro-Life ATTLEBORO — Concerned faithful are needed to pray the rosary outside Four Women, Inc., an abortion clinic at 150 Emory Street, Thursdays from 3-4 p.m., or 4-5 p.m. and Saturdays from 7:30-8:30 a.m. For information call 508-238-5743.

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The Anchor Antonio F. Viveiros; father of Father Joseph Viveiros

FALL RIVER — Antonio Ferreira Viveiros, 94, husband of Mary (Pacheco) Viveiros and father of Father Joseph Viveiros, pastor of St. Dominic Parish in Swansea, died May 2.

Mr. and Mrs. Viveiros would have celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary on July 1.

Born in Sao Antonio alem Capelas, St. Michael, Azores, the son of the late Abel F. Viveiros and Cecilia A. (Sousa) Viveiros, he came to this country in 1949.

Before retirement he was employed at Charlton Memorial Hospital and prior to that at Pearl Laundry in Fall River.

Mr. Viveiros was an active

member and longtime parish sexton of the former St. Elizabeth Parish. He was a member and past president of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Holy Name Society and the Holy Ghost Society.

He was a recipient of the Marian Medal of the Fall River Diocese.

Besides his wife and priest son, he leaves four other sons, Augustine Viveiros of Westport, John Viveiros of Somerset, Antonio F. Medeiros Jr. of Fall River, and Edward F. Medeiros of North Dartmouth; five daughters, Philomena Barboza of Tiverton, R.I., Marie Olivia Silva of Fall River, Cecilia M. Carney of Westport, Anne Marie Rider

of Marlboro, and Elaine Durfee of Somerset; 22 grandchildren; 11great-grandchildren; and nieces and nephews.

He was also the father of the late Antonio P. Viveiros; and the brother of the late Maria Olivia, Ambrosina Santos, Laura Reis, Maria G. Chaves, Jose M. Viveiros, Nicolau Viveiros, and Father Joao Paulo.

His Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated May 6 in St. Dominic’s Church in Swansea.

Interment was in Notre Dame Cemetery, Fall River.

The Oliveira Funeral Home in Fall River was in charge of arrangements.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Mrs. Mary Lou (Davignon) Depot, 68, wife of the late Richard O. Depot, and sister of Father Philip A. Davignon, pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Osterville, died Sunday April 19, at home.

Born in Attleboro, a daughter of the late Philip and Alma Grace (Malay) Davignon, she was a secretary/bookkeeper for the Brownell Mill Supply.

She had lived in Florida for eight years after moving from Attleboro, where she was a parishioner of St. Joseph’s Parish.

She was a seamstress and enjoyed playing cards and dominoes.

Besides her priest brother, she leaves three sons, Scott Depot of Attleboro, Barry Depot of Utica N.Y., and Matthew Depot of Weatherford Okla.; two daughters, Julie of North Attleboro and Monique of Attleboro; another brother, Warren Davignon of North Fort Myers Fla.; a sister, Barbara Violette of Greenville Tenn.; 12 grandchildren, two

great-grandchildren; and nieces and nephews.

Her Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated Wednesday at St. Joseph Church in Attleboro,

Mass. Burial followed in St. Stephen Cemetery, also in Attleboro.

The Foley Funeral Home in Attleboro was in charge of arrangements.

Mrs. Mary Lou Depot; sister of Father Philip A. Davignon

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks

May 19 Rev. Ambrose Lamarre, O.P., 1940 Rev. Thomas Trainor, Pastor, St. Louis, Fall River, 1941 Rev. Arthur C. Levesque, Pastor, Our Lady of Fatima, New Bedford, 1988 May 20 Rev. Antonio L. daSilva, Pastor, Our Lady of Health, Fall River, 1952 May 23 Rev. William F. Donahue, Assistant, St. Francis Xavier, Hyannis, 1944 Rev. Alfred J. Guenette, A.A., 1995 May 24 Rev. James F. Clark, Founder, St. James, New Bedford, 1907 Rev. Patrick Heran, SS.CC., Former Rector, Sacred Hearts Seminary, Fairhaven, 1985

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The Anchor

May 15, 2009

Catholic Charities’ success story spreads across diocese

FALL RIVER — As all 91 parishes made their initial reports it was quite obvious that they all were in the midst of promoting the 68th Catholic Charities Appeal through every avenue available to them, reports Mike Donly, director of the Appeal.

Whether it was from the pulpit, the parish bulletins, linking their parish Website to the Catholic Charities Website, showing the Appeal video to parishioners, or playing the audio-message from Bishop George W. Coleman, all parishes were leaving no stone unturned as they told the story of this important, annual endeavor sponsored by the Diocese of Fall River.

Donly’s comments came on the heels of the first day — May 5 — for official parish reports to be filed with the central office of the Appeal.

Dave Fortin, of Media Image and St. Joseph’s parish in Fairhaven, has been setting up the equipment for the showing of the Appeal video in parishes all around the diocese, from the Attleboros to Nantucket and numerous parishes in between, and he reports that the pastors are giving it glowing endorsements, as are their parishioners. Pastors are calling asking for the video to be shown after talking to a fellow pastor and hearing how much he and his parishioners learned from it.

“They really are having their eyes opened to the scope of services the annual Appeal makes possible,” said Fortin. “Pastors and parishioners approach me when I am dismantling the equipment after the video has been shown at weekend Masses, and say how much they enjoyed it and how amazed they are at how many people are being

helped,” he added.

“We are in an age when people need to see results,” Donly pointed out. “People are extremely discriminating in their judgment as to what to support especially given the economic climate. We want them to be confident that their donations are going solely to fund Catholic Charities endeavors, and that 94 cents of every dollar is going directly to the ministries and agencies funded by the Catholic Charities Appeal. We are attempting to show them exactly what their donation is doing, whose life it is touching, and how they play a major role in bringing a ray of hope that tomorrow will be a better day to the literally thousands our agencies minister to each year whether they be homeless, abused, depressed, in need of food and clothing, disabled, whatever.

“We want them to realize that it is only because of them and their generosity that we are able to help the ever-increasing number of individuals and families looking to us for assistance,” he said.

Bishop Coleman’s audio-message and the Appeal video may be heard and viewed on the Catholic Charities Appeal Website: www. frdioc-catholiccharities.org.

Donations to the Appeal can be sent to the Catholic Charities Appeal Office, P.O. Box 1470, Fall River, MA 02722; dropped off at any parish in the diocese; or made on the Appeal Website.

Beginning next week, May 22nd, there will be the first of three bi-weekly supplements containing parish donor listings, and the up-to-date totals of leading parishes in each deanery.

CANDIDATE APPROVAL — Diocesan seminarian Jason Brilhante, front row, fourth from left, officially became a candidate for the priesthood of the Diocese of Fall River on April 26 at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton. At center, St. John’s Seminary rector Father Arthur Kennedy, and Bishop Timothy McDonnell of the Diocese of Springfield. (Photo by Michael Pierz, house photographer, St. John’s Seminary)