06.15.12

The Anchor Diocese of Fall River

F riday , June 15, 2012

Local parishes join the fight for religious freedom

House fails to move sex-selective abortion ban forward

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent

BOSTON — The United States House of Representatives failed to move forward a bill that would have outlawed abortions based on the unborn child’s gender. The bill would criminalize knowingly committing gendercide as well as coercing a woman to obtain a sexselective abortion.

Called a “common sense law” by its supporters, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, H.R. 3541, needed a two-thirds majority because the House was operating under a suspension of the normal rules. The vote was 246-168 in favor with most politicians voting along party lines. Republicans voted in favor of the bill 226-7 while Democrats opposed it 161-20. The bill can be brought up again under the usual rules and would only need a simple majority to pass.

After the vote, the bill’s sponsor Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), vowed to continue fighting for the measure, saying, “This is not the end, BISHOP BLESSING — Newly-ordained Father Jason Brilhante gives his but merely the opening salvo in ensuring the first priestly blessing to Bishop George W. Coleman at the conclusion of his words, ‘It’s a girl,’ are no longer a death sen- presbyteral ordination Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River last weekend. Father Brilhante’s first assignment will be to serve as parochial vicar at tence for so many unborn girls.”

St. Pius X Parish in South Yarmouth. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza) Mara Hvistendahl wrote in her book, “Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men,” that enough parents select for boys that they have skewed the sex ratio at birth of the entire world.

By Kenneth J. Souza “There are over 160 million females ‘missAnchor Staff ing’ from Asia’s population. That’s more than FALL RIVER — Looking back over the years of service he’s devoted to the entire population in the United States. And the Fall River Diocese — first at the former Msgr. Prevost High School, then gender imbalance — which is mainly the reas an iconic fixture at Bishop Connolly High School — Brother Roger Milsult of sex-selective abortion — is no longer lette, FIC, said the imminent move to his order’s provincial house in Alfred, strictly an Asian problem,” she wrote.

Maine later this month remains bittersweet.

A national study found that census data from “Fortunately, I have family and friends living in Maine, but my real family 2000 suggested that “in a sub-population with has always been here,” Brother Roger said. “This has been my home for more traditional son preference, the technologies are than half of my life.” being used to generate male births when preSitting in the living room of the Eastern Avenue residence that has been ceding births are female.” The odds that AsianTurn to page 18 American families from China, Korea and India would have a boy increased significantly if they already had a girl child.

Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, told The Anchor that she does not understand how anyone could justify voting against the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act. She said those who are pro-abortion often treat abortion as a right that trumps everything else. They do not acknowledge that any kind of abortion is wrong and refuse to pass any restrictions on such procedures.

“No matter how sensible your bill, how nondiscriminatory, how constitutional — if somebody is hard-core pro-abortion, they’re not going to vote for it no matter what. People say, ‘It’s only sensible. It’s only fair. Of course everyone will support it.’ No, they won’t,” she LEARNING CURVE — After more than 80 years of service to the Fall said.

River Diocese, the three remaining Brothers of Christian Instruction — She and other Pro-Lifers praised Rep. from left, Brother Daniel Caron, Brother Roger Millette, and Brother Walter Zwierchowski — will be moving to the order’s provincial house in Alfred, Turn to page 18 Maine at the end of the month. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

HYANNIS — When the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called for a 14-day period of prayer, education and action, they had no idea their “Fortnight for Freedom” would get an early start on Cape Cod when close to 100 people stood together on June 2 during a twohour rally labeled “The Stand Out for Religious Freedom,” a demonstration against a federal mandate that would require employers to offer health insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and drugs that can induce early abortions, even if doing so runs counter to that institution’s beliefs (photo and story on page 20).

Patricia Stebbins, founder and vice president of the Cape Cod Family Life Alliance, the rally sponsor, is a parishioner of Corpus Christi Parish in East Sandwich and is making sure the bishops’ message is being brought to the attention of her fellow parishioners. “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” the USCCB’s docu-

Brothers of Christian Instruction to leave lasting legacy behind

ment outlining the bishop’s concerns over the threats to religious freedom, will be quoted in the June 16 Corpus Christi Parish bulletin, and prayer cards are being printed with St. Michael on the front and the bishops’ prayer for freedom on the back.

“Every parishioner will be asked to pray it once a day for the two weeks,” explained Stebbins. “We have 24-hour-a-day eucharistic adoration at Corpus Christi, seven days a week; we’re asking people during their regular hours to say that prayer once while they’re in there.

We’ll have 24-hour prayer for freedom for the full two weeks.”

As part of the education piece of the Fortnight for Freedom initiative, the Alliance will make available the videotaped talk given by Father Roger J. Landry, pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford in May at Corpus Christi, that spoke of the threat to freedom of religion.

“It was absolutely a dynamite talk — it blew everyone away,” said Stebbins. “It was the best I’ve ever heard. He talked about the attack on Catholicism in the world today. People were mind-boggled because they had no idea these things were going on. People were sitting there with their mouths open. He talked about the Turn to page 14

News From the Vatican

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June 15, 2012

Sundays must be a day of rest dedicated to God, family, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — ate suppression can never be The demands of work can’t allowed.” The identity of the bully people out of needed family, based on marriage betime off, Pope Benedict XVI tween a man and a woman, said. needs recognition, too, the Sunday must be a day of rest pope said. for everyone, so people can be During an evening vigil free to be with their families of testimonies, the pope anand with God, the pope said. swered the questions of five “By defending Sunday, one families from different coundefends human freedom,” he tries because “I wanted to said during his weekly general show the open dialogue that audience in St. exists between Peter’s Square umanity has families and recently. the Church, no future between In his catthe echesis, the without the family,” he world and the pope told an es- said. Young people need Church,” he timated 15,000 to be born and raised in said. pilgrims and He said he visitors about “that community of life was quite takhis trip June and love that God himself en by people’s 1-3 to Milan wanted,” that is, a fam- t e s t i m o n i e s , for the seventh ily based on marriage be- which dealt World Meeting with “hottween a man and woman, button issues” of Families.

He thanked he said. such as the difeveryone who ficulties famimade the “unlies experience forgettable and wonderful because of separation, divorce, event” possible and praised the the economic crisis and long willingness he witnessed of hours on the job. people striving to live a “GosThe pope said he wanted pel of the family.” to come to the defense of free “Humanity has no future time, which is “threatened by without the family,” he said. a kind of ‘bullying’ by the deYoung people need to be born mands of work.” and raised in “that community “Sunday is the day of the of life and love that God Him- Lord and of man, a day which self wanted,” that is, a family everyone must be able to be based on marriage between a free — free for the family and man and woman, he said. free for God.” He reminded young people Family, work, rest and celethat they, too, have a responsi- bration are gifts from God and bility to contribute to the well- important aspects of human being of the family, such as life that must find a “harmoniby saying “yes” to God’s will, ous balance” in order to build working hard in their studies, a more humane world, he said. being generous to others, beHe said the World Meeting ing active in the community of Families was a way to send and using their talents to better a message to the whole world the world. that “it is possible and joyful, The pope said when he met even if it takes work, to live government representatives love faithfully forever and be in Milan, he reminded them open to life” and that it’s also of the importance of policies possible for the whole family and laws that protect the fam- to take part in the mission of ily. The most essential is the the Church and help create a right to life, “whose deliber- better world.

“H

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visitors from afar — A pilgrim from Angola waves his national flag during Pope Benedict XVI’s general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican recently. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Vatican rules Sister’s sexual ethics book is not Catholic

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — The Vatican has declared that a book on sexual morality written by a controversial American Sister runs so contrary to Church teaching that it cannot be considered Catholic.

“The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith expresses profound regret that a member of an Institute of Consecrated Life, Sister Margaret A. Farley, R.S.M., affirms positions that are in direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality,” says the notification, recently issued in Rome.

The decision follows a twoyear audit of Sister Farley’s book “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics,” which argues against the Church’s teaching on masturbation, homosexual acts, homosexual unions and marriage. The Sister of Mercy and emeritus professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School published her book in 2006.

The audit found that “Just Love” did not present “a correct understanding of the role of the Church’s Magisterium as the teaching authority of the bishops united with the Successor of Peter” but, instead, presented it as just “one opinion among others.”

It further concluded that Sister Farley’s work rejected “the objective nature of the natural moral law,” choosing instead to argue “on the basis of conclusions selected from certain philosophical currents” or “from her own understanding of ‘contemporary experience.’”

The issuing of a notification from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is both significant and infrequent.

Highlighting some specific areas of concern, the congregation noted that Sister Farley argued in her book that masturbation

“usually does not raise any moral questions at all.”

She also suggested that homosexual acts “can be justified according to the same sexual ethic as heterosexual relationships,” while homosexual civil unions “can also be important in transforming the hatred, rejection, and stigmatization of gays and lesbians” that is reinforced by “teachings of ‘unnatural’ sex, disordered desire, and dangerous love.”

On marriage, Sister Farley’s book proposed that re-marriage should not be prohibited “any more than the ongoing union between spouses after one of them has died prohibits a second marriage.”

Despite discussions that lasted three years, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concluded that Sister Farley “did not adequately clarify the grave problems contained in her book,” which would have prevented the publication of today’s notification.

In response, Sister Farley said that she “appreciated the efforts made by the Congregation and its consultants” and did “not dispute the judgment that some of the

positions contained within it are not in accord with current official Catholic teaching.”

She also stated that her book “was not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching” but as a way of offering “contemporary interpretations of traditional meanings for the human body, gender and sexuality.”

Her religious congregation, the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, also expressed its “profound regret” at the decision against the work of “a highly respected and valued member.”

“While being faithful to her own faith tradition and commitments, her sensitivity to the varied circumstances, realities and needs of her students is the context she consistently honors,” said the order’s president, Sister Patricia McDermott, in a recent statement.

Today’s ruling means that the book “cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counseling and formation,” as the dissemination of such ideas “risks grave harm to the faithful.” The book also cannot be used in ecumenical and inter-religious dialogues.

Pope sends congratulations to Queen Elizabeth VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In her 60-year reign, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II has offered the world an inspiring example of Christian leadership and dedication to duty, Pope Benedict XVI said in a message to the monarch. Congratulating the queen on her diamond jubilee, the pope said her reign demonstrated “a commitment to maintaining the principles of freedom, justice and democracy, in keeping with a noble vision of the role of a Christian monarch.”

Queen Elizabeth concluded a

four-day celebration of her anniversary June 5 with a church service and a carriage procession through central London.

The pope’s message, dated May 23 and recently published by the Vatican, also praised the queen’s “personal commitment to cooperation and mutual respect between the followers of different religious traditions.”

Pope Benedict said her efforts “contributed in no small measure to improving ecumenical and interreligious relations throughout your realm.”

The International Church Eucharistic Congress opens with reflection on ‘treasure of the Church’

June 15, 2012

Dublin, Ireland (CNA/ EWTN News) — The Church has nothing greater to offer than Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, Cardinal Marc Ouellet said as he celebrated the June 10 opening Mass of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.

“Our gathering is an act of faith in the Holy Eucharist, the treasure of the Church, which is essential to her life and to our communion as brothers and sisters in Christ,” said the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, who is representing Pope Benedict as Papal Legate at the celebration in Ireland.

The Church, he told pilgrims gathered at the Royal Dublin Society Arena, “draws her life from the Eucharist,” and “receives her own identity from the gift of Christ’s own Body.”

“In communion with His body, the Church becomes what she receives: she becomes one body with Him in the Spirit of the new and eternal covenant,” the cardinal reflected. “What a great and marvelous mystery!”

More than 12,500 pilgrims from around the world are gathered in Dublin for the June 10-17 Eucharistic gathering. Its opening ceremony, held on the Feast of Corpus Christi, featured a parade of international flags as well as insignia of Ireland’s different

counties, carried alongside symbols of the Catholic faith.

Cardinal Ouellet concelebrated the afternoon opening Mass with Dublin Archbishop Diamuid Martin, Archbishop Robert Jean Louis LeGall of Toulouse, Cardinal Thomas C. Collins of Toronto, and Archbishop Piero Marini, president of the Pontifical Committee for Eucharistic Congresses.

In his homily, the head of the Congregation for Bishops recalled Ireland’s “long traditional of fidelity to the Catholic faith.”

The country’s faithfulness “has enriched not only these shores, but has, through her missionary sons and daughters, helped to bring the Gospel to many other, far-distant shores.”

But Cardinal Ouellet acknowledged that the 50th Eucharistic Congress comes at a “turbulent time” for the Irish Church, which has suffered in recent years from revelations about sex abuse committed by clergy in past decades. The country also faces a priest shortage, and problems with theological dissent.

“The Church in Ireland is suffering and faces many new and serious challenges to the faith,” noted Cardinal Ouellet. “Well aware of these challenges, we turn to our Lord, who renews, heals and strengthens the faith of His people.”

The papal representative, who served as Archbishop of Quebec from 2003 to 2010, hosted the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in his archdiocese in 2008. The experience showed him “that an event such as this brings many blessings to the local Church and to all the participants.”

He urged the congregation at the Dublin arena to remember their baptismal identity as members of Christ’s “new and eternal covenant,” in order to approach God’s sacramental presence with awe and devotion.

“Every Sunday and every special feast day we go to church to meet the Risen Lord, to strengthen our bond of love with Him by partaking in the Holy Eucharist,” the cardinal observed.

“It may seem in the world’s eyes that we gather for social reasons or according to our cultural and religious traditions, but, in fact, we are called together by the Lord Himself … Who wants us to be one body with Him in a real and faithful covenant of love.”

“Let us be aware of the unfathomable gift of the Holy Eucharist,” Cardinal Ouellet urged worshipers, setting the spiritual agenda for the coming week.

“God deserves much more adoration and gratitude for this gift of love.”

Beirut, Lebanon (CNA) — An ultimatum from the Syrian armed opposition’s military chief caused more than 1,000 Christians to flee the west Syrian town of Qusayr, adding to fears that believers may be forced out of Syria.

“The Christian communities fear being targeted, destroyed or driven out,” said Neville Kyrke-Smith, Aid to the Church in Need’s U.K. director. “We all need to stand in prayer and solidarity now.”

Kyrke-Smith, who returned from Lebanon on June 11, told CNA that the report of Christian flight echoes the concerns he heard from bishops, priests, and religious communities concerned about Christians’ fate in neighboring Syria.

“The message time and again was ‘please do not forget the Christians of the Middle East,’” he reported.

Syrian opposition military chief Abdel Salam Harba had given an ultimatum for Christians to leave Qusayr, a town

near Homs, by June 8. Some mosques in the city repeated the message in announcements from their minarets, Fides news agency reports.

Only 1,000 Christians remained in the town, which was home to 10,000 Christians before the conflict began between the Syrian government and opposition forces.

The reasons for the latest ultimatum are unclear. Some sources say it helps avoid more Christian suffering, while others say it reveals “a continuity focused on discrimination and repression.”

Others say Christians’ open loyalty to the state is the reason they are driven away.

Some sources told Fides that Islamic Salafist extremists groups in the ranks of the armed opposition consider Christians to be “infidels” and are ready to start a “sectarian war.”

The extremists reportedly confiscate Christians’ goods and conduct executions.

Kyrke-Smith said that his organization has managed to pro-

vide some help to refugees from Homs, which witnessed an exodus of 50,000 or more Christians earlier this year. Other agencies and religious houses are giving refuge to Christians fleeing direct persecution.

He said there is “growing fear” that the conflict will expand and cross the border in to Lebanon and affect all communities.

“Christians are worried that they may suffer greatly as they could be targeted by all sides,” he wrote in a June 10 blog post.

Gregorios III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Damascus, has asked the Christian faithful to observe June 4-28 as a period of prayer, abstinence and fasting for peace.

“God can restore peace, brotherly love and mutual solidarity in Syria, in all its regions and among all its citizens,” his message said. “This is our response to the painful events that have caused weeping and heartbreak, implanting terrifying images and causing hatred and revenge.”

One thousand more Syrian Christians flee after ultimatum

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The Church in the U.S.

June 15, 2012

Archbishop Lori highlights role of laity in Fortnight for Freedom

Washington D.C. (CNA/EWTN News) — Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore stressed the importance of laity involvement in efforts to defend religious freedom from the ongoing threats in the U.S. “It’s important, of course, for bishops to be teachers and leaders.” But “it is crucial for lay men and women, mothers and fathers of families, lay leaders in all walks of life to advocate for freedom and justice in our society,” Archbishop Lori told CNA. “Without those voices and without the involvement of the laity, we just won’t get very far,” he added.

“In the Church’s understanding,” he explained, “it is the laity who are the ones that bring about the just and tranquil society. It is the laity who are the forefront of creating what Pope Paul VI called the ‘civilization of love.’”

Archbishop Lori, who leads the U.S. bishops’ religious freedom committee, encouraged the laity to get involved in the June 21 to July 4 “Fortnight for Freedom” event through education, prayer and advocacy.

The U.S. bishops have called for the Fortnight in response to growing threats to religious liberty, most notably a federal mandate that will require employers to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their consciences.

Religious leaders and individuals around the country have spoken out against the mandate and the threat it poses to religious liberty.

They have urged the Obama Administration to broaden the exemption so that religious organizations are not forced to choose between violating their beliefs and shutting their doors.

Despite widespread objection, the Obama Administration finalized the mandate without change, while offering promises of a future “accommodation” for other organizations — a move that has already been criticized as inadequate.

The mandate is being challenged by law-

suits filed by more than 50 plaintiffs, including colleges, U.S. states, dioceses, nonprofit organizations and private business owners.

In addition, Archbishop Lori said, the laity can become involved in other key ways, including educational efforts regarding religious freedom.

He noted that one of the main objectives of the Fortnight for Freedom is “to make sure that all of us, but especially our young, understand and accept what the Church teaches on religious liberty, and that we understand and accept gratefully our heritage as Americans.”

This type of education is critical, and it is best done “in the home,” he said, explaining that families must work to educate the young on the importance of religious freedom.

Prayer is also a significant way in which the laity can participate in the Fortnight, the archbishop observed.

“While we will have a lot of coverage of the large Masses, we’re also encouraging family prayer and private prayer by distributing prayer cards,” he explained.

The bishops are urging Catholics to pray the Rosary and calling for “moments when both families and individuals would simply pray for the restoration and protection of our religious freedoms,” he noted.

He added that study guides for families and children have been developed and are available online, as well as through the Catholic school system.

Archbishop Lori also encouraged “advocacy” with public officials.

“It’s very important that elected politicians hear, not so much from the bishops, but rather from Catholics and from all people of good will who are participating in this Fortnight with us,” he said.

A legislative attempt to ensure a thorough religious exemption from the mandate was narrowly defeated in the Senate on March 1.

Other legislation to defend religious freedom in the face of the mandate has been introduced but is not expected to come to a vote in the near future.

trust in the lord — Echo Xu and Josh Lucas carry in a cross for participants to venerate during the first night of a three-day ecumenical Taize prayer pilgrimage at DePaul University in Chicago recently. DePaul hosted the international gathering of young adults for the Taize community’s “Pilgrimage of Trust on Earth.” (CNS photo/Karen Callaway, Catholic New World)

Pope to attend World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pa. (CNA/EWTN News) — Pope Benedict XVI personally chose Philadelphia as the site for the next World Meeting of Families and, health permitting, will attend the 2015 event, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said.

The archbishop discussed the pope’s possible visit at an afternoon press conference in Philadelphia on June 5.

“He said he hoped to be there, but he reminded me he’s 85 years old and he’d be 88 at that time, and God willing he will be with us,” Archbishop Chaput said.

“He’s a man who trusts God’s providence, and I do too.”

The World Meeting of Families, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Family, takes place every three years. It brings together hundreds of thousands of people to pray, celebrate and study marriage and family life. Archbishop Chaput and Pope Benedict attended the 2012 event in Milan.

Archbishop Chaput attended the final Mass with a military family from South Carolina who represented the United States.

“Surprisingly, the six of them and myself were invited to lunch, and not only to lunch, but to the same table as the pope,” he said.

The archbishop said a “large number of people” usually attend the World Meeting of Families, and typically the pope visits for the final days of the event. The closing Mass for the 2012 gathering in Milan was attended by one million people.

The archbishop also discussed the

choice of Philadelphia in an interview with the World Meeting of Families organizers.

He said he had received a letter from the Pontifical Council for Families three months ago asking if Philadelphia would be interested in hosting the next meeting.

“These are difficult times for our diocese; I was worried. So in my answer I said we would be happy to take on the job, but I underscored our financial and logistical problems,” he said in the interview.

The Philadelphia archdiocese faces continuing fallout from sex abuse scandals and has been forced to close dozens of Catholic schools because of a lack of financial resources.

Six weeks ago, Archbishop Chaput said, Rome wrote again saying that the difficulties of the archdiocese in hosting the event were “understandable” but “notwithstanding everything the pope had personally decided on Philadelphia.”

Pope Benedict announced the choice of Philadelphia at the closing Mass of the World Meeting of Families on June 3.

In response, Archbishop Chaput said he is “so grateful” at the choice and “excited” that Philadelphia will host the event.

“It’s fitting that this gathering, which celebrates the cornerstone of society, will take place in America’s cradle of freedom.

The Holy Father’s choice is a gift to the local Church in Philadelphia and to the whole nation,” he said.

The Philadelphia archdiocese has about 1.5 million Catholics in a population of four million people.

5 The Church in the U.S. Sisters’ bus tour illustrates New website AnyGivenSunday helps young Catholics grow in their faith Vatican’s objections, author says

June 15, 2012

Washington D.C. (CNA) — An expert on women religious in the U.S. said that a bus tour announced by religious Sisters who belong to a “progressive” social justice organization demonstrates the Vatican’s concerns about certain groups of women religious in the country.

Ann Carey, author of the 1997 book “Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women’s Religious Communities,” said that the move is likely a “public relations ploy” aimed at “highlighting the fact that they disagree with the bishops” about religious freedom concerns in health care.

Network, a Catholic social justice lobby that describes itself as “a progressive voice within the Catholic community,” has announced a bus tour across several politically-significant states to protest suggested budget cuts to programs for the poor.

The dates of the tour — June 18 to July 2 — will overlap with the Fortnight for Freedom that the bishops have announced as a time of prayer, education and advocacy in the face of the Obama Administration’s contraception mandate.

Carey told CNA that the Sisters, who are “very politically savvy,” are trying to show that they are doing good works in order to “deflect the actual problems that the Vatican has pointed out.”

The organization does perform good work, as do many members of the laity, she acknowledged. But there is a deeper problem with the group’s understanding of the nature of religious life and its adherence to Church teaching.

Carey does believes it is appropriate for the Sisters to voice concerns over budget cuts, about which some bishops have also voiced hesitations, but they need to go further in their advocacy.

The bishops, she said, are concerned that the Sisters are taking one “very small part” of Catholic teaching and promoting it as the entirety of Catholic social justice.

“They’ve carved out a very, very small part of the Gospel message to proclaim,” Carey

remarked.

“The Gospel is not just about helping poor people,” but also includes admonitions to avoid sin and a focus on our redemption through the sacrifice of Christ, she explained.

While it is true that different orders have different areas of emphasis, it is incorrect to claim to represent Catholic social teaching while largely ignoring some of the most foundational and important elements of this teaching, such as a respect for life and sexuality, she said.

Network was recently mentioned in the Vatican’s criticism of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a group of women religious leaders in the U.S. that has been called on to realign itself with Church teaching.

Although not formally affiliated, the close connection between the LCWR and Network was highlighted in a 2006 speech by Catherine Pinkerton, CSJ. Upon receiving the LCWR Outstanding Leadership Award, Pinkerton explained that the callings of the two groups “are so very intertwined as to be inseparable.”

“I have never doubted that for me Network was a natural progression from LCWR,” she said. “In truth, we two entities are inextricably linked.”

She added that the LCWR has always been part of Network’s board, “helping to set its direction.”

Carey said that the Network bus tour is “illustrative” of what has been happening with the women’s leadership conference for several decades.

On April 18, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith revealed the findings a four-year doctrinal assessment of the conference, which discovered “serious doctrinal problems” and a need for reform.

It cited letters from LCWR officers as well as presentations sponsored by the conference which exhibited “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith” and dissent from Church teaching on topics including the sac-

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ramental male priesthood and homosexuality.

The assessment also found that while the group adamantly promotes social justice issues, it largely ignores matters of life, marriage and sexuality, which have played a large role in recent public debates.

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle has been mandated to work with LCWR leadership to guide renewal efforts.

The archbishop will help the conference revise its statues and review its formation materials, speakers, presentations and affiliation with other organizations, as well as the application of liturgical norms and texts in its gatherings.

LCWR leaders said that they were “stunned” by the assessment and accused the Vatican of making “unsubstantiated accusations.”

They also argued that “the sanctions imposed were disproportionate to the concerns raised” and could compromise the Sisters’ “ability to fulfill their mission.”

However, Carey noted that the LCWR’s mission was redefined when the group re-wrote its statutes four decades ago.

She asserted the group has no reason to be stunned because it has been disagreeing with the Vatican over doctrine and religious life for 40 years.

“They’ve been alluding to it for years in their own materials,” she said. “They’re just trying to play the victim.”

WHEELING, W.Va. (CNS) — Young Catholics have a new website available to them featuring nationally known Catholic speakers, musicians and comedians who have teamed up to help them grow in their faith.

Any Given Sunday, reflections for the young Church, features 45 national Catholic youth ministry personalities — including Steve Angrisano, Chris Padgett, Matt Maher, Shannon Cerneka and Jamie Dillon just to name a few — who each writes a reflection for the weekly Mass readings. Each week, the site offers a reflection from one of the participating personalities.

The website, www. anygivensundayproject. com, was created by Bob Perron, executive director of the Diocese of WheelingCharleston’s Department of Youth Ministry, with the intent of reaching out to West Virginia’s Catholic youths but also to reach the young Church wherever it may be.

“We want to make young disciples, we want to help young people grow in their faith,” Perron told The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of the diocese. “We wanted to give young people, 13 to 18 years old, something that would help prepare them for Mass and to maybe make it a little more interesting to them.

“Each week, kids can go

on their phone or on their computer and go to Any Given Sunday where there is a short video message for the week from me or a youth board member and then the reflection,” he said.

Reflections are geared toward the young Catholic audience. The site contains background screens for youth, parish resources, information pieces on the site, links to Mass readings on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops website and much more. The site has had a huge response, Perron said, and has had hits from Canada and Switzerland.

Perron said he got the idea for the site because of the diversity and geography of the Diocese of WheelingCharleston, which covers the entire state of West Virginia. He said he hopes that the site will go viral as it has received much support from the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry.

Diocesan youth directors across the country will receive information about the site and participating Catholic youth ministry personalities are also posting information about the site on their blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. The site also provides a mobile version; and visitors to the site may subscribe to weekly email reminders about the reflections.

6

The Anchor Remedying the corruption of the best

There’s a famous Latin aphorism corruptio optimi pessima, “The corruption of the best is the worst of all.” This is true not only because falls from grace are more severe the higher the position from which one tumbles, but also because when one topples from a prominent position there is a greater possibility of harming others by the fall. This could be said to constitute the dual background for two recent actions of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF): the April 18 publication of the doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and the June 4 Notification about the grave doctrinal problems found in Mercy Sister Margaret Farley’s 2006 book “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Social Ethics.” In both cases, there is an attempt to lift the religious women in question up from an obvious fall from the teaching of the Catholic faith and an effort to remedy the damage to other Catholics caused by the scandal of their failure to give witness to authentic Catholic doctrine. Sadly, in neither case have the Sisters responded faithfully and humbly to the Church’s fraternal correction given in charity.

On June 1, the LCWR board released a statement after a three-day meeting convoked to respond to the CDF’s assessment and pathway for reform (which was described in the May 4 editorial). “The board members raised concerns about both the content of the doctrinal assessment and the process by which it was prepared,” the statement said. “Board members concluded that the assessment was based on unsubstantiated accusations and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency.”

If the assessment were truly based on unsubstantiated accusations and a secretive and flawed process, the Sisters would have legitimate grounds to complain, but as Toledo Bishop Leonard Blair, who was appointed by the CDF in 2008 to carry out the assessment, said in a June 8 statement: “What the CDF commissioned was a doctrinal ‘assessment,’ an appraisal of materials that are readily available to anyone who cares to read them on the LCWR website and in other LCWR published resources. The assessment was carried out in dialogue with the LCWR leadership, both in writing and face-to-face, over several months. The fundamental question posed to the LCWR leadership as part of the assessment was simply this: What are the Church’s pastors to make of the fact that the LCWR constantly provides a one-sided platform — without challenge or any opposing view — to speakers who take a negative and critical position vis-a-vis Church doctrine and discipline and the Church’s teaching office?” The accusations weren’t unsubstantiated; they were grounded in LCWR materials and conferences, which questioned and challenged Church teaching not on peripheral, perhaps debatable areas, but, as the CDF assessment declared, on the “revealed doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Christ and the inspiration of Sacred Scripture,” not to mention women’s ordination, same-sex activity, abortion and euthanasia, the papacy and the importance of the Eucharist. The process didn’t lack transparency: it gave the LCWR leadership the opportunity to respond face-to-face and in writing to the questions given. The Toledo bishop indicated that a “key question posed by the doctrinal assessment had to do with moving forward in a positive way. Would the LCWR at least acknowledge the CDF’s doctrinal concerns and be willing to take steps to remedy the situation?” It was only when the LCWR submitted unsatisfactory responses and refused to reform itself that the CDF announced its action.

The June 1 response of the LCWR board suggested that the LCWR is still, unfortunately, not interested in moving forward in a positive way. Bishop Blair lamented, “The response thus far is exemplified by the LCWR leadership’s choice of a new age futurist to address its 2012 assembly, and their decision to give an award this year to Sister Sandra Schneiders, who has expressed the view that the hierarchical structure of the Church represents an institutionalized form of patriarchal domination that cannot be reconciled with the Gospel.” Bishop Blair wasn’t the only one to express disappointment at the LCWR’s continued recalcitrance. The Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Mich., a thriving community of women religious that numbers among them many doctors and multiple medical establishments and is not part of the LCWR, released a June 2 statement ruing how the LCWR has been responding with the “language of politics” rather than the “language of faith.” While affirming that they “see great hope for the future of religious life within the Church and for a continuation of its health care mission in the service of all people,” the Alma Mercy Sisters said that this hope would be fulfilled only by “remaining within the deposit of faith and the hierarchical structure of the Church. We cannot separate ourselves from sacred tradition or claim to advance beyond the Church.” The last phrase seemed to be an allusion to then-LCWR president Sister Laurie Brink’s 2007 matter-of-fact acknowledgement that some Sisters had moved “beyond the Church, even beyond Jesus.”

While the CDF process regarding Sister Margaret Farley’s “Just Love” is independent of the LCWR intervention, it is responding to similar concerns about a certain woman religious leading people not deeper into the understanding of the Catholic faith but away from it. Beginning in March 2010, the CDF wrote to Sister Farley indicating the doctrinal problems they discovered in a preliminary evaluation of “Just Love” and engaging her in a two-year process asking her first to clarify and then to correct the unacceptable theses in her book. In response to the CDF’s charge that she contradicted Church teaching on the immorality of masturbation and homosexual acts, on same-sex marriage, the indissolubility of marriage and divorce and remarriage, she said in a June 4 statement that she did “not dispute the judgment that some of the positions contained within [“Just Love”] are not in accord with current official teaching,” but said her work was “not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this teaching,” but was a series of “historical explorations of …

Christian sexual ethical principles and its consideration of similar principles across many religious traditions … designed to help people, especially Christians but also others, to think through their questions about human sexuality.” Regardless of what her intentions were, Sister Farley, an emerita professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School and a member of the Religious Sisters of Mercy, didn’t just present a survey. She wrote, “It could be said that masturbation actually serves relationships rather than hindering them”; “same-sex relationships and activities can be justified according to the same sexual ethic as heterosexual relationships and activities”; argued in favor of “gay marriage”; and taught that “a marriage commitment is subject to release” and there’s nothing that would “disallow a second marriage.” When she refused to correct these statements over the course of a two-year process, the CDF finally published its Notification, affirming that her positions are in “direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality” and warning the faithful that “Just Love” is “not in conformity with the teaching of the Church.”

The chief issue in the LCWR and the Sister Farley interventions is not a bunch of aged, authoritarian chauvinists using Church power to bully innocent Sisters into conformity, as some defenders of the LCWR and Sister Farley are alleging. It’s about the Church’s desire to help Sisters who are veering from the understanding and teaching of the Catholic faith to come back into doctrinal communion and to prevent their wounding the understanding of faith among others who look up to them. Theological abuse — passing on to others erroneous understandings of the Christian faith and moral life, whether intentional or not — may be the greatest spiritual sadism of all. If people are led by Sister Farley to believe masturbation, same-sex activity and the adultery of remarriage are good rather than sinful activities, the damage done may not be limited just to this world. Likewise, if people are led to believe by some of the actions, materials and conferences of the LCWR to doubt the Trinity, the importance of the Mass, the immorality of abortion and other defined aspects of Christian faith and life, the relationship of many with God and the Church He founded may be impacted. The consequences of this type of falsity being given instead of truth is likely one of the reasons why Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mt 5:19). The Church wants religious women to be great in the Kingdom so that they in turn may inspire the whole Church to greater fidelity, not less. That’s why the Church is now intervening, why we should be grateful she is, and why we should be praying that the Sisters in question will respond, not with the language of power, but with true Catholic faith.

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June 15, 2012

Discerning the call — Part III

n this third article on personally to conversion of heart, which is seeing discerning one’s vocation, I would sin for what it really is, something that like to focus on the importance of separates us from God, one another spiritual direction and of the Sacrament and even ourselves. Through receiving of Reconciliation as major components in forgiveness of our sins through this discovering one’s vocation. This important Sacrament we are reconciled with God. part of discernment is inseparable from Our Lord was aware that sin would daily prayer and Holy Mass that I have continue to be a part of our daily lives, that already addressed. we are weak and that we often give in to Opening up one’s heart and mind our temptations, and so He established a to hear the voice of the Lord also way for us to be forgiven sacramentally means becoming aware of the things for our sins. The confessional should not that could keep us from listening to be something to be avoided, but something Him and growing in holiness. Sin is embraced, because it is there that we all perhaps the most obvious obstacle to encounter the mercy of God, something one’s discernment because sin entails that we all need, and which helps us to turning away from God. Sin, therefore, be faithful to our relationship with Him. should not be seen as just the breaking of In the Sacrament, we are given not only Commandments, but more importantly forgiveness, but also the grace to be more harming our relationship with Christ and like Christ, to be what we are called to be His Church.

— saints!

The “Catechism” highlights a crucial Confession of our sins, in addition to point here, namely that, “the confession daily prayer, Holy Mass and adoration of (or disclosure) the Blessed of sins, even Sacrament, from a simply as I have human point Putting Into mentioned in of view, the last couple the Deep frees us and of articles, are facilitates our the basic and reconciliation fundamental

By Father with others. components Jay Mello Through such that one needs an admission, to embrace man looks squarely at the sins he is guilty if they are going to be on the right track of, takes responsibility for them, and toward entering into that “friendship with thereby opens himself again to God and to Christ.” the communion of the Church in order to In addition to these things, however, make a new future possible” (CCC 1455). one should also seek the help of a spiritual Throughout His public life our Lord director, one who can objectively help proclaimed the mercy of God toward one discern God’s will in one’s life while sinners. He preached the Good News of helping them to strengthen their spiritual salvation and deliverance from sin. He life. taught that tax collectors and prostitutes Spiritual direction most often refers to will reach the Kingdom of God before a relationship where the director (usually those who do not recognize their a priest) guides the directee (the one sinfulness or their need for God’s mercy seeking direction) in living a holy life. and that there is more rejoicing in Heaven The director listens with the intent of over one sinner who repents than over helping the directee recognize how the the 99 self-righteous people who have no Holy Spirit is working in his or her life. need of repentance.

The emphasis is on helping the directee This is especially crucial for one to develop a good relationship with God, discerning a priestly vocation. A priest recognizing that God has a particular is called to be a minister of God’s mercy plan for the person’s life. The reason for and in order to do that effectively, he must spiritual direction is to objectively help us first be aware of the struggle against sin in to know and become the person that God his own life and his need to frequent the has made us to be.

Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The Archbishop of New York, The Sacrament of Penance is such a Timothy Cardinal Dolan, wrote about the gift! This psychological benefit of “feeling importance of receiving spiritual direction assured” and “clean again” stems not in one’s desire to grow in holiness. only from the supernatural fruits of the Cardinal Dolan says, “An honest, trusting, Sacrament, but from our human nature fruitful consistent relationship with a and our need to purge ourselves of those spiritual director is, in some ways, the sinful actions that plague our consciences. linchpin of all the rest, for this is where Additionally, it is a necessary part of integration begins to take place” (“Called growing in the spiritual life, which is to be Holy,” p. 16). Seeking the advice or essential in the discernment of any direction of a priest helps us to focus more vocation. clearly on what it is that God is asking of “Those who approach the Sacrament of us and in particular helping us to discern Penance obtain pardon from God’s mercy what our vocation is. The priest is there for the offense committed against Him, to assist us in developing that friendship and are, at the same time, reconciled with with Christ. the Church which they have wounded In addition to seeking the spiritual by their sins and which by charity, by advice of a priest, we should also seek example, and by prayer labors for their guidance from trusted family members conversion” (CCC 1440). and friends. Talking openly about spiritual Christ, the great physician of souls, things and what God might be asking of offers us this Sacrament because we us is just another way to come to greater aren’t perfect and often we give in to clarity in our pursuit of holiness and the temptations that confront us every discerning God’s will in our lives. day. Confession allows us to say we are Father Mello is a parochial vicar at sorry and to start over. Jesus calls us St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth.

June 15, 2012

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7

The Anchor

Standing firmly on earth with two legs

une weddings never go out of style, with flowers in bloom and favorable weather, the wedding reception venues continue to be solidly booked. Despite the flourishing market for weddings, there is a growing trend in our society toward abandoning traditional marriage altogether. In fact, the numbers of Catholic weddings has been steadily declining in the last 10 years, and now the number of civil marriages is also on the way down. This is a curious trend, indeed, and is worth examination by both sociologists and theologians.

Long before the downward spiral of marriage statistics, marriage was the ultimate expression of hope in a future.

Seventy years ago couples entered into marriage in the face of the real possibility of death and economic deprivation.

Their marriages were a triumphant display of free will, and a daring embrace of hope.

Back in the days when Hitler one leg too.” Standing firmly marched through Europe and on earth with two legs is a some Christians abandoned pretty good metaphor for what their faith to follow the sorted couples will face for the long allure of Nazi nihilism, a haul of marriage, but it is also German theologian stagnated the stance we must take to be in a prison cell for his role in true disciples. the German resistance. While Marriage is a Sacrament in prison Dietrich Bonhoefunique in its theology. It is fer produced a body of writings, among which were letters to his fiancé and an undelivered marriage sermon for his niece. In a letter to his fiancé, BonhoefBy Claire McManus fer reflected on the meaning of their marriage in the face of his certain death. Marriage, a Sacrament of free will, for he believed, is a “yes to God’s it is not conferred by God earth.” Bonhoeffer believed through the priest as ministhat the cost of discipleship ter, but through the baptismal requires that a Christian must ministry of husband and wife. say yes to the world in orIn his “Marriage Homily from der to fully understand God. a Prison Cell,” Bonhoeffer “Christians who venture to explained the special relationstand on earth on only one leg ship that married couples have will stand in Heaven on only with God. “We ought not to

ROME (CNS) — A misunderstanding of the Second Vatican Council has led some Catholics to think that eucharistic adoration and Corpus Christi processions are pietistic practices that pale in importance to the celebration of Mass, Pope Benedict XVI said.

“A unilateral interpretation of the Second Vatican Council has penalized this dimension” of Catholic faith, which is to recognize Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist and worthy of adoration, the pope said during a Mass marking the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.

The evening Mass outside Rome’s Basilica of St. John Lateran preceded a moment of silent adoration and the pope’s traditional Corpus Christi procession with the Eucharist through the streets of Rome.

In his homily, the pope told the thousands of people gathered on the basilica lawn that it is important to recognize the centrality of the celebration of Mass, the moment in which the Lord gathers His people, nourishes them and unites them to Himself in offering His sacrifice.

But if Christ is seen as present in the Eucharist only during Mass, “this imbalance has repercussions on the spiritual life of the faithful,” who need to be aware of “the constant presence of Jesus among us and with us,” the pope said.

“The Sacrament of the char-

ity of Christ must permeate all one’s daily life,” he said.

Celebration and adoration are not in competition, the pope said. “Worshipping the Blessed Sacrament constitutes something like the spiritual environment in which the community can celebrate the Eucharist well and in truth.”

Pope Benedict said Mass is most meaningful when the faithful recognize that in the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord is present, “awaits us, invites us to His table and then, after the assembly disperses, remains with us with His discrete and silent presence.”

Spending time in prolonged silence before the Eucharist “is one of the most authentic experiences of our being Church,” and it finds its complement at Mass when Catholics “celebrate the Eucharist, listening to the Word of God, singing, approaching together the table of the Bread of Life.”

Truly entering into communion with someone, he said, is accompanied by “exchanging glances and intense, eloquent silences full of respect and veneration.”

“If this dimension is missing, even sacramental communion can become a superficial gesture on our part,” the pope said.

Pope Benedict said another misunderstanding — one influenced “by a certain secular

The Great Commission

Vatican II did not downplay eucharistic adoration, pope says

mentality” of the 1960s and ’70s — was the idea that the Bible teaches that with the coming of Christ, rituals and sacrifices no longer should have meaning; basically, he said, some people believe “the sacred no longer exists.”

It is true that Christ inaugurated a new form of worship, one tied less to a place and a ritual and more to His person, but people still need “signs and rites,” the pope said. In fact, without its annual Corpus Christi procession, “the spiritual profile of Rome” would change.

Preceded by members of parish eucharistic associations, children who recently made their first Communions, religious, seminarians, priests, bishops and cardinals walking to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, Pope Benedict rode on the back of a truck facing the Blessed Sacrament, which was held in a gem-studded gold monstrance.

Thousands of people carrying candles walked behind the pope. People watching from the sidewalks behind metal barriers tossed flower petals in front of the truck and joined in singing eucharistic hymns and reciting litanies.

Darkness fell as the procession made its way to St. Mary Major, and the evening ended with the pope blessing the crowd with the Blessed Sacrament.

be in too much of a hurry to speak piously of God’s will and guidance. It is obvious, and it should not be ignored, that it is your own very human wills that are at work here, celebrating their triumph. Unless you can boldly say, ‘This is our resolve, our love, our way,’ you are taking refuge in a false piety.” Marriage is God’s “yes” to our free will.

Couples that choose to live together indefinitely may be unaware of the dual benefit and responsibility of marriage.

Though this was not the issue facing couples 70 years ago, marriage was still a choice that required courage to embrace. Bonhoeffer offers an interesting insight, “In your love you see only the Heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage sustains the love.” Thus we have the quid pro quo of marriage. The married couple takes upon themselves the responsibility toward building up society, but in return, their community helps them to sustain the love

that brought them to the altar in the first place. This was explained most explicitly at our daughter’s wedding when the priest made the couple turn around and look at the people present in the church. “Turn around and look out there,” he said, “These are the people who will be with you through good times and bad. They will celebrate your times of happiness, and sustain you through the sad times.”

Christian marriage is more than what can be defined by civil law, or taught in a textbook. We can explain what it means to enter into the covenant of marriage, but it is a lesson learned best when witnessed. We know a covenantal marriage when we see it. I wear on my finger the thin, gold wedding band that my war-bride mother received 70 years ago on a June day. It reminds me of the continuous cycle that plants each generation firmly into the earth. Our own marriage is 35 years into its lesson on covenant. We are still learning what it means to be married, and we are passing along the lesson to each of our children, long before they exert their free will and call out to God, “say yes to our yes!”

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

Polish Fest

ENTIRELY UNDER TENTS

“Summertime”

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church

235 North Front Street, New Bedford, MA

2 DAYS - SAT. & SUN. JUNE 16 & 17 ... CONTINUOUS LIVE ENTERTAINMENT ...

SATURDAY JUNE 16 . 11:00 AM - 8:00 PM 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. & 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.

“Lenny Gomulka & Chicago Push”

Returning to the Greater New Bedford and South Coast area

SUNDAY JUNE 17 . *Fest* Noon - 5:00 PM 11 a.m. - POLKA MASS in the O.L.P.H. Church People of all Faiths are invited to join us.

Noon to 5 p.m. - The “EDDIE FORMAN” Orchestra from Hadley Falls, MA

Our Famous “POLISH KITCHEN”

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“Pierogi” “Golambki” Booths & Games Fun for the Entire Family BRING YOUR OWN CHAIRS FREE PARKING

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esus’ invitation to enter His Kingdom comes in the form of parables, a characteristic feature of His teaching. Through His parables He invites people to the feast of the Kingdom, but He also asks for a radical choice: to gain the Kingdom, one must give everything.

Words are not enough; deeds are required. The parables are like mirrors for us. Will we be hard soil or good earth for the Word? What use have we made of the talents we have received? Jesus and the presence of the Kingdom in this world are at the heart of the parables. One must enter the Kingdom, that is, become a disciple of Christ, in order to “know the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven.” For those who stay “outside,” everything remains perplexing or mysterious.

Jesus now moves His hearers from the parables about the Word of God, to

June 15, 2012

The Anchor

Help God grow His Kingdom

parables about the Kingdom risen again, to atone for the of God. The Parable of the sins of humanity and that by Mustard Seed is a presentabelief in Him and Baptism tion of how God goes about in His name, we may have growing His Kingdom. eternal life.

In looking at this ScripThis Good News (Gosture text, Jesus explains how the growth of His Church will Homily of the Week come about: undetected, yet very visible.

Eleventh Sunday During Jesus’ time in Ordinary Time in the world, the cruBy Deacon cifixion and death of a Edward J. Hussey carpenter in first-century Palestine meant little, if anything at all. There was, however, all pel) message was spread this persistent excitement through persecution, travel, about a “Christ,” a Jewish evangelism and by miracles, Messiah. A man named Jesus to the center of civilization of Nazareth, who had been at the time, Rome. It spread condemned and put to death eastward to Turkey, Iran

by Pontius Pilate, had risen and India while spreading from the dead! His Apostles westward to Egypt, Britain were going throughout the and France. By the fourth city and the region of Judea, century, Christianity went to proclaim this Good News; from being a tolerated relithat this Jesus Who suffered, gion to the official religion was crucified and buried had of the Empire under Theo-

dosius. What started out in obscurity, ended up changing the world. Only God, my brothers and sisters, could accomplish such a feat!

Isn’t this the precise meaning of the mustard seed parable?

Even though it’s not the smallest seed in existence, it is symbolic for smallness.

Jesus uses it in other places in forming the idea of smallness and it can be found as that kind of reference throughout older Jewish writings. So it’s important to note that when speaking of a mustard seed we are talking about something that is very small and that is what it signifies. It is also important to note that it is the Kingdom being sown in this parable.

The Kingdom is not a result of someone else sowing, but it is the very act of sowing.

The smallest of seeds

growing into the largest of garden plants; large enough for the birds of the sky to dwell in its shade? And now the Church is large enough for the nations to dwell in its shade, and to hear the Good News — the Gospel of Jesus Christ? This living organism we call the Church has grown from the plan of the Father in eternity past, into a small seed, planted by Jesus Himself, and nurtured (as well as guided) by the Holy Spirit.

Isn’t that exciting news?

It is indeed! In fact, it’s part of the Gospel that Jesus proclaims here, as well as in St. John’s Gospel 14:18: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” And come to us He did, as the Church, the Body of Christ! God’s Kingdom family, here on earth.

How great is that?

Deacon Hussey serves at St. Patrick’s Parish in Somerset.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. June 16, ­­1 Kgs 19:19-21; Ps 16:1b-2a,5,7-10; Lk 2:41-51. Sun. June 17, Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Ez 17:22-24; Ps 92:23,13-16; 2 Cor 5:6-10; Mk 4:26-34. Mon. June 18, 1 Kgs 21:1-16; Ps 5:2-3,5-7; Mt 5:38-42. Tues. June 19, 1 Kgs 21:17-29; Ps 51:3-6,11-16; Mt 5:43-48. Wed. June 20, 2 Kgs 2:1,6-14; Ps 31:20-21,2; Mt 6:1-6,16-18. Thurs. June 21, Sir 48:1-14; Ps 97:1-7; Mt 6:7-15. Fri. June 22, 2 Kgs 11:1-4,9-18,20; Ps 132:11-14,17-18; Mt 6:19-23.

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rior to an April visit to Argentina, I read the “Aparecida Document,” the final report of the Fifth General Assembly of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, which was held in Brazil in 2007. This master plan for the New Evangelization in Latin America is rather long — 20-times longer than the Gospel of Mark, I’d guess. But in virtually every other respect it’s an entirely admirable piece of work that should be known throughout the world Church.

(For those interested in the full text, it’s available here: http// old.usccb.org/latinamerica/ english/aparecida_Ingles.pdf.)

The first thing to note about

Light from the south

the Aparecida Document is The Aparecida Document is its strongly evangelical thrust: also noteworthy for its lack of everyone in the Church, the defensiveness. If Catholics are bishops write, is baptized to be a leaving the Church and finding “missionary disciple.”

Everywhere is mission territory, and everything in the Church must be mission-driven. Then there is the document’s forthright Christocentrism, which reflects the

By George Weigel teaching of Benedict XVI (who opened the assembly with a masterful address): the whole purpose a spiritual home in Pentecostal of evangelism is to foster friendcommunities, that’s the Catholic ship with Jesus Christ, the Son Church’s fault; it’s not someof God Who reveals the face of thing to be blamed on buckets the merciful Father and the truth of gold from El Norte and the about our humanity. machinations of the U.S. government (as two generations of Latin American churchmen had often charged). The Catholic Church must figure out what is missing in its presentation of the Gospel and its living of the Gospel: filling those gaps is the way to invite back home those Catholics who move away from his or her historic spiritual home. The Catholic failure here, the bishops frankly concede, is an evangelical failure. And the answer to that failure is what they call “permanent catechesis”: an ongoing encounter with the Lord Jesus, deepened spiritually through Word and Sacrament, the Bible and the

The Catholic Difference

Eucharist.

In a meeting with Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., the archbishop of Buenos Aires and one of the world Church’s great leaders, I asked how the Aparecida Document — which seemed such a break from previous CELAM documents — had happened. The cardinal cited three reasons.

First, Aparecida is a Marian shrine, and meeting there oriented the bishops’ reflections in two directions: toward the traditional piety of Latin America and toward Our Lady as the Star of the New Evangelization (as Blessed John Paul II had named her). In that intersection between past and future, and under Mary’s protection, there was an opportunity for real creativity in facing the truth of the Church’s situation and prospects.

Second, the bishops had regular contact with the throngs that came to Aparecida on pilgrimage: it was as if CELAM was meeting, not in some convention center or monastic enclosure, but right in the middle of the People of God on their pilgrimage through the early 21st century — a pilgrimage in which both popular piety and new missionary initiatives will be part of

the New Evangelization and in which lay Catholics will be the Church’s primary evangelists.

And third, the cardinal replied, the bishops were surrounded by prayer: as they discussed the future of the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean at the shrine of Aparecida, they could hear their people praying around them. Thus the fifth CELAM conference became, not another bureaucratic exercise, but a kind of retreat.

There is no need to overromanticize this: the Aparecida Document was also the result of some hard thinking and hard work (some of it done by Cardinal Bergoglio, who was too modest to claim any such credit). But it is also true that the Aparecida experience suggests that good things happen at mass meetings of bishops when the bishops live like pastors, in close contact with their people, and when their deliberations seem more like the Upper Room of the Acts of the Apostles than an annual stockholders’ meeting.

The Aparecida Document also suggests that Latin America is far more than just the demographic center of the Catholic Church.

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

June 15, 2012

Packing for the voyage

Tuesday 12 June 2012 — at have to be elaborate but they do the church on Three Mile River need to be pleasant and familiar if — Homestead Days begin (NeI am to feel comfortable in them. braska) As a result, personal stuff tends to he task before me is this: packing for the “Big Move.” Right now, my rectory looks Reflections of a like an episode from the Parish Priest television series “Hoarders.” The work ahead is

By Father Tim herculean. The clock is Goldrick ticking.

I’m one who wants the house in which I live to be a home. I need to be in an engradually accrue. vironment that reflects who I am, During my first 20 years or so not one resembling some generic in the ordained ministry, I shared hotel suite or, worse, a funeral the rectories in which I lived with home. My surroundings don’t a number of pastors: Msgr. Dan

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The Anchor

The Ship’s Log

Shalloo; Fathers Bill Farland, Bill O’Reilly, John Carroll, and John Driscoll; Msgr. Henry Munroe; Fathers Joe Powers, George Harrison and Louis Boivin — not to mention the other priests who lived in the house with us. For the last 20 years, however, I’ve lived alone. This means I was able to spread my stuff throughout the house and not be restricted to my personal quarters.

One rectory in which I lived was a mansion of 14 rooms. The tendency when you have many empty rooms is to fill them. Nature abhors a vacuum.

The human body in a mad world

causing panic by her disappearhose who are up-to-date ance. Why are these related? on the television series What could possibly connect “Mad Men” watched an interestsuch disparate stories? They ing episode prior to the season overlapped because both come finale, but the widespread disdown to the human body and cussions that follow every show our relationship with it. failed to even reference what I As tragic as Lane’s desperfound the most profound point. ate move was, what fascinated To that end, perhaps readers will me was the reaction. Don, indulge this piece about a ficbeing the last to arrive at work tional 1960s advertising agency, Monday morning, found the beginning with a “spoiler alert.” partners in shock and disbelief.

Many viewers were disapHis own shock intensified to pointed with Lane’s suicide, having seen it coming for quite some time. It was couched in clever detail, not the least of which was the temperamental Jaguar — whose account proved to be an ethical Disneyland

By Genevieve Kineke for the firm — but most characters acted true to form. learn that no one had cut the What I saw in the episode body down. Astonished, he were two seemingly unrelated barrelled his way into the office stories coalescing into one. and undertook the macabre task Besides the tragedy of Lane’s without delay — for despite all choices, there was the story his faults, his sense of decency of Sally, an angry young girl compelled him. One doesn’t caught between two self-ableave dead bodies hanging from sorbed parents, Don and Betty. cords out of reverence for the She endured their eventual human person. divorce and ensuing marriages, Likewise with the other story. with each seeing her more as Everyone was upset with Sally annoyance than person. Since — for her rudeness, her lies, her she didn’t want to go on a ski escape, and her lack of considervacation with her mother, Sally ation for all who loved her. And acted out in the most insolent yet, all was swept aside when way possible, ramping up the the reason was discovered. The decibels of rudeness until her war with her mother dissolved mother relented and sent her (for the moment), Don’s wife, to spend the weekend with her Megan, who was frantic with father. There — unannounced worry forgave all — knowing and inconvenient — she could that it’s deeply traumatic and a proceed with a surreptitious plan confusing time for girls. Indeed, to meet with a young man. in this instance it was worse, for So with this backdrop, the Sally was an abandoned child story culminated with Lane stepping into womanhood in a barricading himself in his office conflicted age amidst a crumand hanging himself, and Sally bling culture. shocked to discover her first So we have a fiercely period — leading her to quietly competitive advertising agency duck out of her rendezvous, and

The Feminine Genius

which reduces people to markets — employing manipulation on employees, clients, and the public for gain. Almost every person in the office has transgressed his own dignity through a multitude of grievous sins. Although each character draws his or her line in the sand — indicating what he or she will not do — the audience watches those lines move repeatedly as those personal ethics unravel. Indeed, that honest portrayal is the brilliance of the series — for each sin bears a consequence.

This particular episode was fascinating because, for all the buttresses and categories that were constructed to depersonalize humanity, it came down to a dead body and a young girl’s period. Each had to be given proper reverence.

For all their myriad faults, Don the father and Betty the mother came through. One laid Lane reverently on the sofa to await the coroner, the other laid the bewildered young girl to rest on her own bed. Don’s wartime experience gave him the manly courage to do his task, and — for all her faults — Betty instinctively knew that only a mother’s embrace could begin to comfort her child.

The “Mad Man” death spiral will continue — we know because we’re still enduring it all these dark decades later. But the lesson we cannot ignore is that persons have an inherent dignity, the human body deserves reverence, and those who set their own comforts aside in order to attend to that truth will brighten the gloom and illuminate that which endures.

Mrs. Kineke is the author of “The Authentic Catholic Woman” and can be found online at feminine-genius.com.

Every time you have to move, you have the opportunity to simplify your life. I have not always seized the opportunity in the past, but, out of necessity, I have done a bit more downsizing in recent years. In 2007, after 13 years in St. Bernard’s rectory, I packed up and moved from Assonet to St. Joseph’s rectory in North Dighton. Then St. Joseph’s rectory became St. Nicholas’ rectory but I stayed put for the time being. Then St. Nicholas’ rectory had to be razed, so I packed up again and headed for the former St. Peter’s rectory at the other end of the parish. Now I find myself packing to move from the former St. Peter’s rectory (now St. Nicholas’ rectory) to St. Patrick’s rectory in Falmouth. What this means is that in a period of five years I will have lived in four different rectories. Each time I moved, I simplified. Before long, all my personal belongings will fit in a suitcase — or at least in a pickup truck. By the time I reach retirement age, all I’ll need to pack my belongings is a shoebox.

This should be very convenient.

Fortunately, I am not the kind of person who grows too attached to material things. As a result, it’s not difficult for me to divest. I enjoy the things that surround me at the moment but, when the time comes, I have no hesitancy about passing them on to someone else who might enjoy them.

I once owned a 32-foot long camper trailer on a pond in Carver. I enjoyed the camping life on my days off, but as the years past I realized I was using the camper less often. I decided to get rid of it. I was standing outside the camper one day when a man walking past commented on how much he admired it.

I promptly gave it to him. He probably thought I was out of my mind but he gladly accepted the keys. I wasn’t crazy, however; I was simply detaching myself

from what I no longer needed. It felt good to be free of the camper and it felt better knowing that somebody else could now enjoy it. A Christian, especially a priest, cannot be possessed by possessions.

Before I start the actual packing, I must go through absolutely everything. The triage has begun.

First, I carefully note what belongs to the parish and what belongs to me. I am a stickler in this regard. I plan to leave some of my own things behind for my successor, if he wants them.

Then I invite some parishioners and priest-friends to take what they want from my pile of stuff.

Whatever remains, I’ll donate to the parish flea market. I want to leave the place uncluttered so that my successor can begin to make it his home.

A few days ago, I took a break from packing to visit my new home port on Falmouth Inner Harbor. I found my predecessor, Msgr. John Perry, sorting and packing in preparation for his retirement and for my pending arrival. Father Jay Mello, the parochial vicar there, is also shipping out and Father Peter Fournier moving in. There are more than 20 priests throughout the diocese who are getting ready for a transfer of assignment.

Priests young and old learn to live with it. It’s a part of our lives.

If your parish is getting a new priest, go easy on him and give him a chance to begin to feel at home and among friends.

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

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The Anchor

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

SWANSEA — It’s clear that Nancy Louro considers herself blessed.

And so, in turn, she does whatever she can to help others in need, especially as a vibrant and active member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society at her beloved St. Louis de France Parish in Swansea.

“We do a lot to help the needy people with food distribution and also getting gift cards for the supermarkets,” Louro said. “At Christmas we do giftgiving for children and provide clothing, too. Actually, we provide pretty much anything they need.”

Louro is also proud that her society — which currently has about 15 active members — has consistently provided full turkey dinners with all the fixings to more than 25 families every year at Thanksgiving as part of their ministry.

“Our St. Vincent de Paul Society is very active and we do very well,” she said. “I just feel good about it. I like the society because you can help people who are really in need.”

To that end, Louro also volunteers with her fellow Vincentians at the soup kitchen that’s held at the Church of Our Savior in Somerset, an effort she called “an eye-opening experience.”

“You have people who are down on their luck and others who have lost their jobs and need the help,” she said.

“Quite often, once they get on their

Reaching out to others

feet, they’re very willing to help oth- at St. Thomas More Parish in Somerers, which is enriching.” set,” she said. “They had been doing Another offshoot of the St. Vincent it for a few years and suggested it to de Paul Society is the parish “backpack us. We get a good amount of donations project” that Louro helped to launch. and we very rarely have to pick up sup“We started the backpack project plies on our own. I usually wait to see about four years ago,” she said. “We how many backpacks we get at first, collect school supplies and put them and then we try to get enough supplies into backpacks through the month of — paper, pens, pencils, notebooks and August, to get binders — to fill ready for school them. We do very opening. We then well with it and give them out to people have been our own clients very generous.” and whatever is Louro grew left, I give to the up as a member school princiof St. Louis de pal at one of the France Parish, alSwansea schools though she did atand they are distend St. Patrick’s tributed to needy Parish closer to children there.” her home in SomLouro said erset for a while they also colafter she married laborate with the her husband Fred. neighboring St. “At the time Dominic’s and St. Louis de St. Francis of AsFrance Parish was sisi parishes in strictly French, the program and my husband is they generally Portuguese and give out 45 to St. Patrick’s was 50 fully-stocked English, so we backpacks every went there,” Louschool year.

Anchor Person of the week ro said. “As my “I got involved — Nancy Louro. (Photo by Kenneth J. children got oldthrough a woman Souza) er, they became involved with Scouts and other youth activities back at St. Louis de France — I think at the time Father Louis Boivin was pastor there — so I asked him if we could come back to the parish.”

Noting that the general rule back then was residents in the north end of Somerset went to St. Patrick’s Parish, Louro said she felt a desire to return to her childhood parish.

“We went back to St. Louis de France Parish and have been there ever since,” she said. “We’ve been married for 52 years, so we’ve been there for quite a while.”

Her affection for her parish has only grown over the years, and she’s been involved in myriad activities and organizations, including being a weekly greeter at Masses, serving as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, and even pitching in to help decorate the church for holy days like Christmas and Easter.

June 15, 2012

“My husband and I are also part of Operation Budget that assists counting the budget envelopes every five or six weeks after Masses,” she said. “I try to help wherever I can. I’m also helping to plan Father Gendreau’s retirement party now. I like to keep busy.”

Her current pastor, Father Richard Gendreau, can certainly attest to that.

“Nancy is a person that whatever comes up, she’s there for us,” he said.

“She really does a wonderful job with people. She’s not one to look for applause — she does it because it’s a good thing to do. She’s always reaching out to people and she lives her life as an example to others.”

“I’m not in it for the glory, I just enjoy being involved in my parish,” Louro agreed. “Father Gendreau has played a big part in that — he’s a terrific priest and a terrific person and I think he’s helped me to want to stay involved with the parish.”

Louro cites her own parents — especially her mother — for endowing her with her rich faith.

“My parents were faithful churchgoers and my mother was very Churchoriented,” she said. “In fact, my grandparents helped build St. Louis de France Church. I guess that’s probably where I get it from; my mother would go around and help everybody. She used to work for the nuns at the Dominican Novitiate in Dighton and she used to volunteer at Saint Anne’s Hospital. She was very active, so I think that rubbed off on me growing up.”

Despite having retired nearly a decade ago from Charlton Memorial Hospital, where she worked in the lab office for 23 years, Louro said she and her husband are probably busier now in their retirement years than they were when working full-time.

“I always tell my husband, ‘I’ve signed up for this, but you can help,’” she said, laughing. “He sometimes serves as our chauffeur.”

And Louro highly recommends getting involved with a parish activity.

“I would say it’s worth giving something a try, even if it’s not a big endeavor,” she said. “When you get involved, you also meet the nicest people and you talk to them and they invite you to other groups and events.

It’s always a good thing.”

To submit a Person of the Week nominee, send an email with information to fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.org.

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June 15, 2012

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June 15, 2012

The Anchor

‘The Miracle Worker’ still powerful 50 years later

NEW YORK (CNS) — This year a number of significant Hollywood movies reach their 50th anniversary milestone, not the least of which is “The Miracle Worker.” It recounts the true story of disabilities pioneer Helen Keller.

Though left deaf and blind by an illness she suffered in infancy, at age seven Keller learned to communicate through the devoted work of her teacher, Annie Sullivan.

With a screenplay by William Gibson, who wrote the hit Broadway play of 1959, and directed by Arthur Penn, who also helmed the stage version, “The Miracle Worker” was filmed in what’s sometimes called “glorious black and white.” It has been available on DVD since 2001, but without the kind of added features that would enhance perspective and enlighten viewers unfamiliar with Keller’s life.

The drama’s original impact, nonetheless, is still fresh.

Born in 1880 and an inspirational speaker from her 20s, Keller was an advocate for unions and spoke against the use of child labor. But she also was a member of the Socialist Party who supported birth control.

Nor did she adhere to any mainstream Christian denomination. Instead, she was a follower of the 18th-century Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, who taught, among other things, that the second coming of Christ took place in 1757. In 1927, Keller even published a book about her faith, “My Religion.” Her beliefs might best be described as eclectic.

Keller’s left-of-center views were far less prominent in the years following World War II, when the influx of blinded veterans made her a beloved spokeswoman for the physically challenged.

Gibson’s long-running play, which began as a live TV presentation in 1957, dramatized a single epoch in Keller’s long

chronology, focusing on the changes that came about once Sullivan, a graduate of the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, arrived at Keller’s home in Alabama.

Keller had been left sightless and deprived of her hearing by an ailment that may have been either meningitis or scarlet fever — both treatable by antibiotics decades later. The film doesn’t flinch from the horror of this.

By 1962, polio, with its chilling imagery of iron lungs, was on its way to being eradicated in the United States. But the new terror was thalidomide, a drug prescribed briefly for morning sickness, which created deformed limbs in the unborn.

Keller never has been played by a seven-year-old actress. In “The Miracle Worker,” she’s portrayed by Patty Duke, who was 15 at the time of filming, and had played Keller to great acclaim on Broadway, along with Anne Bancroft as Sullivan.

(Like Duke, Bancroft reprised her role for the movie.)

The physical struggles between the two are spellbinding. Keller, imprisoned by her afflictions and with her family unable to handle her outbursts, was essentially feral, and faced the possibility of being sent to an asylum for “mental defectives.”

Teaching always has conveyed particularly well on film.

Sullivan, in the manner of all great instructors, pushes ahead with both Helen and her compassionate, if confused, family.

Her famous line (often misquoted) is, “It’s my idea of original sin — giving up!”

The climactic moment in which Keller finally makes the connection to language through the impact of water flowing from a pump is today commemorated by a statue in Keller’s hometown of Tuscumbia, Ala. Keller received the National Medal of Freedom in 1964 and her funeral in 1968 was held at the National Cathedral in Washington.

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

feline friends — Vitaly the tiger, voiced by Bryan Cranston, and Alex the lion, voiced by Ben Stiller, are seen in the animated movie “Madagascar 3.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/DreamWorks)

CNS Movie Capsules NEW YORK (CNS) — The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed

by Catholic News Service.

“Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” (DreamWorks) Fast-moving, intensely silly 3-D adventure picks up where the last film in the Madagascar franchise left off, with Alex the lion (voice of Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (voice of Chris Rock), and pals Melman the giraffe and Gloria the hippo trying to return to New York City by refurbishing a European circus. Co-directors Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath and Conrad Vernon, with a script cowritten by Darnell and Noah Baumbach, fill their story with a rich vein of European circus lore, combined with an uplifting message about believing in one’s special abilities. Intense action sequences. The Catholic News Service classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested.

Some material may not be suitable for children.

“Prometheus” (Fox) In this prequel to 1979’s “Alien,” two scientists (Noomi Rapace and Logan MarshallGreen) travel to a desolate planet in 2093 seeking evidence to prove their theory about the origins of mankind. The mission is supervised by a soulless corporate executive (Charlize Theron) and the human crew is aided by an efficient android

(Michael Fassbender), part Mr. Spock and part Lawrence of Arabia. A heretical answer to mankind’s biggest question emerges, along with death and destruction courtesy of creatures dubbed “engineers” and reptilian parasites familiar from earlier “Alien” movies.

Returning to the franchise he spawned, director Ridley Scott offers a grandiose mash-up of perennial sci-fi themes. The visual spectacle is first-rate, but the muddled script is too profound by half. Its rejection of a fundamental tenet of theism, namely, that God created mankind — combined with violence and offensive lan-

guage — renders the movie extremely problematic from a faith perspective. Considerable grisly sci-fi violence, several instances of rough language, much crude and crass language, significant profanity, some sexual references and innuendo, nonexplicit relations between an unmarried man and woman, one use of marijuana, and some alcohol consumption. The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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

Celebrant is Father Richard E. Degagne, Pastor of St. John Neumann Parish in East Freetown

June 15, 2012

I

t’s not hard being a dad.

On the other hand, it’s a real tough job being a father. For those who aren’t totally confused by now and have moved on to another article in this edition, allow me to explain. (I can’t count the times I’ve penned that phrase in my columns over the last 10plus years.)

To me a father is a man whose primary responsibility is the spiritual, physical and emotional well-being of his family.

It can entail holding a job you hate because it provides food on the table and medical insurance to make sure when someone is broken, they get fixed.

It can entail staying up all night with one of your sick puppies, so that a frazzled mom can get a few hours of needed rest.

It entails a great deal of worry through the years. Worries like having a decent roof to put over your family’s heads; can you keep the contents under that roof

13

The Anchor

It’s easy being a dad

warm and safe and fed; are your father, I must say, it’s one of the kiddies doing well in school, most difficult jobs in the world, and are they being properly second only to being a mother. treated with respect by peers It’s difficult to be a father ... a and teachers; do they have good friends; are they exposed to drugs and alcohol and can they resist the peer pressure to experiment; are they healthy in mind, body and soul; are they ready

By Dave Jolivet to drive a car; is college going to be affordable; and perhaps the most gut-wrenching of all worries, do good father. your pups still need you?

But that’s not how this colIt entails a great deal of umn started, is it? It started with sacrifice, sweat, and anxieties.

“It’s not hard being a dad.”

It entails being a meanie when a To me, being a dad is the fun meanie is needed. It entails bepart of the job. I can’t even say ing angry, when anger is ineviit’s a job. Being a dad is way too table. It entails teaching. That’s much fun to be a job. a 24/7 task. It entails sharing I was there for the birth of all the pain of your children, the four of my pups, and from the disappointments, the failures, first to the last, those are four of the fears, the tears. the greatest moments of my life.

Knowing only about being a Maybe not for Denise, so I’ll

My View From the Stands

add here that marrying my best friend nearly 34 years ago was the greatest moment of my life.

I was a dad right from the start, even though I didn’t know how to be.

It all came naturally, I think in large part, because I still have the heart of a child myself.

Being a dad is having an infant son or daughter pulling at your nose during Mass, and having her or him fall asleep on your shoulder. Being a dad is watching your pup’s eyes light up when you walk into a room.

Being a dad is snuggling with the kiddies on the couch watching cartoons.

Being a dad is piling your pod of kiddies on your back for a horsey ride to bed, then tucking them in and reading them a story ... the same story, night after night after night.

Being a dad is the charge you get when your pups are older and they realize you strategically omitted two chapters of that book night after night after night.

Being a dad is when your small child asks why we eat some eggs and baby chicks hatch from others, and you say that’s because they’re different types of eggs. Then you forget

you said that, and she finds out later on from her teacher that’s not the case, and she comes home and slugs you. Or when you tell her that your favorite rock group is Joe Elastic and His Rubber Band, and the same scenario plays out.

Being a dad is praying the Rosary as a family, and being one of those on the end of the “behave yourself” look from mom.

Being a dad is when your home is the place your kids’ friends feel comfortable in, and when some of them end up calling you mom and dad as well.

Being a dad is sharing in the elation of your children, their victories, achievements, joys, and laughter.

Being a dad is getting hug from a teen-ager, who is not ashamed of you being her dad.

Being a dad is when your children consider you one of their best friends.

Being a dad is when you realize that no matter how old your children are, they do still need you.

Being a dad is love. Being a dad is easy.

I wouldn’t trade being a father or a dad for anything in the world. Sunday may be Father’s Day, but to me, every day is Dad’s Day.

CATHOLIC WEBSITE www.pamphletstoinspire.com

one step closer — These 15 candidates for the permanent diaconate were installed as acolytes at a Mass at St. Mary’s Church in New Bedford on June 6. The men have one more year of academic and pastoral formation before they can be ordained as permanent deacons. Bishop George W. Coleman, front, fourth from left, celebrated the Mass and was assisted by Msgr. John J. Oliveira, director of the diocesan Permanent Deacon Program, front, third from right.

Fifteen permanent diaconate candidates installed as acolytes

NEW BEDFORD — Fifteen candidates who are studying for the Fall River Permanent Diaconate were installed as acolytes at a Mass celebrated by Bishop George W. Coleman on June 6 at St. Mary’s Church in New Bedford.

Assisting the bishop was Msgr.

John J. Oliveira, director of the diocesan Permanent Deacon Program and pastor of St. Mary’s.

Deacon Frank Fantasia and Deacon Arthur LaChance, assistant directors for Candidate Formation, served as deacons for the Mass.

Several priests joined the pastors of the candidates at the Mass, as well as families of the candidates and deacons from the

diocese and their wives.

The ministry of acolyte is the second of two ministries that candidates must receive and exercise as part of their preparation for ordination as a permanent deacon.

These candidates comprise the eighth class for permanent deacons in the diocese and have been in the formation program for three years. They will continue in one more year of academic and pastoral formation before ordination to the permanent diaconate.

The candidates are: Bruce J. Baxter, Corpus Christi, East Sandwich; Eduardo M. Borges, St. Anthony of Padua, New

Bedford; Brendan W. Brides, Christ the King, Mashpee; Robert M. Craig, Holy Family, East Taunton; Timothy E. Flaherty, St. Stanislaus, Fall River; Ralph J. Guerra, St. Margaret’s, Buzzards Bay; Paul J. Harney, Christ the King, Mashpee; Gary M. John, Holy Trinity, Fall River; Paul R. Levesque, St. Bernard, Assonet; Frank M. Lucca, St. Dominic, Swansea; Thomas J. McMahon, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, Seekonk; David C. Murphy, St. Patrick, Wareham; Gary A. Porter, St. John the Evangelist, Attleboro; Lawrence D. St. Pierre, St. Joseph’s, Attleboro; and Wilfred “Rick” Varieur, St. Theresa, South Attleboro.

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The Anchor

Area parishes join fight for religious freedom continued from page one

need to defend ourselves, to get out in the streets; he stated emphatically that the Fall River Diocese will not obey this unjust law.

People stood up and cheered.”

She added, “We taped it and it will be shown on every cable station on the Cape for a whole month, at least once or twice a week. We’ll be showing the video in our parish at least twice in that two-week period for parishioners who missed it and want to hear what he said.”

On June 21, from 6-8 p.m., St. Anthony of Padua Parish will host a eucharistic holy hour, with prayers and meditations on the lessons to be learned form the saints of the Fortnight, and Father Landry will again offer up his talk on the threats to religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

At St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet, Father Michael Racine is getting ready to galvanize his flock into action. St. Bernard’s will be getting a jump on the official time line of Fortnight for Freedom (June 21-July 4) by gathering families under the parish’s flagpole on June 14 at 6:30 p.m.

“We felt that Flag Day was a good time to start since [the Fortnight] ends on July 4,” said Carol Levesque, parishioner at St. Bernard’s Parish.

“The Boy Scouts will be part of the flag-raising ceremony while the Knights of Columbus will be the honor guard for the ceremony,” said Father Racine, adding the two groups’ participation “expresses the sense of freedom and what the flag stands for.

It reminds us that our freedom is really at stake, so I thought it would be nice to open up with a flag ceremony.”

The group will then launch into the Patriotic Rosary.

“The Rosary is perfect for this occasion. There have been so many instances in past Church

history where the tide has been turned because of people turning to prayer,” said Levesque. “It’s nice to do it at the flag because it’s a witness; we’ll be in the front and it will certainly arouse curiosity about what we’re doing.”

Father Racine concurred, saying, “Doing it outdoors shows how we can gather as a parish community, not behind the closed doors but to show we have the freedom of religion. It will be a nice visual.

It’s not to show off but to show support for who we are.”

Already active in the Fall River diocesan Pro-Life Apostolate, Levesque and fellow parishioner Jane Wilcox have been keeping up-to-date on the latest postings on the USCCB website, and when Fortnight for Freedom was announced, the women immediately sought out Father Racine to sit and brainstorm ideas on how St. Bernard’s could participate.

The country needs healing more than ever, said Wilcox; prayer and religion, a refuge that once offered healing, is being attacked by a “political correctness that had gone to such an extreme, it’s stamping out religious beliefs,” she said.

“I think it’s important everywhere,” said Wilcox. “The situation is, to me, very sad that kids are not learning these things today. We’re up against even just trying to keep the ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ in the schools and trying to keep ‘under God’ in it; that [shows] the pathetic state of affairs in our country right now. It’s very sad. That’s our heritage. It’s up to us as parents and Church communities, and whoever, to try and instill that in kids.”

St. Bernard’s is planning four gatherings of reciting the Patriotic Rosary. Along with the Flag Day assembly, three additional assemblies will take place on June 20 and 25, and July 1. The

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two women continue to brainstorm ideas to further drive home the message behind the Fortnight for Freedom.

“I read something and I thought it would be a very simple thing on the diocesan level to do,” said Levesque. “I forget what diocese I read was doing this, but they have every church in their diocese at noon on the Fourth of July ringing their bells. I think if we can get the word out, it would be another public thing we can do. It would show the unity, how we’re sticking together on this.”

She spoke of how another parish was doing a spiritual bouquet; “They were creating a huge card and leaving it in the church for people sign what they personally will do,” during the Fortnight.

Some of the suggestions people could sign up to commit to were “Will they give up meat on Fridays? Will they pray the Rosary so many nights a week?” said Levesque. “We could give them ideas on what to do, and it can encourage them to do something personally, not just as a community.”

If parishioners aren’t fully aware of the threat, all someone has to do is look at what happened at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet, said Levesque.

“That was just a simple message” proclaiming that those with same-sex attraction are called to the love of friendship, not to marriage, said Levesque. “It was on their own property. They were stating something that was Church teaching, and it was a fire storm that came out of it. We should be free to be able to do that; it’s on our own property. If I drove by a Protestant church and saw something on [their sign] that I did not believe, I would not be offended by it. I think they have a right to say it.”

“It’s not bigotry to say what you believe,” added Wilcox.

Stebbins said that often people don’t make the connection between how an issue of contraception can interfere with a person’s freedom of religion. If Catholicism is made to conform to a government’s laws instead of its own Creed, then the freedom of religion becomes a slippery slope.

It’s a subject that Don Feder, former president of Jews in Defense of Christians, touched on during a recent speech, said Stebbins. “‘We must defend Christianity. If Catholicism goes down, every other religion will fall right after it,’” she said, paraphrasing Feder’s words, and then she added her own words to back up Feder’s assertion. “We are the bulwarks between all religions being defunct. We are the one rock keeping the tide of secularism from sweeping us all away.”

June 15, 2012

Love, patience led promoter of Kateri’s sainthood cause for 55 years

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Although separated from her by three centuries, an ocean and major cultural differences, Jesuit Father Paolo Molinari absolutely loves Kateri Tekakwitha, the Native American who will become a saint in October.

While the 88-year-old Italian Jesuit was forced to give his successor most of the sainthood causes he still was actively promoting when he turned 80, “thank God, they let me keep Kateri.”

Father Molinari, one of the Church’s most prolific postulators — as the official promoters of causes are called — inherited Kateri’s cause from his Jesuit predecessor in 1957.

He shepherded her cause to beatification in 1980 and is now in talks with the pope’s master of liturgical ceremonies to ensure Kateri’s Native American brothers and sisters will have a prominent role during her canonization Mass October 21 at the Vatican.

Father Molinari hopes that one of the readings at the canonization Mass will be in Iroquoian, the language of the Mohawks. And Native American choirs should be able to share their sacred music at the Liturgy.

“I love her,” the Jesuit said.

“She’s a lovely young lady indeed,” said the Jesuit, his eyes sparkling.

Interviewed June 8 in his book-packed room in the Jesuit infirmary, Father Molinari said his admiration for Kateri, combined with the complex Vatican process for declaring saints and the fact that she died some 330 years ago, gave him 55 years to practice the virtue of patience.

But unlike many of the socalled “ancient causes” that are surrounded by pious legends, but lacking hard evidence, Kateri’s cause was supported by plenty of eyewitness accounts of her life, faith, good works and death.

The Jesuit missionaries who baptized her in 1676 and provided her with spiritual guidance until her death in 1680 at the age of 24 wrote formal annual reports about their missions to the Jesuit superior general. Kateri, known as the “Lily of the Mohawks,” is mentioned in many of the reports, which still exist in the Jesuit archives, he said.

Father Molinari also had access to the Jesuits’ letters that spoke about Kateri in glowing terms and biographies of Kateri written by two of the Jesuits who knew her at the Mission of St. Francis Xavier in what is now Kahnawake, Quebec: Fathers Pierre Cholenec, her spiritual director, and Claude Chauchetiere,

who also did an oil painting of Kateri shortly after her death.

Kateri was born to a Catholic Algonquin mother and a Mohawk father in 1656 along the Hudson River in what is today upstate New York.

After her Baptism, Father Molinari said, “she kept living the life of a normal Indian. She continued to be an Indian young lady, and yet she did it with the spirit of the Gospel: showing goodness and tenderness to people who were in need.”

She suffered from light sensitivity after contracting smallpox, so would spend much of her time inside. She prayed and made garments out of hides for those who were unable to make their own, he said.

Father Molinari said that although the cause was challenging at times, he kept working for Kateri’s canonization because of her importance to the native peoples of North America.

Kateri is a model who can “help those who are Christian live the Gospel in their own culture.”

The Catholic Church, he said, “is the first organization that has acknowledged the richness of one of their own people. The U.S. and Canadian governments have never done anything like that.”

Once Kateri was beatified, Father Molinari’s efforts turned to helping more people learn her story, encouraging people to trust that she could intercede with God to help them and finding an extraordinary grace that could be recognized officially as a miracle granted by God through her intercession.

The Jesuit said that in the sainthood process, miracles are “the confirmation by God of a judgment made by human beings” that the candidate really is in Heaven.

In Kateri’s case, the recognized miracle was the healing of fiveyear-old Jake Finkbonner from a rare and potentially fatal flesheating bacteria called necrotizing fasciitis. The boy and his family, whom Father Molinari hopes to meet at the Vatican in October, are members of St. Joseph Parish in Ferndale, Wash., in the Seattle Archdiocese.

“Kateri lived 300 years ago and yet she is widely remembered with love and admiration to the point that people believe she is certainly with God because of the way in which, as an Indian woman, she opened herself to the grace of God, became a Christian and lived as a Christian,” he said.

People are convinced that God listens to her and that “she always listens to those in need, just as she did in life,” he said.

June 15, 2012

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff FALL RIVER — As we prepare to honor dads everywhere this weekend on Father’s Day, members of the fraternal Knights of Columbus have taken the initiative to promote fatherhood via the website, Fathers for Good (www.fathersforgood.org).

The informative and educational website is aimed at seasoned dads, new dads, dads to be, and even single men wanting to know more about the virtues of fatherhood.

“There is a role only a father can fill and gifts only a father can give,” according to the website’s mission statement. “In a culture that often does not favor fatherhood or masculine virtue, we wish to highlight the unique contributions of men, husbands and fathers. The world would be lacking without them.”

According to Brian Caulfield, communications specialist with the Knights of Columbus and editor of Fathers for Good, the KOC launched the website in 2008 to provide formation and information for men to live out more fully their vocation to faithful fatherhood.

“Serving as editor of this website has helped me develop a network of Catholic men who share ideas, insights and resources in becoming better husbands to their wives and better fathers to their children,” Caulfield told The Anchor. “In sharing and in researching the many topics that we cover on the web, I have learned much

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The Anchor

Knights of Columbus support and sustain fatherhood via website initiative

that helps me personally live my vocation better.”

A 10-year veteran of the Knights of Columbus, Caulfield said he was initially drawn to the organization because of its fraternal and charitable focus, which he said is rare in today’s world.

“It’s a group that gives men the opportunity to share a Catholic fraternity and engage in charitable works for Church and community, within a Catholic context,” he said.

Since the majority of the Knights of Columbus’ membership is comprised of men who are fathers, it made sense

that the organization would want to provide an outlet to support and sustain this important vocation.

“At Fathers for Good, we emphasize the need for a man to be a strong and loving father figure in his family, caring and attentive to his wife, and involved in the lives of his children,” Caulfield said. “We live in a world in which fathers too often are separated from family life — either through divorce, lack of commitment, or demands of professional life — yet all of the best social science studies show that children who do not grow up with

a father involved have much higher negative outcomes in terms of school, drugs, sexual promiscuity and other like behaviors.

“Men need very much to work with their wives to form strong and lasting marriages, for their own good and for the good of their children.”

To that end, the Fathers for Good website offers pertinent news and updates for Catholic fathers, movie reviews, suggested links to other Catholic and Church-related websites, and profiles of select “Courageous Dads” who can be sources of inspiration. There

Screen shot of the Fathers For Good website at www.fathersforgood.org.

This week in

are also articles penned by husband-and-wife teams and a comprehensive listing of suggested reading material.

Caulfield said the website’s mission is very much in keeping with the fraternal sharing that is a hallmark of the Knights of Columbus.

“It is always good for men to experience fraternal charity with other men who share their vision and goals,” he said. “It confirms us in the faith and in our hard work each day to live the faith and bring that faith to bear on how we approach the problems and challenges of our vocation.”

The father of two boys, ages 11 and seven, Caulfield said his own faith was instrumental in helping him deal with the challenging birth of his first son, who was born seven weeks premature.

“The first time I saw that beautiful little face lying in the incubator, I knew the great joy that God was sharing with me, and the great responsibility,” he said. “It struck me that this was for keeps — there would never be a moment for the rest of my life when I would not want to know how my son was doing, where he was going, and what I could do to help. I held him in my arms that day and walked around the neonatal unit praying softly in his ear.

It was the start of a new life for me too, a life given for the good of another.”

For more information about Fathers for Good or the Knights of Columbus, visit www. fathersforgood.org.

Diocesan history

10 years ago — A life-sized statue of Blessed Mother Teresa holding a small child was dedicated on the grounds of St. Mary’s Church in South Dartmouth by Bishop Sean P. O’Malley, OFM Cap. The statue was realized through the joint fund-raising effort of the Knights of Columbus Bishop Stang Council No. 4532 of Dartmouth and 25 years ago — As the Marian Year be- St. Mary’s parishioners. gan, Bishop Daniel A. Cronin broke ground One year ago — Bishop George W. Coleman for the new St. Mary’s Church in New Bedannounced that Michael S. Griffin, Ph.D., prinford alongside Father John F. Moore, pastor. cipal of Holyoke Catholic High School in ChiFather Moore also joined students along with copee, Mass., would become the new diocesan superintendent of diocesan elementary schools superintendent of schools, succeeding George A. to break ground on the new St. Mary’s School Milot, Ph.D., who retired at the end of the school that same week. year.

50 years ago — Mother General Therese des Anges, OP, of the Dominican Sisters of Charity announced at Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River that contracts for the new Novitiate House in Dighton had been awarded. Construction was set to begin within the year.

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Youth Pages

doctor’s orders — St. Mary-Sacred Heart School’s Drama Club recently put on Dr. Seuss’s “Seussical the Musical.” The North Attleboro school’s drama club is made up of students in grades five through eight, and is directed by Susan O’Korn and Kerry Murphy.

Each year the directors choose a play to perform and the students meet regularly throughout the school year to practice the performances. Here the cast is singing “Oh the Thinks You Can Think.”

with strings attached — Students from the St. James-St. John School Orchestra program recently performed for the students at the New Bedford school.

busy as bees — Kindergarten students at Holy Family-Holy Name School in New Bedford recently took part in a Religion Bee. All the participants were awarded a trophy and ribbon.

June 15, 2012

life is a cabaret — St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro recently put on its sixth annual Cabaret production. This year’s working, economical and occupational theme provoked music derived from musicals such as “Annie,” “Newsies,” and other popular songs such as “9 to 5,” “Whistle While You Work,” and “Manic Monday.” There were 24 performances which included 85 students, 15 parents, 14 teachers, one alumni and one grandparent. Director Sue Fortin, music teacher at St. John’s, was assisted by Alden Harrison of Bishop Feehan High School and Kathy Harum. Pictured is Kate Blazejewski as Annie along with the cast of orphans.

in that case — Two seventh-grade students at Holy Name School in Fall River presented pastor Father Jay Maddock with a Futsal trophy and plaque that will be placed in the new trophy case which can be seen in the background. Students from Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School in Fall River designed and made the trophy case for the school.

exceptional efforts — St. Joseph School, Fairhaven, Principal Julie Vareika, right, was recently awarded Exceptional Instructional Leader and Kindergarten Teacher. Suzanne Brzezinski was awarded Exceptional Educator by the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care.

Youth Pages

June 15, 2012

O

ver the last several months, information has swirled around as to rumors that there would be an “unprecedented number of changes this year” among pastors and priests in our diocese.

Discussions about these changes seemed to be a part of most conversations where two or more folks involved in the Church gathered together. “I heard. Did you hear?”

Rumors swirled as each of us tried to be the first to “predict” where each priest was going as if we gained indulgences for every correct answer. The funny thing is that none of what was discussed was based on any facts whatsoever. The whole process seemed to take on a life of its own. It was like trying to predict the winners of the Academy Awards. It is a natural human reaction to try to gain information when it may affect our parish or us personally.

Father Tim Goldrick, in his May 25 Anchor article, gave us great insight into the process associated with the transfers and its a process. However, it’s more than that. As I’ve read blogs and heard others comment and having spoken to some priest friends, I’ve come to understand that while this is a process, it also involves human beings with human needs and human emotions and feel-

17

Our response to priests’ transfers

ings. Did we even think about blogger wrote, even realize that that once over the last several “somebody’s life is at the center months of prediction season? I of this conversation?” confess I didn’t.

During this process did we Most of the time we, as ever think that, as Gannon conparishioners, look at the process of transfers in perhaps a selfish, personal way. How will this change affect me?

Who are we going to get? Oh no, not him!

By Frank Lucca He’s too orthodox or non-orthodox or old or young. I heard that his last parish didn’t like him! Be tinued in her blog, “a priest’s truthful now. Haven’t you said new ‘assignment’ does not or heard these comments if your only involve his work; the new parish was expecting a change ‘assignment’ encompasses a in pastor? priest’s entire way of being and During this process did we consumes the majority of his once think of those priests that time, efforts and abilities.” are retiring? They have given I have been fortunate to have so much service to us over the a number of priests as close many years of their ministry. friends. They and others are We need to thank God and them dedicated, self-giving, holy men for their service. We also need of God that give untiringly of to work for and pray for vocathemselves to their parish comtions — especially when we see munities. They are there when five retirements and only one we need them. How often are ordination this year. You don’t we there when they need us? have to be a math genius to see What must it feel like to the near future. leave your parish family every During this process did we “x” number of years to go to think of those who will be mov- a new place where you most ing from parishes and people likely don’t know many of the that they have come to know people and you need to overas family and friends? When come their trepidation about we were circulating names and “the new guy?” It must take assignments did we, as Demonths before you can even nise Morency Gannon, a local begin to feel at home again.

Be Not Afraid

So, if your pastor is leaving, take the time to pray for him and to thank him. Write a note to let him know what he has meant to you or better yet, tell him in person. Remember, he is a human being with mixed emotions about leaving and what he faces in the near future.

If you are getting a new pastor, take the time to pray for him and to welcome him. Most importantly let him know you are prepared to help him in any way and to work with him. So many times, we parishioners in various positions within the parish, try to “protect our territory” when a new pastor arrives.

We get defensive and we put up walls. Instead let’s try to work with the new pastor to develop a new vision for the future of the parish — together.

To all who are being transferred, thank you for your priestly service to God’s people.

I pray that your transition be smooth and your new assignment be full of peace, happiness and joy. Pax et Bonum!

Frank Lucca is a youth minister at St. Dominic’s Parish in Swansea, and is chairman and a director of the YES! Retreat and the director of the Christian Leadership Institute. He is a husband and a father of two daughters. He may be reached at stdominicyouthministry@ comcast.net.

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

Bishop Feehan High School announces new principal ATTLEBORO — Dr. George Milot has been appointed as the ninth principal at Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro.

Milot’s appointment was approved by Bishop George W. Coleman and announced by diocesan Superintendent of Schools Dr. Michael Griffin at a gathering of faculty and staff in the Bishop Feehan chapel on June 5.

Well-known throughout the diocese, Milot served as principal of Bishop Feehan from 1994-2001, and as diocesan

Dr. George A. Milot

superintendent of schools from 2001-2011. Milot has committed to serve as principal for a one-year period. Bishop Feehan President Chris Servant said, “Dr. Milot’s extensive knowledge of the school, his deep commitment to Catholic education and his broad experience as an educator will provide Bishop Feehan with timely leadership and will allow the school the flexibility to undertake an in-depth search over the course of the next school year to fill the principal position for the long term.”

Milot and his wife Sue are Taunton natives. He is a graduate of Coyle High School in Taunton, Stonehill College in North Easton and holds several advanced degrees including a Ph.D in educational leadership from Seton Hall University.

Presently, Milot is working as a consultant for the University of Notre Dame Alliance for Catholic Education program.

He will formally assume his duties on July 1.

‘paws’ing for a photo — Our Lady of Lourdes School in Taunton kicked-off its annual Scholastic book fair with a visit from Pawtucket Red Sox Mascot, Paws! He checked out the books for sale and posed for pictures with the students.

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The Anchor

June 15, 2012

House fails to move abortion ban forward Brothers of Christian Instruction to leave lasting legacy continued from page one

Lynch for being the only 1 of the Commonwealth’s 10 U.S. House members to vote in favor of the measure.

Rep. James McGovern, who represents the third district and voted against the bill, told The Anchor in a statement that while gender bias abortion is a “legitimate concern,” the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act is the wrong way to address the problem.

The bill violates doctor-patient confidentiality and does nothing to address the underlying cultural norms that drive sexselective abortion, he said.

“To get at the root of the problem, we should support education and outreach efforts by groups within these communities to change cultural norms of sexism and gender bias,” he added.

President Barack Obama and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America also opposed the bill. Obama said he opposed gender discrimination but said government should not “intrude in” the “personal and private decision” to have an abortion.

Planned Parenthood sent a message to House members two days before the vote, saying that the bill is “against women’s health.”

Although in a statement Planned Parenthood condemned sex-selective abortions, the organization was recently caught facilitating the practice. In a series of videos produced by Live Action, employees of the organi-

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zation coached women on what they would need to do in order to get an abortion based on their child’s gender.

In the first video, shot in Austin, Texas, the employee told the woman that gender cannot be determined until five months gestation and abortions can only be obtained up to 23 weeks. She advised the woman to act quickly upon discovering the child would be a girl.

Two subsequent videos showed the same scenario playing out at a Planned Parenthood in New York and two clinics in Arizona.

The employee in New York says in the video, “Here at Planned Parenthood, we believe that it’s not up to us to decide what is a good or bad reason [to have an abortion].”

In a previous video series, Live Action has also caught Planned Parenthood employees aiding in the statutory rape and sex trafficking of minor girls.

A recent poll showed that opponents of the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act are in the minority. The Lozier Institute found that 77 percent of Americans support laws prohibiting abortion when “the fact that the developing baby is a girl is the sole reason for seeking an abortion.”

Sex-selective abortions are already illegal in some Asian countries as well as in Canada and the United Kingdom. State bans exist in Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

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continued from page one

home to the Brothers of Christian Instruction for more than 80 years, Brother Roger reflected with his fellow order members — Brother Daniel Caron, FIC, and Brother Walter Zwierchowski, FIC — on their lasting legacy of service and education.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, they both have jobs waiting for them. I’ll walk the fields, I guess,” Brother Roger said with a smile.

Even though he officially retired in 1995, Brother Roger’s obvious pride in and affection for Bishop Connolly High School has continued to this day and he admits he still enjoys going to the school everyday to “do little things here and there.”

While Brother Roger’s house mates have been actively teaching at the school — Brother Daniel specializing in chemistry and biology, Brother Walter in religion — changes within the ranks of the Brothers of Christian Instruction and a shortage of vocations has precipitated the need for them to be transferred to Maine.

“We’re going to continue working in Maine, but not in education,” Brother Walter said.

“The Brothers there are getting older and there are jobs that need to be filled. We need to regroup and we’ve been called up there.

There are about 12 Brothers working there now.”

“We’ll be assuming new duties at our provincial house,” Brother Daniel added. “I’m going to become the provincial treasurer for the order and Brother Walter will be working at the retreat house that we have on the campus in Maine.”

As such, the last of the Brothers of Christian Instruction will vacate the residence that was built for them by the parishioners of Notre Dame Parish and once housed as many as 16 religious men.

The mission for the Brothers of Christian Instruction began in the Fall River Diocese back in 1927 when Msgr. Prevost High School was still a grade school for boys.

“The Jesus and Mary Sisters didn’t want to teach the older boys, so the pastor heard about our order and made an appeal to the Brothers of Christian Instruction in Canada, and we came down (to Fall River) in the fall of 1927,” Brother Daniel said. “The order originated in France in 1819 — we’re almost 200 years old. The order came to Canada in 1886 and then we came to the United States in 1903. The first American house was in Plattsburgh, N.Y. I think Fall River was the second.”

With the eventual closing of Msgr. Prevost and shortly af-

ter founding his namesake high school for boys in 1966 — which was predominantly staffed by the Jesuits — Bishop James L. Connolly invited the Brothers of Christian Instruction to join their ranks in the fall of 1969.

Brother Daniel noted in those fledgling Connolly years there were 21 Jesuits and nine Brothers staffing the school, with just two laymen teachers.

“There have been a number of places throughout the world where the Brothers have been associated with the Jesuits,” he said. “Even when we came to Canada, it was the Jesuits who welcomed us and we lived with them for a while until we established ourselves. We were even known as ‘little Jesuits’ — that was our nickname in France.”

Given their mutual mission to educate, it’s not surprising that the Jesuits and Brothers have always been closely affiliated.

Brother Roger remembers first considering his own vocation when a sixth-grade teacher he admired, who himself was a Brother, suggested it might be something he’d enjoy.

“I was erasing a blackboard and he asked me: ‘Wouldn’t you like to be a Brother?’” he said.

“So I went to Alfred, Maine in 1938 and decided to enter the order.”

Seven years later, Brother Roger was sent to teach at Msgr.

Prevost High School and he has lived and worked in Fall River ever since.

“I’ve been a Brother for so many years,” he said. “I joined Bishop Connolly High School in its second year — but it was the first year in the new building. The Brothers of Christian Instruction … are now the last religious order to teach there.”

Similarly, Brother Daniel said he was inspired to join the Brothers of Christian Instruction by the order members who taught him in grade school.

“I liked and admired them, so I thought I would like that life,” he said. “I entered formation and then I stayed — it’s been more than 50 years now.”

This final school year will mark 34 years that Brother Daniel has taught at Bishop Connolly High School.

Brother Walter, whom Brother Roger touted as the “youngest member of our order,” is also the proud product of a Catholic education.

“I think the contact I had with the Brothers in school was very important,” he said. “We had a vocations director who told me there was an opening in Plattsburgh, N.Y. and he suggested I try it. I did and I loved it. It was a

great place to be.”

Although he admitted he wasn’t happy when he was transferred from New York, Brother Walter said he’s been happily teaching at Bishop Connolly for the past 18 years.

“I’ve enjoyed teaching religion all day, everyday,” he said.

Noting that the lack of the Brothers of Christian Instruction’s presence marks “a sad day for the diocese and a sad day for our community,” Brother Daniel added that the Fall River area has always been a special place for his order.

“We’ve been here for so long and Fall River has been a rich territory for vocations,” he said. “At one time, more than one-third of the Brothers in the American province were from Fall River. Fall River not only welcomed us but also gave us many vocations.”

With everything but final exams now behind them, Brother Daniel said the three Brothers are now in the process of packing and preparing for their move.

“We’ve got to close this place down — it won’t be easy,” he said. “The residence will now become the property of the new St. Bernadette Parish.”

Looking around the Brothers’ residence, he said he’s proud to have served the Fall River Diocese for all these years.

“I’m ambivalent about leaving, but I’m sad in a way,” he said. “But it will be good to experience something else because I’ve been at this for 47 years. But I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”

“People have been thanking me, but I think we should be thankful for them coming into our lives,” Brother Walter added.

“It’s been our mission to serve them.”

For Brother Roger, there’s nothing more uplifting than seeing or hearing about former students’ success — people like a certain Anchor staff member and author of this article, for instance.

“It’s a good thing to see former students who have done well,” he beamed.

And while he’s not anxious to pull up stakes and move at this point in his life, he accepts that his ministry will sometimes take him in different directions.

“All I can say is that I’ll miss this place and the people,” he said. “They say they’ll miss me, but not as much as I’ll miss them.”

A special tribute to the Brothers of Christian Instruction is being held today at 8 a.m. at Bishop Connolly High School, 373 Elsbree Street in Fall River.

June 15, 2012

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese

Acushnet — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Monday and Tuesday from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Wednesday from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Thursday from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. Evening prayer and Benediction is held Monday through Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

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

ATTLEBORO — St. Joseph Church holds eucharistic adoration in the Adoration Chapel located at the (south) side entrance at 208 South Main Street, Sunday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Brewster — Eucharistic adoration takes place in the La Salette Chapel in the lower level of Our Lady of the Cape Church, 468 Stony Brook Road, on First Fridays beginning at noon until 7:45 a.m. First Saturday, concluding with Benediction and concluding with Mass at 8 a.m. buzzards Bay — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street, every first Friday after the 8 a.m. Mass and ending the following day before the 8 a.m. Mass.

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

East Sandwich — The Corpus Christi Parish Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Chapel is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 324 Quaker Meeting House Road, East Sandwich. Use the Chapel entrance on the side of the church.

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

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

Fall River — SS. Peter and Paul Parish will have eucharistic adoration on March 30 in the parish chapel, 240 Dover Street, from 8:30 a.m. until noon.

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

FALL RIVER — Notre Dame Church, 529 Eastern Ave., has eucharistic adoration on Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the chapel.

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

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

FALL RIVER — Good Shepherd Parish has eucharistic adoration every Friday following the 8 a.m. Mass until 6 p.m. in the Daily Mass Chapel. There is a bilingual Holy Hour in English and Portuguese from 5-6 p.m. Park behind the church and enter the back door of the connector between the church and the rectory.

Falmouth — St. Patrick’s Church has eucharistic adoration each First Friday, following the 9 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 4:30 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.

HYANNIS — A Holy Hour with eucharistic adoration will take place each First Friday at St. Francis Xavier Church, 347 South Street, beginning immediately after the 12:10 p.m.

Mass and ending with adoration at 4 p.m.

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

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

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

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

NEW BEDFORD — St. Lawrence Martyr Parish, 565 County Street, holds eucharistic adoration in the side chapel every Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

NORTH DARTMOUTH — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m., ending with Benediction. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

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

OSTERVILLE — Eucharistic adoration takes place at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, 76 Wianno Avenue on First Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and every Friday from noon to 5 p.m., with Benediction at 5 p.m.

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

Taunton — Eucharistic adoration takes place every Tuesday at St. Anthony Church, 126 School Street, following the 8 a.m. Mass with prayers including the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for vocations, concluding at 6 p.m. with Chaplet of St. Anthony and Benediction.

Recitation of the Rosary for peace is prayed Monday through Saturday at 7:30 a.m. prior to the 8 a.m. Mass.

WAREHAM — Every First Friday, eucharistic adoration takes place from 8:30 a.m. through Benediction at 5:30 p.m. Morning prayer is prayed at 9; the Angelus at noon; the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3 p.m.; and Evening Prayer at 5 p.m.

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

WOODS HOLE — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Joseph’s Church, 33 Millfield Street, year-round on weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. No adoration on Sundays, Wednesdays, and holidays. For information call 508-274-5435.

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The Anchor

Hundreds of clergy unite to pray Rosary for world’s priests

New York City, N.Y. (CNA) — Today, as the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Sacred Heart and World Priest Day, more than 500 priests and deacons will pray the Rosary at 60 shrines in 60 countries around the world.

“At this time in history, we priests need to pray more, and we need our lay brothers and sisters to pray for us, so we can become better and holier priests so as to better serve God and His Church,” said Father John Trigilio, president of the American Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, in recent statement.

Father Trigilio urged “all my ordained brothers to join me in praying this Rosary for ourselves and our brethren all over the world.”

Organized by the confraternity in honor of the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests, the Rosary Rally for Priests features 24 hours of continuous international Marian devotion. Beginning in Los Angeles, Calif., the Rosary prayer chain will travel the globe in half-hour increments.

Participating U.S. locations include New Jersey’s National Blue Army Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima; the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.; the Shrine of

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks June 16 Rev. James McDermott, Pastor, St. Patrick, Somerset, 1975 June 18 Most Rev. William B. Tyler, First Bishop of Hartford, Founder of the Sandwich Mission, 1849 Rev. James M. Coffey, P.R., Pastor, St. Mary, Taunton, 1935 Rev. Declan Daly, SS.CC., Associate Pastor, St. Joseph, Fairhaven, 1984 Rev. Henri Laporte, O.P., Former Pastor, St. Anne, Fall River, 1992 June 19 Rev. Hormisdas Deslauriers, Founder, St. Anthony, New Bedford, 1916 June 20 Rt. Rev. Msgr. James Coyle, P.R., LL.D., Pastor, St. Mary, Taunton, 1931 June 21 Rev. Owen F. Clarke, Former Assistant, St. Mary, Fall River, 1918 Rev. Desire V. Delemarre, Pastor, Blessed Sacrament, Fall River, 1926 1948, Rev. Francis D. Callahan, Pastor, St. Patrick, Wareham Rev. George A. Meade, Chaplain, St. Mary’s Home, New Bedford, 1949 Rev. Clement Killgoar, SS.CC., Pastor, St. Anthony, Mattapoisett, 1964 Rev. David A. O’Brien, Retired Pastor, SS. Peter & Paul, Fall River, 1976 June 22 Rev. Alexander Zichello, Pastor, St. Francis of Assisi, New Bedford, 1977

Our Lady of Good Help in Wisconsin; and EWTN’s headquarters in Irondale, Ala. Vatican-based Cardinal Raymond L. Burke is involved in the effort, and will lead a recitation of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary.

Clergy and laypersons can coordinate their own Rosaries with those taking place at the shrines, through a schedule available at

http://worldpriestday.publishpath. com/60-mysteries.

Thomas McKenna, executive director of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, pointed to the “indispensable” connection between the Rosary and the Catholic priesthood, in his group’s statement. He encouraged all Catholics to seek the Virgin Mary’s intercession for the ordained.

Around the Diocese 6/16

The Third Annual My Brother’s Keeper Family Walk, “Building Community One Step At a Time,” will be held tomorrow at Stonehill College in North Easton. Registration begins at 9 a.m. with the walk stepping off at 10 a.m. after a prayer service. For more information visit www.mybrotherskeeperfamilywalk.org.

6/19

The Daughter’s of Isabella Hyacinth Circle will hold its monthly meeting in the Holy Name of the Sacred Heart Parish Center located at 121 Mt. Pleasant Street in New Bedford at 7 p.m. on June 19. Light refreshments will be served afterwards. The theme is the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There will also be entertainment with a card game called Geronimo. Past and present members are invited for business, fellowship, and fun. If you are a Catholic woman looking for a group to belong to that shares in your faith and has a devotion to community service contact regent Terry Lewis at 508-993-5085.

6/21

All are invited to start the U.S. bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom with a eucharistic holy hour at St. Anthony’s Church in New Bedford on June 21 beginning at 6 p.m., followed by a talk by pastor, Father Roger J. Landry on “Threats to Religious Liberty and Freedom of Conscience.” This will be followed by questions and discussion.

6/23

The annual Santo Christo Feast will be held June 23-24 at Santo Christo Parish, Columbia Street, in Fall River. On June 23 a solemn Mass will be celebrated by Bishop George W. Coleman at 6 p.m. followed by the “Grand Procession of Promises.” Feast activities on the parish grounds will take place from 8 to 11 p.m. On June 24 a solemn procession will begin at 4 p.m., followed by feast activities on the parish grounds from 6:30 to 10 p.m.

6/24 6/25

The annual Italian Mass will be celebrated by Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk on June 24 at 2 p.m. at St. Thomas Chapel, Falmouth Heights Road in Falmouth. All are welcome to attend.

Cathedral Camp in East Freetown, owned and operated by the Diocese of Fall River, is a day camp for children between the ages of four and 14. This year the camp will be offering eight one-week sessions from June 25 through August 17. For more information call 508-763-8874 or visit www.cathedralcamp.net.

6/26

The Summer Catholic Reflections speakers series will begin at Christ the King Parish in Mashpee with Brother Loughlan Sofield, ST, a Missionary Servant of the Most Holy Trinity, who will discuss “A Spirituality for Everyday Life — Compassion and Forgiveness” on June 26 at 7 p.m. Sponsored by St. Anthony’s Parish in East Falmouth, Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville, and Christ the King Parish in Mashpee, the speaker series is free and open to all. For more information visit www.christthekingparish.com.

7/7

A Day with Mary will be held on July 7 at St. John the Evangelist Parish, 841 Shore Road in Pocasset. It will include a video presentation, procession and crowning of the Blessed Mother along with Mass, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and an opportunity for Reconciliation. There is a bookstore available during breaks. For more information call 508-996-8274.

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religious family — La Salette Sister Milagros dela Cruz, right, recently celebrated her 25th jubilee at La Salette Shrine in Attleboro. With her are her brother, Father Manuel dela Cruz, M.S, celebrant, and her sister, Sister Aurora dela Cruz, M.M. of Maryknoll.

The Anchor

June 15, 2012

island adoration — Parishioners of St. Mary/Our Lady of the Isle Parish on Nantucket joined pastor Father Marcel H. Bouchard in a procession on Main Street celebrating the feast of Corpus Christi. The Spanish music group led the music, joined by the parish’s small choir. Those who received First Communion this year were dressed in their First Communion best and carried flowers in praise of the eucharistic Lord.

Catholic faithful on Cape Cod rally for religious freedom

Hyannis — Nearly 100 people braved threatening weather recently to demonstrate against a federal mandate that would require employers to offer health insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and drugs that can induce early abortions, even if doing so runs counter to their religious beliefs.

Dubbed “The Stand Out for Religious Freedom,” the two-hour rally opposite the Cape Cod Mall was the prelude to similar protests that occurred statewide in Boston, Worcester, Leominster and West Roxbury. All were part of the Nationwide Rally for Religious Freedom in more than 140 locations across the country.

The Hyannis protest drew 96 participants from throughout Cape Cod, some from as far away as Wellfleet and Plymouth. Demonstrators held homemade signs, waved American flags, sang patriotic songs and recited prayers.

“We were in a sea of waving flags and signs opposing the Health and Human Services mandate,” said Patricia Stebbins, founder and vice president of the Cape Cod Family Life Alliance,

the rally sponsor. “And then, not to mention our special ‘miracle’ wherein the rain and wind held up for exactly two hours, for which we thank the Lord.”

The Alliance, which is the umbrella group for Pro-Life ministries in Cape Cod Catholic parishes, may organize at least one more Religious Freedom rally in coming months, said Barbara Bowers,

president.

“We were delighted that so many came out to fight for this cause,” she said. “The enthusiastic response from motorists passing by was extraordinary. We now realize how many share our view that the government is grossly overstepping here and attempting to subvert our freedom of conscience.”

freedom fighters — Cape Cod Catholics demonstrate recently in Hyannis against the Health and Human Services mandate. (Photo by Barbara Bowers)