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The Anchor Diocese of Fall River

F riday , June 28, 2013

‘Cape Apostles’ assist Habitat for Humanity

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

ORLEANS — This year Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod is breaking ground on 10 new homes on the Cape. Of those, two are in Mashpee, two are in Falmouth, one is in Centerville and five homes are being built in Orleans, one of which has been designated an Apostles Build.

The label “Apostles Build” refers to the sponsorship of that particular home by a parish or multiple parishes joining together to fully fund and build a house for a local family. As Jesus’ original Apostles were charged with spreading the Word about Jesus, the volunteer Apostles are charged with assisting in Habitat’s mission to

provide decent shelter for God’s children.

“The Apostles Build is a program that is part of Habitat International, it’s not unique to the Cape,” explained Phillip Mitchell, chairman of the Habitat’s Faith Relations Committee. “Usually 12 churches get together to sponsor a house, providing volunteers when they can, providing food for the breaks and lunches; providing devotions; praying for the project; also providing $50,000 plus $5,000, which we call a tithe, that helps to build houses in undeveloped countries.”

A retired clergyman and member of The Federated Church of Orleans, Mitchell moved to the Cape in 1993 and immediately became involved

Prayer for America Pope John Paul II Mary Immaculate, conceived without sin: patroness of the United States! From the first moment of your existence you were called by God to be the mother of His Incarnate Son. Model of our faith, you watched over the Incarnate Son of God as He grew in wisdom, age and grace (cf. Luke 2:52). Look upon the people of this great nation, so richly blessed by God with material and spiritual resources. May they draw fresh inspiration from the highest ideals of their democratic tradition and contribute to the building of a world of solidarity, justice and peace, a world in which everyone is welcomed as a fellow-guest at the great banquet of life.

Mary our queen: patroness of the Archdiocese of Baltimore!

You stood beside your Son at the foot of the cross and rejoiced in His Resurrection from the dead. Model of our hope, you awaited the fulfillment of Christ’s promises at Pentecost and now share the fullness of life in His eternal Kingdom.

Look upon all who are united to your Son in Baptism and are called to share in His royal mission. May they be a leaven of the Kingdom of God in American society, humbly serving the needs of their brothers and sisters and bearing faithful witness to the splendor of Christ’s truth and to the saving power of His Gospel.

Mary, Mother of the Church: mother of Christians! The Lord has entrusted all His disciples to you, to be our mother (cf. John 19:27). Model of Christian love, you contemplate your Son in glory and intercede for the members of His Body on earth. Look upon the Church in the United States. Through Penance, prayer and active charity, may Christ’s followers meet the challenges of the New Evangelization and work for the authentic renewal of human society in accordance with the truth of God’s Word. As they work together with all men and women of good will, may they be joyful heralds and servants of the Gospel of Life!

Orioles Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Oct. 8, 1995

in the general area of housing and homelessness. His efforts included being part of the Interfaith Council for the Homeless (now called the Homeless Prevention Council) and spending time on the board and as president for Housing Assistance Corporation. When he was asked to help assist with Habitat for Humanity, he didn’t hesitate.

“Our mission is to build a relation between churches and Habitat,” said Mitchell.

The average cost to build a home is $135,000, “which doesn’t sound like much,” added Mitchell, but the land is often donated or sold at minimal cost, and some construction companies donate materials Turn to page 15

ALL TOGETHER NOW — “A Habitat wall-raising is an important celebration for the families and volunteers,” said Wendy Cullinan, director of Human Resource Development for Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod. Pictured is a crew of volunteers raising a wall for a home on Russell Road in Mashpee.

Diocese names head of middle school division at newly-merged Cape school

HYANNIS — Diocesan Superintendent of Schools Dr. Michael Griffin and Head of School Christopher Keavy are pleased to announce the hiring of Elizabeth Kelley as the acting head of St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School in Hyannis. The appointment was approved by Bishop George W. Coleman, bishop of the Fall River Diocese.

Last week, Griffin announced that St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School, serving grades five to eight, would join with Pope John Paul II High School as a unified grades five to 12 school.

The two schools sit across the parking lot from each other, just off South Street in Hyannis.

“I’m pleased to lead St. Francis Xavier Prep because of my love and affection for what has been accomplished at this excellent school,” Kelley said. “At the same time, I’m excited about the possibilities of the new five to 12 structure and what this means for middle school students.”

In addition to Kelley’s outstanding resume, Keavy is most impressed with her proven ability “to mold students into quality young adults. She will lead with high expectations coupled with care and concern for young people.”

Kelley graduated from Regis College in Weston. She taught at

Hudson Catholic High School, Benjamin Franklin Classical Charter School in Franklin, and Dysart Unified School District No. 89 in Arizona before joining the staff at St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School in 2003,

Elizabeth Kelley where she teaches English.

While at Dysart, Kelley was middle school grade chairman, which involved teacher supervision and handling student issues.

Additionally, Kelley served St. Francis Xavier as the chairman of the self-study committee for the school’s recent re-accreditation report, a new teacher mentor, teacher in charge in the headmaster’s absence, home and school association liaison, co-

moderator of Social Action, Student Council and art club, and wrote the school’s grade-five language arts and reading curriculum. Kelley is also a member of the school’s education committee.

“I am emphatic that families who live on Cape Cod and desire a quality, Catholic education will find exactly what they’re looking for at Pope John Paul II High School and St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School,” Keavy added. “I believe in the school and I believe in the direction we are headed. This is about to become the school of choice for all of Cape Cod.” Parent Mary Lyons offered some thoughts about Mrs. Kelley’s appointment. “My daughter, Mary Alice, will be entering seventh grade come September.

She loved having Mrs. Kelley for Reading and Language Arts in fifth grade. She was definitely a favorite teacher and my daughter was excited by the prospect of sharing another year of Reading and Language Arts with her in the seventh grade.

She is thoughtful and caring and she loves her students. The seventh graders will miss her in the classroom. If changes needed to be made, we were happy to see that she was chosen as the interTurn to page nine

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News From the Vatican

June 28, 2013

Pope explains how Christians can love bombers

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — Pope Francis tackled Jesus’ teaching that Christians must love their enemies by asking a series of provocative questions, such as, how can we love those who “bomb and kill so many people?”

As he began his homily, the pope illustrated how difficult and wide-ranging Jesus’ teaching on loving one’s enemies can be by posing a series of questions to the congregation.

How can we love those who decide to “bomb and kill so many people?” How can we “love those who out of their for love for money prevent the elderly from accessing the necessary medicine and leave them to die?”

And at the more general level, the pope asked how Christians can love those who only pursue “their own best interests, power for themselves and do so much evil?”

“It seems hard to love your enemy,” he stated, but Jesus asks it of us.

It is a teaching that is “so hard, but so beautiful, because it makes us look like the Father, like our Father: He brings out the sun for everyone, good and bad. It makes us more like the Son, Jesus, Who in His humiliation became poor to enrich us, with His poverty,” he preached.

The Holy Father’s homily for daily Mass at his residence was based on the Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and His charge to His disciples to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Heavenly Father.”

Pope Francis told the congregation that there are two ways that Christians should love their enemies and they are both con-

tained in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.

The first way is to look to the Father Who “makes the sun rise on evil and good” and “rain fall on the just and unjust.” God “loves everyone.”

The pontiff added, Jesus “forgave His enemies” and “does everything to forgive them.” Taking revenge, on the other hand, is not Christian, he warned.

The second thing that Christians should do to love their enemies is to pray for them. “When we pray for what makes us suffer, it is as if the Lord comes with oil and prepares our hearts for peace,” he remarked.

“Pray! This is what Jesus advises us: ‘Pray for your enemies!

Pray for those who persecute you!’ Pray!

“And say to God: ‘Change their hearts. They have a heart of stone, but change it, give them a heart of flesh, so that they may feel relief and love.’”

Pope Francis then made his homily more personal by posing a question for the congregation to consider.

“Let me just ask this question and let each of us answer it in our own heart: ‘Do I pray for my enemies? Do I pray for those who do not love me?’

“If we say ‘yes,’ I will say, ‘Go on, pray more, you are on the right path!’ If the answer is ‘no,’ the Lord says: ‘Poor thing.

You too are an enemy of others!’

“Pray that the Lord may change the hearts of those. We could say: ‘But this person really wronged me,’ or they have done bad things and this impoverishes people, impoverishes humanity. And following this line of thought we want to take revenge or that eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” the pope preached.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Although the process is not complete and is supposed to be secret at this point, Italian media are reporting that the canonization of Blessed John Paul II is another step closer.

The Italian news agency ANSA and many Italian papers say Vatican sources confirmed June 18 that the theological consultants to the Congregation for Saints’ Causes affirmed that the description of prayers and events surrounding an alleged miracle provide evidence that the healing was accomplished through the intercession of the late pope.

The congregation’s board of physicians had said in April that there was no natural, medical explanation for the healing, which

apparently involves a woman from Latin America healed May 1, 2011, just hours after Blessed John Paul was beatified.

Even if the news about the theological consultants is true, the cardinals who are members of the congregation still must vote on whether to recommend that the pope recognize the healing as a miracle. The papal decree is needed before a canonization date can be set.

Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, Blessed John Paul’s longtime secretary, and many others are hoping the canonization can be celebrated in October around the 35th anniversary of Pope John Paul’s election Oct. 16, 1978.

Italian media report step toward Blessed John Paul’s canonization

DRIVE MY CAR — Pope Francis greets Alberto di Tullio, 17, after letting him sit in the popemobile chair during the general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican June 19. Di Tullio, who has Down syndrome, was treated to a literal spin in the popemobile. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Pope, JRS call attention to the Face of Christ in faces of refugees

ROME (CNS) — The photos of refugees projected on the facade of Rome’s Gesu Church are reminders of what Pope Francis would call the suffering body of Christ today, said the head of Jesuit Refugee Service.

Jesuit Father Peter Balleis, JRS director, said the images projected on the front of the Jesuit church in the historic center of Rome are “the Gospel in the form of images,” reminding people of Jesus’ Words that by giving someone food or welcoming someone they welcome Him. The 12-minute video, which includes about 200 photographs taken by JRS staff working with refugees from Syria and Congo, was scheduled to be projected on the church from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.

June 18-21 as part of the commemoration of World Refugee Day June 20.

At the end of his weekly general audience June 19, Pope Francis called attention to World Refugee Day, focusing particularly on refugee families “often forced to flee their homes and countries in a hurry and losing all their belongings and their security to escape violence, persecution or serious discrimination because of their religion, ethnic identity or political ideas.”

“We cannot be insensitive toward families and all our brothers and sisters who are refugees,” the pope said. “We are called to help them, opening ourselves to understanding them and offering hospitality.

“In their faces is the face of Christ,” the pope said.

The refugee faces and other scenes in the video, “Sanctuary and Sustenance,” were put together by JRS working with the Chicagobased Art Works Projects for Human Rights and received funding

from the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See. It is accompanied by a photo exhibit inside the church.

“For people torn from their homes, the word ‘sanctuary’ represents the value of opening doors and protecting the fundamental human rights which are sacred to all of us and must be kept so,” Father Balleis said.

“Refugees also find themselves in need of ‘sustenance’ that goes beyond food, water, shelter, clothing to include deeper desires that nourish us: human relationships, compassionate friendships, knowledge and hospitality,” the Jesuit said.

The photo exhibit and projection were inaugurated with a Mass and a reception featuring music by Congolese women and others who have been assisted by or work at Centro Astalli, the JRS refugee center in Rome.

Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers, was the main celebrant and homilist at the Mass. He said, “World Refugee Day reminds us that every refugee and displaced person is a human

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being with his or her own story, culture, experience and legitimate aspirations.

“These situations cannot leave us indifferent,” he added. “Each of us has a responsibility toward the stranger, the weak, the refugee.”

Jesuit Father Ziad Hilal, pastor of Holy Savior Parish in Homs, Syria, and coordinator of the JRS children’s programs in Syria, told the gathering, “The situation in Syria, especially in Homs, is very difficult. About 25 percent of the city has been destroyed, including churches and mosques.”

While he has parish responsibilities, “Our mission in Syria today as JRS, as Jesuits, as Christians is to help the displaced,” he said.

JRS runs 11 centers serving about 3,200 children. For a few hours each day, the children are able to do school work, play and talk with trained assistants about the total disruption in their lives. By serving displaced children from all religions and whose parents are on various sides of the Syrian conflict, Father Hilal said JRS hopes “to begin reconciliation work with the children, then with their parents.”

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The International Church Niger archbishop says Christians living in fear after Islamist attacks

June 28, 2013

OXFORD, England (CNS) — The head of the Catholic Church in Niger warned that much of Africa’s Sahel region is facing a “coordinated Islamist campaign” that is leaving Christian communities “living in anxiety and fear.”

Archbishop Michel Cartateguy of Niamey said attacks by Islamist rebels have been limited to nonreligious targets, but that the wellcoordinated actions are sending clear messages to non-Muslims.

“It’s clear these actions are all closely organized. Strong links already exist between Islamist groups in several countries and a network is forming,” the archbishop said.

“We thought the Islamists had been dispersed earlier this year in northern Mali. But they merely regrouped in southern Libya and intervened elsewhere,” he said following the June 9 episcopal ordination of Auxiliary Bishop Djalwana Laurent Lompo, the country’s first Niger-born bishop.

The ordination went forward amid fears of a pending attack by the rebels.

A member of the Society of African Missions, Archbishop Cartateguy told Catholic News Service June 18 that he had requested an auxiliary because he is unable to visit parts of Niger out of fear of being abducted as a French national.

He said the rebels’ anti-Western and anti-Christian sentiments are

partially a backlash against the legalization of same-sex marriage in France, the region’s principal former colonial power. He said that he recently closed a Catholic parish in northern Niger to protect local Christians.

“France congratulated itself on its intervention in Mali, but it also bears a heavy responsibility for what’s happening today,” the Church leader said.

“The presence of foreign forces here has worsened the violence by failing to respect the region’s culture. Muslims have been quick to connect Christianity with the West, so the Islamist campaign looks set to intensify,” Archbishop Cartateguy said.

Frequent electric power cuts in Niamey, Niger’s capital, create “favorable conditions for suicide attacks” by leaving the city in darkness and cutting links with the outside world, he added.

“Christian communities are living in anxiety and fear. It’s the first time Islamist militants have come into the open on such a scale,” said the archbishop, who has headed the Church in Niger since January 2003.

“Catholics have always been well accepted by ordinary Muslims here. But integrist movements have begun to agitate and preach against Christianity and the West, and this is something new.”

Niger’s 25,000 Catholics comprise a small fraction of the coun-

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GOD’S TEAM — Players Stephan El Shaarawy and Mario Balotelli from Italy’s national soccer team pose for a photo during a recent visit to the Christ the Redeemer statue. They were in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the Confederations Cup. (CNS photo/Ricardo Moraes, Reuters)

try’s mostly Muslim population of 19 million, and include immigrants from other West African countries, including Benin, Togo and Ivory Coast. The Church has a joint bishops’ conference with neighboring Burkina Faso and participates in an Islamic-Christian dialogue commission headed

by Bishop Joachim Ouedraogo of Koudougou, Burkina Faso.

As many as 4,000 people attended the ceremony for Bishop Lompo in Niamey’s Sports Palace after three days of prayer in parishes throughout the 77,000 squaremile archdiocese.

However, Archbishop Cartateguy said, preparations for the event were marred by the freeing of 22 inmates from the city’s prison in

a June 1 attack. The government of President Mahamadou Issoufou blamed the attack on Islamists from the Boko Haram movement in neighboring Nigeria.

Muslim leaders sent large delegations to Bishop Lompo’s ordination from Niamey and Maradi, the country’s second Catholic diocese, but a substantial police presence was needed to ensure security, the archbishop said.

“It’s important for the Church’s profile to have a local bishop. It shows the missionary phase is ending as Europeans become fewer,” he explained.

“But Niger is important strategically for the Islamists, since its borders are porous and vulnerable, and its government can’t exercise

full control. This is why we’re now under attack.”

The prison assault followed May 23 suicide car bombings at a military barracks at Agadez and French-run uranium mine at Arlit, which left 36 dead. Most were Niger soldiers.

The Associated Press said a Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa and al-Qaida-linked Signed-in-Blood Battalion had claimed joint responsibility for the attacks in retaliation for Niger’s support of French intervention against Islamist rebels in Mali in January.

Islamists also were suspected of involvement in a June 11 attack on a paramilitary barracks on the outskirts of Niamey.

Quebec at a crossroads with euthanasia bill, province’s bishops say

OTTAWA, Ontario (CNS) — As the Quebec government considers an end-of-life bill that would allow euthanasia, Quebec’s Catholic bishops warn that society faces a crucial choice.

“We are at a crossroads with this choice,” said Archbishop Pierre-Andre Fournier of Rimouski, president of the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of

Quebec. “This is a very important moment for the future of our country, of our society.”

At stake is the future of civilized society that has been based on the fundamental right to life and around the protection of human life, the archbishop said of the legislation, known as Bill 52.

“You don’t kill,” he said.

Though the bishops’ assembly

issued a statement welcoming the bill’s palliative care provisions, Archbishop Fournier warned that Bill 52 uses language as a “trap” that could confuse people. Euthanasia, the deliberate killing of another human being, is disguised under the words “medical aid in dying,” he said.

Quebec’s bishops raised concerns that intentionally causing death is “considered a treatment and claimed as a right” in the legislation, the statement said.

In allowing euthanasia, the bill also affects religious freedom and conscience rights, according to the archbishop. Health care providers opposed to participating in the deliberate killing of another person would have no recourse because the Quebec government owns most of the hospitals in the province, he said.

Palliative care centers also will have to provide the opportunity for medical aid in dying, he said.

But even if there were a way to make sure it did not happen

in Catholic settings, Archbishop Fournier said, “we are against it anywhere.”

“We have to think about the doctors and the nurses who will be asked to perform this act,” Archbishop Fournier said. “In the [bill] they don’t say how it will be done.”

Bill 52 has drawn opposition from doctors as well.

The Catholic Civil Rights League also has raised concerns about the impact of euthanasia on vulnerable Quebeckers and the bill’s likelihood of restricting conscience rights.

“While this proposed legislation allows doctors to refuse to participate in euthanasia requests, it implies that they must participate in a process referring the request to a more willing provider,” the league said. “There appears to be no provision for the religious and conscientious rights of other members of the health care team.”

“As we have seen on the question of abortion, legalization can

lead to pressure on health care workers to participate in activities they find morally objectionable,” the league said.

Joanne McGarry, league executive director, said Bill 52 goes further than other similar legislation because it would requires every institution to make referrals without reference to the religious foundations of that institution.

“We need to remember this sort of thing is a very serious matter,” she said. “It’s one of the most serious decisions a doctor could make.”

She also warned that allowing euthanasia inside a palliative care setting will make people think palliative care is going to kill them. “In many respects it’s like that in the Netherlands already,” she said.

“We’re very much opposed to this bill,” McGarry added. “We’ll be watching its progress with great concern and will be trying to educate people on how farreaching the implications could be.”

June 28, 2013 The Church in the U.S. House OKs measure called ‘most important’ Pro-Life bill in 10 years

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WASHINGTON (CNS) — The U.S. House June 18 passed the Pain Capable Unborn Protection Act to prohibit abortion nationwide after 20 weeks of gestation, approximately the stage at which scientists say unborn babies are capable of feeling pain.

After heated debate on the floor of the Republican-led House, the bill passed early in the evening with a 228-196 vote.

“We are far outside the global mainstream” with regard to abortion, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, RN.J., a co-sponsor of the bill, said in comments on the floor earlier in the day. Smith, a Catholic, is co-chairman of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.

“It may come as a shock to many, but according to the Americans United for Life Legal Defense Fund, the United States is

one among only four nations in the world that allows abortions for any reason after viability, and is currently one of only nine nations that allows abortion after 14 weeks gestation,” he said. “That subset consists of Canada, China, Great Britain, North Korea, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, Vietnam and the United States.”

At a morning news conference, Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America called the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act “the most important Pro-Life bill to be considered in the last 10 years.”

Though the Democratic-controlled Senate will most likely table the passage of the bill, ProLife advocates still claimed the House vote as a victory.

Other Pro-Life legislation has survived a tough fight in Con-

gress, said Marilyn Musgrave, vice president for government affairs at the Susan B. Anthony List, an organization that works to get Pro-Life women elected to office. She pointed to the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.

In the 1990s, Congress had twice passed a ban on partialbirth abortions. Both times the bills were vetoed by President Bill Clinton. In 2000, the Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortions.

In 2003, Congress again passed a ban on partial-birth abortions, and the bill was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The law withstood several court challenges on constitutional grounds to the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it in 2007.

“I believe this bill will eventu-

ally become law,” Musgrave said about the Pain Capable Unborn Protection Act. “A majority of Americans, including and especially women, support what we are trying to do,” said Smith before the vote.

“According to the Gallup poll, 64 percent of Americans believe that abortion should not be permitted in the second three months of pregnancy. Eighty percent say abortion should not be permitted in the last three months of pregnancy.”

The poll also found, he said, that “63 percent of women believe that abortion should not be permitted after the point where substantial medical evidence says that the unborn child can feel pain.”

At a May hearing, opponents of the bill said evidence of fetal

pain is unfounded and argued that a woman should be able to choose to have an abortion at any stage of pregnancy, especially in cases of fetal deformities.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, said June 18 that she saw the legislation as a response to the will of the American people.

“What Roe v. Wade did is put a blockade in front of every single law (about abortion). Our goal is to close that gap between the will of the people and the reality of the law,” she said at the news conference.

Nance also commented that the bill would not only protect unborn babies from a painful death but would protect women from the dangers of late-term abortion.

“We are on the right side of history today,” she said.

Bishops from nine nations reaffirm commitment to migrants

LOS ANGELES (CNS) — Critically needed comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. and throughout the Western Hemisphere should be tied to new laws that promote a sustainable economic development in the region, according to bishops of nine nations who met June 3-6 in Los Angeles.

In a statement, they reaffirmed their commitment to “vulnerable persons who migrate seeking protection from violence or for a better life for themselves and their families.”

And they called upon “all members of the Catholic community and people of good will in our nations to stand in solidarity with persons on the move and to work for their just and humane treatment.”

The goal of this year’s Bishops’ Regional Consultation on

Migration — with the prelates — was to assess the current situation of migrants in their respective countries and develop ways to work together to have a positive impact on migration throughout the region.

The participants — who included the bishops of Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Canada and the United States, and diocesan clergy, lay leaders and national office staff — noted a common phenomenon: increased trafficking of youth and women, combined with U.S. migration of youth forced by increasing gang activity and drug trafficking in their native countries.

Many bishops also lamented a scarcity of resources to support the reunification of families and their socioeconomic reintegration.

“Persons on the move should

be welcomed with hospitality, service and justice,” said the bishops in their statement. “This view is consistent with the Gospels of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who calls upon all to ‘welcome the stranger,’ ‘for what you do to the least of My brethren, you do unto Me.’” The bishops acknowledged the right of governments to “ensure the integrity of their borders and the common good of citizenry,” but said those goals could be achieved without violating human rights.

They applauded the efforts of those working to protect migrants’ human rights and encouraged them to continue educating others about the “harsh realities of migration.”

During the meeting, some participants visited nearby detention facilities, while others heard testimony of Cuban and Iraqi refugee families assisted by Catholic Charities of Los Angeles.

The Cuban family had unsuccessfully attempted to leave the island by boat in 2005, but finally left Cuba as refugees with the government approval and arrived in Los Angeles three months ago.

The Iraqi family of four was forced to leave their country after the head of household had been kidnapped. While trying to get to the United States, this once wellto-do family lost all their property.

In their statement, the bishops urged governments to review “specific issues that should be addressed on a regional basis,” including: • The need to reform laws in the hemisphere so migrants receive legal protection to work and reside in the U.S. and other coun-

tries of destination.

• Promotion of sustainable economic development addressing the root causes of migration so that people remain in their home communities to support their families.

• Review and reform of laws to protect migrants, refugees, and especially unaccompanied minors in transit.

• Increased government and private efforts to end human trafficking.

The bishops were welcomed

by Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles, who had met earlier this year with President Barack Obama in his role as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration committee.

He said he was optimistic Congress would pass comprehensive immigration reform, “but it will be a difficult discussion.”

One immigration-related concern raised during the regional consultation involved the fact that local legal systems do not protect the rights of U.S.-born minors returning to their parents’ home countries.

A large percentage of the 570,000 young U.S. citizens who entered Mexico between 2000 and 2010 faced difficulties enrolling in Mexico’s public school system because they lack appropriate documentation required by Mexico, reported Miryiam Hazaan, a policy analyst from San Antoniobased Mexican Americans Thinking Together.

Recent research in the western Mexican state of Jalisco showed that when they do enroll, most returning U.S. children are placed two grades below due to their low language fluency, adding to social

problems stemming from acclimation.

Moreover, Hazaan said, the children do not qualify for health benefits, a big burden for the families who have difficulties “re-integrating” into their communities with stable jobs.

Hazaan said her organization, known as MATT, is making an effort to learn from successful experiences in other countries addressing these issues, including Switzerland, France, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia.

Bishop Angel San Casimiro of Alajuela, Costa Rica, said that a comprehensive immigration reform would help alleviate the financial burden of families as they integrate into the legal workforce, decreasing the “families’ vulnerability.”

But legal status does not guarantee respect for the workers’ human rights, he added, stressing the need to start preparing at a pastoral level to receive family members who have been away from their country of origin for an extended time, in order to provide appropriate support.

Bishops Gregorio Rosa Chavez from San Salvador, and Alvaro Ramazzini from Huehuetenango, Guatemala, spoke on the effects of organized crime on youth. Many, they said, are forced to migrate either to reunite with their parents in the United States or are sent here on their own by their parents in order to avoid being recruited by local gangs or drug traffickers.

About 70 percent of minors in Central America and Mexico are fleeing to the U.S., according to data supplied by the USCCB.

The Church in the U.S. Changing military means changing roles for chaplains

June 28, 2013

WASHINGTON (CNS) — With the U.S. military undergoing dramatic changes — in mission, as troops withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and in social structure with the open admission of gays, extension of combat roles to women, and focus on how sexual assault is handled — the Marine chief of chaplains finds her job ever-evolving as well.

The Rev. Margaret Kibben, a Presbyterian minister who is a rear admiral and Navy deputy chief of chaplains, supervises the deployment of 290 Marine chaplains and shares responsibility for the 840 Navy chaplains. She told Catholic News Service that chaplains have important roles to play as the military adapts to changing roles.

“Our primary role is to ensure free expression of religion,” Rev. Kibben said. So, regardless of how religious beliefs form someone’s thinking about issues such as gays serving in the military, it’s up to chaplains to ensure that “you don’t feel your faith is threatened.”

In an interview during a military women’s leadership symposium outside Washington, Rev. Kibben explained that as the Defense Department phased out its “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to gays serving in the military and began openly allowing it, chaplains were among the first to receive training in how the change would affect their work.

“There was a lot of walking through the details,” she said, about what chaplains might be asked to do in ministry.

She said that across the entire military chaplain corps, “less than a handful” of chaplains decided that they could not continue to serve in a military that openly allowed homosexuals to serve. “And some of those were near retirement anyway, or in the process of considering whether to come in.”

With the recent uproar over the rate of cases of sexual assault with-

in the military, Rev. Kibben said there has been training about what a chaplain’s role might be in interacting with victims of assault, perpetrators and others who are aware of incidents.

“The chaplains are incredibly committed to helping deal with sexual assault,” she said, but they need guidance, for example, on what kind of conversations are protected and when they are obligated to advise authorities of a situation, as well as how to help members of the military get an education in basic morals that they may have missed earlier in life.

“For just about every topic with a social dimension, chaplains have a role to play,” she said. The decreasing religious participation found throughout society has implications for the military, Rev. Kibben said, but people who consider themselves “spiritual but not religious” still seek out the services of the chaplaincy.

Her job requires she balance a limited number of chaplains of various denominations with the needs of Marines and sailors assigned to a particular ship or base who may represent dozens of faiths, not all of which could have a chaplain of that faith available. All military chaplains are trained to provide basic assistance and sometimes religious services to a variety of faiths.

For example, she said, there may be 500 Muslims in the Navy, but they’re not all serving in the same place or even near each other, so any Muslim chaplain would be hardpressed to be able to serve a sizeable congregation of Muslims. Where to position a Muslim chaplain is something of a mathematical exercise.

Nationwide, Catholics make up the largest single religious denomination, at about 24 percent.

But there are only about 50 priests among the entire military chaplain corps, Rev. Kibben said. “When I started 27 years ago, there were about 200.” The Department of Defense requires that chaplains be

CONCORD, N.H. (CNS) — A New Hampshire judge has ruled that the state’s scholarship program is unconstitutional, but he said it could continue if the program’s funds did not benefit religious schools.

In the state’s tax credit pro-

gram, which started last year, businesses receive tax credits for donating to a private organization that provides students with scholarships to attend private or public schools.

In his June 17 ruling, Strafford County Superior Court Judge John

5

SERVING THE HEROES — The Rev. Margaret Kibben, a Presbyterian minister who is a rear admiral and is Navy deputy chief of chaplains, discusses the importance of maintenance skills with members of the U.S. and Philippines armed forces. (CNS photo/U.S. Marine Corps photo/1st Lt. Garth M. Langley)

college graduates, have theological training and be ordained, or the denominational equivalent.

The Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services, which determines the policy for how the Church participates in the chaplain corps, interprets canon law as requiring that only priests may serve as chaplains.

Some other countries, including Canada, allow permanent deacons to also serve as chaplains.

Msgr. Frank Pugliese, vicar general of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, said deacons cannot be chaplains because they “do not have the full care of souls,” meaning they cannot celebrate Mass or hear Confessions. “So to put a deacon in the situation of being a chaplain leaves the chaplaincy in the hands of someone who can’t do the entire ministry from a Catholic perspective. If they’re Catholic, the least you want them to be able to do is say Mass.”

He said it seems extremely unlikely the archdiocese would change

that policy any time soon. Instead, he said recruitment of chaplains has taken a new direction, with the military archdiocese co-sponsoring the education of seminarians, who commit, with the approval of their dioceses, to serving in the military for a while.

“This year we had several seminarians ordained as deacons, and several ordained priests,” Msgr.

Pugliese said. “We’re within a year or two of the fruits of that showing in our numbers.”

Navy Lt. Commander Jean Marie Sullivan, a special assistant to the chief of Navy operations, is an active Catholic who helped fill the gap left by the shortage of Catholic chaplains as a shipboard extraordinary minister of Holy Communion during her assignment on a frigate about a decade ago. She said she was trained to conduct Communion services and carefully reserved the consecrated hosts in a locked safe in her quarters. On Ash Wednesday she obtained some

ashes to use for a simple service, as well.

“I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it,” she said. “On a ship with 330 people, we’d have about five people each Sunday, then on Ash Wednesday it seemed like the whole ship showed up.”

Msgr. Pugliese told CNS that policy changed “years ago because of reported abuses of the Eucharist. In the military, custody of the Eucharist is a very difficult thing.”

As she prepares to take command of her own ship in a couple of years, Sullivan said part of her responsibility will include making sure the religious needs of her crew are met.

Her current and recent assignments have kept her on land and out of command positions. Now, she recognizes that part of her new job will entail making sure she and other Catholics have access to Mass and other religious activities while at sea.

Lewis said that while students and their parents have the right to choose a religious education, “the government is under no obligation to fund ‘religious’ education.”

“Indeed, the government is expressly forbidden from doing so by the very language of the New Hampshire Constitution,” he wrote.

A footnote in the judge’s 45page ruling said the court considers a religious school generally to be “one run by, or affiliated with, a religious sect or denomination, where an important mission is religious instruction and where teaching is generally imbued with a religious dimension.”

Kate Baker, executive director

of the Network for Educational Opportunity, said her group would appeal the ruling with the state Supreme Court.

“It’s disappointing, because clearly it limits the choices parents can make, and my entire purpose has been to create options for families,” she told The Associated Press.

“This says to them, they can’t make a choice. Parents know best, right? They should be able to choose the education they think is best for their children. This ruling is almost discrimination.”

She said the “intent of the law was to empower parents, and create choices so they can choose the best option — home school-

ing, or a public school, or any private school. That makes sense, because then you’re opening all those doors,” she said. “This is closing one of those doors.”

Various forms of tax-credit programs for private school tuition have become popular in some states in recent years as an alternative to private school vouchers.

In 2011, in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v.

Winn, the U.S. Supreme Court said taxpayers who opposed a similar tax-credit program could not challenge it in federal court because any financial benefit to religion under the program was not the result of government spending choices.

New Hampshire judge rules education tax credits unconstitutional

6

The Anchor The livin’ is not easy for everyone

Blessed John Paul II, while visiting Japan in February 1981, gave a speech to young people in which he spoke about his personal tastes. “Regarding music in general, I find particularly profound Liturgical music (Gregorian!), but I also love contemporary music, Gershwin, for example, [Louis] Armstrong, Taki Rentaro, Toshiro Mayuzumi and others. Naturally, close to me are Chopin o Szymanowski … but also dear to me are Beethoven, Bach and Mozart, even through the masterful interpretations of your [and Boston’s, at the time] Seiji Ozawa and Jwaki Hirojuki.”

“Summertime and the livin’ is easy. Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high.” George Gershwin’s lyrics from his opera “Porgy and Bess” are often intoned at this time of year, as schools close and temperatures get higher. In some ways and for some people “the livin’ is easy,” and for those folks we have the columns by Genevieve Kineke on page nine and Ozzie Pacheco on page 17. Both offer sound advice as to how we can use our leisure time in a productive way, a way which responds to the inner longings of our hearts for Christ (some see even in “Porgy and Bess” an unintended [on the part of the author] parallel between Porgy’s constant devotion and forgiveness of Bess and the relationship between Christ and the soul, which so often wanders away, attracted by the “Sporting Life,” while Christ resolutely turns towards Jerusalem [as Porgy did towards New York, pursuing Bess, who had fallen back into addiction], to accept His cross so as to free us from our self-destructive sinfulness).

The livin’ is not easy for all people, something which is evident to anyone who reads the news or visits a hospital or nursing home or has a heart open to the sufferings of others. Even the reference to the “fish … jumpin’” makes us think of the fishermen of New Bedford and the workers in the processing factories. Their livelihoods are never easy and they always face the real threat of either government over-action (to protect the fishing stocks) or over-fishing (by themselves and by foreign fishing fleets) which can end this economic lifeline.

As Father Landry’s article to the right of this editorial details, we also are in the midst of the Fortnight for Freedom, a time in which we have been called upon by our bishops to pray and sacrifice so that our cherished freedom of religion, for which people from so many countries came to this land, might be respected again. The livin’ won’t be easy for the Catholic Church and for other believers if, come August 1, the federal government has not changed the mandate which demands that all employers, save actual houses of worship, pay for contraceptives, abortifacient drugs and sterilizations in their employees’ health insurance policies. According to the mandate, should Catholic institutions or the organs of other religions or private employers who object on moral grounds to these practices not go along with this new policy, there will be crippling fines to be paid (which would fast drive out of business these agencies, schools, companies, etc.). So, the threat is real and we are called upon by our bishops to pray, fast, sacrifice, and make known to our public officials our desire that this policy be changed.

So, we can use some of the leisure time that we might have available to us to take some extra time for prayer and to make a phone call or write a letter to a congressional office (fasting doesn’t require extra time — it actually frees up some time). As Genevieve noted in her column, doing these things (and other good works) actually enriches us, even though we might think that we’re making a sacrifice.

Blessed John Paul II had the strength that he needed to face Nazism as a youth and communism throughout his adulthood thanks to his deep faith, a faith which could see all the good in the world and the reality of evil, too. He worked to build a Civilization of Love in the face of a Culture of Death. His trust in the Blessed Mother bore fruit in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the liberation from communism of many people in Eastern Europe. And yet, he knew that in some way the battle against communism was the “easy” one to fight, since it became readily apparent to anyone living under communism what an inhuman system it was (even if Karl Marx and some of his followers were well-meaning, the lived reality of communism was no “workers’ paradise”).

The “battle” against secularism is much more difficult because its negatives are not readily apparent and because there is a difference between a healthy secularism and an aggressive secularism. In 2008 Pope Benedict XVI, speaking to the ambassador of San Marino to the Holy See, spoke of the healthy type: “The Holy See [is fully ready to] collaborate in order to pursue these shared goals, aware as it is of the need for the cooperation of all in such a vast undertaking: at the local, national and international levels the contribution of each one in his own milieu and with his own specific skills is asked for, always with reciprocal respect and in constant dialogue. These are the conditions for that ‘healthy’ secularism which is indispensable for building a society where different traditions, cultures and religions may peacefully coexist. Indeed, in totally separating public life from every value of traditions, would mean introducing oneself into a blind alley and a dead end. This is why it is essential to redefine the sense of a secularism that emphasizes the true difference and autonomy between the different components of society but that also preserves their specific competences in a context of common responsibility. Of course, this ‘healthy’ secularism of the state entails the possibility for every temporal reality to be governed by its own rules, which, however, must not neglect the fundamental ethical base which is inherent in the very nature of the human being, and for this very reason, refers ultimately to the Creator.”

The healthy secularism of which the pope was speaking is what the Catholic Church strives to achieve in countries where Christians at present are limited in their rights (for example, in Moslem countries, where we work to help other believers understand that we have rights, even though they think that our religion is not the true one). However, the aggressive brand of secularism is one which comes from a non-religious or anti-religious (“freedom from religion”) ideal and which views religion (and especially the Catholic Church) as a threat to freedom. In viewing us in this way, our supposed enemies are like Bess, searching for joy in stuff which will never fulfill them.

Pope Francis reminds us on pages two and 11 of the love that we must have towards “enemies.” He acknowledges that this is not easy, but nor was it easy for Jesus to look down at us at the foot of the cross, clamoring for Him to suffer. He forgave us then, we must forgive them now (like He did, before any repentance had occurred), so that we can truly love them and let Christ’s Light warmly shine through our hearts towards them. If the Berlin Wall could fall, the walls between our hearts can crumble, too.

June 28, 2013

Faithful lay people and the defense of religious freedom

H

ave you heard how the Alabama legislaand defend it with courage and perseverance ture made it illegal to give any assistance against illegitimate attacks by governments and at all to illegal immigrants, including medical bureaucrats that are supposed to serve rather than care if they were dying, food if undocumented intimidate and coerce us. children were starving, spiritual care if they were In the last couple of months there have been contemplating suicide, pregnancy assistance if three massive scandals that should make all they were contemplating abortion, or any type of citizens especially watchful. The Department of spiritual nourishment?

Justice’s monitoring of the cell phone records Have you heard how pharmacists in Illinois of journalists potentially involved in stories and Washington were forced by their legislatures exposing things injurious to the administration, to prescribe against their conscience potentially the IRS’ bias and bullying against conservative abortion-causing drugs, like “ella” and Plan B? and Christian groups, and the intrusive NSA Have you heard how Justice Department monitoring of U.S. citizens’ daily interactions all attorneys argued in a recent case called “Hosanna raise profoundly serious questions as to whether Tabor” that religious groups have no right to those in the administration respect the rights of choose its leaders from among those who believe citizens enshrined in the Constitution and the law. and live by its religious tenets, that federal antiThey also suggest that some in government — in discrimination laws trump any claims to religious clear violation of constitutional and statutory freedom, an argument the Supreme Court rejected prohibitions — think that they are entitled to use 9-0 last year? the organs of government against, rather than in Have you heard how Justice Department law- service of, law-abiding citizens. yers argued before federal courts that the belief For some time the U.S. bishops have been that Marriage is the union of one man and one calling all citizens, but particularly Catholic faithwoman is an unconstitutional form of bigotry? ful, to increased vigilance and counteraction with Have you heard how Catholic adoption agenregard to violations against religious freedom. cies in Boston, San Francisco, Washington D.C. The Fortnight is meant to enhance those efforts. and Illinois have been forced out of adoption and The question is how many Catholic lay foster care services for not placing children in faithful are taking these appeals seriously and same-sex homes? responding with How a Methodprayer, study, and ist ministry in involvement.

New Jersey was The most held in violation articulate of state law for spokesman in the refusing to allow United States on two lesbians to religious freedom conduct a civil concerns, PhilaBy Father union ceremony delphia ArchRoger J. Landry on its private bishop Charles property?

Chaput, has been Have you summoning heard that the Obama Administration is still Catholic laity to awaken from a social somnocompelling religious charitable institutions, lence and fulfill the vocation Christ has given like Catholic hospitals, universities and social them to be salt, light and leaven of society. service agencies, to fund and facilitate employee In a June 19 interview with the National insurance plans to pay for sterilizations, abortionCatholic Register, he said, “Religious liberty as causing drugs and contraception? How they are an ideal sounds lovely. But in the abstract, it has still coercing private business owners to do the very little power. It has political force only to the same against their consciences? degree that ordinary people believe and practice Have you heard how a U.S. Army Reserve their faith — and refuse to tolerate anyone or presentation included Catholics and evangelicals anything interfering with their faith. in a list of terrorist “extremists”? How a com“The current White House,” he continued, mitted anti-Christian activist named Michael “has a clear track record of ignoring the traditional Weinstein — who has called talking to another American understanding of religious freedom and soldier about issues of faith “spiritual rape” — is interfering with the activity of religiously inspired now advising the Pentagon on policy for chaporganizations. If lay Catholics accept that sort of lains and has proposed court martials for making government behavior without inflicting a political others uncomfortable through simple things like cost on the officials responsible for it, then they having a Bible on one’s desk? How Walter Reed have no one to blame but themselves when they Hospital Chief of Staff C.W. Callahan a couple find that their liberties have gone thin.” of years ago banned family members and others Unless lay faithful get seriously involved, all from bring any religious items — Bibles, reading the bishops’ efforts to protect religious freedom will material, Rosaries, etc. — into the hospital or be in vain. “If lay people don’t love their Catholic using them to pray with injured soldiers (an outra- faith enough to struggle for it in the public square, geous policy that has since been rescinded under nothing the bishops do will finally matter.” political pressure)?

The Fortnight for Freedom is meant to inspire Have you heard how the IRS muscled all those in the Church to love their faith enough Christian Pro-Life groups as part of its outrageous to struggle for it in public. discrimination against those who might have obIt began on the vigil of the feast of St. Thomas jections to administration policies? How the IRS More, the great English layman who refused to tried to pressure the Coalition for Life of Iowa capitulate to King Henry VIII’s attacks against to have its board members sign under penalty of the consciences of English subjects and the rights perjury a promise not to picket or protest outside of the Church. The two weeks encompass the of Planned Parenthood facilities in order to obtain feast days of so many great martyrs — SS. John non-profit status? How various other groups, like Fisher, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, the first the Christian Voices for Life, were asked about martyrs of the Church of Rome, and Thomas the their involvement in 40 Days for Life and about Apostle — all of whom courageously gave their the content of their prayers in the various meetlives rather than violate the truth they knew in ings? How it audited — more precisely, made life conscience and give inspiration to believers today. miserable for six months — for writers like FranThe Fortnight concludes on Independence ciscan University of Steubenville Professor Anne Day, a forceful reminder that our freedom doesn’t Hendershott for having written articles critical of come free and that so many national heroes — objectionable parts of Obamacare? acting not only with patriotism but also disproporThese are just some of the many threats to tionately acting as a result of their Christian faith religious freedom conscientious citizens are — have shed their blood to keep us free. confronting in the United States.

If these martyrs who gave their lives out of It’s for this reason that the Church in our coun- fidelity to their faith in God, and these soldiers try is now in the midst of the second Fortnight for who died to keep us free, were alive today, they Freedom, an intense two-week period of prayer, would doubtless be urging all of us to get off our education and action, convoked to confront these sofas and be as dedicated to the defense of faith growing incursions by secularist judges, legislaand freedom as they were. tures and executive branch incursions against the Whether our country remains the “land of religious freedom. the free and home of the brave” depends on our The Fortnight for Freedom is a ringing alarm bravely exercising and defending our freedoms clock seeking to awaken religious believers and now against those in positions of government constitution-loving citizens to begin to exercise working to take them away. greater vigilance in protection of their freedoms.

Father Landry is Pastor of St. Bernadette It’s a time for Catholics in particular, during Parish in Fall River. His email address is this Year of Faith, to come to know their faith fatherlandry@catholicpreaching.com.

Putting Into the Deep

June 28, 2013

W

7

The Anchor

Considering Russell Shaw’s ‘American Church’

hen Russell Shaw, former press spokesman for the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference, subtitles his new book “The Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall, and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America,” he knows what he’s talking about.

From a handful of Catholics at the time of the American Revolution, the Church in this country grew incredibly, with huge waves of immigration from Catholic Europe in the 19th century: Ireland, Germany and central Europe, and then Italy and southern Europe. The Church was a force to be reckoned with, particularly in the cities. Thus its “Remarkable Rise,” which was a time of “ghetto Catholicism.”

There is evidence in the prefatory materials that this book was originally entitled “The Gibbons Legacy,” after James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore for almost half a century until he died in 1921. But maybe Ignatius Press decided that wasn’t catchy enough, since few today outside of historians of American Catholicism remember Cardinal Gibbons.

violate principles of Catholic In any case, when he took morality (Along the same statist possession of his titular church and secularist lines, Obama in in Rome on Mar. 25, 1887 northern Ireland recently ques(The feast of the Annunciation, tioned the continued existence and also, not coincidentally, of religious schools in northern Maryland Day), Gibbons said, “Thanks to the fructifying grace of God, the grain of mustard seed ... has grown to be a large tree, spreading its branches over the length and breadth

By Dwight Duncan of our fair land. I proclaim, with a deep sense of pride and gratitude ... that I belong to a country where the civil Ireland: “If towns remain divided — if Catholics have their government holds over us the schools and buildings, and Protaegis of its protection without estants have theirs — if we can’t interfering in the legitimate exercise of our sublime mission as see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to ministers of the Gospel of Jesus harden, that encourages division.

Christ.”

It discourages cooperation.” So Shaw questions whether much for religious freedom in that optimistic assessment education!). of the good cardinal is still Of course, the Catholic true. President Obama and his Church in the United States did nominally Catholic Secretary not remain in the urban ghetto. of Health and Human Services As Shaw’s chapter “Into and Out Kathleen Sebelius are doing of the Ghetto” notes, Catholics everything they can to try and in America assimilated into the coerce Catholic organizations larger culture. and individuals into providing A Catholic became president, free morning-after pills, and so

Judge For Yourself

but at the price of renouncing the socio-political ramifications of the faith. Shaw notes that in 1965, the year Vatican II ended, priestly ordinations in the country were almost 1,000; but in 2010, they were not even 500. There has also been a huge dropoff in Catholic school attendance.

Of course, the most obvious measure of public decline has been the priest sex-abuse scandal, which hit the Church in this country, and particularly Boston, especially hard. We have been in what Shaw characterizes as “Meteoric Fall.”

I suppose the good news is that there’s nowhere to go but up. One of the wonderful things about our new pope is that, by continually highlighting God’s loving mercy, and taking a forthright stand against clerical privilege and hypocrisy, he is offering a compelling witness to what George Weigel has called “Evangelical Catholicism,” the New Evangelization that this country and the modern world so desperately need.

Shaw talks about the “Uncertain Future” of Catholicism in America. God’s grace is not lacking, but everyone is ultimately free to choose their future. Shaw recommends that “Catholic lay people must be the new subculture’s primary agents of evangelization.” Shaw quotes a friend of his who said, “The biggest problem of all — and the cause of all the rest — is that we haven’t preached holiness.”

The Church in this country has been known for its bishops and its buildings — churches, schools, hospitals. But not as well known for its saints. That is fortunately changing.

With figures like military chaplains Father Vincent Capodanno or Father Emil Kapaun up for holiness, or Capuchin friar Solanus Casey, or recently canonized St. Marianne Cope, we can see the “uncertain future” flower into holiness in America.

But to understand where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going, Russell Shaw’s book is required reading.

Dwight Duncan is a professor at UMass School of Law Dartmouth. He holds degrees in civil and canon law.

Pope tells nuncios to help him find new bishops who are meek, merciful VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Tracing the characteristics he wants to see in candidates to serve as bishops, Pope Francis said they must be “pastors who are close to their people, fathers and brothers, who are meek, patient and merciful.”

A good prospective bishop will “love interior poverty as freedom for the Lord” and live that externally with a simple lifestyle, and he won’t have the “mindset of a prince,” the pope said during a recent meeting with nuncios and apostolic delegates.

The 108 papal representatives to nations and international organizations, along with 40 retired nuncios, were making a two-day Year of Faith pilgrimage to the Vatican and were scheduled to dine under the stars that evening with Pope Francis in the Vatican gardens.

The majority of the Vatican diplomats are nuncios or apostolic delegates to one or more country; Pope Francis said one of the most important tasks they have is studying the needs of vacant dioceses and helping him find appropriate candidates for the ministry.

“It’s a delicate task,” the pope said. “Beware of those who are ambitious, who seek the episcopacy.”

Pope Francis said the best

priest to choose as bishop or the best bishop to choose to head a larger diocese or archdiocese is one who is wed to his diocese, “the spouse of One Church, who is not constantly seeking another.”

“I will comment (more) about this when it’s not being recorded,” the pope told the nuncios, who laughed.

Candidates must be real pastors and shepherds, he said, able to watch over their flock, keep them united, protect them from danger and, especially, nourish their hope, “sustaining with love and patience the plans that God is working within His people.”

“Shepherds need to be in front of their flocks to indicate the path, in the midst of the flock to keep them united, behind the flock to make sure none is left behind,” the pope said.

Telling the nuncios and representatives that he wrote his speech himself after much thought and prayer, Pope Francis said he knows their ministries mean they often are nomads. “I’ve often thought, ‘these poor men,’” they not only leave their homelands, but serve for a few years in one country, then are moved to another.

The one thing they must never leave behind, he said, is their faith

in Jesus and their love for the Church.

“There is always the danger, including for Churchmen, to give into what — borrowing an expression from (the late Jesuit Cardinal Henri) De Lubac — I call ‘spiritual worldliness’: giving into the spirit of the world which leads to acting for one’s self-realization and not for the glory of God,” he said.

If a nuncio is not always drawing on the strength of the Lord

and not always focused on Christ and His Gospel, “he risks turning a holy mission into something ridiculous,” the pope said. “I know ‘ridiculous’ is a strong word, but it’s true. Giving into the spirit of the world makes pastors, especially, ridiculous. We might gain some applause, but those same people who appear to approve of us will criticize us behind our backs.”

Even though they don’t have a parish or a diocese, nuncios and other Vatican diplomats are called

to be pastors, the pope said. “Always seek the good, the good of all, the good of the Church and each person.”

But along with prayer and works of charity, nuncios must work with a high level of diplomatic professionalism. “This is kind of like your hairshirt, your Penance,” he said.

As a gift, Pope Francis gave each of the nuncios a commemorative silver pectoral cross made for the occasion.

front-row seat — Pope Francis greets a young boy as he arrives to lead a general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican recently. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

8

B

ela Karolyi was a gymnastics coach for Rumania in the days of communism and the Iron Curtain. He developed such Olympic stars as gold-medalist Nadia Comenici. His international fame won him special government favors, including such things as a Mercedes — unheard of in communist countries. In 1981 he decided to turn his back on Communism and seek a life of freedom in the West. When the time came to leave, Bela did not look back at his state favors, his Mercedes, or his celebrity status. He simply walked straight ahead, to a new way of life, carrying only a small suitcase.

In the first reading, we heard that the Lord commissioned Elijah to anoint Elisha, the son of Shaphat, to succeed him as a prophet.

When Elijah found Elisha,

June 28, 2013

The Anchor

What will our answer be?

he was ploughing the 12th lic sign of renouncing his yoke of oxen. With 11 other previous life, Elisha offered pairs of oxen, it is clear that a special meal by slaughterElisha came from a fairly ing his 12 pair of oxen and rich family. Passing near using his farm equipment to Elisha, Elijah threw his mantle over him.

While this might apHomily of the Week pear to be a strange Thirteenth Sunday thing to do, in those in Ordinary Time days it had a special meaning. Because

By Deacon the hair-shirt mantle Del Malloy was part of the official dress of the prophets, to cast it over another person meant make the fire. The actions of a formal investing with the Elisha show us that he felt authority that comes from the call from God to bebeing initiated in the memcome a prophet and he was bership of prophets. Elisha willing to leave everything saw this as an invitation behind to answer that call. from the Lord and he willIn the Gospel, an uningly accepted the invitanamed man is called by tion. He asked permission Jesus to follow Him. Apfrom Elijah to say goodbye parently his father had just to his parents who said to passed away and he tells him, “Go back, have I done Jesus that he will follow anything to you?” As a pubHim but first he needs to

go and bury his father — a law and obligation of a son. But Jesus said no and told the man, “let the dead bury the dead.” Another man is asked by Jesus to follow Him. This unnamed man agrees to do so, but wants, like Elisha, to go back and say goodbye to his parents. Unlike Elijah, who agreed to let Elisha do this, Jesus does not want His followers to look behind, but only ahead.

Jesus said to him “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.”A seemingly cold statement, but what it means is that the true follower of Christ is one who trusts in Jesus completely and relies on Him. Jesus wants us to be with Him in

the moment and live in full awareness of the life that He has given us.

As we listen to the words in this week’s readings and Gospel, we must ask ourselves, “Have I answered the call to serve God?” Am I willing to leave everything behind to answer His call? In true discipleship, there is no turning back. We are asked to leave our earthly ways behind and grow in our spiritual lives through the grace of God and the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit.

Bela Karolyi left status and state favors behind in pursuit of a life of freedom. Elisha left a good life behind to answer the call of our Heavenly Father. Now, it is our turn. What will our answer be?

Deacon Malloy currently serves at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Attleboro.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. June 29, SS. Peter and Paul, Apostles, Acts 12:1-11; Ps 34:2-9; 2 Tm 4:6-8, 17-18; Mt 16:13-19. Sun. June 30, Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, 1 Kgs 19:16b, 19-21; Ps 16:1-2, 5; Gal 5:1, 13-18; Lk 9:51-62. Mon. July 1, Gn 18:16-33; Ps 103:1-4, 8-11; Mt 8:18-22. Tues. July 2, Gn 19:15-29; Ps 26:2-3, 9-12; Mt 8:23-27. Wed. July 3, Eph 2:19-22, Ps 117:1-2; Jn 20:24-29. Thurs. July 4, Gn 22:1b-19; Ps 115:1-6, 8-9; Mt 9:1-8. Fri. July 5, Gn 23:1-4, 19; 24:1-8, 62-27; Ps 106:1-5; Mt 9:9-13.

T

he “Edict of Milan,” whose milleseptuacentennial (so to speak) is being marked this year, wasn’t an edict and wasn’t issued at Milan.

Still, its enormous impact on the history of the Church and the West is well worth pondering on this 1,700th anniversary.

In his magisterial study, “The First Thousand Years,” Robert Louis Wilken sets the historical record straight: “In ... 313 ... Licinius (the eastern Roman emperor) and Constantine (the western emperor) had met in Milan. The occasion was the Marriage of Licinius to Constantine’s halfsister, Constantia. But the two emperors used the occasion to discuss matters of state and agreed on a policy concerning the practice of religion. During the summer of 313 Licinius sent letters to provincial governors ... in the East, in Asia Minor and Syria, granting Christians the rights they had already acquired in the West and restoring their property. This letter has often been called the ‘Edict of Milan’ but the term is a misnomer.

It was not an edict but a letter posted by Licinius from several cities in the East, such as Nicomedia, the residence of the emperor. Like other official

The ‘Edict of Milan,’ 1,700 years later

correspondence, however, it the fact that the “edict” had a was written in the name of both profound and, in many respects, emperors and its content reflects beneficial influence on the futhe hand of Constantine.” ture of the West.

Licinius’s letter, Wilken There was a shadow side to notes, involved all religions, not just Christianity; it went beyond mere toleration and embodied a more robust idea of religious freedom, based on the conviction that true

By George Weigel faith and true worship cannot be compelled; and it treated the Church as a corporate body with all this, however. For what we legal rights, including propertyknow as the “Edict of Milan” owning rights. marked the beginning the ChrisThus the not-really-an-Edict tian Church’s deep entanglement of Nicomedia and elsewhere with state power. cemented into the foundations of The immediate effects of the the West ideas first sketched by Constantinian settlement, both the Christian philosopher Lacgood and ill, were limned with tantius: that coercion and true customary wit and literary skill religious faith don’t mix because by Evelyn Waugh in the novel “God wishes to be adored by “Helena.” people who are free” (as Joseph After 313, the tombs of the Ratzinger would rewrite Lacmartyrs were publicly honored; tantius a millennium and a half so were the martyr-confessors, later, in the 1986 Instruction on often disfigured by torture, who Christian Freedom and Liberaemerged from the Christian tion). underground to kiss each others’ The rather humane proviwounds at the first ecumenical sions of the mis-named “Edict Council. Before those heroes of Milan” were not infrequently met at Nicaea in 325, though, ignored in subsequent western grave theological questions had history; but that doesn’t alter gotten ensnared up in imperial

The Catholic Difference

court intrigues and ecclesiastical politics.

Later unions of altar and throne led to a general cultural forgetting of Lactantius’s wisdom, as the Church employed the “civil arm” to enforce orthodoxy. Protestantism proved no less vulnerable to the temptation to coercion than Catholicism and Orthodoxy; one might even argue that the 17th-century peace of Westphalia, which ended the European wars of religion by establishing the principle of cuius regio eius religio (the prince’s religion is the people’s religion), reversed the accomplishments of the “Edict of Milan” — and was, in fact, the West’s first modern experiment in the totalitarian coercion of consciences.

Very few 21st-century Christians would welcome a return to state establishments of religion as the accepted norm. So however much the Constantinian settlement led Christianity into what some regard as a lengthy Babylonian captivity to state power, the “Edict of Milan” also affirmed truths that have proven stronger over time than the temptation to use Caesar for

God’s work. Today’s challenge is quite different: it’s the temptation to let Caesar, in his various forms, reduce religious conviction to a privacy right of lifestyle choice.

Lactantius knew that religious conviction is more than that. Seventeen-hundred years later, so should the Obama Administration and the West’s radical secularists.

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

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June 28, 2013

A

s summer descends and the temperatures elevate, we slow down in many ways. The added leisure in some schedules may be spent simply resting, or perhaps scrambling to various events, but surely there is time to think — to think about some important matters. What follows are some questions that can be taken to heart, so that you may be rejuvenated in spirit as well as body over the coming weeks.

• Why are you a Catholic? This can be pondered in light of other options: agnosticism or atheism, or as compared to other Christian sects — or other religions entirely.

Have you really tried to understand that the Second Person of the Trinity took flesh in order to offer mankind a path to communion with God through grace?

Does your profession of faith have any impact on your dayto-day living or your disposition

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here’s a small scene from the classic Three Stooges 1935 short, “Uncivil Warriors.” Moe, Larry and Curly are northern spies who infiltrated the Confederate Army, and are speaking with southern Major Filbert. Larry interrupts the conversation; “Oh, excuse me gentlemen, I gotta go take care of a weak back.” The major responds: “Pardon me, how long have you had a weak back?”

Larry’s classic response is, “Oh, about a week back,” capped off

by Curly’s iconic “Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.”

Well folks, I’m back ... from a weak back. Only this weak back originated far longer than a week back.

After nearly a decade of assorted pains, tinglings, and numbings, I recently had surgery to remove a degenerated disk in my upper back/neck and replace it with a couple of artificial disks.

First things, first. I’d like to thank all those who sent me emails, cards, Mass intentions, holy cards, Rosaries, phone calls, and good wishes for a speedy recovery. Those seemingly small gestures found a large place in my heart. It sends chills up my surgically-corrected spine.

Next, I’d like to thank my neurosurgeon, Dr. Leslie Stern and his team. One of the first things I noticed while lying in my hospital room shortly after the surgery was that I had full feeling in my right index finger ... a digit that had absolutely no feeling for more than eight years. And my right thumb, which was as dead as its neighbor, regained some sensations again. It may not seem like a big deal, but it was like a

9

The Anchor

Channeling idle time

towards others? last Confirmation class decades • When was the last time you back — then how can we expect really prayed? Aspirations are it to grow and sustain us as we wonderful, and devotional prayers age? have their place, but when was • How have you been nourishthe last time you took an hour to ing your communion with the lift your mind and heart to God to thank Him for your life, your family, your health, and your opportunities. When was the last time you tried to see your loved ones as He sees

By Genevieve Kineke them, and to consider what He might have planned for the near future? Surely there will be time this summer!

Mystical Body of Christ? God • What was the last book you knows that we cannot flourish read concerning the faith? This alone, and so we have to help one would mean a catechetical book, another — praying to the saints, the life of a saint, an historical praying for the souls in Purgaoutline of another generation of tory, and sharing time with other believers and their challenges, or members of nearby parishes. a manual on prayer. If we don’t Perhaps summer will allow for take our faith seriously as adults weekday Mass, where you can — ending our formation with the meet some wonderful people, not

The Feminine Genius

to mention hearing more Scripture and receiving the Eucharist more often. Can’t hurt!

• Is it possible to add some volunteer work to your summer schedule — and include the children in your care? The residents of nursing homes enjoy visitors, soup kitchens need servers, clothing drives need sorters, and many shut-ins need rides to various appointments.

It’s hard to get away from screens and other forms of entertainment, but we must consider those who are less fortunate. Ask someone at your parish for ideas, and gather some friends. Leaving the comfort zone has surprising rewards!

• Perhaps there will be time to study one topic of interest, so that you can share what you learn with others. You could inform yourself about end-of-life issues or the

Oh, about a week back

whole new world for me. get me snack.

I had to relinquish the priviIt was pretty nice to have all lege of performing duties as a kinds of people doing things for special minister of Holy Commu- me — not a difficult scenario nion because I couldn’t feel the Host any longer.

And while playing the guitar, one of my passions, the pick would spin and ultimately shake loose of my grasp withBy Dave Jolivet out my even detecting it.

But now, during my weekly jam sessions with Emilie’s beau Danny, I can rock to get used to. Although I do on without the pick flying across believe I detected a collective the room! sigh of relief when I did return to Thanks too, go to the staff work. at Charlton Memorial Hospital There is, however, one being which was wonderful during my that truly appreciated the time pre- and post-op periods. My I spent at home — my faithful one-night stay was fine, except Igor. She really dug having dad for the fact that my first post-op around all the time. She was my meal was a chicken leg and vegvelcro-pup, constantly by my etables. After an incision on the side. She sensed my plight and front of my neck and the resultwas there for me. It was that or ing swelling, and the irritation of the fact that whenever I secured the anesthesia tube in my throat, a snack, she did too. But it was there was no way I could choke she who gave me the puppy eyes down a chicken leg. But the staff when I headed out the door with quickly set me up with nice soft briefcase in tow. It’s good to mashed potatoes and apple sauce. know someone misses me.

Next, thanks go to Emilie and I’d like to thank my Anchor Denise, who took care of me (or family for picking up the slack in put up with me, depending on my absence ... and for the beautione’s perspective) during my ful plant they sent (that Denise ensuing home convalescence. takes care of).

They never once made fun The surgery did have its drawof my voice, which had come to backs as well. As mentioned bemimic a ventriloquist’s dummy fore, I couldn’t drive for a while, (be nice now) because of the so there was the sense of a loss of swelling. freedom there. And my activities Denise tolerated my backwere very limited. I enjoy lazing seat driving (from the shotgun around as much as the next guy, position) as she chauffeured me but not 24/7. So restricting my around until I could drive again. activities to the light variety was Emilie quickly learned to a pain. read the puppy eyes I would After only a few days on the show her when I wanted her to pain-killers, I didn’t need them,

My View From the Stands

but I also fell into the false sense that I was back to normal, so I would over-exert, and then pay the price. Like Pavlov’s dogs, I learned through repetition.

But I think the worst limitation is that I can’t play golf until at least September (There are those who say that I never could play golf, but that’s just nasty).

I got to play a round with Danny and with my old “Bingo” partner Paul Berube a

different kinds of stem cells, you could research the situation of Christians in the Middle East or factory workers in China, or just take some time to discover what’s so special about Comet ISON — everyone will be talking about that when school starts again.

Leisure is certainly the basis of culture, and thus it stands to reason that leisure well-spent will contribute to a richer society overall. Such endeavors will require some fortitude, for lassitude usually reigns when pressures ease, but you will be better for the effort. Your faith will deepen, your appreciation of God’s order will grow, and the effects of your application stand to benefit many who will share in the harvest of your personal growth.

Mrs. Kineke is the author of “The Authentic Catholic Woman,” and writes from Rhode Island.

few weeks before my surgery. And my other golf partner, Msgr. Tom Harrington, treated me to a round a few days before my disk swop.

I miss playing with these characters, but what worries me most is that Mr. Berube promised me (or threatened me) that he was going to play as much as possible in the interim, so that when we resume playing, I won’t stand a chance. To that I say, “I look forward to the challenge!” And if he walks all over me, then I’ll just say, “I have a weak back.”

Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.

New head of Cape middle school named continued from page one

im head of school.”

Maria Eugenia Cortez, who has a son who just graduated from the school and two daughters who continue there, also praised Kelley. “She is beloved by the children and parents.” Cortez spoke about the “incredibly positive effect which [Mrs. Kelley] has on her children. It is as if they were her own children. She shapes children’s character in a good way.”

Cortez said that her daughters and son “would rather die than disappoint Mrs. Kelley.”

Father Daniel Lacroix, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish, issued a statement upon the appointment of Kelley. “I am very pleased by the announcement that Mrs. Beth Kelley will lead the middle school into this new era in the school’s history. With this appointment, Mrs. Kelley will bring a spirit of continuity with the past, while also bringing her unique talents and style to help build an even stronger future. Since the unification of

Pope John Paul II High School and St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School was announced, many people have quietly come forward to express their desire to work together in this new model, focusing on our common goal of serving children through quality Catholic education.

“I, along with many others, favor the many opportunities this unification can provide, and I agree with their sentiments that we can look to the rapid accomplishments of Mr. Chris Keavy at Pope John Paul II High school as a sign of hope for a high quality of leadership through the years ahead. Mrs. Kelley will be an excellent partner in that effort. She is a hard-working and dedicated teacher. She works well with others, collaborates with fellow staff and others, is excited about the learning opportunities for her students within this new model, and has the respect of students and parents alike.”

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The Anchor

June 28, 2013

Church must dim own light to let Christ’s shine through, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — On the feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist, Pope Francis called for the Church to model itself after the prophet and courageously proclaim and serve Jesus even until martyrdom.

“Why is St. John a saint and not a sinner?” the pope asked.

“Because he never, ever understood the truth as his own.

He didn’t want to become an ideologue,” the pope said.

Therefore, the prophet “denied himself” so the light and truth of Christ would shine through.

The pope made his remarks during his June 24 homily at morning Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives. Vatican Radio published a summary of his homily in Italian.

Pope Francis asked that the Church not become ideological, by proclaiming its own ideas and claiming the Gospel as its own possession.

Instead, he said, the Church must be like the moon, receiving and reflecting the light of Christ. The Church’s light “must diminish so that He increases.”

“This is the model John offers us today, for us and for the Church: a Church that is always at the service of the Word, a Church that never takes anything for herself,” he said.

The Church must listen to the Word and courageously use its voice to proclaim Christ, pointing people to Him and leading the way “until martyrdom,” he said.

The pope also highlighted St. John the Baptist during his Sunday Angelus address June 23 to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square, saying he was one of the many martyrs in history who died for the truth.

“How many people pay a dear price in being committed to the truth?” he asked.

“How many honest men and women prefer going against the tide in order to not reject the voice of their conscience, the voice of truth?”

The pope said there are more Christians being imprisoned or killed today for their faith than during the early centuries of the Church.

While these martyrs represent the greatest example of giving one’s life to Christ, there are also “everyday martyrs” who are not killed, but who “lose their lives” for Jesus by giving up their own egos and desires to serve others, he said.

Among these “martyrs of the everyday” are mothers and fathers who “put their faith into practice by concretely offering their life for the well-being of the family.”

Priests and religious men and women, too, generously serve God’s Kingdom, as do young people who selflessly dedicate themselves to caring for children, the disabled, the elderly and others, he said.

Speaking off-the-cuff, the pope urged young people to not be afraid of going against the grain, especially when the values and lifestyles being proposed “want to rob us of hope” and cause people harm like “food gone bad.”

“Go on! Be courageous and go against the tide and be proud of doing it,” he said.

Right after the Angelus prayer, the pope met with 300 children and their guardians at the Vatican train station. The kids, who have been experiencing social and family problems, arrived at the Vatican on a specially chartered train that made stops in Milan, Bologna, Florence and Rome.

The so-called “Children’s Train” event was organized by the Pontifical Council for Culture’s “Courtyard of the Gentiles” initiative that seeks to bring believers and non-believers together in dialogue.

The pope greeted and chatted informally with the children for 30 minutes before the kids headed off to lunch in the Paul VI hall and visited St. Peter’s Square.

Earlier in the day, the pope celebrated Mass at the Domus Sanctae Marthae with about 40 apostolic nuncios who were still in Rome after a recent Year of Faith pilgrimage to the Vatican.

The day before, Pope Francis canceled an appointment to attend a concert being held at the Vatican as part of the Year of Faith celebrations.

The pope was unable to attend the event because of “an urgent and impossible to postpone” conflicting commitment, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council Promoting New Evangelization, told those at the gathering.

The concert, organized by the pontifical council, featured Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 performed by the Italian state television RAI network’s national symphony orchestra and the National Academy of Santa Cecilia.

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The Anchor

June 28, 2013

Pope: It’s wrong to think our enemies must go to hell

Vatican City (CNA/ “But Father, what? My fa- him, but that is pagan.”

EWTN News) — Pope Francis ther?”

“You must pray to Him Who stressed that it’s false to think “No, our Father!” he ex- generated you, Who gave you our enemies “must go to hell” claimed. “Because I am not an life,” Pope Francis said. during his daily Mass at the only child, none of us are, and “Not to everyone — everyVatican’s Saint Martha House if I cannot be a brother, I can one is too anonymous.”

June 20. hardly become a child of the “To Whom do I pray, to “You cannot pray a cosmic God?” he with enemies in your asked. he pope told how Jesus noted, “if heart,” he said rePraying to a “coswe do not forgive others, neither mic God” is a polythecently. “With (both) brothers and enemies will the Father forgive us our sins.” istic model that comes in your heart, you canfrom “a rather light not pray.” culture,” and is too “They must go to hell, right? Father, because he is a Father impersonal.

I will have nothing to do with to all.”

“To Whom do I pray, to the them!” the Bishop of Rome Pope Francis underscored Almighty God? He is too far said sarcastically. that if we are not “at peace with off, ah, I can’t hear Him. NeiThe pope told how Jesus my brothers, I cannot say ‘Fa- ther did Jesus.” noted, “if we do not forgive ther’ to Him.” “You must pray to the Faothers, neither will the Father Saying “Father, I have ther,” Pope Francis affirmed. forgive us our sins.” sinned” is “the key of every “The first” word is Father “It’s so hard to forgive oth- prayer, to feel loved by a fa- and it is “the key” to prayer. ers, it is really difficult because ther,” he reflected.

He stressed that “without we always have that regret in“Jesus immediately gives saying, without feeling that side,” he said. “We think ‘you us a piece of advice in prayer: word, you cannot pray.” did this to me, you wait. I’ll re- ‘in praying, do not babble,’ do “Jesus has promised us the pay him the favor.’” not make worldly noises, vain Holy Spirit, it is He Who teachPope Francis gave his hom- noises.” es us from within, from the ily based on the day’s Gospel, Pope Francis explained that heart, how to say ‘Father’ and which tells how Jesus taught Jesus teaches us not to turn to how to say ‘our.’”

His disciples to pray the ‘Our God with “so many words” beFather.” cause “He knows everything.”

“We have a Father very “And He warned that prayer close to us, Who embraces us,” is not a magical thing — there the Roman pontiff said. is no magic with prayer.”

“All these worries, concerns The Bishop of Rome noted that we have, let’s leave them “someone once told me that to the Father; He knows what when he went to a witch doctor we need.” they said a lot of words to heal

T

Fully revised and updated ...

2013-2014 Diocese of Fall River Catholic Directory ... shipping in August!

Published by The Anchor Publishing Company P.O. Box 7, Fall River, Massachusetts 02722 Please ship _____ directories x $18 each, including shipping and handling. Total Enclosed $_____ NAME ____________________________________________ ADDRESS _________________________________________ CITY _____________________ STATE _______ ZIP _____ Please make checks payable to “Anchor Publishing” For more information, email theanchor@anchonews.org, call 508-675-7151, or order online at www.anchornews.org

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS — Above, with many friends, family and alumni in attendance, Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River held a dedication ceremony on June 15 at which time the Lafrance gymnasium floor was named for two longtime Connolly coaches — William “Shifty” Shea and his son Bill Shea. Their names now appear on each end of the court.

Also, that night, the basketball team unveiled the MIAA Division IV 2013 Basketball State Championship banner, right, with the members of the state championship team present.

12

June 28, 2013

The Anchor

Dedication is common theme of two books on women religious

“As I Have Loved You: A Conversation With Mother Teresa” by John Scally. Liguori Press (Liguori, Mo., 2012) 161 pp., $14.99.

“Thank You Sisters: Stories of Women Religious and How They Enrich Our Lives” by John Feister. Franciscan Media (Cincinnati, 2012) 129 pp., $14.99.

At first glance, one might wonder why these two books were paired for review. Clearly, there is the “nun” theme but what really unites the two is the idea of dedication.

Both books reflect lives of faith and a sincere and inspiring desire to help others and serve God.

In “As I Have Loved You: A Conversation With Mother Teresa” John Scally truly offers new insights into the holy and saintly nun from India.

One might think that everyone knows everything about Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. However, Scally really had a unique interview with her and shares it.

Scally is an Irish journalist who wrote to Mother Teresa in 1992 and asked for an interview.

When Mother Teresa came to Dublin and Knock in 1993 they met and he taped the interview.

Basically, this book highlights her answers with some other information included in each chapter.

The book is clear, well-organized and makes the reader fall in love with Mother Teresa for the first time or all over again.

It is actually quite sweet to read when Scally writes: “I did feel a strong pang of jealousy when I met Mother Teresa. Her God was different than mine. She had stumbled upon a God Who dances and astonishes. The love of God had transported her, shattered her, and consumed her like a fire.”

Scally is a great writer and it is worth the purchase of a book to read his lovely prose. However, the bulk of the book is the wit and

wisdom of Mother Teresa, and that is the reason for the book and the meat of the matter. It is good stuff!

MORE MONSTERS — Animated characters appear in the movie “Monsters University.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Disney)

“Thank You Sisters: Stories of Women Religious and How They Enrich Our Lives” is edited by John Feister, editor-inchief of St. Anthony Messenger magazine and other periodicals at Franciscan Media.

He incorporates 13 lovely reflections from some talented and well-known people. The likes of Cokie Roberts, Jesuit Father James Martin and Franciscan Father Dan Horan give great testimonies as to how women religious have helped or inspired them.

The book evolved, in part because of the Vatican’s doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

This book, though, is not a refutation, justification or argument.

Rather it is mostly a book of praise and gratitude. It also is an introduction to the great works of women religious for younger Catholics. The traveling show that highlighted 300 years of women religious in America gave a great overview of religious life in America. This book is a more modern snapshot of the nuns who shaped many in the world today.

Feister writes: “Younger Catholics today have far less chance of having ever met, been educated by or worked with a Catholic Sister than did their parents. Sisters simply are more likely to work and live in the background today.

So I thought, why not tell some positive stories of the profound influence these women had on the people’s lives?’”

He said that nuns probably would not brag so he let the authors in this book do it for them.

It is a good mix of voices and stories. Perhaps the most touching is the tale of the nun who gave sandwiches to those who forgot their lunch at a Catholic grammar school. It seems to show the Church at its kindest and best.

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

“Monsters University” (Disney) This 3-D animated prequel to the 2001 hit “Monsters, Inc.,” directed by Dan Scanlon, features a hilarious sendup of college life. It also reinforces familiar but important messages for young people (and their parents): Make friends, study hard, and apply your unique talents for the greater good. Two best pals (voices of Billy Crystal and John Goodman) were not, it seems, always so fond of one another. Years before the action of the earlier movie, they met in college, locked horns, and were dismissed from the elite program in which they had enrolled by the institution’s stern dean (voice of Helen Mirren). Joining forces with a misfit fraternity, they must learn to work together to achieve their goal of being readmitted. The movie is preceded by a charming short film, “The Blue Umbrella,” about love among parasols. Both are clean and wholesome fun for the entire family. The Catholic News Service classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is G — general audiences.

All ages admitted.

“World War Z” (Paramount) Zombies swarm the planet, and a United Nations troubleshooter (Brad Pitt) learns that the only defenses are guns, knives, duct tape and perhaps a vaccine. Loose adaptation of Max Brooks’ novel by director Marc Foster and screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof respectfully observes

all the cliches of the zombie/pandemic genres without much gore, possibly because there are thousands upon thousands of zombies to shoot at, blow up, or hit with flamethrowers. Gun and physical violence, fleeting crude language.

Possibly acceptable for older teens. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults.

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

“The Purge” (Universal) Set in a dystopian future America during the one night each year when any crime may be committed with impunity, writer-director James DeMonaco’s thriller — a potentially challenging study of the conflict between lifeboat ethics and personal decency — degenerates into an orgy of the very violence it sets out to question.

When the chosen target (Edwin

Hodge) of a bloodthirsty mob (led

by Rhys Wakefield) manages to take refuge in the home of a security specialist (Ethan Hawke), his presence threatens to bring the wrath of the gang down on the whole family (including wife Lena Headey and kids Max Burkholder and Adelaide Kane) unless they give the fugitive up to his pursuers. Inept social commentary — the victim is a homeless black veteran, the marauders are crazed preppies — and pointless religious overtones hobble the proceedings even before the gore goes off the charts. Excessive graphic violence, including torture, a scene of underage sensuality, a few uses of profanity and of rough language, a couple of crass terms. 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 30, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Maurice O. Gauvin, pastor of St. George Parish in Westport

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The Anchor

June 28, 2013

Movie aims to spark religious discernment for women San Bernardino, Calif. (CNA) — A new film sprung from the recently launched Imagine Sisters movement in the U.S. hopes to portray the beauty and joy of religious life and inspire young women to consider religious vocations.

“Light of Love,” which will be released in September and available free of charge, aims to further spread the message that one Sister can change the world, according to the film’s director.

Dan Rogers, who is also a seminarian with the San Bernardino diocese in southern Calif., says the movie offers women what the 2006 movie, “Fishers of Men,” offered men — vocational information and support.

“I saw ‘Fishers of Men’ when I was in high school and I loved it,” Rogers told CNA June 18.

“But we quickly realized there was nothing like ‘Fishers of Men’ for women.”

Rogers recalled that after the movie for seminarians was released, producers tried to create a following and support system for men who were discerning.

But “Light of Love,” he noted, is different.

“We kind of reversed that,” Rogers said. “Instead of watching a movie and then starting the support system, we have a movie that if someone watches

it and enjoys it, all of the resources are already in place.”

Those resources include a presence of the Imagine Sisters movement on six social media sites — Facebook, Pinterest, Vine, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

The film will include interviews and glimpses into the lives of five Sisters from five different orders: the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart in Los Angeles; the Franciscan Sisters of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother in Steubenville, Ohio; the Franciscan Sisters of the Martyr St. George in Alton, Ill.; the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara in Washington, D.C.; and the Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco in New Jersey.

“The orders in the film are slightly smaller that some of the bigger ones, like the Nashville or Ann Arbor Dominicans, who already have bigger followings,” Rogers said. “We wanted to show orders that have a lot of young Sisters, but also ones that maybe didn’t have quite as much publicity.”

Rogers also said that he wanted to show the kinds of

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lives Sisters lead, since they are somewhat of a mystery to the general population.

“Most people have no idea that Sisters will play Frisbee, or

that they’re really exciting and fun,” Rogers said. “And they are so holy because of their prayer life and service and it’s such an interesting life, but people have

never really seen that.”

Also different about “Light of Love” is that it will be available for viewing and downloading completely free of charge.

“Cost was a barrier we wanted to remove,” Rogers said.

The Imagine Sisters movement behind the film started after an event at Loyola University in Chicago.

“There were some people who were excited about nuns,” Rogers said, “And so we hosted an event where a bunch of different Sisters came and got a lot of students excited about Sisters.”

After seeing the success of the event, Rogers and a few friends got together, and the Imagine Sisters movement was born. Rogers has a background in web design and multimedia, and the team shared a passion for spreading the love of Christ via the joy of religious Sisters to the world.

“Our generation … we don’t have the presence of Sisters around as much as maybe our

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parents or grandparents did,” Rogers said. “So we want to get as many good things out about Sisters as possible.”

In just over a year since the movement started on Pentecost 2012, Imagine Sisters has gained more than 13,000 followers on Facebook and thousands of followers on their other social media sites.

“I think people like that we’re fun, and we’re authentic,” Rogers said. “We just post videos and stories and pictures of smiling Sisters.”

So far the team of Imagine Sisters is small, with only three members who are completely volunteer. Soon though, they hope to transition to have some full-time employees, Rogers said.

By the fall, students will be able to contact Imagine Sisters about hosting campus events and showing the movie for free. Rogers said the team also hopes to create more downloadable resources, such as tips for starting discernment groups on campuses.

Rogers own interest in Sisters was sparked after meeting a young Sister while in college at Loyola.

“I met a young Sister and I was like, ‘Man, nuns are cool,’” Rogers said. “And I have the honor and the blessing now to work with Sisters all the time.”

“When you meet Sisters they have no money, no possessions, they wear the same clothes every day and they live with tons of other people and they serve poor people every day, but they do it with such joy that it’s contagious,” Rogers said. “And that’s why this movement has been successful.”

In order to produce the film and make it available for free, the team still needs to raise about $8,000. Tax-deductible donations can be made through the film’s website at: http:// lightoflovefilm.com/donate/.

“We hope people see the value in making this film available for free,” Rogers said. “Donations to this film could help spur vocations for the Church.”

The film will be presented

by Lighthouse Catholic Media and produced by Los Angeles based media companies Lumen Vere and Altius Studios.

Its release date is planned for September 8, which marks the day 19th century French nun Thérèse de Lisieux took her final vows.

“Hopefully some young women will see this film and say, ‘Wow, I had no idea God was calling me to do with my life,’” Rogers said.

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The Anchor

June 28, 2013

Retired pope’s eyes ‘are bright and joyous,’ says longtime friend

sister act — Sister Mary Faithful Virgin, a member of the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara, entertains children in a park in the New York borough of Brooklyn recently. At the invitation of St. Joseph Co-Cathedral in Prospect Heights, nuns and seminarians from the Institute of the Incarnate Word have been leading a two-week evangelization effort in the community surrounding the parish. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)

Archbishop Chaput: Catholics should live their faith ‘all in’

Mallorca, Spain (CNA/ EWTN News) — Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia has called on Catholics to be “active witnesses” of their faith, taking inspiration from the 17th century missionary Blessed Junipero Serra.

Rejecting the idea that the Christian faith is “a useful moral code” or “an exercise in nostalgia,” he stressed that the Christian faith is “a restlessness, a consuming fire in the heart to experience the love of Jesus Christ and then share it with others — or it’s nothing at all.”

“Young or old, we need to live our faith as Junipero Serra did — all in, 100 percent, holding nothing back, with charity, endurance, passion and hope,” Archbishop Chaput said. “That kind of faith changes lives and remakes the world.”

The words “New Evangelization” are “overused and underthought,” he said, warning against speaking of the “New Evangelization” in an empty way, “as if saying the slogan, or talking about it, actually makes mission work happen.”

“Unless we reconfigure our lives to understanding and acting on it, the ‘New Evangelization’ is just another pious intention — well meaning, but ultimately infertile,” he warned.

The archbishop spoke June 22 at the Serra International Convention on the Spanish island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean.

The convention marked the 300th anniversary of the birth of Blessed Junipero Serra, an influential Franciscan priest who founded many Catholic missions in what is now California.

Serra International is a global lay apostolate that promotes and

supports vocations to the Catholic priesthood and religious life.

Archbishop Chaput said Blessed Junipero Serra was “an extraordinary man” who lived at a “pivotal moment” in the history of the Catholic Church, when Catholic and Protestant powers competed for territory around the world as the threat of Muslim invasion of Europe waned.

Father Serra left his life as a university professor in Mallorca at the age of 36 to serve in the New World. The priest had a “supple, inquisitive, brilliant mind,” “tremendous personal energy” and “remarkable organizational skills,” the archbishop said.

Working to bring the Christian faith to the indigenous population of Mexico, Father Serra walked thousands of miles during his lifetime despite a wounded leg that never healed. He built a network of missions and confronted military and political leaders who wanted to exploit American Indians.

“He could be a demanding father to his native converts, but he was fierce in defending their dignity from the colonial authorities,” Archbishop Chaput observed.

The archbishop praised Father Serra’s foresight, endurance, political skill and leadership in a situation with “a very limited mix of people and resources under brutally difficult conditions.”

He stressed the need for all Catholics to spread the faith, saying that “Jesus commands it.

We can’t call ourselves Christians and not be missionaries.

We need to be active witnesses of our faith.”

Evangelization must begin with “our own repentance and conversion,” Archbishop

Chaput said.

“As individuals, we control very little in life; but we do control what we do with our hearts.

We can at least make ourselves available to God as His agents.

Personal conversion is the essential first step. It immediately affects the people around us,” he explained.

Evangelization must also take into account the nature of contemporary society, he added.

Modern American society produces “a kind of radical selffocus and practical atheism” because it renders God “irrelevant to people’s needs and urgencies of the moment,” he said. Real individuality, self-mastery and the communities that shape individuals “can’t compete with the noise and flash of consumer society.”

Any New Evangelization must begin with the “sober knowledge” that many onceChristian lands and many selfdescribed Christians are “in fact pagan,” the archbishop stressed.

In addition, true evangelization is self-renewing, he said, explaining that at the core of “every fresh work of evangelization is this kind of ardor; a passionate faith that can only come from seeking out and giving ourselves entirely to Jesus Christ, no matter what the cost.”

“The irony, the glory and the joy of faith in Jesus Christ is that the more we give it away to others, the stronger it grows, and the more we have for ourselves to feed our own hearts,” Archbishop Chaput said.

“Junipero Serra heard the Gospel, and believed, and acted on it. Today, here, beginning now, God calls us to the privilege of doing the same.”

MAYNOOTH, Ireland (CNS) — One of retired Pope Benedict XVI’s oldest confidants downplayed concerns about the pontiff’s health, saying his friend was mentally and physically “fresh.”

Salvatorian Father Stephan Otto Horn, president of the “Ratzinger Schulerkreis” (Ratzinger Student Circle), told Catholic News Service he met the retired pope in Rome in early June, and he acknowledged his mentor was frail.

“He is 86 now. At that age you are not so strong, but he seemed to me to be very fresh. His memory is fresh and his eyes are very bright and joyous,” he said.

Father Horn was an academic assistant to then-Father Joseph Ratzinger from 1971 to 1977 at Germany’s University of Regensburg. In early June, the priest met the former pope for an hour to discuss this year’s Ratzinger Schulerkreis, scheduled to meet in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, August 29-September 2.

The circle of the retired pope’s students has met since 1978 to discuss topics in theology and the life of the Church.

Although Pope Benedict confirmed to Father Horn that he will not attend the meeting of his former students and the young theologians of the Junior Ratzinger Schulerkreis, the retired pope chose the speaker, French historian Remi Brague, and the topic to be discussed, “The Question of God Against the Background of Secularization.”

“When I was with him, I asked him if it would be possible for him to attend, perhaps even for part of it. But he said he will stay at his convent and will not go to Castel Gandolfo,” Father Horn said.

Father Horn also told CNS

that Pope Emeritus Benedict said Pope Francis had been trying to convince him to go to Castel Gandolfo for a vacation, while he was trying to convince Pope Francis to take a vacation there.

“He told me he had told Pope Francis that if he (Francis) couldn’t go there for a long time, then he should at least go there for August 15, the feast of the Assumption, which the pope traditionally spends with the people of Castel Gandolfo,” Father Horn said.

Speaking to CNS at the Divine Word Missionaries school in Maynooth, during a symposium on the theology of Joseph Ratzinger, Father Horn said: “After the (February 11) resignation it was difficult for him for three weeks, but after those three weeks, his well-being began improving. And he is very interested in everything,” said the priest, who is in regular communication with his former mentor.

Of his decision to resign, Father Horn said Pope Emeritus Benedict was “convinced his decision was the right one,” and was happy and serene with it.

“The Dynamism of Ratzinger’s Theology” conference was organized by a retired professor of moral theology at Maynooth, Divine Word Father Vincent Twomey, a former doctoral student of Pope Benedict and another member of the “Ratzinger Schulerkreis.” The theological conference drew speakers from Ireland, Germany and Poland.

Asked about the absence of his mentor from this year’s Schulerkreis, Father Twomey, who will turn 72 in July, told CNS: “We are all getting old.

Every year one or two people die — so it can’t continue. We’ll go this year primarily out of homage to Benedict.”

Aparecida, Brazil (CNA/ EWTN News) — The Catholic faithful from around the world are invited to send their prayer intentions to the Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida for the Mass that Pope Francis will celebrate there during his visit to Brazil in July.

The press office of the Shrine of Aparecida announced that it will collect all of the intentions that it receives in a special book that will be given to the Holy Father.

The deadline for receiving prayer intentions for the Mass is July 14.

Pope Francis will be visiting Brazil for World Youth Day 2013, which will take place in

Rio de Janeiro July 23-28. He will celebrate Mass in Aparecida on July 24 at 10:30 a.m. local time.

Auxiliary Bishop of Aparecida Darci Jose Nicoli said, “It is a great blessing to have the Vicar of Christ on earth among us, and it is an even greater grace to pray together for the intercession of the Mother of God, Our Lady of Aparecida.”

“Let us join with the pope in his intentions. Let us pray with him and for him,” the bishop said.

Those who wish to send in their prayer intentions should visit: http://www.a12.com/ campanhadosdevotos/papa.

Faithful can send intentions for papal Mass at Brazilian shrine

June 28, 2013

wonder women — A group of women are all smiles during a photo op as they work on a home for Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod. The all-women group was working on a Women Build home.

This year another Women Build home will be erected in Orleans and will stand next to an Apostles Build home; five Habitat homes are planned for Orleans, with a total of 10 Habitat homes breaking ground on Cape Cod during the summer.

‘Cape Apostles’ assist Habitat for Humanity continued from page one

with licensed individuals, like electricians and plumbers, donating their time.

“We’re grateful for those contributions too,” said Mitchell.

As a member of the Faith Relations Committee for Habitat, Mitchell goes to area churches to help raise the $50,000 needed to fund an Apostles Build; “It’s been very successful. We went over and above [the amount],” said Mitchell, of this year’s efforts, “and churches will be providing volunteers and food for the project, and pray for the project.”

One of those parishes heavily involved in Habitat on the Cape is St. Joan of Arc Parish in Orleans. A few years ago, the parish’s then-pastor Father Richard Roy asked parishioner Robert Filliman if he would organize a group of people to work on a Habitat project.

“It was very easy, I just put a notice in the bulletin and I think 20 people signed up,” said Filliman.

Three houses in Chatham were completed that year, and the parish continued to funnel volunteers to homes being built in area communities, including Harwich, Brewster, Orleans and Wellfleet. The construction of the homes in Orleans will see the parish taking part in the fundraising and building efforts of the Apostles Build.

A new road was created for the five homes being built; it will be called Bevan Way, named after the previous owners of the land.

Approximately just over five acres, the project will produce

15

The Anchor

three three-bedroom homes and two two-bedroom homes with architectural designs donated by Hutker Associates of Falmouth.

The town of Orleans Community Preservation Act Grant in the amount of $615,000 was approved during a Town Meeting to fund the land purchase and a substantial portion of the engineering and legal fees. A Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston Grant was awarded, in the amount of $133,932, to help fund the homes; Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank sponsored the grant and provided a construction loan for the project.

Add in the tremendous fundraising efforts and volunteers willing to donate their time, all that is needed is to find families for each home, said Wendy Cullinan, director of Human Resource Development for Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod. “Once we have the land secured, we send out information to the town and surrounding towns with an application period of 60 days when families can apply,” said Cullinan of the application process.

To qualify, families must show a critical need for decent affordable housing with incomes at or below 65 percent of the median income. Each family is also expected to put in 250 “sweat equity” hours by working alongside volunteers in building their home. The family is also to take Habitat’s pre-purchase courses and commit to being a good steward of the home and property.

All the families that qualify — and to qualify they also have to meet credit approval, said Cullinan — are then placed in a “lottery.”

“We call it a lottery and their name is drawn,” said Cullinan.

“There’s a connotation there that people think that when people go into a lottery that they ‘win’ the house, but what they win is the opportunity to purchase a Habitat house. We are selling homes at a very affordable price.”

Finding affordable housing on Cape Cod is extremely difficult for many families, and the response for the 10 homes was overwhelming. This year 55 families qualified for the five homes in Orleans.

The selection process is handled as objectively as possible with no favoritism, said Mitchell: “The term lottery is a difficult term to use because the public will think they got the house for free. They [the families] have to put in a lot of sweat equity hours and then they have to pay either a no-interest or extremely low interest mortgage. Of course it’s not that high because the house didn’t cost that much. They’re building equity in the house.”

Once the families have been selected, that’s when the real work begins. Volunteering is a manner of expressing one’s faith and goodness; “We are doers of the Word, not hearers only,” said Mitchell, who sees volunteers come back year after year, giving a tremendous amount of time to Habitat.

“The first time I visited a build

site, I got there early to give devotions, and I said to somebody, ‘These are really nice people here,’” recalled Mitchell. “And that person said, ‘They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t.’ I thought that was wonderful and there’s a lot of truth to that. The folks that I’ve met through Habitat are just absolutely wonderful. Their heart is really in it.”

Mitchell told a story of a time when he came to offer devotions.

It was bitterly cold and he arrived at noontime to pray with people who had been working since 8 a.m. He saw the steaming lunch and thought to himself, “I’d better make this short,” laughed Mitchell, who then overheard two high school students talking to each other. “One of them said, ‘I’m here to help a single mom,’ and I thought that was very touching. It wasn’t as if he knew who the homeowner was, but he knew the background story.”

Past homes have gone to families that have included a single mom of two teen-age boys and a set of parents with young children who would split their time between the Cape and Mexico during the summer when their home was rented out to visiting tourists.

“They would have to wait for their winter rental,” said Cullinan, “splitting up as a family and then coming back together.

Habitat was able to help them out of that cycle and into a home and stay there for life.”

Habitat gives families the opportunity to be able to live in their own home with a mortgage that is often much less than the average cost of rent; “Mortgages often end up being between $650 and $750 a month,” said Cullinan.

And before critics argue that these families should find affordable housing elsewhere, Mitchell says that there is a mass exodus of young families who cannot afford the steep home prices on the Cape.

“It’s imperative to help our neighbors. What we do is help people who help themselves. It’s

very important for us to do that,” he said. “It’s also important to Cape Cod, in general, to have affordable housing here. We’re losing young families on the Cape in huge numbers. It’s a real problem for us. Not only are we assisting individual families — which is at the core — but also stabilizing the population here on the Cape so that we don’t lose so many young families.”

The Apostles Build is not the only specially labeled Habitat home being built. A Women Build is being organized, an initiative that invites more women into volunteer construction activities. Habitat is also having its first Blitz Build on the Cape; the Blitz home will be built in one week (starting September 23) by carefully coordinated teams of professional builders, all donating their time and skills for the project.

Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod is an interfaith-based organization with many partnerships with local congregations; St. Joan of Arc Parish is one of many that have an annual collection for Habitat, raising between $3,000 to $5,000 annually. As the ground breaking commences in the summer of 2013, the usual timetable for the completed home won’t see a family enter their new abode until the spring of 2014.

“For any family moving into a Habitat house, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime for them. They probably would never be able to own a house on Cape Cod but for that opportunity,” said Filliman.

“It’s the type of thing where people have family ties. It’s so difficult to get a start in a house that some of our children cannot afford a home on Cape Cod, they’re just renting. A home is such a special thing that ties the person to the community much more. It’s just a blessing from God to take part in the whole organization. For those who are able to get a Habitat house, it’s just a very special blessing.”

A TIME FOR RECHARGING — Father Robert Powell, pastor of St. Joan of Arc Parish in Orleans, leads a prayer service during a morning coffee break for Habitat workers.

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Youth Pages

June 28, 2013

READY FOR HIS CLOSE-UP — Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro recently hosted its annual Career Day where 40 professionals from the area — and one from Beverly Hills — came to make presentations to students interested in a variety of fields of work.

Feehan parent and actress Kathy Harum, along with her sister-in-law Mary Hart, former host of “Entertainment Tonight,” were among presenters, encouraging students to consider careers in the field of performing arts. Harum appeared in the film “The Company Men” with Ben Affleck. Above, Feehan Principal George Milot, center, poses with Hart and Harum on Career Day.

what’s up doc? — Students in pre-kindergarten through grade three at SS. Peter and Paul School in Fall River recently enjoyed a visit from Cynthia Ruggieri-Freitas and her “colony of rabbits.” Children were introduced to different breeds of rabbits including the Giant Angora, Netherland Dwarf and Rex and had the opportunity to observe the rabbits, pet them, and feed them pellets, carrots, and apple slices.

goodbye and good luck — The two kindergarten classes at St. Mary-Sacred Heart School in North Attleboro recently had their graduation ceremony. Thirty-eight students moved on to first grade in style. Their teachers, Elizabeth Moura and Maria Stathakis, said goodbye to their kindergartners with tearful eyes as the students had a nice ceremony to celebrate their achievement. Above, students stand with their teachers, teacher aids, and school principal Denise Peixoto.

MOVING ON UP — St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro proudly graduated its first preschool class recently. Shown above are some of the students performing during their “Moving Up Day” celebration.

WHAT’S THE BUZZ? — Kindergarten students of Holy Family-Holy Name School in New Bedford recently participated in the annual religion bee facilitated by Sister Muriel Ann, SS.CC. First-place winners won a trophy and medal and all other students received a medal of participation.

Youth Pages

June 28, 2013

I

admit it. It is not easy to be perfect. But, we must try.

That’s all God asks of us — to try to be perfect and follow His Son, Jesus. Our worldly possessions don’t make us perfect. In fact, they can be obstacles to inheriting eternal life.

When you first learned to ride a bike I’m sure you fell many times. But each time you picked yourself up and tried again. Eventually, you told your dad to let go, for now you had the confidence to ride on your own.

The same is true with your faith. You fall often to sin, but you get up each time and ask forgiveness and promise to try to do better. You trust in God to be there for you always. And God is always there. But, sometimes the fear of the unknown still remains — that can be a scary thing.

Don’t be afraid and follow Jesus. What He asks you to do is only for good, never to harm you. Imagine if the

17

Listen and follow

rich young man in Matthew’s — no cares, no responsibiliGospel could have only unties, no obligations, etc. Does derstood this and listened and that also include God and followed Jesus. We know how your faith? that story ended — the rich God always wants to speak young man walked away sad to you. Are you listening? because his life was filled with so many possessions and he thought there was no more room for God. Is there room for God in your life today?

By Ozzie Pacheco Here we are in the “glory” days of summer. School is finished for the academic year.

God is always calling you?

Graduations have taken place. Are you following Him? VaAnd now you’re thinking cation time is great! But don’t about relaxation over these vacation from God and your next two months. faith.

Summer time, however, Simply, start your sumcan lead us to become lazy. mer day, like everyday, with It’s like our brains shut down a prayer of thanks for the life for a time — not that it’s God gave you, the family that a bad thing to unwind and loves you and the earth we clear your mind. But, to what call home. Do the same at the extent do you do it? When end of each day. Whatever we purge everything of our prayer you are comfortable minds we fill it with nothing with I assure you God is

Be Not Afraid

listening.

So, over the summer, while on the beach or at your favorite vacation destination, remain in prayer and you will hear God’s voice saying, “Follow Me.” Read the lyrics to this song, or listen to it: “He’s Calling You!” by Donnie Mcclurkin. It reminds me how everyday is a new opportunity to hear God’s voice, accept His blessing and receive His grace.

“He’s calling you, He’s calling you Tell me what are you going to do Your time has come for a life brand new He is calling you, He is calling ... you!

There’s a voice deep inside You hear it and you cannot hide Seems like after all you’ve tried You’re never satisfied

You softly heard Him call and say Promised that you’d change someday Even if you run away, you still can’t deny Something’s going on and its real Somehow deep inside you can feel Remember when you said before That you needed something more Now it’s time to realize, He’s knocking at your door Things that you used to do Somehow don’t appeal to you Why would you deny that you don’t want them anymore Listen to your heart and to your soul And don’t be afraid anymore.”

Have a happy and safe summer.

God bless!

Ozzie Pacheco is Faith Formation director at Santo Christo Parish, Fall River.

Rio host families open homes, hearts to World Youth Day volunteers

RIO DE JANEIRO (CNS) — In 2011, Luis Martinez, 29, traveled to Madrid, almost by accident. He said it was destiny that took him from his home in Fresnillo, Mexico, as a pilgrim to World Youth Day. Someone could not go at the last minute, and he ended up taking the spot.

James Kelliher, 27, was also there, visiting from London. He said his country can be “aggressively secular,” something that challenges him to think about what he believes and ultimately landed him in Madrid among millions of young Catholics from all over the world.

Both said the pilgrimage changed their lives, so much that they are now volunteering in Rio de Janeiro, preparing for two million pilgrims that will arrive

in the city July 23-28 for World Youth Day. In addition, Pope Francis will make his first international trip to attend the event.

Martinez arrived in Rio in January, Kelliher in February. Kelliher said he cannot get enough Guarana, one of Brazil’s most popular soft drinks, while Martinez wondered how he ended up “in the only country in the world where they eat avocado with sugar and milk.” He thinks it should be with salt, as served in his beloved guacamole.

About 4,500 international volunteers will contribute to World Youth Day; an additional 55,500 Brazilian volunteers are lending a hand.

Martinez works as the Spanish language volunteer coordinator, a vital role because the ma-

open door policy — Luis Martinez, left, a World Youth Day volunteer from Mexico, enjoys a meal with his host family, Danielle and Leandro Franca in Rio de Janeiro. Martinez is one of about 4,500 international volunteers who will contribute to World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, July 23-28. (CNS photo/Elie Gardner)

jority of international volunteers speak Spanish.

Kelliher works as the social media English coordinator and in May became co-author of “World Youth Day: Inspiring Generations,” a book of testimonies from those who have attended past pilgrimages.

“I was so inspired by the event that I felt I had to do more things with my faith,” Kelliher said. “It can be difficult being a young Catholic these days; I wanted to do something to help young people feel they weren’t alone.”

Martinez said people often look for happiness in places where it cannot be found. He said he has come to realize that happiness is expressed automatically among those who share the same faith.

“I am without words for the people of Rio de Janeiro,” Martinez said. “When they open their doors to you, they open them all the way, not halfway.”

Martinez lives with a young host couple, Leandro and Danielle Franca, in Vila Isabel, a middle-class neighborhood known for its samba. The couple is one of more than 20,000 families hosting volunteers and pilgrims.

In July, the Francas will welcome five more pilgrims into their two-bedroom apartment.

Leandro Franca said opening the couple’s home is an expression of their Catholic faith and at the same time a rich cultural exchange.

Martinez is learning Portuguese, and the Francas are picking up Spanish, while incorporating Martinez’s guacamole into their diet.

Rio de Janeiro is one of the most expensive cities in the Western Hemisphere, and the cost of hotel rooms in the city has risen 50 percent in the past two years. Ines San Martin, a World Youth Day press officer, said the international event would not be possible without volunteers such as Martinez and Kelliher and host families such as the Francas.

“Host families are particularly important in receiving with open arms pilgrims who, for diverse reasons, travel alone to the event,” San Martin said. “Being received by a family, these pilgrims feel more like part of a

group than if they were to stay with already formed groups of friends.”

Martinez and Kelliher have seen less of their host families as they log long hours in the office.

Churches across Rio de Janeiro continue to urge members of their parishes to open their doors to pilgrims, as more homes are needed to take on the large number of youth.

Leandro Franca said while Brazilians are people of faith, he hoped World Youth Day would ignite what he called a “sleeping faith” in the people of Rio. “We are doing all this work because World Youth Day will leave its mark on our hearts, on the people we’ve come to help, on the pilgrims and, above all, on the city,” he said.

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

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The Anchor

June 28, 2013

Catholics in Russia form Year of Faith pilgrimage

place for reflection — Father Eugene Florea stands in front of the newly built hermitages.

(Photo by J.D. Long-Garcia/Catholic Sun)

Arizona hermitage to foster deep prayer, priestly renewal

Phoenix, Ariz. (CNA/ with some extra rooms if neces- Ignatius of Loyola, founder of EWTN News) — Bishop Thom- sary, but really the central part of the Jesuits, which were comas J. Olmsted of Phoenix has es- the retreat experience would be posed to help retreatants choose tablished a local house of prayer in those poustinia,” said Father to live for Christ and meditate for priests, where they can come Florea. on His life. for solitude with Christ and reThe hermitage is located Father Florea was introduced new themselves for their minis- in Black Canyon City, just 47 to Ignatian spirituality at the Intry to the people of God. miles north of the center of stitute for Priestly Formation in Merciful Heart Hermitage is the Phoenix metro area, where Omaha, Nebraska, noting that “a place of prayer for priests to many of the diocese’s priests are he “went through their training be drawn into Jesus’ own heart, assigned. program in spiritual direction for and through His heart diocesan priests.” coming into deep relareally see it as being so needed, A pastor of the Phoetionship with the Father nix diocese, Father Floand I think it’ll help contriband the Father’s heart,” rea said he “sensed a ute in a small way to the renewal of the call to a deeper contemdirector Father Eugene Florea, director of the priesthood.” plative life.” hermitage, told CNA “I brought that sense recently. of a call to Bishop Olm“As priests are renewed here, The site was formerly the sted, and he asked if I might be and more deeply united to the home of the Poor Clares of Per- able to live that call out in such heart of Christ, then they’re able petual Adoration of Our Lady of a way that I could live at this fato go back into their ministry Solitude Monastery, who now cility and welcome other priests more deeply united to the heart have a new location to the west who want to come and pray and of Christ to bring to the people of of Phoenix. receive spiritual direction and reGod, the Father’s love and mercy “Jesus Himself said to the treat.” in a deeper way.”

Apostles, ‘Come away by yourBishop Olmsted wanted Merciful Heart was estab- selves to a deserted place and somewhere for his priests to be lished on May 21, and was rest awhile,’ and this place kind able to spend in prayer and solinamed for its mission to draw of answers that need,” Father tude on monthly “desert days,” priests into the hearts of Christ Florea reflected. or days of recollection. and God the Father.

The need, he said, “to be re“Priests are free to come and The hermitage “has been newed in prayer, to be in conver- just be on their own in solitude used” already, Father Florea sation with the Father, and really some might want to receive spirsaid, and has drawn interests not be more rooted in that way as be- itual direction,” Father Florea only from the priests of Phoenix, loved sons of the Father, and let explained, or the Sacrament of but those “from different parts of all of our ministry flow from that Confession. “Others might want the country.” identity.” to come for a longer time of reThe facility consists of a cenOn a limited number of occa- treat,” he said, and “they might tral chapel, with four hermitages, sions each year, the priest will meet with me at some point duror poustinia, where retreatants offer some directed retreats in ing their stay.” can stay in solitude. Each pou- the Ignatian tradition, “so in that Father Florea thinks the herstinia has its own kitchenette, case they would meet daily for mitage is “going to be a great The Catholic Sun reported June spiritual direction during that re- blessing for the Church.”

12; that way, priests are able to treat.”

“I really see it as being so maintain quiet and separation as These directed retreats will needed, and I think it’ll help conmuch as possible. be a five to eight-day experience tribute in a small way to the re“There’s also a main house, of the Spiritual Exercises of St. newal of the priesthood.”

“I

Moscow, Russia (CNA/ EWTN News) — To mark the Year of Faith in Russia, lay-Catholic group Una Voce has organized a five-day pilgrimage in honor of 11th-century king St. Olaf, including daily Mass and veneration of his icon.

The pilgrimage will last from July 25 to 29 — concluding in the northern city of Veliky Novgorod — and brings together Catholics devoted to both the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite and to the Byzantine rite.

“The idea was to do something traditional for the Year of Faith,” Oleg-Michael Martynov, a board member of Una Voce Russia, recently told CNA. “It’s quite important for us because St. Olaf is one of the relatively few Catholic saints who have actually been to what is now the territory of the Russian Federation.”

Pilgrims will prepare for their journey on July 24 with a preparatory program of spiritual exercises. Martynov expects these will include a small retreat, a day of prayer, and recollections from the priest in Luga.

The pilgrimage will begin July 25 with a Mass in the extraordinary form at St. Nicholas parish in Luga, and a blessing of the pilgrims. The pilgrims will walk the 60 miles to Veliky Novgorod over the course of five days. The two cities are located between St. Petersburg and Moscow.

The following day, Divine Liturgy will be celebrated according to the Byzantine Rite, and will alternate each day with the Roman Rite Mass. The pilgrimage concludes on July 29 at the parish of SS. Peter and Paul, where the icon of St. Olaf will be venerated. That day, the priests will say a solemn Mass in the extraordinary form for the feast of St. Olaf.

Una Voce Russia reports that the St. Olaf pilgrimage is occurring with the blessing of the Russian primate, Archbishop Paolo Pezzi of the Mother of God at Moscow, and Bishop Joseph Werth of Transfiguration at Novosibirsk, who is also responsible for all Eastern Catholics in Russia.

Una Voce Russia is part of the international Una Voce movement, which is dedicated to ensuring that the extraordinary form of the Roman rite — how the Liturgy was celebrated until after the Second Vatican Council — is maintained, and which promotes the use of Latin, Gregorian chant, and polyphony.

Among its early members were the composers Maurice Duruflé and Oliver Messiaen.

To celebrate the Year of Faith, the pilgrimage will feature three

evening lectures on the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Attending at least three talks on the documents of the council, which began 50 years ago, are the first way to gain a plenary indulgence for the Year of Faith.

“The lectures are not about celebrating the council without any depth,” Martynov said. “We want people to know, and we ourselves to learn, what did this council really say; not what is the ‘spirit of the council’ but what it really was.”

The lectures will be about three different documents of Vatican II, Nostra aetate, Unitatis redintegratio, and Ad gentes. These are the documents on non-Christian religions, ecumenism, and missionary activity, respectively.

“I think there will be quite interesting lectures, maybe much more interesting than what an average Catholic usually hears about the council from the pulpit,” reflected Martynov.

He noted that St. Olaf was chosen as patron of the pilgrimage following Benedict XVI’s “appeal for the fostering of devotion to local saints.”

“We started thinking, who are our local saints, because we venerate so many saints who lived in western Europe — St. Anthony of Padua, or St. Louis of France, St. Francis — but we don’t know much about those who actually walked the same lands we are walking now.”

St. Olaf was king of Norway from 1015 to 1028, and he was instrumental in the Christianization of his country. When he was deposed from this throne by pagans, he went into exile and stayed with the prince of Veliky Novgorod.

He later returned to Norway and was martyred at the battle of Stiklestad on July 29, 1030. He inspired his troops during the battle by exclaiming, “Forward, forward, people of Christ, people of the cross, people of the King.”

Martynov noted that “some of us have been to the Chartres pilgrimage and liked it much and we decided to give it a try.”

The Chartres pilgrimage in France celebrates Pentecost and is an institution of 31 years. It attracts between eight and 10,000 pilgrims every year.

It has given rise to many other smaller pilgrimages throughout the world, now including the St. Olaf pilgrimage in Russia.

“We hope it will be a success and will be repeated later, maybe next year,” Martynov said.

“Everyone is welcome to take part in the pilgrimage,” he added, “but I don’t think many people from America will be able to come – it’s a long way.”

June 28, 2013

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 — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the St. Joseph Adoration Chapel at Holy Ghost Church, 71 Linden Street, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

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

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

FALL RIVER — St. Bernadette’s Church, 529 Eastern Ave., has Eucharistic Adoration on Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 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 and concluding with 3 p.m. Benediction in the Daily Mass Chapel. A bilingual holy hour takes place from 2 to 3 p.m. Park behind the church and enter the back door of the connector between the church and the rectory.

Falmouth — St. Patrick’s Church has Eucharistic Adoration each First Friday, following the 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.

MASHPEE — Christ the King Parish, Route 151 and Job’s Fishing Road has 8:30 a.m. Mass every First Friday with special intentions for Respect Life, followed by 24 hours of Eucharistic Adoration in the Chapel, concluding with Benediction Saturday morning followed immediately by an 8:30 Mass.

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

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

NEW BEDFORD — St. Lawrence Martyr Parish, 565 County Street, holds Eucharistic Adoration in the side chapel 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 Wednesday following 8:00 a.m. Mass and concludes with Benediction at 5 p.m. Eucharistic Adoration also takes place every First Friday at St. Nicholas of Myra Church, 499 Spring Street following the 8 a.m. Mass, ending with Benediction at 6 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 7:30 to 8 a.m.

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

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

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

Recitation of the Rosary for peace is prayed Monday through Saturday at 7:30 a.m. prior to the 8 a.m. Mass. taunton — Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament takes place every First Friday at Annunciation of the Lord, 31 First Street. Expostition begins following the 8 a.m. Mass.

The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed, and Adoration will continue throughout the day.

Confessions are heard from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Rosary and Benediction begin at 6:30 p.m.

WAREHAM — 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.

19

The Anchor

Cleanup underway as floodwaters receded at Lourdes shrine

TOULOUSE, France (CNS) — Work crews rushed to clear mud and remove debris June 21 after a massive flood inundated sections of the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes so that tourists could return to the popular pilgrimage site.

Much of the shrine complex was under water for two days as floods swamped much of southwestern France.

Mathias Terrier, who is in charge of communications at the shrine, said the complex sustained millions of dollars in damage. No date for reopening has been set.

It was the second time in eight months that the normally placid Gave de Pau River overflowed its banks, forcing officials to close the shrine. Flash floods in October caused an estimated $3 million in damage.

“The damage is much more significant than in 2012,” the shrine reported on its website.

Terrier told news media that the grotto had been under five feet of water and the vast subterranean church was inundated.

The grotto is where Mary is reported to have appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming week June 30 Rev. Simon Pease, SS.CC., Administrator, Sacred Hearts, Fairhaven, 1952 Rev. Alphonse M. Reniere, O.P., Dominican Priory, Fall River, 1961 July 1 Rev. Fernando A. Veiga, CM, Vincentian Mission House, Fall River, 1993 July 2 Rev. Gerard A. Boisvert, Assistant, St. Anthony, New Bedford, 1967 Rev. Maurice H. Lamontagne, Retired Pastor, Our Lady of Grace, Westport, 1996 Rev. James T. Donohue, CSC, 2006 July 3 Rev. Thomas P. Doherty, Pastor, St. Kilian, New Bedford, 1942

Even though lower sections of the complex were closed, Masses continued to be celebrated in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception above the grotto.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Terrier said the grotto may reopen in a few days but that some churches, prayer rooms and buildings would be closed for months.

“Some facilities will probably remain closed for the rest of the season until October,” Terrier said.

The flooding came at the worst possible time of year for Lourdes, which depends on the summer influx of pilgrims. Nearly six million pilgrims, many of them sick and weak, visit the grotto annually, believing that the waters hold healing powers.

Three people were killed when they were swept away by the rushing waters caused by a day of heavy rain and rapid snowmelt from the nearby Pyrenees. Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes, campgrounds and hotels. At the peak of the flooding June 19, rescuers were concerned with bringing weak and sick pilgrims to safety.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone,

Vatican secretary of state, sent a message June 21 to Bishop Nicolas Brouwet of Tarbes and Lourdes saying Pope Francis was praying for the three people who died because of the flooding and for all those who have been displaced. The pope, he said, also hoped Catholics would be generous in helping fund the cleanup and restoration of the Marian shrine.

The shrine put out an appeal for donations to help repair the damage. Insurance is expected to cover much of the damage, but it is not expected to cover the entire cost of repairs and cleanup.

The French government declared Lourdes and the surrounding area a disaster zone. French President Francois Hollande, Interior Minister Manuel Valls and Bishop Brouwet joined Lourdes Mayor Jean-Pierre Artiganave on a tour of the damage June 20.

Artiganave told Agence France-Presse that the flooding left his community “traumatized.”

“Lourdes has one element of good luck,” he said. “It’s that the world is generous with Lourdes. When Lourdes is in trouble — we saw it in October — people respond.”

Around the Diocese 6/29

The annual feast at Santo Christo Parish on Columbia Street in Fall River will take place tomorrow and Sunday. A solemn Mass will be celebrated by Bishop George W. Coleman tomorrow at 6 p.m., followed by the “grand procession of promises.” The feast will be held on the church grounds from 8:30 to 11 p.m. that night. On Sunday the solemn procession will begin at 4 p.m. and travel the following route: Columbia, Hunter, Hope, Fountain, Division, Almond, William, Broadway and back to the church. The feast will be held on the church grounds that night from 6:30 to 10 p.m.

6/29

The diocesan Hispanic Apostolate will be sponsoring a Rosary procession in honor of the Sacred Heart tomorrow. The procession will step off from the main gate at Capron Park at 6 p.m. and then work its way back to St. Vincent de Paul Parish (Holy Ghost Church, 71 Linden Street) in Attleboro. On the way some of the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary will be acted out. At the church there will be Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction, followed by a light meal. All are welcome to attend.

7/4

At noon on July 4, St. Bernadette’s Parish in Fall River will ring its bells for 10 minutes as part of the U.S. bishops’ “Let Freedom Ring” campaign, followed by a Mass at 12:10 p.m. to conclude the Fortnight for Freedom. All are welcome.

7/6

A Day with Mary will be held on July 6 at Immaculate Conception Church, 136 Earle Street in New Bedford from 7:50 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.

It will include a video presentation, procession and crowning of the Blessed Mother with Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. There is an opportunity for Reconciliation. A bookstore is also available. Please bring a bag lunch. For more information call 508-996-8274.

July 4 Rev. James A. Coyle, S.T.L., Pastor, Holy Name, Fall River, 1955 Rev. Pierre E. Lachance, OP, St. Anne Parish, Fall River, 2006

7/14

July 5 Rev. J.F. LaBonte, Retired Assistant, Sacred Heart, New Bedford, 1943 Rev. Edward P. Versailles, M.S., La Salette Shrine, North Attleboro, 1985

7/19

The Holy Rosary Fraternity of Secular Franciscans will be hosting a talk at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Parish Center, 80 Bay Street in Taunton at 2:30 p.m. on July 14. The talk will be given by Sister Eleanor McNally, SUSC, on the subject of human trafficking. Light refreshments will be served after the talk. All are welcome. For more information contact Carol Spoor, OFS, at 508-644-2645.

The Pro-Life Apostolate of the diocese is pleased to announce the third annual Pro-Life Boot Camp for young adults entering high school through senior year will be held on the campus of Stonehill College in Easton on the weekend of July 19-21. For more information contact the Pro-Life Apostolate, P.O. Box 2577, 450 Highland Avenue, Fall River, Mass. 02722; call 508-675-1311; or email pla@plrachel.com.

20

Fall River Sister of St. Joseph celebrates special anniversary

HOLYOKE — Sister of St. Joseph Cecile Lafond (Sister Veronica), a native of Fall River, recently celebrated 75 years in religious life during a ceremony at Mont Marie in Holyoke, the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield.

Sister Cecile taught at St. Jean Baptiste and Blessed Sister Cecile Lafond Sacrament schools in Fall River and St. Michael School in Swansea. She was on the faculty of St. Joseph Prep and St. Joseph Teachers’ Institute in Fall River. She served as librarian and instructor at Divine Heart Seminary, Donaldson, Texas in the early 1970s.

Sister was awarded a fellowship by the French government for study in France; she was also awarded a Fulbright grant by the United States government. She is retired and living in Holyoke.

Sister Cecile was among 22 Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield who celebrated special anniversaries. The Sisters marked the occasion with a Mass and private gathering at Mont Marie. Springfield Bishop Timothy McDonnell, who celebrated the Mass, noted the Sisters’ many years of service to the people of God and thanked them for answering their call to religious life.

To advertise in The Anchor, contact Wayne Powers at 508-675-7151 or Email waynepowers@ anchornews.org

The Anchor

June 28, 2013