07.10.09

The Anchor Diocese of Fall River

F riday , July 10, 2009

Excitement builds for Steubenville teen conference

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

ATTLEBORO — Excitement is growing among organizers and registrants for the 13th annual Steubenville East Youth Conferences, to be held July 24-26 and July 31-August 2 on the University of Rhode Island campus in Kingston, R.I. Previously sponsored and hosted by the Missionaries of La Salette, the roots of the conference go back to faith-filled youth outreach weekends held at the Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio, which has since spawned some 19 similar conferences throughout the United States and Canada — two of which have been annually hosted by La Salette Shrine under an outdoor tent in recent years.

According to Peg Ormond, coordinator for Steubenville East, this year’s conferences will be held for the first time indoors at URI. “It’s more a safety factor,” Ormond said.

“Last year we ended up evacuating because of an electrical storm and we had to evacuate everyone out of the main tent and get them indoors.”

“The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also established a safe environment policy to protect children,” added Father Cyriac Mattathilanickal, M.S., director of the La Salette Retreat Center. “Outside in a tent, children and adults sleep in the same area, but they need to be separated. That was one of the isTurn to page 11

Cape parishes warmly meet, greet visitors

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

THE GOSPEL OF ST. PAUL — To conclude the Year of St. Paul, the Diocese of Fall River hosted famous convert, author and EWTN television personality Scott Hahn for three talks on June 27 at St. Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford. Six-hundredand-fifty Catholics from all across the diocese attended. (Photo by Marijanna Lokitis)

Summer Mission Cooperative advances Church across world

By Deacon James N. Dunbar

NANTUCKET — When Father Paul E. Canuel steps into the pulpit at Our Lady of the Isle Church this summer to talk about the Fall River Diocese’s mission parishes in Guaimaca, Honduras, where he spent nine years, he’ll exemplify the spirit of the Missionary Cooperative Appeal program that not only offers an insider’s look at the Church throughout the world, but an opportunity to further its advancement.

“It’s part of the Missionary Coopera-

CAPE COD — It happens every year around this time. There are two huge metal serpents, often miles long, that slowly inch their way eastward across the Sagamore and Bourne bridges spanning the Cape Cod Canal. This phenomenon occurs more frequently on Friday afternoons.

It’s vacation time on Cape Cod, and that means Cape parish populations often expand to twice their usual size.

While an increase like that may appear daunting to some, for most Cape Cod pastors, the summer months provide a golden opportunity to welcome travelers to their parishes with a wide array of events, and of course an expanded weekend Mass schedule and the reawakening of several Cape Cod mission churches.

“This is a very enjoyable time of year,” Father George C. Bellenoit, pastor of St. Pius X Parish in South Yarmouth told The Anchor. “We love showing our parish hospitality to the tourists, socially and at Mass.”

From Memorial Day through Labor Day the parish reopens its mission site, Our Lady of the Highway, in South Yarmouth. “During the summer months, our Turn to page 18

tive that is ongoing across the globe — and in this diocese every summer since its 1904 founding,” reported Msgr. John J. Oliveira, director of the diocese’s Office of the Propagation of the Faith, as well as the Pontifical Mission Societies such as the Mission Cooperative and the Mission to Honduras.

“Every parish in our diocese will be visited by a missionary sometime between now and September, who will be looking Turn to page 18

Pope says moral values are key to economic recovery, development

YOUTH OUTREACH — La Salette Father Cyriac Mattathilanickal speaks at last year’s Steubenville East youth conference.

This year’s event will be held July 24-26 and July 31-August 2 on the University of Rhode Island campus in Kingston, R.I.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Ethical values are needed to overcome the current global economic crisis as well as to eradicate hunger and promote the real development of all the world’s peoples, Pope Benedict XVI said in his new encyclical.

The document, “Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in Truth”) was dated June 29 and released at the Vatican July 7.

The truth that God is the creator of human life, that every life is sacred, that the

earth was given to humanity to use and protect and that God has a plan for each person must be respected in development programs and in economic recovery efforts if they are to have real and lasting benefits, the pope said.

Charity, or love, is not an option for Christians, he said, and “practicing charity in truth helps people understand that adhering to the values of Christianity is not merely useful, but essential for buildTurn to page three

ISLAND WELCOME — This beautiful stained glass of the Blessed Mother atop Nantucket Island, awaits tourists who attend Mass at St. Mary’s/Our Lady of the Isle Church on the tiny island.

(Photo by Dave Jolivet)

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News From the Vatican

July 10, 2009

Bishops must be loving shepherds pope tells those receiving palliums

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Bishops are called to watch over their faithful not like “a prison guard,” but with the same love and concern that God watches over the world, Pope Benedict XVI said.

“To watch from God’s perspective is to watch with that love that wants to serve the other, to help the other truly become himor herself,” the pope said June 29 during his homily on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul.

During the Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, 34 archbishops from 20 countries knelt before Pope Benedict and received a pallium, a woolen band worn around their shoulders as a sign of their authority and their responsibility as shepherds.

The prelates named in the past year to head archdioceses and receiving their palliums included: Archbishops Allen H. Vigneron of Detroit; George J. Lucas of Omaha, Neb.; Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis; Timothy M. Dolan of New York; Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans; J. Michael Miller of Vancouver, British Columbia; Pierre-Andre Fournier of Rimouski, Quebec; and Vincent Nichols of Westminster, England.

Participating in the Mass were Orthodox representatives of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. The patriarch sends a delegation to the Vatican each year on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the Vatican’s patrons, and the pope sends a delegation to Turkey each year for the feast of St. Andrew, patron of the patriarchate.

In his homily, Pope Benedict said the First Letter of St. Peter describes Jesus as “the bishop of souls.”

“This means that he sees us from God’s perspective. Watching from God’s point of view, he has a vision of the whole and he sees dangers as well as hopes and possibilities,” the pope said.

Those appointed to serve the Church as bishops must model their ministry on that of Christ, working to ensure that everyone

comes to know God and to be part of the community of faith, he said.

Watching over the faithful, the pope said, “certainly does not mean surveillance as is fitting for a prison guard. Rather it means seeing from on high, from the heights of God.” The words “bishop” and “shepherd” are almost interchangeable, he said.

“To shepherd the flock means to be careful that the sheep find the right nourishment,” which for Christians is the word of God, he said. Shepherds also “must know how to resist enemies, the wolves. He must lead, indicating the path and preserving the unity of the flock,” the pope added.

Bishops also have a responsibility to help people see the Christian faith not “simply as a tradition, but to recognize it as the answer to our questions,” he said.

Pope Benedict said the beginning of St. Peter’s letter cites the goal of Christianity as the “salvation of souls,” a term the pope said is seldom used today and one that sounds strange to modern ears.

The terminology makes some people think Christians are dividing the human person into separate components of body and soul, while others think it focuses so much on the individual that it loses sight of the responsibility to protect and save the whole world.

“But this has nothing to do with the Letter of St. Peter. His zeal for witnessing hope and responsibility for others characterizes the entire text,” he said.

“Without the healing of souls, without healing people from the inside, humanity cannot be saved,” the pope said.

Pope Benedict told the archbishops that, like Jesus, they are called to carry the lost sheep around their shoulders and bring them back to safety. The lost sheep are not just members of the Catholic Church who may have lost their way, but are all of humanity, he said.

THE ROCK HOLDS FIRM — St. Peter’s crucifixion is portrayed in a mural by Michelangelo in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI inaugurated the chapel July 4 after a five-year, $4.6 million renovation. (CNS photo/courtesy of the Vatican Museums)

Vatican unveils restored papal chapel featuring murals of Michelangelo

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Work on the Pauline Chapel in the Apostolic Palace was not so much a restoration as a restitution of the pope’s prayer space, said the director of the Vatican Museums.

Containing the last two murals Michelangelo ever painted, the private papal chapel had been under scaffolding for more than five years; it was presented to reporters June 30.

Pope Benedict XVI inaugurated the chapel July 4 with an evening prayer service in the presence of four dozen members of the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums. The patrons — laypeople from the United States, England and Ireland — fully covered the almost $4.6 million it took to clean and restore the chapel’s artwork, refurnish it and install a sophisticated new LED lighting system.

The chapel — named after Pope Paul III, who commissioned its construction in 1537 — has side walls that feature Michelangelo’s paintings of the crucifixion of St. Peter and the conversion of St. Paul.

Access to the chapel is from the “Sala Regia,” the “royal room” where popes once met visiting Catholic kings and queens.

While the room’s murals focus on the Church’s influence and power in the temporal world, “as soon as you cross the threshold (into the Pauline Chapel), you pass into the Church that lives in the dimension of eternity,” said Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums.

Traditionally the private chapel has been reserved for the pope’s celebration of early morn-

ing Mass with special guests and for the adoration of the Eucharist during the day by people who work in the Apostolic Palace.

“The body of Christ is at the center, and it is surrounded by the story of the princes of the Apostles”: St. Peter, to whom the popes trace their spiritual responsibility for the Church, and St. Paul, from whom they inherit the mission of preaching the Gospel to all peoples and preserving the unity of Christ’s disciples, Paolucci said.

Michelangelo began work on the two murals in 1542 after he had finished “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel. He completed his contribution to the Pauline Chapel in 1550 at the age of 75.

“It is a kind of spiritual testament marked by a vast sadness and deep pessimism,” Paolucci said. “One has the impression that the mystery of grace offered to an unworthy humanity causes anguish for the soul of the artist, a Christian, who lived through and witnessed the religious crisis of his era, which was divided and

The Anchor

lacerated by the Reformation.”

The chapel walls feature other episodes from the lives of the two apostles by Lorenzo Sabbatini and Federico Zuccari, Italians who began their work on the chapel about 25 years after Michelangelo finished his.

Restoration of the art was not the only concern of those who worked on the chapel over the past five years, said Arnold Nesselrath, the Vatican Museums official who oversaw the effort.

“The Pauline Chapel is still one of the three papal chapels in the Apostolic Palace and has a traditional liturgical function, so we had to return the space intact” without making modifications for purely educational or documentary purpose, he said.

Paolucci told reporters that almost every pope who has served the Church in the last four centuries made some kind of modification to the Pauline Chapel.

The modifications, he said, show just how personally connected each pope felt to the chapel, but they complicated the restoration work.

OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER Vol. 53, No. 27

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July 10, 2009

Pope: Moral values key to economic recovery continued from page one

ing a good society and for true integral development,” he wrote.

In addressing the global economic crisis and the enduring poverty of the world’s poorest countries, he said, “the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity.”

The global dimension of the financial crisis is an expression of the moral failure of greedy financiers and investors, of the lack of oversight by national governments and of a lack of understanding that the global economy required internationally recognized global control, Pope Benedict said.

“In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth,” the pope wrote.

“To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority,” he said.

Pope Benedict insisted that the idea of the world’s richest nations scaling back development aid while focusing on their own economic recovery overlooked the long-term economic benefits of solidarity and not simply the human and Christian moral obligation to help the poor.

“In the search for solutions to the current economic crisis, development aid for poor countries must be considered a valid means of creating wealth for all,” the pope said.

The economic growth of poorer countries and their citizens’ demands for consumer goods actually benefit producers in the world’s wealthier nations, he said.

The pope said that “more economically developed nations should do all they can to allocate larger portions of their gross domestic product to development aid,” respecting the obligations they made to the U.N. Millennium Development Goals aimed at significantly reducing poverty by 2015.

Pope Benedict said food and water are the “universal rights of all human beings without distinction or discrimination” and are part of the basic right to life.

He also said that being Pro-Life means being pro-development, especially given the connection between poverty and infant mortality, and that the only way to promote the true development of people is to promote a culture in which every human life is welcomed and valued.

“The acceptance of life strengthens moral fiber and makes people capable of mutual help,” he said.

Development programs and offers of aid that encourage coercive populationcontrol methods and the promotion of abortion do not have the good of people at heart and limit the recipients’ motiva-

3

News From the Vatican tion to become actors in their own development and progress, the pope said.

In addition, he said, an anti-life mentality in the world’s richest countries is related to the lack of concern for the poor.

“How can we be surprised by the indifference shown toward situations of human degradation when such indifference extends even to our attitude toward what is and is not human?” the pope asked.

“While the poor of the world continue knocking on the doors of the rich, the world of affluence runs the risk of no longer hearing those knocks on account of a conscience that can no longer distinguish what is human,” he said.

“It is no coincidence that closing the door to transcendence brings one up short against a difficulty: How could being emerge from nothing, how could intelligence be born from chance?” he asked.

“Faced with these dramatic questions, reason and faith can come to each other’s assistance. Only together will they save man.”

Keeping a Pro-Life sensibility during hard economic times can actually help a society through those trying years, Pope Benedict XVI said, stressing it is important to keep in mind the teaching of “Humanae Vitae,” Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical on human life, and said being Pro-Life is being pro-development.

If society sees a new baby as a problem, how will its citizens view the poor? the pope asked.

“When a society moves toward the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good,” Pope Benedict said. “The acceptance of life strengthens moral fiber and makes people capable of mutual help.”

In promoting a culture of life, the pope suggested people look not only at the issue of abortion, but also at the planet as a living being. If people destroy their environment, they will also destroy their own life source, he said.

The pope also addressed life as part of the cultural struggle between the supremacy of technology and human moral responsibility in the field of bioethics.

Pope Benedict also emphasized Church teaching that making money and being wealthy are not sins, but that the way the money is made and the way it is used can be.

The encyclical condemned corruption, the exploitation of workers, the destruction of the environment, the continuing practice of wealthy nations imposing such high tariffs on imports that they shut poor countries out of the international marketplace and, especially, an “excessive zeal” for enforcing patents, especially on medications that could save the lives of thousands of poor people if they were available at a reasonable cost.

Pope Benedict called for “a profoundly new way of understanding business,” which recognizes that investors are not a company’s only stakeholders, no matter how the business is structured and financed.

Employees, those who produce the raw materials, people who live in the commu-

nities where the company is based, where its products originate and where its products are sold all have a stake in the business, the pope said.

He also said that investing always has a moral as well as an economic significance.

“What should be avoided is a speculative use of financial resources that yields to the temptation of seeking only shortterm profit without regard for the longterm sustainability of the enterprise, its benefit to the real economy and attention to the advancement — in suitable and appropriate ways — of further economic initiatives in countries in need of development,” he said.

Today’s international economic model requires a new way of understanding business enterprise, Pope Benedict XVI said.

When business leaders make themselves exclusively answerable to their investors, they limit their enterprise’s social value and often sacrifice long-term sustainability for short-term profits, the pope said in the encyclical.

He also wrote that outsourcing labor to other parts of the globe should be limited in nature and only done when it is advantageous to the economic welfare of all involved.

“Labor and technical knowledge are a universal good,” the pope said in the encyclical. “Yet it is not right to export these things merely for the sake of obtaining advantageous conditions, or worse, for purposes of exploitation, without making a real contribution to local society by

helping to bring about a robust productive and social system, an essential factor for stable development.”

Pope Benedict called for renewed structures and operating methods to be designed — after failed techniques wreaked havoc on the international economy — with financial models geared toward improved wealth creation and development.

“Right intention, transparency, and the search for positive results are mutually compatible and must never be detached from one another,” he said. “If love is wise, it can find ways of working in accordance with provident and just expediency, as is illustrated in a significant way by much of the experience of credit unions.”

Above all, the intention to do good must not be considered incompatible with the capacity to produce goods, Pope Benedict said.

“Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity,” he added, “so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers.”

Pope Benedict XVI called on labor unions to look beyond their membership when protecting the rights of workers and turn their attention to workers in other fields and in developing countries where social rights are violated.

“The protection of these workers, partly achieved through appropriate initiatives aimed at their countries of origin, will enable trade unions to demonstrate Continued on page 19

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The Church in the U.S.

July 10, 2009

U.S. deacon’s healing clears way for Cardinal Newman’s beatification

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI signed the decree recognizing as miraculous the healing of a U.S. deacon, which clears the way for the beatification of British Cardinal John Henry Newman.

While the Vatican announced July 3 that the decree had been signed, it did not provide information about when Cardinal Newman would be beatified or where the ceremony would be held.

The decree recognized as a miracle the healing in 2001 of Deacon John Sullivan of Marshfield who had a debilitating back injury.

Deacon Sullivan had prayed for the intercession of Cardinal Newman, who founded the Oxford movement within the Church of England before becoming a Roman Catholic in 1845. He is the founder of the Oratories of St. Philip Neri.

A press statement from the England’s Birmingham Oratory, founded by the cardinal, quoted Deacon Sullivan as saying, “Upon hearing of the recent developments in Rome regarding Cardinal Newman’s cause for beatification, I was left with an intense sense of gratitude and thanksgiving.

“I have dedicated my vocation in praise of Cardinal Newman, who even now directs all my efforts,” the deacon said in the July 3 statement.

The press statement said the date and place of beatification had not been decided, but encouraged supporters of Cardinal Newman’s cause to make donations to help pay for the ceremony.

The pope signed the decree re-

garding Cardinal Newman’s cause along with 11 other decrees, including the recognition of the miracle needed for the canonization of Blessed Juana Josefa Cipitria Barriola of Spain. The nun, who died in 1912, is the founder of the Daughters of Jesus.

Two other decrees recognized the miracles needed for the beatification of Italian Carmelite Father Francesco Paoli, who died in Rome in 1720, and of Sister Soultaneh Maria Ghattas, co-founder of the Dominican Sisters of the Holy Rosary of Jerusalem. She died near Jerusalem in 1927.

Four decrees declared eight individuals martyrs, which means they can be beatified without the need of a miracle attributed to their intercession. The decrees involved six priests killed in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War; German Father Georg Hafner, who was killed by the Nazis in 1942 in the Dachau prison camp; and Auxiliary Bishop Zoltan Meszlenyi of Esztergom, Hungary, killed by the communists in 1951.

Other decrees declared that four candidates for sainthood heroically lived the Christian virtues, a recognition marking the initial stage in their causes.

One was another Dachau victim, Marianhill Missionary Father Engelmar Unzeitig, who died in the camp in 1945.

The other three involve women: Sister Anna Maria Janer Anglarill, the Spanish founder of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Urgell; Sister Clotilde Micheli, the Italian founder of the Sisters of the Angels; and Teresa Manganiello, an Italian laywoman who died in 1876 at the age of 27.

COMMUNICATING ON COMMUNICATION — Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., addresses the annual meeting of the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management in Philadelphia June 25. He told the audience that the Church’s great communications challenge today is to keep the interest of people when they have so many places to turn for information. (CNS photo/Robert Lisak, courtesy of National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management)

Church challenged to ‘keep interest’ of Catholics in new media age

By Catholic News Service

PHILADELPHIA — The Church’s great communications challenge today is to “keep the interest of people who have so many places to turn,” Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., told the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management.

Bishop Kicanas, vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, addressed the organization’s annual meeting June 25 in Philadelphia.

The Church should not hesitate “to engage the modern digital technologies,” which “can be vehicles for communicating,” he said. Given recent advances in communications technology, he noted that people today Twitter and blog, they email, use Skype, Blackberries and iPhones, and choose Facebook partners.

Still, “communication, while enhanced by technology, rests on the power of the message and the authenticity of the communicator,” Bishop Kicanas said.

“Technology facilitates the fundamental desire” people have to

communicate and engage one another.

With “effective communications” as its theme, the June 24-26 meeting of the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management examined the potential of a new universe of communications for the Church.

Participants included Catholic bishops, educators, leaders in business, finance and philanthropy, and priests, Sisters and lay leaders.

Bishop Kicanas told the meeting how much he enjoys theater and commented on its relevance for communicators. “Great actors and actresses communicate,” he said.

“The language of theater needs to be crisp, punctuated with images and to resonate with feeling.”

Similar qualities are needed in effective Church communications, Bishop Kicanas said. “Abstract, theoretical, disembodied language has little place on the stage or for that matter from the pulpit or in most communication by the Church,” he added.

He cautioned, though, that “the greatest blow to the integrity

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THEME BASKETS, BAKE SALE, CAFE AND NAUTICAL CRAFTS Sat., July 18, 2009 — 2-5:30 p.m.

Sun., July 19, 2009 — after all Morning Masses Christ the King Parish Hall, Mashpee

of the Church’s message and its effectiveness occurs when those who deliver that message are simply playacting.”

Bishop Kicanas described himself as a blogger of sorts.

The online “Monday Memo” he writes weekly to the Tucson Diocese is “presented as a kind of blog on our Website and sent out to an email readership,” he said.

Bishop Kicanas accented the importance of trust for effective communications. The Church’s sexual abuse crisis “harmed far too many, but also damaged the Church’s ability to communicate,” he said. Some judged the Church hypocritical, “more concerned about its reputation than about children who were harmed.

Some stopped listening.”

And as the diocese emerged in 2005 from the bankruptcy protection it sought in 2004, Bishop Kicanas said he was “deeply moved ... to hear (abuse) victims say to the media that they had been treated fairly and respectfully.” The Church “embodied her message. They sensed the Church cared,” he said.

Please note: The Anchor will not publish on July 24 and July 31. The Anchor office will be closed from July 18 through July 26, reopening for business on July 27. We will resume publication on August 7.

July 10, 2009

The International Church

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High in the Andes, Peruvians mark Christ’s appearance to shepherd boy

TENSE TIMES — Supporters of Honduras’ ousted President Manuel Zelaya run after soldiers and police fired tear gas during a protest in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, June 29. Some 1,500 protesters, some of them masked and carrying sticks, taunted soldiers and burned tires just outside the gates of the presidential palace in a face-off with security forces. (CNS photo/Oswaldo Rivas, Reuters)

Honduran cardinal urged ousted president not to return

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (CNS) — Disregarding the counsel of the country’s top Catholic leader, deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya tried to return home, but was prevented from landing by soldiers who blocked the runway at Tegucigalpa’s airport.

A day earlier, in a July 4 nationwide address that the government ordered all television and radio stations to broadcast, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa had urged Zelaya not to return to Honduras.

“We think that a return to the country at this time could unleash a bloodbath in the country,” Cardinal Rodriguez said. “To this day, no Honduran has died. Please think, because afterward it will be too late.

“The day of your swearing in, you clearly quoted the three commandments of the sacred law of God: not to lie, not to steal and not to kill,” Cardinal Rodriguez said.

Honduras’ new government has charged Zelaya with 18 criminal acts, including treason and failing to implement more than 80 laws approved by Congress since he took office in 2006.

Zelaya was ousted in the early hours of June 28 when Honduran soldiers — acting on orders of the National Congress — shot up his house and took the pajama-clad president to the airport, where he was flown on a military plane to Costa Rica. The coup generated universal condemnation around the world and led the Organization of American States to unanimously suspend Honduras — the first such action since a similar vote against Cuba in 1962.

The U.S., many Latin American governments and the United Nations also called for Zelaya’s reinstatement. Zelaya was accompanied on the flight by Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, the retired Nicaraguan Maryknoll priest who is president of the U.N. General Assembly. Unable to land, they flew on to Nicaragua and landed safely in Managua.

Cardinal Rodriguez’s televised appeal came on the heels of a statement from the Honduran bishops’ conference that claimed Zelaya was not overthrown illegally.

“Each and every one of the documents which have come into our hands show that

the institutions of the Honduran democratic state are functioning and that what it has executed in judicial-legal matters has been in conformance with the law,” the bishops said in a document dated July 3 but not made public until early July 4.

In June the bishops’ conference had issued a statement calling for more comprehensive dialogue as Zelaya pushed for a referendum on whether to draft a new constitution.

The bishops’ conference statement differed from a widely publicized statement from the bishop and diocesan council in Santa Rosa de Copan, read to the public July 2 by Bishop Luis Santos Villeda.

“As those responsible for guiding the Catholic Church in western Honduras, we repudiate the substance, form and style with which a new head of the executive branch has been imposed on the people.

If President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales has committed some illegal act, he has the right to a fair trial just like every Honduran citizen,” the diocesan council stated.

The bishops’ conference statement and Cardinal Rodriguez’s televised comments were widely criticized by supporters of the ousted president.

“The cardinal is an irresponsible conspirator in the coup,” said Carlos Reyes, coordinator of the Popular Bloc, a coalition of human rights and union groups that supports Zelaya’s return.

One Catholic priest who was present at the airport July 5 described the situation there in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service.

Father Andres Tamayo of Salama said he and other demonstrators saw Zelaya’s plane circle the airport twice before being chased off by a fighter jet from the Honduran air force.

The priest said the group, which reports estimated in size from 30,000 to as many as 300,000, was well-disciplined and nonviolent, but also was determined to reach the runway in order to clear the obstacles so that Zelaya’s plane could land.

Father Tamayo was critical of the statement by the bishops’ conference.

“They aren’t speaking for the people, nor to the people. They only address the powerful and bless the powerful. That’s how the poor see it,” he said.

OCONGATE, Peru (CNS) — At the end of an all-night procession, several thousand pilgrims in colorful garb gathered on a hilltop in this remote corner of the Andes, waiting for dawn. As the sky brightened behind an eastern mountain peak and light swept along the ridge, a tall young man sounded a long, plaintive note on a conch horn.

The sun burst over the Andes and Quechua-language prayers floated over the frosty fields. Melodies rose from wooden flutes and drums played by musicians with weathered faces. The assembly broke into smaller groups, dancing down the mountain in colorful columns that snaked and twined, celebrating the new day and the end of a pilgrimage that drew some 60,000 people.

At the bottom of the hill, Jesuit Father Luis Herrera waited in a rustic adobe chapel, where a solemn procession arrived, carrying images of Jesus and Mary. Father Herrera prayed with the group, bringing the nearly weeklong pilgrimage to a close.The festival of the Lord of Qoyllur Rit’i, marking Christ’s appearance to a young shepherd boy and coinciding with the full moon nearest to the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, dates to the 1780s, though its roots probably go back further. Like many religious traditions, it has evolved over the centuries, but it is now threatened by tourism, global warming and simple economics.

“We do this out of faith,” said Adolfo Quispe, 23, leader of a group of 18 young dancers who set out from their hometown of Chincheros, near the tourist mecca of Cuzco, four nights earlier, June 6. “We are faithful Catholics who believe in Jesus Christ, who

has blessed us in many ways.”

During the pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the Lord of Qoyllur Rit’i, he and the other dancers thanked God for those blessings and made a promise of faith for the coming year.

Setting out before dawn June 7, they hiked five miles up a valley, where llamas and alpacas grazed along a stream fed by glacial meltwater.

At the top of the valley, more than 14,000 feet above sea level near the foot of a glacier, they quickly set up camp and changed into traditional garb. For the next three days, Andean melodies rang out day and night as hundreds of groups of young people dressed in traditional costumes followed the same steps performed by generations of pilgrims before them.

The Jesuit priests who work in the highlands around Cuzco and have celebrated liturgies in the Qoyllur Rit’i sanctuary for decades say the modern world is infringing on local traditions.

“The nature of the fiesta has changed,” Father Herrera said. “It is no longer a celebration of llama and alpaca herders.”

Father Antonio Sanchez-Guardamino, a Jesuit from Spain’s Basque region and pastor in the town of Ocongate, recalled that in the early 1980s, when he began celebrating liturgies at Qoyllur Rit’i, most of the confessions he heard were in the local Quechua language.

Now, he said, 85 percent are in Spanish.

While the fiesta originally drew mainly farm families from the remote highland villages, it now attracts pilgrims who have migrated from the countryside to towns in search of employment or education.

6

The Anchor Becoming spiritual grown-ups

On June 28, when Pope Benedict concluded the Year of St. Paul at the Basilica outside the walls in Rome, most of the headlines generated centered on his announcement that tests on the bones found within the tomb underneath the high altar are consistent with those of the man the Lord encountered on the Road to Damascus. It’s since been revealed by Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, the former Archpriest of St. Paul’s Basilica, that Pope Benedict waited almost a year to release those findings. He delayed in the hope that the news about the tests on the Apostle’s remains would maintain the Church’s and the world’s interest in St. Paul long after the conclusion of the 2,000th anniversary of his birth. The pope had evidently spent a great deal of time thinking about how he wanted the Pauline Year to end, so that the end of the year might lead to a new beginning for believers and the Church as a whole.

The same care seems to have been exercised by the pope with respect to the homily he chose to preach at the June 28 Vespers. The pope didn’t focus, as he normally would, on the readings taken from the Church’s “Liturgy of the Hours for Evening Prayer I” on the solemnity of SS. Peter & Paul.

Instead, after emphasizing that St. Paul “remains the ‘teacher of the Gentiles’” for all of us today, he turned to what he said the Apostle reveals to us as the “essential nucleus of Christian existence,” the concise synthesis of how St. Paul says each of us is called to respond in faith to the mystery of Christ. This seems to be the “last word” Pope Benedict wanted to give us during the Year of St. Paul, indicating the chief take-away he hopes each of us learns from the teacher of the nations.

This “essential nucleus” of the Christian life is summarized, Pope Benedict said, in two verses St. Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Romans: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:1-2).

The first and most fundamental thing we learn from these words of St. Paul, Pope Benedict says, is how we are supposed to worship God. Christ began a “new way of venerating God,” a “new form of worship,” that consists in the person’s not giving adoration or making sacrifices, but becoming adoration and becoming the sacrifice. “It is no longer things that are offered to God,” the pope says.

“It is our very existence that must become praise of God.” The Holy Father says that the second verse of the passage shows how each of us becomes true spiritual worship. “The two decisive words of this verse are ‘transformed’ and ‘renewal.’ We must become new people, transformed into a new mode of existence. … Paul tells us: the world cannot be renewed without new people. Only if there are new people will there also be a new world, a renewed and better world. … Only if we ourselves become new does the world become new.”

The way this renewal occurs, as St. Paul himself experienced in his own life, is through a living encounter with Christ so deep that it leads to a conversion in which we die to ourselves and learn to live for Christ. St. Paul “became new, another,” the pope illustrated, “because he no longer lived for himself and by virtue of himself, but for Christ and in him.” Likewise, “we become new if we let ourselves be grasped and shaped by the new Man, Jesus Christ, if we deliver ourselves into his hands and let ourselves be molded by him.”

That remolding by Christ begins, St. Paul says, with the transformation that comes “by the renewal of [our] mind.” Our way of thinking, our reason, must become new. It’s not enough that our behavior change, but the renewal “must go to the very core,” the pope commented. “Our way of looking at the world, of understanding reality all our thought must change from its foundations.”

The pope described what this transformation looks like. The way most of us think is “usually directed to possession, well-being, influence, success, fame and so forth. … In the final analysis, one’s ‘self’ remains the center of the world. We must learn to think more profoundly, to learn to understand God’s will, so that it may shape our own will. This is in order that we ourselves may desire what God desires, because we recognize that what God wants is the beautiful and the good.

It is therefore a question of a turning point in our fundamental spiritual orientation. God must enter into the horizon of our thought: what he wants and the way in which he conceived of the world and of me. We must learn to share in the thinking and the will of Jesus Christ. It is then that we will be new people in whom a new world emerges.” He says that St. Paul, in short, is calling us to a new “way of being human.”

This renewal will lead us to what St. Paul calls in his Letter to the Ephesians, “mature manhood,” to being spiritual grown-ups. St. Paul contrasts this “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” with those who are spiritual “infants, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles” (Eph 4:13-14). Pope Benedict emphasized that St. Paul “wants Christians to have a ‘responsible’ and ‘adult faith’” and then described what such spiritual maturity is and isn’t.

“The words ‘adult faith’ in recent decades have formed a widespread slogan,” the pope stated in a remarkably candid passage that strikes at the heart of the pretentions both theological dissent and cafeteria Catholicism. The slogan “is often meant in the sense of the attitude of those who no longer listen to the Church and her pastors but autonomously choose what they want to believe and not to believe; hence a do-it-yourself faith. And it is presented as a ‘courageous’ form of self-expression against the Magisterium of the Church. In fact, however, no courage is needed for this because one may always be certain of public applause. Rather, courage is needed to adhere to the Church’s faith, even if this contradicts the ‘logic’ of the contemporary world. This is the non-conformism of faith which Paul calls an ‘adult faith.’ It is the faith that he desires. On the other hand, he describes chasing the winds and trends of the time as infantile.”

The pope then got very specific about the contrast between adult and infantile faith with respect to the issues of sacredness of human life and the institution of marriage: “Being committed to the inviolability of human life from its first instant — thereby radically opposing the principle of violence also precisely in the defense of the most defenseless human creatures — is part of an adult faith. It is part of an adult faith to recognize marriage between a man and a woman for the whole of life as the Creator’s ordering, newly re-established by Christ. Adult faith does not let itself be carried about here and there by any trend. It opposes the winds of fashion. It knows that these winds are not the breath of the Holy Spirit; it knows that the Spirit of God is expressed and manifested in communion with Jesus Christ.”

The point of the Year of St. Paul, the “essential nucleus of the Christian life,” was to help lead us to the type of adult faith that St. Paul had and sought to help the early Christians achieve. It was meant to assist us in becoming true adoration of God by the transforming renewal of our minds so that we might think as Christ thinks and think with the Church. This is a work not merely of a 365day period, but of a lifetime. Pope Benedict hopes, however, that the greater study and imitation of the life and thoughts of St. Paul during the last year would lead all of us in the Church closer to that spiritual maturity.

July 10, 2009

The great gift of the priesthood

A few years ago, as I was preaching at the in the universe can: by the power of the Holy first Mass of Thanksgiving of a newly-ordained Spirit, change bread and wine into Jesus Christ priest, I made reference to a quotation of the and absolve sins in God’s name. For those reaCuré of Ars that, prior to my ordination, filled sons, many would prefer to keep the Year of the me with awe and reverence and, after my ordina- Priesthood “low-key” lest anyone at all take oftion, filled me with trembling. The homily was fense, and focus rather on those aspects of the on the gift and mystery of the priesthood and the priestly life — like priestly service to the poor citation from the patron saint of priests illustrat- and needy — that are totally uncontroversial and ed in radical terms just how important the priest universally admired. is in the salvific plan Jesus established.

But this is, wisely, not what Pope Benedict “Go and confess to the Blessed Virgin or to is doing. He recognizes that in the midst of a an angel,” St. John Vianney began. “Will they world that has to a great extent lost a sense of absolve you? Will they give you the Body and the sacred, the last thing that would be needed Blood of Our Lord? No, the Blessed Virgin can- would be to focus on the horizontal dimension not make her divine Son descend in the host. of priestly service without grounding it in the Even if you had 200 angels there with you, they even more important vertical dimension of the could not absolve you. A priest, no matter how worship of God. In the life of a priest as well as simple he may be, can. He can say to you: go in a believer, the love of God must precede the love peace, I forgive you.” of neighbor. Otherwise the priest risks ceasing to Soon after the Mass, a consecrated woman be a man of God and just a good man. sent me a long e-mail lambasting me for usFor this reason, in the first few weeks of the ing the quotation. Even though she did not Year of the Priesthood, Pope Benedict has redispute the truth of the saint’s words and said turned repeatedly to the meaning of priestly conthat she did not believe that either my or Vian- secration; how, like Christ, a priest’s “ontologicalney’s intention was to exalt the priest above the sacramental identity” and “evangelizing mission” Mother of God and the celestial choirs, she was are inseparable; how every priest’s mission deoutraged that I pends “above all would choose on the awareness to cite it. The of the sacramenlast thing the tal reality of his Church needed, ‘new being,’ … she asserted, was on the certainty to focus on the of his personal unique ministry identity, which

By Father of priests and is not artificially Roger J. Landry on what makes constructed, but priests different rather given and — not even at a received freely priest’s first Mass. and divinely”; how “the objective of every A lengthy correspondence ensued. I tried to priest’s mission is ‘cultic,’ so that all people can understand how a Catholic whose faith had led offer themselves to God as a living host, holy her to consecrate herself to Christ as his mysti- and pleasing to him.” The priest’s very being cal bride could be so volcanically upset at the has been changed by God, in other words, premere mention of the unique sacramental powers cisely so that he can serve others by leading and responsibilities Christ has entrusted to his them to make their whole life a Mass, a holy priests. Over the course of our e-mail exchang- and acceptable sacrifice to God. es, she confessed that she was embarrassed and The pope — and, therefore, the Church — is even ashamed of the priesthood. When I probed placing this emphasis on the cultic identity and why, she was honest enough to acknowledge purpose of the priesthood precisely because, as that there were fundamentally two reasons: first, the Holy Father said in a June 24 audience, “in she thought that any mention of the importance a world in which the customary outlook on life of the priesthood was essentially a relegation comprehends less and less the sacred, and in its of women to second class status in the Church, place ‘useful’ becomes the only important catsince only men can be ordained; second, she egory, the catholic — and even ecclesial — idea thought that a “high theology” of the priesthood of the priesthood can run the risk of being empwould only go to priests’ heads and facilitate the tied of the esteem that is natural to it.” worst of clericalism, when priests and bishops, Many in the desacralized modern world look in contrast to Jesus’ example and instructions, at the liturgy and the sacraments as nothing more try haughtily to “lord” their status over others than aesthetic or affective experiences, and hence and seek to be served rather than to serve. She judge the priesthood solely on the basis of the admitted that part of her hostility toward a “high” “usefulness” of priest’s service to those in matenotion of the priesthood came precisely because rial need. His service to God, his cultic identity some priests had treated her condescendingly and mission, are considered useless; and a priest over the course of her consecrated life. who stresses his cultic identity and mission is I’m sad to say that I was unsuccessful in pa- deemed not just useless, but harmful, distracting tiently trying to help her to address the underly- people by pseudo-spiritual opiates from what ing issues that jaundiced her view of the ministe- they deem the only salutary purpose of religion, rial priesthood. I’m even sadder that she ended service of neighbor. Pope Benedict in this Year up abandoning the consecrated life. of the Priesthood wants to correct this erroneous My correspondence with this woman comes notion, and show how a priest’s principal service to mind not just because I pray for her often but — leading the faithful to offer their whole lives also because I have been witnessing in certain with him to the Father through Christ — is preplaces reactions to the Year of the Priesthood cisely what will spur them to a love of neighbor similar to her response several years ago to my that goes beyond the mere alleviation of their citation of St. John Vianney. For various rea- material needs. sons, some are uncomfortable with the Church’s “Here the teaching and example of St. John giving a year’s worth of attention to the priest- Mary Vianney can serve as a significant point of hood and especially with Pope Benedict’s em- reference for us all,” the pope wrote on June 18 phasizing as a model for all priests a figure like in his letter to begin the Priestly Year. “The Curé the Curé of Ars, who had such a high notion of of Ars was quite humble, yet as a priest he was the importance of the priesthood in the life of the conscious of being an immense gift to his peoChurch and in the salvation of believers. Some ple: ‘A good shepherd, a pastor after God’s heart, think that this is imprudent, counterproductive is the greatest treasure which the good Lord can and perilous to stress the priesthood in an age grant to a parish, and one of the most precious in which they say the Church needs to prioritize gifts of divine mercy,’ precisely because he can encouraging lay people to take full responsibil- bring God to them and them to God. ity for their own essential role in the life of the This is a year in which all of us are called Church. Others fear a return of clericalism, es- to grow in appreciation of this great treasure and pecially if too much emphasis is given to what most precious gift. is most distinctive about the ministerial priestFather Landry is pastor of St. Anthony’s hood, his ability to do what no other creature Parish in New Bedford.

Putting Into the Deep

July 10, 2009

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ight years after my ordination, I’m happy to say that I love being a priest even more than I thought I would, and each day I love it even more than the day before. This is true, in spite of the challenges, frustrations and disappointments, the personal pastoral failures and even the shocking revelation of scandal within the priesthood, all of which can threaten to rob every priest of his happiness. And when I consider how much I still love being a priest, despite all the real risks of becoming discouraged or sour, I marvel at what God has done to sustain his joy in me.

There are many reasons why I love being a priest, not the least of which is trusting that my life and work are part of God’s plan for the world.

We know that God places priests in the world to be his coworkers in his plan of salvation, and so every priest knows that if he truly commits himself to the work of Christ, he will be playing an important part in the accomplishment of God’s salvific plan.

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any influential people and institutions in our society, including Hollywood and the mass media, strongly support abortion. To justify their position, however, they must adeptly defy logic and ignore certain obvious facts.

One example of this sidestepping is the oft-repeated argument for abortion that it’s all about a woman’s body. As actress Amy Brenneman, who starred in the TV show “Judging Amy,” once put it, “Unless a woman really has sovereignty over her own body we really haven’t come that far.”

The obvious flaw in this argument was cleverly exposed a few years back by supermodel Kathy Ireland (who used to favor abortion) during a televised interview: “Some people say, ‘Well it’s a woman’s body; it should be her choice. There’s a 50 percent chance the baby she’s carrying is a male child, and he would have a penis.

Women don’t have penises. So it’s residing in her body; it is not a part of her body.” While it should go without saying that babies have their own bodies, abortion advocates seem all too ready to tiptoe around the obvious to promote their agenda.

That tiptoeing is also

7

The Anchor

The priest in the plan of God

and surrenders to being an My own personal confirinstrument in God’s hands, he mation of this truth has come can dare to believe that he is most clearly in my work with playing an important part in students as a high school the mystery of divine provichaplain, with inmates at a local jail, and also with home- dence, which daily unfolds before him in his encounters less immigrants in Rome, with the souls whom God during the time of my graduhas placed in his path. By ate studies. In so many difintercepting these souls, as an ferent encounters with other individuals, I have sensed with certainty that “this is one of the Year of the Priesthood Vocational Reflection souls for whom God planned my life as a priest.”

By Father So many times, usually in private David A. Pignato conversations or while hearing confessions, but also in public moments — “ambassador for Christ” (2Cor 5: 20), and encouraging them such as voicing an unpopular or redirecting them toward truth or offering a word of Christ, a priest realizes more challenge or encouragement and more why God has called while preaching — I have him and asked him to make been struck with the convicthe sacrifices necessary to live tion, “This is why I am a this one life as a priest. priest. This moment, this perMy own awareness of playson, is part of the reason why ing a part in God’s plan has God asked me to be a priest.”

It’s always the individual soul been strongest when I’ve met and worked with souls who before me who reminds me have related to me as somewhy I am ultimately a priest. one whom God has put in If a priest sets aside his own will, purifies his motives the world for them. So often

people approach and respond to a priest as someone who belongs to them, someone who exists for the particular purpose of helping them. And we priests know this is true.

We know that we are placed in the world by God to serve and assist others, especially those for whom this life is difficult or burdensome, including the poor and those who suffer from affliction, sorrow or despair.

We know that we are asked by God to be a friend to the friendless and an advocate for the lowly, the disadvantaged and the forgotten, with whom we should have a certain solidarity and compassion.

For us priests, the ultimate goal, and the greatest reward, is always helping others to become convinced that Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). But sometimes our role in God’s plan is merely to remind a person that he or she is not forgotten

by God, or to encourage him or her to persevere with hope through the trials and dif-

The twisted logic underlying abortion

evident whenever a breaking summarized the deadly logic news story about the murder of the pro-abortion position of an abortionist grabs the as Mother Teresa, when she headlines. After someone declared in her 1979 Nobel recently gunned down Dr. Peace Prize speech: “…If a George Tiller, the late-term mother can kill her own child abortionist in Kansas, almost — what is left for me to kill every major media outlet you and you kill me — there extolled the genuine tragedy is nothing between.” of his death, while tiptoeing past the tragedy of the 60,000 deaths that Tiller himself had coordinated within his clinics.

Several TV comBy Father Tad mentators, however, Pacholczyk immediately perceived this double standard.

Ann Coulter, for example, satirically mentioned, “…

The moral chaos of aborThis one random nut who shot tion often begins when advoTiller … I don’t really like to cates feign not to know when think of it as a murder. It was life begins. George Jonas, terminating Tiller in the 203rd in his cleverly entitled essay trimester.” She then argued: “Thoughts from an Ex-Fetus,” “I am personally opposed to observed how advocates must shooting abortionists, but I “pretend not to realize that don’t want to impose my mor- life is an autonomous process, al values on others.” Coulter a continuum from zygote to also couldn’t resist exposing old-age pension, a self-elabothe faulty moral logic behind rating force that begins when so much pro-abortion rhetoric it begins and keeps growand sloganeering, as in: “If ing unless it’s vacuumed out you don’t believe in abortion, first…. They must pretend not then don’t have one,” to which to see that if a fetus were not she replied: “If you don’t bealive, it wouldn’t have to be lieve in shooting abortionists, killed.” then don’t shoot abortionists.”

Perhaps the most plausible Perhaps no one has so clearly explanation of why abortion

Making Sense Out of Bioethics

advocates will so readily defy logic and ignore the obvious came from writer Dale Vree. He had been invited to a “living-room discussion” on abortion back in 1989 which included six prominent Pro-Lifers, six prominent pro-choicers, and one or two undecideds.

Vree expected that the heart of the debate would hinge on when life began, but it didn’t.

It didn’t even turn on the hard cases — rape and incest. When one of the radical feminists argued that abortion is simply about the right to make choices, one of the Pro-Lifers replied that the choice was made back when the woman agreed to have sex.

Then one of the pro-choicers finally blurted out: “We’re pro-sex and you’re anti-sex,” meaning, according to Vree, that “they’re for lots of sex in lots of forms while we ProLifers feel it should be limited to heterosexual marriage….

They made it abundantly clear that they’re committed to the sexual revolution, and that revolution will wither without the insurance which is abortion and this is their bottomline concern.”

This indeed appears to be

ficulties of life. This is often when we sense with clarity that we are being used by God for a preordained purpose. In my own work, when I have consoled a student coping with a tragedy, or encouraged an inmate recovering from an addiction, or assured an immigrant that God is still present in his life, I have watched the mystery of my own vocation unfolding before me.

Just as every Christian knows that his life is not his own, as St. Paul reminds us (1Cor 6:19), because “if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord” (Rom 14: 8), so does every priest know that his life and his work is not his own. It belongs to the mysterious plan of God, who chose him to be one of his coworkers; and it also belongs to those for whom God has called him, and to whom God has sent him. And this is one of the reasons why I love being a priest.

Father Pignato is completing doctoral studies in sacred theology at the Pontifical Institute of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

the crux of the matter, the central concern that has motivated radical feminists, Hollywood, and many other advocates of abortion to sacrifice untold millions of unborn babies since the early 1970s. George Jonas zeroed in on this same bottomline explanation: “We invent euphemisms, such as ‘choice’ for killing, and sophomoric dilemmas, such as pretending not to know when life begins, to ensure that nothing hinders Virginia’s quest for Santa Claus. No obstacle must interfere with her goal of selffulfillment — least of all an issue (as it were) of her healthy sexual appetite.”

In the final analysis, this stands as probably the single greatest tragedy of our time, that the unordered and inordinate sexual desires of men and women have been allowed to twist the most rudimentary moral logic to the point of death for so many of our children.

Father Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, and serves as the director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. See www.ncbcenter.org

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here two or three are gathered in his name, Jesus is present. In the Gospel reading this Sunday, Jesus sends his disciples two-by-two to spread the message of repentance and healing. He sent them throughout the community, and he sent them in his name.

Our Lord sent the disciples out with a message of turning away from behavior that bruises a good relationship with the Creator. Repenting of that destructive behavior allowed for the beginning of mending that relationship. It was the same message that John the Baptist proclaimed to those who would listen and to those who would not; the message of repentance.

Our Lord, however, sent them out with something more, something different, something powerful. He sent them into the community with the power to heal. He sent them out to drive

July 10, 2009

A message, a journey

out demons, and to cure the stand it. We know this because sick, in his name. This was the Mark tells us that when they beginning of the new promise. returned from their journey, When the decision was made they were not alone. More than to repent, it was a personal 5,000 people followed them decision to love, to change and back to Jesus. The message of turn to God. To be healed in repentance and healing was so response to this commitment, real. The crowd must have been however, in a very real way affirmed God’s love for them, which was Homily of the Week done where two gathFifteenth Sunday ered in our Lord’s name. in Ordinary Time The message has not changed. Our Lord’s

By Deacon love for us is calling us Fred LaPiana to change our lives and be healed of our hurts and weaknesses. The message is just as powerful drawn to Our Lord by more now as it was then. When the than curiosity. disciples visited the people of If it were a message of repenthe community, we know that tance only, perhaps the crowds it was a powerful experience would have been smaller. We for them. They felt the healing hear in the Old Testament presence of Our Lord, although reading that the prophet Amos they probably didn’t underpreached such a message to the

kingdom of Israel. Turn back to God he said, or Israel would be exiled from its homeland.

The king of Israel and its people did not accept the message of repentance. Even though Amos, a lowly shepherd, had been called by God to warn Israel of the consequences of their behavior, the king threw Amos out of the kingdom. Repentance is not easy.

Jesus brings to us a new message. A promise of healing and reconciliation with the Father, which only he can deliver, as it was purchased at so great a price. Repentance is still needed, but now we can be forgiven and healed by the one who paid the price.

But there is more. St. Paul reminds us in his Letter to the Ephesians that not only are we healed by the Blood of Christ,

we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live a special relationship with our brother, Jesus Christ. We are part of his holy family. We are the Father’s adopted sons and daughters because of the love Jesus has for each and every one of us; and that is good news. That is exciting news. He asks us to go into our community to share it. He asks us to bring his presence to those that have forgotten or to those that are lost or confused.

He is sending us as he sent his disciples long ago. He is sending us into our communities, not alone, but as family.

We are asked to help him find our brothers sisters, to remind them that they too are part of the family and to invite them in Jesus’s name to come home.

God’s speed.

Deacon LaPiana serves at Good Shepherd Parish on Martha’s Vineyard.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. July 11, Gn 49:29-32;50:15-26a; Ps 105:1-4,6-7; Mt 10:24-33. Sun. July 12, Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Am 7:12-15; Ps 85:9-14; Eph 1:3-14 or 1:3-10; Mk 6:7-13. Mon. July 13, Ex 1:8-14,22; Ps 124:1-8; Mt 10:34-11:1. Tues. July 14, Ex 2:1-15a; Ps 69:3,14,30-31,33-34; Mt 11:20-24. Wed. July 15, Ex 3:1-6,9-12; Ps 103:1-4,6-7; Mt 11:25-27. Thu. July 16, Ex 3:13-20; Ps 105:1,5,8-9,24-27; Mt 11:28-30. Fri. July 17, Ex 11:10-12:14; Ps 116:12-13,15-18; Mt 12:1-8.

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here do things stand, two months after the University of Notre Dame defied the bishop of Fort WayneSouth Bend and some 80 of his fellow-bishops by awarding an honorary doctorate of laws to the university’s 2009 commencement speaker, the president of the United States?

From the administration’s point of view, President Obama’s Notre Dame speech was an unmitigated success.

The president was eloquent, high-minded, and decentspirited. He also did something no previous president had ever done — he injected himself into the ongoing debate among U.S. Catholics over Catholic identity, by suggesting that the “real” Catholics

After Notre Dame

were those who, like Notre mains the issue here: to vary Dame, welcomed him for James Carville on the 1992 “dialogue.” This story-line — election, “It’s the ecclesiolthat the Notre Dame controogy, stupid.” That the vast versy was about openness and majority of Catholics in the dialogue, on the one hand, U.S. never understood that versus narrow-mindedness and this entire affair was about the fanaticism, on the other — was successfully sold to the national media by the administration, aided and abetted by the president’s Catholic intellectual acolytes.

That, in the process of

By George Weigel fostering “dialogue,” the administration was playing wedge politics, dividnature, structure, and disciing a significant number of the pline of the Church, not about Catholic bishops of the United politics, demonstrates just how States from their people, went attenuated Catholic identity in largely unremarked.

America has become, and just But that is, was, and rehow poorly catechized many Catholics are.

This bodes poorly for the future. In the Obama affair, Notre Dame claimed not only an internal liberty to order its academic life according to its own best lights, but a liberty against the local bishop. In effect, Notre Dame declared itself independent of the Catholic Church, as the Catholic Church is embodied in South Bend, Ind., by the bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend. The administration and trustees of Notre Dame would doubtless protest that they are proudly Catholic. But the question

The Catholic Difference

remains: What is the embodiment, the instantiation, the living reality of the Catholic Church to which they profess loyalty? Where is it? Who speaks for it? What difference does it make what he says?

As for the bishops, they must now face the ecclesiological facts of life caused by four decades of ineffective catechesis compounded by the afterburn of the Long Lent of 2002 and its revelations of episcopal irresponsibility. One of the primary purposes of Vatican II was to lift up the local bishop as a genuine shepherd and father of the local Church, not simply a branch manager assigned by the Roman corporate GHQ. Very few Catholics in the United States understand this, however. They may revere the pope; they may love their pastor; but they have little sense of ecclesial connection to the local bishop or understanding of his responsibilities.

So when crunch time comes and bishops try to defend the Catholic identity of Catholic institutions (medical, charitable, or educational), the default response of too many Catholics in the U.S. is that “this is just politics.” The same default kicks in when a bishop

reminds a politician that he or she is in spiritual jeopardy if they receive holy Communion while being in a defective state of communion with the Church on grave moral issues.

This default badly limits the bishops’ maneuvering room.

Were a bishop to summon the courage to deploy his canonical authority and declare that the University of X can no longer be considered a Catholic institution, he would almost certainly be misunderstood by a large majority of his people as acting politically, not ecclesiastically — as a partisan, not as a shepherd defending the integrity of the flock. That doesn’t mean that such things shouldn’t be done.

But doing them requires careful catechetical preparation and an effective communications strategy for explaining what was done, and why.

In sum, and to revert to my opening question: how do things look, two months after the Notre Dame affair? Bullish, for the administration and its wedge agenda. Bearish indeed for those concerned about religious freedom, Catholic identity, and the recovery of episcopal leadership in the United States.

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

Who? Who? Who?

press one,’’ instructs the parish Friday 12 June 2009 — President Reagan’s “Tear down voicemail menu. Press one and it rings the cell phone I carry in this wall” speech anniversary my pocket. That’s how I can be (Berlin, 1987) ho? Who? No, dear readers, I’m not imitating the call of an owl. I’m Reflections of a singing “Who let the Parish Priest dogs out?” written and originally recorded by

By Father Tim Anselm Douglas in Goldrick 1998 and released under the name of Fatt Jackk and his Pack of Pets. The Baha always available. Recently, my Men re-released it as a single in pocket rang. It was an emergency call, but not one involving a 2000. It won a Grammy Award parishioner in distress. “Somein 2001. It has become a ubiqone let the dogs out!” was the uitous sports stadium anthem heart-stopping message. worldwide.

Here’s the story. While I was “If this is an emergency,

W

9

The Anchor

July 10, 2009

The Ship’s Log

spending a quiet Sunday afternoon in prayer and reflection at the Sacred Heart’s Retreat Center in Wareham, a person or persons unknown came to the door of my rectory. On the front door is a sign, “Welcome.”

The visitor took this to mean, “Open the door and walk in.” On the other side of the door were three large dogs.

The visitor quickly closed the door and hurried away. The door is swollen so that it doesn’t close tightly without slamming. My dog Transit is very good at prying open half-shut doors. He used his skills as an escape artist and

Reduce, reuse, refuse to despair

M

are less fortunate, I believe we y job in the economy can help each other through this of our family is to financially stressful time, by enplug the holes of unnecessary couraging one another to rethink spending in order to stretch and to act differently toward our my husband’s income as far as possible. It’s a challenging posi- newly uncertain and more limited resources. Viewed in the right tion, but one that has become a bit easier since the advent of the light, the economic downturn has given us a great opportu“economic downturn” of the nity to teach our children a truly past year. Yes, that’s right, I did Catholic and critical life lesson write easier, not harder. It’s easfrom the writings of St. Paul. “I ier because after living for so know what it is to be in need, and long in a prosperous society of I know what it is to have plenty. shoppers, it is a welcome relief to witness a comeback of such basic, budgetstretching concepts as resourcefulness, thrift, and self-denial. It’s even somewhat humorous to see people treating these old-fashioned

By Heidi Bratton concepts like trendy new innovations.

On the last day of I have learned the secret of being school, for instance, I had a content in any and every situateacher congratulate my daughtion, whether well fed or hungry, ter for “going green” because whether living in plenty or in she reclaimed some high-qualwant. I can do everything through ity, three-ring binders that had him who gives me strength” been left in the hall as garbage.

(Philippians 4:12-13).

I could have hugged that If, because of the uncertain teacher right then and there, economy, we begin to live and but I also had a good chuckle to impart to our children St. because her remark, which apPaul’s secret of contentment, propriately tied in the environthen we will have given them a mentally-positive dimension of treasure a thousand times more my daughter’s resourcefulness, valuable than an inexhaustible made my daughter feel like trust fund. By turning to God’s she was on the cutting edge of word we learn that all along societal good for doing what we should have been focusanyone who lived through the ing on trusting God rather than Great Depression or World War on “building bigger barns” II would have done as a matter for amassing earthly fortunes of common sense. The great(Luke 12:16-21), on not being est thing this teacher did was slaves to fashion or food or any exemplify for my daughter the other human appetites (Romans Bible verse that says, “There16:17-19), and on believing the fore encourage one another and promise that “God will meet build each other up” (I Thessaall our needs according to his lonians 5:11). glorious riches in Christ Jesus” On top of continuing to share (Philippians 4:19). These are our resources with those who

Home Grown Faith

not easy things. They run counter to our human nature. And, because we each have different resources and ambitions, it’s nearly impossible to come up with any universal ideas about making or saving money that apply to all of our unique family situations.

Speaking as one in charge of plugging holes and stretching pennies, however, I know that saying “No” to excessive spending is almost always a good thing. It’s like putting a thumb over the nozzle of a hose. By reducing and purposefully directing the outflow of the same amount of water, one can water a much wider area of lawn. It’s the same with the outflow of money from a budget. By reducing and purposefully directing the outflow of the same amount of money, one can spread it over a much broader range of financial needs.

Before the economic downturn, the metaphorical pressure behind our thumbs was pretty high, daring us to just let go and overspend. Today the societal pressure is turning in the opposite direction, challenging us to reduce, reuse, and recycle not only for the good of our planet, but for the good of our personal finances as well. Let’s continue to encourage one another and our children to follow this “new” trend, and to use today’s struggles as opportunities not to despair, but to place our trust more fully and intentionally in God, the true source of all we have and are.

Heidi is an author, photographer, and full-time mother.

She and her husband raise their six children in Falmouth. homegrownfaith@gmail.com.

opened wide the door. All three dogs got loose. Remember: A greyhound on the loose is a dead greyhound.

Meanwhile, parishioners were arriving for the evening Mass. Long-time parishioner Thelma Sherman, who uses a cane for stability, was coming from the senior citizen complex. She saw Lolo wandering down School Street. Thelma stopped her car and somehow managed to force Lolo into the back seat. Lolo is strongwilled, but Thelma is stronger. I suspect she used a headlock. “I gave him a good push,” Thelma reported. Thelma gets my vote for Dogcatcher of the Year.

Cleopatra, meanwhile, went in another direction. She always does. Honking horns meant nothing to her. She just raised her royal eyebrows, looked haughtily down her nose, and went about investigating some ripe burger wrapper in the middle of the boulevard. Another quick-thinking parishioner, Robin Moitoza, recognized Cleo and was able to get the dog into her car. Nine-year-old Jack Moitoza sat petting the dog until she, too, was safely back at the rectory.

Greyhound Transit decided to roam farther afield. Parishioner Pete Foley alerted Jim Lopes and off they went searching for Transit. The men spotted the missing dog near the edge of some woods. When Transit saw them approaching, he surmised it was a game. He trotted off in the opposite direction. The men wisely turned around and began to walk away. “The race is already over?” thought Transit. “These humans are so fickle.” Transit tagged along behind Jim until he, too, found himself home.

All three dogs were safe.

Phew!

I’ll be the one to let the cat out of the bag. When I received the “AWOL dog” alert, I was just leaving an afternoon of reflection for the members of St. Nicholas of Myra and Holy Trinity (Fall River) Parish

Pastoral Councils. Father Stan Kolasa led the event at the Sacred Hearts Father’s oceanfront facility on Great Neck in Wareham. Father Stan told our group he intends to raise some $12 million to expand the current buildings into a state-of-the-art retreat facility.

The expansion will be very ecologically sensitive. The Sacred Hearts Fathers appreciate the treasure they have in their undeveloped acreage and have decided to preserve it forever. One hundred acres have been designated as conservation land. Talk about hope for the future. This project, to be completed over time, sounds fabulous. I’m sure it will be well-used by parish, deanery and diocesan groups. I suspect retreatants will also come from all over the country. It’s exactly what people need in this manic world — a time and place for quiet reflection surrounded by God’s unconditional love and the beauty of God’s creation.

I don’t know who let the dogs out, but the Sacred Hearts Fathers have let themselves out. They broke out of the prison named “The Same Old Thing.” They tore down the wall called “It Can’t Be Done.”

They thought differently and daringly. They envisioned the future. They acted boldly and faithfully.

What was the lesson of Father Stan’s afternoon of reflection for our two Parish Pastoral Councils: Appreciate the talents and treasures God has given you. Think of the good of the whole community, not of your own special interests or agendas. Envision the future. If it’s truly the will of God, it will happen. Have faith, God will be with you.

The Sacred Hearts Fathers have taken their own advice. As for the suggestion to tear down the wall, I decided instead to double-bolt my front door.

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

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The Anchor

July 10, 2009

A century marked by faith, family B y M ichael P are A nchor C orrespondent

TAUNTON — People are drawn to Lauretta Denis. For more than 100 years, they always have been — from the school children who would stop to say hello on their way to St. Jacques School some 70 years ago, to the friends and relatives today who experience her warmth, her kindness, and contagious smile.

Denis has lived in a duplex on 5th Avenue since 1940, when she and her husband Camille moved there. The home was ideally situated, just down the street from St. Jacques Church. In 2007 the parish merged with Immaculate Conception Parish to become St. Jude the Apostle.

Beginning in the 1940s when the parish elementary school was across the street, children would stop and say hello to Denis on their way to school.

After school, they would stop by again.

She always had a kind word for them.

Denis’s daughter, Lucille Castonguay, who along with her family, shares the duplex with her mother, remembers a household filled with family and friends. There was always a connection between the home, the parish and the school. It was a connection her parents embraced.

“Our home was an extension of the school yard,” she said.

Lucille is one of four Denis children.

“When I grew up, there was never dissension in the family,” she said. “We never saw any arguments. If my mother was stressed, she would go upstairs and sew something for someone.”

Sewing was one of Denis’s many talents and one that she found a way throughout her life to connect to her Catholic faith. For many years she volunteered at the Council on Aging in the community, where she would often sew articles of clothing for the less fortunate. It was a beautiful way to touch their lives.

Her granddaughter, Nancy Simmons, who now serves as coordinator of Religious Education at St. Jude the Apostle, marvels at Denis’s selfless commitment to others.

“There she’d sit for hours, comforting the lonely, while sewing anything from replacing zippers to altering wardrobes due to someone’s weight

loss,” she said. “She would never turn life turns. And it is that faith that she anyone down.” so calmly, yet assuredly, passes on to Simmons sees her grandmother as a others. true servant of God. Denis’s faith took deep root during “My grandmother’s faith is stronger her childhood. than the faith of anyone I know,” she “Every morning my mother would said. “She attributes her lengthy life to take us to early Mass,” she said. her relationship with Christ and a witty She bore witness to the growth of sense of humor.”

St. Jacques Parish, where she was bapDenis is 101, though she looks 25 tized and received all of her holy sacyears younger. She grew up in Taunton, raments. on nearby Garfield Street. She had six “By the time I was 15, they were brothers and one sister, who became a building up the top of the church,” she nun. said.

Denis marCamille was ried the love the first recipiof her life, Caent of the presmille, in 1931. tigious Marian He worked at a Medal from St. local hardware Jacques. Soon store. Camille after her husand Lauretta band received were a devoted the honor, Laucouple.

Their retta did as well, life together rerecognizing volved around her for her own family and St. stewardship and Jacques Parish. profound dediTheir four chilcation. dren would bless Camille and them with 10 Lauretta volungrandchildren. teered for whatTwenty greatever needed grandchildren to be done at and a greatchurch. For a great grandchild time, she was a round out the ANCHOR PERSON OF THE WEEK — Lauretta soloist at wedimmediate fam- Denis. dings and funerily. als. If there was Denis rea fund-raiser to members it as a simple life, compared organize, Camille and Lauretta were to today. A night out meant a game always there to help. of cards with family and friends. AlLauretta was well known for writways there was good conversation and ing letters to the sick and homebound lots of laughs. There weren’t any cell and for paying them regular visits. She phones to interrupt good company. became a regular at the local nursing They weren’t distracted by hundreds home. of cable television channels. They had “It was always a pleasure to talk to each another. people,” said Denis. “They were alCamille died in 1995. Denis misses ways so joyous. I enjoyed that. They him dearly. Sometimes, if she wakes were all my friends.” in the middle of the night, she prays Father John Perry, pastor at St. Jude to the Holy Spirit and to St. Jude. She the Apostle, calls Denis “a remarkable prays for Camille. And she prays for lady.” her family. She prays for anyone in “She has been an inspiration of need. faith,” he said.

It is that aspect of her faith, that Father Perry celebrated a Mass of connection to the Holy Spirit, that Thanksgiving in December of 2007 serves as the axis upon which Denis’s to honor Denis on her 100th birth-

day. Relatives and friends came from all over, including Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia.

Prior to Mass there was a party in the church basement. The guest of honor danced.

“She was in her glory,” said Father Perry.

Denis, as of six months ago, has found it difficult to get to Mass. She remains faithful, though, through prayer and by enjoying Mass each day on television, as well as the rosary each night.

Nancy Simmons often brings her holy Communion on weekends. That is special for Denis, again connecting family and faith.

Her devotion to God, to the faith that has carried her for this past century, is most evident in her humble home on 5th Avenue. It is there that you see the way her family continues to be drawn to her.

Seated at her kitchen table, her sonin-law Leo kids her that sometimes she does too much. And she returns a mischievous smile.

“She has always been there for us,” said Leo. Denis continues to care for others.

She is who they turn to when they need to talk. She is someone from whom they can always extract a warm embrace.

“People are drawn to her,” said Castonguay. “She is not critical of anyone.

She tells people to ‘let it go,’ to not hold onto any anger. It’s her faith. She believes that God does not give you any more than you can handle.”

On this Saturday morning Denis is again surrounded by family, just how she likes it. A steady stream of people come in and out of the house. Her great-granddaughter Lyndsay calls her the “glue of the family.”

And Brandon, a great-grandson visiting from New Hampshire, sums it up nicely.

“She’s awesome,” he said.

Denis smiles at this. Outside, the air is humid, but the rain seems to be holding off. There is a graduation party on this afternoon. Denis just might be up for it.

“I like to keep busy,” she said.

And, of course, she is smiling.

To nominate a Person of the Week, send an email message to FatherRogerLandry@AnchorNews.org.

July 10, 2009

The Anchor

Excitement building for Steubenville East conference continued from page one

sues with having this outdoors under a tent.”

After checking with area colleges and universities, Father Mattathilanickal said URI had the capacity and “was very much accommodating and said they’d very much love to have us.”

La Salette first became home to Steubenville East back in 1996, when a deacon from the Archdiocese of Hartford, Conn., approached them about hosting a conference in Attleboro. The deacon had previously been taking youth groups all the way to Steubenville and thought a venue closer to home might draw interest. Local interest soon grew to such a point where the annual event was forced to expand to two consecutive weekends drawing as many as 3,700 participants each weekend.

Although often mistaken for a spiritual retreat because of similar group sharing and discussion components, Steubenville East is more of a Catechism-based and Scripturebased learning experience, according to Ormond.

“We consider it a conference because it’s more about teaching our faith,” she said. “A lot of people have said it tends to be charismatic, in that the Holy Spirit is very much present and alive and it’s very upbeat. But as far as what takes place, it’s very Catholic in terms of teaching. Every day begins with the praying of the rosary, there’s an opportunity for reconciliation throughout the weekend, Masses are held each day, and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a huge part of the experience. The theme this year is ‘Above All,’ which is taken from 1 Chronicles 29:11.

Every year a new theme is chosen.”

“Most of the time you’re sitting there listening to speakers, so it’s more like a conference in that respect,” agreed Monica Valenti of the Knights for Christ at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Swansea. Having attended previous conferences as a chaperone, Valenti will be taking seven members of her parish’s newly-founded youth group to Steubenville East for the first time this year.

“I told the kids in my group about it and they all wanted to go,” she said. “Sometimes you feel you’re the only one who’s involved with your parish and then you go to this and see there’s 3,000 people your own age all fired up and praising God.” “It’s been a remarkable experience for young people, to have them all gathered in one place for the same purpose: to praise and worship,” said Deb Jezak of Youth in His Image, Fall River, who has participated in the conference faithfully every year. “It’s empowering to them to know they are not alone and there are other kids out there their own age practicing their faith.”

“I would call it a conference with an evangelical component,” added Carla Tirell, di-

rector of campus ministry at Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro. “The students are presented with lots of really good information and they then get an opportunity to engage themselves and choose to let the Holy Spirit become a part of them.”

Tirell first started going to Steubenville East four years ago and this year she’s taking a group of 70 students from Bishop Feehan to the conference.

“This year the economy made it a little more challenging for those to attend — I think I would have had a lot more going if the cost wasn’t an issue,” she said. “But they really come away feeling they’ve had a moment where God is present in their lives.”

While some expressed disappointment that the event will no longer be held at La Salette Shrine, they feel it won’t affect the overall experience.

“Being under an open tent in past years, I always felt secure,” Jezak said. “In some ways it’s more difficult to chaperone kids in separate rooms, behind closed doors. But I understand that’s the way it is.”

“The one thing I did like about sleeping outside in the tents was your group stayed together, but now they’re going to be separated in rooms,” Valenti noted.

“I’m excited to see how this changes it,” Tirell said. “I’m sure we’ll be comfortable

inside and won’t have to worry about the elements, but there was something spiritual itself in being outside, under the stars, out in the fresh air. I think the kids are going to miss that.”

“It’s a very powerful experience for many young people and many of them come back year after year,” Father Mattathilanickal said.

11 Steubenville East is open to youth from freshman year in high school through freshman year in college. Although the July 24-26 weekend is filled, there may still be openings for the July 31-August 2 session.

For more information about the conference, contact Peg Ormond at 508-236-9000, or visit www.steubenvilleeast.org.

12

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July 10, 2009

JAIL CALL — Christian Bale and Johnny Depp star in a scene from the movie “Public Enemies.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Universal Studios)

CNS Movie Capsules

My Father’s House P.O. Box 22, 39 North Moodus Rd. Moodus, CT 06469 . 860-873-1581 Website: www.myfathershouse.com Email: sbsheldon@sbcglobal.net SAT AUG. 1 10AM till 7PM

“MAKING IT KNOWN” A Day with FR. PAT, Healing Evangelist, Composer & Recording Artist; seminar with a concert & Mass in our outdoor ‘Shrine of Our Lady of the Pines.’

FRI. AUG. 28 7:30PM till SUN. AUG. 30 1:30PM

RETREAT with FR. MITCH PACWA, S.J. from EWTN, “Jesus His Church & His Ministry” See website for details. Reserve early! Call 860-973-1906 to register.

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

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

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

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

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

“Bruno” (Universal/Media Rights Capital) Wild social satire follows the exploits of a hyper-gay Austrian fashion reporter (Sacha Baron Cohen) as he travels to America in search of fame, and flaunts his proclivities — and eccentricities — to the discomfiture of many. As directed

by Larry Charles, provocateur Cohen scores a few points at the expense of clueless celebrities and irresponsible parents determined to launch their babies in Hollywood, but his wince-inducing exploration of sexual mores is simplistic, excessively explicit, and includes something to offend everyone. Strong sexual content, including graphic perverse and adulterous sexual activity, full nudity, pervasive sexual and

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

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

some irreverent humor, implicit acceptance of homosexual activity, much rough and some crude language. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

“Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” (Fox) Mostly delightful animated sequel in which a mammoth couple (voices of Ray Romano and Queen Latifah), a tiger (voice of Denis Leary) and two possums (voices of Josh Peck and Seann William Scott) search for the missing sloth (voice of John Leguizamo) who rounds out their improvised herd, and discover the underworld of dinosaurs to which he has been unwillingly carried. A few touches of vaguely crude humor aside, director Carlos Saldanha’s epic 3-D quest, which also features Simon Pegg voicing the adventurers’ wacky weasel guide, is well calculated to charm viewers of all ages with its portrayal of loyalty and teamwork. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance sug-

gested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

“Public Enemies” (Universal/Relativity) Polished dramatization of the last months of famed Depression-era gangster John Dillinger (a commanding Johnny Depp) as he orchestrates prison breaks, continues his bank-robbing spree across the Midwest, repeatedly eludes capture by special agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) of the nascent FBI, and romances Chicago coat-check girl Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard). Though the bullets fly in director and cowriter Michael Mann’s sleek adaptation of journalist Bryan Burrough’s 2004 history, the violence never becomes excessive, and the focus remains on Dillinger’s complex personality, his perverse popularity and the moral limits circumscribing law enforcement. Considerable action violence, brief torture, cohabitation, brief nongraphic premarital sexual activity, at least one use of the F-word, and occasional crude and profane language. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III — adults.

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, July 12 at 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Marc H. Bergeron, pastor of St. Anne’s Parish in Fall River

Update from Honduras

Monday, July 06 Dear Friends, It has been over a week since the “golpe de estado,” when the military removed President Zelaya due to an illegal election he demanded to change the Constitution. After meeting with UN and OEA officials, the former president vowed to return to Honduras to lead the country as president.

However, the newly-installed president vowed to fight the return, and assured Zelaya that he would be arrested if he did return.

The atmosphere here in the town of Guaimaca, which is about two hours north of the capital of Tegucigalpa, is one of uneasiness and tension. During the week everything was eerily quiet due to the nightly curfew nationwide (10 p.m. to 5 a.m.). No one is out at night and few people are around during the day; no pick-up trucks

Our Mission

By Father Craig A. Pregana are heard, no children on bicycles.

We have not been permitted to have meetings or group gatherings, so we have not had Mass in the church since that fateful Sunday morning when the soldiers filled the town in search of the illegal voting boxes.

Finally, this past Saturday we decided to return to a regular weekend schedule. Mass was celebrated on Saturday night and Sunday morning. I even decided to travel to one of the villages to offer Mass. Returning from the village we heard of the news of the disruptions in Tegucigalpa at the airport as the former president’s plane attempted to land. Army forces had taken the runway to prevent the landing, and Zelaya supporters had attempted to confront the army forces. It was complete chaos until Zelaya’s plane left Honduran airspace, vowing to make another return.

As we returned from the village Mass, the servers were milling around the church after their Sunday meeting and people began arriving for the Sunday evening Mass. Then we received word that the current president imposed a nationwide curfew to begin at 6:30 p.m. until Monday at 6 a.m. Mass would be cancelled again. The servers helped to close up the church and they began to make their way home. Quickly and quietly the streets emptied; everyone returning to their homes, uncertain what the new week will bring.

The strangest part of the weekend was Saturday, July 4. Even though we are in Honduras, each year for the Fourth we decorate

13

The Anchor

July 10, 2009

the rectory with the American flag and other patriotic symbols.

Usually the mission group from Bishop Stang High School is here along with Dr. Phil Robitaille and his dental team. We “gringos” usually have a big Independence Day celebration including fireworks next to the Church. The parish celebrates with us.

This year, however, the group from Bishop Stang prudently decided not to travel to Honduras in the midst of the turmoil. There were no fireworks at night and the only American flag was hung inside the rectory. Instead of a public display, we wanted to show our solidarity with the townspeople, and people noted it. They congratulated us on the holiday and thanked us for being here.

Independence is a great thing but it is only as good as the rule of law that guarantees it. Here people cry independence but are not willing to live by the rule of law which secures that liberty.

Each person has his or her idea of what is correct and they will do whatever necessary to achieve it. Neither the former President nor the current President is giving to the young people an example of how a democracy should operate. The youth, a complete generation, had no personal experience of a “golpe de estado”; it has been only something they have learned in class. Unfortunately, they now join the ranks of their parents and grandparents who can say they have lived through a military take-over of the government.

In the end, democracy loses.

Guaimaca is a quiet town and its people are humble. The events in the nation, and in Tegucigalpa, are far removed from the lives of the poor as they continue to struggle to put food on the table. It seems that no matter which party is in power, no matter who serves as president, the living conditions don’t seem to greatly improve.

They abide by the curfews and wait until it all passes.

The Mission that the Fall River Diocese supports here in Guaimaca is to preach, in word and deed, the truth of the Gospel.

As Pope John Paul II wrote: “But freedom attains its full development only by accepting the truth.

In a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation and man is exposed to the violence of passion and to manipulation.” As the violence begins to show itself in this current political situation, we stand alongside the people in Guaimaca and ask prayers from our brothers and sisters back home. Through our common prayers for peace may the Gospel of Christ be heard.

In Christ, Father Craig

K

The Reformation in England

ing Henry VIII had tion of about 300 persons for separated the Ecclesia Protestant heresy, most of them Anglicana — the Church of obscure, ordinary folk except England, or Anglican Church — for Cranmer and his associates. from the Church of Rome with an Deservedly or not, Spain and ideology skillfully devised so that Catholic fanaticism became indishis subjects might feel they were solubly associated in the English in substantial continuity with the mind, and the Protestantism that Church they had always known.

Cranmer couldn’t sell to the The one profound change had majority of Englishmen when he been the substitution of the king’s was in power became the mark of an English patriot. “The reigns of supremacy for the pope’s. OtherEdward VI and Mary had made wise little was altered: the Mass the Catholics more Roman and was still a sacrifice; the sacraments retained their supernatural the Protestants more Reformed,” efficacy; the bishops continued to to quote the Cambridge historian derive their authority (in docOwen Chadwick. trine at least) from the apostolic As the daughter of Henry succession; and our Blessed Lady was no less venerated.

The Fullness The 11 years between Henry’s death in of the Truth 1547 and the accession

By Father of Queen Elizabeth Thomas M. Kocik in 1558 saw violent swings of the religious pendulum under Elizabeth’s younger half-brother VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth Edward VI (reigned 1547-53) and (reigned 1558-1603) had no her older half-sister Mary Tudor choice but to espouse the Protes(reigned 1553-58). Under the tant cause, though in the interests boy-king Edward, the Protesof national unity she had to move tant party gained control of the cautiously. The Elizabethan government and swung England Settlement reflected a policy of more clearly into the Protestant expediency in religious matters. camp. It was a strange and conPapal jurisdiction in England was fused six years in which Archonce more rejected, yet the young bishop Cranmer gave his counqueen shrank from assuming the trymen The Book of Common title of “Supreme Head” of the Prayer (1549), that masterpiece of Church, taking instead the title English style and religious com“Supreme Governor.” Like her promise, which follows the basic father, she claimed no powers of outline of the medieval Mass but ministry but reasserted Henry’s at crucial points inculcates Protclaim that in ecclesiastical matestant heresies. Cranmer himself ters the Crown always has the last soon found it too Catholic, and word. Cranmer’s Prayer Book, in 1552 revised it to simplify the revised again in 1559, was once liturgy along Calvinist lines: all more made the basis of public allusion to altar or sacrifice was worship, and Thirty-Nine Articles studiously deleted. of Religion (1563) were drawn Meanwhile, some of the most up, both documents reflecting unscrupulous adventurers in strong Protestant influence.

English history were scheming to The Elizabethan Settlement exclude Mary Tudor, the Catholic laid the basis for what is today daughter of Henry’s first queen, called Anglicanism. The Anglican Catherine of Aragon, from the ideal, never quite put into words, throne in favor of their puppet, was a broad national religion that Lady Jane Grey. Since there was would blend the Catholic and no popular demand for “reforma- Protestant elements in a way that tion” in England in the years prior would unify as many Englishto Henry’s break with Rome, men as possible in one Church. In most of the English people were this way, the Church of England glad to see Mary make good her came to include both the folclaim to the throne in 1553. Evlowers of continental Protestanteryone knew that Mary would re- ism, especially in its Calvinist turn England to the Catholic fold. form, and those who remained An Act of Parliament restored attached to the “old religion,” the papal supremacy in England as Catholicism was then called.

(1554-55). A few monasteries Queen Elizabeth turned a deaf ear were reestablished, Westminster to the “Puritan” Calvinists who Abbey being the most important. hoped to rid the Church of every But Mary made two big politilast vestige of Catholicism and cal mistakes: first, she married replace the office of bishop with Philip II of Spain, in spite of the a presbyterian form of ecclesiastipatriotic protests of her council, cal government; consequently, her parliament, and her people; the Calvinists never succeeded in second, she permitted the execudominating the English Church

the way they did the Scottish and Dutch Churches, even though they played an important, if belated, role in English Protestantism. Both in England and on the European continent, Calvinists eventually split into a host of separate sects that often bickered among themselves. Some of Calvinism’s key doctrines were abandoned, and very few today profess it whole and undiluted.

The English Reformation was substantially a part of the Protestant Reformation, although it was lust, not dogma, which set in motion England’s departure from the Catholic Church. Just three years after Cranmer pronounced Henry and Catherine not married and Henry and Anne married, he found himself pronouncing Henry and Anne not married: this was to make room for Jane Seymour, the third of Henry’s six wives. (Anne was beheaded on trumped up charges of adultery, incest, and treason.) Henry’s marital history bears some analogy to the history of the Church in general and the Reformation in particular. Just as Henry regarded each new wife as his “true” love and rationalized each new marriage as a divinely sanctioned righting of wrongs (the fault lying always with his previous wife), so the history of Christianity is littered with “reformers” who have reestablished the “true Church,” usually in opposition to the allegedly false Church of Rome, and then, later, in opposition to their own previously true Churches.

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

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14

A tension within the Year of the Priesthood There is a principle drawn from the world of quantum physics called “the observer effect.”

Roughly speaking, this refers to changes that the act of observation will make on the phenomenon being observed. I have heard people apply this principle to much less complex matters of human experience as an analogy.

This occurred to me as I considered the opening of this Year of the Priesthood. As a priest I am a bit uncomfortable with this designation. It is not because I am ashamed of what I am or that I don’t believe in the “gift” of the sacrament of holy orders. On the contrary, I am humbled by what I perceive to be an extraordinary call from God to a sinner like me, so as to serve in such an extraordinary way.

The discomfort comes in a sharp tension we are now experiencing between models of priesthood which need, somehow, to be reconciled: the servant-leader model v. the cultic model. These two terms are one way of dealing with the topic of “difference” that was central to the editorial in the June 19 edition of The Anchor.

The first model seems to place more emphasis on the priest as one who journeys with his people at “ground level,” not from some lofty place. Within this model the stress seems to be more on similarity than on difference. Perhaps, an over-emphasis on this model has tended to obscure what is unique, special and distinctive about priesthood. In fact, I would suggest that this has led to a reaction which is the second model. That model places the emphasis on the priest as a man transformed by ordination on the very level of his being, and as one who possesses the power to “confect” the Eucharist and impart blessings. There are clear dangers in over-emphasizing difference which many Catholics know from living memory: paternalism, authoritarianism, and priests drunk with power.

I would submit that an over-emphasis of one or the other model by any observer of this “Year of the Priesthood” has its hazards: Either we find ourselves virtually obliterating the value of “difference,” or we do exactly what the editor of The Anchor suggests we not do: place the priest on an “artificial pedestal” through its over-emphasis. Either extreme constitutes a clear distortion ... in my mind, a distortion rooted in some form of pride.

May I suggest that the people of God pray according to some inspired words of John the Baptist: “Lord, may our priests be given the grace to conquer every form of pride such that they ‘decrease’ for your ‘increase.’”

Father Greg Mathias St. Julie Billiart, N. Dartmouth

The Anchor

July 10, 2009

Our readers respond

When grace and virtues can flourish As a 20-year public school educator, it was with interest that I read Bishop Lori’s June 19 Anchor article, “Catholic schools: A parent’s best friend.” I was disappointed that the bishop could not extol the merits of a Catholic education without first leveling many overreaching arguments against public schools. The most obtrusive being his statement that our nation has difficulty competing in a global economy because of “expensive and ineffective public schools.” If in fact we are competing with difficulty, the blame does not belong at the foot of public education.

I also took exception to what I perceive to be Bishop Lori’s insinuations that public schools are lacking in youngsters who treat their teachers and peers with respect, students with social skills, and teachers who love their jobs.

I did receive a small measure of satisfaction while reading The Anchor’s lead article of June 19, “Bishop ordains two new diocesan priests.” I was pleased to learn that newly ordained Fathers Deston and Fournier are graduates of local public high schools, B.M.C. Durfee and Attleboro, respectively.

Father Deston is also a product of public higher education, having earned his history degree in 1998 from UMass-Dartmouth.

I believe this is proof positive that as long as parents lay a firm foundation of faith, God’s grace and Catholic virtues can flourish in any educational setting, Catholic or otherwise.

Ronald F. Scarbrough Jr. Easton Piping plovers give insights on the value of life As an avid Cape Cod beachcomber, I am continually amazed by the efforts put forth each year to preserve the piping plovers. Since 1986, Cape Cod conservationists have diligently roped off areas and posted signs to ward off pedestrian and vehicle traffic in areas where the plovers breed and nest. From March through August such efforts are visible on beaches throughout the National Seashore and other Cape Cod shoreline areas.

In my younger days, I may have questioned the time, effort, tax dollars and even personal inconveniences involved in protecting these tiny seabirds. However, with age comes wisdom, and inspired by my oldest son’s enthusiasm for the beauty and wonder of nature, I now view the plover protections as a noble effort to preserve a vanishing species. And by all counts, the efforts are working. In the National Seashore beaches alone, there were fewer than 20 plovers in 1986, when the species became listed as an endangered under the Federal Endangered Species act.

Today, there are 85.

Certainly, these results should give us hope. At the same time, I

can’t help but be struck by a certain irony. While so many in our country are passionate to protect wildlife, we as a society fail to provide the same protections to our own species. Each day in the U.S. more than 3,300 precious potential lives are lost to abortion. Like the plover eggs, the unborn have all the potential for a healthy life, and yet, unlike the plovers, these lives remain unprotected by our laws. We rationalize their destruction with a wide range of excuses. They are deemed inconvenient, expensive, a potential burden to society … a mistake. Have we as a society become so hardened as to not realize that these tiny, fragile lives are just as precious and beautiful and full of potential as the tiny plovers in their eggs? More than that, these babies in the womb are our future.

It’s time to take stock and be inspired by the efforts of conservationists. Motivated by the same love and respect for nature that gives rise to laws protecting endangered species, we as a society should offer our love and support to mothers in crisis and do all that we can to protect the millions of innocent helpless pre-born lives that are at ongoing risk of destruction.

Joanne D. Bangs Sandwich Thanks to Fathers Johnson and Kocik for their series I want to express my thanks for the excellent series of articles on St. Paul and his theology during the Pauline Year. I found it not only personally edifying, but also restorative to faith. In perusing the work done by Father Andrew Johnson I could not help but be impressed by the sense of unity conveyed. I truly feel I know St. Paul better than when the Pauline Year began.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention the excellent series you are publishing by Father Thomas Kocik starting with the early heresies and challenges to orthodoxy, through the gradual and unfortunate disenchantment between the eastern parts of the Church, leading to the Great Schism and beyond. His treatment of the important elements of the “Reformation,” including the theology of Martin Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, the Anabaptists, and most recently the sad departure of England during the reign of Henry VIII, have been superb.

This series of articles is particularly useful because it gives perspective to Catholics living in America amid all the diversity that our culture implies. Perhaps Father Kocik can be encouraged to publish an extended treatment of the subject he so ably introduces in The Anchor.

In the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, “A page of history is more valuable than a volume of logic.” This certainly appears to be true in coming to an appreciation of the divergent development of

Christianity and its interface with the modern secular world.

The Anchor is a fine paper, performing an important mission enlightening the faithful and the public at large as to the Catholic point of view.

Robert A. Welsh Jr. Dennis No regrets I have absolutely zero regrets for having annoyed at least two Anchor readers with my recent comments regarding Obama and Notre Dame.

Nor, alas, have I any intention of sitting down with the likes of the complainants to “dialog” (now a verb, apparently) about matters about which I accept the teaching of the catechism. If their personal (political?) inclination leads them to believe that the world would be better without moral absolutes, that’s their problem and not mine.

There’s a wonderful book called “Saint John and the Apocalypse” by an English Jesuit named Martindale that goes into some detail as to the identity of the mysterious “Nicolaitans” alluded to in the preface of the Letter to the Church at Ephesus. Clearly these people are not beloved of God; the phrase “whom I also hate” occurs, a very uncommon use of that word in the New Testament.

Father Martindale’s contention is that the Nicolaitans were what we might today term a “go along to get along” crowd in John’s Asia, willing to accommodate themselves to the demands of the pagan temporal authorities at the price of their Christian souls. So what if Rome wants us to worship the Emperor as a god? Sure, we can do that — of course we won’t really be worshipping him, since we’re all Christians, but what’s the harm?

A few ounces of incense, maybe a meal or two, a hymn, and that’s it — we’re done, still alive and prospering, no martyrdom or other unpleasantness.

The spirit of willingness to compromise, to discuss, to (deep breath here) dialog is just what the Nicolaitans would recommend.

Apparently the modern version of this ultimately destructive doctrine is clothed in the sweetly reasonable and oh-so-trendy appeal to “diversity” and “appreciation of different points of view,” as if the teachings of God through his Church could somehow be made “more relevant” if we could all just sit down and chat about them.

Moral equivalence, i.e. “everybody’s teachings are of equal value (or non-value), so why can’t we just get along?” is one of the crafty one’s best-designed tools for leading us astray. The difference between now and Ephesus of the first century is that there’s such a wonderful support system in place to keep it going.

I like to think it’s less “my way or the highway” and more “God’s

way or the highway.” I will accept any criticism levelled at me that’s based on Church teaching (and I’m no theologian, so there’s plenty of room for education).

Criticism based on anything less (i.e., the Nicolaitan tendencies of a particular political party) will be rejected, perhaps even rudely.

Bill Black Falmouth Well deserved tribute What a joy to read, in your June 26 Person of the Week, that Sister Ruth Curry is still doing so well and on to her next phase of life with health, energy, and spirit.

She, actually Sister Marie Thomas then, was my kindergarten teacher at St. Joseph’s Parish in Taunton many moons ago and I’ve never forgotten her. I have fond memories of marching with my classmates around the classroom (in the church basement) to the tune of “The March of the Wooden Soldiers,” using pegboards and wooden puzzles, practicing letters, preparing for the crowning of Our Lady in the church yard, and practicing for the “Tom Thumb Wedding” on the stage, the highlight of the year.

She was always there encouraging us to do well.

Looking back, she was so young herself, but in those days it was hard to tell as the Sisters wore voluminous habits, covered from head to toe in black, with white only around the face. They were respected and held in awe, but Sister Ruth was loved by us little ones. She was strict, but kind and patient, always with a smile and pat on the head when called for to make you feel better. You wanted to do your best for her at all times!

I, too, became a teacher, and have retired after more than 35 years. I have seen Sister several times through the years and always made it a point to tell her of my happy memories of her and my first year of school and thanked her. Again I’d like to thank her for all the “little ones” like me that she encouraged along the way!

May the dear Lord continue to bless her with good health and keep her going for many more years to come!

Carolyn Rodrigues de Sousa Taunton Letters are welcome but the editor reserves the right to condense or edit for clarity if deemed necessary. Letters should be typed, no longer than 100 words and should include name, address, and telephone number. Letters do not necessarily reflect the editorial views of The Anchor.

Letters should be sent to: The Anchor, Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA 02722-0007, or emailed to fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.org.

July 10, 2009

15

The Anchor

Sacramental records: Keys to one’s life in the Church

By Deacon James N. Dunbar

FALL RIVER — Just as birth certificates are legal essentials for obtaining nearly everything from jobs, licenses, bank accounts, citizenship, travel and even many

purchases, sacramental records similarly are the basic necessities for Catholics to practice their faith.

When it comes to receiving the sacraments at every stage of one’s life in the Church,

the sacramental records kept in the parish where one was baptized provide the ready font for the information needed.

No matter how many parishes one might have resided

RECORD ARCHIVES OF CLOSED OR MERGED PARISHES Parish Holy Rosary

Location

Closed

New Bedford

1966

Record Archives St. Anthony of Padua, New Bedford

St. Hyacinth New Bedford 1977

Our Lady of Gudalupe at St. James, New Bedford

St. Roch

Fall River

1982

Notre Dame, Fall River

Sacred Heart

Fairhaven

1987

St. Mary, Fairhaven

St. Boniface New Bedford 1987

Holy Name of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, New Bedford

St. Mathieu

St. Anne, Fall River

Fall River

1989

St. Hedwig New Bedford 1992

Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. James, New Bedford

SS. Peter and Paul Holy Cross Holy Name Sacred Heart

Fall River Fall River

1998 1998

SS. Peter and Paul at Holy Cross, Fall River

New Bedford New Bedford

1999 1999

Holy Name of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, New Bedford

Fall River Fall River Fall River

2000 2000 2000

Holy Trinity, Fall River

St. Jean the Baptiste St. William St. Elizabeth

St. Casimir New Bedford 2000

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, New Bedford

Sacred Heart Taunton Our Lady of Lourdes Taunton

2000 2000

Annunciation of the Lord, Taunton

Our Lady of Fatima St. Michael

Swansea Swansea

2001 2001

St. Francis of Assisi, Swansea

St. Louis

Fall River

2001

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Fall River

St. Patrick Blessed Sacrament Our Lady of Angels

Fall River Fall River Fall River

2002 2002 2002

Good Shepherd, Fall River

St. Anne New Bedford 2004

Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. James, New Bedford

St. Elizabeth

Edgartown

2004

Good Shepherd, Oak Bluffs

Our Lady of Health

Fall River

2006

Espirito Santo, Fall River

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception St. Jacques

Taunton Taunton

2007 2007

St. Jude the Apostle, Taunton

Holy Rosary

Fall River

2008

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Fall River

St. Peter St. Joseph

Dighton N. Dighton

2008 2008

St. Nicholas of Myra, N. Dighton

St. Joseph St. Paul

Taunton Taunton

2008 2008

St. Andrew the Apostle, Taunton

in during his or her lifetime, the reports of reception of the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, marriage, holy orders, any annulment are officially recorded not merely where they occurred but also in the person’s baptismal record.

Proof of one’s baptism is needed before one can advance to receiving the other sacraments, so it is the most commonly sought-after certificate.

However, proof of confirmation is needed if one is to act as a godparent, and it is also among those commonly sought; and certificates of marriage are also high on the list of those requested.

Because parish closings are becoming more and more familiar to practicing Catholics because of such things as geographical changes, dwindling attendance at Mass and subsequently fewer monetary resources, as well as fewer available priests, locating one’s records can become problematic.

In the Fall River Diocese since the 1960s, more than 30 parishes have been closed or merged and new parishes taken their place.

Anchor editor Dave Jolivet’s own unusual story of

changes in parishes points up the problem.

“I was baptized at St. Roch’s Church in Fall River, and it closed in 1982. I was married at Notre Dame Church in Fall River by a priest … who no longer is a priest … and the church burned to the ground in May 1982. I attended St. Anne’s School which has closed, and the parish school three of my children attended has also closed,” recalled Jolivet. “When I attend a Mass at another parish, I think the parishioners sweat it out until I leave.”

While it involves many records that might be needed in the future, Jolivet points out that fortunately, in his case, all of the sacramental records have ended up in the care of Notre Dame Parish where he is a parishioner.

In order to help facilitate in finding needed records, The Anchor has published on this page a list of the closed parishes as well as the parish in the Fall River Diocese where the records are currently kept.

This list will be featured annually in the Fall River Diocesan Directory, the 2009 version of which will be released next month.

Youth Pages

16

July 10, 2009

OUTER CAPE HOSPITALITY — The youth of St. Peter’s Parish in Provincetown recently hosted 45 youth from St. Matthew’s Parish in Dorchester for a weekend on the Cape. With the support of the parish, community, and Provincetown High School, more than 60 youth from very different backgrounds had the opportunity for safe educational, recreational, and faith-based experiences together, which included climbing the Provincetown Monument, going on a whale watch, playing basketball, swimming, attending Mass, and ending with a cookout at the Knights of Columbus patio overlooking the harbor.

THE SUN WILL COME OUT — Eliza Dumas and Ryan Dykas performed the roles of Orphan Annie and Oliver Warbucks in St. Mary’s School’s production of “Annie Jr.” The shows ran in the McCarthy Theater at Coyle and Cassidy High School, also in Taunton.

LET’S GO STUDENTS! — As part of the annual Fun Day, students and faculty from St. James-St. John School in New Bedford, took part in a Student versus Teachers basketball game.

NEW PERSPECTIVE — Students at Our Lady of Lourdes School in Taunton recently participated in a disabilities awareness program to build awareness and acceptance, and to motivate them to help others. They all took part in the Muscular Dystrophy Association Hop-A-Thon, giving them the chance to use their muscles for those who can’t. Events included students performing activities while seated or hopping on one foot. The children raised $1,384.71 for Jerry’s kids. At the end of the day the students celebrated with a cool drink and ice cream.

BUSY AS BEES — These are the seven finalists in Holy Name School’s recent Spanish Spelling Bee. More than 135 words were used to determine the finalists at the Fall River school. At the end the winners (Darius Souza, Kate Goncalo, and Angela Brillantes) not only spelled Spanish words but also used them in sentences. The seven were so familiar with the Spanish words that the sentences had to be used to break the seven-way tie.

Youth Pages Take a look in the mirror

17

July 10, 2009

M

ichael Jackson, pop Been any clearer icon for decades, If you wanna make the world was laid to rest this week.

A better place Although his death comes as Take a look at yourself, and a shock to his friends, family Then make a change and fans across the globe, his music will remain timeless.

Over the last three years, I Since his death, there have have penned several articles been countless montages both with change as its theme. But video and audio across the as I sit in front of my laptop television, radio and even rereading these lyrics, I am afsocial networking sites like firmed in the fact that change MySpace and Facebook. There begins with us. Change is an are many songs and videos of individual act — one which Michael’s that I remember — may require self-examination most of them iconic.

Who can forget the red jacket and yellow eyes he bore during his epic “Thriller” video.

But through all of that hype, he wrote and

By Crystal Medeiros performed songs that resonated with people such as “We are the World” in the 80s. But it’s the and self-sacrifice. All too song “Man in the Mirror” from often we turn that proverbial the 90s that has a message for blind eye to the world around today’s youth and adults. us because it’s “their” problem I will not reprint the words and not our own. What we fail of the entire song in this to realize is that their problem article for they can easily be is our problem. We have to see Googled. Instead, I’d like to things differently. We have to focus on a few key verses or see ourselves differently. phrases: What is that we see as we I’m gonna make a change, look at ourselves in the mirFor once in my life ror? Do we see the person It’s gonna feel real good, Christ calls us to be — filled Gonna make a difference with love, compassion, hope Gonna make it right . . . and faith? Are we open about our faith to others? Or do we Who am I, to be blind? compartmentalize who we Pretending not to see are — one person in church, Their needs another in school and still another with our families?

I’m starting with the man in Are we being true to ourThe mirror selves?

I’m asking him to change We all want to make a His ways change in the world — to And no message could have make it a better place for fu-

Be Not Afraid

New Bedford nun receives N.H. reading award

NEW HAMPSHIRE — Congregation of Holy Cross Sister Jacqueline R. Verville, a native of New Bedford, was awarded the Granite State Reading Council of the International Reading Association’s 2009 Reading Teacher of the Year Award.

Sister Verville is a graduate of Sacred Heart School and a 1954 graduate of St. Anthony High School in the Whaling City.

Currently the reading director for Alton Central School in New Hampshire, Sister Verville is actively engaged in district, regional, state and international associations as she promotes delivery of quality educational experiences.

ture generations. Making a difference, no matter how small or how significant, will not only make us “feel real good” but it’s what we are called to do as Catholic Christians.

Making a difference is our call to social justice. Our youth has begun to take this call seriously over recent years. Many times we’ve heard of parish and school groups take trips to Honduras or other countries or states to participate in mission work.

These young people have begun to look at themselves in the mirror and realize that they are strong and capable enough to give back.

Can adults say the same?

With this in mind, I have a challenge for everyone — young and old for the summer. Take a look in the mirror. Not a glance or a once over. Take a good hard look at the person inside. Challenge yourself to do something different this year — and I don’t mean what color hair dye to use next time — something that would change your inner core for the better. Make that change that can help someone, either a family member, friend or stranger. Set a goal for when you would like to complete that change. It may be easier than you think.

Just take a look at yourself and make that change.

Crystal is the assistant director for Youth & Young Adult Ministry in the Diocese of Fall River’s Office of Faith Formation. cmedeiros@ dfrcec.com.

FUN IN FALL RIVER — From left, Mechanics Cooperative Bank President/CEO Joseph T. Baptista Jr.; St. Vincent’s Home Executive Director Jack Weldon; and Mechanics Cooperative Bank Sr. Vice President and Chairperson of St. Vincent’s Kick-Off To Summer Celebration, Deborah A. Grimes enjoy a reception held recently at Battleship Cove in Fall River to raise funds for the home’s Life Skills Program.

St. Vincent’s Home’s summer celebration draws big crowd

FALL RIVER — St. Vincent’s inaugural Kick-Off To Summer Celebration, held recently under a tent on the deck of the Battleship Massachusetts at Battleship Cove in Fall River, was attended by nearly 200 people. Sponsored by Mechanics Cooperative Bank, the evening cocktail reception overlooking Fall River’s waterfront raised much-needed funds for St. Vincent’s Life Skills Program.

Jack Weldon, executive director of St. Vincent’s, presented Joseph T. Baptista Jr., Mechanics Cooperative Bank’s president and CEO with the Friend of Children and Families Award on behalf of all the children and youth served at the home. The

award recognized the bank as a community-minded organization that “transforms lives by doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way” and furthers St. Vincent’s mission of “Giving children and families in need what they need most.”

More than $20,000 was raised from the Kick-Off To Summer Celebration which directly benefits the youth in St. Vincent’s Life Skills Program. These young adults who are aging-out of care and transitioning to independent living are provided with the skills and tools necessary to complete their education, obtain employment, and live as productive adults within society.

18

The Anchor

Cape parishes meet, greet visitors with open arms continued from page one

weekend and holy day Mass attendance increases from 2,800 people to 5,000,” Father Bellenoit said.

In addition to the increased Masses and the opening of the mission, St. Pius X Parish also offers its “Best Breakfast in Town” in the parish life center to parishioners and guests every first Sunday of the month following each of the Sunday morning Masses. “Those are very well attended,” added Father Bellenoit. “We had to increase the number of folks who help us prepare and serve, but everyone enjoys it.”

Other events include a Knights of Columbus summer picnic, and a Women’s Club summer fair that was a big success last weekend.

Father Bellenoit also mentioned that there is a summer parish mission held every other summer, the next scheduled for 2010.

Thirty miles out into Nantucket Sound is where St. Mary’s/Our Lady of the Isle Parish calls home. The tiny island of Nantucket is chock full of tourists during the summer months.

Father Paul E. Canuel, the island pastor, told The Anchor his last two regularly scheduled Sunday Masses were “overflowing with people.” He chuckled, adding, “It’s nice to

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experience such large congregations.”

Father Canuel said the parish takes advantage of the large summer population to offer a five-day summer mission.

“Instead of a mission during Advent or Lent, it’s nice to be able to offer one to a greater number of faithful,” he said.

This summer’s mission is July 13-16 and themed, “Reclaiming Our Hope in God,” to be facilitated by Jesuit Father Henry J. Cain and Virginia Blass, who has more than 25 years of experience in retreat ministry and teaching special needs students.

A unique summer event at the island parish is its children’s Bible study sessions that take place on Jetty’s or Children’s beaches. One can’t imagine a more peaceful experience for youngsters than hearing the word of God on a splendid Nantucket beach.

Further out on the Cape peninsula, Father Edward J. Healey is pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in West Harwich.

He too experiences a large increase in weekend Mass attendance at the Harwich location and the Our Lady of the Annunciation summer chapel in Dennisport.

“It’s so nice to see people who are on vacation and who want to keep coming to Mass,”

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said Father Healey. “So many young families attend, and I thank God that they do.”

Father Healey said that his parish population doubles during the summer season.

During the summer months the parish offers guests the chance to be a part of its book club.

“We assign two faith-based books to read during the summer,” said the West Harwich pastor. “We meet on Friday mornings for Mass and then gather for coffee and discuss the reading material. Many tourists take advantage of this.

People love to read.”

Father Healey mentioned that while the population doubles in size, “the pastoral demands” aren’t increased. “We have a very busy rest of the year, and that’s when the demands come. It’s nice to have the tourists here.”

At St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis, the numbers increase, but not to extremes.

“We only have to add one extra Mass at the Sacred Heart Chapel in Yarmouthport,” said pastor, Father Daniel W. Lacroix.

“But all of the Masses are well attended. It’s wonderful to see the tourists.”

A summer feature at St. Francis is Father Lacroix’s series on Prayer and Spirituality held each Wednesday afternoon following the 12:10 p.m.

Mass. The services, held in the lower church hall, address a different topic each week, running throughout July and August.

In East Sandwich, parishioners at Corpus Christi Parish are enjoying an enormous new church building. “With the new church, we don’t have to add more Masses,” said pastor Father Marcel H. Bouchard.

The parish kicks off the summer season with its “Ice Cream Sunday.” “At the beginning of summer we give Massgoers a free ice cream sundae after each Mass on that day,” explained Father Bouchard.

“It’s a very popular way to get things going. And at the end of the summer we wrap things up with a beach party.”

During summer’s dog days in July and August, one may find lines at Cape Cod beaches, restaurants, ice cream parlors, and especially on the bridges, but visitors needn’t worry about finding a daily or weekly Mass ready to welcome them to refresh the soul as well as the body.

Nearly every one of the Cape Cod parishes offer an ex-

July 10, 2009 panded weekend Mass schedule, open a mission chapel, or both.

Summer may be a time for folks to escape and take a break from work, school and other responsibilities, but it’s never a time to shirk their Catholic faith. Cape Cod pastors go out of their way to make sure that doesn’t happen. There’s no more welcoming gesture than that.

Come September, the two metal serpents will reverse direction and head towards the west, across the bridges, back

to settle in at home for the winter.

Meanwhile, Cape pastors and their flocks will shake off the salt and the sand and prepare for another busy season filled with Religious Education programs for adults and children, parish club meetings, holiday fairs and parties, and activities to meet the needs of the less fortunate in their communities.

One busy season ends and another begins. It’s a neverending cycle for parishes on the Cape and Islands.

Summer Mission co-op advances Church continued from page one

to inform parishioners at Masses about the needs of their particular mission churches throughout the world and in a collection hopefully benefit from the generosity of those who hear the message,” said Msgr. Oliveira, who is also pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford.

Currently he’s at work assigning the various representatives of missionary groups that have asked to preach and take a collection for the good of churches and parishes in the far reaches of the world, most of them suffering from deplorable poverty, and to whom even a little means a lot.

“Traditionally we give preference to missionary groups and congregations within our own diocese such as the Sacred Hearts Fathers, Congregation of Holy Cross, and the Missionaries of La Salette. But we also include Consolata Missionaries, the Archdiocese of Cartagena in Colombia, the Patient Help Foundation, Franciscans, Dominicans, Maryknollers and many others,” Msgr. Oliveira said.

How many Masses the missionaries celebrate depends on the size of the parish.

All of the money collected at those Masses are forwarded to Msgr. Oliveira and at the end of the appeal season then forwarded to the missionary congregation that made the presentment.

“The people in our parishes have always been very generous when it comes to helping fund the missions — Christ’s Church in other parts of the world far less fortunate than we are,” he asserted. “They listen to the message because they have always been very mission conscious and prayerful, as they make it a gift from the heart.”

“But to make sure we are doing all we can to assist, I make it my business to see that every missionary receives at least $1,000 in answer to his appeal,” said Msgr.

Oliveira, who has been at the helm of the missionary endeavor since 1977, and recalls that some missionaries he’s met have given

their lives for their people.

As for Father Canuel, his upcoming talk at Our Lady of the Isle Church on Nantucket, where he is pastor, will key on nearly a decade ministering at the flourishing St. Rose of Lima and St. Francis of Assisi parishes in Guaimaca, one of the poorest communities in one of the poorest regions of the world.

He noted that the current pastor there, Father Craig A. Pregana, is expected to be back in the Fall River Diocese briefly this summer, also to talk of the needs of those parishes.

“But that has become dicey at the present time because of the political upheaval in Honduras … but I still hope and pray he can come.”

“Being a part of the Mission Cooperative is not new for me,” Father Canuel told The Anchor.

“For many years beginning with when I was with the St. James Society I have been relating what is going on in far flung parishes, and I find our faithfilled people want to hear about the missions, and then generously give what they can.”

He also recalled “sometimes what they were able to donate didn’t even cover my expenses to get to their parish,” he said laughing.

“But their thoughts and prayers as well as the money are what moves the success of any missionary activity,” he added, and we are grateful to God for all of that.”

He also recalled that following one of his talks on the missions to a parish on Cape Cod, and apart from the usual collection at Mass, a man came to him to ask more details about a child he had talked about as needing special care — such as at the Dana Farber medical facility in Boston.

“That man gave me $5,000 for the treatment of the child.

It points up how important the Mission Cooperative is, and how God makes use of it to advance his Church in the world,” Father Canuel added.

July 10, 2009

Around the Diocese 7/10

Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., a Catholic priest from London and Dominican Friar of the English province, will speak 7 p.m. tonight at Christ the King Parish Hall, The Commons, Mashpee. Father Radcliffe will discuss “The Church in the 21st Century: Beyond the Ghetto and Assimilation.”

The talk is part of the “Summer Catholic Reflections” series sponsored by the parishes of St. Anthony’s, East Falmouth; Our Lady of Victory, Centerville; and Christ the King. Admission is free and all are welcome.

7/11

St. Francis of Peace Fraternity, Secular Franciscan Order, meets tomorrow at Damien Hall, Holy Trinity Church, 246 Main St., West Harwich, after the 11 a.m. Mass. All are invited to hear about St. Francis of Assisi, his life and devotion to the poor.

7/12

A communal anointing of the sick Mass will be celebrated at St. John the Evangelist Parish, 841 Shore Rd., Pocasset, July 12 at 2 p.m. Anyone eligible to receive the sacrament of the sick is invited to join the celebration. To receive the sacrament, call Betty Kazmier at 508-563-9020.

7/13

St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Rd., North Dartmouth, will host “Boomerang Express: It All Comes Back to Jesus,” a vacation Bible school study July 13-17 from 9 a.m. to noon each day in the parish hall. For more information, call Terry LeBlanc at 508-995-2476.

7/13

The 26th annual Craigville Theological Colloquy will be held July 1317 at the Craigville Conference Center on Cape Cod. This year’s theme is “Spirituality and the Holy Spirit: A New Awakening for the Church?” It will feature presentations and workshops on ancient spiritual practices such as lectio divina and contemporary ones such as Taize chants. The purpose is to provide congregations with resources to enrich their spiritual lives. Endorsed by the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, the colloquy welcomes participants of all faiths. It will include biblical reflection, worship, theological study, “hands-on” workshops and small group discussions. For information, contact the Craigville Conference Center at 508-775-1265 or email craigvillecc@capecod. com. The website is craigvillecolloquy.com.

7/18

Courage, a group for people who are experiencing same-sex attraction and would like to live the Church’s teaching on chastity, will meet on July 18 at 7 p.m. for prayer, conversation and support. For location information, call Father Richard Wilson at 508-992-9408.

7/18

A “Newly Renovated Barn Sale” will be held at St. John Neumann Parish Barn, located next to Cathedral Camp, Route 18 (Middleboro Rd.), East Freetown July 18 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sponsored by the St. John Neumann Women’s Guild, the event is free and open to the public.

7/22

The French Choir will perform “Messe Solennelle de Sainte-Cecile” by Charles Gounod, “The Youth and Children’s Choirs D’Ile de France” and “Youth Symphonic Orchestra” by Maurice-Ravel at Christ the King Church, The Commons, Mashpee, July 22 at 7 p.m. Admission is free and the performance is open to all.

7/29

The Family Life Center, 500 Slocum Rd., North Dartmouth, will host a final video presentation as part of the “Divorce Care” series titled “Moving On,” July 29 beginning at 7 p.m. All are welcome and refreshments will be available. For more information, call 508-999-6420.

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

BUZZARDS BAY — Eucharist 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 TAUNTON — Eucharistic adoration takes place First Fridays at Holy Family Church, 370 Middleboro Avenue, following the 8:30 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 8 p.m.

NEW BEDFORD — Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament takes place at St. Joseph-St. Therese Church, 51 Duncan Street, Mondays following the 8:30 a.m. Mass until 1:30 p.m. For more information call 508-995-2354.

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

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

TAUNTON — Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament takes place every First Friday at Annunciation of the Lord Church, 31 First Street, immediately following the 8 a.m.

Mass and continues throughout the day. Confessions are heard from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m., concluding with recitation of the rosary and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.

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

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

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 Pope: Moral values key to economic recovery continued from page three

the authentic ethical and cultural motivations that made it possible for them, in a different social and labor context, to play a decisive role in development,” he said in the encyclical.

Since the Church’s traditional teaching makes a valid distinction between the roles of trade unions and politics, it is correct for unions to identify civil society as the proper setting for their activity of defending and promoting labor, especially among exploited and unrepresented workers often overlooked by the general public, the pope said.

In the current global market, some businesses in rich coun-

tries have outsourced jobs to poor countries where the work force wages are low, and in the process have exploited workers in that country while driving down prices in their own nations, the pope said.

“These processes have led to a downsizing of social security systems as the price to be paid for seeking greater competitive advantage in the global market, with consequent grave danger for the rights of workers, for fundamental human rights and for the solidarity associated with the traditional forms of the social state,” he said. “Systems of social security can lose the

capacity to carry out their task, both in emerging countries and in those that were among the earliest to develop, as well as in poor countries.”

The pope said unions often face obstacles in trying to represent workers, “partly because governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labor unions.” He said that, even more today than in the past, there was an urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international and local levels for the promotion of associations that can defend workers’ rights.

NORTH DARTMOUTH — Rapid growth of the town

of Dartmouth in the 1960s prompted then Bishop James L. Connolly to establish a new parish in North Dartmouth. On Nov. 17, 1969 St. Julie Billiart Parish was born.

The lively parish turns 40 this year and the community has several events planned between now and the November birthday.

The 40th anniversary of St. Julie’s canonization will be

recognized at Masses tomorrow and Sunday. Booklets on her life, as well as prayers written to her and by her will be available to all Mass attendees.

First Saturday devotions and weekly presentations on the art of prayer will take place every Tuesday night at the parish leading to a November 13 celebration Mass and dinner at Cafe Funchal in New Bedford.

St. Julie Billiart Parish begins celebration of 40th anniversary

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

July 13 Rev. Arthur P. Deneault, M.S., La Salette Father, 1979 July 14 Rev. Nicholas Fett, SS.CC., Pastor, St. Boniface, New Bedford, 1938 Rev. Edmund J. Neenan, Assistant, Sacred Heart, Oak Bluffs, 1949 Rev. Vincent F. Diaferio, Pastor, Holy Rosary, Fall River, 1998 July 16 Rev. Bernard Percot, O.P., Founder, St. Dominic, Swansea, 1937 Rev. Matthew F. Sullivan, SS.CC. Retired Chaplain Bristol County House of Correction, Former Pastor, St. Mary, Fairhaven, 2002 July 17 Rev. William J. Smith, Pastor, St. Jacques, Taunton, 1960 Rev. Edmond Rego, Assistant, Espirito Santo, Fall River, 1981 Rev. Ernest N. Bessette, Retired Pastor, St. Joseph, Attleboro, 1997 July 18 Rev. Adalbert Szklanny, Assistant, St. Patrick, Fall River, 1968 Rev. Lionel G. Doraisi, SSS., 1984 Rev. Joseph M. Quinn, C.S.C., 2007 July 19 Most Rev. Daniel F. Feehan, D.D., Second Bishop of Fall River, 1907-34, 1934 Rev. Francis M. Coady, Pastor, SS. Peter & Paul, Fall River, 1975 Msgr. Joseph R. Pannoni, Retired Pastor, Holy Rosary, Fall River, 1992

20

F

The Anchor

God doesn’t impress easily

or Michael Jackson the A-Rod was equally embraced in playing field has been levN.Y. upon his return after testing eled. The same as it has been for positive for performance enhancElvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Prin- ing drugs. cess Diana, and to a lesser degree I’m awed that Brett Favre holds this week to former NFL quarterall the leverage at the beginning of back Steve McNair.

The same as it will be for the likes of Manny Ramirez, A-Rod, Brett Favre, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Mick Jagger, Madonna.

By Dave Jolivet The same as it will be for all of us.

I’m awed, but not each NFL season to if and where surprised at the throngs of people who want to honor Jackson today he will play. at the Staples Center in L.A. I’m I’m awed that people like Jolie, awed by the fact that people still Pitt, Jagger and Madonna are make pilgrimages to Graceland to god-like in the eyes of an adoring honor Elvis. I’m awed that Sinatra public because they can act and is still a god among swooners. sing.

I’m awed that Manny Ramirez And I’m awed that nice guy was warmly received by the Steve McNair allegedly fell victim Dodger fans following his 50to a real-life “Fatal Attraction.” game suspension for violating I’m awed at the hero worship Major League Baseball’s subin this country. If one can act, sing, stance abuse policy, and awed that or play ball then fame and fortune

My View From the Stands

are pretty much guaranteed.

All of these people have talent — there’s no question about that.

And all of them have questionable pasts (and presents in some cases).

Another common thread is that they all received their particular talents from the Father.

Yet I’m fairly sure that God is not all that impressed with Jackson’s overwhelming fan base practically worshiping the fallen pop star. I’m also fairly certain God was not impressed with the same reactions to Presley, Sinatra and Diana.

I’m positive they were judged on what was in their hearts and souls; how they lived the Gospel message; and how they used their God-given talents to spread the kingdom.

The same will hold true for the living, breathing idols capturing the hearts and minds of this heroworshiping society.

The same will hold true for all

July 10, 2009 of us.

Each one of us is but a drug overdose, car accident, heart attack, or benign cancer away from meeting our maker. Each one of us can be here one minute and gone the next.

In Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s

song “Lucky Man” about a young rich royal, they sing, “No money could save him, so he laid down and died.”

Only God knows how we’ll all be judged, but it’s a safe bet that the nobodies and the somebodies will all be on a level playing field.