07.13.12

Diocese of Fall River

The Anchor

F riday , July 13, 2012

Vocations Office strives to quiet the ‘noise’

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

MANSFIELD — Blessed Teresa of Calcutta once said, “I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, Who is sending a love letter to the world.”

God sends each of His children messages everyday. Because of the chaos of everyday life, many of those messages tend to remain unread.

“God often doesn’t speak through angels or burning bushes,” said Father Jay Mello, assistant diocesan director of Vocations, one of three priests in charge of promoting those Divine messages. “With all the noise out there, it’s difficult for young people to hear what God is calling them to do with their lives.”

Along the lines of Blessed Teresa’s thinking, Father Mello, Father Karl C. Bissinger, Vocations director, and Father Kevin Cook, assistant Vocations director, are also “little pencils” in the hand of the Almighty Father, asked to help bring His messages to His chil-

dren.

“I’m in charge of recruiting, but that can have such a military sound to it,” Father Mello told The Anchor. “My responsibilities are more to promote vocations to the priesthood to young men, families and Catholic faithful. Everyone has a part in someone hearing a potential call to become a priest.”

To help cut through noise of daily static, Father Mello said the diocesan Vocations Office has taken a proactive role in helping young men in the diocese to focus their attention on things that are in stark contrast to what society offers.

“We’ve established several events through the course of the year to bring young men together and allow them the time and quiet to understand what God is calling them to do,” he said. “Not everyone is called to be a priest, but everyone is called to a vocation. Events like our Quo Vadis retreat, seminary visits, and days of recollection Turn to page 18

with open arms — A statue of the Sacred Heart stands ready to greet pilgrims who will be attending the third annual Hispanic Pilgrimage at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro. (Photo by Dave Jolivet)

Hispanic pilgrims to make third annual trek to La Salette B y K enneth J. Souza A nchor Staff

ATTLEBORO — Since arriving at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in 2004, Father John Sullivan, MS, has devoted much of his ministry to serving Hispanic Catholics in the Diocese of Fall River.

One of the cornerstones of that ministry has become the annual Hispanic Pilgrimage that will once again take place on August 4 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the shrine, 947 Park Street in

Attleboro.

Since its inception three years ago, Father Sullivan has been an integral part of the Hispanic Pilgrimage, which includes pilgrims from not only the Fall River Diocese, but from dioceses throughout New England.

“Our La Salette Shrine is best known for its Festival of Lights during the Christmas season,” Father Sullivan said. “However, since we have pilgrims that come from many different Turn to page 14

After 40 years away, disabled woman travels to native country

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

IT TAKES A FAMILY — Father Jason Brilhante, center, is flanked by his mother and father, and surrounded by his family as they gathered for a picture with Bishop George W. Coleman, rear center, following the new priest’s recent ordination. Parents are vital in nurturing vocations in the home. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

FALL RIVER — This past May, two Fall River residents had the opportunity of a lifetime when they participated in the Azorean government initiative “Holding Hands with the Azores.” Partnering with Catholic Social Services in Fall River, Maria dos Anjos Rego and Zelia Botelho traveled to their native island of St. Michael after being away for 42 years. Staying for one week, the two sisters reunited with family and friends; the trip was made even more poignant because Rego suffers from severe disabilities that make traveling long distances almost impossible.

The Azorean government has partnerships with several social service agen-

cies throughout the United States and Canada, said Maria Pereira, chief operating officer of CSS in Fall River.

“They have an annual conference where entities from

those social and cultural services help immigrants who live outside of the Azores,” explained Pereira. “Every year we discuss the main issues that Turn to page 18

GOING HOME AGAIN — The Azorean government has partnerships with several social service agencies throughout the United States and Canada, including Catholic Social Services in Fall River. This past May, Fall River resident Maria dos Anjos Rego was able to benefit from the government’s “Holding Hands With the Azores”; a program that gives disabled immigrants a chance to visit family and friends in the Azores.

News From the Vatican

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July 13, 2012

Pope honors Irish leader John Hume with papal knighthood

DUBLIN (CNS) — One of the key architects of the Northern Ireland peace process has been honored by Pope Benedict XVI for his commitment to peace and reconciliation in the region.

John Hume, a founder-member of the mainly Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party, was credited with initiating the political dialogue that brought about the 1994 cease-fire by the Irish Republican Army. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998.

Pope Benedict named Hume as a Knight Commander of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great. Hume and his wife, Pat, were on pilgrimage in Lourdes, France, when he learned of the news. Friends said he was “delighted” with the knighthood.

Msgr. Eamon Martin, diocesan administrator of Hume’s native Derry Diocese, said the honor is “in recognition of his outstanding services to Catholic social teaching in the area of peace.”

“Mr. Hume has worked tirelessly for peace and justice, at considerable personal cost and risk. In doing this, he has testified to the fundamental dignity of human beings and the universal, inviolable and inalienable rights presented by Blessed John XXIII in ‘Pacem in Terris,’” he said referring to the 1963 encyclical on peace and justice.

Born in a Catholic area of Derry in 1937, Hume studied for the priesthood for several years before returning to his native city as a teacher in a Catholic high school.

His experience of the hardship and injustice that the minority Catholic

community experienced coupled with his grounding in Catholic social teaching led to his involvement in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

The organization campaigned for an end to discrimination against Catholics in the provision of housing and in employment. In 1972, 14 Catholic activists were shot dead by the British army at a civil rights march in Derry on what became known as Bloody Sunday. In 2010, a judicial inquiry ruled that the killings were unlawful and British Prime Minister David Cameron apologized to the families.

In contrast to the IRA, which engaged in a paramilitary campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland, Hume argued that if Northern Ireland were to leave the British union and become part of the Republic of Ireland — a long-cherished hope of most Catholics in the region — it would have to be by exclusively peaceful and democratic means.

It was a Belfast-based priest, Father Alec Reid, who convinced Hume to begin his dialogue with IRA’s political representatives, a move which saw him heavily criticized, including by members of his own party. The dialogue led to the 1994 cease-fire by the IRA, which was quickly followed by a similar cease-fire by Loyalist paramilitaries who were fighting as insurgents to keep Northern Ireland a part of Britain.

The 1998 peace agreement — known as the Good Friday Agreement because of the day it was signed — was hailed as a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

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

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OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER Vol. 56, No. 28

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watchful eye — Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd gathered below in St. Peter’s Square as he delivers his Angelus at the Vatican recently. (CNS photo/Stefano Rellandini, Reuters)

Pope names German theologian to head doctrinal congregation

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI has named Archbishop Gerhard L. Muller of Regensburg, Germany, the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The 64-year-old expert in dogmatic theology and ecumenism, who has co-authored a work on liberation theology, replaced U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, who retired at 76.

As head of the doctrinal congregation, the archbishop also assumes the roles of president of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei,” the Pontifical Biblical Commission and the International Theological Commission.

The appointment automatically elevates the former bishop of Regensburg, Germany, to the rank of archbishop, according to a Vatican statement.

The archbishop’s academic research focuses on “ecumenism, modern age theology, the Christian understanding of revelation, theological hermeneutics and ecclesiology — the priesthood and the diaconate,” according to the website of the Diocese of Regensburg.

He has authored more than 400 works with the most well-known being the 900-page “Catholic Dogmatics: For the Study and Practice of Theology.”

In 2004, he co-authored a book titled “On the Side of the Poor: The Theology of Liberation” with Dominican Father Gustavo Gutierrez, who is considered the father of liberation theology.

Though the doctrinal congregation, led by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, asked Father Gutierrez, to write and rewrite articles clarifying some of his theological and pastoral points during the 1990s, the doctrinal congregation expressed approval in 2004 of his latest work on ecclesial communion, which was published by a pontifical university.

Archbishop Muller has been a member of the doctrinal congregation since 2007 and was a member of the International Theological Commission from 1998 to 2003 — bodies that Pope Benedict led until 2005 when he was elected pontiff.

The archbishop also is a member of Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. He was named in June as a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

He also is a member of the doctrinal congregation’s Committee for the Preparation of the Year of Faith, which helped draw up a note of pastoral recommendations for the year, which begins in October.

He has close ties to Pope Benedict and in 2008 helped establish the Pope Benedict XVI Institute, which is publishing a complete collection of works by Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI. The pope personally commissioned the archbishop to lead the publication of his collected works, according to the Diocese of Regensburg.

He is also a contributing academician of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

In his new capacity at the doctrinal office, the archbishop will follow the Vatican-mandated reform of the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

He will also oversee talks with traditionalist Catholics and the handling of accusations of sexual abuse of minors by priests — two issues he has dealt with extensively as bishop of Regensburg.

The traditionalist Society of St. Pius X has a seminary in Zaitzkofen in the Diocese of Regensburg, and the archbishop has criticized the society’s illicit ordinations of priests and deacons there as “a sin against Church

unity.” He has said the unauthorized ordinations violate canon law and create a “dangerous situation” for the Church.

There have been incidents of abuse involving the diocese, including the cathedral’s famous boys’ choir and school. Two priests accused of abuse in the 1950s have been jailed and the archbishop has said any claims of sexual abuse would be treated with “the maximum transparency.”

However, he faced criticism for his reinstatement in 2004 of a priest previously convicted of child molestation. The priest, whose therapist had declared him no longer dangerous, was arrested in 2007 on additional abuse charges.

Upon news of the arrest, Muller expressed his “deepest regret and sympathy towards those children who have been mentally scarred” and promised “every imaginable assistance.”

During a 2010 conference in Rome marking the Year for Priests, he told reporters it was “stupidity” to believe that celibacy causes clerical sexual abuse, and he said that any priest who sexually abuses a child has placed himself outside of the priesthood, even before the Church acts formally to dismiss him.

Concerning the Church’s teaching against women’s ordination, he explained in a speech in 2002 that the Catholic Church does not profess that “men are superior to women,” but emphasized that Christ chose only men as His Apostles.

On the level of symbolism, with Christ as the Bridegroom of the Church, the maleness of the priest is essential, he said. “Being priests, just like being a father or a mother, is not a social profession, position or role. Being a priest implies a personal relationship and the representation of a person through another,” he said.

July 13, 2012

The International Church

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Chinese government ignores Vatican warning on bishop ordination

innocent victim — A girl wounded by shelling is treated at a mosque in Dael, Syria, recently.

(CNS photo/Shaam News Network handout via Reuters)

Catholics providing Syrian refugees with medical treatment

Baltimore, Md. (CNA) — It was the end of March when the violence in Syria became unbearable for Salwa, a young mother who lived in the besieged city of Homs with her husband and four children.

After more than a year of almost daily bloodshed, she and her family left behind everything they owned, and fled Syria with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing.

They crossed the border into neighboring Jordan, where they finally found safety in the town of Mafraq. There, with the help of Catholic Relief Services, Caritas Jordan is helping families like Salwa’s get through the crisis.

Salwa told Caritas Jordan volunteers that she’s grateful her family is safe, but that her children are still fearful. “Whenever they hear fireworks — often part of local wedding celebrations in Jordan — they fear that the violence has followed them from their home in Syria to Jordan.”

The violence that erupted in Syria in March 2011 has spiraled into a tumultuous, terrifying conflict and has led to paralyzing fear for innocent civilians — many of them women, children and the elderly. It’s unclear

exactly how many Syrians have been displaced by the fighting, but the United Nations estimated at the end of May that at least 500,000 Syrians had fled their homes for the safety of neighboring countries.

As the crisis worsens and more Syrians are forced to flee their homes because of the violence, CRS is expanding its relief efforts. Longtime partner Caritas Jordan, for example, is working mostly in the northern Jordanian towns of Mafraq and Ramtha to provide basic necessities as well as medical care to thousands of Syrian refugees.

Board member Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who has traveled around the world on behalf of CRS, visited northern Jordan in late June to meet with Syrian refugee families and witness firsthand the work being done.

“It is a blessing for the tens of thousands of families who are forced to flee from the tragic violence in Syria to find food and medicine, and most of all comfort and solidarity, from CRS and our partners here in Northern Jordan. I am thankful for the generosity of our benefactors who make this possible,” Cardinal McCarrick said.

In addition to the more than

150,000 Syrians who have already made it to across the border, Caritas Jordan volunteers report that hundreds of Syrians continue to arrive daily.

“What we’re seeing now is a very real need for medical assistance,” said Wael Suleiman, executive director of Caritas Jordan.

“We have a staff of about 30 volunteers who have been working tirelessly to assist the refugees with food, water and basic necessities, but now we’re seeing refugee families in need of medical attention. We’ve documented cases of people with chronic physical diseases, and those who’ve been severely traumatized by what they’ve experienced. These people need medicines, medical monitoring, as well basic medical equipment that we hope to be able to provide.”

Kevin Hartigan, incoming regional director for CRS in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, said that the “Syrian refugees we met in Jordan had lost everything, and many spoke of their lost loved ones. But their dignity and warm gratitude for the medical and material support provided through Caritas Jordan was humbling.”

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — The Vatican is considering its response following the illicit ordination of another bishop without Pope Benedict’s approval.

Father Joseph Yue Fusheng, 48, was ordained as bishop of Harbin City on July 6, despite warnings from Rome that he faced automatic excommunication for doing so.

“This episcopal ordination of Harbin will create confusion and divisions among the Catholic community in China,” the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples said in a note issued ahead of the ordination.

“If one wants the Church in China to be Catholic, one must not proceed with episcopal ordinations that do not have the prior approval of the Holy Father,” the congregation said.

In a response China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs labeled the Vatican’s warning as “extremely outrageous and shocking,” adding that their policy of “self-ordination” would continue.

According to several reports, five Vatican-approved bishops took part in the illicit ordination at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Harbin City, the capital of Heilongjiang province. It was also reported that around 40 priests were present.

Participating clerics were also warned by the Vatican in its statement that they were “exposing themselves to serious canonical penalties prescribed by the law of the Church.”

China has an estimated eight to 12 million Catholics, with about half of those people worshiping in the government-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. Founded in 1957, it does not acknowledge the authority of the pope.

Father Joseph Yue Fusheng is the vice chairman of the puppet organization.

In 2007 Pope Benedict XVI wrote an open letter to the Catholic Church in China in which he recognized that it was “understandable that governmental authorities are attentive to the choice of those who will carry out the important role of leading and shepherding the local Catholic communities, given the social implications which — in China as in the rest of the world — this function has in the civil sphere.”

But he also stressed that the appointment of bishops is a religious rather than political matter, and that the right of the Church to make such appointments without state interference is “a constitutive element of the full exercise of the right to religious freedom” as is also recognized in international conventions.

July 13, 2012 The Church in the U.S. Provision left after immigration ruling could be model for other laws

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WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning much of Arizona’s 2010 immigration law should limit other states’ efforts to pass some kinds of immigration controls, but legal experts predict more costly litigation lies ahead over the boundaries of the “show me your papers” provision the court let stand.

Doris Meissner, former head of the federal immigration agency, said she would expect states that want to dive into immigration-law waters might find something of a model for types of laws that could pass muster with the court, by targeting areas of law usually left to the states.

In a 5-3 ruling, the Supreme Court tossed out as unconstitutional several key provisions of the law known as S.B. 1070.

Namely, it rejected sections of the law that criminalized the act of failing to carry proof of legal immigration status (under federal law, being in the country illegally — called illegal presence — is a civil code violation); criminalized the act of applying for employment without a federal work permit; and allowed police to arrest someone without a warrant if the officer suspects the individual might be subject to deportation. These three sections were rejected as preempting federal jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court let stand a fourth provision, which allows police to investigate the immigration status of an individual if the officer has reason to suspect the person might be in the country illegally.

In the ruling written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court said the so-called “show me your papers” provision didn’t on its face conflict with the Constitution or impinge on federal jurisdiction.

But Kennedy and the other four justices warned that the key to the provision’s survival is that it is not interpreted in a way that prolongs the detention of people who are stopped by police.

Writing for a website that watches the high court, SCOTUSblog, attorney Amy Howe explained that the court “left open the possibility that opponents of the law could return to court to challenge it once it has been enforced and Arizona courts have a chance to interpret it.”

She added that the upshot of the ruling is “that if a person is arrested, Arizona can check his immigration status while it holds him. But if the person is merely detained — for example, at a traffic stop — the immigration check will probably take too long and he will probably have to be released.”

Meissner, senior fellow and director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, told Catholic News Service in a phone interview that the court was “very clear that they are inviting future challenges” to how the “show me your papers” law is enforced.

Meissner, who headed the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1993 to 2000, said the opinion is “certainly a warning” to states that are contemplating similar legislation, that they are likely to face litigation. Considering how lengthy and expensive such litigation can be, Meissner said, “that’s a strong implicit disincentive” to jump into the pool with Arizona and other states that also have such laws.

She said Kennedy’s opinion also might be used by states as a guideline for how to construct laws that could pass Supreme Court muster because they steer clear of aspects of federal jurisdiction. For example, she said, Alabama’s immigration law passed in 2011 includes a requirement that public schools gather and report data about which students are undocumented immigrants.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that immigration status may not be used as a bar to receiving an education through high school. Alabama’s law does not prohibit

undocumented immigrants from attending school, but the section was included in the bill as an incentive to cause people who are in the state illegally to “self-deport” or at least to leave the state.

Administrators of Alabama schools with large populations of immigrants reported steep declines in attendance when the law took effect. Most of Alabama’s law has been blocked pending court challenges.

But as Meissner noted, education is an area of law that generally is left to the purview of the states, meaning there might be more latitude given by the court to provisions like Alabama’s.

“There was nothing that says states can’t do that,” Meissner said. “It’s absolutely within the authority of a state-based institution to decide education laws.”

Restrictions on renting or opening accounts for utility services might also arguably be interpreted as matters of state, not federal jurisdiction, she added.

On the other hand, Meissner said given that the ruling threw out three of the four provisions that went before the Supreme Court, supporters of a federal comprehensive immigration reform might be emboldened to ramp up pressure on Congress to finally deal with the mess of immigration law at the federal level.

Faith-based organizations that had opposed Arizona’s law issued statements of support for the court’s action and said they would be vigilant to ensure that the “show me your papers” provision is not enforced in a way that targets certain groups for ha-

rassment.

Maria Odom, director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, said the ruling’s “broad affirmation of federal supremacy in the area of immigration” was very positive.

CLINIC affiliates handle immigrationrelated cases through Church-based agencies around the country.

The Arizona Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the bishops of the dioceses of Tucson, Phoenix and Gallup, N.M., which includes a portion of Arizona, said the Catholic leaders believe the “show me your papers” provision “will not enhance security, benefit the economy of our state or foster its well-being.”

“Rather this provision might separate families, create the possibility of racial profiling even if unintended by the law, heighten fear in the immigrant community, jeopardize community policing, and not fix the federal immigration policy which many across the political spectrum have said is broken,” the conference said.

Blessed John Paul II, in an October 1998 address to the Congress on the Pastoral Care of Migrants, said that “immigration is a complex question” and warned that public opinion can turn xenophobic when not open to the true reality facing the immigrants. He went on to call for the Jubilee Year of 2000 to imitate the Jubilees of Old Testament times. “A significant gesture [and]… a genuine dimension of the jubilee is expressed in a form of amnesty for a broad group of these immigrants.”

RICHMOND, Va. (CNS) — In a ruling hailed by Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori as “a major victory for the First Amendment,” a federal appeals court in Richmond said two Maryland pregnancy centers cannot be compelled to post notices that they do not have licensed medical professionals on staff.

In separate decisions, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned ordinances passed by the Montgomery County Council and the Baltimore City Council in 2010 but never enforced because of court challenges.

Writing for himself and Judge G. Steven Agee in the Montgomery County case, Judge Paul V. Niemeyer said the county “is entitled to believe that pregnancy is first and foremost a medical condition, but it may not compel unwilling speakers to express that view.” He said pregnancy centers that did not provide or refer for abortions were being “singled out for disfavored treatment.”

Archbishop Lori said that “at a time when religious freedom is being challenged on many fronts,” the decision represented a win “for those people who seek to live their lives and their faith according to” the First Amendment.

“I applaud the court for recognizing that these centers were being targeted for their Pro-Life views and for sending a strong message to the rest of the nation that these kinds of onerous, dis-

criminatory laws have no place in a nation founded on freedom,” he added.

The Montgomery County case had been brought by Centro Tepeyac Women’s Center in Silver Spring, Md., while the Baltimore lawsuit was filed by the Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns, St. Brigid Parish in Baltimore, where the center is located, and Archbishop (now Cardinal) Edwin F. O’Brien, Archbishop Lori’s predecessor as archbishop of Baltimore.

The ordinances in question had applied only to what were called “limited-services pregnancy centers” and required them to post notices that they had no licensed medical staff and advising women to find “a licensed health care provider.”

“If Montgomery County wishes ‘to encourage women who are or may be pregnant to consult with a licensed health care provider,’ it must, at a minimum, first do so using its own voice,” Niemeyer wrote in his majority opinion.

Officials in both Montgomery County and Baltimore City said they were considering whether to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The law itself would not have been necessary if there were not serious and compelling evidence and testimony that the centers provided false and misleading medical information to vulnerable women,” said Ryan O’Doherty, a spokesman for the city.

Appeals panel overturns language mandate for Pro-Life pregnancy centers

July 13, 2012

The Church in the U.S.

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Government cannot take away true freedom, Archbishop Chaput teaches

Washington D.C. (CNA/EWTN News) — Government cannot give or take away the ultimate freedom found in obedience to God, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said at the closing Mass of the U.S. bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom.”

“True freedom knows no attachments other than Jesus Christ,” Archbishop Chaput said in his homily at Washington, D.C.’s National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

“True freedom can walk away from anything — wealth, honor, fame, pleasure. It fears neither the state, nor death itself.”

“We’re free only to the extent that we unburden ourselves of our own willfulness and practice the art of living according to God’s plan,” Philadelphia’s archbishop said. “When we do this, when we choose to live according to God’s intention for us, we are then — and only then — truly free.”

“This is the kind of freedom that can transform the world.

And it should animate all of our talk about liberty — religious or otherwise.”

The Archbishop of Philadelphia preached at the last Mass of the U.S. bishops’ twoweek religious freedom cam-

paign, which was spurred by essary for a good society,” it is longs to God.” the federal mandate requiring not “an end in itself.” Rather, Archbishop Chaput, whose religious employers to provide it must be used to find and live 2008 book “Render Unto Caecontraception, sterilization, out the truth in order to attain sar” took inspiration from and abortion-causing drugs. to holiness, the highest form the same Bible passage, told The Fortnight for Freedom of freedom. the congregation at the nabegan June 21 — the vigil of This higher form of free- tional shrine that Jesus was the Feast of SS. John Fisher dom, found through God’s not merely “being clever” or and Thomas More offering “political — and ended on the commentary.” e’re free only to the extent that U.S. celebration of Christ’s reasonwe unburden ourselves of our ing, he said, harIndependence Day. Its closing Mass own willfulness and practice the art of living kens back to the was celebrated by creation of manaccording to God’s plan.”

Cardinal Donald kind in the “image W. Wuerl of Washof God.” While the ington, D.C., with coin “bears the ima homily delivered by Arch- grace, “isn’t something Caesar age of Caesar” and “belongs bishop Chaput. can give or take away,” Arch- to Caesar,” the human person He began his homily by bishop Chaput taught. bears the image of the Creator greeting the congregation on “In the end, we defend re- rather than the governing aubehalf of the Church in Phil- ligious liberty in order to live thority. adelphia, “the cradle of our the deeper freedom that is disIn this way, the archbishop country’s liberty and the city cipleship in Jesus Christ,” he said, Jesus is “making a claim of our nation’s founding.” It reflected. on every human being. He’s was there, he recalled, that The right to religious free- saying, ‘render unto Caesar “both the Declaration of In- dom only finds its fulfill- those things that bear Caesar’s dependence and the United ment when believers “use that image, but more importantly, States Constitution were writ- freedom to seek God with render unto God that which ten.” our whole mind and soul and bears God’s image’ — in other In his sermon, the Phila- strength.” words, you and me. All of us. delphia archbishop taught that Among the Scripture read- We belong to God, and only to the human right to religious ings for the Mass, was the con- God.” freedom is needed “to create frontation between Jesus and “Caesar is a creature of this the context” for the “true free- the Pharisees on the subject of world, and Christ’s message is dom” offered by Jesus Christ, taxation. As Christ observes uncompromising: We should which involves liberation from Caesar’s image on the Roman give Caesar nothing of oursin and the gift of eternal life. coin, He tells His listeners to selves.”

While religious liberty “is a “repay to Caesar what belongs While patriotism has its foundational right” and “nec- to Caesar and to God what be- place, as an expression of justice and charity, believers cannot ultimately identify

“W

Liberal justice’s opinion may help fight against HHS mandate

Washington D.C. (CNA) — Challengers of the Obama Administration’s contraception mandate may have been handed a surprising advantage by the Supreme Court’s liberal wing, in its partial dissent on the health care reform law.

“A mandate to purchase a particular product would be unconstitutional if, for example, the edict impermissibly abridged the freedom of speech, (or) interfered with the free exercise of religion,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in a recent opinion supporting the law’s “individual mandate.”

The rule requiring citizens to buy insurance was upheld by the vote of Chief Justice John Roberts, who interpreted it as a use of federal taxing power.

But four other justices, supporting the individual mandate without calling it a tax, signed on to Ginsburg’s opinion supporting religious liberty.

In a new column for CNA, religious freedom attorney Kim Daniels says the four jus-

tices may have given “unlikely support” to opponents of another controversial provision in the health care law, which requires employers to cover abortion-causing drugs as well as contraception and sterilization.

“Justice Ginsburg describes the HHS (contraceptive) mandate to the letter: it’s a mandate to pay for particular goods and services, and it interferes with the free exercise of religion,” writes Daniels, a former counsel to the Thomas More Law Center and current coordinator of Catholic Voices USA. While the justice’s affirmation of free religious exercise is “basic constitutional law,” Daniels says it was “notable that Justice Ginsburg chose to draw attention to this truism” using “language that opponents of the HHS mandate will no doubt highlight” as they challenge the contraception rule.

Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor all joined Ginsburg in her affirmation of religious freedom against government

attempts to force the purchase of morally objectionable products.

The decision on the health care law, Daniel writes, “not only leaves the many legal challenges to the HHS mandate in force, it underscores their validity.” More than 50 plaintiffs are currently involved in 23 lawsuits against the mandate.

Daniels’ essay explains how the mandate violates the U.S. Constitution, by exempting some religious employers — according to a narrow set of criteria — but requiring others to provide insurance coverage for products and services they oppose.

In some ways, Ginsburg’s opinion is not surprising, given her participation in the 9 to 0 Hosanna-Tabor decision which the Supreme Court handed down this January, in which the court affirmed, against the Obama Administration’s objections, that churchrun institutions can decide for themselves whom they are to employ.

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themselves with an earthly homeland. God, as Archbishop Chaput reminded the congregation, “made us for more than the world. Our real home isn’t here.”

As believers commit themselves to securing the Church’s freedom in society, they must also ask themselves “some unsettling questions” about what they “really render to God” in everyday life.

“The political and legal effort to defend religious liberty — as vital as it is — belongs to a much greater struggle to master and convert our own hearts, and to live for God completely, without alibis or self-delusion,” Archbishop Chaput observed.

“The only question that finally matters is this one: Will we live wholeheartedly for Jesus Christ? If so, then we can be a source of freedom for the world. If not, nothing else will do.”

“When we leave this Mass today, we need to render unto Caesar those things that bear his image. But we need to render ourselves unto God — generously, zealously, holding nothing back.”

In this way, he said, Catholics will fulfill their legitimate civic duties — while also, “much more importantly,” offering their lives “as disciples of Jesus Christ.”

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6

The Anchor The world is longing for the truth

Many of the articles in today’s edition discuss the topic of evangelization. Just this past Wednesday the Church celebrated the memorial of St. Benedict. Back on Sept.

11, 1998 (three years before the infamous “September 11”), Blessed John Paul II spoke to a symposium of Benedictine women religious and said, “The Church looks to you with special eagerness as we undertake the New Evangelization to which the Holy Spirit is now summoning us at the dawn of the new millennium. There will be no evangelization without the contemplation which is the heart of Benedictine life.

The whole Church must learn more of the meaning of ‘Ora et labora’ (prayer and work), and who will teach us that, if not the sons and daughters of St. Benedict? The world is longing for the truth which Benedict knew and taught so well; and now, no less than in the past, people are looking to the witness of prayer and work which your communities so joyfully offer.”

What Blessed John Paul said back at the end of the 20th century might be even more needed 12 years into the 21st century. He remarked that “the world is longing for the truth,” but as was noted last week, we often do not respond to that longing which resides in each of our hearts by turning towards the truth. This is one of the reasons why the Church’s mission to evangelize is so pressing and yet so challenging.

As was said above, our evangelizing efforts will bear no fruit “without … contemplation.”

Probably for that reason some of the people quoted in today’s Anchor make a point of thanking those people who could not be physically present at the various events reported, but who took the time and effort to pray wherever they were. For example, Tuesday morning the Vatican issued a statement about the illicit episcopal ordination which occurred in Harbin, China. Among the points that it covered, the statement read, “Appreciation is due to those priests, consecrated persons and lay faithful who prayed and fasted for a change of heart in the Reverend Yue Fusheng, for the holiness of the bishops and for the unity of the Church in China, particularly in the apostolic administration of Harbin.” To someone who does not believe in God, the prayers and fasting of these fellow Catholics of ours might seem to be as effective as that man who tried to stop a tank procession during the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

But we believe that God hears these prayers and sacrifices. He will bring to bear good fruit, in His time, from these seeds which these suffering Catholics have planted in Chinese soil.

On our own soil we, too, are called upon to pray and sacrifice for our freedom of religion and for the transformation of our country. This task might seem even more daunting than the one in China, since the injustices there are much more readily apparent to the citizens of China than the ones with which we have lived throughout our entire lives here. And yet, save for those of us called to evangelize in other countries (and that group does not just include formal missionaries; all Christians have been given the duty by Christ to spread the Gospel, wherever they are), we all have been given this “great commission” to make Christ’s loving presence felt in this culture.

Many people try to draw parallels between the present situation of the United States with the fall of the Roman Empire. We will not debate that here today, but we can learn from how the Church responded to that crisis. Blessed John Paul noted in the abovementioned speech, “St. Benedict lived in the dark times that came with the collapse of the Roman Empire. For many, disorder brought despair and the escapism which despair always breeds. But Benedict’s response was different. He turned from all that was familiar and entered his cave, ‘searching for God’ (Rule of St. Benedict, 58,7). There Benedict grasped the very core of biblical revelation which begins with the original chaos described in the Book of Genesis and comes to its summit in the light and glory of the Paschal Mystery. He learned that even in darkness and in emptiness we can find the fullness of light and life. The mountain that Benedict climbed was Calvary, where he found the true light that enlightens all men (cf. John 1:9). How right it is then that the Sacro Speco at Subiaco contains the image of Benedict contemplating the cross, since from the cross alone comes the light, the order and the fullness of God for which all men and women long. There alone does the human heart find rest.”

Much of the heartache which we face in this country and in other developed countries exists because we do not search for light in our darkness by embracing our crosses. Instead we turn to that “escapism” which John Paul mentioned, an escapism aided by technology that the Romans could never have imagined. It is into this darkness that God calls upon us to evangelize. He calls upon us to do this trusting that He will provide what we need — as the homily on page eight notes, we are not to bring along anything, save our trust in God and our fellow companions in the work of evangelization.

The more we do this, the more seeds will be planted in our society to heal the ills about which we read in each edition of this paper and all other newspapers. An appreciation of human dignity (from conception to natural death) will grow, as people come to know the dignity that we have been given in our being created in the image and likeness of God. We will grow to love and respect our neighbors, be they people who were born here or people who come from another land. We will come to better understand morality, not seeing it as some list of rules imposed by God (or worse, “by that hypocritical Church”), but instead see it as a guide to living in love with God and neighbor and, thus, being a guide to happiness.

This might seem to be as “pie in the sky” as the prayers and fasting of our Chinese compatriots. And yet for almost 300 years Christians prayed for an end to persecutions in Rome, and their prayers were answered. May we pray and evangelize with that same fervor, doing it out of love for God, for ourselves (since we would benefit from it), and for our neighbor. May the truth of Christ set us free and may our living in that freedom inspire others to turn to Christ to satisfy the longing of their hearts.

July 13, 2012

Pope Paul VI and the New Evangelization

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n his opening address to the Synod determining values, points of interest, Bishops in 1974, Pope Paul VI lines of thought, sources of inspiration explained that evangelization is not and models of life, which are in contrast an occasional or temporary task but a with the Word of God and the plan of permanent and constitutive necessity of the salvation.”

Church.

The primary goal of evangelization “The Church exists to evangelize!” The is ultimately conversion. The call to a Church exists to proclaim the Good News New Evangelization is primarily a call of the Word-made-flesh. The Church on to conversion. For those who are already earth is missionary by her very nature. For Catholics, it will be a deeper ongoing it is from the mission of the Son and the conversion in which they have a more mission of the Holy Spirit that the Church profound life of faith and devotion and a takes her origin and continually receives greater awareness and hatred for their sins. her identity and mission.

For those who are not Catholic or The Synod provided Pope Paul the may have been born and raised Catholic basis for the Apostolic Exhortation, but for one reason or another have fallen Evangelii Nuntiandi, which was away from the Church, it will mean a new promulgated on Dec. 8, 1975. He awakening of the graces they received at explained that, “We wish to set forth on Baptism or a desire to know and have a this 10th anniversary of the closing of the relationship with the living God. Second Vatican Council, the objectives of Pope Paul added that “the best which are definitively summed up in this structures and the most idealized systems single one — to make the Church of the soon become inhuman if the inhuman 20th century inclinations better suited for of the human proclaiming the heart are Gospel to the Putting Into not made people of the wholesome, the Deep 20th century.” if those who Pope Paul live in these pointed out structures

By Father that, “having or who rule Jay Mello been born them do not consequently undergo a out of being sent, the Church in turn is sent conversion of heart and outlook.” Bringing

by Christ; she perpetuates and continues about this interior change is the purpose of Him and His message of salvation. It is evangelization. above all His mission and His condition To many Catholics, especially those of being an evangelizer that she is called in the United States, evangelization is a upon to continue.” very Protestant-sounding term. For some, The word “evangelization” is it evokes images of television evangelists commonly understood in several different and door-to-door campaigning to invite senses today. One understanding is the people to make a personal decision for activity whereby the Gospel is proclaimed Jesus Christ. Before Evangelii Nuntiandi, and explained, and whereby living faith is evangelization was not necessarily a awakened in non-Christians and fostered word used by many Catholics. Pope Paul in Christians. The pope entrusted to the stated simply, and yet straightforwardly, Synod the task of bringing face-to-face that evangelizing is in fact the grace and the traditional concept of the work of vocation proper to the Catholic Church, evangelization and the new trends, which her deepest identity; she exists in order to seek their justification in the council and evangelize. the changed conditions and circumstances This single statement has sparked and of the time. triggered imaginations across the Catholic The “Catechism of the Catholic world in ways rarely experienced since Church” refers to evangelization as “the the first Pentecost event itself. This Good proclamation of Christ and His Gospel News, Jesus tells His disciples, must be by word and the testimony of life in proclaimed from the housetops. Such a fulfillment of Christ’s command.” The proclamation, far from being an attack on Church, in obedience to the command of religious liberty when presented without her Founder and because it is demanded coercion or unworthy pressure, Pope by her own essential universality, strives to Paul maintained, is a right and a duty. It preach the Gospel to every generation and presents to our brothers and sisters the culture. choice of a new way of life that they may The Church, as the Body of Christ, consider noble and uplifting. exists for the continuance of Jesus’ mission Pope Paul spoke of evangelization in of reconciling the world to God. Through terms of the proclamation of the liberating reconciliation in Christ and the gift of the salvation — the Gospel frees us from sin Spirit poured into our hearts we become and death and gives us the joy of knowing children of God. As children of God, St. God. Emerging from the council is the Paul informs us, we are set free from the sense that the Church knows that she has law of sin and death; we are set free to to spread the Word more effectively and love one another as Christ has loved us. zealously and that evangelization is the Pope Paul explained, “Solely through Church’s deepest identity — she exists in the power of the Gospel itself, the Church order to evangelize! The Church is born evangelizes when she seeks to convert of the evangelization of Christ and the the personal and collective consciences of Apostles — Christ is the Evangelizer; people, the activities in which they engage, He sends the Church and the Church their lives and their concrete situations.” continues His mission by continually The purpose of evangelization, Pope sending out men and women into the Paul adds, is not just to reach out to even world. The Church and her mission are wider geographical areas, but to bring inseparable from Christ and His mission. about this interior change affecting the Father Mello is a parochial vicar at St. human race’s “criteria of judgment, Mary’s Parish in Mansfield.

July 13, 2012

7

The Anchor

The embryo that grew up

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hose who seek to justify abortion often try to minimize or deny the humanity of the embryo. In a recent online forum, for example, one participant wrote: “I became a human being at the point that my senses functioned as those of a human being. Before that I was just a mass of cells.” Another followed up: “A pile of cells in a woman’s uterus is not a human being. It lives off of and is part of that woman’s body.” The implication, of course, is that a woman ought to be able to do what she wants with her body, including the removal of any particular “pile of cells” that might pose a threat to her freedom.

Yet those cells are not posing a threat in the same way that cancerous tumor cells might.

Instead, the cells of the embryo will upset her lifestyle by demanding that several months hence, she focus her attention on a bubbly, gurgling baby, and then a few years later, on a young child who needs an education, and then on a boisterous and strong-willed adolescent transitioning into adulthood, and then, possibly, on grandchildren, and so on. The cells of the embryo are not “just” a pile of cells, but an orchestration of living humanity known as a human being, marvelously complex, highly-ordered and structured, growing, expanding and developing in precise ways with each passing hour of intrauterine life.

Embryos, of course, do not spontaneously transform into human beings at the moment that their senses start to function, any more than they spontaneously transform into human beings at the moment that their DIOCESAN TRIBUNAL FALL RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS Decree of Citation Since his present domicile is unknown, in accord with the provision of Canon 1509.1, we hereby cite Leo F. Sylvia Jr. to appear in person before the Tribunal of the Diocese of Fall River (887 Highland Avenue in Fall River, Bristol County, Massachusetts) on July 30, 2012 at 2:30 PM to give his testimony regarding the question: IS THE VOGT-SYLVIA MARRIAGE NULL ACCORDING TO CHURCH LAW? Anyone who has knowledge of the domicile of Leo F. Sylvia Jr. is hereby required to inform him of this citation.

Given at the offices of the Diocesan Tribunal in Fall River, Bristol County, Massachusetts on July 9, 2012.

(Rev.) Paul F. Robinson, O. Carm., J.C.D. Judicial Vicar (Mrs.) Helene P. Beaudoin Ecclesiastical Notary

kidneys start to purify waste, or similar problems with the lower their intestines start to process extremities, as well as abnornourishment, or their heart starts malities in the eyes, ears, heart, to beat, or their limbs start to genitals, kidneys, and other move, or their brain begins to organ systems. function, each of which occurs at different timepoints along the embryo’s normal path of growth and development.

The embryo’s growth and development involves careBy Father Tad fully choreographed Pacholczyk biochemical steps and physiological changes that can be partially derailed by certain drugs. In the Philosophers and politicians late 1950s and early 1960s, for will sometimes argue that an example, the drug thalidomide embryo prior to eight weeks of was prescribed to pregnant gestation is not yet a human bewomen as a cure for morning ing, and suggest that early aborsickness, but was quickly found tions, embryo experimentation, to cause severe developmental etc. should therefore be acceptdefects and malformations in the able. The thalidomide drama of newborn. Thalidomide’s devthe late 1950s and early 1960s astating effects resulted in the makes it clear that if women drug’s being banned worldwide, were not pregnant with a human after more than 10,000 chilbeing prior to eight weeks of age, dren had been born with major then taking a teratogen (causthalidomide-related problems, ing embryo malformations) like including shortened or missing thalidomide would not raise any arms, hands extending from the concerns, since no human being shoulders, missing thumbs, and would be present to be harmed

Making Sense Out of Bioethics

by the drug. If there was no being that was human during the first trimester, then no disabilities would have occurred. But it is well known that the most drugsusceptible time during a pregnancy is the first trimester, specifically between the fourth and seventh week of gestation. Most of the children born without limbs were exposed to thalidomide during this time, when abortion advocates like to dissimulate and pretend that no human being is actually present.

Each human being arises at fertilization and exists as a biological continuum thereafter: at the joining of the sperm with the egg cell’s membrane, a measurable depolarization occurs across that membrane that sets in motion a cascade of biochemical events and changes that will continue in a stepwise, uninterrupted fashion leading to the adult taxpayer. Meanwhile,

the egg, if simply left to itself in the absence of sperm, will manage to live but for a few hours, and then die. Upon fusion with a sperm, however, the egg no longer exists, and an embryo, a human being at the earliest stage of his or her existence, genetically distinct from his or her mother, will be simultaneously engendered and launched onto the trajectory of “growing up,” representing a new entity that can live for more than a hundred years. Such embryos are first nourished in the maternal womb, then at the maternal breast, then at the family dinner table and at fast food restaurants. Each of us is precisely such an embryo who has been allowed to grow up.

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.

8

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he roles of the prophets in ancient times, the role of the early disciples and the role of the Church today have many similarities. Amos was sent

by God to the people of Israel to proclaim not a natural law, but a supernatural law — God’s law — a law which demanded a more just society. Justice would be realized only when those acting unjustly purposefully changed their way of thinking and acting. Amos̓ preaching was not well received by some and he was ultimately sent away.

Jesus sent the Twelve out on a mission to preach repentance, to heal, and to drive out demons. Impassioned and energized they went; they were welcomed by some, and the Good News spread among the people. Paul was sent to the Ephesians. He re-

July 13, 2012

The Anchor

Lord, You want me to do what?

minded them that God had Ephesians, we are to be a called them and graciously sign of hope and blessing blessed them and they for others. And like the were, in turn, to become a Twelve, we are sent out blessing and a sign of hope into the world on a mission. to others.

It is by our participation When we put these three readings together, we get a Homily of the Week fuller idea of what Fifteenth Sunday it means to be a in Ordinary Time Church that is present to the people.

By Father We, the Church, are Daniel W. Lacroix being sent out. We are to be not merely spectators, but active in the world, as well as participants in the world, personal spiritual developpromoting justice and rement, that we can accompentance. We are to witness plish the mission that Jesus to the healing and reconcilhas given to us. ing power of God at work Jesus gives His disciples in society as well as in our one piece of practical individual lives. advice: don’t pack a thing.

Like Amos, at times we That seems ridiculous and are each called to speak impractical to us in 2012. as a prophet in the world.

We travel for a long weekBaptism graces with a end or even a day trip, and prophetic voice. Like the our cars are full of food,

clothing, sun screen, books, iPods and video games.

Granted not all these things were around at the time of the disciples, but Jesus is making the point that they must rely only on the Lord and His message. Anything we might bring to the task of answering God’s call is just extra baggage. We are sent out emptyhanded to unfamiliar territory, so that it is clear to all that God is doing the work among us.

Jesus does send His disciples out in twos. They would have covered more territory and reached more people if they had gone by themselves, but, Jesus knew they needed each other. They needed spiritual partners to lean on for support and complement their unique and personal gifts.

We need similar partners in this world to talk to, receive support from and whose prayers we can rely on. That is what the community of the Church accomplishes, a team to support our personal mission of continuing the mission of Jesus.

As we listen this week to the Word of God and bring it to bear in our very complex world, we get a sense of the challenge that is ours: We, too, are sent out. We are given a mission that requires us to act as the prophets acted; to go as the disciples went, willingly and eagerly. Yes, we do have much to say about following the way of Jesus, but it is a mission that also calls us to be a sign of hope for others.

Father Lacroix is pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. July 14, ­­Is 6:1-8; Ps 93:1-2,5; Mt 10:24-33. Sun. July 15, 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 16, Is 1:10-17; Ps 50:8-9,16-17,21,23; Mt 10:34—11:1. Tues. July 17, Is 7:1-9; Ps 48:2-8; Mt 11:20-24. Wed. July 18, Is 10:5-7,13b-16; Ps 94:5-10,14-15; Mt 11:25-27. Thurs. July 19, Is 26:7-9,12,16-19; Ps 102:13-21; Mt 11:28-30. Fri. July 13, Is 38:1-6,21-22,7-8; (Ps) Is 38:10-12,16; Mt 12:1-8.

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or the past two decades I’ve taught in Cracow every July. I’d not trade the experience for anything, but it’s had one drawback: I haven’t seen baseball’s All Star Game in a long time.

The game itself is no big deal. But the sight of so many great players gathered in one place is an annual reminder of the pastime’s remarkable capacity to renew itself, generation to generation. The rancid steroid era ends; the era of Josh Hamilton, Matt Kemp, Stephen Strasburg and Justin Verlander begins. Tell me baseball isn’t Divinely inspired.

My grandfather Weigel taught me the game during steaming hot Baltimore summers in the late 1950s. There wasn’t much fancy about old Memorial Stadium in those days: a brick horseshoe with two decks; a non-exploding scoreboard; plank benches against whose splinters we

Meditations at the All Star break

I suppose, otherwise sane armored ourselves by buypeople remain fans of the ing an Evening Sun on the Chicago Cubs or still mourn way into the park. Tickets St. Louis’s loss of the Browns cost less than $10; I doubt (who became my Orioles in that my popcorn and Coke 1954). That specific loyalty set my grandfather back by a buck; there were neither mascots, nor ballgirls, nor earsplitting rock ’n roll between innings.

Uniforms were honest baseball flanBy George Weigel nel and outfielders’ gloves didn’t approximate the circumference of peach is a “shield and buckler” (Ps baskets. It was a simpler, 91:4) against the ebbs and ruder environment, to which flows of baseball fortune. you didn’t come for an “entertainment experience”; you And those highs and lows themselves reflect the game’s came for baseball. deeper truths, never better And you came for a team. expressed than by the late I’ve never met a serious Bart Giamatti, who was presibaseball fan whose love for dent of Yale and the National the game isn’t specific rather League and rightly thought than generic: one becomes passionate about a team; love the latter the higher distinction: of the game itself follows “It is designed to break from that. Which is why, your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins, and CATHOLIC it blossoms in the summer, WEBSITE filling the afternoons and evenings, and it leaves you www.pamphletstoinspire.com to face the fall alone. You

The Catholic Difference

count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when you need it most, it goes … and summer (is) gone.”

A half-century ago, my baseball education was furthered by other classic pedagogical tools: the sports pages of the papers, boys’ baseball novels, baseball cards (10 for a quarter, with bubble gum, but without cash resale value); and radio — well do I remember fetid Baltimore nights, pre-air conditioning, when I would lie at the foot of the bed by an open window, with a small transistor radio held to my ear, listening to Ernie Harwell, Herb Carneal or Chuck Thompson, three masters of the play-by-play.

But it’s to my grandfather’s personal instruction that I owe the most. And, as I’ve found myself doing with my own children (and now my grandson) what he did with me, I’ve come to appreciate even more the impact of his

instruction on my life. For we learn baseball the way we learn the faith: through stories, family traditions and rituals. The refinements of doctrine, essential as they are, come later. First, we are converted.

The midseason break also brings to mind a legend from my baseball youth: 15-year All Star Brooks Robinson, who arrived in Baltimore before my 10th birthday and reinvented the playing of third base. The true nature of his greatness — a human decency that is one expression of the Catholicism he embraced in 1970 — was neatly captured by a teammate, Ron Hansen: “In New York, they name candy bars after Reggie [Jackson]; in Baltimore, they name their children after Brooks.” As Brooks Robinson struggles with the pains of age and disease, he remains, in so many hearts and minds, a perennial All Star as a man.

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

July 13, 2012

Flown the coop

Friday 13 July 2012 — FalI wonder why the things mouth Inner Harbor — St. Henry needed immediately are the very II Day (Holy Roman Emperor) ’m still in the process of unpacking and settling into Reflections of a a new assignment, as Parish Priest are many other priests in our diocese. I had

By Father Tim foolishly decided not Goldrick to mark the contents on the outside of each box I packed in preparation for the move. I must now pay ones that have hidden themselves the price of my devil-may-care away most successfully. I find attitude. I have no idea where myself continually invoking anything is. My ducks are no lon- good St. Anthony in my search ger all in a row. They’re not even for lost objects. I suspect he may in the same pond. be tiring of my invocations. I’m

I

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9

The Anchor

The Ship’s Log

considering switching to St. Jude, patron of hopeless cases.

My first priority, however, is not achieving the satisfaction of having all my socks neatly folded in the proper drawer. My first priority is learning as quickly as possible the normal operating procedure of this new parish. What key goes in what lock? Where are the light switches? Who has the 7 a.m. Mass tomorrow? What time is supper?

I’m receiving a warm welcome here in Falmouth, as is my dog Transit. People ask about

Parting thoughts

and young adolescence every love the color and beauty child is growing visibly and that flower gardens bring invisibly, just as violets and to our yard, but man, what a snapdragons are developing pain it is to keep the weeds both flowering shoot and at bay. Even after pulling up fibrous root systems. It is in every stem and leaf of every this brief and temporary season visible weed surrounding our of their lives that we parents spring daffodils, tulips, and are able to mindfully help our peonies, in no time at all the children develop a morally very same weeds were popping integrated root system in the up again, trying to crowd out Catholic faith. Although mostly our summer daisies, day lilies, unseen, it is this root system, and roses! even more than the visible The “secret” of the reappearing power of some weeds is that their visible shoot system is only a part of their being. Some weeds have an entire, interwoven root system

By Heidi Bratton which, completely unseen, can cover a garden end to end like shoot system, which will help a lacy sheet under a blanket of keep our children’s faith alive dirt. It is this type of fibrous in the years and events to root system that allows a weed come. Foremost in the ways of to wait until I have put my helping our children develop gardening gloves away, and this stabilizing root system is with the next rainfall to quickly continuing to develop our own sprout new stems and leaves. root systems by deepening our Of course weeds are not personal relationships with the only plants that have lacy, Jesus Christ. To put it another resilient root systems. Violets way; as water is to the life of a and snapdragons also have plant, so is loving God yourself these robust root systems, and to raising a faith-filled Catholic so in place of weeds, I like child. to substitute these flowers as This month I surrender this illustrations of what I believe column to God’s call to take to be one of the most hopeful a sabbatical from writing, but parenting verses in the Bible, not before publicly expressing Proverbs 22:6. This verse says, my thanks to Father Roger “Train a child in the way he Landry and Dave Jolivet for should go, and when he is old the opportunity to share in the he will not turn from it.” educational mission of The Looking back over the past Anchor newspaper. I also want seven years of contributing to thank you, dear readers of to The Anchor, I can see that the Diocese of Fall River, for the promise of Proverbs 22:6 considering my down-to-earth is a nearly perfect summary input in raising your families of what I have wanted to to the glory of God. Don’t communicate to readers with forget that a year’s worth of each “Homegrown Faith” these columns and additional column. During childhood

Homegrown Faith

reflection questions are now available in a book form, and I hope that you will not only purchase “Homegrown Faith, Nurturing Your Catholic Family” (Servant Books) for yourself, but give it to other parents as well.

A parting thought on Catholic parenting is that we only get to help write the first few chapters of our children’s lives; God gets to be the author of their whole story, as well as ours. But the beginning is super important to any narrative, so let us be diligent in what we have begun! Let us count it as our privilege to introduce Jesus as the main character in our children’s stories, to let hospitality, generosity, love, faith, and all the other Christian virtues be the main motifs, to create a setting that involves both a home that is brimming over with spousal and familial love, laughter, hugs, heartfelt prayer, and warm cookies, and a church where all people of good will can experience unmerited grace, mercy, and peace through the Sacraments, beauty, and fellowship. Let us determine in advance that no matter what rising action comes our way, we will resolve conflict with compassion and overcome injury with forgiveness as did our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen? Amen! May God pour His richest blessings on you and your family, now and always.

Heidi is an author, photographer, and mother of six children. Her newest book, “Homegrown Faith; Nurturing Your Catholic Family,” is available from Servant Books.

him all the time. At the moment, he is still discombobulated by the change in routine. Greyhounds are creatures of habit even more than humans. Transit has received gift-wrapped boxes of doggy treats and even a handwritten note of welcome.

The note advised him on matters every Falmouth dog should know — like where the best places to go for walks are to be found and which mail carriers also carry doggie cookies.

Encountering so many new people (residents and guests) at the church door after Mass makes it difficult for any priest to remember names and faces. The introductions tend to become a blur of smiles and handshakes.

There are also personal business matters that need attention.

For a priest to change his mailing address, he can’t just fill out a form at the post office anymore (unless you want to begin receiving at your new place all the mail from your former parish). It’s considered a business mail box.

There’s a new regulation requiring you to notify each sender individually. You also have to find another barber. You have to search for the local gas station with the lowest prices. You have to figure out the best time of day to cross what in these parts is called simply “The Bridge.” One person I know refers to it as “the traffic tides.” The list goes on.

My transfer to Cape Cod occurred during the height of the summer season. Since Independence Day fell mid-week, my first weekend may or may not have been the Fourth of July weekend. At any rate, there were two churches under my care, eight Masses, four Baptisms, and three weddings. There were also several visiting priests. Fortunately, my predecessor, Msgr.

John Perry, made sure that all the bases were covered before I

arrived. I just had to stand there looking as if I knew what I was doing. Just between us, I hadn’t a clue.

You would think that after all these years of priesthood, each transfer would become easier. It actually becomes more difficult.

The older I get the longer it takes me to transition. My memory is already filled to capacity with how things were done in my previous parishes. It’s brimming over with the names and faces of people I have known elsewhere.

Falmouth, I must remind myself, is a brand new experience.

Just as each priest in unique, so is each parish. Every parish has its own traditions, its own history, its own way of doing things, and its own corporate personality. This means there are new chapters of my life to be written, new procedures to be learned, and new people to meet.

I’m looking forward to it.

One of the concerns parishioners have when a new priest arrives is that big changes will immediately occur. I found things working just fine. “Don’t fix it if it’s not broken,” they say.

For example, there’s a tradition here that a wall bell is rung when the priest begins Mass. “It’s your job to ring it,” they told me.

“There was a man who used to do it but he rang the bell so hard he pulled it right off the wall. He’s a retired admiral.” I rang the bell and the procession set out.

In my experience, most people are more than willing to adjust to the personal preferences of a new parish priest. “Tell me exactly how you want me to do this and I will gladly do so,” is a phrase often heard in the sacristy.

My response these days is: “Just carry on as usual.” I’m too preoccupied trying to figure out what I myself am doing.

Father Goldrick is pastor of St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth.

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July 13, 2012

For college student, there’s no parish like home

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

FALL RIVER — Even though he’s now living in Worcester where he’s enrolled full-time at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Damien Cabral still feels a close connection to SS. Peter and Paul Parish at Holy Cross Church.

All through his youth and formative years, the Fall River parish was not only central to his faith, but was also home to countless social and family gatherings.

“I wasn’t baptized there, but I’ve been there basically my whole life — as long as I can remember,” Cabral said. “My whole family has always been involved with the parish.”

For more than eight years, Cabral was one of the parish’s faithful altar servers — a task he joyfully performed at weekly Masses right up until he graduated from high school and left for WPI. “In my parish, once you go away to college they ‘retire’ you essentially from altar serving,” he

said, noting that he had ascended my biggest inspirations.” that he can connect with, but he to the rank of “senior altar server” Now in his junior year at WPI has made an effort to attend Mass before turning in his cassock. where he is pursuing a biology and keep up with his faith.

Cabral remembers being in degree, Cabral said it’s been dif“Faith isn’t just about going to the fourth grade at SS. Peter and ficult to find a parish in Worcester church,” he said. “Jesus wanted Paul School when he first volus to be active and help our unteered to become an altar community. If you’re reserver. ally just going to Mass, it “I followed the lead of my may fulfill you personally, brother — he’s four years but you need to help the older than me — so I always community as well. I think looked up to him,” Cabral you’re cheating yourself if said. “He was the first one to you’re not helping others.” get involved with altar servSS. Peter and Paul Paring. When I saw he was inish at Holy Cross Church volved, I wanted to be just like wasn’t the only benefachim.” tor of Cabral’s dedication In addition to his brother, to service. He also got inCabral credits his mother and volved in various campus grandmother with inspiring ministry programs while him to become active in the studying at Bishop Stang parish.

High School in North Dart“Both of them are very relimouth. gious and they always encour“Bishop Stang was aged me to be active in the very community serviceparish apart from just going oriented,” he said. “Doing to Mass on Sunday,” he said. things to help others really “I pray whenever I get the inspired me and made me chance. I’d say they were all Anchor Person of the week grateful for everything I — Damien Cabral. have and I think that helped me to connect with others.”

As a member of the National Honor Society at Bishop Stang, Cabral was involved in a variety of community service activities, “even though not everything had a religious affiliation,” he said.

“I was involved with a program called Business Apprentices, which takes place over spring break,” he said. “We’d go in for four days during the break and stay overnight at the school and go out everyday and help people in the community. We helped at places like local food kitchens and helped the elderly clean their homes. Then we’d come back at night and reflect on our experiences from the day and share it with each other and also pray.”

Cabral said the program was an eye-opening experience that taught him a great deal about the importance of community service.

He also expressed how grateful he was to have graduated from a Catholic elementary and high school.

“It’s helped me a lot in my college studies,” he said. “I’m hoping to continue my studies and go on and get my Ph.D.,” he said, adding he plans to eventually settle down and find a job in Boston.

Noting that his mother and grandmother are still very much active with SS. Peter and Paul Parish at Holy Cross Church, Cabral admitted it can sometimes be a struggle to maintain and practice his faith while in college.

“You can get caught up in everything from school work to extracurricular activities,” he said.

“It can be easy to lose focus when you’ve got so much going on, but I think the reason I’ve been able to stick with my faith is that it comforts me.”

Like those fond memories of sharing time together with his family back home at St. Pete’s, Cabral said it’s reassuring to know he always has God on his side.

“Whenever I’m stressing out something or studying for a difficult test, I always say a short prayer and that relaxes me and helps a lot,” he said. “I know regardless of how I may do on that test, I know that God is there watching over me and everything will work out in the end. That’s a big reason I’ve been able to stay connected to my faith while I’m at school.”

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

summer breezes — St. Vincent’s Home in Fall River recently held its fourth annual Kick-Off To Summer Celebration under a tented Battleship Massachusetts at Battleship Cove in Fall River.

Nearly $70,000 was raised to benefit youth in St. Vincent’s Life Skills Program, who are transitioning to independent living and young adulthood.

July 13, 2012

The Anchor

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Unusual collection from Vietnam Veterans Memorial reflects a unique war

LANDOVER, Md. (CNS) — Duery rating a specific Vietnam prisoner of war Institution’s Museum of American History. planning, but other donations are spontaneous.

Felton Jr. calls them “icons.” or missing in action also have been left be“It’s not unusual to see children go Another candidate for largest item is a The religious articles gathered up each hind.

Harley-Davidson motorcycle bearing a Wis- through their backpacks and leave whatday at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in The largest item held in the collection consin license plate with the word HERO. ever the popular toy of the day is,” Felton Washington are just a small part of the esti- is believed to be a painting on a nine-foot- The group of Wisconsin veterans that do- said. mated 400,000 items left in honor of a vet- by-five-foot sliding glass door that shows nated it has asked that no one be allowed to “Every item is precious,” he added. “It eran and collected twice daily might be a fourth-place kaby National Park Service emrate medal, but for a person ployees since the memorial to leave it ennobles this ofopened 30 years ago. fering.”

But for Felton, curator of Religious items — medthe Vietnam Veterans Meals, Bibles, Rosaries, crosses morial Collection held at the and similar articles — make Museum Resource Center in up a significant part of the Landover, many of the items collection. Among the most represent a mystery that will popular medals are those never be solved. dedicated to St. Michael the He holds up a small cross Archangel, patron saint of on a pedestal. A piece of paparatroopers; St. Anthony per affixed to the bottom says of Padua and St. Nicholas, the cross was made from considered the patron saints square nails used to build the of sailors; and St. Therese of original St. Peter’s Episcopal Lisieux, patron saint of pilots Church in Kasson, Minn., in and air crews.

1873.

The Vietnam Veterans MeBut that doesn’t answer morial Collection is one of Felton’s many questions: about 40 historical collections Who left the item and for held at the Museum Resource whom? What did the church Center. Others include items mean to the veteran or the from the Antietam National person who left the cross?

Battlefield Park, the Clara “Most of the three-dimenBarton National Historic Site sional objects in the collecand the Frederick Douglass tion come with no explanaNational Historic Site. tion of what it is or what it But none of the collections means,” he said. wall of pain — Visitors walk along and touch the black granite panels that make up the Wall — the infor- has such strong emotions atThere is even a box of mal name of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. This year marks the 30th anniversary of tached to it as the Vietnam rocks left at the memorial the memorial, which was dedicated Nov. 13, 1982. About four million visitors a year walk past the inscribed collection does. on the National Mall. Felton names of 58,267 men and women killed or missing in action. (CNS photo/Nancy Phelan Wiechec) Felton, an Army veteran isn’t sure, but he thinks some who served in Vietnam in veterans bring the rocks as a 1967, said he tells new insymbol that they have “put their burdens a scene in Vietnam and displays the names sit on the motorcycle — hand-painted with terns, “You have my permission to go outdown” and left their bad memories of Viet- of all those who were POWs or listed as scenes of Vietnam — until all those MIA in doors and take a deep breath” when they missing in action.

Vietnam have been accounted for. nam at the memorial. need to. And he admits that he sometimes Donated with the door is a full-size reAccording to the Department of De- has to do the same himself.

“This is a collection unlike any other,” Felton said. It is the only collection in production of a tiger cage, like the ones fense, 1,664 veterans are still missing in “In my office I keep a photo of a very which the public decides what will be in- that held POWs during the war. The cage action in Vietnam. good friend who died in battle,” he said.

Those items indicate a great deal of pre- “That keeps my feet on the ground.” cluded, the only one made up of items left is currently on display at the Smithsonian by the living for the dead and the only one in which “the bias of what is worthy is taken out” of the curator’s hands, he said.

But Felton believes that is more than appropriate for a memorial to those who served in “a completely different kind of war” — a war that was never officially declared.

“It’s Vietnam, so you can leave logic out the door,” he said.

With the exception of plant matter, food and unaltered U.S. flags, every item left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is preserved and cataloged. The flags are given to veterans’ hospitals, visitors to the memorial or civic groups such as the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.

The collection started almost by accident when a park ranger who thought the items had been left inadvertently started a kind of lost and found, thinking those who had left the items would return for them one day.

When no one came back for the items — and more were donated each day — the collection was born.

The most popular items left at the memorial are notes or letters, many of which are not addressed to a specific veteran.

Thousands of metal bracelets commemo-

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July 13, 2012

The Anchor

At 100, society’s commitment to spread Good News to blind remains same

on the web — Andrew Garfield stars in a scene from the movie “The Amazing Spider-Man.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Columbia)

CNS Movie Capsules NEW YORK (CNS) — The following is a capsule review of a movie recently reviewed by CNS. “The Amazing Spider-Man” (Columbia) The legendary web-swinger is back, battling teen angst by day and catching crooks at night in this 3-D reboot of the classic Marvel comic book character, directed by Marc Webb. A high-school science geek (Andrew Garfield) is bitten by a radioactive spider and undergoes the familiar transformation. As he impresses a comely classmate (Emma Stone), he neglects his family, resulting in the death of his uncle (Martin Sheen). When genetic engineering run amok turns a scientist (Rhys Ifans) into a monster, however, the once-arrogant lad finds his inner hero. The style and vision of Webb’s version are darker than those of director Sam Raimi’s trilogy. Still, amid the action and thrills lies an inspirational tale about accepting responsibility and using one’s gifts for the greater good.

Intense action violence, including gunplay, some rough language. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

“People Like Us” (Disney) A basically good-hearted but less-than-scrupulous businessman (Chris Pine) faces a moral dilemma when he discovers, in the wake of his long-estranged father’s death, that he has a half-sister (Elizabeth Banks) and that dad left secret instructions for him to convey a large cash bequest to her. Up against significant financial reversals, he sorely needs the money himself. But

as he gets to know his struggling sibling — he contrives to cross her path as though he were a chance acquaintance — and bonds with her troubled preteen son (Michael Hall D’Addario), less selfish considerations come to the fore. Director and co-writer Alex Kurtzman’s low-key blend of comedy and drama, based on real events and aimed at intelligent, mature audiences, showcases some fine acting and delivers a thoughtful — if not always entirely plausible — examination of its main characters’ struggle to overcome a legacy of dysfunction.

Cohabitation, brief semi-graphic sexual activity, drug use, addiction theme, a few instances of profanity, at least one rough term and considerable crude and crass language.

The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

“Savages” (Universal) Directed and co-written by Oliver Stone from the 2010 novel by Don Winslow, this vicious, bloodsoaked saga of drug lords glorifies primal urges, vulgarity and man’s inhumanity toward man. Two friends (Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch) and their shared lover (Blake Lively) run a successful business growing the best marijuana in North America. When a takeover by a Mexican drug cartel (led by Salma Hayek) is rebuffed, the girlfriend is kidnapped, and a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues. Perverted values; pervasive brutal and grisly violence, including gunplay, torture and rape; graphic nonmarital sex with rear and upper female nudity; off-screen aberrant sexual activity; suicide; a benign view of drug use; and frequent rough language. The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

NEW YORK (CNS) — Evangelists at a century-old missionary organization in New York spread the Word of God without leaving their nondescript building in midtown Manhattan.

The people they evangelize never see the missioners, but they recognize the Light of the World in the materials they receive from the Xavier Society for the Blind.

The organization provides Catholic religious and spiritual material free of charge to more than 10,000 blind, visually impaired and physically restricted people throughout the United States.

Jesuit Father John R. Sheehan has been chairman of the Xavier Society since 2008. In an interview with Catholic News Service, he said Jesuit St. Francis Xavier, patron of the missions, encouraged his followers “to go forth to strange lands, learn to speak the language and tell the people about the Word of God.” “That applies to the widest range of definitions. Language is not just vocabulary, it’s usage and structure,” he said.

For the Xavier Society, that means providing material in Braille, large print and audio formats. It’s a huge task — literally: The Braille edition of the New American Bible fills 45 volumes and includes all the notes found in the print edition.

Father Sheehan said the Xavier Society was started by a group of laywomen who asked Jesuit Father Joseph Stadelman to help supply free religious materials to the blind.

“In those days, if you wanted to get God’s Word to the blind, you either had to be a publishing house or you had to read to individual blind people,” he said.

The Xavier Society functioned as a publishing house “for prayer books, bits of Scripture and lives of the saints,” Father Sheehan said. It founded and continues to manage the National Catholic Lending Library for the Blind.

The group began in 1900 in a single room at what is now Xavier High School and was incorporated in 1904. Early Bible texts used raised type called Moontype and New York Point, before Braille became the standard in 1918.

The Xavier Society has long relied on volunteers to help transcribe material into Braille and retype text using large-print typewriters. There are now more than 80 volunteers.

Some are young actors and retirees who record books, Catholic periodicals and Mass propers for distribution via current technology.

Phonograph records gave way to reel-to-reel tape, which was replaced by cassette tape. Current subscribers also can use digital CDs and MP3 audio editions.

“What we do has not changed

since 1900, but the technology and delivery systems have,” he said.

The Xavier Society is putting more emphasis on Braille texts as largeprint and audio subscribers are able to easily access material from other sources, or use computers to enlarge type or read content.

“No one else is doing what we do. People who use Braille have fewer avenues,” Father Sheehan said, adding that Braille has the practical advantage of allowing users to read and write.

Technological advances also now allow Braille users to read and write on devices similar to Kindles and Nooks.

The Xavier Society remains committed to its founding mission but is undergoing restructuring, as financial constraints and rapidly changing technologies prompted the board of trustees to look at how it can still meet the needs of current and future subscribers.

Father Sheehan reduced the paid staff from 16 to seven and is preparing to sell the society’s narrow seven-story building. “We’re not in a crisis, but we are moving before we are,” he said. A new headquarters location has not been chosen.

Proceeds from the sale of the building will be used to develop new ways to engage the blind and visually impaired, he said. Among the possibilities are retreats for the blind, outreach to younger users and translation of materials into Spanish.

“We’re maintaining a tradition,” Father Sheehan said. “We don’t charge for our service, we give it away.” Most of the society’s annual budget of $1.8 million comes from private donations and fund-raising events, he said.

“The key word is evangelization, reaching out with information about our faith. The blind community

needs to have access to this material, and opportunities are few and far between in the Catholic Church. No one else is doing Catholic Braille and other groups charge for audio,” he said.

“The blind community tends to be on a lower economic scale, even with advanced training programs and education. The blind can do practically anything a sighted person can do, but sometimes it’s like they’re invisible” in the Catholic Church, Father Sheehan said.

He described his frustration while attending a Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City for people with disabilities. There were accommodations for the deaf and people using wheelchairs, but none of the material was in Braille or large print. “The blind couldn’t participate actively in the service,” he said.

As a “first step to understand the culture” of the Xavier Society’s subscribers, Father Sheehan spent time at the Louisiana Center for the Blind, where he wore foam lightblocking sleep shades and learned to navigate with a white cane. He uses the glasses and cane on occasional walks through the streets of New York “to keep my skills up,” he said.

Father Sheehan joined the Society of Jesus in 1980, was ordained in 1992 and was a missioner in Nigeria and the South Pacific for 14 years. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, he worked in the theater and on Broadway before he entered the Jesuits.

The theater training comes in handy at the Xavier Society.

Father Sheehan records books, including works by fellow Jesuits. He also sings sacred music, Christmas carols and show tunes on a series of CDs sold to benefit the society.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, July 15, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father John Phalen, President of Holy Cross Family Ministries in North Easton

July 13, 2012

on their knees for freedom — A man prays amid the overflow crowd during Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington July 4, the final day of the bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign. The observance, which began with a June 21 Mass in Baltimore, was a two-week period of prayer, education and action on preserving religious freedom in the U.S. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)

Masses, devotions, rallies mark U.S. Church’s ‘Fortnight for Freedom’

WASHINGTON (CNS) — When the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops asked Catholics to dedicate 14 days to the preservation of religious freedom through prayer, education and public action, they listened.

Catholics in dioceses across the United States participated in Masses, devotions, holy hours, educational presentations and rallies during the June 21 to July 4 campaign to support the nation’s “first and most cherished freedom” and draw attention to actions Catholic and other religious leaders say are weakening religious liberty, including the federal contraceptive mandate.

The U.S. bishops’ campaign began on the vigil of the feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More with Mass June 21 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore celebrated by Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Freedom.

He held up the two martyrs as a source of inspiration for American Catholics, saying “their courageous witness of faith continues to stir the minds and hearts of people yearning for authentic freedom, and specifically, for religious freedom,” he said.

The Fortnight closed on Independence Day with Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington and the tolling of bells at churches across the country at noon Eastern time.

Fortnight events in dioceses around the country included an Independence Celebration Walk

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The Anchor

and Picnic in Des Moines, Iowa; a motorcycle “Rosary Ride for Religious Freedom” in Colorado Springs, Colo.; nonpartisan voter registration drives after Masses in Atlanta parishes; a religious liberty conference in Covington, Ky.; an outdoor Faith and Freedom Mass in a park band shell in Savannah, Ga.; and a prayer service with special petitions for the Fortnight in the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma, Ohio.

In the Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y., Catholics participated in a 12-hour marathon of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament at the Church of St. Joseph in Brooklyn. Jocelyn Rodriguez, a teenager from St. Elizabeth Parish in Ozone, N.Y., organized youth groups to lead the faithful during the vigil.

In upstate New York, parishioners in the Rochester Diocese participated in a 14-day-long Festival for Freedom at a retreat house in Canandaigua. The free events include a speaker series on the topics of ethics, justice and natural law; Masses and prayer services; and plays and other activities.

Organizers described the festival as “a time and place to renew our commitments, to learn about our country’s founding principle of religious freedom and to join with others who feel strongly that, unless current trends and mandates are reversed, the core principle of freedom of religion will be eroded.”

At Holy Family Catholic Church in Orlando, Fla., students in grades six to 12 participated in an obstacle course and a scavenger hunt to find items representing faith and liberty.

“We are blessed to live in a great nation founded on religious freedom in which all of our natural freedoms are protected,” Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito of Palm Beach told the Florida Catholic diocesan newspaper. “That is evident as we legitimately and respectfully gather today to join in prayer and make our voices heard in regard to the protection of religious freedom.”

Morning rains did not stop 700 people from attending a rally where Archbishop George J. Lucas of Omaha, Neb., spoke on religious liberty issues. Across the archdiocese, parishes sponsored movie nights and “Faithful Citizenship” presentations.

In the nation’s capital, more than 2,000 Catholics from all over the Washington Archdiocese prayed and sang patriotic hymns at a rally at George Washington University’s Smith Center. The event highlighted the Catholic heritage of the United States. Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington recalled Blessed John Paul II’s first public Mass as pope when he called the faithful to put

aside fear and to express their beliefs.

“The call is not just for priests to preach, but for the laity to respond. The response is threefold: prayer, education and action. The most important is prayer,” Cardinal Wuerl said.

The Catholic bishops of Kansas sponsored a statewide rally for religious freedom in front of the state Capitol in Topeka. Catholics in Iowa and Illinois also had marches to their respective state capitols in Des Moines and Springfield.

The Diocese of Allentown, Pa., sponsored a campaign called “Let Religious Freedom Ring,” which included five catechetical talks presenting USCCB documents on religious freedom and public seminars at universities.

The Little Sisters of the Poor in Scranton, Pa., held a daily holy hour during the Fortnight in the chapel of their Holy Family Residence.

At Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez urged Catholics to remember that the Fortnight was not about politics.

“The greatest threat to our freedom of religion doesn’t come from our government or from forces in our secular society; the greatest threat we face comes from our own lack of faith and our own lack of courage,” he said.

The Fortnight spurred ecumenical and interfaith celebrations across the nation, uniting Catholics and other people of faith.

About 1,000 people gathered at Marist Catholic School’s football stadium in Atlanta for an interfaith event.

Oklahoma City’s Rally for Religious Freedom drew Christians of many denominations to the Cox Convention Center.

In San Antonio, the interfaith community celebrated freedom of religion with a televised prayer service. The group included representatives of the Catholic, Protestant, Baha’i, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh faiths.

“All people of faith must stand with the Catholic Church in protesting this mandate, which represents a slippery slope for greater government intrusion and control

over religious institution,” said an interfaith grass-roots organization called Conscience Cause.

In Wisconsin, events included a ecumenical hour of prayer and a presentation on the “unprecedented threats to American religious freedom.”

In an email message, Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki told Catholics that people of faith “have a right to take our faith outside the confines of the walls of our churches. Simply put, we will not demand a baptismal certificate to see if people in need of our services are Catholic when we distribute food in our soup kitchens.”

“When the bishops speak up on other rights such as the death penalty, the rights of immigrant or the rights of the poor, we don’t hear criticism that bishops are being too political,” said Maureen Ferguson, senior policy adviser with the layrun Catholic Association.

The organization conducted a 14-day grass-roots campaign via social media to urge Catholics to heed the bishops’ call to action to protect religious freedom.

Originally created in 2007, Ferguson said the organization was relaunched in March to focus on religious liberty and mobilize laypeople to speak out.

“Some have tried to revive the tired paradigm that pits conservative and liberal Catholics against each other. But that misses the real story,” said Kim Daniels, coordinator of Catholic Voices USA, another lay organization that supports the role of the Church in the public square.

In Illinois, Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford called Catholics to stand together in opposing the contraceptive mandate issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “We are absolutely convinced that our freedom of conscience is at stake in this matter,” he said in his homily for the annual Red Mass for Religious Liberty at the Cathedral of St. Peter.

“We hold the nonpartisan high ground in a fight that we did not choose and do not want. But it has been brought to the doorstep of our institutions and our consciences and we will not turn away,” he said.

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Hispanic pilgrims to make third annual trek to La Salette Shrine continued from page one

cultures, we also plan a day of prayer for different ethnic groups that usually involves conferences, a procession, outdoor recitation of the Rosary, Mass, confessions and a meal together that often reflects the rich diversity of each culture.”

Noting that many of the staff members working at the shrine all descend from some of the same, diverse backgrounds, Father Sullivan said they try to represent each of the cultures with similar programs and pilgrimages — from the Philippines, to Brazil, Ireland, French-speaking Canada, India, Portugal and several other Spanish-speaking countries.

“Because we have had Hispanic people coming to La Salette for many years, both to our shrine and our retreat house, we decided to have a Hispanic Pilgrimage for the first time three years ago,” Father Sullivan said. “We wanted it to reflect the many dioceses that serve in the New England area.”

In the first two years Father Sullivan said they have had Hispanic pilgrims travel from Boston; Worcester; Providence, R.I.; Norwich, Conn.; Manchester, N.H.; and Portland, Maine.

Father Sullivan said the

daylong series of presentations during the pilgrimage will focus on strengthening the family, which is “important to the Hispanic culture,” he said.

“We have conferences geared to the different age groups — the parents, young adults, adolescents and children,” he said. “For the children we will have different activities such as making their own Rosaries or learning about famous saints from Spanishspeaking countries. We have had the enjoyment of several different musical groups not only at Mass, but also before and after the presentations and even during lunch.”

For Father Sullivan, one of his great joys is witnessing people coming together from so many different dioceses to unite as “one family around the Lord’s table and learning ways to deepen their faith, communication and Hispanic roots.”

Last year more than 700 Hispanic pilgrims flocked to the shrine to share in the festivities. Father Sullivan anticipates a similar turnout this year.

“It was wonderful to experience so many youth coming together to enjoy good Christian music as well as learn ways to have more unity in the family in an American culture

that places too much emphasis on individualism and material possessions,” he said.

The interaction between the parents and their children is also an important part of the experience, he added.

“Hundreds of parents were also helped to see the importance of praying together as a family and learning more clearly how their actions can speak more loudly than words,” Father Sullivan said.

“In an age where so many values of the family are challenged, it was beautiful to see the truths of the Gospel expressed in so many different ways.”

Sister Ana Maria Corona, O.P., who has only been working with the Hispanic Apostolate at St. Joseph’s Parish in Attleboro for less than a year, is looking forward to attending her first Hispanic Pilgrimage to La Salette next month.

“I’m excited about the pilgrimage,” she said. “I hope we have a great turnout. This will be the first time I’m participating as a member of the Diocese of Fall River and I’m very grateful that they have organized it.”

“We have high hopes for this year’s third annual Hispanic Pilgrimage on August 4,” Father Sullivan agreed.

“May we all continue to grow as faithful Hispanic families.”

The third annual Hispanic Pilgrimage to the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, 947 Park Street in Attleboro, will take place August 4 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Admission is free and food and drinks can be purchased at the shrine. For more information visit http://www. lasalette-shrine.org/.

July 13, 2012

T

Bad things happen

holds today, teaching young men his story truly falls into the the game and sportsmanship. category of “bad things In a bittersweet sequence of happening to good people.” events, he was named Coach of Last week in Fall River, Don the Year by the Boston Globe just Chouinard awoke at about 4 a.m. to the smell of smoke. He got up to weeks before he and June lost all their earthly possessions. Don led investigate and found a ball of fire in his living room. He hurried back the Cougars to a 17-7 record this to tell his long-time wife June they year, making it all the way to the Division 4 South finals. He was had to get out — quickly.

Very shortly after Don and June also named Mayflower League Large Coach of the Year. He’s made it safely outside, the fire seven wins shy of 300 as coach of violently accelerated and spread, totally destroying their Alsop Street home.

A home Don and his late dad had a big role in building four decades ago.

By Dave Jolivet In a matter of minutes, nearly everything the the Cougars.

Chouinards owned was gone, a Last week, the Cougar basepile of charred ruins. ball team was recognized at a The things Don and June New Bedford Bay Sox (of the cherished most, however, couldn’t be taken away — family and faith. New England Collegiate Baseball League) game and the Sox donated While the faith may have taken a temporary hit that fateful night, I’ll the proceeds of that night’s 50/50 raffle to Coach Chouinard to assist guarantee it wasn’t taken comin the recovery. pletely away.

If you know Don and June, then For the Chouinards, their sons you know they would do anything and their families are what mean most, as do their extended families for anyone. If you don’t know them, you should, because they are of St. Bernadette Parish and fine people.

Bishop Connolly High School in I have no doubt their family and Fall River. their extended families will rally I’ve known Don for many behind them at this very difficult years, having taught CCD with time. That’s a feel-good part of this him a while ago, and having lousy story. We don’t know why served on Confirmation retreat bad things happen to good people. teams together. Don is a man But we do know God provides who’s never been afraid to share them with other good people to get his faith with young people, them through it. including his sons and grandchilA fund to help the Chouidren. nards has been established at His love of the great game of Notre Dame Community Fedbaseball is as alive as his faith. eral Credit Union. To contribute Don has been involved with the send a check to the Chouinard Connolly baseball program for Family Relief Fund, c/o Notre nearly 40 years, beginning with Dame Community Federal the freshman and JV squads and Credit Union, 659 Eastern Avbecoming coach of the varsity enue, Fall River, 02723. team in 1981 — a position he still

This week in 50 years ago — Bishop James L. Connolly blessed the cornerstone of the new Bishop Cassidy High School for girls in Taunton. The school, which would be staffed by the Holy Union Sisters, would later merge with Bishop Coyle High School in 1971 to become CoyleCassidy High School.

25 years ago — The Dominican Sisters of the Presentation celebrated their 25th anniversary of ministry in the United States with a celebration that took place at their provincial house in Dighton and culminated with a eucharistic Liturgy offered by Bishop Daniel A. Cronin.

My View From the Stands

Diocesan history

10 years ago — Hundreds of youth from the Fall River Diocese were among some 250,000 young Catholic adults and teens who spiritually bonded with Pope John Paul II in Toronto, Canada as part of the 17th World Youth Day. One year ago — To help young Catholic women in the diocese discern their vocation, the first “Called By Name Retreat For Young Women” was held at the Sacred Hearts Retreat Center in Wareham. The retreat was organized

by Paula Wilk, director of Faith Formation and Youth Ministry at St. Patrick’s Parish in Wareham, along with Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity Sister Catherine Lamb.

July 13, 2012

15

The Anchor

Philippine nun ‘red-tagged’ for work on environmental justice issues

DAVAO, Philippines (CNS) — Environmental activism is a dangerous vocation in the Philippines, but a Catholic nun in Mindanao is defying those who want her to return to her convent and stop raising her voice in defense of creation.

Benedictine Sister Stella Matutina works in Mindanao, the most conflictive island in the southern Philippines. Now 44, she spent 18 years studying and performing pastoral work in Europe before returning to Mindanao in 2007, when she says she quickly realized an environmental crisis was at hand.

“In the landslides and flooding and deaths, I could hear the cry of the poor and the groaning of creation, but our government was deaf. Thousands of people were dying every year, but our government was doing nothing to protect the environment,” she told Catholic News Service.

Several people were killed and thousands of families displaced by flooding in Mindanao in June.

Last December, Typhoon Sendong killed more than 1,000 people, most in areas downstream from where hillsides have been logged, often in connection with mining. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless.

“Sendong is the apocalypse. It’s doomsday. It is a sign of our fate if we continue with mining and logging,” said Sister Stella, secretarygeneral of Panalipdan, an environmental activist group whose name derives from the Visayan word for “to defend.”

Sister Stella said a 2008 phone

call to her convent near Mati beckoned her to get involved.

“A woman from San Isidro called and pleaded for help. She said the bulldozers were in her community and were going to destroy the mountains. I couldn’t understand why the people hadn’t been consulted, why they couldn’t say no to this big mining company.

I felt the people needed me. It was my baptismal moment. We got involved and were able to send away the mining company and its equipment,” she said.

“After that, more people started calling. We started leading courses on the stewardship of creation, resisting the cutting of ironwood forests by the Chinese and speaking out against the destruction wrought by large-scale mining.”

Sister Stella started getting death threats in 2009 after she helped a community block the entry of heavy mining equipment. That confrontation led to the cancellation of the company’s mining permit.

“In our struggle we have death threats, but we continue because we have to stand with the people.

They protect us. They tell us when to go and when not to go,” she said.

“Our convent is in the middle of nowhere, and if bad elements came, we could shout and no one would hear us. So when things get hot, the people come and guard us,” she added.

Sister Stella was detained by members of the Philippine army’s 67th Infantry Brigade during a nighttime raid Feb. 16, 2009, in the

remote village of Taytayan, in eastern Mindanao. Along with three companions, including one novice from her congregation, she had gone to the village at the invitation of community leaders to lead a discussion about local environmental concerns. The four were sleeping in the municipal office when the soldiers, wearing ski masks and missing the nametags on their uniforms, burst into the building in the middle of the night.

“We have this very Benedictine gesture where we lift our arms in surrender to God. We make it standing and kneeling, and in bed before death,” Sister Stella said. “I didn’t know at first who they were, and when they told us to put our arms up, I felt like I was making this gesture before they killed me, handing over my life to God.” The nun said the soldiers kept insisting the four were members of the New People’s Army, a rebel group. She said the squad’s leader, Lt. Ron Soria, announced they were waiting for an order over the radio to execute the detainees. The soldiers interrogated the four for most of the next day before turning them over to the head of a local Catholic school, who in turn escorted them to the local parish priest.

When the news broke that the military had detained a nun, the army claimed it did not know Sister Stella was a nun since she was not wearing a habit.

“I don’t know any congregations where the Sisters sleep in the habit and veil,” she said.

Kenyan bishops call for increased security after church attacks

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) — Kenya’s Catholic bishops called upon the government to intensify its security efforts in the country’s north after the July 1 attacks on two churches, including a Catholic cathedral, that left at least 17 people dead and more than 50 people injured.

The simultaneous attacks on Our Lady of Consolation Cathedral and the Protestant Africa Inland Church in the northern town of Garissa were the most recent in a series of incidents since Kenyan troops were sent into Somalia in October to crush al-Shabaab militants.

“These unjustifiable acts of violence being continuously meted out on Kenyans, including women and children, have not only resulted in the loss of innocent lives but also created a sense of insecurity among Christians and all peace-loving Kenyans,” the bishops said.

The bishops said they continued to believe the attacks were not part of a religious war even though they were carried out on Christian faith communities.

“We ask all Kenyans to work towards promoting peaceful coexistence,” the bishops said.

Witnesses said masked gunmen attacked the churches with gunfire while lobbing hand grenades as worshippers prayed during morning services.

In their statement, the bishops urged the government to thoroughly investigate the attacks, assess the “country’s security situation” and chart a way forward that ensures the safety of all Kenyans.

“We call on all Kenyans to remain vigilant and cooperate with the security agencies and other authorities to ensure their security is guaranteed, we remind them that fighting terrorism, extremism and insecurity is not just

for the security agencies but the duty of each and every Kenyan because terrorists and criminals operate amongst us,” the statement added.

The bishops also offered their sympathy to the families and friends who lost loved ones in the attack and offered prayers for the injured.

“To Bishop Silas Yego of the African Inland Church and Bishop Paul Darmanin, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Garissa, we send our condolences and assure them of our closeness to them during these difficult moments,” the bishops said.

Sister Stella was frustrated with the response of the local priest and bishop, who told the press that she had not coordinated her visit with local Church officials. Yet, Sister Stella said she had informed the priest of her visit.

“And we have a pontifical right as Benedictine missionaries to go where we want. We are not under the bishop. We are free. Environmental issues know no boundaries.

He should be happy that a Sister traveled that far on a bad road to reach that isolated place,” she said.

In the wake of the incident, Sister Stella said the bishop pressured her to not press charges against the military officials involved. She said she reluctantly agreed, afraid the bishop might expel the congregation from his diocese. Soria, she said, sent her roses on Valentine’s Day for the following two years.

No roses arrived this year, however, and Sister Stella said the army is at it again, this time spreading the word throughout eastern Mindanao that she is a member of the New People’s Army masquerading as a nun. That’s what happened last October just before Father Faustino Tentorio, a 59-year old Italian member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, was gunned down in Arakan. Father Tentorio was a well-known opponent of mining, and in the weeks before his assassination, various local military and paramilitary groups spread the word that he was a collaborator with the NPA.

Marist Sister Noemi Degala, executive secretary of the Sisters Association in Mindanao, said Sister Stella is a victim of what’s known as “red-tagging” in the Philippines.

“She’s being vilified as a member of the NPA,” said Sister Noemi.

“How can they do that to a Sister who is only being true to her religious calling to speak on behalf of those who are silenced?”

Sister Noemi said the violence and threats against Church workers are just part of a larger pattern of repression.

“It’s not just Church workers who are being attacked. The attacks on Sister Stella and Father Tentorio are better known because they are Church people, but there are so many other ordinary people who gave their lives so that others can live lives worthy of human beings.

There are lots of journalists, Church workers and peasants who have given up their lives for the Filipino people,” she said.

Sister Stella said her congregation wants to send her back to Europe in October, and she’s torn about whether to go.

“If people are dying by the thousands, it’s high time to go out from our chapels and do something. But my community is afraid I will be killed. The other Sisters are proud of what I’ve been doing, but they’re afraid for me. They want me to live life happily. But why worry about my life if people are afraid, and ordinary people are killed every day?”

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Youth Pages

16

good sports — St. John the Evangelist School annually recognizes student athletes for most improved and team spirit. The Attleboro school has more than 180 student athletes. This year, the Bill Jost Award was given to Michael Sheehan. This award is presented to a volunteer who has given time, passion, and talent in special ways to the school. Jost was a St. John’s parishioner and an active volunteer with the school and the Religious Education program. He didn’t have children or grandchildren in the school or the Religious Education Program, but he demonstrated his Catholic values through his volunteerism. From left: Colleen Donahue, Lainey Erwin, and Sarah McLaughlin who received the Most Improved Award for the eighth-grade girls basketball team.

July 13, 2012

it’s in the bag — The fifth-grade class at Holy Name School in Fall River finished its final project of the year with Book-in-a-Bag reports. The students chose a book, decorated the outside of a grocery bag, and gave an oral summary. As they spoke, they took out objects (artifacts, props) which enhanced their recounting of events.

friends in deed — The Bishop Feehan High School girls and boys lacrosse teams combined efforts recently to wash cars and help raise money for the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation, an organization that works to improve the quality of life for children with pediatric brain tumors. The boys joined the girls this year and were able to raise $1,676 for the foundation. From left: captains Madison Goldstein, Kelly Byrne and Julie Skaff; President Chris Servant; Athletic Director Paul O’Boy; captains Joseph Agnello and Michael Rainha; and teammate Chris Fahey.

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

home work — Bishop Connolly High School National Honor Society officers and 2012 graduates, Peter Le, president, and Julianne Earle, secretary, recently presented a check for $350 to St. Vincent’s Home. The donation represents a portion of the student’s fundraising efforts from the past academic year.

Youth Pages

July 13, 2012

S

17

Filling the shoes of past generations

everal of my experiences over the last two weeks, including the Christian Leadership Institute, got me to thinking about our young people of today and what you will do for the future of the world and our Church.

Two weeks ago I was fortunate to be part of the team of CLI. We had young people from around the diocese participate in the weeklong leadership training program. After spending a week with these young people, I have more hope for our future than ever before. What a great group of young people they were — 2012 candidates and graduates of previous CLI experiences!

Several of the team members were graduates of CLI, some going back to 1989! Graduates of previous CLI years came to help the team each day.

Some came to conduct workshops and assist in the various activities. I am always flabbergasted by the response of the graduates and their willingness to participate. What does that say to those of us who work with youth in our parishes?

The candidates were no less impressive. They participated actively in the workshops and used their newly-found or newly-strengthened skills to prepare activities during the week. I have to admit they weren’t the most creative bunch we’ve worked with at CLI, but they got the job done and more importantly they worked together to build a community that is and will continue to be strong and vibrant. We experienced some of the toughest of days during this CLI, but in the end, they pulled it all together and we observed great growth in their leadership abilities. I have great confidence that they will step up to serve others as we are called to do as Christian disciples.

I find most of today’s teens to be positive, respectful, polite, loyal and goal/action-orientated. They enjoy volunteer work, are community-minded and are regaining trust in institutions and authority. They also cel-

ebrate diversity and are phenomenal multi-taskers. Finally, it is said that this group may well provide a focal point for the renewal of the American family. We can only hope

By Frank Lucca so! All of this spells well for the future of our world.

You teens of today have been called the Church of today and indeed you are. As you move toward college and beyond, you will hopefully be involved in the institutional Church and the institutional Church will need to prepare ourselves for your increased influence — which I hope some adults won’t fear. We need to involve you more and we need to ask your opinion, challenge you, and give you opportunities to act more. I hope all of us who are involved with youth will continue this process of getting you more involved and to take on more ownership in our parishes.

This generation of young people is maneuvering through a world that is filled with uncertainty, war, split families units, a decay in moral values and just about every other difficulty that any generation has ever had to face and you’re living through all these difficulties being thrown at you at the same time! I believe it is your generation that will start to swing the pendulum back by embracing the qualities and values of the generation that encompasses some of your parents and especially your grandparents.

Let us pray that you do! As we say at CLI, you are the heroes of today and the future! And the message of CLI, which we hope you will embrace, is simply that: Your gifts are not about you. Leadership is not about you.

Your purpose is not about you. A life of significance is about serving those who need your gifts, your leadership,

Be Not Afraid

Send school and Religious Education news to: schools@anchornews.org

and your purpose (Kevin Hall, author “Inspire”).

I have great confidence that our youth will turn this world around.

Wherever you find yourself in the next few years, you will begin to change the world for the better. We look forward to moving aside to let you take over for us, for you will sure-

ly need to be the next great generation of our Church, our country and our world. You have some big shoes to fill but from what I’ve seen of you, you’ll have no problem filling the shoes of past great generations!

Frank Lucca is a youth minister at St. Dominic’s Parish in Swansea.

He chairman and a director of the YES! Retreat and the director of the Christian Leadership Institute. He is a husband and a father of two daughters. Comments, ideas or suggestions? Please email him at StDominicYouthMinistry@comcast.net.

18

The Anchor

Vocations Office strives to quiet the ‘noise’

A long-awaited visit to the home country

continued from page one

are aimed at letting young men listen and ask questions about their futures.”

The Quo Vadis retreat which ends today in Wareham, is in its third year in the diocese. A chance to discern God’s question of “Where are you going?” the retreat is a five-day experience giving young men in the diocese information about the priesthood and, at the same time, allowing them the opportunity to better understand and deepen their faith.

“We’re so blessed that in the short time that we’ve run the retreats, they’re already bearing fruit,” said Father Mello.

“Come this fall, we have three Quo Vadis attendees who will be entering seminary. It gives me a tremendous amount of joy knowing that the hard work of Fathers Bissinger and Cook and myself is helping.” This year, the number of retreat attendees has almost doubled.

“It’s growing because past attendees have spread the word of their good experience and

pastors are promoting it as well,” Father Mello added.

Because of the hard work and dedication of the Vocations Office, six young diocesan men are in the seminary application process.

“In addition to Quo Vadis, we periodically offer a Suscipe Saturday event,” said Father Mello. Suscipe is a prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola that says in part, “You have given all to me.

To You, Lord, I return it. Everything is Yours; do with it what You will.”

“It’s a day of talks and eucharistic adoration that again, brings young men together in an environment that can be more comfortable to share and ask questions than they would normally have,” Father Mello continued.

Organized visits to Our Lady of Providence and St. John’s seminaries also provide a chance for young men to experience an escape from the secular clutter. “The seminary visits can help remove miscon-

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July 13, 2012 continued from page one

ceptions of seminary life that they may have,” explained Father Mello.

The high school discernment group established at Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth is also on the Vocations Office plate. “We’d like to do something like this at all the diocesan high schools, but logistically it will take some doing,” said Father Mello. “But you never know.”

While the task of discerning what God is asking young men to do ultimately lies on the individual, his family and community are equally as vital.

“Parents, by virtue of having the son baptized, should play a role in letting their child know that God has a plan for them,” said Father Mello. “They should let them know the importance of seeking the will of God in their lives.”

Parish priests, too, are key figures in the discernment process said Father Mello. “Often, the parish priest is the first vocations director someone encounters,” he said. “Fellow parishioners are also vital. For someone to pull a young man aside and say they feel he may have a calling, really makes an impression on a young man.”

In an age of mass media frenzy, cell phones and the Internet, the diocesan Vocations Office has taken the philosophy of embracing “the things they use.”

“We have a new website and a Facebook page,” said Father Mello. “The world is much more secular than it was 10 years ago. TV is far more outrageous, as well as other media.

The Vocations Office has a mission to help establish a personal relationship with the young men of our diocese. Not everyone is called to be a priest, but God does have a plan for all of them.”

For more information about the diocesan Vocations Office and the programs and events it offers, visit the website at www.fallrivervocations.org.

those communities are facing at that moment; for instance, deportation has been one big issue. With the economic crisis in the United States and all over the world, poverty has become an issue and impacts their quality of life.”

“Catholic Social Services has been very attentive to these things, and sees those who are struggling financially,” added Pereira, especially of the immigrant population, that has been hardest hit.

Modeled after the program “Missing Azores,” where individuals who are 65 and over and haven’t been to the Azores in more than 30 years can go to the Azores for a week at the expense of the Azorean government, “Holding Hands with the Azores” is focused primarily on assisting those with disabilities. Funded by the Azorean government, individuals are selected by his or her local social service agency after submitting an application.

Rego was a teen-ager when she emigrated from the Azores to the U.S. to benefit from programs that catered to her disabilities. Her earliest memories of the island were of living really poor and working the land, she said. Staying with family, Rego became an American citizen, though due to her disabilities it took her a few tries, said Pereira. When word of the Azorean-run program reached her family, Rego and her sister reached out to CSS to put in her application. Botelho “went more to supervise” because Rego needed help, said Pereira. Initially nervous about returning to St. Michael, Rego said she was happy she made the trip.

“Going back, for Maria, was a wonderful experience,” said Pereira. “She got to see people who remember her family. It was a wonderful experience.”

“Everything was so different. I didn’t recognize anything except my old house and

church,” said Rego, who admits she got emotional. “I recognized my older cousin but not the younger ones.”

The two women participated in the Festa do Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres (Festival of the Christ of Miracles) — “I liked that the best,” said Rego – and toured the island, making stops at Vila Franca do Campo, Furnas, Sete Cidades and Ribeira Grande while spending time with family and friends.

“They had an experience of a lifetime,” said Pereira, “not only visiting the Azores but to be treated at that level by people and be admired; it was just an improvement on their selfesteem.”

Rosa Cassiano, the coordinator of the program, “is just so wonderful,” said Pereira. “She is so attentive to their needs and makes sure they’re OK. If there is a medical emergency the local hospital services are available; that they don’t fall and eat the right foods — she is just so wonderful.”

Rego echoed Pereira’s praise; “I am very grateful to the Azorean government, especially to Rosa Cassiano, who accompanied us and treated us with lots of affection,” she said.

Programs that reconnect immigrants with his or her native country are so important, and women like Rego and Botelho benefit greatly from the experience.

“They came here such a long time ago and their identities changed. Now they were not Azoreans, they became Azorean immigrants. It becomes a different identity in itself,” said Pereira. “I’m so glad that Maria and Zelia benefitted from this. I’m really excited that we partner with a program like this because that’s what our mission is, to increase the quality of life and bring smiles to people who are less fortunate than others. This is what Catholic Social Services stands for.”

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July 13, 2012

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HYANNIS — A Holy Hour with eucharistic adoration will take place each First Friday at St. Francis Xavier Church, 347 South Street, beginning immediately after the 12:10 p.m. Mass and ending with adoration at 4 p.m.

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

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

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

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

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

NORTH DARTMOUTH — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m., ending with Benediction.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

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

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

SEEKONK ­— Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish has eucharistic adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the chapel at 984 Taunton Avenue. For information call 508336-5549.

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

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

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

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

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The Anchor Brother Thomas P. (Damien) O’Hare, SS.CC.

FAIRHAVEN — Brother Thomas P. (Damien) O’Hare, SS.CC., a perpetually professed Brother in the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts-United States Province, died July 6 at Our Lady’s Haven Nursing Home in Fairhaven.

Brother Damien, 89, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. to Luke and Ellen O’Hare. He entered the SS.CC. Novitiate in Wareham in April of 1947 at the age of 24 and made his perpetual profession to the Congregation on April 17, 1951.

Brother Damien spent several years in Cootehill, Ireland, working as a helper and a cook on the community farm, something he continued to do at the SS.CC. residence in Glendora, Calif.

Later, Brother Damien became the official “greeter” for retreatants staying at the Retreat and Spirituality Center in Wareham, where he resided for a number of years. During that time, he also worked as a volunteer for hospice, visiting patients in their homes.

He was a regular visitor to the Wareham Council on Aging and to Our Lady’s Haven where he assisted patients to and from dai-

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks 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, CSC, 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 July 20 Rev. Joao Medeiros, Retired Pastor, St. Elizabeth, Fall River, 1983

ly Mass and could be frequently seen volunteering at Damien’s Pantry in Wareham. He lived his final years at Damien Residence in Fairhaven where he continued to be a living expression of his faith in the Lord.

Brother Damien is survived by his SS.CC. Brothers and Sisters, and his many nieces and nephews.

A Funeral Mass was celebrated for Brother Damien at St. Joseph’s Church in Fairhaven on July 11, followed by burial in the Sacred Hearts Community Cemetery.

Around the Diocese 7/14

International Irish Tenor, Mark Forrest will be performing at Corpus Christi Parish, 324 Quaker Meetinghouse Road, East Sandwich, tomorrow from 7 to 9 p.m. The acclaimed Irish Tenor, who has sung for Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa, will present an inspirational concert.

For tickets and more information call 508-888-2740.

7/17

The Daughters of Isabella Hyacinth Circle will be holding its annual cookout on July 17 at the Holy Name of the Sacred Heart Parish grounds in New Bedford. The cookout will begin at 6 p.m. and there will be a meeting to follow. In case of bad weather the event will be held indoors at the parish center. If you are planning to attend call 508-994-7311 so that food can be prepared. Any Catholic woman who has a desire to serve the Lord and her community while enjoying fellowship and fun is encouraged to join. For more information call 508-993-5085.

7/18

“The Treasures of the Church,” an exposition of sacred relics will be featured at St. Bernadette Church in Fall River, on July 18 at 7 p.m. The much-acclaimed presentation by Father Carlos Martins, features a 45-minute multimedia presentation on the saints, followed by the opportunity to venerate first-class relics of hundreds of the greatest heroes in the Church. For more information, visit treasuresofthechurch.com.

7/19

The Summer Catholic Reflections speaker series continues at Christ the King Parish in Mashpee on July 19 at 7 p.m. with Father Daniel Gerard Groody, CSC, who will speak on “One Border, One Body: Immigration and the Eucharist.” This talk will look at the integral connection between migration and the Eucharist. Father Groody is a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross and is currently an associate professor in the theology department at the University of Notre Dame. The series is sponsored by St. Anthony’s Parish, East Falmouth; Our Lady of Victory Parish, Centerville; and Christ the King Parish, Mashpee. For more information visit www.christthekingparish.com.

7/19

“The Treasures of the Church,” an exposition of sacred relics will be featured at St. Francis Xavier Church in Acushnet, on July 19 at 7 p.m. The much-acclaimed presentation by Father Carlos Martins, features a 45-minute multimedia presentation on the saints, followed by the opportunity to venerate first-class relics of hundreds of the greatest heroes in the Church. For more information, visit treasuresofthechurch.com.

7/21

The Knights of Columbus Council No. 14947 of St. Nicholas of Myra Parish in North DIghton is hosting its second annual Chili Cookoff fund-raiser on July 21. It is seeking contestants to make the event as big and diverse as possible. For more information about entering, visit www.saintnicholasofmyra.org or call 508-822-1425.

7/25

The Pro-Life prayer groups of Holy Trinity and Holy Redeemer parishes will sponsor their monthly holy hour on July 25 following the 9 a.m. Mass at Holy Trinity Church, West Harwich. The hour will entail recitation of the Rosary along with Pro-Life prayers and close with Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Please come and pray for an end to abortion.

8/7

Good Shepherd Parish is offering a program on “Women of the Bible: Role Models for Men and Women Today.” The presentations will be held on three Tuesdays in August — 7, 14, and 21 from 7 to 8 p.m. at Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in Oak Bluffs on Marthas Vineyard. All are invited to participate in these sessions of reading and discussing the stories of women of the Bible and discover kinship with them in their struggles, pain and joys.

For more information call 508-693-1897.

8/27

The fifth annual Golf Classic to benefit the Diocesan Health Facilities will be held August 27 at LeBaron Hills Country Club in Lakeville. All proceeds will benefit the more than 900 individuals served in the skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers in the Fall River Diocese. For details about the benefit, call 508-679-8154 or visit www.dhfo.org.

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The Anchor

July 13, 2012

significant service — Three Sisters of St. Joseph with ties to the Fall River Diocese recently celebrated special anniversaries. They marked the occasion with a Mass and private gathering at Mont Marie in Holyoke, where the Congregation’s Motherhouse is located. From left: Celebrating 65 years of religious life were: Sister Lucille Bertrand (Sister Marie du Bon Pasteur), who was born in New Bedford. She taught in the schools of the Fall River Diocese for 25 years; and Sister Irene Comeau (Sister Paul Joseph) born in Providence, R.I. Sister taught for more than 40 years in the schools of the Fall River Diocese. Celebrating 70 years was Sister Therese L’Heureux (Therese Albert) who was born in Fall River, and entered from Blessed Sacrament Parish there. She taught in the schools of the Fall River Diocese for more than 30 years, and is currently in charge of maintenance at the Atlantis Charter School and Our Sisters Place in Fall River. She lives in Fall River. Also celebrating her 65th year was Sister Cecile Poitras (Sister Francis Regis) who was also born in Fall River and entered from St. Anne Parish. For 25 years she taught in the schools of the Fall River Diocese.

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