t eanc 0 VOL. 39, NO. 33
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Friday, August 25, 1995
FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSETTS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly
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Bishop to mark silver jubilee of ordination On Tuesday, Aug. 29 Bishop Sean O'Malley will mark the silver anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood as a Capuchin Franciscan at a Mass celebrated in the same Poor Clare Monastery in Cleveland in which he offered his first Mass. The bishop, a native of Lakewood, OH, was ordained a Capuchin friar Aug. 29,1970, and thereafter served in the Washington archdiocese until his ordination in 1984 as coadjutor bishop of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. He became bishop of the diocese in 1985 and came to the Fall River diocese in 1992. In his three years in Fall River he has established an office of
JOHN AND Mabel Sanchez of Evans, Colo., join hundreds of participants in the recent National Cursillo Encounter in Denver. The world-wide Cursillo movement hosts weekend retreats for individual spiritual renewal. (CNS/Baca photo)
Be proud you're Catholic, cardinal tells h'undreds at Cursillo Encounter DENVER (CNS) - Like a minister preaching fire and brimstone in an old Western, Boston Cardinal Bernard F. Law pounded the pulpit, waved thl~ Bible and exclaimed, "This is our book!" Cardinal Law was in Denver earlier this month to address the IX National Cursillo Encounter on the topic, "To Be Catholic is to Be Christian in the Fullest Sense." "Proud to Be Catholic" was the theme of the Aug. four-day Encounter at the Univcrsity of Denver. Cardinal Law ~;hared his enthusiasm for the Catholic faith with Encounter participants and refuted what he called "some misconceptions about the Catholic Church." "One of the misconceptions is that we are not biblical," he said. "What do you think John was? He was a Catholic. Paul was a Catholic, convert. Peter was a convert, a Catholic. They were all Catholics. This [the Bible] is our book. "Where did anyone get the idea they could use this against the Catholic Church?" the cardinal asked. "It's our book. You can't understand it fully except in the faith of those who wrote the New Testament, which brings to fulfillment Revelation." He said his words were aimed
not at discouraging ecumenism, but at encouraging Catholics in their faith. "All I'm saying is that it's wrong to ever feel apologetic about the Catholic faith not being biblical. We [were] biblical before any of the others ever thought about it." Cardinal Law said the world's I billion Catholics have another guide to "what we believe" - the "Catechism of the Catholic Church." "We believe in the same things," he said. "We don't have a cafeteriastyle religion. It's the whole thing." The cardinal reminded his audience that they, along with all Catholics, ~re the Catholic Church. "We're not goingto find the church floating in air; we're only going to find the church in our body. We are the church." To illustrate his point, he told them what he had told a gathering of 1,400 lay leaders in the Archdiocese of Boston: "It's true that we don't have as many priests as we once had, but you are not here because there is a shortage of priests. You are here because this is your role as baptized, confirmed Catholics. The scarcity of priests is used by God to show us the role of lay people in the church." Cardinal Law also spoke of his
'own experience with the Cursillo movement, which began in Spain in 1949 as a Christian renewal effort. Individuals are initiated into the movement through a three-day weekend focused on prayer, study and Christian action. "My Cursillo experience [in 1976] was the most powerful experience of the church that I had ever had up to that point," he said. "We were young and not so young; we were rich and poor; we were highly educated and not so educated; we were priests and laymen, married and single and widowed and celibate," the cardinal added. "But when we knelt in the night before the Lord in the blessed tabernacle, we were one in Christ. And I thought to myself, 'If I could just hold on to this moment. This is the way the church is supposed to live.'" There are nearly 4 million Cursillo participants - called Cursillistas - throughout the world. Some 750 people were registered for the Denver meeting, which also included talks by Denver Archbishop J. Francis Stafford; Fargo, N.D. Bishop James S. Sullivan, national episcopal adviser; and Eduardo Bonnin of Majorca, Spain, a founder of the Cursillo movement.
HIV / AIDS ministry and outreach programs for Portuguese and Brazilian immigrants. He has also expanded existing pro-life, youth and Hispanic ministries. Bishop O'Malley has also welcomed several religious communities to the diocese, including Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Immaculate, Salesians of Don Bosco, the Institute of the Incarnate Word, the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo, the Youth Apostles and Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. Arrival of the Friars of the Immaculate enabled reopening of Our Lady's Chapel in New Bedford, Turn to Page 13
Catholic schools excel, says New York City mayor NEW YORK (CNS) - New York's public schools have lost public confidence and need to use the Catholic school system as a model, says the city's mayor. "Our city's Catholic schools are far more successful in educating students," said Rudolph W. Giuliani in a speech Aug. 14. Catholic schools have a far lower dropout rate, and, their students perform significantly better on reading, writing, math and science tests, he said. Giuliani, a Catholic, used his alma mater, Bishop Loughlin High School in Brooklyn, as an example. He said the school's enrollment is now 85 percent black and 14 percent Latino, and he noted that 90 percent of its students go to college even though most of them enter the school testing below grade level in math and reading. The mayor said the school's success comes from advantages the principal, Christian Brother James Bonilla, has over his public school counterparts. "For one thing, he enjoys real autonomy," Giuliani said. "Brother James and the teachers at Bishop Loughlin set the curriculum and design courses that meet the needs of their students. The teaching staff encourages parents to provide input." The mayor also emphasized that Brother Bonilla controls the school's budget and can decide spending priorities "without inter-
ference from a central administration." Giuliani said Bishop Loughlin's principal could expel students who caused disciplinary problems but "the school's expulsion rate is only about 2 percent." "As an alumnus of Bishop Loughlin High School, I can tell you that the mere possibility of that sanction has a powerful disciplinary effect," he said. Giuliani commented in an address to the New York alumni club ofthe University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, a common forum for discussing issues of concern to the business community. The mayor has been engaged in a struggle with the city's Board of Education over management of the public school system, and his comments about the Catholic schools were only the first part of a lengthy address dealing with issues of financing, security in schools, educational performance and management. Giuliani began his speech by citing a poll showing 80 percent of New Yorkers had lost confidence in the public school system, and he said a failure to reform it would lead to increasing calls' for a voucher system or privatization. But he indicated he opposed a voucher system, saying the transition would be difficult for such a large system as New York's and Turn to Page 13
_---·-In This I s s u e - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - , Fnther Foister Honored
A Pupil Remembers
Ruban Reynoso Goes to School
Bishop Stang Scores Again
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