Transgender groups .'seek change in law
.Displaced students receive warm welcome
By GAIL BESSE ANCHOR CORRESPONDENT
By MATT McDONALD ANCHOR STAFF
BOSTON - Heterosexual cross-dressers, homosex,ual transvestites and "transsexuals" - people un, dergoing so-called "sex change" operations - will be given specially protected legal status if a bill pending on Beacon,Hill becomes law. The bill would add a new category to existing hate crimes and non-discrimination statutes: "gender identity or expression," w~ich the bill defines as "a gen-, der-related identity, appearance, expression, or behavior of an individual, regardless of the individual's as" signed sex at birth." If this seems far-fetched, consider that in 2005 a judge in Brockton ruled that a junior high school boy must be permitted to attend classes while wearing girls' clothing. Television viewers are being gradually desensitized to the issue by discussions about "sex change" operations on mainstream talk shows like Oprah Winfrey and Larry King. And the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine recently highlighted two feature stories heavily sympathetic to "transgenderism." Massac~usetts currently outlaws discrimination based on racial, religious, ethnic, handicap, and "gender or sexual orientation" prejudice. Under the proposed HI722, the new category would be added to the existing hate crime statute, as well as to non-discrimination laws on employment, housing,
NEW BEDFORD - The closing of her parish school last June hit Donna Horrocks hard. liorrocks, her mother, her sister, her nephew, her cousins, ifnd her two sons were graduates of Our Lady ofMount Carrhel in New Bedford, and now she had to move her six-year-old daughter, Faith, who had become attached to it tlu;ough preschool and kindergarten. "We were devastated. It was 60 years. Everyone in our farni~y had gone there," she said. But so far the welcome Horrocks and her daughter have II rece~ved at their new school has made a hard reality easier. "St. Joseph-St. Therese has been just incredible. I had a good feeling about them the first time we walked through the 400r," Horrocks said in an interview last week. "I didn't think we'd find another home, and we did." S,t. Joseph-St. Therese is one of six Catholic prelQndergarten-through eighth-grade schools in the New Bedford area that has received students from the two parish schools that closed, Our Lady ofMount Carmel and St. Anthony of Padua. Like many Catholic schools in the country, St.Anthony's and Mount Carmel fell victim to dwindling enrollment and increasing costs. IJ:l interviews last week, which was the first week ofthe new;,school year, administrators said they are determined to keep the memory and mission of the former schools present.
Tum to page 18 - Transgender
THE ART OF BEING A STUDENT - Morgan Laliberte, a PreK student from Espirito Santo School in Fall River, shows off her artwork during her first day of class. (More first-week photos on pages 16-17)
Tum to page 16 - Welcome
Diocesan archives: A little seen treasure chest of memorabilia By DEACON JAMES
N.
DUNBAR
FALL RIVER - It's a place where few are allowed to trod, the sancta sanctorum where the history of the Fall River Diocese lives mainly in a vintage collection ofrecords, photographs, paintings, forgotten correspondence between popes and bishops and priests, as well as their speeches and homilies. But there are some "museum pieces" that include miters, crosiers, pectoral crosses and rings, autographed photos, and many interesting trinkets of yesteryear's local Church. "Here's a black top hat worn by Bishop William Stang, our first bishop," said archivist Father Barry W. Wall, after a cordial greeting and interview last week. He made it clear that there was no awesome tome with hundreds of coveted autographs of distinguished vi~itors i needed to sign.
As a matter of fact, few people are invited into the banal brick building located near the chancery in the city's Highlands. 'The archives are not so much a museum for visiting, as they are a collection of enduring value that is a constant and current service to the diocese carrying out its ordinary affairs," Father Wall explained. If a deed or document of the past is needed by the diocese or sought by Bishop George W. Coleman or the chancery and parishes, "we usually can come up what is needed," Father Wall noted. And while the historic artifacts must be retained, "at the same time archivists are cautioned to create a 'finding system' rather than a filing or 'keeping system' because there usually is not sufficient space to keep every. thing," he added. Tum to page 10 - Treasure
BOOKISH BAILIWICK - Well-worn tomes recording more than a century of goings on in the Fall River Diocese surround diocesan archivist Fathe~ Barry W. Wall. (Anchor photo)
New Bedford benefactor endows Appeal with $4M NEW BEDFORD - Longtime New Bedford businessman and bene~ factor, Paul A. Duchaine, who died last, year, has remembered the Catholic CharitiesAppeal ofthe Fall River Diocese with a very special gift: a $4 million endowment fund to provide annual support.
It is the largest bequest to the Appeal in its 66-year histoto/, according to diocesan officials. Duchaine led his family's business, Sunbeam Bread/My Bread Baking Company, as president for 34 years before retiring in 1995. The company was a fixture for generations in the II
city's North End. He made provisions for the Paul A. Duchaine Charitable Endowment Fund to be created upon his death and for its accrued interest earnings to be transmitted each year to the Catholic Charities Appeal on the final day of Tum to page 18 - Endowment