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Diocese of Fall River, Mass.

Mansfield women’s club marks centennial

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent cmwilliams@ intheserviceoftruth.com

MANSFIELD — St. Mary’s Catholic Women’s Club’s biggest project in its first year was to raise $5 for the local Girls Scouts’ troop — a significant feat back in 1915.

Far more impressive is the club’s longevity. Currently celebrating its 100th anniversary year, members say the club continues to support its parish, donate to charitable causes and nurture lasting friendships among its members.

The club’s annual Mass, at which its leaders were installed, took place at St. Mary’s September 10. A celebratory dinner was held afterward.

Membership is open to any Catholic woman in the Mansfield area. Since 1939, meetings have been held the second Thursday of each month from September to April. In May, they host a communion breakfast.

In 1915, six women started the Turn to page 14

F riday , September 11, 2015

May the Lord bless and g uide our dio cesan students and faculty this coming year.

Students arriving at St. Mary’s School in Mansfield to begin the new school year.

Marriage is a Sacrament for life

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff beckyaubut@anchornews.org

NEW BEDFORD — In the Catholic Church, the Sacrament of Marriage is the “covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life.” According to the “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” Marriage is “the intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by Him with its own proper laws — God Himself is the Author of Marriage. The vocation to Marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator.”

For Msgr. John J. Oliveira, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford, hearing the word Marriage evokes the image of “a man and woman Turn to page 18

Catholic Social Services, St. Vincent de Paul Society team up to provide school supplies for needy children

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff kensouza@anchornews.org

“We currently have 208 families that we work with on a daily basis to rapidly reFALL RIVER — With kids of all ages house them and stabilize them in a safe, returning to classrooms throughout the affordable unit,” Lawson told The Anchor. area this past week, it’s hard to imagine “Then, once the unit is identified, we how needy families struggling work with each family for up to keep food on the table and to one year in stabilization to a roof over their heads can afassist them to maintain and ford the basic back-to-school retain their housing.” necessities like notebooks and In recent years, CSS has backpacks for their children. found great support and That’s why members of the success in teaming up with St. Vincent de Paul Society various St. Vincent de Paul from Our Lady of Mount chapters in parishes throughCarmel Parish in Seekonk out the Fall River Diocese. recently stepped up by col“When I first started with lecting, purchasing and delivCSS, I knew about CSS and ering truckloads of those very Members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Seekonk I knew about the St. Vincent delivered backpacks and school supplies to Catholic Social Services that will be giv- de Paul Society, but the two items to the Catholic Social recently en to more than 200 needy families currently living in motels across the diocese. From left, Services offices in Fall River. Deborah Scholes, chief financial officer for CSS; Vincentian Richard Veader; Irene Frechette, never met and I kept asking According to Nancy Law- president of the St. Vincent de Paul Society for the Fall River Diocese; Vincentian David Paine; questions,” Lawson said.

Lynda Pinelle; Vincentian Richard Pinelle; and Nancy Lawson, program coordinason, program coordinator for Vincentian Turn to page 15 tor for CSS’ emergency and housing services. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza) CSS’ emergency and housing services, the much-needed school supplies would be distributed to the more than 200 homeless families currently living in motels and other scattered sites throughout the diocese.

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News From the Vatican

September 11, 2015

Families take in refugees as pope calls on Europe’s churches to open their doors

ROME (CNA/EWTN News) — With many European families already opening their homes to refugees, the current head of the Jesuit’s refugee agency says Pope Francis’ appeal for parishes to open their doors offers a practical way of combating what is otherwise an overwhelming crisis.

The Roman Pontiff ’s call for Europe’s parishes to take in refugees is “a very practical, concrete, manageable, idea,” said Father Peter Balleis, S.J., outgoing international director for Jesuit Refugee Services, in a recent interview with CNA. He added that the pope’s proposal is realistic because even a small parish of a couple hundred people can find a way to take care of a single family.

“It brings down the overwhelming situation of all these images from the media, and also the negative media, who exploit that and create fear, to very practical levels of a parish.”

Pope Francis said all parishes, religious communities, monasteries, and sanctuaries in Europe — including the Vatican — should welcome refugee families as part of the upcoming Jubilee of Mercy.

“This is something churches have always done,” said Father Thomas Smolich, SJ, incoming international director of JRS, in response to the pope’s call.

“Churches have always been a place of refuge.”

As the refugee crisis receives heightened attention, Father Smolich acknowledged reports of violence against refugees trying to cross the border into European countries. However, JRS workers on the ground have said many Europeans are welcoming the refugees.

“We have to be careful which spirit we listen to in this,” Father Smolich said. Commenting on the news, and observing that the refugee crisis is apt to bring many emotions to the surface, the priest warned against giving into fear. “I would say, generally speaking, a spirit of fear at this time is from the evil spirit.

A spirit of welcome, a spirit of challenge — it isn’t easy — but I think that’s what God is inviting us to do at this time.”

While promoting this “spirit of welcome,” Father Smolich said the current refugee crisis could also serve as a motivator to governments in bringing about peace in the conflict regions.

“Most people who are forced to flee their countries want to go back,” he said. “If anything,

I hope this crisis puts some pressure on the powers-that-be to say: This war in Syria has to end.”

More than 350,000 migrants have crossed into Europe in 2015, according to the BBC. Many attempt the crossing in unseaworthy boats, leading to scores of deaths due to drowning and starvation.

Public awareness of the crisis reached an apex over the past week when the photo of a drowned Syrian toddler published by the British newspaper The Independent circulated the internet.

Aylan Al-Kurdi, three, drowned along with his mother and older brother in a failed attempt to reach the nearby Greek island of Kos from Bodrum, Turkey.

JRS already offers a Francebased program for families to take in refugees, and would typically receive about five inquires per week. After the photo of Aylan went viral, however JRS officials say the requests to host refugee families has skyrocketed.

“During the summer we received about five inquiries a week from people saying they wanted to help,” said Michel Croc, head of JRS France, according to a statement. “When the picture of the little Syrian boy was published, we received hundreds of calls.”

“We have to bring Catholics from a state of emotion and urgency to the pace of welcome, to take care of people month after month,” Croc added.

The photo of Aylan has also sparked widespread outcry over government inaction to the refugee crisis. However, Father Ballais said the generosity of people welcoming refugees into their homes “will encourage governments also to be more generous in their law and the structure.”

“People vote with their action and their deeds,” he said. “If governments have only hostile people, it’s very hard for governments to push through refugeefriendly policy, and many governments act out of that fear of being criticized.”

“As Christians, our response has to be love, charity, mercy” for refugees, Father Ballais said. “This is the only way to overcome the bad things which happen now.”

“The Church,” he said, “as an important part of the society, an element of the European society, takes a lead, and I think we lead by example.

Pope Francis tries on a pair of glasses in an optical store in downtown Rome recently. Romans and tourists crowded outside the shop to catch a glimpse of the pope inside as he had his eyes measured for a new set of bifocal lenses. (CNS photo/Chiara Apollonj, Reuters)

Just one smile from a loving family can warm coldest world, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The smile and love of a family can light up the world, bringing warmth and hope to communities that have become cold, lifeless and depressed, Pope Francis said.

“No economic and political engineering is able to substitute this contribution from families,” he said during a recent general audience talk in St. Peter’s Square.

Unlike the ancient city of Babel’s “skyscrapers without life,” he said, “the Spirit of God, on the other hand, makes deserts bloom.”

The pope’s catechesis on the family looked at the importance of Christian families living out their faith and sharing it with others. By experiencing God’s love, families “are transformed, are ‘made full’” to overflowing with a sense of going outside themselves to embrace all people, especially those in need, as brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, he said.

Understanding what is real love and affection, which can never be bought or sold, “is the best inheritance” one can receive from one’s family, he said. The “grammar” of love is learned in the family, “otherwise it is quite difficult to learn.”

But people are asked to live their family life within God’s plan, he said, and in “obedience to the faith and in covenant with the Lord,” which protects families, “freeing them from selfishness, safeguards them from breaking down, brings them to safety for a life that never dies.”

Families living in covenant

with God “are called today to counter the desertification of communities in the modern city,” Pope Francis said.

Today’s cities have become barren places because of “a lack of love, a lack of smiles.” One can find plenty of entertainment, lots of things to do “to kill time, to have some laughs, but love is missing,” the pope said.

The father or mother who can smile despite being busy with work and family — theirs is the family that is “able to conquer this desertification of our cities;this is the victory of love of the family,” he said to applause.

“We must get out of the towers (of Babel) and vaults of the elite in order to once again spend time in homes and places open to the multitudes, open to the love of the family,” Pope Francis said.

This “communion of charisms” of men and women living the Sacrament of Marriage or consecrated life “is destined to transform the Church into a place fully familial for an encounter with God,” he said.

Families living out the Gospel and God’s love are “a blessing for the people: bringing hope back to the world,” he said. Their example and actions are able to do things thought to be “inconceivable.”

“Just one smile miraculously eked out of the desperation of an abandoned child, who starts a new life,” Pope Francis said, “explains the workings of God in the world to us better than a thousand theological treatises.”

All those men and women who sacrifice and take risks for

children who aren’t their own “explain things about love to us that many scientists no longer understand,” giving further proof that actions and gestures from the heart “speak louder than words,” he said.

The pope asked people to imagine what the world would be like if history, society, the economy and politics were to be finally guided by men and women working together, leading with future generations in mind. Ecological issues, home life, the economy and employment all “would be playing a different tune,” he said.

“Let us not lose hope,” he said. “Where there is a family with love, that family is able to warm the heart of an entire city with its witness of love.”

He also asked that the Holy Spirit help families by bringing them “a happy jolt” and help bring cities “out of their depression.”

At the end of the general audience, Pope Francis recalled the end of World War II in Japan exactly 60 years ago to the day and launched an appeal for the end of all wars, asking that the world today no longer experience “the horror and frightful suffering of similar tragedies.”

Echoing Blessed Paul VI, the pope said “War never more,” and highlighted the ongoing plight of “persecuted minorities, persecuted Christians, the insanity of destruction.”

He also criticized “those who make and traffic weapons, blood-stained weapons, weapons soaked in the blood of so many innocent people.”

September 11, 2015

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The International Church

Church agencies highlight growing urgency of Europe’s refugee crisis

OXFORD, England (CNS) — Catholic aid agencies have urged Europeans not to turn against migrants seeking refuge from Syria and other countries, in what media reports describe as the continent’s greatest refugee movement since World War II. “The crisis in Syria is now in its fifth year, and the neighboring countries where we’ve been providing assistance are running out of resources,” said Kim Pozniak, communications officer for Catholic Relief Services, the Baltimore-based U.S. bishops’ international relief and development agency. She said countries such as Lebanon and Turkey are sheltering 3.5 million Syrians and “can no longer carry the burden of sheer numbers.”

“People have realized they won’t be going home and turned to the European Union for longer-term solutions. While they’ve been shown compassion in some countries, this hasn’t been the case everywhere.”

“These people aren’t just migrating to Europe in

search of a better life for their children: They’re fleeing to protect them and save their lives, and this is something everyone can relate to,” she said.

European Union foreign ministers recently met in Brussels to discuss new responses to the crisis, and the government of Hungary attempted to control thousands of migrants camped at a railway station in the capital, Budapest.

Pozniak told Catholic News Service that CRS and other Catholic agencies had been given migrants food and water, as well as medical and legal help, on the main routes through Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia and Serbia.

She added that Churchbacked organizations would aid all refugees without distinction, after some East European bishops called for priority to be given to Christians.

“The Church doesn’t distinguish between faiths and religions — we assist everyone on the basis of needs, whatever their background,”

Pozniak told CNS. “The Church in the Middle East and the Balkans has been responding to this crisis for years, and to the Church no human being is illegal. We’re called to preserve their dignity by not letting them sleep in parks and train stations.”

Antonio Guterres, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, urged Europe to build facilities to accept the migrants and to admit up to 200,000 refugees, with mandatory participation by all EU member-states.

However, in Hungary recently, members of parliament debated whether to declare a state of emergency as a tense stand-off continued between police and refugees in and around Budapest, and as work was completed on a 110-mile razor-wire wall closing the country’s southern frontier with Serbia.

The national deputy director of the Hungarian Church’s Caritas charity, Richard Zagyva, told CNS the 12-foot wall was intended to prevent “mass unregulated border crossings,” rather than

Cuban bishop: Pope’s visit comes at time of hope for people

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (CNS) — Pope Francis’ visit to Cuba is a sign of his closeness to the nation’s people at a time they “breathe the air of hope” that relations with the U.S. will improve, said Bishop Wilfredo Pino Estevez of GuantanamoBaracoa.

“It’s not easy to live at odds with your next door neighbor,” Bishop Pino wrote in a recent pastoral letter. “That’s why it’s very important what the pope is coming to do, as the universal pastor of the Church, in the search for reconciliation and peace among all peoples of the earth.’’

Pope Francis will celebrate Mass in three Cuban cities during a September 19-22 visit to the Caribbean island before flying to Washington.

He is credited with helping broker a historic thawing of relations between the U.S. and Cuba by sending letters to Presidents Raul Castro and Barack Obama last year and hosting delegates from the two countries at the Vatican.

Obama and Castro simultaneously announced a diplomatic rapprochement in December. Since then, the historic adversaries have re-opened embassies in Havana and Washington that had been shuttered for more than five decades and have announced they will launch a new round of diplomatic talks.

During his visit to Havana to reopen the U.S. Embassy August 14, Secretary of State John Kerry thanked Pope Francis for “supporting the state of a new chapter in relations,” while acknowledging that the two countries are far from realizing fully normalized relations — including lifting the economic embargo against Cuba.

“Having normal (diplomatic) relations makes it easier for us to talk, and talk can deepen understanding even when we know full well we will not see eye-to-eye on everything,” Kerry said, according to a transcript of his remarks.

Pope Francis is expected to meet with Castro, young

people, Church leaders, families and religious, in Havana, Holguin and Santiago de Cuba. It will be his first visit to the communist country as pope.

“Now we are going to receive Pope Francis as the ‘missionary of mercy,’” Bishop Pino wrote, reiterating a term Cubans have used. Many hope the pope’s visit will help heal Cubans strongly divided on ideological terms since a 1959 revolution that installed the communist government and led to tensions with the U.S. “At times, it seems we live in a heartless world.

Everywhere we find moral, Spiritual, social, intellectual, mental and material miseries, and we find people who are desensitized to human suffering,” Bishop Pino wrote.

“Pope Francis, missionary of mercy, wants to invite us not to tire of practicing mercy.”

Pope Francis will be the third pope to visit Cuba in the past 17 years, after Pope John Paul II’s 1998 trip and Pope Benedict XVI’s 2012 visit.

to block out all migrants. He said Caritas hoped to continue providing aid once the refugees had been placed in camps for processing.

However, Hungary’s Sant’Egidio Community criticized the government actions as counterproductive. In a recent statement it said it was concerned at moves to criminalize border crossings and allow police to search private homes in search of migrants.

Meanwhile, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the Brussels-based Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, urged legal entry routes for refugees and warned the building of fences would merely spur “new dramas.”

“Everything must now be done to ensure no one dies of thirst at our borders, drowns in the Mediterranean or gets starved and suffocated aboard a truck,” Cardinal Marx told Germany’s ARD broadcast consortium.

“Money shouldn’t play a role when lives are being saved.

Nor will any solution be provided by political disputes over a distinction between war and poverty refugees, all of whom have legitimate aspirations.”

Caritas Europa said in a statement that migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees were protected by international human rights law, and it called on the European Union to “contribute to such protection.”

Meanwhile, Jesuit Refugee Service said “building more fences will only result in more deaths” and urged the EU to consider a “European humanitarian visa scheme” and “legal and safe channels for refugees to reach Europe.”

However, a Polish archbishop backed plans by the

government of Slovakia to admit only non-Muslim refugees and called for priority to be given to “endangered Christians.”

“We don’t have such experience of accepting refugees, or foreigners generally, as the Western countries, especially those which once had colonies,” Archbishop Henryk Hoser of Warsaw-Praga told Poland’s Catholic information agency, KAI. “There’s no doubt the integration of Christians will be vastly easier than the integration of Muslims, who may later open ghettos that give birth to violence and terrorism — let’s be realists,” he said.

In the Czech Republic, where human rights groups criticized police for printing numbers on the hands of refugees, the bishops’ conference president, Archbishop Jan Graubner, also demanded in mid-July that his country take in only “Christian refugees.”

Catholic leaders elsewhere repeatedly have urged a more humane and effective EU policy toward migrants and refugees entering Europe from conflict-hit regions of the Middle East and Africa.

In Germany, which accepted 100,000 refugees in August alone, Catholic bishops have condemned 340 separate attacks on migrant shelters so far this year and backed parishes offering accommodation and support.

In Austria, where Caritas is helping 17,000 refugees and providing housing for 5,000, Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schonborn said Europeans could no longer “look the other way” when confronted with their continent’s “greatest humanitarian challenge” in decades.

Diocese of Fall River

OFFICIAL

His Excellency, the Most Reverend Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., D.D., Bishop of Fall River, has made the following appointment: Rev. Jeffrey Cabral, J.C.L., Parochial Vicar, with residence, at Saint Mary’s Parish in Mansfield while remaining Judicial Vicar of the Diocesan Tribunal.

Effective: September 10, 2015

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The Church in the U.S.

September 11, 2015

Pope engages Americans on immigration, abortion in pre-trip virtual audience

VATICAN CITY (CNA/ EWTN News) — In a virtual audience with Americans Pope Francis heard emotive testimonies from undocumented immigrants, comforted a single mother, and encouraged greater solidarity in a world racked with many problems.

The videoconference was held August 31, and was hosted by ABC News’ “20/20” and is available online in English and Spanish.

Members included students from the “Cristo Rey” Jesuit High School — a place for disadvantaged youth; a center for homeless in Los Angeles; and members of Sacred Heart Parish in McAllen, Texas.

The pope also gave a special message to a single mother, telling her that she is “a brave woman” for bringing her two daughters into the world when she could have easily aborted them.

“You could have killed them in the womb, and you respected life, respected the life that you had inside of yours.”

Below are excerpts of the pope’s video conference with ABC News: After being greeted by ABC’s anchor, the pope heard a live testimony from Chicago’s Cristo Rey Jesuit High School. There student Valery Herrera spoke about her struggle with vitiligo, an autoimmune disease that causes white blotches on the face and body, and about how she endured bullying through elementary and middle school.

She asked the pope what were his hopes for American youth.

He responded after Valery consented to his request that she sing a little and she sang a Marian hymn.

Pope Francis: “My first response to your question is this: What I hope for from youth is for you all not to walk alone in life. This is the first step, I hope for many more things. That you dare to walk with love and tenderness for others. That you meet someone — you sang to the Virgin to take you into her arms, to take you by the hand to walk — that will accompany you to walk in life. Life is very difficult. It’s difficult to walk alone. You get lost. You get confused. You can find the wrong path or you can be walking around in circles, in a maze, or worst, you can

stop because you get tired of walking in life. Always walk hand-in-hand with someone who loves you, someone who gives you tenderness — and you said this to Our Lady. To walk hand in hand with Jesus, to walk hand in hand with the Virgin, this gives security.

It’s the first thing I hope for the youth: that you be accompanied but with good companions, that is, that you walk in good company. In my country (Argentina), there’s a saying, ‘It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.’

That’s true, but walk accompanied. Each youth has to look in life for someone who helps them along the way, it can be their father, mother, a relative, a friend, a grandfather or grandmother — grandparents give such good advice — a teacher, someone who helps you to face things in life. Walk accompanied, first.

“Second: I hope the youth walk with courage. It just cost you to take the first step in this path that I asked you, that you sing a song. You were emotional, you didn’t know how to do it, but you went courageously and made the first step, and sang very well.

Continue singing, you sing very well. That is, the courage to take the first step, the courage to go forward. Do you know how sad it is to see a youth that is not brave? A sad youth, a youth with the face of grief, a youth without joy. Courage gives you joy, and joy gives you hope which is a gift from God, obviously.

It’s true that in the path of life there are many difficulties.

Don’t be afraid of difficulties!

Be prudent, be careful but don’t be afraid. You have the strength to overcome. Don’t be scared. Don’t stop. There’s nothing worse than a young person who has retired before his or her time. I don’t know at what age people retire in the United States, but can you imagine a young person who’s 25 years old, who’s retired? Terrible. Always move forward with courage and with hope. And God, if you ask Him, will give you hope. This is my response Valery. And I thank you for the song.”

After speaking to Chicago students, the pope was connected live to Los Angeles and people from various shelters there.

Marcos, 19, a homeless youth who dreams of becom-

ing a musician, asked the pope “Why is this trip to the United States so important for you?”

Pope Francis: “For me it’s important to meet with you, the citizens of the United States, who have your history, your culture, your virtues, your joys, your sorrows, your problems like every people.

I am at the service of all Churches and all men and women of good will. For me something very important is proximity. For me it’s difficult not to be close to the people.

Instead, when I get close to the people, as I am going to do with you all, I find it easier to understand them and help them on the path of life. It’s because of this that this trip is so important, to make me close to your path and history.”

Next the pope heard from Alyssa Farfan, 11, and her single mother Rosemary. They lived in a homeless shelter, but have just been granted their first apartment.

Pope Francis: “Thank you Rosemary, for your testimony.

I want to tell you one thing.

I know that it’s not easy to be a single mother, I know that people can sometimes look at you badly, but I tell you one thing, you’re a brave woman because you were able to bring two daughters into the world. You could have killed them in the womb, and you respected life, respected the life that you had inside of yours, and for this God is going to reward you, and is rewarding you. Don’t be ashamed, go forward with your head held high: ‘I did not kill my daughters, I brought them into the world.’

I congratulate you, I congratulate you, and may God bless you.”

Then the pope was connected to Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, Texas, where Ricardo Ortiz, 19, who emigrated to the U.S. from Mexico on a tourist visa when he was four years old, spoke to him. His father at times had difficulty finding work because he was undocumented. When Ricardo was around 17, his father had an accident and wasn’t able to work at all. For a time Ricardo had to take care of his family of six, but then his father helped pay for his studies when Ricardo’s scholarship was revoked because he was not a U.S. citizen.

Ricardo Ortiz: “With all

the problems there are in the world: poverty, our educational system, immigration, what do you think is the solution to all of these problems?”

Pope Francis: “Obviously listening to your story I can say that life has made you a father early because from very young you had to maintain your family during your father’s illness. But you knew how to do it because you had a father with the courage to start you on this path of work and struggle, and the courage after to help you study at the cost of sacrifices. In this life there are many injustices, and as a believer, as a Christian, the first Who suffered, Who condensed Himself, was Jesus. Jesus was born on the street, born homeless, His mother didn’t have a place to give birth to Him. Always look to the figure of Jesus.

You ask me how. Looking at the figure of Jesus we take another step. God sometimes speaks to us with words, as in history, with situations. And God at times, many times, speaks to us with His silence.

When I see — what you ask me — the number of people who are starving, which doesn’t need to grow, who don’t have good health, that a child dies, who have no education, the number of people who don’t have a house, the number of people who today, we are seeing them, migrate from their country seeking a better future and they die, so many die along the way, I look to Jesus on the cross and discover the silence of God. The first silence of God is on the cross of Jesus. The greatest injustice in history and God was silent. That said, I’m going to be more concrete in the response on other levels, but don’t forget that God speaks to us with words, with gestures and with silences.

And what you ask me is only understood in the silence of God, and the silence of God is only understood by looking at the cross.

“What to do? The world has to be more aware that the exploitation of each other is not a path. All of us are created for social friendship. All of us have responsibility for everyone. No one can say: ‘My responsibility reaches here.’

We are all responsible for everyone, and to help ourselves in the way that each one can.

Social friendship, this is what God created us for. But there is one very nasty word which

also appears on the first page of the Bible. God says it to the devil, the father of lies, to the serpent: ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman.’

And the word enmity grew throughout history, and a little after this exchange, the first enmity between brothers: Cain killed Abel. The first injustice. From here on, wars, destructions. From here on, hatred. Speaking in soccer terms, I would say that the match is played between friendship in society and enmity in society. Each one has to make a choice in his or her heart, and we have to help that choice to be made in the heart. Escaping through addictions or violence doesn’t help, only closeness and giving of myself what I can — like you gave everything you could when as a child you sustained your family. Don’t forget this, social friendship against the answer of the world which is social enmity: ‘Fix yourself and may others fix themselves alone.’ This is not the plan of God. This is what occurs to me to tell you, and also to express my admiration, life made you a father very young. Now when you are a real father and have your own children may you continue to educate them on the path that you learned from your father. Thank you.”

Next spoke Wilma, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who wears an ankle bracelet. She wanted a better life for her son Ernesto, who was born with a congenital disease in his eyes and can’t see. She asked for a blessing from the Holy Father and he gave it. After, the pope asked for a nun who was seen on the screen and directed some words to her. This is Sister Norma.

Pope Francis: “Sister, through you I want to thank all religious Sisters of the United States. The work that the religious Sisters have done and do in the United States is great. I congratulate you. Be courageous. Move forward, always on the front line. And I tell you one thing more — is it OK for the pope to say this? I don’t know — I love you all very much!”

Lastly from McAllan spoke Wendy, 11, who had just arrived from El Salvador because of gang violence. The child, crying, recounted the dramatic days of the trip. She drew a picture for the pope, and the pope thanked her.

The Church in the U.S. Priests in U.S., Canada can already absolve women who had abortions

September 11, 2015

BALTIMORE (CNS) — Pope Francis’ September 1 announcement that priests worldwide will be able to absolve women for the sin of abortion will have little effect on pastoral practices in the United States and Canada, where most priests already have such authority in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

“It is my understanding that the faculty for the priest to lift the ‘latae sententiae’ excommunication for abortion is almost universally granted in North America,” said Don Clemmer, interim director of media relations for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Latae sententiae” is a Latin term in canon law that means excommunication for certain crimes, including involvement in abortion, is automatic.

Clemmer said it is “the fiat of the local bishop” whether to allow the priests in his diocese to absolve those sins and most bishops granted such permission when giving priests faculties to minister in their local Church.

Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger of Albany, N.Y., confirmed that in a recent statement welcoming what he

called the pope’s “wonderful gesture.”

“The priests of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany and throughout the United States have had the faculties to lift the sanction of excommunication for the sin of abortion for more than 30 years,” he said. “Any woman who has had an abortion, any person who has been involved in an abortion in any way, can always seek God’s forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, if they are truly sorry for their actions.”

Several prelates, including Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia, emphasized that Pope Francis’ action “in no way diminishes the moral gravity of abortion.”

“What it does do is make access to Sacramental forgiveness easier for anyone who seeks it with a truly penitent heart,” he said.

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, OFM, Cap., of Boston, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said his “hope and prayer is that all those carrying the burden of an experience of abortion would turn to the Church and her Sacraments

and experience the Lord’s mercy and love.”

He directed all those involved with an abortion — “wherever a person might be in their healing journey” — to look into the resources offered by Project Rachel or a similar post-abortion healing ministry in their dioceses. Contact information for most dioceses is available at www.hopeafterabortion. com (in Spanish at www. esperanzaposaborto.com) or through the national toll-free number, 888-456-HOPE. Mary E. McClusky, assistant director of Project Rachel ministry development in the USCCB Secretariat of ProLife Activities, said it has been frustrating for her to see reports about Pope Francis’ action in the secular media that perpetuate “the false notion that the Church excommunicates anyone” who has an abortion.

“They are making it sound like something new,” she said, “but the Church has welcomed all sinners since the time of Jesus. It is at the heart of what it means to be a priest to extend that forgiveness.”

In addition to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the

U.S. Church offers through Project Rachel “a confidential and safe place for women and men, for anyone who suffers from involvement with abortion, to tell their story, have someone listen and be relieved of all the emotional, Spiritual and psychological pain they are experiencing from abortion,” McClusky said.

Project Rachel, which has existed since 1975 and was taken under the umbrella of the bishops’ conference in 2005, provides “opportunities for group healing” through support groups or retreats as well as referrals to licensed mental health professionals if needed, she said. But Confession is at its heart, she added.

McClusky said the postabortion healing programs respond to a need that the bishops have been hearing from people in the pews of their local churches. “A lot of people are in pain and in need of assistance to reconcile with God and come back to the Church,” she said.

Catholic commentators and canon lawyers have raised a number of questions about Pope Francis’ action, includ-

5

ing whether societal pressures and other extenuating circumstances surrounding an abortion would have kept it from rising to the level of an excommunication for the woman in most cases anyway. But further clarification from the Vatican would be needed to resolve that question.

Others, such as Catholic moral theologian Charles Camosy, noted that the pope’s words about abortion and forgiveness bore a striking resemblance to the words of Pope St. John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical, “Evangelium Vitae.”

Addressing women who have had abortions, Pope John Paul wrote, “If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you His forgiveness and His peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.”

New teaching or not, Albany’s Bishop Scharfenberger expressed hope that women will take advantage of this opportunity.

“The real news is that there is no need to wait,” he said.

“God is ready to forgive and heal now!”

Trump’s immigration plan undermines American identity, Archbishop Chaput says

Philadelphia, Pa., (CNA) — Caught between poverty and violence in their homelands and deportation in the U.S., immigrants face a plight that cannot be ignored

by Christians, said Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles J. Chaput.

He pointed to a proposal

by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as particularly problematic.

“As Christians, our faith obligates us to protect migrant families,” he said. “The duty and the privilege of that commitment apply to all of us equally.”

“Migration is about human beings. So it has moral implications,” the archbishop added at a panel discussion on immigration in Philadelphia.

The event’s sponsors included the Philadelphia archdiocese and the World Meeting of Families, which will host Pope Francis at the end of September.

“Some in public life — notably, but not only, Donald Trump — have called for an

end to birthright citizenship. This is a profoundly bad idea,” Archbishop Chaput said. “It plays on our worst fears and resentments. And it undermines one of the pillars of the American founding and national identity.”

Birthright citizenship, by which anyone born in the United States has a right to U.S. citizenship, means that “any immigrant family is only a generation away from integrating fully into our nation,” the archbishop said.

It prevents the creation of “a permanent underclass” of people who are “effectively stateless.”

The archbishop acknowledged the volatile role of immigration in U.S. politics, especially ahead of the 2016 presidential elections.

“Immigration can be a tough issue,” he said. “At least one of our presidential candidates has already made the national immigration debate ugly with a great deal of belligerent bombast. His success in the polls shows that many people — including

many good people — are very uneasy about the direction of our country.”

The archbishop lamented the damage done when migrants have to leave their children, and also the damage when undocumented parents can be deported away from their children. The Obama Administration has carried out a record number of deportations affecting about 2.6 million people.

“This brutally affects immigrant families — especially those with children who are U.S. citizens,” Archbishop Chaput said. “Some 75,000 families with U.S. citizen children are wounded every year by deportation, with one or both parents removed from American soil. Some of these same children have been forced to follow their parents to countries they don’t know.

Others have stayed in the United States without their parents.”

The Philadelphia archbishop said it is likely Pope Francis will address migrants during his U.S. visit, which

includes a speech to a joint session of Congress and the celebration of the closing Mass for the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.

Archbishop Chaput cited the pope’s 2013 visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa, a key waypoint for migrants from Africa to Europe. The pope remembered migrants who died trying to cross the Mediterranean and spoke of the “globalization of indifference” that treats migrants as part of a “throwaway culture.”

Like Pope Francis, Pope Pius XII and Pope Benedict XVI have described the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt as a refugee and migrant situation.

“The Family of Nazareth reflects the image of God safeguarded in the heart of every human family, even if disfigured and weakened by emigration,” Pope Benedict said in 2007.

Global inequalities force the separation of families, Archbishop Chaput stressed.

“Poverty and violence in their home countries force

parents to leave their children behind and earn money in foreign lands to support them. Or in some cases, parents send their children away to other countries to protect them from harm.”

He said respect for the rule of law is a key element of the immigration system. However, Congress needs to pass immigration reform that will revise and strengthen laws in favor of the family, which he called “the seed of a healthy society.”

The archbishop stressed family reunification as a cornerstone of the immigration system. Reunification should be expedited and a main goal of the refugee program. He also rejected the detention of families as “needless and inhumane,” noting that a federal court has ordered the practice to end.

Wealthy nations also have the responsibility to coordinate a response to address poverty and conflict in other countries, which he said “inevitably spill across borders.”

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September 11, 2015

Anchor Editorial

The migrant crisis

Dave Jolivet (on page 14) and Deacon Frank Lucca (on page 17) directly address the horrors which the immigrant crisis in Europe have brought to one concrete Syrian family. The death of Aylan Kurdit on a beach in the Aegean Sea brings to mind the oft-quoted saying, “The death of one man: that is a catastrophe. One hundred thousand deaths: that is a statistic!”

Maybe the death of Aylan will help move hearts from viewing the suffering of so many people around the world as mere statistics and help them to see that these are catastrophes which are avoidable. As Dave wrote, due to the power that sin holds over us, it is likely that such deaths will continue, but he also held out the hope that we, each of us individually, can help work together to change this world, by putting our Christian love into action.

Dave also evokes the judgment that we will face from God when we die.

Will God be asking if we maintained our country’s economy by ignoring the suffering of others? We know that He said, “Whatsoever you did to the least of My brothers, that you did unto Me” (Mt 25:40). Do we really want to risk our souls (just so we can have riches which we can’t take with us)?

The Catholic Church is not demanding that the United States and the rest of the developed world take in everyone from the Third World. Rather, the consistent teaching of the popes has been that we are all responsible for the whole earth and that we need to see what we can do so that people do not feel the need (due to violence which directly threatens their lives or due to extreme poverty which could kill them more slowly) to emigrate.

Pope Benedict XVI in his 2013 message for the World Day of Migrants

and Refugees wrote, “In the current social and political context, however, even before the right to migrate, there is need to reaffirm the right not to emigrate, that is, to remain in one’s homeland; as St. John Paul II stated: ‘It is a basic human right to live in one’s own country. However these rights become effective only if the factors that urge people to emigrate are constantly kept under control.’”

The factors at the moment involve: (in the Middle East and North Africa) fear of being killed by ISIS or by other forces in the variety of wars going on there; (in Central America) fear of being killed by gangs (e.g., Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world — even higher than Afghanistan!); fear of starvation or malnutrition in a variety of countries.

Pope Francis, in his 2014 message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, wrote, “Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity. They are children, women and men who leave or who are forced to leave their homes for various reasons, who share a legitimate desire for knowing and having, but above all for being more. Contemporary movements of migration represent the largest movement of individuals, if not of peoples, in history. As the Church accompanies migrants and refugees on their journey, she seeks to understand the causes of migration, but she also works to overcome its negative effects. Every human being is a child of God! He or she bears the image of Christ! We ourselves need to see, and then to enable others to see, that migrants and refugees do not only represent a problem to be solved, but are brothers and sisters to be welcomed, respected and loved.”

If we can’t love them in this life, we will have a problem in the next.

Pope Francis’ Angelus message of September 6 Today’s Gospel (Mk 7:31-37) tells of the healing of a deaf-mute

by Jesus, a miraculous event that shows how Jesus will re-establish full communication with God and with other men. The miracle takes place in the area of the Decapolis, i.e., in full pagan territory; therefore, the deaf-mute who is healed by Jesus becomes a symbol of the non-believer who makes a journey of faith. In fact, his deafness expresses the inability to listen and to understand not only the words of men, but also the Word of God. And St. Paul reminds us that “faith comes from preaching” (Rom 10:17).

The first thing that Jesus does is bring the man away from the crowd: He does not want to give publicity to the gesture that He is about to do, but He also does not want His Word buried by the din of voices and the chatter of the environment. The Word of

God that Christ gives us needs silence to be accepted as a Word that heals, reconciles and restores communication.

Then are witnessed to two gestures of Jesus. He touches the ears and the tongue of the deaf-mute.

To restore the relationship with the man “blocked” from communicating, He seeks first to reestablish contact. But the miracle is a gift from above, Jesus implores the Father; that is why He looks up to Heaven and commands, “Be opened.” And the ears of the deaf man are opened, his tongue is no longer tied and he begins to speak correctly (see v. 35).

The lesson we draw from this is that God is not closed in on Himself, but is open and connects with humanity. In His great mercy, He overcomes the abyss of the infinite difference between Him and us, and comes to us. To achieve this communication with OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER

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man, God becomes Man: He did not just talk through the law and the prophets, but is present in the Person of His Son, the Word made Flesh. Jesus is the great “bridge builder,” Who builds Himself into the great bridge of full communion with the Father.

But this Gospel also speaks to us: we are often folded and closed in on ourselves, and we create so many inaccessible and inhospitable islands. Even the most basic human relationships sometimes create a reality incapable of reciprocal opening: a closed couple, a closed family, a closed group, a closed parish, a closed homeland.

And that is not of God! This is from us, it is our sin.

Yet at the origin of our Christian life, in Baptism, it is the very gesture and words of Jesus: “Epaphatha! — Be opened!” And the miracle takes place: we are healed from the deafness of selfishness and the muteness of the closure of sin, and we were included in the great family of the Church; we can listen to God Who speaks to us and we can speak His Word to those who have never heard it, or who have forgotten it and have buried it under the thorny troubles and deceptions of the world.

We ask the Holy Virgin, woman of listening and of joyful witness to support us in the commitment to profess our faith and to communicate the wonders of the Lord to those we meet on our way.

The Mercy of God is recognized through our works, as we

witnessed in the life of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whom we commemorated on the anniversary of her death.

Faced with the tragedy of tens of thousands of refugees fleeing from death by war and hunger, and are on their way to a hope of life, the Gospel calls us, asks us to be “neighbor” to the smallest and abandoned. To give them real hope. Not just saying: “Courage, patience!” Christian hope is combative, with the tenacity of those who go towards a secure goal.

Therefore, as the Jubilee of Mercy approaches, I appeal to the parishes, religious communities, the monasteries and shrines throughout Europe to express the reality of the Gospel and accommodate a family of refugees.

A concrete gesture in preparation for the Holy Year of Mercy.

Every parish, every religious community, every monastery, every shrine of Europe should host a family, starting from my Diocese of Rome.

I turn to my brother bishops of Europe, true shepherds, because their dioceses support this appeal of mine, remembering that mercy is the second name of love: “Whatever you did to the least of these My brethren, then You did it to Me” (Mt 25:40).

The two parishes in the Vatican these days welcome two families of refugees.

Now I will say a word in Spanish on the situation between Colombia and Venezuela. In these days, the bishops of Venezuela

and Colombia have met to examine together the painful situation which has been created on the frontier of the two countries. I see in this meeting a clear sign of hope. I invite everyone, especially the beloved Venezuelan and Colombian peoples, to pray so that, in a Spirit of solidarity and fraternity, they can overcome the present difficulties.

Yesterday, in Gerona, Spain, the following were proclaimed blessed: Fidelia Oller, Giuseppa Monrabal and Faconda Margenat, religious of the Institute of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Gerona, who were killed for their fidelity to Christ and to the Church.

Despite threats and intimidation, these women remained bravely in place to assist the sick, trusting in God. Their heroic witness, up to the shedding of blood, gives strength and hope to those who today are persecuted on account of the Christian faith. And we know that there are many.

Two days ago were opened in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, the 11th AllAfrica Games, involving thousands of athletes from all over the continent. I hope that this great sports festival contributes to peace, brotherhood and development of all the countries of Africa. We salute the Africans who are making these 11th AllAfrica games.

I wish you all a good Sunday.

And, please, do not forget to pray for me. Good lunch and goodbye!

Anchor Columnist Going to encounter our ‘Little Saint’ of chastity and mercy

September 11, 2015

A

merican Catholics, especially in the Northeastern United States, are all getting excited about the visit of Pope Francis — and justifiably so. It’s his first trip ever to our country. He’ll celebrate the first canonization ever in the United States. He’ll be the first pope ever to address a joint session of Congress.

He’ll celebrate Mass with more than a million people in Philadelphia at the World Meeting of Families. And he’ll be giving what might be objectively the most significant address in the history of the papacy at the United Nations before the leaders of more than 190 nations in the world and all the peoples they represent; perhaps the most noteworthy audience the pope has addressed since Christ built His Church on Peter.

It will be a momentous visit and we ought all to be praying that there will be many profound conversions as a result of it, beginning with our own.

But Pope Francis may not be the most significant visitor coming from Italy this September.

Another visitor will be coming who in an even humbler way may help people even more than the Pope of Mercy to learn how to experience and share God’s forgiveness, someone who will help us to focus more on chastity, the foundational virtue for a loving family, than anything Pope Francis may say along his travels.

And you won’t need a ticket can have. to see her, or connections to I would urge you to apget up close to her, or trouble proach her visit as the truly in spending as much time special, once-in-a-lifetime praying with her as you like. event it is and to make plans She’s St. Maria Goretti and with your family and friends she — or more specifically, to come to meet her. I would the great part of her relics — especially urge you to lead will be coming to the United young people in your families States as a result of the hard and parishes on pilgrimage to work of the Treasures of the Church apostolate, in collaboraPutting Into tion with her shrine in Nettuno and the the Deep Congregation for the Causes of Saints in the

By Father Vatican.

Roger J. Landry She’ll arrive in New Jersey on September 21, the day before Pope her.

Francis. She’ll then go to Maria was born into prepare the way for the pope poverty in 1891. Eleven years in Philadelphia. Then she’ll later, she was murdered in come to New York City where Ferriere di Conca, about 40 I’ll have a chance to pray with miles south of Rome, by an her at St. Patrick’s Cathedral 18-year-old, Alessandro SeSeptember 28-29. She’ll be renelli, who had been unsucat the Cathedral of the Holy cessfully trying to seduce and Cross in Boston on October 5. rape her for weeks, threatenAll the dates of her itinerary ing her with a 10-inch dagcan be found along with much ger. One day while she was more information at mariago- baby-sitting her infant sister retti.com.

Teresa, Alessandro entered, During my years in semiwaved the dagger, and threatnary in Rome, I would often ened to kill her unless she make a pilgrimage to Netslept with him. She refused to tuno to pray at her tomb and submit. He didn’t take no for since my return I have often an answer. When he tried to led pilgrimages to her shrine rip off her clothes, she began during trips to Italy. It’s never to scream, “No! It is a sin! ceased to amaze me how great God does not want it,” and he the impact this simple little began to choke her. Failing to saint — who gave her life silence her, he began to strike for Christ at the age of our her with the dagger, stabbing 11-year-old children, grandher 11 times, and three times children, nieces, or sisters — more as she tried to escape to

the door. Eventually the cries of little Teresa drew the attention of Alessandro’s father and Maria’s mother, who discovered Maria in a pool of blood.

She was rushed to the hospital, where the doctors tried to save her life, but their efforts were futile. The wounds had pierced her lungs, heart and diaphragm. Surgeons were amazed she was still alive.

Maria awakened during the surgery, done without anesthesia. Through tremendous pain, she told everyone what had happened and how and why she had long feared Alessandro. When those present asked her to pray for them in paradise, she realized that she was about to die. In the presence of the doctors and her family, she expressed her forgiveness for her murderer and said that she would pray for him one day to join her in Heaven. She died the following day, gazing at an image of the Queen of Heaven.

Alessandro was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

For about six years, he was hardened and unrepentant, physically attacking priests who had come to visit. Then one night, he had a dream in which Maria appeared gathering lilies and offering them to him. When they were placed in his hands, they melted. The dream had an enormous impact on him, convincing him that Maria was in fact praying

7

for his conversion, that he, too, one day come to know what lilies symbolize, the Resurrection. He turned his life around and began to pray each day to Maria, referring to her as “my little saint.” He became so exemplary a prisoner that he was released from prison three years early.

His first action upon being released was to visit Maria’s mother to beg for her forgiveness. Assunta Goretti said that if Maria had forgiven him on her deathbed, then she could do no less. The next day they attended Mass together, receiving Holy Communion side-by-side. In the midst of a stunned congregation, he acknowledged his sin, and asked for God’s forgiveness and theirs. He would spend the rest of his life doing penance as a gardener at a Capuchin monastery and was present with Assunta, many of those parishioners and others, when Pope Pius XII canonized Maria Goretti in 1950.

This great martyr of chastity and model of forgiveness is coming to visit us, to teach us the lessons she learned at such a young age, lessons that never fade in importance.

May this visit help her to become for us what she was for Alessandro: “Our little saint.”

Anchor columnist Father Landry can be contacted at fatherlandry@ catholicpreaching.com.

Papal nuncio explains the Church’s mission at the U.N. to Dunwoodie seminarians

By Anna Fata Special to The Anchor via Father Roger J. Landry, Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the U.N.

UNITED NATIONS — The pope is coming to the United States as a pastor, not a politician, according to his personal representative to the United Nations.

Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, addressed more than 100 seminarians from St. Joseph’s Seminary of Yonkers, N.Y., during their recent visit to the United Nations headquarters.

The seminary, popularly known as “Dunwoodie,” had asked Archbishop Auza, in anticipation of Pope Francis’ September 25 visit to the

United Nations, to give them an overview of the history of the diplomacy of the Holy See, the Holy See’s work at the U.N., and an introduction to what Pope Francis might say when he visits later this month.

“I am not a prophet, so I cannot tell you,” Archbishop Auza joked. “But one thing for sure, he comes as a pastor, as a father, as a religious and moral leader.”

He added, “Previous visits of the popes will tell you that Pope Francis’ address to the General Assembly will be framed according to the pillars and mission of the United Nations.”

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first papal address to the U.N., which Blessed Pope Paul VI deliv-

ered in 1965, as well as the 20th anniversary of Pope St. John Paul II’s 1995 address to the General Assembly, on the

occasion of the U.N.’s 50th anniversary of foundation.

Past papal addresses have underlined the importance of

international peace and security, the defense of fundamental human rights and the rule Turn to page 14

Seminarians from St. Joseph’s Seminary of Yonkers, N.Y., recently visited the United Nations to hear Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, address them on role of the Holy See’s diplomacy and the Church’s work at the U.N. in anticipation of Pope Francis’ September 25 U.N. visit. Seated at the podium, from left are Msgr. Hilary Franco of the Holy See’s Mission, Msgr. Peter Vaccari, Rector of St. Joseph’s Seminary, Archbishop Auza and Msgr. Joseph Grech of the Holy See’s Mission.

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I

n this week’s Gospel, Jesus asks His disciples two questions: Who do the people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? Jesus knew the answers to these questions would reveal not only what the disciples were hearing about Him, but also what personal image of Him they were forming in their own minds.

Today, we need to ask ourselves those same questions: Who do people say that I am? Who do I say that I am? Are they the same? If not, why not? Each and every one of us must deal with these questions honestly; our answers will define our self-image as a disciple and what image others perceive. As disciples of Christ we should reflect an image to others that will help others through their faith journeys.

But before we can answer these questions, we must

September 11, 2015

‘Who do people say that I am?’

also answer the question: ourselves as His followers.

Who do I say that Jesus is?

If we have a poor self-image Our own personal image of as a disciple, then we are Jesus comes from the images apt to miss the important we have drawn upon from message given to us by St. our Church community, Paul. In this week’s reading as well as from our own from Galatians, he tells us personal experience of Jesus in our lives.

We need only look Homily of the Week at the artists over Twenty-fourth Sunday the centuries that in Ordinary Time have painted images of Jesus to see

By Deacon how varied our own Paul M. Fournier personal conceptions can be. When we think of Jesus, we form an image in our mind that through faith we are all and hearts based on what children of God in Christ we have been taught and Jesus. He is telling us that what our relationship has if we belong to Christ, then been with Him. we are Abraham’s descenOne of the most impordants, heirs according to tant truths we have been the promise. We are heirs taught about Jesus is that because we share in Jesus’ He is the Beloved Son Son-ship just as we are of God the Father. How heirs of our earthly parents. we experience this truth, Through our Baptism, we depends on how we see are coheirs with Jesus for all

that our Heavenly Father has promised. St. Paul tells us, all of you who have been baptized in Christ have clothed yourselves with Him. In other words, we are identified with Him; we are brothers in what He is — Beloved of the Father.

In the process of asking ourselves how we see Jesus and how we see ourselves as followers of Jesus it is important that we allow our faith to influence our answers. Seeing Jesus as the Beloved of the Father, tells us as much about who we are, as it tells us about Who Jesus is. What the Scriptures and our Christian community tell us about Jesus is not just nice historical facts or theological goodies. They are the truths of our faith to help us appreciate who we are in the sight of God and

how we ought to see ourselves and one another.

As Catholic Christians, we sign ourselves with the cross of Jesus. This cross is a sign of suffering; a sign of compassion; and a sign of reconciliation; a sign that we must carry on in His footsteps. On the cross, Jesus opened His arms to embrace the whole human race with Divine love. We need to follow the example of Jesus Who embraced and healed the sick, welcomed the poor, reached out to the lonely, and forgave others of their sins. By imitating Christ and opening our hearts we will be assured of how people will perceive us.

We will know who people say that I am.

Deacon Fournier is a permanent deacon assigned to St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Attleboro. He also serves as a chaplain at Sturdy Memorial Hospital.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Sept. 12, 1 Tm 1:15-17; Ps 113:1b-7; Lk 6:43-49. Sun. Sept. 13, Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Is 50:5-9a; Ps 116:1-6,8-9; Jas 2:14-18; Mk 8:27-35. Mon. Sept. 14, Nm 21:4b-9; Ps 78:1b-2,34-38; Phil 2:6-11; Jn 3:13-17. Tues. Sept. 15, 1 Tm 3:1-13; Ps 101:1b-3b,5-6; Jn 19:25-27 or Lk 2:33-35. Wed. Sept. 16, 1 Tm 3:14-16; Ps 111:1-6; Lk 7:31-35. Thurs. Sept. 17, 1 Tm 4:12-16; Ps 111:7-10; Lk 7:36-50.

Fri. Sept. 18, 1 Tm 6:2c-12; Ps 49:6-10,17-20; Lk 8:1-3.

S

eventy-five years ago, on Sept. 15, 1940, Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine were driven from the prime minister’s country house, Chequers, to the nearby village of Uxbridge: a Royal Air Force station and the headquarters from which Air ViceMarshal Keith Park was directing the RAF’s No. 11 Group against the onslaught of the German Luftwaffe in southern England. When the prime minister and his wife walked into No. 11 Group’s Operations Room, Park, a doughty New Zealander who flew his own personal Hurricane fighter, said, “I don’t know whether anything will happen today. At present, all is quiet.”

That soon changed. As Churchill looked down from the balcony, young women began moving markers on a large map table, like croupiers at a casino. The markers indicated Luftwaffe bombers and fighters queuing up over France, then heading to England on what many regard as the decisive day in the Battle

Remembering ‘The Few’ and the stakes had been all of of Britain — the outcome of which determined the course that since Hermann Goering had decided to end Britain’s of World War II in Europe.

As the numbers of approach- bulldog recalcitrance and bomb the United Kingdom ing German planes grew to 250, Park scrambled 16 RAF into a negotiated peace. He failed, in part, because of the fighter squadrons and called inferiority of some of his in another five from No. 12 Group, based in the English Midlands.

By noon, No. 11 Group was fully engaged in an aerial brawl over the entire south of England, and some of Park’s

By George Weigel Spitfires and Hurricanes began returning to their bases to aircraft and the technological refuel and re-arm. As the breakthrough made by BritGerman attack continued ain’s “boffins,” the scientists and Park called in another who invented radar in the three squadrons from No. 1930s. But as always in war, 12 Group, Churchill, who the moral was to the matehad been uncharacteristirial by a large factor and the cally quiet, turned to the Air RAF was replete with heroes.

Vice-Marshal and asked, Sadly, their stories are now “What reserves have we?”

The answer was grim: “There largely forgotten.

More often than not, are none.” As Churchill the British pilots who flew later wrote in “The Second World War,” “The odds were those Hurricanes and Spitgreat; our margins, small; the fires were a year or two removed from secondary stakes, infinite.” school. These youngsters The odds, the margins,

The Catholic Difference

were joined by Polish and Czech volunteers who came to Britain to continue their countries’ struggle against the Third Reich. The RAF’s young fighter pilots often flew four or five missions a day, in the most physically and mentally taxing circumstances imaginable; fully one-third of them were killed, gravely wounded (often by horrible burns), or captured during the Battle of Britain. Well might Churchill have said, after the Luftwaffe tacitly conceded defeat, that never in the field of human conflict had so much been owed by so many to so few.

But those brave pilots would not have stood a chance had they not been led by another forgotten figure, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, who conceived the system of radar stations linked to centralized fighter control that made it possible for group leaders like Keith Park to deploy their limited

resources in the most effective way possible. And it was Dowding who confronted Churchill in June 1940, as the French were collapsing before the Nazi Blitzkrieg, and made the prime minister face the grim arithmetic of the moment: no more British fighter squadrons could be frittered away in a futile effort to save what was unsalvageable on the other side of the English Channel. Winston Churchill, who had promised the French more RAF planes, was not an easy man to contradict.

But Dowding had the courage to do so. And in saving the RAF’s fighter squadrons from being chewed to pieces in the Battle of France that he knew was lost, Dowding made his young pilots’ victory in the Battle of Britain possible.

May these oft-forgotten heroes, who saved the liberties of the western world, rest in peace.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

September 11, 2015

Anchor Columnists ‘I (insert drawing of miter here) Pope Francis’

Tuesday 15 September 2015 — Port-O-Call: Philadelphia in my mind — Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows eptember 26, dear readers, His Holiness Pope Francis will arrive in Philadelphia. Yours truly was in Philadelphia 36 years ago when Pope St. John Paul II arrived. As a souvenir, I purchased from a street vendor a poster of the pope, rolled it up in a cardboard tube, and carried it under my arm on the flight home. There was no TSA back then.

Unfortunately, I’ll not be in Philadelphia this time. If I were to be in Philadelphia next week, not only would I have the privilege of seeing the present pope, but I would be able to gather plenty of material for the “Ship’s Log.” These days, I’m a homebody.

I just stay put and follow world events through the media outlets. It’s not as exciting as actually being there, of course, but it works for me. I still travel extensively, though, but only in my mind.

Although I wouldn’t be there in person, I nevertheless wanted a souvenir of Pope Francis’ pastoral visit to Philadelphia. I went online.

S

S

urely, there are grave and complex difficulties with doctrine that cause some to reject the authority of the Catholic Church, but oftentimes individuals offer reasons that are frivolous and misinformed.

Rather than taking seriously the claims of an institution that has endured trials and persecutions for millennia, many swat away the doctrines resulting from centuries of careful deliberation as though they are trifles.

In short, we often don’t know what we don’t know — nor do we seem to care.

Our rational minds are one way that we image God, and we would do well to apply them.

When we hear words bandied about, we might want to stop and make sure we understand them.

A case in point is the recent letter issued by the Vatican, clarifying guidelines for absolving those who regret their complicity in procuring abortions. Unfortunately (for many reasons) the message was immediately garbled by much of the media.

In the wake of the announcement, misinformation abounded, such as one

colors. I don’t wear ties. My Voila! The official online neckwear is a flexible piece shopping site is up and runof white plastic. How about ning. It appeared the day a “hoodie” sweatshirt? No, I following the U.S. Bishops’ have an old one given to me Conference announcement at Bentley University. Look, of the pope’s itinerary. Much here’s a T-shirt imprinted to my delight, there are more with the words, “I (drawing than 200 products already available. More items are appearing on the shopping site as the The Ship’s Log date of the papal visit Reflections of a approaches. Now I can Parish Priest order mementoes of the papal visit from

By Father Tim the comfort of my own Goldrick living room.

The first thing I came upon was a Pope Francis Lenox commemorative of a bishop’s miter, that is, his ivory bone china plate with 24 ceremonial hat) Pope Francis.”

No, it lacks the punch of “I carat gold gild. It costs $60. (heart) N.Y.” There’s a matching cup for There’s a hardcover coffee $40. It’s very tasteful indeed. table book featuring full-color How cool it would be if the photos of the papal visit. This next time some bishop visits is a steal at only $30. It would St. Patrick rectory, I served look impressive in the living tea and crumpets on such fine commemorative china. To save room, but I wonder how they got the pictures, since the pope money, maybe I could order has not yet arrived. Oh, it’s a just one set for the bishop and pre-order. I don’t want to wait use paper plates for everyone else. Well, maybe not. I contin- that long. How about a cloisonné papal Christmas ornament? ued my search.

I’ll pass. Maybe a portrait tote There’s a silk tie with the bag for $10? I think not. logo of the World Meeting I clicked on the more speof Families (shaped like the Liberty Bell) available in three cifically religious items button.

There’s a set of faceted glass aquamarine-colored Rosary beads. I prefer my Rosaries black. How about a laminated prayer card for my Breviary?

No, I don’t use a hardcopy prayer book (there’s an app for that). Perhaps I could get a religious medal. No, it might make my neck itch. There’s nothing worse than an itchy neck when you’re wearing one of those plastic clergy collars.

This virtual souvenir shopping was beginning to get exhausting, but then I found the offbeat items. I can get a Pope Francis table-top figure for $20. It’s “a 10-inch glossy wood cutout with a black triangular wood base, perfect for adorning any table, desktop, nightstand or shelf !” It’s tempting, but no. I already have enough “adornment” on my nightstand.

On other websites, there’s a T-shirt shouting, “Yo, pontiff !” and one proclaiming, “The pope is my homeboy.” That’s way too edgy for me.

I came across a small kitchen appliance that burns an outline of Pope Francis into your toast. It goes for $69.95.

9

Oh, wait. I can’t cook.

The most popular souvenir is advertised as “celebrating the ‘People’s Pope’ and his worldwide appeal; made from high quality poly-resin, with Styrofoam protection and a colorful collector’s box.” Oh dear, it’s a bobble-head pope. No thank you.

As one archdiocesan official in Philadelphia recently mused, “You have to take it in stride.

I’m glad to see the enthusiasm.”

Then I found the perfect memento. It’s a 69-inch image of Pope Francis “mounted on art-quality gator-foam. It comes with a sturdy easel and is quick and easy to assemble and take down.” It’s pricey at $160, but think of the possibilities.

I could set it up in the Sacristy at St. Patrick and take fake “selfies” with the pope! I could submit a photograph to The Anchor for publication. I’d be the envy of all my brother priests. On second thought, that wouldn’t do. No, no, no.

Not to worry. Maybe someone in Philadelphia will send me a postcard suitable for framing.

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

The unfathomable mercy of God injured by sinful actions. It is writer’s praise for a pope who baffling to see those who praise was helping to “evolve” the the logic of the material world view towards sin away from and the rational methodology “arcane and ancient opinions of science firmly dismiss the in regards to birth control, reproductive medicine, abortion Church as irrational. In fact, it is precisely within the realm of and homosexuality.” Arcane “reproductive medicine” that can be defined as “unfathomable,” meaning that it’s mysterious and incomprehensible — which speaks more to the mind of the writer than the Church. The Church has been prolific in explainBy Genevieve Kineke ing the inner logic of her approach to sin and the sexual ethic, and each must be understood in order to those who refuse to acknowledge the wisdom of the Church grasp the meaning of mercy. offer arguments couched in The “Catechism” defines sin the miasma of emotion and as “an offense against reason, perverse attachments — which truth, and right conscience; it undermine reason and prudenis failure in genuine love for tial behavior.

God and neighbor caused by a If one chose to be rational, perverse attachment to certain it would be evident that each goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidar- child — with his unique DNA — has his own integrity. His ity” (n. 1849). Thus, in order growth is along a continuum to “fathom” what the Church that we all share, and the dedefines as sin, one must appendence he has in his vulneraply reason — concerning the nature of actions and the needs ble state is similar to the dependence that abortion supporters of the community, which are

The Feminine Genius

easily recognize in other groups — especially as related to the poor and migrant communities.

Shelter, sustenance, and a loving welcome are universal human needs, making the Church’s logic easily understandable and unswervingly consistent. If one chooses vacuity in such matters, then he has abandoned his reason, without which he will admittedly have grave difficulties understanding Church teachings.

The Vatican letter reaches out to those who have strayed, noting, “The tragedy of abortion is experienced by some with a superficial awareness, as if not realizing the extreme harm that such an act entails. Many others, on the other hand, although experiencing this moment as a defeat, believe that they have no other option.”

This shows that the Church is well aware of the breadth of circumstances leading to the tragedy of abortion, but this doesn’t change the fact that each abortion ended the life of a very small person — some-

one who shared God’s image and likeness, and whom He loved as much as all the rest.

And that’s what leads to the one truly unfathomable concept — the mercy of God. St. John Paul II wrote: “It becomes more evident that love is transformed into mercy when it is necessary to go beyond the precise norm of justice” (Dives in misericordia, 5). Miraculously, when Divine love — the unalterable essence of God — encounters injustice, suffering, injury, and sin, it doesn’t draw back, but is transformed. To receive it, all that remains is to name our offences, repent of them, and be transformed in turn. There is nothing frivolous about this Divine reality, nor is there a reason for it to evolve. It’s the one marvelous truth that has transfixed great minds and humble souls over the ages, and for anyone who will take a moment to think rationally, it is surely a gift worth taking.

Anchor columnist Mrs. Kineke is the author of “The Authentic Catholic Woman.”

She blogs at feminine-genius. typepad.com.

10

September 11, 2015

Philadelphia seminary plants, blesses a tree for pope’s Day for the Care of Creation PHILADELPHIA (CNA/EWTN News) — Responding to Pope Francis’ call for Catholics around the world to observe September 1 as a Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, St. Charles

Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia recently planted a tree on its grounds.

The planting of a white oak was done in partnership with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and was fol-

lowed by a blessing of the new tree by the seminary’s rector, Bishop Timothy Senior.

The seminary’s tree was the 500,000th in the society’s “Plant One Million” campaign. The effort aims to plant one million trees throughout 13 counties in southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware.

“The annual World Day of prayer for the Care of Creation offers to individual believers and to the community a precious opportunity to renew our personal participation in this vocation as custodians of Creation,” Pope Francis said in his letter announcing the Day of Prayer

for the Care of Creation.

He modeled the day on a practice already observed among the Eastern Orthodox, and encouraged Catholics to organize prayer and practical initiatives for the event.

The pope added that it was to be an act of “raising to God our thanks for the marvelous works that He has entrusted to our care,” while also “invoking His help for the protection of Creation and His mercy for the sins committed against the world in which we live.”

Francis led a Liturgy of the Word at St. Peter’s Basilica for the day of prayer.

The Archdiocese of Phila-

delphia participated in the initiative not only through the tree planting at the seminary, but also by inviting all its 219 parishes to pray at Mass for the care of Creation, and with personal prayers as a way to be aware that we are “custodians of Creation.”

All parishes of the archdiocese were invited to include this intention among their prayers of the faithful: “For the protection of God’s gift of Creation, that this effort on the part of government leaders and everyone will help to overcome the routine abuse and neglect of our common home. Let us pray to the Lord.”

11

September 11, 2015

Bite your tongue: Fight temptation to gossip, sow division, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Fomenting division, fueling hatred and not planting peace “is a disease in our Church,” Pope Francis said in a recent morning homily.

In fact, those who spend their lives bringing reconciliation and peace are saints, and those who gossip are just “like a terrorist who throws a bomb and walks away,” destroying others while making sure they stay safe and sound, he said.

During Mass in the chapel of his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae, Pope Francis asked people to think about whether they were sowers of peace

or destroyed harmony with gossip.

“This is an evil, this is a disease in our Church: to sow division, sow hatred, plant (what is) not peace,” he said.

Christians are called to be like Jesus, Who came to bring peace and reconciliation, and this requires constant conversion, he said.

People should never speak “a word that can divide, never ever a word that brings war, little wars, never gossip,” he said.

People might think gossiping is really nothing serious, but it is, he said.

“Gossiping is terrorism because the

person who gossips is like a terrorist who throws a bomb and walks away, destroying; they destroy with their tongue, they don’t make peace,” the pope said.

“But they’re cunning, you know.

They aren’t suicide bombers, no, no, they take care of themselves,” he added.

The pope had a bit of advice, saying

that whenever he felt the urge to say something bad about someone or gossip, the best thing to do is literally bite one’s tongue.

However, “at first your tongue will get all swollen and hurt,” he said, because the devil is always tempting people to open their mouths and say something wrong — “it’s his job to divide” people.

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September 11, 2015

Byzantine monk answers Facebook by legally changing his name ST. NAZIANZ, Wis. (CNS) — What’s in a name? To Father Moses Wright, known to friends on Facebook as Hierodeacon Moses, it’s his identity as a Byzantine monk, given to him when he professed his vows on Aug. 15, 1994.

On August 12 — three days before his 21st anniversary as a monk — Father Moses received a notification when he logged on to Facebook. He was told he had to change his name in order to comply with their regulations on authentic identities.

Before the end of the day, his profile name changed from Hierodeacon Moses to his given name, Michael Wright. The change did not sit well with the monk, who lives at Holy Resurrection Monastery in St. Nazianz.

“Well, Facebook finally got my name changed!” he wrote. Within minutes, many of his 708 friends began asking why. “Facebook has forbidden religious names and titles. It’s been going on for a while now,” he posted.

Father Moses told The Compass, newspaper of the Green Bay Diocese, in mid-August that very few people know him by his given name.

“People, when they saw my secular name on Facebook, they began to ask, ‘Why did you leave the monastery?’ I had to go on and explain what happened,” he said. “I’ve used that name for 20 years now and most people wouldn’t know me by my secular name.”

On its Help Center page, Facebook explains its policy on names.

“Facebook is a community where people use their authentic identities,” it states. “We require people to provide the name they use in real life; that way, you always know who you’re connecting with. This helps keep our community safe.”

It then lists five categories that are prohibited, including “Titles of any kind (ex: professional, religious).”

Anyone who contests the rule must submit a valid form of identification to Facebook showing their legal name.

Father Moses said he knew that Facebook started forbidding the use of religious titles and he is friends on Facebook with many Green Bay diocesan priests who have complied with this rule.

There have been online protests to the policy about religious titles, including a petition on Change. org to rescind the rule.

But the Byzantine monk decided he wouldn’t wait for Facebook to change its policy.

Instead, he decided to change his name. On August 13, he posted a new announcement: “Thanks Facebook! After 21 years of using my monastic name, and never officially changing it, today I will petition the State of Wisconsin to ‘OFFICIALLY’ become Monk Moses,” he wrote in a post, which received 80 “likes.”

He then drove to the Manitowoc County Courthouse to begin the process. A post that afternoon let friends know: “Name change paperwork filed! Take that Facebook bullies!”

The process of changing a name takes about a month. According to Father Moses, a legal notice must be published in the local paper for three weeks. A hearing before a judge follows before his new name will become legal.

Father Moses said he considered legally changing his name years ago, when the monastery was located in California. But the cost there was prohibitive and he would have needed to hire a lawyer. He said the process in Wisconsin was simple.

“I looked at how things are done here in Wisconsin and it spurred me on to do what I should have done years ago,” he said.

If he receives the judge’s approval, his legal name will be Abouna Moses.

Abouna is an Arabic word for father, said Father Moses.

Karen Abercrombie and Priscilla Shirer star in a scene from the movie “War Room.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Warner Bros. Pictures)

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

“A Walk in the Woods” (Broad Green) Seeking a remedy for his writer’s block, an aging travel author (Robert Redford) decides to defy his physical limitations by hiking the 2,200-mile-long Appalachian Trail. Yielding to his concerned wife’s (Emma Thompson) insistence that he include a companion on the trip, he reluctantly accepts the company of the only volunteer he can find — a friend from his past (Nick Nolte) with whom, partly by choice, he has long been out of touch. As the domesticated scribe and his rolling stone of a sidekick lumber through the forest, they compare notes on life, all too many of which treat sexuality — including the bedroom escapades of their shared youth — as a form of entertainment. In adapting Bill Bryson’s 1998 memoir, director Ken Kwapis takes viewers on a generally pleasant, though excessively talky, expedition through landscapes that vary from the soothing to the magnificent. Yet, even as one sequence of his film celebrates marital fidelity in the face of temptation, another winks at a potential dalliance with a married woman. Defective values, including an ambivalent attitude toward adultery,

a nongraphic scene of aberrant sexual activity, a glimpse of partial rear nudity, much offcolor humor, numerous uses of profanity, frequent rough and crude language. The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

“War Room” (Tri-Star) Prayer becomes the ultimate weapon for a young family in crisis in this Christian-themed drama. The film’s battleground is a McMansion in suburban North Carolina where an overtaxed wife and mother (Priscilla Shirer) finds the demands of her job as a real estate agent leave her little time to focus on raising her daughter (Alena Pitts). As for her ambitious but inattentive husband (T.C. Stallings), with whom she constantly quarrels, his work

as a salesman keeps him on the road where sinful temptations lurk, including opportunities to be unfaithful. Riding to the rescue is an elderly but feisty local character (Karen Abercrombie) who recommends calling on God for help and seeking His healing grace.

As directed and co-written by Alex Kendrick, this proselytizing message movie is heavyhanded at times. But Kendrick’s intentions, like those of his brother and script collaborator Stephen, are obviously sincere and worthy, while their emphasis on piety, forgiveness and redemption, although cast in evangelical terms, is nonetheless fully compatible with Catholic teaching. Mild domestic discord, some mature themes. The Catholic News Service classification is A-II — adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested.

Some material may not be suitable for children.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, September 13, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Jay Mello, a parochial administrator at St. Joseph’s and St. Michael’s parishes in Fall River.

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September 11, 2015

Seven young women attended the recent Called By Name retreat to listen to testimonies of women who have answered the call to religious life and married life. From left: Kayla Valerio, Hollis Dunlop, Melissa Ayala, Josefa Linnell, Sydney LeBlond, Giselle Ayala and Maria Miller. Also pictured are Missionary Servant of the Most Blessed Trinity Sisters Barbara McIntyre and Mary Kay MacDonald.

Seven young women ‘called by name,’ respond to attend recent vocation retreat

By Dave Jolivet Editor davejolivet@anchornews.org

deeper relationship with Him,” she told The Anchor.

Hollis went on to Providence College, completed WAREHAM — When a year of service with Jesuit Christ was ready to begin Volunteer Corps Northwest, His active ministry among and most recently at Capuchin the people of Israel, He didn’t Youth and Family Ministries amass an army of thousands of in the Hudson Valley, even afevangelists. Instead He called ter “leaving the faith” in 2013. a dozen men of differing ages “This retreat was a wonderand from various walks of life ful chance to hang out to get the ball rolling. with Sisters and a very he most touching part of More than 2,000 years involved and inspiring later, His followers numthe weekend was durlay woman, Paula Wilk,” ber in the millions. ing Adoration on Saturday night, she added. “I love hearing Recently, at the Sacred being surrounded by my friends vocation stories and all of Hearts Retreat Center in Wareham, the fifth annual and sisters in Christ. Knowing that the stories were very relateach one of us, whether being called able and well-delivered.

“Called By Name Re“Christ was truly at treat For Young Women,” to married, single, or religious life the center of the Sisters’ welcomed a small group were all there in front of Jesus, stories and of the retreat. of seven young women simply adoring Him and listening I think a very unique whose desire was to learn to Him.” aspect was that Paula how to better hear Christ continuously asked what calling them in their lives, and possibly what that message Sisters, and Little Sisters of the we wanted to hear and what Poor. Wilk offered a testimony we were interested in learning. may be.

It allowed us to really make it on the vocation of Marriage.

“The retreat this year was The women also experienced our own.” small in number but huge in Sydney LeBlond told The time for sharing, camaraderie, Spirit,” Paula Wilk, director Anchor, “I went into the retreat Eucharistic Adoration, daily of Faith Formation and Youth hoping to learn more about Ministry at St. Patrick’s Parish Mass, prayer, food and fun.

Twenty-five-year-old Hollis God, myself, and an affirmain Wareham, and one of the tion of where God may be coordinators of the retreat, told Dunlop, currently attending Boston College School of The- calling me in my life. While The Anchor. ology and Ministry, was one of there not only were those goals In attendance were young the attendees, after responding accomplished, but I also had women ranging in age from the chance to bond with other 16-24. “My first thought about to a call from Sister Catherine women my own age who are Lamb, MSBT, director of the that was this could be a chalactively discerning God’s Will parish Home Bound Minislenge with the age difference,” for them in their own lives.” try at St. Patrick’s Parish in added Wilk. “But it was not, Commenting on the relaxed because the younger girls were Wareham, who has spoken and informal atmosphere the to Dunlop in the past about very mature and wanted to be weekend took on, LeBlond on this discernment retreat for exploring the possibility of a said, “This gave us all the vocation. that very reason. Throughout opportunity to talk to and Hollis has been very active the retreat the girls wanted to interact with the Sisters in a in Church activities for some know the personal stories of carefree environment and to time. “I have grappled with each Sister that was there, and get an in-depth idea of what myself to my vocation of Mar- vocational questions since my religious life is really like. It time as a student at Bishop riage.” also gave us the ability to see In a preview story about the Stang High School in North past the stereotypes that are Dartmouth (Class of 2008), retreat in The Anchor, associate sometimes associated with where I first felt that God diocesan director of Vocareligious life. might be calling me into a tions, Sister Paulina Hurtado, O.P., said the weekend was for young women to block out the “strong winds, earthquakes, and fires,” they’re often exposed to in day-to-day life.

The weekend was comprised of testimonies from Sisters from four orders: Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate, Dominican

“T

“The most touching part of the weekend was during Adoration on Saturday night, being surrounded by my friends and sisters in Christ. Knowing that each one of us, whether being called to married, single, or religious life were all there in front of Jesus, simply adoring Him and listening to Him.” Attendee Maria Miller told The Anchor, “I felt very close to the Lord and it has really helped my prayer life.

Afterwards I noticed it really helped me look at my vocation.

I could very well change my opinions, but I feel that I know my vocation in my heart.”

Remarking on the camaraderie and prayer opportunities throughout the weekend, Miller said, “We were all in the same place. We all share the same faith. We are all young women who love the Lord and want to know and do what He wants; yet, we all want some fun. We stayed up late both nights and had a really splendid time. It was almost like a slumber party. We all became fast friends and found each other’s company pleasurable.

Because there were only seven of us it was very intimate.

“I enjoyed the retreat so much and examined some new types of prayer and different styles of life. I would advise any young woman who is looking for the Lord’s holy Will to come on this retreat and enjoy the company of Him Who calls them, and who are looking for some fun.”

As is often the case with religious-themed retreat weekends, it’s not only the retreatants who benefit from the experience.

Those who prayerfully work so hard to make it a success feel the Lord’s gentle touch.

Sister Barbara McIntyre, MSBT, was one of the presenters. She told The Anchor, “Helping people discern how to live out that call is a special joy to me as a MSBT Sister.

An ongoing part of our life is taking Counsel with others in prayer and dialogue in order to be attuned to the voice of the

Holy Spirit in our lives.

“I found the women on the retreat an inspiration. For me the casual conversations during and after meals were great times of sharing personal experiences of our being called by name and efforts to respond to those calls.”

Fellow Missionary Servant of the Most Blessed Trinity Sister Mary Kay MacDonald also shared her personal testimony on the weekend. She told The Anchor, “Spending a weekend with young women who are serious about discerning their vocational choice and growing Spiritually was a joy for me as I participated in the retreat.

“I am so grateful to all who made this weekend possible.

In an era of fewer religious Sisters, it is so important that young women know about this beautiful vocation as well as have the opportunity to meet Sisters personally and learn about the different charisms and ministries.

“Listening to young women say, ‘How do I really know what my vocation is? How can I make the right choice? What if I make a mistake?’ reaffirmed for me the great need young adults have for accompaniment and tools for discernment as they seek to make life choices.”

Wilk added, “It was so beautiful to see these young girls taking in every blessed moment of this retreat. The Holy Spirit was alive and working on this weekend.

Thanks be to God. “The one thing I know the girls will take away from this weekend is that God is calling them to something and the way they will find out what that is, is to develop a deeper relationship with Jesus. Get closer to Jesus and the invitation will be revealed.”

Jesus began His earthly mission with 12 very different men. Only God Himself knows what can happen with seven faith-filled, open-minded young women.

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September 11, 2015

Nuncio explains Church’s U.N. mission

Women’s Club marks centennial

of law, and the promotion of human, social and economic development, all core concepts of Catholic Social Doctrine that overlap, Archbishop Auza said, with the original aims of the U.N. Charter.

“Everybody hopes that he will underline the question of religious freedom and religious persecution in the Middle East,” Archbishop Auza added.

Since Pope Francis will be speaking to the U.N. immediately before the opening of the U.N. Summit on Development, the Filipinoborn apostolic nuncio said he expects the pope to share the Church’s thoughts on integral human development within the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

He added that it is likely that the Holy Father will speak about many of the themes contained in his recent encyclical letter “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home,” the themes of which, he said, have resonated among many of the delegations to the U.N. Like his predecessors, Pope Francis is also likely to express his esteem for the work of the United Nations, Archbishop Auza added.

The rector of Dunwoodie spoke about how the seminary’s field trip to the U.N. fits into the overall formation of priests for the third millennium.

“The history of modern popes have all attached great importance to the work of the U.N. for the promotion of justice and peace,” Msgr. Peter Vaccari said.

Msgr. Vaccari, who also teaches Church history at the seminary, said the Holy See’s diplomatic presence at the U.N. is part of the Church’s service to the “family of nations,” an expression first used by Blessed Paul VI but echoed in every papal address to the U.N. since.

“The Church has a significant role within this ‘family of nations’ because so many fundamental principles we believe overlap with U.N. principles,” he said. “The Church has a role to promote the dignity of the human person, promote social justice, ensure people have access to freedom, food, water, and education.”

club in order to raise money for the newly-minted church building. In that first year, the ladies visited all of the parish’s families in their homes and asked them to contribute to the church.

“Nowadays they would have done one blast email or social media of some sort, but they didn’t have that back then,” said Joanne McLaughlin, the club’s new president installed September 10.

For years their biggest fundraisers were whist parties. While that has certainly changed, some things have remained the same.

According to the original 1915 handwritten ledger, the club’s members sold baked goods to raise money, and today’s members are “known for their baking,” according to McLaughlin, who has been a member for 17 years.

Their treats will be an important part of the upcoming parish festival, Septemberfest, which will be held September 13 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The festival will also feature pie eating and judging contests, a petting zoo, antique cars, carnival games, pony rides and other diversions.

Each year, the club gives part of the money they raise directly to the parish. Recently, they have put in pews in the church and made a variety of big purchases for the parish center. The women contribute to a number of other charitable organizations, including Our Daily Bread, Abundant Hope, New Hope, Catholic Charities, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Homes with Heart, the One Fund Boston and West Side Benevolent Fund.

They also have a college scholarship fund, open to parishioners who are high school seniors. Two winners receive $500 each based on their service to the parish and the wider community.

In addition to fund-raising activities, the women participate in Spiritual enrichment and social gatherings. Annually, they host parish-wide spaghetti suppers and an ecumenical Christmas potluck for women from all the area Christian churches. Many of their social events are for their members. They host talks or go to the theater together. Sometimes they have an activity like making chocolate or arranging flowers.

Members say these gatherings are a chance to be refreshed.

Spiritual events include daylong retreats, praying the Rosary together and discussing the inspirational stories of female saints.

McLaughlin called the club a “lifeline” and said that club

continued from page seven

The Holy See, Archbishop Auza explained, is a Permanent Observer State to the United Nations, which means that it has access to most meetings, can give speeches and participate in negotiations, but cannot vote or present candidates to positions at the U.N. The Holy See has chosen to maintain this status over participating as a Member State because it better accords with the political neutrality necessary to underline its service to the “family nations.”

Jose Arroyo, a seminarian in his third of four years studying theology, said that Archbishop Auza’s clarification was helpful to grasp the Holy See’s role.

“We are not there to gain power or bind ourselves to any political group,” he said.

“Our position is to make sure that everyone is respected.”

Arroyo added that the experience of studying for the priesthood at Dunwoodie was a good preparation to grasp the international flavor of the U.N. “We have our own little United Nations here,” Arroyo said, referring to the fact that seminarians at St. Joseph’s Seminary hail from dozens of different countries of origin.

Visiting the place where representatives from the nations of the world assemble, Arroyo added, was a good preparation for those who will be sent to proclaim the Gospel to all nations.

“It is important to realize the Church is made up of many members of different backgrounds and cultures, and I need to be more informed because we have to focus on the reality of the people we are going to serve.”

Some seminarians joked that Archbishop Auza might have been addressing future staff members or even his own future successor, since the group of priests-to-be left the U.N. with their interest kindled in the Holy See’s involvement there.

“We talked about our visit on the way back to the seminary on bus and everyone was amazed,” seminarian Ricardo Rivera stated. “Even the next day at breakfast, everyone was still talking about the United Nations. If they give me the opportunity to work there, I would.”

continued from page one

members helped her through some challenges she experienced having a child with special needs.

“I needed prayer and support,” she said. “When I was frustrated, I had people praying for me.”

She said members support each other through struggles and in life’s joys.

Celeste Jones, president of the club for the last five years, said the club is a group of women of “great faith” with whom she has built lasting bonds.

“I’ve developed a lot of friends in the last few years that I probably would not have had if I sat at

home,” she said.

Lucille Stewart, a previous president and member of the Spirituality committee, said that the club has adapted with the times in order to serve its members and the parish well.

She added that she hopes the club will always remain a support for thriving Catholic women and continue to support St. Mary’s.

“It’s very rewarding to do things for the Church, no matter what they are. Whatever father calls on us to do, I hope we can always respond,” she said.

Aylan Kurdit, a three-year old migrant from Syria, drowned in a failed attempt by his family to sail to the Greek island of Kos. (CNS photo/Reuters)

Turn away if you must

T

Everyone, everyone, since urn away if you must.

Adam and Eve has been a Cover the picture with refugee or the descendant of a your hand, or simply turn the refugee. page.

The root of what caused little Why not? I would guess thouAylan to die so young and so sands have done just that when tragically is what it usually is — this heart-wrenching photo of a one person or group of people drowned three-year-old Aylan who think they are better than Kurdit appeared on myriad media outlets and social media sites. another. And it’s never going to end — because someone, someI couldn’t turn away. In fact I where will hold true to that cause. searched for this to run it with my column this week. I posted the photo on Facebook.

This is not one of those commercials

By Dave Jolivet about abused animals that is so easily shoved We can all begin to change aside — out of sight, out of mind. that in our own little worlds; in There are those who have in the family, at school, at work, at fact, figuratively embraced this play. But it will never go away. innocent little lad with their There will always be those prayers, and with their written who feel someone is getting and spoken words. something for nothing or taking In fact my colleague and dear “native’s” jobs. Consequently, friend Frank Lucca writes about those just seeking to survive Aylan in his column on page 17 will ultimately drown in a sea of of this Anchor edition. selfishness.

Words cannot describe what Maybe this photo doesn’t I felt when I first laid eyes on Aylan. In fact, I may have unwit- bother some. Maybe it’s because I tingly blurted out something not held the lifeless body of a child in my arms that it hurts so much. fit for print when I saw him.

Some people will never change There is absolutely no excuse and this scene will be repeated. for this having to happen. I don’t Only when God meets each of care what anyone’s religious, political, ethnic, social or personal us face-to-face, will justice occur.

And little Aylan just may be by feelings about immigration may His side when it happens. be. This is wrong. Dead wrong.

My View From the Stands

15

September 11, 2015

CSS, SVdP team up to provide school supplies for needy kids continued from page one

“When I met with the (diocesan) president, Irene Frechette, I asked why there hadn’t been an effort to get them working together.

To me, their mission is the same.”

According to Frechette, the Vincentians first became aware of the growing homeless population within the diocese when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts began contracting with local motels to provide temporary housing for them.

“When the families started coming to our food pantries, we noticed we were getting a bit overwhelmed and that was just prior to Catholic Social Services taking it over,” Frechette said. “When I heard they were taking it over, the Holy Spirit seemed to be telling me something. I immediately called Nancy because I realized they can’t be everywhere and do everything.

They have scattered sites all over the diocese — but then who provides the local services? Well, it should be St. Vincent de Paul Society.

We’re all in this together.”

Noting that CSS and the St. Vincent de Paul Society had already begun to collaborate on providing access to local food pantries when new families were initially placed in one of the motels, Lawson said it soon expanded into other areas such as school supplies and holiday meals.

“Our relationship started about six years ago with the scattered sites, which are units that are located in the cities we service,” Lawson said. “At that time, we didn’t have a contract with the state for motel work, however, effective October of last year, we entered into a contract with the Commonwealth to work with the motel families.”

The six motel sites within the diocese where CSS currently assists displaced families include the Dartmouth Motor Inn, the Swansea Motor Inn, the Somerset Motor Inn, the Atlantic Motor Inn in Wareham, the Knights Inn in North Attleboro, and the Attleboro Motor Inn. “These families are living in one room in a motel,”

Lawson said. “In most cases, the only thing they have to their name is a college-sized refrigerator and a microwave.

They can’t really cook in the rooms. We have an office at each of these motels and our agency provides food pantry runs and there are makeshift pantries in the motels for families that come in with nothing. St. Vincent de Paul also supports us by making home visits — not only in the motels, but in some of our scattered sites as well.”

Last year Frechette said the St. Vincent de Paul Society hired buses to transport the families to a prepared Thanksgiving dinner, and they did the same at Christmas as well.

“CSS provides the case management, but somebody has to provide the supportive services — those are things that they don’t deal with — and that’s where the St. Vincent de Paul Society comes in,” Frechette said.

Having cultivated this collaborative relationship for the past six years, Lawson and Frechette said they are now seeing it spread throughout the diocese, as more and more St. Vincent de Paul groups are stepping up to assist CSS. “We’ve gotten to a point now where St. Vincent de Paul has really started to grow in the diocese in its collaboration with Catholic Social Services,” Lawson said. “It’s been such a blessing!”

In fact, it was a chance meeting with the Vincentians at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Seekonk that led to the recent collection of school supplies.

Lawson said as soon as they mentioned the kids would soon be returning to school and would need backpacks and various other supplies, the Seekonk group was immediately on a mission.

“They were so excited because they were up to 65 (volunteer) hours at one point,” Lawson said. “People don’t realize how valuable their time is to us. These are hours that we could never do, because our staffing is so limited. We’re working with a bare-bones staff and if we didn’t have volunteers, honestly, there would be no

cred Heart Parish in North Attleboro and St. Theresa Parish in South Attleboro way we could do what we do. are also on our emergency call list.’”

Without them, without the Additionally, the colcaring parishioners donating, lective St. Vincent de Paul and without the Vincentians district in Attleboro dogoing out and shopping for nated $12,000 to be used all the supplies, we couldn’t for “camperships” so some do this.” of the children could atThe Seekonk conference tend the Attleboro YMCA even took the time to sepaand Hockomock YMCA rate and bag all of the supin North Attleboro during plies by age and/or grade. school vacations.

“They put all the school Frechette said the St. supplies in baggies so that Vincent de Paul Society is we could literally just grab a now spearheading an effort baggie and grab a backpack to start a national program and give it to a family in known as “Getting Ahead” need,” she said. “That’s the kind of service they provide.” here in the diocese. Based on the “Bridges Out of Poverty” Other parishes have concept, Frechette said it’s launched similar collecan educational initiative to tion efforts, including St. help people better underRita’s Parish in Marion, St. stand and address poverty.

Anthony’s Parish in Mat“It’s a 16-week program tapoisett, St. Julie Billiart and it’s an opportunity for Parish in North Dartmouth, St. Theresa’s Parish in South people who are in poverty or Attleboro, Sacred Heart Par- near poverty but want to get ahead,” she said. “We help ish in North Attleboro, and them examine their lives — St. Mary’s Parish in New not only their own lives, but Bedford. to look at the community “All of these parishes they live in. The whole condid a backpack and school cept of what we do within supply drive,” Lawson said. the St. Vincent de Paul So“The St. Vincent de Paul ciety has changed. Before, all Society at St. Julie Billiart we were doing was helping Parish also prepares welpeople stay at the bottom, come baskets for families at and we can’t do that.” the Dartmouth Motor Inn. “The construct is we’re They’re also on our emertelling people what they gency call list if we need food from their food pantry. think they need, but we need to bring them to the table The Fall River Deanery and listen and ask them provides support for famiwhat they need,” Frechette lies at three motels — the added. “Part of the process Dartmouth Motor Inn, the Swansea Motor Inn, and the is to help people grow and learn how to journey out of Somerset Motor Inn — bepoverty, because the comcause they’re kind of in the munity puts barriers up. But middle. They get calls from by pulling the community everybody for help. Sa-

This week in

together, we can get things done.”

Lawson agreed, adding that the goal for CSS in working with these families is very similar.

“We don’t want to just hand out, we want to provide a hand up,” she said.

“We want people to feel self-empowered, we want people to be accountable, and we want people to understand that the days of just give-give-give are no longer, because our resources are so limited. We have so many guidelines that we have to follow that, unfortunately, it comes down to choice.

That’s where the accountability comes in, that’s where the education comes in — so the St. Vincent de Paul Society is a great partner.”

At the end of the day, Lawson said if her efforts have somehow managed to make just one life better, then it all would have been worth it.

“When we find units and those kids finally have their own bedrooms and beds — their own little space — that’s what we live for,” she said. “And when they come back to thank you — there’s nothing quite like it.”

“We give them hope,” Frechette added. “Sometimes people come to you and all you can do is listen.

We try to help them prioritize what needs to be done, and at least they walk away knowing they have a place to start. Sometimes that’s all we can do.”

For more information on Catholic Social Services visit www.cssdioc.org, or call 508674-4681.

Diocesan history

50 years ago — Very Rev. Roland R. Bedard, provincial superior of the La Salette Fathers, announced the transfer of the La Salette’s provincial headquarters from Southbridge to Attleboro, on property adjacent to the La Salette Shrine.

10 years ago — More than 500 people, including Bishop George W. Coleman, attended the Marian Family Festival held on the grounds of St. Louis de France Parish in Swansea. The event included a Mass, music, a cookout, and a concert by John Polce.

25 years ago — More than 100 guests, including clergy from local parishes, representatives of area schools and the diocesan Department of Education, attended a reception welcoming Father John P. Murray, S.J., as the new principal of Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River.

One year ago — Father Rodrigo Miranda, IVE, rector of the cathedral parish in Aleppo, Syria, visited Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish at St. James Church in New Bedford to discuss the dire situation and the needs of fellow Christians in the Middle East.

16

Youth Pages

September 11, 2015

A Mass for the faculty at Holy Trinity School in Fall River was celebrated by pastor Father Bruce Neylon, marking the first day the teachers and staff came back to school. The Mass was followed by breakfast in the parish hall.

Kindergarten students at Holy Name School in Fall River started the new year making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by matching pictures to beginning letter sounds.

St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro recently opened its doors for the upcoming school year. Along with Johnny the Eagle, happy to be back are Genevieve LeBlanc, Brandon LeBlanc, Olivia Baker, Auriel Kyere, and Adrienne Kyere.

Students from St. James-St. John School in New Bedford recently enjoyed spending time together in morning extended care.

Students at St. Michael School in Fall River are all set to begin their new school year with old friends and some new ones.

September 11, 2015

I

’ve been on Facebook for a long time, and I spend some time each day looking through my newsfeed — mostly to catch up on what’s happening in the lives of people I know. Occasionally I come across posts that tug at my heart, but never have I felt such sadness as I did yesterday.

There, in a photo, a small helpless child, lying face down in the sand and water.

Dressed in shorts and a shirt.

Tiny sneakers on his feet.

Dead. Yes, dead. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. How? Why? Those are the obvious questions. As I read the article, I learned

Youth Pages Praying for those who are afraid that this child was a part of a refugee family who found it safer to leave land in two rickety life rafts with 19 other people than to stay where they were on land. Such desperation! The parents had to make that awful choice. Can you imagine? And the choice, in this case, turned out to be a devastating one for the family.

The drowned boy was three-year-old Aylan, from Syria, part of a group of 23 trying to reach the Greek island of Kos. They’d set out in two boats on the 13-mile

Freshmen at St. John Paul II High School in Hyannis get ready to kickoff their high school careers.

At St. Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis, an opening assembly was held recently to bless students in the preparatory school division of St. John Paul II High School. Father Ronnie Floyd, school chaplain, is shown blessing the students, while faculty join in praying behind him.

Aegean journey, but the vessels capsized. Aylan’s fiveyear-old brother, Galip, also drowned, as did the boys’

Be Not Afraid

By Deacon Frank Lucca mother, Rehan. Their father, Abdullah, survived. In all, five children from that journey are reported dead.

Perhaps I was struck by this as the little child resembled in many ways my own grandson. I cannot even imagine the grief the father is feeling. But what choice did he have when surrounded by war and poverty? It was a no-win situation for this family and countless others.

I just have to ask, what the heck is going on? One tragedy after another. When will it all end? Every day we read about another terrible tragedy. When overcome with fear and tragedy, where else can we turn, but to God in prayer? When faced with fear and tragedy, perhaps the title of this weekly feature, “Be Not Afraid,” might give us some encouragement. It is probably a phrase that we’ve heard many times in our lives. It is a phrase that, I have learned, is repeated more than 300 times in the Gospels. And it is a phrase that was sounded by the late Pope St. John Paul II, especially in his consistent message to the youth of the world over the last quarter century of his life, “Be not afraid, young people. Get up, Jesus is calling you! He’s your Creator; He’s your Redeemer; He has a plan for your lives. Give yourselves to Him; give yourselves to others out of love for Him, and discover the truth that will set you free — the truth that will guide you through this earthly existence and into God’s eternal Kingdom.”

Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have echoed the same message to us.

I believe that our young people — and all of us for that matter could relate to what Pope St. John Paul II

said because he so fearlessly practiced what he preached.

He dodged Nazis and then the communists when he grew up in Poland.

He studied for the priesthood in secrecy.

He challenged communism, suffered an assassination attempt and went home to the Father after facing a long and debilitating illness. He was tough — physically, mentally and morally. He was unyielding in his beliefs.

It is also an ongoing message that needs to be repeated today and every day, to everyone, but especially the young. Be not afraid.

Today we live in a society where even the most innocent are sometimes treated as disposable objects — like little Aylan. Be not afraid.

Our Christian brothers and sisters are being persecuted in more than 50 countries today. Be not afraid. Many abuse themselves with food, drugs, sex and alcohol. Be not afraid. Many live with broken relationships and broken promises and broken lives. Be not afraid. Hungry and lonely. Be not afraid.

Out of work, out of savings, out of time. Be not afraid.

Afraid. Be not afraid.

There is no doubt that things are tough right now.

We always seem to be waiting for the next shoe to drop. We’re all a bit afraid.

Time and time again, however, when we join together as a people, as Christian

17 people, we can make a difference in the world! It is this very Spirit of prayer, self-giving and of caring and service to others that will get us through these difficult times. But to make it through, we need to set our sights on Someone greater than ourselves. The reason Pope St. John Paul II was not afraid is that he set his sights on Christ. We must do the same. Pope St. John Paul II also stated in his first address, “Be not afraid to welcome Christ. Be not afraid. Rather, open wide the doors to Christ! Open the frontiers of your states to Christ’s power of Salvation, your economic systems as well as the political ones, the wide fields of culture, of civilization, of development.

Be not afraid!”

Let’s pray for all of those who desperately need our help and our prayers, and especially for Aylan and his family; for all of the desperate refugees and for all of the persecuted people of the world; and for all who are afraid.

Amen.

Anchor columnist Frank Lucca is a permanent deacon in the Diocese of Fall River, a youth minister at St. Dominic’s Parish in Swansea, and a campus minister at UMass Dartmouth. He is married to his wife of 37 years, Kristine, and the father of two daughters and their husbands, and a 19-month-old grandson.

DeaconFrankLucca@ comcast.net.

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

18

September 11, 2015

Marriage is a Sacrament for life all desire love, a happy home and children to share it with.”

Doug added, “The Sacrament of Marriage hasn’t changed either. It still remains God’s privileged way of uniting a man and a woman in a lasting bond that welcomes and nurtures children. As a Sacrament, it empowers us to overcome all the obstacles to living married love fully in today’s world as God intended.

act of celebrating the union of the couple.

“I tell them that they should always remember this day, to remember this day that they’re kneeling in front of the altar and kneeling in front of the crucifix in love and sacrifice, and they should always remember that; Jesus’ Sacrament is giving, and they don’t get married just to be happy only, but to ‘make happy,’” he said. “I think it’s sad that basically today the young people do not value Marriage, so

That is the Good News we want to extend to others in today’s society.

That is what we hope and pray to achieve through our involvement in Marriage ministry, and in particular, through this Marriage enrichment.”

Priests have had a front row seat to the evolution of Marriage. Sometimes a person’s background may influence his or her choice to make a commitment to another person before God, said Msgr. Oliveira, who also witnesses family and friends skip the church celebration altogether and simply attend the reception.

For his part, Msgr. Oliveira focuses on the couple who is before him saying their vows, and emphasizes the

many are living together without the benefit of the Sacrament of Marriage.”

Father Patrick Killilea, SS.CC., pastor of St. Francis Parish in Kalaupapa, Hawaii, may not be celebrating a lot of weddings at the historic site of St. Damien’s leper colony, but he does acknowledge that “Marriage is a Sacred bond between man and woman, calling them to companionship and partnership in a loving relationship blessed by God while their intimate union enables them to participate in God’s plan for procreation,” he said, adding that those getting married today face more worries than Mar-

continued from page one

in front of me, in the church, committing themselves for life,” he said.

“I also realize more and more, and stress, that a wedding is a day and a Marriage is for life.

“I think people today who get married, it’s more ceremony than a long-lasting commitment, at times.

They’re so focused on the moment of getting ready — bachelor and bachelorette showers, the flowers, music — that I think they lose that the wedding is a day and a Marriage is a lifetime, so they don’t necessarily see the import and value of the Sacrament that they receive; for some, not for all, it’s a just a gathering of friends and family.”

The Office of Faith Formation of the Diocese of Fall River is trying to counter that idea of minimalizing the Sacrament of Marriage by offering comprehensive Marriage ministry programs, including an upcoming Marriage Enrichment Day to be held October 25 and led by Doug and Deb Sousa, parishioners of St. John of God Parish in Somerset.

“When we hear the word ‘Marriage,’” said Deb, “we think back to the Creation story in Genesis when Adam first saw Eve and shouted with joy, ‘This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!’ Marriage is the realization of that desire in each of us to be connected in one flesh to another person for the rest of our lives. It’s also connected to God’s Creation of the world because new life comes from the love of man and woman.”

The couple have been involved in Marriage ministry in the diocese for just over year, a volunteer effort inspired by their participation in a Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend in March of last year.

“That really was the answer to our prayer to be involved in Marriage ministry,” said Doug. “It’s something we always talked about but never really had the opportunity or invitation to do so. Since our Marriage Encounter, we have been involved with that movement but we’ve also had the opportunity to contribute to Marriage prep and even re-Marriage prep in the diocese. We really found this to be a blessing for our Marriage.”

The definition of Marriage has been somewhat controversial of late, but regardless of what has been playing out in the media, the Sousas haven’t lost sight of what the Sacrament stands for: “There’s no doubt that our society’s idea of Marriage and how it is lived out has changed over the past 40 to 50 years,” said Deb. “We’re all painfully aware of the statistics including the prevalence of divorce and single-parent homes. However, at the same time, human nature hasn’t changed. We

riages from decades ago. “Marriage has evolved in the sense that mothers today find themselves in the workforce more than before, which places more of a burden on mothers and calls for increased responsibility on fathers. In many ways Marriages face more obstacles than before.

May the Lord help all couples to live up to the promises of their Marriage.”

That’s why parishes stress that couples participate in Marriage prep programs before celebrating the Sacrament of Marriage to build a foundation for the couple, and then follow that up with attending Marriage ministry events to help each couple to continue to work out issues and create a solid partnership for the future.

“A Marriage prep program is necessary in helping couples bring to the surface some questions they might not otherwise have asked each other and in grasping the Sacramental meaning of Marriage,” said Deb. “But the real work of Marriage prep comes from good homes and, after the wedding day, from the community of faith at large in supporting them by offering opportunities to reflect on their Sacrament.”

“Marriage takes an awful lot of work,” said Msgr. Oliveira. “I feel so sad that the young people are not willing to make a commitment, and do not know the benefits of the Sacrament of Marriage and how God’s grace is there. Oftentimes people who are married don’t realize the gift of the Sacrament it brings to them, and the reason I feel so bad is that they often end up lonely and bitter, and very alienated. You see people who are married at these wedding anniversaries, and they’re just a great example. We seem to stress those who are divorced or living together, and don’t stress enough those who are living out the Sacrament day-byday.”

Go to www.wwme.org to f ind the closest Worldwide Marriage Encounter being held in your area. The Off ice of Faith Formation in Fall River also has upcoming events celebrating Marriage.

Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., will celebrate a special Mass of Thanksgiving for couples celebrating a signif icant wedding anniversary, including one year, on October 18 at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River. If you would like an invitation, please let your pastor know as soon as possible.

“Staying Engaged after ‘I Do,’” a Marriage Enrichment Day will be held on October 25 at St. John of God Parish in Somerset.

Registration is free though they ask couples to register in advance as lunch is being provided; go to www.

FallRiverFaithFormation.org or call Rose Mary Saraiva at the Off ice of Faith Formation at 508-678-2828, extension 27.

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September 11, 2015

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese

In Your Prayers

Acushnet — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Evening prayer and Benediction is held Monday through Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

ASSONET — Beginning September 14, St. Bernard’s Parish will have Eucharistic Adoration every Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed on the altar at the conclusion of 9 a.m. Mass and the church will be open all day, concluding with evening prayer and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.

ATTLEBORO — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the Adoration Chapel at St. Vincent de Paul Parish, 71 Linden Street, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

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

ATTLEBORO — There is a weekly Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration Thursdays from 5:30 to 6:30 pm at St. John the Evangelist Church on N. Main St. 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, Monday through Saturday, from 6:30 to 8 a.m.; and every first Friday from noon to 8 a.m. on Saturday.

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 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 11:30 a.m. in the Chapel of Reconciliation, with Benediction at 11:30 a.m. Also, there is a First Friday Mass each month at 7 p.m., followed by a Holy Hour with Eucharistic Adoration. Refreshments follow.

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

FALL RIVER — St. Bernadette’s Church, 529 Eastern Ave., has continuous Eucharistic Adoration from 8 a.m. on Thursday until 8 a.m. on Saturday.

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

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

FALL RIVER — Good Shepherd Parish has Eucharistic Adoration every Friday following the 8 a.m. Mass and concluding with 3 p.m. Benediction in the Daily Mass Chapel.

A bilingual holy hour takes place from 2 to 3 p.m. Park behind the church and enter the back door of the connector between the church and the rectory.

Falmouth — For July and August St. Patrick’s Church has Eucharistic Adoration on Wednesday and Friday 9 a.m. to noon Benediction at St. Thomas Chapel, Falmouth Heights.

MANSFIELD — St. Mary’s Parish, 330 Pratt Street, has Eucharistic Adoration every First Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., with Benediction at 5:45 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. Please use the side entrance.

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

NEW BEDFORD — St. Lawrence Martyr Parish, 565 County Street, holds Eucharistic Adoration in the side chapel Fridays from 7:30-11:45 a.m. ending with a simple Benediction NORTH DARTMOUTH — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m., ending with Benediction.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

NORTH DIGHTON — Eucharistic Adoration takes place every Wednesday following 8:00 a.m. Mass and concludes with Benediction at 5 p.m. Eucharistic Adoration also takes place every First Friday at St. Nicholas of Myra Church, 499 Spring Street following the 8 a.m. Mass, ending with Benediction at 6 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 7:30 to 8 a.m.

NORTH EASTON — A Holy Hour for Families including Eucharistic Adoration is held every Friday from 3-4 p.m. at The Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street.

ORLEANS — St. Joan of Arc Parish, 61 Canal Road, has Eucharistic Adoration every First Friday starting after the 8 a.m. Mass and ending with Benediction at 11:45 a.m.

The Sacrament of the Sick is also available immediately after the 8 a.m. Mass.

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

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

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

Taunton — Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament takes place every First Friday at Annunciation of the Lord, 31 First Street. Exposition begins following the 8 a.m.

Mass. The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed, and Adoration will continue throughout the day. Confessions are heard from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Rosary and Benediction begin at 6:30 p.m.

WAREHAM — Eucharistic Adoration at St. Patrick’s Church begins each Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. and ends on Friday night at midnight. Adoration is held in our Adoration Chapel in the lower Parish Hall.

Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks

~ PERPETUAL EUCHARISTIC ADORATION ~ 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.

NEW BEDFORD — Our Lady’s Chapel, 600 Pleasant Street, offers Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day. For information call 508-996-8274.

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

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 are invited to sign up to cover open hours. For open hours, or to sign up call 508-430-4716.

Sept. 5 Rev. Napoleon, A. Messier, Pastor, St. Mathieu, Fall River, 1948 Sept. 7 Very Rev. James E. McMahon, V. F. Pastor, Sacred Heart, Oak Bluffs, 1966 Rev. Raymond Pelletier, M.S., La Salette Shrine, North Attleboro, 1984 Sept. 8 Rev. Thomas Sheehan, Founder, Holy Trinity, Harwich Center, 1868 Sept. 10 Rev. Hugo Dylla, Pastor, St. Stanislaus, Fall River, 1966 Rt. Rev. Felix S. Childs, Retired Pastor, Sacred Heart, Fall River, 1969 Sept. 11 Rev. Joachim Shults, SS.CC., Our Lady of Assumption, New Bedford, 1987 Rev. Cyril Augustyn, OFM, Conv., Pastor, Holy Rosary, Taunton, 1997 Rev. Francis E. Grogan, CSC, Superior, Holy Cross Residence, North Dartmouth, 2001 Rev. Martin Grena, 2004 Rev. Terence F. Keenan, Former Pastor, St. Mary, South Dartmouth, Former Pastor, Immaculate Conception, Fall River, 2010 Sept. 12 Rev. John J. Galvin, STD, Assistant, SS. Peter and Paul, Fall River, 1962 Most Rev. James L. Connolly, Sc.H D, Fourth Bishop of Fall River, 1951-70, 1986 Rev. John R. Folster, Pastor, St. Louis de France, Swansea, 1995 Sept. 13 Rev. Antonio Felisbesto Diaz, St. Lawrence Martyr (former St. Mary’s), New Bedford, 1866 Rev. Charles A.J. Donovan, Pastor, Immaculate Conception, North Easton, 1949 Rev. Isadore Kowalski, OFM, Conv., Our Lady’s Haven, Fairhaven, 2003 Sept. 14 Rev. Stanislaus J. Ryczek, USA Retired Chaplain, Former Pastor Our Lady of Perpetual Help, New Bedford, 1982 Sept. 15 Rev. Henry J. Mussely, Pastor, St. Jean Baptiste, Fall River, 1934 Rev. Brendan McNally, S.J., Holy Cross College, Worcester, 1958 Rev. John J. Casey, Pastor, Immaculate Conception, North Easton, 1969 Sept. 16 Rt. Rev. Msgr. Jean A. Prevost, P.A., P.R., Pastor, Notre Dame de Lourdes, Fall River, 1925 Sept. 17 Rev. Thomas F. McNulty, Pastor, St. Kilian, New Bedford, 1954 Cardinal Humberto Sousa Medeiros, Archbishop of Boston, 1970-83, Pastor of St. Michael, Fall River 1960 -1966, 1983 Rev. Felix Lesnek, SS.CC., Former Associate Pastor, St. Joseph, Fairhaven, 1991 Sept. 18 Rev. Luke Golla, SS.CC., Seminary of Sacred Heart, Wareham, 1945 Rt. Rev. Msgr. Edmund J. Ward, Retired Pastor, St. Patrick, Fall River, 1964

First bishop of Samoan diocese dies in R.I.

NORTH SMITHFIELD, R.I. (CNS) — The U.S.-born former archbishop of Suva, Fiji, Archbishop George H. Pearce, died August 30 at a retirement residence. He was 94.

As bishop of the Islands of Samoa and Tokelau, then-Bishop Pearce participated in the four eight-week sessions of the Second Vatican Council. He was one of the last surviving bishopparticipants in the historic sessions from 1962 to 1965.

A native of Boston, Archbishop Pearce served as a missionary

in the Samoa Islands with the Marists for six years from 1949 to 1956, when he was named vicar apostolic of Samoa and Tokelau and ordained a bishop in Boston on June 29, 1956.

Ten years later, he was named the first bishop for Apia, Samoa, when it was erected as a diocese.

A year later, in 1967, he was made archbishop of Suva. Archbishop Pearce went on to serve as administrator of the Diocese of Agana, which covers Guam and the Marianas Islands from 1969 to 1971.

Around the Diocese A Healing Mass and Blessing with St. André’s Relic and Anointing with St. Joseph Oil will be held at St. Joseph Chapel, 500 Washington Street, at Holy Cross Family Ministries in North Easton on September 13 with Rosary at 1:30 p.m. and Mass at 2 p.m. All are welcome to join either or both. St. André was known as the “Miracle Man of Montrèal” for his intercession in the healing of thousands of the faithful at the St. Joseph Oratory in Montreal. More than two million people visit his shrine each year. St. André’s relic will be available for blessing and veneration. For more information call Holy Cross Family Ministries at 508238-4095, extension 2027 or visit www.familyrosary.org/events.

St. Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford is having a Healing Mass on September 17. The evening of prayer will begin with a Holy Hour from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m., which will include the Sacrament of Confession. Holy Mass will begin at 6:30 p.m. It will conclude with healing prayers and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. All are welcome.

The St. Vincent de Paul Society of St. Anthony Parish in East Falmouth will host an Island Queen Sunset Cruise to benefit their charitable works on September 17 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Free parking will be available at the ship wharf in Falmouth Harbor starting at 5 p.m. Ladies Choice, a local Irish band, will provide lively music,a light supper is included, along with silent auction and raffles. For tickets or more information, please call 508-457-0085.

All are invited to pray the new Culture of Life Chaplet on September 17 at 1 p.m. in St. Jude’s Chapel of Christ the King Parish in Mashpee. Recitation is on done on ordinary Rosary beads and will include a brief meditation preceding each of the five decades.

The Fall River Diocesan Council of Catholic Women will meet on September 19 at St. Patrick’s Parish in Wareham. The meeting will begin with coffee and light refreshments at 9 a.m. The guest speaker will be Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz, who will speak about current scams. Women from all parishes are welcome to attend and join to find out more about the various Spiritual and charitable events the council is planning for the coming months.

The Catholic Women’s Council of Our Lady of Grace Parish in Westport will hold its annual Giant Yard Sale in the parish center on Sanford Road. The event will take place, rain or shine, on the weekend of September 19 and September 20 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. both days.

On Columbus Day weekend, Our Lady of Lourdes Parish will host its annual holly fair at 2282 Route 6 in Wellfleet. The event will take place on October 10 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., then again on October 11 beginning after the 10:30 a.m. Mass. The fair will offer beautiful themed baskets, a quilt raffle, books, teacup raffle, homemade items, toys, ornaments, baked goods, wreaths, silent auction, White Elephant table, jewelry, cookies and much more! Photos with Santa will be taken on Saturday (October 10) from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Food offerings will include hot dogs, stuffed quahogs, sausage and peppers, clam chowder, chili and more.

Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish in Seekonk will host its annual holiday fair on November 13 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on November 14 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the church hall on Coyle Drive (off Route 152) in Seekonk. The event will feature super raffles including an Apple gift card, HDTV, scratch tickets, “Kim’s Special Raffles,” and the famous “Baskets Galore.” There will also be jewelry, hand-knit items, Christmas gifts, adult and kids instant wins, toys, home-baked goods, fudge, and much more.

Louise’s Cafe will be serving goodies all day.

20

September 11, 2015

People look at the North Pool of the 9/11 Memorial in New York City recently. Pope Francis will visit the memorial and participate in an interreligious prayer service inside its museum September 25. The 9/11 tragedies occurred 14 years ago today. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)

Revised and updated ...

The 2015-16 Diocesan Directory

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