11.28.08

The Anchor

Diocese of Fall River

F riday , November 28, 2008

Christmas shopping: Picking out retailers that are naughty or nice

By Gail Besse Anchor Correspondent

“I love this time of year — when the nation’s retailers fill my mailbox with catalogs wishing me a Happy Non-specified Holiday!”

So begins a funny Web video clip with serious advice about stores that purge the word Christmas from their advertising.

“Shutterfly tells me it’s ‘that time’ again, but never tells me exactly what time that might be,” narrator Stuart Shepard says on the Citizenlink Stoplight video.

“I visit Old Navy online, but all I can find is the ‘holiday’ collection.” He sounds puzzled.

Shepard then gives the nation’s retailers a little message.

He smiles as he waves a $20 bill. “Here, let me speak your language,” he continues playfully, tossing “holiday” catalogs into a wastebasket as Christmas carols are heard in the background.

Shepard explains to retailers: “If you’re going to be making money off our holiday, we’d seriously love it if you’d just celebrate it with us. And if you can’t do that, at least show a little respect. Call it what it is: Christmas!”

Those retailers that do acknowledge the name of the holiday that falls on December 25 get Shepard’s attention — and money.

“When L.L. Bean offers to ‘make my Christmas brighter,’ suddenly I find myself in the mood to buy some thermal light ear warmers,” he jokes.

The two-minute video, posted at Citizenlink.org, is part of Focus on the Family Action’s “I Stand for Christmas” campaign.

The Colorado-based group is mounting a nationwide grassroots challenge to the secularization of Christmas. Using the Internet and radio ads, Focus Action is harnessing the power of concerned Christian consumers.

The campaign features an online petition that politely asks retailers to at least acknowledge the word Christmas. “We hope you will ‘stand for Christmas’ with us and encourage the continued acknowledgement of this historic Christian observance in our culture,” Focus notes.

There’s also a shopping guide of “Christmas friendly” retailers and those that ignore Christmas in their advertising.

Turn to page 18

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT NOVEMBER 30, 2008

WEARY TRAVELERS — Father Craig A. Pregana, left, pastor of St. Rose of Lima and St. Francis parishes in Guaimaca recently visited The Anchor with two young men from Honduras, Edio Alexis Zuniga Martinez, center, and Jose Francisco Moncada Escoto, right, after completing a pilgrimage to Rome. In the back are Father Pregana’s nephew and niece, Jamison and Gabriele Souza. (Photo by Dave Jolivet)

Guaimacan visitors grateful, happy, but eager to get home

By Deacon James N. Dunbar

FALL RIVER — It’s going to take a while for two young men from the Guaimacan mission parishes in Honduras to piece together the collage of memo-

ries from recent visits to Rome and the Fall River Diocese.

But two things stand out for the first-time pilgrims after their jaunt across the world: they are grateful for all that has been

given them and the relationships with caring American Catholics they have formed; and while they discovered international food is quite good, they long for Turn to page 20

following the lead of several other parishes on Cape Cod. In the case of Our Lady of Victory, it was born out of a bereavement luncheon

group, of which Ryan was a member.

“Everyone thought it would Turn to page 18

Knitting shawls a labor of love, opportunity to offer comfort

By Michael Pare Anchor Staff

CENTERVILLE — Every Wednesday, just after the 9 a.m.

Mass, at least a dozen women gather in the parish center at Our Lady of Victory and break out their knitting needles. They are part of the parish’s “Prayer Shawl Ministry.” In total, the group boasts of approximately 50 members, all of whom knit shawls for home bound individuals, those who may be sick, or others simply in need of comfort.

Natalie Ryan, a parishioner at Our Lady of Victory for 30 years, started the group in May of 2007,

BUSY HANDS — Members of the Our Lady of Victory Parish Prayer Shawl Ministry create shawls and pray for those in need of support. The Centerville group meets each Wednesday.

Priest from Orissa speaks out against the persecution of Catholics in his homeland

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

FAIRHAVEN — As oppression grows in his home state of Orissa, India, manifesting itself in the brutal beatings and killings of Catholic and Christian missionaries, Father Francis Subal, SS.CC., of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary hopes and prays that his people will one day be free to worship Christ without fear of persecu-

tion.

Having been transferred to Fairhaven for a twoyear assignment back in May after a brief stay in the Bahamas, Father Subal still has immediate family members and friends in Orissa for whom he prays on a daily basis given the recent atrocities in the area. Although no harm has come to anyone close to him, he is aware of some others who have fallen Turn to page 15

News From the Vatican

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November 28, 2008

Pope: Church must increase efforts to educate Catholics in politics

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Catholic Church must strengthen its efforts to educate and assist lay Catholics involved in politics so that the positions they hold and the policies they promote reflect the values of the faith they profess, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Meeting members of the Pontifical Council for the Laity earlier this month, the pope emphasized the need to educate lay Catholics to play their proper role in building a world of justice, charity and protection of human rights.

“In a special way, I reaffirm the necessity and urgency of the evangelical formation and pastoral accompaniment of a new generation of Catholics involved in politics, that they would be coherent with their professed faith,” morally upright, professional and passionate about serving the common good, he said.

Laypeople are called to fulfill their mission as followers and witnesses to Christ in government, social life, workplaces, schools and families, the pope said.

“Every environment, circumstance and activity in which we

hope will shine the unity between faith and life is entrusted to the responsibility of the lay faithful, moved by a desire to communicate the gift of encountering Christ and the certainty of the dignity of the human person,” the pope said.

Pope Benedict also praised the council for the laity’s commitment to promoting the dignity and participation of women in the Church and in the world.

“Man and woman, equal in dignity, are called to enrich each other in communion and collaboration, not only in marriage and family life, but also in society,” he said.

“One can never say enough about how much the Church recognizes, appreciates and values the participation of women in its mission of spreading the Gospel,” the pope said.

In a world where so many people are not aware of the beauty of the truth and the joy of being Christian, he said, the Church relies on laypeople to share “the treasure of grace and holiness, charity, doctrine, culture and works that make up the Catholic tradition.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Withholding nutrition and hydration from a woman in a persistent vegetative state is a serious, inadmissible attack on life, said two Vatican officials.

Italy’s top appeals court refused recently to overturn a lowercourt decision allowing the withdrawal of the nasogastric tube that has kept Eluana Englaro alive for more than 16 years.

For years, Englaro’s father had been pursuing a legal battle to allow his daughter to die. She was injured in a car accident in 1992.

Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told reporters: “It is a very serious decision. It is

a big defeat for everyone.”

Englaro “is a 37-year-old woman, a living person who is not attached to any machine, who breathes, who wakes and sleeps,” he said. “And water and nourishment will be withheld from her, condemning her to a certain death with serious suffering and pain,” he said.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, told reporters that, while the Catholic Church does not insist that extraordinary measures be taken to keep a dying person alive, nutrition and hydration “are not extraordinary therapies that can be suspended. Interrupting them is equivalent to killing her.”

Withholding nutrition, hydration is euthanasia, say Vatican officials

WHAT’S COOKING? — A chef films his colleague as they attend Pope Benedict XVI’s weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square recently. (CNS photo/Alessandro Bianchi, Reuters)

Bishop backlog: ‘Ad limina’ visits no longer occur every five years

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — The “ad limina” visits bishops make to the Vatican to report on the status of their dioceses no longer take place every five years.

In 2004 the U.S. bishops came on a pilgrimage to the tombs of Sts. Peter and Paul, to the “threshold of the apostles” — “ad limina apostolorum” in Latin.

But they will not be back in 2009 and not even in the first months of 2010, said Archbishop Francesco Monterisi, secretary of the Congregation for Bishops, which schedules and coordinates the visits.

Things are backed up at the Vatican.

Almost every week, bevies of bishops can be seen making their way to different Vatican congregations and councils and crossing St. Peter’s Square to go up to the papal apartments, but they all are making their visits for the first time in at least six years.

“Ad limina” visits were suspended during the Holy Year 2000; Pope John Paul II tried to get the visits back on schedule, but his failing health and his death in 2005 made that impossible.

In addition, “the number of bishops in the world has increased significantly since 1983,” when the Code of Canon Law was published, Archbishop Monterisi said. The code reaffirmed the obligation of bishops to send a report on the status of their dioceses to the Vatican every five years, visit the tombs of Sts. Peter and Paul and “appear before the Roman pontiff.”

According to the Vatican’s official statistical yearbook, at the end of 1983 there were 2,285 diocesan bishops in the world and

they had 651 coadjutor or auxiliary bishops.

By the end of 2006 — the year covered in the most recent edition of the yearbook — there were 2,705 diocesan bishops with 606 coadjutor or auxiliary bishops.

In essence, that means that in 1983 the pope would have had to meet an average of 457 diocesan bishops each year in order to see them all every five years.

By 2006, the average number of meetings needed each year rose to 541.

While the obligation to come to Rome does not extend to coadjutor and auxiliary bishops, most of them come with their diocesan bishops, and they all go together to meet the pope.

As Pope John Paul aged, he cut elements he had added to the visits — the two most popular and papal time-consuming parts: a group morning Mass in the pope’s private chapel and lunch with the pope.

Still, the “ad limina”-free Holy Year and a commitment to giving every bishop 10-20 minutes alone with the pope took its toll.

“It is just not possible to pre-

The Anchor

serve the five-year schedule,” Archbishop Monterisi said, although he added that no one at the Vatican is talking about changing the written rules.

The time lag, however, does allow the bishops wiggle room on writing what is still referred to as their “quinquennial reports.”

The Code of Canon Law says, “The diocesan bishop is bound to present a report to the supreme pontiff every five years concerning the state of the diocese committed to him.”

But the Vatican’s directory for “ad limina” visits ties the report’s deadline to the date of the bishop’s appointment with the pope, saying it should be turned in “approximately six months, but not less than three months” before the scheduled visit.

So, while the heads of Brazil’s 252 dioceses spend most of 2009 and part of 2010 making their visits to Rome, the U.S. bishops will have an extra year to pull together diocesan statistics and information covering everything from Catholic schools to vocations, and from health care to ecumenical and interreligious initiatives.

OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER Vol. 52, No. 45

Member: Catholic Press Association, Catholic News Service

Published weekly except for two weeks in the summer and the week after Christmas by the Catholic Press of the Diocese of Fall River, 887 Highland Avenue, Fall River, MA 02720, Telephone 508-675-7151 — FAX 508-675-7048, email: theanchor@anchornews.org.

Subscription price by mail, postpaid $14.00 per year.

Send address changes to P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA, call or use email address

PUBLISHER - Most Reverend George W. Coleman EXECUTIVE EDITOR Father Roger J. Landry fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.org EDITOR David B. Jolivet davejolivet@anchornews.org NEWS EDITOR Deacon James N. Dunbar jimdunbar@anchornews.org OFFICE MANAGER Mary Chase m arychase@anchornews.org ADVERTISING Wayne Powers waynepowers@anchornews.org REPORTER Michael Pare michaelpare@anchornews.org REPORTER Kenneth J. Souza kensouza@anchornews.org Send Letters to the Editor to: fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.org POSTMASTERS send address changes to The Anchor, P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA 02722.

THE ANCHOR (USPS-545-020) Periodical Postage Paid at Fall River, Mass.

November 28, 2008

3

The Anchor

Economy affecting HIV, AIDS battle says local ministry leader

By Deacon James N. Dunbar

24,507 realized 23 HIV cases and clothing in $5, $10, and FALL RIVER — While the and 27 cases of AIDS. $20 denominations from Stop AIDS pandemic sweeping the Because those suffering and Shop, Shaws or WalMart to world is a major obstacle to from HIV and AIDS “includes pay for necessary items such as fighting poverty and promoting a varied list including the dis- milk, bread and warm clothing development, the failing econo- enfranchised … those who have for the winter months ahead. my is itself creating a financial served prison sentences, and “All donations go directly toblock to providing prevention, the mentally ill, we’re minister- ward the needs of our clients,” treatment and care grounded ing to people who are indeed the letter noted. in the teachings of the Catholic among the most needy” in the The donations may be sent Church. to: Office of AIDS MinThe double whams we are preparing for a spe- istry, Clemence Hall, my comes as the 20th cial Thanksgiving dinner or Room 225, 243 Forest commemoration of Street, Fall River, MA purchasing Christmas gifts for loved 02721.

World AIDS Day will be observed on ones, there are individuals and families Even as Dr. Winterin our community who will be thinking Green spoke to The December 1.

“The cutback in only of their most basic needs — food, Anchor, Honduran Carfundings and entitle- clothing and shelter.” dinal Oscar Rodriguez ments on all levels Maradiaga of Teguciof government in the galpa, president of CariUnited States and from many community, Dr. Winter-Green tas International, urged greater agencies finds us hit hard,” added. efforts from governments and reported Dr. Kristen WinterIn attempt to turn things medical experts in caring for Green, director of the Office of around, the Office of AIDS children with HIV, the virus that AIDS Ministry for the Diocese Ministry has initiated the Care causes AIDS. of Fall River.

Coupons system.

“The AIDS pandemic threat“In essence, we are seeing “As we are preparing for a ens the social and economic more clients and receiving less special Thanksgiving dinner or structure of the human family funding,” Dr. Winter-Green purchasing Christmas gifts for and more needs to be done,” said. loved ones, there are individuals Cardinal Rodriquez said.

According to official Massa- and families in our community Because only 15 percent of chusetts health care reports, as who will be thinking only of children worldwide living with of October 1, 2008, in Bristol their most basic needs — food, HIV get the essential drugs, and County, with a population of clothing and shelter. We see this many die before their second 534,678, there were 439 cases every day at the Office of AIDS birthday, the key focus of 162 of HIV and 643 cases of AIDS. Ministry,” recent letter of ap- Caritas members in 107 counBarnstable County with peal from Dr. Winter-Green’s tries in 2009 will be on chil222,230 residents saw 273 cas- office indicated. dren, he reported. es of HIV and 337 of AIDS. It asks holiday shoppers to Caritas provides a large proThe Islands population of pick up a Care Coupon for food portion of all HIV health care

“A

Opening session in cause for sainthood of Father Patrick Peyton takes place in Baltimore

Coined phrase ‘The family that prays together stays together’ BALTIMORE, Md. — Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, Archbishop of Baltimore, presided over the opening session of the Cause for Sainthood of Father Patrick Peyton, CSC during the 12:10 Mass at the Baltimore Basilica on November 20. Father Peyton is best known as the “Rosary Priest,” who encouraged families through his radio and television programs in the 1940s and 50s to pray together daily, especially the rosary.

The investigation into the Cause for Sainthood of Father Peyton, which opened in June of 2001, was moved from the Diocese of Fall River to Baltimore by the Holy See. Members of the ecclesiastical tribunal, which will investigate the life and ministry of Father Peyton, were swornin during the Mass and received instruction from the Archbishop as to how the inquiry is to take place.

The Catholic Church’s process leading to canonization involves three major steps. First is the declaration of a person’s heroic virtues, after which the Church gives him or her the title Venerable. Second is beatification, after which he or she is called Blessed. The third step is canonization, or declaration of sainthood.

At various steps in the canonization pro-

cess, evidence of alleged miracles is presented to Church authorities. In general, two miracles need to be accepted by the Church as having occurred through the intercession of the prospective saint.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has previously been involved in the Causes of Canonization of the Servants of God, Sister Faustina Kowalska, Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, and Father Francis Xavier Selos.

Father Patrick Peyton emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1928 when he was 19.

He was ordained to the priesthood in 1941 and founded Family Rosary in Albany, N.Y. the following year. He conducted rosary crusades in 40 countries, drawing 28 million people. In 1947, he created Family Theater Productions, producing some 600 radio and television programs featuring hundreds of actors and celebrities, and more than 10,000 broadcasts.

Family Theater Productions is now part of Holy Cross Family Ministries, which carries on the work of Father Peyton and is headquartered in North Easton.

For more information about the life and work of Father Peyton, visit www.hcfm.org.

in developing countries, and a quarter of all such care in the worst-hit continent of Africa.

Pharmaceutical companies and governments “must show leadership by developing childfriendly medicine for HIV and improved testing,” said Cardinal Rodriquez.

The global reality, Caritas officials said, is that in 2007, 33.2

million adults, and 2.5 million children under the age of 15, were living with HIV or AIDS and almost all of them were living in developing countries.

Two million people died from AIDS in 2007, of which 270,000 were under the age of 15.

Every day, 7,397 people contact HIV, which amounts to 308 every hour.

The International Church

4

November 28, 2008

Mother Teresa still has lessons to teach world, says priest-author

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON — More than 10 years after her death, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta still has lessons to teach the world, according to the priest who cofounded the Missionaries of Charity Fathers with her and has written a new book about her.

Father Joseph Langford, a 57-yearold native of Toledo, Ohio, said he wrote “Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire” to try to explain “what made Mother Teresa Mother Teresa” and how she sustained hope, joy and a belief in the possibility of change in the face of inner and external challenges.

“As America faces its own dark night of the soul,” he said, Mother Teresa shows Americans and the rest of the world “how to live joyfully, creatively, in a way that leaves a legacy.”

In a recent interview with Catholic News Service, Father Langford said Mother Teresa asked him to write the book after she revealed to him in 1986 the details of her “call within a call” 40 years earlier.

On a day in 1946 that she came to call “inspiration day,” as she was on a train to Darjeeling, India, to begin a retreat, Mother Teresa heard a call from God to give up her safe, relatively comfortable life as a schoolteacher and as a Sister of Loreto to live among the destitute and dying in Calcutta and establish a new religious community.

“She was not special, she was not unique, she had no special support system, and look what she did,” the priest said.

Father Langford, ordained a priest of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary in 1978, was inspired to join in Mother Teresa’s work by another book about her, Malcolm Muggeridge’s “Something Beautiful for God.” Together they founded the Missionaries of Charity Fathers in 1984; the order has its international headquarters in Tijuana, Mexico.

“My first meeting with her was mediated by a book,” he said. “So I wanted to pay forward the blessing of having been close to her for 30 years.”

The Albanian-born nun told Father Langford about her transformational experience as they were preparing a constitution for the priests’ branch of the Missionaries of Charity.

“There were things I wanted to include in the constitution about her way of seeing things, of experiencing things,” he said.

After she told her story, she told the priest, “One day you must tell the others.”

The revelation that came to Mother Teresa on the train to Darjeeling centers on “the mystery of Jesus’ thirst.” Although Father Langford said the concept is too complex to summarize in a few words, Mother Teresa once called it “the depths of God’s infinite longing to love and be loved.”

“She was convinced that grace was

given not only to a few but to everybody — for the poorest of the poor and for the rest of us, as much as we could accept our own poverty,” he said.

The book features many of Mother Teresa’s own letters and other writings, which Father Langford said show “a tremendous depth of theology that I think is going to surprise people.”

He also said many people misunderstood the message contained in a collection of her writings published last year as “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light.”

In the book, Mother Teresa described her own crises of faith and said she felt for many years that God had abandoned her.

By revealing her own inner struggles, Mother Teresa showed others the way out of darkness, Father Langford said, praising her ability to “make life beautiful where it is ugliest.”

“I have seen with my own eyes how her message can touch, heal and change lives,” he said. “My hope is that her message will transform the reader’s life, even as it already has for so many others.”

MODERN DAY HOLY CARDS — Sister Nirmala Joshi, superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, right, distributes photographs of Blessed Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India. (CNS photo/Parth Sanyal, Reuters)

Pope urges Lebanese to renew efforts for peaceful coexistence

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — The Lebanese people’s love for their country must translate into a renewed commitment to ensuring that Lebanon is a place where Christians, Muslims and Druze live and work together, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Lebanon’s history of religious and cultural diversity “is a treasure entrusted to all Lebanese. It is a gift that must be preserved and made fruitful for the good of the entire nation,” the pope told Georges Chakib El Khoury, Lebanon’s new ambassador to the Vatican.

Welcoming the new ambassador, the pope also said the international community must maintain its commitment to helping Lebanon re-establish peaceful coexistence rather than being “a field of confrontation for regional or international conflicts.”

“Lebanon should be like a laboratory for finding effective solutions to the con-

flicts that have afflicted the Middle East for so long,” the pope said.

With the election of a new president, the formation of a government of national unity and the passage of a new electoral law, combined with the “national dialogue” process set to hold its third session in December, the pope said he hoped Lebanese leaders would be able to identify the key challenges the country faces and agree on methods for resolving them.

“I hope that by putting aside individual interests and healing the wounds of the past, all will agree on dialogue and reconciliation as the way to help the country progress with stability,” the pope said.

“The basic attitude that should guide everyone in this commitment to the common good remains unchanged: that each component of the Lebanese people would feel truly at home in Lebanon and would see that its concerns are being taken into account while recognizing the rights of the other,” he said.

November 28, 2008

The Church in the U.S.

Advocates call for making hunger one of the country’s top priorities

By Dennis Sadowski Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON — Almost half of American voters say they are living paycheck to paycheck as food prices rise and the country’s economic woes deepen, reports the Alliance to End Hunger.

In an Election Day survey of 1,000 voters nationwide, the alliance found major concerns developing around what it calls “food insecurity.” Three in five

voters — 59 percent — said they were impacted by high food prices. Slightly less than half — 49 percent — said they see hunger growing worse. Nearly one in five — 19 percent — say they fear that they or someone they know will go hungry.

Additionally, almost everyone responding — 94 percent — said they believe hunger is just as much of a problem in other countries.

Such responses show an un-

derlying lack of confidence in current economic conditions, anchored in part by a 7.5 percent increase in food prices during the last year. They also do not bode well for a quick financial recovery unless any new economic stimulus plan is directed to the lower end of the economic ladder, said the Rev. David Beckmann, alliance president.

The survey’s results parallel the realities on the ground among Catholic Charities agen-

WASHINGTON — Catholic Charities agencies across the country are finding that the nation’s growing unemployment rate is one more challenge in their efforts to provide food, clothing and shelter to those in need.

In Michigan — where automobile giants General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are based — unemployment is a reality for thousands of people once employed in the car industry and for business owners hit hard by the collapsing economy.

“People are being laid off continually,” said Chris Root, who heads the Lansing, Mich., Diocese’s Catholic Charities department. The agency’s offices around the diocese help people pay for rent and utilities, provide food and help the unemployed with a job training program.

The demand for all these services is increasing significantly, Root said.

Counseling for domestic abuse, substance abuse and for family and marriage problems all have been on the rise since the financial downturn, Root noted in a recent interview with Catholic News Service.

“The strong correlation between economics and marriage and the well-being of family life is evident here. There is an increased need to assist people in the family dynamics, and relationships.”

According to the U.S. Labor Department statistics released in early November, the jobless rate rose to 6.5 percent in October when employers fired 240,000 workers. That figure put the total number of unemployed Americans past 10.08 million, the highest level in 25 years.

One year ago, the jobless rate was 4.8 percent. Many economists are saying the rate could climb to eight percent

or 8.5 percent by the end of 2009.

“The impact on the states has been tremendous,” said Paul Martodam, CEO of Catholic Charities in the Phoenix Diocese.

Currently, the Phoenix agency is only able to help up to 40 percent of those who seek assistance. It is providing more utility and emergency assistance than in previous years and finding it more difficult to help people find jobs with livable wages.

Cutbacks in service-related industries such as retail, restaurant and construction — along with a five percent decrease in federal funds and a 20 percent decrease in donations — has made it tough to assist those in need. The Phoenix Catholic Charities agency also has had a decline in staff from 610 to 537 employees.

Dominick Calgi, CEO of Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia in the Richmond Diocese, said the agency’s offices have seen a 25 percent increase in the number of people applying for housing and utility assistance and they also have experienced a decrease in donations.

Reduced donations at a time when the population “is at its greatest need” is a major concern, he said.

“It is urgent for more foundations to change their priorities to funding social service needs in a time like this instead of arts and culture organizations,” he added.

Catherine L’Insalata, a division director at Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., said she also has seen an increase in demand for services amid a simultaneous decrease in contributions.

She said there has been a 25 percent increase in people seeking services who have

been recently unemployed.

“For some that need food or shelter, we struggle to accommodate them because there is not enough money available,” she told CNS. As she sees it, Catholic Charities agencies alone can’t meet the needs of the increased number of clients.

“State and local governments need to respond to this crisis of health care, prescriptions, utility and rent needs of the unemployed as fast as they have responded to the fall of big American companies,” she said.

“These people need a bailout,” she added.

Rising unemployment prompts more people to turn to Catholic Charities

cies across the country. An October survey of 44 local Catholic Charities operations by Catholic Charities USA found that 88 percent of the agencies reported significantly more families and individuals seeking assistance.

The number of people seeking food assistance is up at threequarters of the agencies.

Leading the way were senior citizens, the working poor and the middle class as they turned to Catholic Charities agencies for food and for help with utility, rent and mortgage payments.

Gus Hernandez, senior family resource specialist at Catholics Charities in Fresno, Calif., said the agency’s client base has nearly tripled during 2008 from 40 to 50 families a day to an average of 143 a day. The agency has reduced its operating hours to prevent its shelves from going bare on any one day.

The Rev. Beckmann told Catholic News Service, “when we talk about the economic crisis, we’re not giving enough attention to the fact that people who are getting hardest hit by the crisis are people who are not able to feed their children any more,” during a break in the alliance’s annual meeting last week, when the findings were released.

“The moral imperative is clear,” he said, explaining that the country must make ending hunger and overturning poverty domestically and internationally a priority. That comes, in part,

5 by creating broader awareness of poverty and building support for aid and development programs, especially around food, he said.

A Lutheran minister, Rev. Beckmann believes worldwide hunger deserves the same attention, especially as some parts of the world are experiencing food shortages. Rioting over food shortages has occurred across Africa, southern Asia and Haiti throughout 2008.

“This is not about the stock market. This is about child death,” he said.

The alliance, of which the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is a part, has targeted 2015 for eliminating child hunger in the United States. The advocacy group also called for major policy changes to reduce global hunger and poverty over the same period.

Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., have been congressional allies in the fight against hunger both in the U.S. and around the world. Joining the alliance’s annual meeting, the two legislators called on President-elect Barack Obama to appoint a “food czar” to oversee domestic and international food policy.

The position is called for in the Global Food Security Act, which was introduced in Congress earlier this year, but has not been acted upon. Lugar said he plans to reintroduce the bill in the next Congress.

6

The Anchor The Catholic response to Obama’s election

During their annual meeting earlier this month, the bishops of the United States, even though they had several other items on their agenda, spent much of their time discussing the significance of the election of Sen. Barack Obama to be our nation’s 44th president.

As a body, the bishops were clearly pleased about one aspect of his election: the triumph over our country’s history of racism that Obama’s victory symbolized. When Obama was born, there were still Jim Crow laws in effect in several southern states. He was a boy when Martin Luther King was assassinated and as a teen-ager would have observed the terrible tensions of desegregation. Many of the bishops themselves were seminarians and young priests during the days of the civil rights movement and, before the abortion and the redefinition of marriage were forced upon our nation by activist courts, made the overcoming of the evil of racism their great moral cause. That they lived to see a black president brought a genuine sense of joy and achievement.

These sentiments were summed up by Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley in an interview during the bishops’ meetings, when he said, “When I was in high school (in Ohio) I joined the NAACP and did voter registration in black neighborhoods, when I wasn’t old enough to vote myself. And I was there at Resurrection City after Martin Luther King was murdered, and living in the mud with thousands of people on the lawn of the Lincoln Memorial and having off-duty redneck policemen throwing canisters of tear gas at us and shouting obscenities. So, to me, the election of an AfroAmerican is like the Berlin Wall falling. I mean, for my generation, I suppose young people today can’t appreciate that, but to me it is something very big.”

But as happy as the bishops were about this huge victory in the fight against racial prejudice, they were horrified by Obama’s fervent support for a far greater evil. Cardinal O’Malley said that his “joy” was outweighed “by the knowledge that this man has a deplorable record when it comes to Pro-Life issues and is possibly in the pocket of Planned Parenthood, which in its origins was a very racist organization [founded] to eliminate the blacks.”

The bishops as a body authorized their president, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, to write a statement expressing their deep concerns. Bishop George W. Coleman has asked every pastor in the Diocese of Fall River to distribute it to his parishioners in the parish bulletin. In it, Cardinal George expresses the bishops’ common concern about the Freedom of Choice Act that was introduced in the last Congress and that the president-elect has publicly promised to sign, promising in a July 17, 2007 speech, “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do.”

Cardinal George framed his entire message with a quotation from Psalm 127, which focuses on the foundation of a house. If the foundation is weak, the whole structure will be weak and all the building will be in vain. He began by describing what the foundation of a just and lasting society is and then said that foundation is being assailed by the practice of abortion.

“The fundamental good is life itself, a gift from God and our parents. A good state protects the lives of all. Legal protection for those members of the human family waiting to be born in this country was removed when the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973. This was bad law. The danger the bishops see at this moment is that a bad court decision will be enshrined in bad legislation that is more radical than the 1973 Supreme Court decision itself.

“In the last Congress, a Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) was introduced that would, if brought forward in the same form today, outlaw any ‘interference’ in providing abortion at will. It would deprive the American people in all 50 states of the freedom they now have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry. FOCA would coerce all Americans into subsidizing and promoting abortion with their tax dollars. It would counteract any and all sincere efforts by government and others of good will to reduce the number of abortions in our country. Parental notification and informed consent precautions would be outlawed, as would be laws banning procedures such as partial-birth abortion and protecting infants born alive after a failed abortion. Abortion clinics would be deregulated. The Hyde Amendment restricting the federal funding of abortions would be abrogated. FOCA would have lethal consequences for prenatal human life.

“FOCA would have an equally destructive effect on the freedom of conscience of doctors, nurses and health care workers whose personal convictions do not permit them to cooperate in the private killing of unborn children. It would threaten Catholic health care institutions and Catholic Charities. It would be an evil law that would further divide our country, and the Church should be intent on opposing evil.

“On this issue, the legal protection of the unborn, the bishops are of one mind with Catholics and others of good will. They are also pastors who have listened to women whose lives have been diminished because they believed they had no choice but to abort a baby. Abortion is a medical procedure that kills, and the psychological and spiritual consequences are written in the sorrow and depression of many women and men. The bishops are single-minded because they are, first of all, single-hearted.”

Cardinal George then stated forthrightly that the president-elect received no pro-abortion mandate on November 4. “The recent election was principally decided out of concern for the economy, for the loss of jobs and homes and financial security for families, here and around the world. If the election is misinterpreted ideologically as a referendum on abortion, the unity desired by Presidentelect Obama and all Americans at this moment of crisis will be impossible to achieve. Abortion kills not only unborn children; it destroys constitutional order and the common good, which is assured only when the life of every human being is legally protected. Aggressively pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans, and would be seen by many as an attack on the free exercise of their religion.”

President-elect Obama has often tried to suggest comparisons between himself and another Illinois senator who, upon becoming president, fought a civil war to end an immoral system in which blacks were considered three-fifths of human persons and the property of their owners. He battled and triumphed against a terribly unjust Supreme Court decision, bad laws in many states, and a culture that supported the evil practice.

Like the 16th president, the 44th is now faced with an even more unjust system in which the unborn are legally considered zero-fifths of human persons are the property of their mothers. There is an evil Supreme Court decision, many wicked state practices, and what in many segments amounts to a culture of death.

Had President Abraham Lincoln, rather than fighting against the dehumanizing evil he encountered, sought to eliminate all restrictions to slavery and forced everyone throughout the Union to cooperate in the evil practice, he would have come down in history as one of the worst rather than one of our best presidents. One day future generations will look back at the practice of abortion in our country with even greater shame than we now look back at the history of slavery. Presidentelect Obama has the opportunity to go down to future generations as a true hero or an evil perpetuator of this national blight, which attacks the very foundations of our country.

The bishops of the United States are reminding him of these realities, praying as a body for his conversion on the issue, and asking all the faithful to join them in doing both.

November 28, 2008

The starting point of the turnaround

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One night in the dream, Adasevic asked the ne of the great joys for me during this Year of St. Paul has been the opportunity man in black and white who he was. The man reto preach and teach about this great hero of our sponded, “My name is Thomas Aquinas,” a name faith. I have been able to preach on St. Paul more that meant absolutely nothing to him, since Adain the past five months than I have in all nine of my sevic had never heard of the famous 13th-century previous years as a priest combined. In addition to Dominican doctor of the Church.

“Why don’t you ask me who these children focusing on the second reading selections from his epistles during my Sunday homilies and leading a are?,” St. Thomas asked him in the dream. “They parish Bible study on his letters, I have also had are the ones you killed with your abortions,” Aquithe privilege to lead two retreats and parish mis- nas said.

Adasevic awakened, haunted by the dialogue. sions on him — in Virginia, New Jersey, Michigan That same day, a cousin came to visit him in the and in the Archdiocese of Boston — with others to come during Lent in Alabama and Louisiana. The hospital with his girlfriend, who was four months opportunities have helped me to get much deeper pregnant and desirous of having an abortion. She into St. Paul’s personality, the events of his life, his had already aborted eight previous children. Deteachings and how he practiced what he preached. spite his being tormented by the nightmare of earOne of the things about his life that I have lier that morning, Adasevic did once more what he been increasingly drawn to is the “prehistory” of had nearly 50,000 times before.

Normally his technique of preference was to his dramatic conversion. I’ve thought about the first Christians in Jerusalem, in the first few years dismember the unborn child and remove him or her after Jesus’ resurrection, and how shocked they piece by piece. This time, however, he decided to would have been that, about 1970 years later, we, bludgeon the baby to death and remove the body their spiritual ancestors, would be celebrating the intact. When he removed the crushed baby cousin’s 2,000th anniversary of his birth. In the early 30s, body, however, the heart was still beating. At that they would almost certainly have been rueing the moment, Adasevic realized that he had killed a human being, and that he had been killing as many as day of his birth.

35 human beings After all, Paul a day for the prewas so convinced vious two-and-athat the Christians half decades. were blasphemers His own heart — not merely viobegan to beat lating the Mosaic with contrition. law about circumHe informed the cision, the SabBy Father hospital that he bath, and dietary Roger J. Landry would no longer restrictions, and perform aborproclaiming that a tions. The comcrucified, criminal carpenter was not just the Messiah, but the incar- munist authorities were infuriated at his decision. nate Son of God, violating God’s oneness — that They retaliated by getting the hospital to cut his salwith tremendous zeal he was invading their homes ary in half, they fired his daughter from her job and throughout Palestine and dragging them in chains prevented his son from getting into college. They, in short, did everything to make his life and the lives before the Sanhedrin.

After St. Stephen was falsely accused of utter- of his family members as miserable as possible.

After years of pressure, he was about to cave in. ing blasphemous words against Moses, the temple, the law and God, he was dragged out of the city Then he had another dream. St. Thomas Aquinas gates of Jerusalem and stoned to death under the appeared to him again. “You are my good friend,” supervision of Saul, the Hebrew name by which the black-and-white habited friar said to him. “Keep going!” the Jews called Paul.

Fortified by this supernatural sign, he pressed As he was being pelted by rocks, in close imitation of the Lord Jesus’ first and last words from the onward. He returned to the Orthodox faith of his Cross, St. Stephen prayed for two things: that God childhood. He began to study the writings of St. would receive his spirit and that God would not Thomas Aquinas. He got involved in the Pro-Life hold this sin against his executioners. He was pray- movement and was able to get Serbian television ing for his persecutors, doing good to those who twice to air the film, “The Silent Scream,” by the famous American abortionist convert, Dr. Bernard hated him, loving his enemies until the end.

Those prayers must have had a huge impact on Nathanson. Now his remarkable story is becoming Paul. St. Stephen was beseeching God for mercy known around the world.

When asked why God in his Providence had St. on him as he was mercilessly turning the ancient firing squad on Stephen. Both of St. Stephen’s Thomas Aquinas appear to him, Adasevic replied prayers were heard. Many of the early saints of the that he believes it is because the Angelic Doctor’s Church have taught that this was the real beginning teachings about delayed ensoulment have been manipulated by so many — like Speaker of the of Paul’s conversion.

This episode teaches us the important lesson that House Nancy Pelosi and Vice President-elect Jowe should never give up on praying for anyone’s seph Biden — erroneously to justify the practice conversion, for no one is truly beyond the reach of of abortion. He thinks that St. Thomas is trying to God’s grace. If God can turn the worst persecutor “make amends” for the evil done by those citing of the early Church into its greatest preacher and him out of context to justify a practice St. Thomas promoter, then we should never stop praying for always opposed.

Adasevic decided to dedicate the rest of his life the conversion of others, even and especially those to fight for the lives of the unborn. Once one of the who may seem least likely to convert.

A tremendous illustration of this truth has worst enemies of the unborn, he is now one of their just come to us from Serbia. It involves a doctor staunchest defenders. Few would have thought named Stojan Adasevic, who for 26 years was the years ago that this doctor of death would be winmost infamous abortionist in the former Yugosla- ning international Pro-Life awards, but that didn’t via. He took the lives of more than 48,000 unborn stop Christians from praying for his conversion. I boys and girls — more than the total population like to think that some of his 48,000 victims were of Attleboro. He was a staunch defender of the praying for his conversion, too, before the throne of practice of abortion in the Yugoslavian media, re- God. Like with St. Stephen’s supplications, those peating the party line of the communist regime prayers were heard.

We’re living in a time when faithful Catholics that he was merely eliminating “blobs of tissue.”

Nevertheless, the Christians in the country, both are rightly horrified at the prospect that our new Catholic and Orthodox, never stopped praying for president-elect and Congressional leaders will actually fulfill their campaign promises to push for the his conversion.

Adasevic began to be haunted by nightmares Freedom of Choice Act, which will eliminate every brought about by his gruesome daily work. One restriction to the killing of the unborn in the womb.

It’s a time for us not to lose hope, but to pray for evening he dreamed about a field full of children, ages four-24. They were playing and laughing, the conversion of all those who support abortion. but, whenever they saw him, they ran away in fear. No one is outside the reach of God’s grace. Even While this was occurring, he saw a man dressed in the most unlikely can convert. St. Paul and Stojan Adasevic will be praying alongside of us. a black and white habit staring at him in silence.

Father Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of PadFor weeks this dream was repeated each night ua Parish in New Bedford. and he would awaken in a cold sweat.

Putting Into the Deep

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St. Paul gives thanks

o matter what time of tic author, whether pagan or year, but especially at Christian. the end of November, when you Part of that comes from the hear or read the word “thanksway people wrote letters back in giving,” you probably think of the first century A.D. As far as I turkey, pilgrims, and football know, there existed no envelopes games. You probably do not usually think of the Apostle Paul. I have to Living the admit: I usually don’t Pauline Year either.

Biblical scholars, however, have looked

By Father into the subject, done Karl C. Bissinger some research, and made some comparisons between the New Testament and on which to write the address neatly and to include the return other Ancient Greek literature. address in the corner or on the They have discovered that St. outside flap. Ancient writers Paul brings up the topic of didn’t print personalized letterthanksgiving in his letters more head or record the inside address. often than any other Hellenis-

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November 28, 2008

They didn’t even start off with the salutation “Dear John.” Instead, they started off by stating who they are: “Paul.” Then, they would mention to whom they are writing: “To the church of God that is in Corinth.”

After that, they might say “Greetings.” Finally, before getting into the body of the letter itself, they would sometimes make a statement of thanksgiving to God (or to the gods) for personal benefits received. That is something we rarely see anymore in today’s letters, emails, or electronic messages.

Even though some words of thanksgiving formed part of the standard letter in his time,

Becoming fishers of teens

came to present a context for esus walked along the our evangelization efforts so that shore of Lake Galilee and we can enter into the heads and told two fishermen that they hearts of our teens. should follow him and he will The Catholic Church in the really teach them how to fish.

United States is wrestling with Actually, he told them that they the hard fact that the Good were to become “fishers of News of Jesus Christ is not men,” a catch that seems to be reaching Generation X,Y, and alluding the present day fishZ. The National Study on Youth ers in our Church. Many of us and Religion has basically told involved with parish ministry us that if we don’t engage the struggle with how we can someculture then the message will how drag a net across the lake and bring in the most “fish.”

Our Lake Galilee is filled with the most elusive catch of this generation — our adolescents. Just when our youth reach that graceBy Claire McManus filled age when idealism mixes with exuberance, not break through. Jesus knew they get swept up by the big this, of course. It doesn’t take a commercial trawlers of the biblical scholar to see that when popular culture. Popular culture a carpenter from the land-locked knows how to fish the waters in which our youth flourish, and so village of Nazareth makes must we. Their salvation and the frequent references to catching fish, he obviously was contexfuture of the American Catholic tualizing his message. Our task Church rests upon how effecis to re-contextualize that life tively we proclaim the Gospel transforming message. to a generation steeped in the Popular culture is not all high-tech, global culture of the about the evil trio of commer21st century. cialism, violence and hyperOn November 1 we invited sexuality.

There are many Mike Carotta to address the positive aspects to the culture annual Diocesan Faith Formathat challenge our evangelization Convention held at White’s tion efforts and exert pressure of Westport. Mike has devoted on our catechetical programs. most of his adult life to forming adolescents for discipleship, The American religious milieu promotes and supports diversity, in settings as culturally diverse which includes the presence of as the small rural parishes of world religions and the accepthe Midwest, to Boystown tance of variation within them. of Omaha, Neb. Perhaps that Though religious pluralism is explains why his book on definitely a positive aspect of adolescent catechesis is subour society, it can be misintertitled, “Sometimes We Dance, preted to mean that no religion Sometimes We Wrestle.” Mike can make a claim to salvation, Carotta didn’t come to peddle a and therefore, a claim on our special program or some teenlives. There are also a multitude catching gimmick; he simply

The Great Commission

of Christian denominations competing for our youth in this free-market, no-monopolies society. Is it any wonder that our youth view the Catholic Church as one choice among many that they can take or leave?

The message we are transmitting has not changed. Our nation’s bishops devoted a great deal of time and effort into producing a curriculum for catechizing adolescent youth to ensure that we don’t confuse context and content. The USCCB Framework for High School Religion Curriculum is only the message, not the method. In the grand scheme of evangelization, the Framework is only a cook book for preparing a great fish dinner for fish we’ve yet to catch. All of our catechetical efforts must be spent on helping our youth to become disciples who believe in Jesus and follow his way of life. Discipleship is, and always has been, the primary task of catechesis. If we don’t offer our youth an apprenticeship in discipleship then the echo of faith will sound hollow.

The question remains, “How do we become fishers of teens?”

It is no surprise that parishes that are living embodiments of the Gospel of Jesus Christ usually have effective youth ministry and adolescent catechesis.

These parishes involve the youth in their own learning through peer leadership and serving as catechists to the young children.

This requires the commitment of the whole parish community to the Gospel message. Imagine the possibilities.

Claire McManus is the director of the Diocesan Office of Faith Formation.

St. Paul’s usage of this formula reflects his own personality and writing style. Often, he would set the tone and introduce the message of his letter through his personal thanksgiving. No matter what else people were used to, the Apostle always incorporated Christian content. For example, he would often thank God for the growth he saw happening in his communities, especially for a greater display among their members of the theological virtues: faith, hope, and love.

Looking at thanksgiving itself, we could say that it’s more than just a feeling of appreciation or an acknowledgment for a favor, a gift, or a reward.

Thanksgiving is a free and joyful response to God’s loving action in both the order of creation and in the order of salvation and grace. On both these levels, it is a response from human beings of gratitude to God. In the order of creation, we thank him, for example, for plentiful food and good health. In the order of grace, we thank him for his triumph over sin and death and for his mercy and blessings.

During the holiday season, beginning with Thanksgiving Day, we might wonder what St. Paul would say about our feasting. For one thing, he would surely encourage us to say grace before meals. In the Letter to the Romans he labels as wicked those who “although they knew God […] did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks” (cf. Rom 1:21). He later writes in the same epistle “Whoever eats, eats for the Lord, since he gives thanks to God” (cf. Rom 14:6).

Furthermore, it doesn’t sound like the Apostle would turn down an invitation to dinner or prove to be a shy guest or picky eater. To the Corinthians, he rhetorically asks “If I partake thankfully, why am I reviled for

that over which I give thanks?” (cf. 1Cor 10:30). And, he seems to complete this thought in another letter: “For everything created by God is good, and [no food] is to be rejected when received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the invocation of God in prayer” (1Tim 4:4-5).

Finally, we should not fail to connect thanksgiving with the celebration of Mass. We call the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ the Eucharist. The word “Eucharist” comes from the Greek word to give thanks.

So we should keep in mind that when we attend the liturgy, through our worship and worthy reception of Communion, we can also give thanks to God. St. Paul relates, and we recall at each Mass, that before Jesus was handed over, he “took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me’” (cf. 1Cor 11:23-24). This constitutes the earliest account of the tradition of the institution of the Eucharist.

We should pay special attention that our Lord gives thanks in this significant context.

Even as this year’s Thanksgiving Day celebration fades into our memories and we gobble up the last of the leftovers, we can continue living the Pauline Year with a renewed outlook of thankfulness. Although times are now tough economically for many and we each face our different challenges, we still have much for which to give thanks.

St. Paul’s example encourages us to remember that when best understood, thanksgiving is always the very opposite of complaining — and maybe the best antidote for ever feeling sorry for oneself.

Father Bissinger is vocation director of the Diocese of Fall River and secretary to Bishop George W. Coleman.

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unday we begin the season of Advent in which we anticipate the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Many of the Church Fathers have described Advent as a time in which three aspects of that coming are operative, that is, Our Lord comes on three different occasions and in three different ways.

St. Bernard says that the first coming is in the flesh and in the weakness of the human form; the second is when he comes in spirit and in power; the third coming is in glory and majesty. For us he says that the second coming is how we pass from the first to the third coming. In summary Our Lord comes firstly in the flesh, then secondly in the soul and thirdly in judgment at the end of the world.

From the first coming in the poverty of the manger to the third coming in glorious

November 28, 2008

Lord, I am not worthy

majesty, St. Bernard says that not want to see His coming. the second coming of Christ The first and third coming is when he comes to us in our are quite easy to recognize, souls by his grace, primarily it is that second coming, into in the sacraments through his our souls that we find hard sacramental grace. to see sometimes. How often When Jesus comes to us, do we forget how Our Lord we sometimes miss his presence. His coming takes on many forms, Homily of the Week He comes to us in the First Sunday great beauty of the of Advent Church’s liturgy at this time of year. He comes

By Msgr. in his Word in the beauGerard P. O’Connor tiful sacred Scripture which we are treated to during Advent. He comes to us of course in a most enters into our body and soul special way in the most holy in the holy Eucharist and how Eucharist. great is our union with him at He comes and yet is ever that moment? Indeed we use present to us. He is there in the the words of the centurion in poor and the less-fortunate, today’s Gospel to express our he is there in those who are unworthiness in receiving Jesuffering; the ill, the dying, the sus Christ in holy Communion: depressed, those who cannot “Lord I am not worthy for you see his coming, those who do to enter under my roof.” This

Gospel reminds us that even in our unworthiness the Lord will enter into our lives if we have the faith of the centurion. During this season of Advent we prepare for the Lord to enter into our hearts and souls.

One great way of preparation for this coming is to receive the sacrament of reconciliation. Confession is a powerful sacrament and is always a means by which the Lord enters into our souls and gives us the forgiveness, peace and comfort which we seek. It prepares us for final coming when he will come in glory to judge the living and the dead. If you have been away from the sacrament for a while Advent is a great time of the year to come back to it and receive God’s loving mercy which awaits us through the ministry of his priests. We

know that we will never be wholly worthy of Our Lord who comes to visit us in the holy Eucharist but we can at least be as worthy as possible by making a good confession this advent season.

The Lord is coming. We will celebrate his birth in a few weeks. In this period we can approach him with great faith and have him come to us through the grace of the sacraments and our own actions of charity and expressions of love.

As we enter the new year of the Church, let us make a resolution that we will be watchful for the Lord and pray that we will recognize him when he comes to us in the inspirations and movements of our souls during this new year of grace.

Msgr. O’Connor is pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Nov. 29, Rv 22:1-7; Ps 95:1-7b; Lk 21:34-36; Sun. Nov. 30, First Sunday of Advent, Is 63:16-17,19;64:2-7; Ps 80:2-3, 15,16, 18-19; I Cor 1:3-9; Mk 13:33-37; Mon. Dec. 1, Is 2:1-5;Ps 122:1-2,3-4b,4cd-5,6-7,8-9; Mt 8:5-11; Tues. Dec. 2, Is 11:1-10; Ps 72:1-2,7-8, 12,13,17; Lk 10:21-24; Wed. Dec. 3, Is 25:6-10a; Ps 23:1-3a,3b-4,5,6; Mt 15:29-37; Thu. Dec. 4, Is 26:1-6; Ps 118:1,8-9,19-21,25-27a; Mt 7:21, 24-27; Fri. Dec. 5, Is 29:17-24;Ps 27;1,4,13-14; Mt 9:27-31.

Giving thanks for America

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he vagaries of scheduling put me in Europe for the week before the November 4 election. In conversations in both Rome and Cracow, I was struck by the frequency with which friends and colleagues said that Americans would be electing the leader of the world, not just the leader of the United States. Why did they say this? It’s not because such sentiments reflect a realist appraisal of the facts of American power, although the people with whom I spoke were well enough aware of that — and grateful for it. Rather, the idea that Americans would be electDIOCESAN TRIBUNAL FALL RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS Decree of Citation Since his present domicile is unknown, in accord with the provision of Canon 1509.1, we hereby cite Anthony F.Embergtoappearinpersonbeforethe TribunaloftheDioceseofFallRiver(887 Highland Avenue in Fall River, Bristol County,Massachusetts)onDecember11, 2008 at 2:30 PM to give his testimony regarding the question: ISTHESIMMONS-EMBERG MARRIAGE NULL ACCORDING TO CHURCH LAW? Anyone who has knowledge of the domicileofAnthonyF.Embergishereby required to inform him of this citation.

Given at the offices of the Diocesan TribunalinFallRiver,BristolCounty,Massachusetts on November 20, 2008.

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

ing the world’s leader bespoke European intellectual’s idea of their convictions that, unlike the United States as a bit raw, Europe, America is not morally a bit vulgar, and not all-thatexhausted, and that America interesting culturally. The life can still embody a nobler, more of the mind, Cardinal Karol humane idea of freedom.

Wojtyla seemed convinced, In light of our election results, some might well ask whether such sentiments are misplaced. Or forget, if you can, the election, and consider the fact that one of America’s

By George Weigel most lucrative exports is pornography; what does that say about us as a culture? On the other hand, was far livelier in Europe, on my friends and colleagues are both sides of the iron curtain, well aware of what’s what in than it was in the American the United States — and they republic. But Wojtyla-becomenonetheless insist that America John-Paul-II began to change is the world’s leader. his thinking, perhaps during his The late John Paul II had first extended encounter with a similar view of America. the United States as pope, in When he came to the papacy in October 1979.

1978, he had, I think, a typical And over the years, John

The Catholic Difference

Paul came to understand that America had a spiritual vitality that old Europe lacked — a spiritual vitality that had infused at least some American intellectuals with a contemporary idea of freedom virtually identical to the pope’s own. Thus, in the aftermath of the Cold War, John Paul encouraged his fellowPoles and other citizens of the new democracies of east central Europe to establish contacts with U.S. Catholics in order to build a trans-Atlantic community of conversation and action in defense of freedom rightly understood.

John Paul II gave voice to his mature appreciation of the United States, and his convictions about the challenges before us, in a December 1997 address, delivered when he received the credentials of Lindy Boggs as the new U.S. ambassador to the Holy See: “No expression of today’s [American] commitment to liberty and justice for all can be more basic than the protection offered to those in society who are most vulnerable. The United States of America was founded on the conviction that an inalienable right to life was a self-evident moral truth, fidelity to which was a primary criterion of social justice. The moral history of your country is the

story of your people’s efforts to widen the circle of inclusion in society, so that all Americans might enjoy the protection of law, participate in the responsibilities of citizenship, and have the opportunity to make a contribution to the common good.

Whenever a certain category of people — the unborn or the sick and old — are excluded from that protection, a deadly anarchy subverts the original understanding of justice. The credibility of the United States will depend more and more on its promotion of a genuine culture of life, and on a renewed commitment to building a world in which the weakest and most vulnerable are welcomed and protected.”

The “moral history” of America: that is what we ought to ponder at Thanksgiving. For America is, was, and always will be a moral experiment — an experiment in our capacity to live freedom nobly. As my European friends intuited prior to our election, the results of that experiment will shape the whole world. So let us pray, this Thanksgiving, with Katherine Lee Bates, “America, America, may God thy gold refine ’Til all success be nobleness, and ev’ry gain divine.”

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

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November 28, 2008

I saw Santa!

Friday 28 November 2008 the black” this fiscal year, not — at home on Three Mile River “in the red.” The economy be— the biggest shopping day of ing the way it is, maybe “Black the year Friday” will soon be renamed ome call the day after “Red Friday.”

Thanksgiving “Black In 1939, during the Great Friday.” On this day, I always stay home. The term “Black Friday,” originating in PhilaReflections of a delphia during the 60s, Parish Priest references the nightmarBy Father Tim ish beginning of the annual shopping frenzy Goldrick in preparation for “The Holidays.” Consumerism is against my belief system and Depression, President Franklin I choose not to participate in D. Roosevelt moved Thanksthe madness, but it’s “make it or giving Day up a week to give break it” time for retailers. They retailers an extended shopping want to run their businesses “in season. It didn’t work. There is a

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The Ship’s Log

cultural taboo against beginning Christmas advertising before the Thanksgiving Day parades.

Thanksgiving Day was quickly moved back.

Who rides at the end of the Thanksgiving Day parade but Santa? Santas will be everywhere from now until December 25. Of all the Santas in all the malls in all the world, not one of them will look like the original Santa. Of this, dear readers, I am certain. I have seen Santa with my very own eyes. Not the mythical Santa, you understand, but the real one, Sanctus Nicholas — St. Nicholas of Myra himself. I

The Eucharist and Thanksgiving

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people for a meal, long before ut your hand on the first Thanksgiving. It was the paper and trace for a purpose that would bring carefully around your hand a divine gift to the world, for and between each finger with people of all nations. It was your pencil. Draw an eye and a meal in which the sacraa beak on the thumb, color in ment of the Eucharist was first feathers on each finger, and celebrated, Eucharist which you will see that you have means “thanksgiving,” derived made a Thanksgiving turkey.” from the Greek word euchaStarting at a very young ristein. age, children across America If we asked a random are given assignments like this group of people what the to create their own personalword Eucharist means the ized drawing of a turkey for first answers may well be the Thanksgiving holiday.

It may be the first symbol that children learn, as they are taught the history and traditions of this great American holiday. For the turkey is the symbol of what

By Greta MacKoul is eaten at the meal for Thanksgiving, what was eaten at the meal “holy Communion” or the many years ago, shared by “Body of Christ.” While these the Pilgrims and the Native answers are correct in their Americans. usage, we may not always Those who gathered for remember the actual meaning the first Thanksgiving, gave of the word which is “to give thanks to God for all of their thanks.” blessings and the bounty of In the “Catechism of the the meal before them. It is a Catholic Church,” we read, tradition that is loved by our “The inexhaustible richness country. Family and friends of this sacrament is expressed gather to share the goodin the different names we give ness of their lives. It is not it. Each name evokes certain a day for fast foods or foods aspects of it. It is called: the of convenience; rather the Eucharist, because it is an foods themselves are special, action of thanksgiving to God. often handed down in famThe Greek words eucharistein ily traditions, and symbolize and eulogein recall the Jewthe importance of the meal ish blessings that proclaim and the people who share in — especially during a meal them. It is a day when many — God’s works: creation, repeople give thanks to God for demption, and sanctification.” their country, for their faith, The “Catechism” adds, for their families, their friends “The Eucharist is ‘the source and for all of the blessings of and summit of the Christian their lives. life,’” and the Eucharist is And it all centers around the sum and summary of our the sharing of a meal. faith: “Our way of thinking is Jesus gathered a group of

Our Journey of Faith

attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking.”

We rely on the gift of the Eucharist to nurture our spiritual life with Jesus for when we receive Jesus we grow in communion with God. Could it be that the word itself, the word Eucharist which means “to give thanks,” points us in the direction of the power of a thankful heart?

For when we are thankful we also grow in communion with God and the heart of God. When we are thankful we accept what has been given.

When we are thankful we accept who we are.

When we are thankful it is hard to be angry.

When we are thankful it may be difficult to be sad.

When we are thankful we see the goodness of our lives.

And when we step back and see the larger picture, that we are all one in the Body of Christ, we realize just how much we have to be thankful for.

This Thanksgiving, as we gather around the table to pray, aware of the beautiful turkey dinner with all of the trimmings before us, may we remember the power of a thankful heart, the power of truly “giving thanks,” and how it is that the word Eucharist may teach us, and the sacrament of the Eucharist sustain us, as we grow in communion with God. Greta and her husband George, with their children are members of Christ the King Parish in Mashpee.

saw him on the Internet. Here’s how.

In the year 1087, the relics of St. Nicholas were moved from the tomb in his cathedral church in the besieged City of Myra to the City of Bari, Italy, where pilgrims to his shrine would be safer. Among these relics was a skull. His bones were enshrined in a beautiful basilica in Bari. There they rested undisturbed until the 1950s, when Church authorities opened the reliquary in order to repair it. At the request of the Vatican, Dr. Francisco Introna, a professor of anatomy, measured and X-rayed the relics before the venerable bones were solemnly returned to their resting place.

In our time, with so many advancements in the science of forensic reconstruction, Dr. Carol Wilkinson, a facial anthropologist, used the scientific research of Dr. Introna to create a threedimensional computer image of the saint’s actual features. A digital artist added the details of a typical fourth-century elderly Mediterranean man.

Thanks to modern technology, we are able to look the historical St. Nicholas in the face. The image is startling. St. Nicholas looks nothing like any Santa Claus I’ve ever seen. He has olive skin and brown eyes.

His grey hair and beard are cropped short in the classical Greek style. Bishop Nicholas was Greek, after all. If you want to see how St. Nicholas really looked, visit http://www.stnicholascenter.org and click on “The Real Face of Saint Nicholas.”

Even more startling is the medical fact that St. Nicholas’ nose had been badly fractured during his lifetime. Somebody punched Santa Claus in the face.

Who would do such a thing?

Chances are he was beaten during his imprisonment. Yes, St. Nicholas was in prison. He was sentenced to prison during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Diocletian had launched a fundamentalist campaign to return to the old-time

religion. This meant violently suppressing this new-fangled Christianity.

Nicholas was accused of the crime of being a Christian and there was more than enough evidence to convict him. The emperor’s strategy had the opposite of its desired effect, but countless Christians suffered and died nonetheless. St. Nicholas was one of those who suffered.

It’s hard to imagine anyone throwing Santa Claus into the slammer, let alone beating him to a pulp, but that’s the way things were for Christians in those days. Sometimes I think one reason we modern Christians are so indifferent to our faith is that we don’t have to suffer for it. Our pews have become too comfortable and our religion too easy. There’s no challenge.

We meld into the culture instead of standing up to our beliefs when society goes wrong. I’m reminded of the bumper sticker, “If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” For many of us, the case would be dismissed for lack of evidence.

Not that anyone of sound mind would purposely go looking for confrontation and its consequential risks. That would be pathological behavior.

However, when unavoidable suffering comes our way, we must embrace it. This is the Paschal Mystery. Sometimes we have to publically profess our beliefs, come what may. Of course, to stand up for one’s beliefs, one first has to know what those beliefs are and then be passionate about them. Negative reaction may include upsetting some people or being called nasty names or even getting smacked upside the head.

This is the reason that, contrary to popular opinion, St. Nick and not Rudolph the Reindeer is the one with the red nose.

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

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The Anchor

November 28, 2008

Occasionally the sower does see the seed grow

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

CENTERVILLE — Those who have ever stood in front of a Religious Education class often wonder whether the seeds of faith they are sowing will land in fertile soil and grow.

More often than not, these dedicated teachers of the faith will never find out. But the blessing of watching a seed grow was bestowed Mary Nash, age 90, of Centerville.

Nash, now home bound, had taught Religious Education for nearly four decades, most recently at Our Lady of the Cape Parish in Brewster and Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville, and prior to that in the Boston Archdiocese.

It was the letter from a grateful Cape Cod parent that gave Nash glimpse about the impression she made on at least one student.

“EJ, my husband Eric, and I would like to thank you for all you’ve done for EJ’s Religious Education this past year,” the letter from Rhonda Risley began, adding that her son EJ had “learned more about Jesus and our religion this year than in any previous year.”

“I remember EJ was a very quiet, nice young man,” said Nash. “I felt I could help him open up more in class.”

Risley added in her letter, “I wanted you to know that I also

have you to thank, in part, for she tended to her husband, JaEJ’s comfort and desire to at- son, through some very difficult tend St. Francis Xavier Prepara- times. The couple was married tory School next fall. During his for 52 years, with Jason passing interview with the headmaster, away nearly eight years ago.

Mr. [Robert] Deburro, EJ told him about his wonderful CCD teacher Mrs. Nash, and how he was sorry that he only had one more class with her. You should have been there.

My husband and I were fighting back the tears.”

Nash grew up in Torrington, Conn., and she credits her mother and father for providing her and her siblings with a tremendous Catholic upbringing. “My father was a professor at Holy Cross College, and when I was a child we always talked about religion,” Nash told The Anchor.

“My parents sent us to parochial school and we always went to Mass ANCHOR PERSON OF THE WEEK — together,” she said. “That Nash. stayed with me.”

Nash and her family eventu“She was totally devoted to ally moved to the Boston area, dad and to me,” said her son and from there she migrated to Ralph Nash, 43, also of CenterCape Cod. ville. “In fact it was mom who She always knew what hard guided me to make my confirwork was. In her younger days mation a few years ago. I met she cared for her mother who with our pastor, Father Philip A. was ill with breast cancer, all Davignon at Our Lady of the Asthe while working and taking sumption, and I made my confircare of the house. Later in life mation with the young people of

the parish. Mother was so happy and I was, too. She said it was the greatest gift I could have given her.

“She has influenced my Catholic faith more than I can say.”

Nash said she wanted to teach Religious Education because of the lessons she learned from her parents. “I felt it was my duty,” she said. “When the priests would ask for help, it was something I had to do, as a faithful Catholic.”

Nash made it clear that “I am not the greatest CCD teacher in the world.

There are so many others who are so much more gifted than I, but I felt like I understood children and that I could help them understand the faith.”

Nash was also quick to credit the parents of Mary her students throughout the years. “Most of the parents were just wonderful,” she said. “They were faithful in bringing their children to class, and they agreed with what the students were being taught faith-wise.”

Nash said it is very important for the parents to be involved in the faith formation of their children.

Father Davignon told The

Anchor that, “Mrs. Nash is a very devoted, faithful woman, who depends on God and Jesus Christ to help her through everything in her life.”

Nash doesn’t get around as much as she used to, having suffered a stroke. “But Father Davignon brings holy Communion to mom, and she would rather have the Eucharist than all the money in the world,” said Ralph Nash.

Mary Nash is living proof that lessons learned in the home and in the Religious Education classroom can make a difference — a difference that can last a lifetime.

More than 80 years after Nash’s mother and father instilled in her the importance of the Catholic faith, the lesson is still imbedded in her soul. And it was a lesson she didn’t “hide under a bushel basket.”

She spent her whole life sharing that faith with her family and nearly half her life sharing it with young Catholic students.

There are hundreds of faithful Catholics who don’t keep their faith under a bushel basket either, and once in a while they get to see the fruits of their labors.

At age 90, Mary Nash had that chance.

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

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The Anchor

November 28, 2008

inner city parish with a school to come up with that money every month. We’ve been frugal with our expenses and the people have been very generous. We used to run two Bingos to help out and now we’re down to one.”

Msgr. Oliveira praised the generosity of his 1,300 families in helping to meet the parish’s monthly expenses.

“We managed to pay off our debt every month faithfully,”

A LONG-AWAITED GOODBYE — Msgr. John J. Oliveira looks over the 20-year mortgage papers from St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford that will be destroyed during a special Mass of Thanksgiving this Sunday with Bishop George W. Coleman. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

New Bedford parish celebrates ‘destroying’ its mortgage

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

NEW BEDFORD — The parishioners of St. Mary’s Parish will proudly retire a 20-year debt owed to the Diocese of Fall River during a special Mass of Thanksgiving to be held Sunday at 10:30 a.m. with Bishop George W. Coleman in attendance. The original $2.1 million loan was taken out to pay for a new church, new parish office and rectory, along with renovations to the parish center.

Traditionally known as the “burning” of a mortgage, pastor Msgr. John J. Oliveira prefers a more subtle term. “We’re calling it the destruction of the mortgage, because we don’t want to burn down the church,” Msgr. Oliveira said. “It will include a Mass of Thanksgiving during which the bishop will destroy the mortgage.”

This weekend’s Mass is actually the culmination of a yearlong celebration which Msgr.

Oliveira said was designed to “re-energize the parish” and help thank the parishioners for their generosity and support in paying down the debt.

“We’ve called it a jubilee year of thanksgiving,” Msgr. Oliveira said. “I wanted to bring the parish together to celebrate different things, not just the burning of the mortgage. We’re thankful for everything, all the graces that God has given us. It was a threepronged event: there were social, spiritual and liturgical components.”

Previous social events included a “Super Sundae” where children in CCD classes were given an ice cream party, and a jubilee banquet with music and dancing for all parishioners. A final reception will also be held after Sunday’s Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Mary’s School.

Spiritual events included a remembrance on November 2, All Souls’ Day, for all past parishioners and a 24-hour day of

eucharistic adoration. Key liturgical celebrations were also held throughout the jubilee year, from the first Sunday of Advent to the feast of Christ the King.

“We tried to reach out to every segment of the parish population,” Msgr. Oliveira said. “So everyone has had different ways to participate in the jubilee. We wanted to show we’re grateful for all we have and to those who have gone before us.”

Msgr. Oliveira expressed relief at being able to pay off the mortgage, noting that when he was first appointed pastor to St. Mary’s in 1995, they were paying about $16,000 a month toward the debt.

“We ended at about $10,000 a month, so it’s a great relief not to have that,” Msgr.

Oliveira said. “It’s very difficult in an

Msgr. Oliveira said. “It was a challenge, but clearly in the end run it is the obligation of the parish to assume the debt and pay it off.”

Although the parish will no longer have to allocate $10,000 a month to pay off the mortgage, like any property owner they will still have to deal with renovations and repairs on a regular basis.

“Unfortunately, now we’re lookTurn to page 15

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I

The Anchor

November 28, 2008

A man of conscience

recently attended an excellent conference on St. Thomas More’s trial at the University of Dallas. Sir Thomas, who had been Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIII, was imprisoned in the Tower of London for refusing to swear an oath that Parliament had prescribed. For his refusal, he was convicted by a legislative bill of attainder for “misprision of treason” (being silent about someone’s treason), which resulted in life imprisonment and the confiscation of all his property.

This bill of attainder, which is a judgment of guilt passed by Parliament, is expressly outlawed in our U.S. Constitution. If people are to be convicted of crimes in the United States, it must be by judicial trial, not by legislative vote. Impeachment or removal from office, of course, is another matter.

More was brought to trial on July 1, 1535 for the further charge of treason, for allegedly maliciously denying the king’s recently assumed title of “Supreme Head of the Church in England,” which effectively made the king of England

Judge For Yourself

By Dwight Duncan rather than the pope of Rome the ultimate authority over the Church there. This separated the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church, which it had been part of for a thousand years, ever since Pope Gregory the Great sent St. Augustine of Canterbury to Britain to evangelize the Angles.

There were four counts of his indictment, all of which were based on More’s conduct after he was imprisoned in the Tower. It was claimed that his silence on the king’s titles amounted to a malicious denial of them, that his communication by letter with Bishop John Fisher, a fellow prisoner in the Tower, amounted to a conspiracy to deny the king’s title, that he and Fisher had both used the image of a “two-edged sword” (we would say a Catch-22 or “damned if you do, and damned if you don’t”) when describing the statutory requirement to take an oath affirming the king’s titles, and that he had denied that Henry was the Supreme Head of the Church in England in a conversation with Richard Rich, a government official who later himself became Lord Chancellor, when Rich came to the Tower to confiscate More’s books.

St. Thomas, who first learned of the formal charges at the trial itself (they were read aloud in Latin at the commencement of the trial), replied that according to a well-known maxim of law, “Silence betokens consent,” and thus they could not claim that his mere silence was treasonous. The statute he was alleged to have violated required a

malicious denial, by word or deed, of the king’s title. There was no right to counsel in those days, no presumption of innocence, no right to remain silent. Bishop Fisher had burnt the letters that passed between them, and therefore there was no physical evidence of a conspiracy, and Thomas More denied that he had written anything in violation of the statute.

The crucial incriminating evidence was provided by Richard Rich, who testified that More had denied the king’s title in their conversation in the Tower. More swore that he did no such thing.

The jury took 15 minutes to return a guilty verdict, after which More argued that the statute under which he was convicted violated Magna Carta, the first provision of which had guaranteed the freedom of the Church in England from temporal interference, and the king’s own coronation oath. But there was no judicial review recognized for what we would call unconstitutionality, and the presiding judge ruled that “if the Act of Parliament be not unlawful, then is not the Indictment, in my conscience, insufficient.” Meaning, presumably, that Parliament is the last word on whether a law is legally binding. So he was judged guilty, and condemned to the violent death of a traitor.

He was beheaded on Tower Hill on July 6, 1535 for following his conscience, which was thoroughly Catholic. The U.S. Constitution only allows conviction for treason by overt act, proved by the testimony of at least two witnesses. As we have seen, there was no overt act in the case of More, and there was only one witness against him, who most probably perjured himself.

We now enjoy rights under our constitutional system which were denied St. Thomas, like the right to remain silent, the right to counsel, the presumption of innocence, and the ability to challenge the constitutionality of laws. As G.K. Chesterton wrote in 1929, almost a century ago, “Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in about a hundred years’ time.” Which is roughly now.

Here in Massachusetts and in the United States, pressures to conform to the anti-Christian dictates of political correctness and override the rights of conscientious objection, whether it be in the area of abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, homosexual marriage and adoption, are on the rise. St. Thomas More, whom Pope John Paul II proclaimed patron saint of statesmen in the year 2000, is truly more important than ever.

Dwight Duncan is a professor at Southern New England School of Law in North Dartmouth. He holds degrees in civil and canon law.

CANINE CONFERENCE — Scene from the animated adventure movie “Bolt.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Disney)

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

“Bolt” (Disney) The canine star of a TV show (voice of John Travolta), raised to believe that he has superpowers and that the program on which he continually rescues his beloved owner (voice of Miley Cyrus) is real, is accidentally shipped cross-country and must make his way back with the help of a streetwise cat (voice of Susie Essman) and an enthusiastic hamster (voice of Mark Walton). Directors Chris Williams and Byron Howard’s endearing animated adventure, which sees its hero learning to believe in himself and his companions — especially the formerly selfish feline — discovering the value of friendship and teamwork, has chase sequences and cartoon action that might frighten the youngest children, but is otherwise unobjectionable.

Conventional and 3-D formats.

The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

“Lake City” (Sixty-Six) Atmospheric family drama in which a young man (Troy Garity) targeted by a criminal (Dave Matthews) escapes to his rural childhood home with his girlfriend’s

son (Colin Ford) and reconnects with his estranged mother (Sissy Spacek). Though their script contains considerable salty dialogue and deals with some gritty subjects, co-writers and directors Hunter Hill and Perry Moore craft a hopeful tale of reconciliation and rediscovered values further enhanced by skillful performances. Beatings, moderate gun violence, drug theme, implied cohabitation, a character born out of wedlock, much rough and crude language, and a few uses of profanity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted.

Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

“The Dukes” (CAVU) Two cash-strapped cousins (Robert Davi and Chazz Palminteri) who once enjoyed fame as part of the titular doo-wop singing group join their two best friends — a former standup comic (Frank D’Amico) and an out-of-work airline mechanic (Elya Baskin) — in a bungling burglary scheme. Davi, who also directed and co-wrote, creates a low-key working-class drama far more concerned with friendship and perseverance than crime, though the comic treatment of one character’s sexual exploits is unwelcome. Brief nongraphic, nonmarital sexual activity, drug use, some sexual humor, one use

of the S-word, occasional crass language, and a couple of uses of profanity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

“Twilight” (Summit) Gothic romance about a selfpossessed high school student (Kristen Stewart) who moves to Washington state to live with her divorced father (Billy Burke) and falls for a mysterious classmate (Robert Pattinson) who turns out to be a vampire. Though set against a lush, misty background, director Catherine Hardwicke’s stylish screen version of Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling 2005 novel for young adults never takes itself too seriously, as the conflicted central relationship — restrained by the gentlemanly bloodsucker’s scruples — parodies both adolescent awkwardness and teen-age yearning.

Brief but intense action violence, a scene of mild sensuality, a few sexual references; acceptable for older teens. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II — adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, November 30 at 11:00 a.m.

Scheduled celebrant is Father Leonard Hindsley, pastor of St. John the Baptist Parish in Westport

The Anchor

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The Anchor

November 28, 2008

news briefs

Daschle chosen to head Health and Human Services WASHINGTON (CNS) — President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Tom Daschle, former Democratic senator from South Dakota, to be the next Health and Human Services secretary. The New York Times reported Obama’s choice of Daschle, attributing it to people the paper described as “being close to the transition team.” Daschle, a Catholic, represented South Dakota in the Senate from 1986 to 2004. Before that he was a member of the House of Representatives for eight years.

In the Senate he was minority leader, 1994-2001. In January 2001 he was Senate majority leader for a brief stint, then in May 2001 was again named Senate majority leader, a post he held until January 2003.

Although he has reportedly accepted Obama’s nomination, a formal announcement is not expected until other Cabinet members are chosen. He currently serves as a public policy adviser in a Washington law firm and has been appointed head of Obama’s health care policy group. His interest in health care is spelled out in a book he wrote, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis,” which was published in February. In 2001-03, when Daschle was the Senate majority leader, he was criticized by South Dakota’s bishops for his support for legal abortion.

Kenyan cardinal says Church will resist moves to legalize abortion NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) — The Catholic Church will resist any moves to legalize abortion in Kenya, said Cardinal John Njue of Nairobi. Cardinal Njue, president of the Kenya Episcopal Conference, led hundreds of Catholics into the streets to demonstrate against the Reproductive Health and Rights Bill 2008, which would legalize abortion. He said the bill should be opposed at all costs. Urging legislators to vote against the measure, he reminded them they were sent to parliament by voters to make good laws. The cardinal, who celebrated Mass at Nairobi’s Holy Family Minor Basilica after the recent demonstration, described abortion as murder and said it showed disrespect for life and human dignity. “We have come here not to condemn anybody, but (to condemn) the act itself. We hope the lawmakers we have sent to parliament will confine (themselves) to making good but not destructive laws such as this attempt to have abortion legalized in the country,” said the cardinal. Without elaborating further, Cardinal Njue said the forces behind the move to have abortion legalized in the country were foreign.

Pax Christi to help send peace prayers for Bethlehem at Christmas JERUSALEM (CNS) — As Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Advent and Christmas, Pax Christi International joined a call for prayers for peace to be sent to Bethlehem, West Bank. In its eighth year, the prayers for Bethlehem project is being carried out this year by the World Council of Churches and its Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum. Among others, it is being supported by Pax Christi International, the Catholic peace movement. The project will be launched at the beginning of Advent, November 30. “People in Bethlehem greatly appreciate receiving wishes and prayers from people outside the region, both as personal and spiritual gestures of comfort and hope on the occasion of Christmas. These messages are one way of breaking through the isolation they live in,” the council said in a press statement.

The Christmas messages and prayers for peace should be emailed to the Arab Educational Institute at aei@p-ol.com, before December 25 for Christians using the Gregorian calendar and before January 7 for those using the Julian calendar. Messages can be read online at: www. aeicenter.org and www.paxchristi.net.

NOT MUCH LEFT — An investigator uses a dog to search through the Oakridge mobile home community following a wildfire in Sylmar, Calif., recently. Wildfires in Southern California destroyed more than 800 houses, from mobile homes to multimillion-dollar mansions, and forced some 50,000 people from their homes. (CNS photo/Phil McCarten, Reuters)

Cardinal Mahony: Faith, family overcome fear in economic times

LOS ANGELES (CNS) — During this period of “severe economic downturn,” Christians must focus on faith and family rather than fear, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles said in a new “spiritual reflection” on the economy.

In a brief pastoral letter titled “Worrisome Times,” the cardinal said the economic crisis offers families an opportunity to return to the true meaning of Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

“I have heard many voices sound special alarm that these economic problems are occurring at our annual Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season,” he said in a recent letter. “Actually, I believe that this presents us with a good opportunity to help us celebrate what is important: our faith, our families and one another.”

The best Thanksgiving is “an enjoyable, simple meal with family and friends” and it will be even more meaningful “if we make some sacrifices and give food to our local parishes or area

food pantries,” Cardinal Mahony said.

Instead of a Christmas celebration that goes “way beyond reason in expenditures,” he proposed a Christmas that can be “a vivid lesson in giving” for children and a reminder of the true “importance of the feast: the birth of Jesus Christ.”

“A few simple gifts such as our own baked items, our own jams and jellies, a family photograph or other similar gifts speak volumes about loving and caring,” the cardinal said. “Involve the children in planning for Christmas by helping them to create and make gifts for others and to focus upon children who do not have what they have.”

Cardinal Mahony evoked the image of one of his own favorite paintings by Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn, “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee.” The painting depicts the scene told in Chapter 8 of the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus sleeps while a storm buffets the boat carrying him and the apostles, who cry

“Lord, save us! We are perishing!”

“Are not those the same words on our lips during this frightful economy: ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’” he asked. “Our very acknowledgment that we are powerless to save ourselves with our own ingenuity and strengths places us squarely in the embrace of our risen savior, Jesus Christ.”

Cardinal Mahony called on parishes to be “centers of hope during these times” by posting and sharing job opportunities, being attentive to those who are hurting in the parish and responding quickly, and encouraging all to offer assistance to those who are worse off than they are.

“Once we can keep our eyes fixed on Jesus ..., then a key point of his teaching and way of life becomes clearer: We go forward together, not alone and by ourselves,” the Los Angeles Church leader said. “We turn to one another to share our strength and to unite our hopes with others. That is the Christian way.”

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The Anchor

Mary doesn’t hurl snowballs

L

ast weekend, the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame lost a last minute contest on the gridiron to Syracuse University.

Irish football, which had for a long time been synonymous with quality, winning teams, has fallen into disarray over the past decade.

Frustration has built up in the sports administration office, with the alumni, with the players, with

My View From the Stands

By Dave Jolivet

the coaches, and with the fans.

During and after Notre Dame’s loss to Syracuse, fans took advantage of several inches of snow that had recently fallen in the area. Many of Notre Dame’s finest rained snowballs on the playing field, trying to pelt TV camera men, police officers and their fellow Irish classmates on the team. Hardly the behavior one would hope to see from a school centered on Christ.

I enjoy watching college football and basketball, but I must admit the only way I can tell a Catholic college from a secular school is by the name.

You would think there would be a difference in behavior and attitude from all involved with a Catholic school of higher learn-

ing. There doesn’t seem to be.

I’m not saying the teams and fans should not get all hyped up and play as best they can, but there should be lines that must not be crossed.

The ancient Christian writer Tertullian once wrote how impressed the pagans were with the Christians, saying “look how they love one another.”

There are far too many instances at games with Catholic colleges that involve scuffles, taunting and rowdy behavior. If a pagan wants to see how Christians love one another, a Catholic college sporting event is not the place to go.

Successful college teams do generate large amounts of revenue for the college — but at what price?

Is it OK to sell out one’s Catholic faith to bring in needed cash?

I wish the secular press would leave out the name of a Catholic college if a game involves non-Christian behavior. Just refer to them as their mascot name.

Instead of last week’s headlines, “Notre Dame students pelt police, classmates with snowballs,” simply say Fighting Irish fans become unruly.

No true student of Our Lady would hurl projectiles at others.

November 28, 2008

Former NFL lineman delivers straight talk to teens, parents

By Michael Pare Anchor Staff

also realized that God had handed him an opportunity to reach out to them. Why endorse leather NORTH DARTMOUTH — There was a time gloves or some kind of soft drink when he could when Sunday afternoons were all about football for become a spokesman for something so much more important?

Chris Godfrey.

All across the country, he said, his audiences An offensive lineman out of the University of Michigan, Godfrey toiled in the trenches of the Na- seem open to the message.

“Kids want to know the truth,” he said on Suntional Football League from 1980 through 1988, most of those years for the New York Giants. He day, between presentations to New Bedford stuwas a member of one of the greatest teams in NFL dents and then their parents. “And they don’t want history, the 1986 Giants. That team finished 14-2 opinions or propaganda. They want to make up their and culminated its season with a 39 to 20 victory own minds.”

During Sunday’s presentations, the students over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXI. Back then, Sunday afternoons meant defend- heard that they aren’t getting the full story from ing against an onslaught of mayhem, the oncoming the music they hear or the television programs and rush of defensive ends and linebackers determined movies they watch. They heard that their individual to inflict pain and suffering on quarterback Phil sexuality is a gift from God, and should be treated Simms. It may have been a painful way to earn a as such. They heard that abstinence is a positive living, but he was doing something he truly loved. thing.

During a late afternoon session, when the students These days, Godfrey is still doing something he were upstairs confessing to more than 15 priests and truly loves. praying before Jesus After finishing his storied NFL career uring a late afternoon session, Christ exposed on the altar, Godfrey spoke with the Seattle SeaGodfrey spoke directly to parents directly to parents of hawks, Godfrey hung up his cleats and, in of the confirmation candidates. He told the confirmation canaddition to earning them that love can only be found through didates. He told them a degree from the relationships and that the most important that love can only be University of Notre relationship any of us has is our relation- found through relaDame Law School, ship with God. Godfrey also reminded tionships and that the he founded Life Athparents that despite what it may seem most important relationship any of us letes. sometimes, their children crave their inhas is our relationship Life Athletes is an with God. Godfrey Indiana-based orga- fluence. also reminded parnization comprised of ents that despite what more than 300 professional and Olympic athletes who try to live lives of it may seem sometimes, their children crave their virtue, abstinence, and respect for life. Among the influence.

“They want to hear from you,” he said. “We’re Olympic athletes committed to the organization is all wired the same way. They know the truth when eight-time gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps.

Godfrey points out that although its membership they hear it. They resonate with it.”

Godfrey urged the parents in attendance to set is made up of so many athletes, membership in Life Athletes is open to anyone who is willing to make good examples for their kids. We all stumble, he the Life Athletes Commitment. That commitment said.

“But it’s important that your children see you states: — I will try to do what is right, even when it trying to be perfect,” he said.

During his presentation, Godfrey also made a is difficult; — I will give myself only to that special per- point of praising the commitment and efforts of Marian Desrosiers, director of the Fall River Dioson who I marry as a partner for life; — I will respect the lives of others especially cese’s Pro-Life Apostolate. Desrosiers coordinated the workshop and also served as a presenter. the unborn and the aged; “We need parents to be the primary educators in — I won’t quit or make excuses when I fail. I this area,” she said. will try again.

Desrosiers reminded parents that today’s kids are On November 23, Godfrey brought his message to New Bedford, when he spoke to 500 second-year facing issues unimaginable years ago. For example, confirmation students from throughout the deanery she said, 50 percent of our teen-agers — by the time who had gathered for an afternoon workshop at St. they reach 25 — will have a sexually transmitted disease. And many of these diseases, she said, do Anthony of Padua Parish.

Godfrey has been spreading his message for not have symptoms.

There are also far more kinds of STDs than ever more than 20 years. It all started, he said, when as a rookie player he was asked to speak to a local before and some of those that have been around for confirmation class. It was a nerve-wracking experi- decades are no longer responding as they once did ence, he said. But something clicked. Not only did to antibiotics. All of which, said Desrosiers, makes he like the message he delivered, but the students it all the more important to establish a dialogue with seemed to be listening. They’ve been listening ever your children.

Echoing a message delivered earlier in the day since.

Godfrey, now a father of six, realized that kids by Godfrey, Desrosiers concluded the afternoon were being hurt by the decisions that they were with some important advice for parents.

“Speak to them,” she said. “They are listening.” making. And as a professional football player, he

D

Priest from Orissa speaks out against persecution continued from page one

victim to the violent attacks now making headlines.

“A priest from Orissa who was beaten and died on October 28 was the treasurer of our diocese,” Father Subal said. “Another priest who was beaten badly was the director of the pastoral center of the diocese, Father Thomas. He was beaten so badly he’s still in the hospital taking treatment in India.”

According to Father Subal, Christians are the clear religious minorities in India, where more than 90 percent of the population subscribe to the Hindu religion. All Christians, Catholic and Protestants inclusive, account for a mere two percent of the total population, with a variety of other groups like Muslims and Buddhists rounding out the remaining eight percent. As such, Christians have become an easy target for several radical Hindu sects who fear the small but vocal minority is attempting to lure people away from their Hindu beliefs.

“We are targeted because of the work that we do,” Father Subal said. “It’s not only because of our Christian beliefs, it’s because we speak out openly.”

Father Subal explained how the Christian ideal of treating everyone equally and allowing people the freedom to express themselves goes against the grain of some Hindu extremists who want to maintain their control and power over the country’s poverty-stricken population.

“We are trying to reach out to these people because they are human like us,” Father Subal said.

We feel we should be free to worship. Hinduism is not that, you know. There is a different structure, a different caste system. The Catholic Church is not attacking Hinduism, because we believe the presence of God is manifested everywhere. But these people who are persecuting us don’t allow people to have the freedom to express their faith.”

The mere presence of alternative religions in India also threatens economic and cultural boundaries that have been longestablished under the existing Hindu structure, Father Subal said. There is a well-defined system of “masters and slaves” within Indian culture that precludes the notion of all people being equal and free under the current law.

“It seems like a religious fight, but it’s a fight for human equality, freedom and respect for other persons,” Father Subal said. “People need to have better food, better communication, better facilities.

Those are the things we are working on through various organiza-

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The Anchor

November 28, 2008

tions and ideas. These are some of the reasons that these people … see us as a threat. The people in power are losing control.”

“We want people to raise their voices against injustice and oppression and to fight against the corruption that will enable them to stand on their feet as a liberated people,” he added. “It is the duty of every civilized individual to help other individuals who are not living the same kind of life of freedom and dignity. This is a call to universal brotherhood and sisterhood.”

The fundamental group re-

CONCERNED FOR HOMELAND — Father Francis Subal, SS.CC., who now resides at the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Provincial House in Fairhaven, is originally from Orissa, India, and still has family and friends living in the war-torn state where Christians are being persecuted and murdered for their beliefs.

sponsible for the current violence in Orissa is known as the RSS — the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh. It was formed in 1984 and is estimated to have more than 1.8 million members who are organized into 40,000 small groups known as shakhas. Most of the shakhas are comprised of unmarried male full-time workers who help maintain control in remote areas of the country. In fact, Father Subal said the majority of those involved in the RSS are young, male college students.

The RSS’ persecution of Christians can be traced back to one of their main affiliates — the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA), a group founded in 1952 to specifically counter Christian missionary efforts in India.

“The RSS is the main driving force in bringing all the nations of India together,” Father Subal said. “I would hesitate to say they are more radical, but there are Hindu sects who have more radi-

cal elements.”

According to Father Subal, the current tensions in Orissa stem from an incident last Christmas, when plans were made to celebrate a large-scale outdoor Christmas Eve liturgy in an open area on December 24. “The Hindu people didn’t like this, so they came on the morning of December 24 and destroyed and burned the open area,” he said. “Then they started beating and shooting our brothers and sisters and even burning their houses. That’s how it started.”

More recently, when Swamiji Laxmanananda Saraswati, the leader of another RSS affiliate known as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and four of his associates were killed on August 23, it led to renewed and more violent anti-Christian attacks in Orissa.

“They blamed Christians for killing him,” Father Subal said, “even though the government said it was a Maoist group fighting for the liberation of the people. They even interviewed the leader of this Maoist group and he admitted they were responsible. In spite of that, the Hindu leaders still blame us.”

Complicating matters is the suggestion that the police either seem to be outnumbered by the RSS or indifferent to their public attacks, according to recent reports. When a nun was attacked and raped by a mob on August 24 alongside a priest who was also beaten and doused in gasoline, the nun claimed the local police did nothing to stop the incident as a mob of some 40 to 50 armed men tormented her.

“The police claim because of the large number of (RSS), they won’t be able to do anything to stop the violence in Orissa,” Father Subal said. “They are not caring for these people. Somehow, I think they belong to (the RSS) group.”

Father Subal said over the past year many of the Christians’ homes have been destroyed or burned and most have been forced to go into hiding. “Most are afraid to go back,” he said.

“They don’t know whom to trust.

Stories have been told that when they go back, they are forced to return to the Hindu religion or leave the village. One man said, ‘I have only two choices: life or faith. If I choose faith, I die.’ It’s a difficult situation for followers of Christ.”

Father Subal stays in contact with family and friends in Orissa, and he said although they are fine physically, the mental anguish of the situation is beginning to take a toll on them.

“My family was in hiding for weeks,” Father Subal said.

“My mother was in the hospital one time when the hospital was attacked, but she’s OK. They haven’t been physically attacked, but mentally they don’t feel free to go anywhere. Mentally they are oppressed. My mother is now staying at my sister’s house.”

Although he’s pleased that the fighting in Orissa is getting some

international attention, Father Subal is also concerned that the situation may be more dire than what’s being reported. “Most of the media is controlled by the RSS,” he said. “So the number of attackers, the number of houses burned — all those details are filtered through them. So we may only be getting 50 percent of the news.”

With the one-year anniversary of the sabotaged Christmas Eve liturgy approaching — an event that seemed to be the catalyst for the escalating violence against Christians in Orissa — Father Subal remains hopeful that things will one day get better in his homeland.

“I pray a lot for the Church, now discouraged, broken and wounded,” Father Subal said.

“But the Church will not give up — even though it is very difficult for us to accept the situation — we need to stand up again and walk. It’s like the crippled man who Jesus told to pick up his mat and walk … but somebody has to tell them. The Church in Orissa is looking for someone to say ‘OK, now I’m giving you the power, get up and walk again.’”

New Bedford parish burns mortgage continued from page 11

ing at some much-needed roof repairs and other fix-ups,” Msgr.

Oliveira said. “We’re hoping to raise some money from Bingo (for those projects).”

Originally a mission of St. Kilian’s Parish in the north end of New Bedford, St. Mary of the Assumption Parish was founded in 1927 by Father Francis McKeon. When the wood-framed church was destroyed in the Hurricane of 1938, many parishioners reverted back to St. Kilian’s. But as the area’s population increased after World War II, St. Mary’s was reinstated in 1952

by Bishop James L. Connolly.

For many years the church occupied the basement level of

the parish school, until pastor Father John F. Moore concluded a new church was needed in the 1980s.

The 20-year mortgage was used to fund this new parish complex expansion under Father Moore, which included a new church, the renovation of the former basement church into a parish center, the addition of a second floor to the original church structure, and new adjoining parish offices and connecting rectory.

“We’re grateful to all our parishioners and to God for all he’s provided to our parish,” Msgr. Oliveira said. “We’re also grateful to the diocese for making it all possible.”

16

IT’S OK TO BE SHELLFISH — The fourth-grade class at Holy Name School in Fall River is working on a new science unit using the FOSS Structure of Life Module. They will be sharing space in the classroom with plants and crayfish. The students are taking care of crayfish and anything could happen, from eggs appearing to shells molting as crayfish grow.

A STAR IN THE MAKING — Sophia Pelletiere of St. Mary’s School, Mansfield, won the Future Stars Art Project. She drew a picture to be used on the front of the parish’s baptismal cards.

Newly baptized children will be welcomed into the St. Mary’s Parish family when they receive one of our Future Stars cards signed by the current third-grade.

KEEPING THEIR BIDS QUIET — Parishioners and families of St. John the Evangelist School and Parish in Attleboro met at Christina’s in Foxboro recently where they held their annual auction.

The auction is the school’s major fund-raiser of the year. Shown are some parents perusing the items, and placing their bids in the silent auction.

Youth Pages

November 28, 2008

A GREAT INSPIRATION — The Bishop Stang Student Council and the National Honor Society sponsored an appearance by Immaculée Ilibagiza, author of “Left to Tell; Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust” (Hay House) at the North Dartmouth school recently. The entire Bishop Stang community read her moving book this summer. From left: Sarah Celone, Katie Quintin, Immaculée, Ellen Carroll, and Morgan Cirillo.

ACTIVE PARISH YOUTH — Nine members of St. Anthony’s Youth Group in Taunton recently formed a junior group of St. Vincent de Paul Society. Since then two more members joined the Vincentians.

From left: Steven Angelos, Christopher Carmo, Krista DeMelo, Jonathan Carmo, Richard Silvia, president Taunton District St. Vincent de Paul Society; Rebecca Weichell, Kianna Chaves, Jeff Weichell, Monica Barros, Evan Milho, and Alexandra DeSousa Missing from the photo was Alyssa Camara. They are involved in different ministries of the parish under the direction of Deacon Jose Medina, their spiritual advisor. They have held cake sales and a car wash for various charities. They will help senior Vincentians to deliver thanksgiving flowers to our parishioners in nursing homes.

They also volunteer at the district center.

PLANTING THE SEEDS OF KNOWLEDGE — The Pumpkin Math first-graders at St. Pius X School in South Yarmouth are guided by their teacher, Mrs. Olson.

November 28, 2008

I

t’s hard to believe, but the season of Advent begins this weekend. Are we ready? In the words of martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero, “Advent is not just four weeks in which to prepare for Christmas. Advent is the Church’s life. Advent is Christ’s presence ... and will bring about God’s true reign, telling us, humanity, that Isaiah’s prophecy is now fulfilled: Emmanuel — God with us.”

Reflecting on the words of Archbishop Romero on Advent, it reminded me of one of my favorite stories that we’ve often used during YES! Retreat team formation.

The story concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. It was once a great order, but because of persecution, all its branch houses were lost and there were only five monks left in the decaying house: the abbot and four others, all over 70 in age.

Clearly it was a dying order.

In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi occasionally used for a hermitage. For some reason, the old monks could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. “The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods” they would whisper.

It occurred to the abbot that a visit to the rabbi might result in some advice to save his monastery.

The rabbi welcomed the abbot to his hut. But when the abbot explained his visit, all the rabbi could say, “I know how it is. The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. Then they read parts of the Torah and spoke of deep things. When the abbot had to leave, they embraced each other. “It has been a wonderful that we should meet after all these years,” the abbot said, “but I have failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me that would help me save my dying order?”

“No, I am sorry,” the rabbi responded. “I have no advice to give. But I can tell you that the Messiah lives among you.”

When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, “Well what did the rabbi say?”

“The rabbi said something very mysterious, it was some-

Youth Pages Advent ... Christ living among us

thing cryptic. He said that there when you need him. He the Messiah lives among us. I just magically appears. Maybe don’t know what he meant.”

Phillip is the Messiah.

In the time that followed, As they contemplated, the old monks wondered the old monks began to treat whether the significance to each other with extraordinary the rabbi’s words. The Mesrespect on the chance that siah lives among us? Could he one among them might be the possibly have meant one of us Messiah. And they began to monks? If so, which one? treat themselves with extraorDo you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have

By Frank Lucca meant Brother Thomas.

Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man.

Everyone knows that Thomas dinary respect. is a man of light. Certainly he People still occasionally could not have meant Brother came to visit the monastery in Elred. Elred gets crotchety at its beautiful forest to picnic times. But come to think of it, on its tiny lawn, to wander even though he is a thorn in along some of its paths, even people’s sides, when you look to meditate in the dilapidated back on it, Elred is virtually chapel. As they did so, they always right. Often very right. sensed the aura of extraordiMaybe the rabbi did mean nary respect that began to surBrother Elred. But surely not round the five old monks and Brother Phillip. Phillip is so seemed to radiate out from passive, a real nobody. But them and permeate the atmothen, almost mysteriously, he sphere of the place. There was has a gift for always being something strangely compel-

Be Not Afraid

ling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery to picnic, to play, to pray. They brought their friends to this special place. And their friends brought their friends.

Then some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another, and another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi’s gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm.

So as we begin this Advent season, let’s remember that the Messiah lives among us and is in us. Archbishop Romero reminds us in these thoughts on Advent, “Advent

17 should admonish us to discover in each brother or sister that we greet, in each friend whose hand we shake, in each beggar who asks for bread, in each worker who wants to use the right to join a union, in each peasant who looks for work in the coffee groves, the face of Christ. Then it would not be possible to rob them, to cheat them, to deny them their rights. They are Christ, and whatever is done to them Christ will take as done to himself.”

Yes. That is what Advent is: Christ living among us.

Seen him lately?

Frank Lucca is a youth minister at St. Dominic’s Parish in Swansea. He is chair and a director of the YES! Retreat and director of the Christian Leadership Institute (CLI). He is a husband and a father of two daughters.

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

18

The Anchor

Knitting shawls a labor of love, a time for prayer continued from page one

be a nice way to give back,” said Ryan.

And so a notice went in the bulletin. Ryan didn’t expect a huge response. Maybe a few ladies would get together, she figured.

Well, a few did. And then so did a few more. They ranged in age, but gathered around a common goal.

“We came together to knit and crochet … we stay together for the love of God,” said Ryan. “We could be knitting alone. But to knit and to pray for people who need our support … that keeps us going.”

Some women take a week or two to finish a particular shawl.

Others may take a month or longer. Each shawl is designed with a pocket. And in that pocket is placed a prayer card, and often, a set of rosary beads.

When the shawl is finished, a prayer is said for the person receiving it. The names of recipients come from parishioners, people who visit nursing homes and others from social service agencies.

Ryan sees the Prayer Shawl Ministry as a special thing, one of those rare experiences where everyone involved wins. Everyone is touched. Everyone is drawn that much closer to God. She tells the story of one of the group’s members, a 94-year-old woman originally from Connecticut. The woman had come to live with her

daughter in Osterville. Her daughter happened to know Ryan and had heard of the Prayer Shawl Ministry.

The daughter thought it would be a wonderful outlet for her mother. So the daughter dutifully drives her mother to Centerville every Wednesday morning. The mother has made a new set of friends. And the ministry has added a dedicated worker. In just a couple of months, she’s finished 10 shawls.

“She’s found a circle of friends,” said Ryan. “We just love her.”

Diane Dupont is another dedicated member of Our Lady of Victory’s Prayer Shawl Ministry. She finds it “comforting to do something for someone else.”

“I find it relaxing to hear the knitting needles clicking,” said Dupont. “It’s a form of meditation.”

And the most rewarding part, she said, is when they present the shawl to someone. They’ve taken turns doing so.

“It’s so wonderful to present them,” she said. “You see how much it means to the person. That is just so rewarding.”

The idea of making shawls for those in need is not new and ministries doing just that can be found at parishes and community organizations around the country, and for that matter, around the world.

This Message Sponsored by the Following Business Concern in the Diocese of Fall River Gilbert C. Oliveira Insurance Agency

But the Prayer Shawl Ministry has taken firm hold on Cape Cod and that is thanks in no small way to Barbara St. Cyr, a parishioner at St. Pius X in South Yarmouth.

St. Cyr has become a point person, so to speak, for those looking to establish Prayer Shawl Ministries at their parishes. Her determination to help spread the word and jumpstart more Prayer Shawl Ministries is her way of giving back.

St. Cyr received a shawl about five years ago, when she was dealing with a serious illness. It came from a dear friend, she said.

“That shawl gave me the love of God’s warm embrace through her love, her hands, and her prayers that went into creating it,” said St. Cyr. “When I was well enough, I wanted to pass on the gift I received to others. We launched the ministry here at St. Pius X. Rather than meet regularly, parishioners met in small groups on their own or wanted to make them privately in their homes.”

By July of that year, at a Mass of “Blessing of the Shawls,” we had 84 shawls made by 65 women from the parish at that time, on the altar to be blessed and brought to the home bound and to nursing homes by our extraordinary ministers of holy Communion.”

Since that beginning, the knitting needles have apparently been clicking at a furious pace.

“Over 350 shawls have gone out to our immediate St. Pius X community, as well as those in need over the bridge,” said St. Cyr. St. Cyr has been touched too, by the seemingly limitless reach of the prayer shawls.

She tells the story of a former St. Pius X parishioner who is now living in the Midwest. The woman was undergoing a heart transplant and told St. Cyr that the prayer shawl she had received was the first thing she packed in her suitcase when she was preparing to go to the hospital. After a successful surgery, she told St. Cyr that her daughter still sleeps with the shawl every night.

St. Cyr tells another story of a woman she met who asked for a shawl for her sister, who was in the final stages of lung cancer. She wanted to put the shawl around her sister as they embarked on what they knew would be a difficult journey.

“A month later I received an email from her telling me that her sister never had to go on that cruel journey,” said St. Cyr. “She died at home, at peace, with her family around her. She was wrapped in her prayer shawl. Because it meant so much to her and her family, they buried her with the shawl. That was the first of many moments that made me cry.”

November 28, 2008 St. Cyr is thrilled that Prayer Shawl Ministries appear to be growing on the Cape, and elsewhere. And she sees anything she can do to foster that growth as part of an important mission.

The countless stories she hears from people who have been so deeply touched after receiving a shawl, along with that innate desire to give back, fuel her.

“These moments tell me that I am doing what I have been chosen to do,” she said. “Being asked by

others, both here on the Cape and over the bridge, to help others start their ministries … what a true gift has come into my life.”

Talk to any of the women involved in the Prayer Shawl Ministries and you hear similar sentiments. In Centerville, Diane Dupont sees the shawls as reminders to those who receive them that “they aren’t alone.”

“We liken the shawl to the Lord putting his arms around them,” she said.

Naughty and nice Christmas retailers continued from page one

A similar shopping guide — dubbed “Naughty or Nice” — can be found at the American Family Association’s online action site at afa.net. While the Mississippibased AFA doesn’t have a petition, it does provide email addresses of the “naughty” stores, so offended consumers can lodge a quick complaint.

Additionally, AFA’s Project Merry Christmas (“the plan they can’t ban”) offers for sale buttons and glossy stickers that announce, “It’s OK to Say Merry Christmas!”

“Some might think simply wearing a button or displaying a sticker is a small thing,” Chairman Donald Wildmon notes, “but God can use small things to make a big point, and to create opportunities to share the Good News.

“Christians can take a stand and proclaim to our communities that Christmas is not just a winter holiday focused on materialism, but a ‘holy day’ when we celebrate the birth of our Savior.”

Focus on the Family’s statement: “This trend is part of a larger movement to purge Christian references from the public square.

With more than 90 percent of Americans believing in and celebrating Christmas, we believe it’s time for the secularization of Christmas to end.”

The shopping lists compiled by both Christian groups differ somewhat in their criteria used and stores rated.

Focus on the Family reviewed promotional materials of 33 retailers. Eighteen score as “friendly” — they prominently acknowledge Christmas. Ten rate as “negligent” for their marginal use of the word, and five are “offensive,” having “apparently abandoned” any recognition of whose birth we’re celebrating with gifts.

The AFA’s list has only two categories: “for” and “against.”

The 11 “against” (the naughty ones) either use the word Christmas sparingly or not at all.

The 15 “for” (nice) retailers show an attempt to acknowledge Christmas on a regular basis.

Only six retailers — Lowe’s, Home Depot, Macy’s, Sears, Target and WalMart — attained the

best score on both lists. Both gave a bah-humbug to Old Navy/The Gap. Meanwhile, the national Knights of Columbus is continuing its yearly “Keep Christ in Christmas” campaign, spokesman Peter Sonski said. The Catholic fraternal organization makes available Advent wreaths and religious cards, banners, ornaments, magnets, billboards and other evangelization materials that local councils can purchase.

“It’s a program that Knights across the country take advantage of,” Sonski said. “As with any volunteer group, how fervently it’s used varies from year to year depending on members.”

Information can be found at ChristinChristmas.com.

It appears that consumer complaints do make an impact. In 2005 some retailers — Target, Sears, and Lowe’s among them — used only “holiday” in their marketing. The AFA organized a petition, and these stores and others now acknowledge Christmas.

And the City of Boston in 2005 had named its 48-foot spruce a holiday tree, but quickly redubbed it a Christmas tree after public outrage. In 2007, Lowe’s apologized for referring to Christmas trees as “family trees” in its holiday catalog. A spokeswoman called the use of the term “family trees” a “plain old error,” according to the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which issues a yearly report on the “Christmas Wars” in business, government and education.

But there are definitely stubborn holdouts. In response to a customer request this year to use the word Christmas, Costco Wholesale sent this email to a customer: “There are a number of holidays during November and December; our ads are in reference to all of the holidays. These holidays include Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year’s Eve.” The customer replied, “Well, I hope you make profits off Veterans Day and Kwanzaa, as I won’t be doing my Christmas shopping there.”

November 28, 2008

Around the Diocese Eucharistic Adoration:

Eucharistic Adoration ACUSHNET — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Church, 125 Main Street, Mondays from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., ending with Evening Prayer and Benediction.

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

NEW BEDFORD — Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament takes place at St. Joseph-St. Therese Church, 51 Duncan Street, Mondays following the 8:30 a.m.

Mass until 1:30 p.m. For more information call 508-995-2354.

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

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

TAUNTON — Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament takes place every First Friday at Annunciation of the Lord Church, 31 First Street, immediately following the 8 a.m. Mass and continues throughout the day. Confessions are heard from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m., concluding with recitation of the rosary and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.

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

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

Miscellaneous: Miscellaneous ATTLEBORO — The choirs at St. John the Evangelist Church, 133 North Main Street will present “A Selection of Holiday Music” December 7, 3 p.m. Admission is a canned good for the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry.

CENTERVILLE — The annual memorial Deacon Joseph Stanley Mass of hope and remembrance for parents grieving the loss of their children, will be celebrated December 7, 11:30 a.m., in Our Lady of Victory Church, 230 South Main Street.

Refreshments will follow in the parish center. For more information contact Jeanmarie.fraser@gmail.com, or the parish office at 508-775-5744.

CHATHAM — A Tridentine Mass is celebrated 11:30 a.m. every Sunday at Our Lady of Grace Chapel on Route 137.

EAST FREETOWN — A Christmas Surprises Barn Sale will take place December 6, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., in the St. John Neumann Parish barn next to Cathedral Camp, sponsored by the parish’s Women’s Guild.

FALL RIVER — A holy hour takes place at Holy Name Church, 709 Hanover Street, Tuesdays at 7 p.m., It consists of the rosary, Miraculous Medal Novena, a homily, Benediction, and the opportunity for confession. The Divine Mercy Chaplet is recited Wednesdays at 3 p.m.

MASHPEE — Christ the King Parish’s annual Christmas Bazaar sponsored by its Catholic Women’s Club, will be held in the church on Masphee Commons, December 6, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Games for children, face painting, handmade crafts, and lunch and snacks will be available.

NEW BEDFORD — The Massachusetts Choir of Communion and Liberation will present an Advent Concert, December 6 at 7 p.m., in St. Joseph-St. Therese Church, 51 Duncan Street. For tickets and information call Robert at 508-525-0051.

NEW ENGLAND — The Portuguese TV Program “Good News For Life,” (“Boa Nova da Vida”) sponsored by the Communications Office of the Fall River Diocese, will present, “Is It Possible to Live the Peace of Christmas in Our Times?”

December 3 and 17 at 9:30 p.m.

NORTH ATTLEBORO — A Christmas Fair will be held at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Church, 14 Park Street, tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

It will offer pictures with Santa, crafted items, baked goods, a raffle and silent auction.

NORTH DARTMOUTH — A Day with Mary will take place December 6 from 8:45 a.m., to 3:45 p.m., in St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road. It will include a video, instruction, devotion, a procession and crowning of Mary, Mass, an opportunity for the sacrament of penance, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, recitation of the rosary, and enrollment in the Brown Scapular and Miraculous Medal. For more information call Mary Creeden at 508-984-1823.

OSTERVILLE — Our Lady of the Assumption Parish will host its Silver Bell Holiday Fair, December 6, 9 a.m., to 3 p.m., at the church, 76 Wianno Road. It will include pictures with Santa, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.; lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and hand-made items, jewelry and a white elephant table.

OSTERVILLE — The 19th annual National Night of Prayer for Life uniting the feast of the Immaculate Conception and the feast of St. Juan Diego, will be held from 9 p.m., December 8 to 1 a.m., December 9 in Our Lady of the Assumption Church, 76 Wianno Avenue. For more information contact Larry K. Burke at email Lburke4845@aol.com, or by phone at 508-420-5713.

SWANSEA — Centering Prayer gatherings will be held every Sunday in Advent beginning this Sunday at 6:15 p.m., in the Family Room of St. Louis de France Church, 56 Buffington Street. For more information call Charles R. Demers at 508-617-0848.

TAUNTON — Holy Family Parish will host the Cranberry Brass Quintet at an Advent Lessons and Carols program, December 14, 4 p.m., in the church at 370 Middleboro Avenue. Refreshments will follow in the church hall.

TAUNTON — As the Advent Season, begins there will be a novena to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception at Annunciation of the Lord Parish, beginning Sunday and running each evening until December 8. This novena will focus on our call to holiness and how we can look to Mary as our model in how to live as heroic witnesses to Christ. The novena will consist of exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, the rosary, a Scripture reading, a talk by a different priest each evening, and Benediction. The novena begins at 7 p.m. and will conclude before 8 p.m. All are welcome.

WEST HARWICH — Members of the Holy Trinity Charismatic Prayer Group invites all to an Advent Celebration December 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Damien Hall.

For information call Alice Bahnsen at 508-398-1139 or Jane Jannell at 508430-0014.

WESTPORT — Sung Vespers every Sunday in Advent at 4 p.m. in St. John the Baptist Church, 945 Main Road. All are welcome.

WESTPORT — Our Lady of Grace Parish will hold its annual Christmas Bazaar, tomorrow and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the parish center, 569 Sanford Road.

Pro-Life

ATTLEBORO — Concerned faithful are needed to pray the rosary outside Four Women, Inc., an abortion clinic at 150 Emory Street, Thursdays from 3-4 p.m., or 4-5 p.m. and Saturdays from 7:30-8:30 a.m. For information call 508-238-5743.

19

The Anchor

Diocese of Fall River will conduct 21st annual appeal for the Retirement Fund for Religious December 14 DIGHTON — The Dominican Sisters of Charity in Dighton and the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts in Fairhaven benefited this year from grants that were made possible by this appeal. Religious institutes that are known and revered for their ministry in the diocese but are not headquartered here benefit from grants that are directed to their motherhouses.

The Diocese of Fall River donated $146,477.72 in 2007, a nine percent decline from 2006 donations of $161,318.06.

In 2007, this appeal, which is conducted by the National Religious Retirement Office (NRRO) of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, DC, distributed $23 million in Basic Grants that benefited 482 of the nation’s Catholic religious institutes of women and men.

Since the first national annual appeal took place in Catholic parishes in 1988, NRRO has

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

Dec. 1 Rev. Phillipe Ross, Chaplain, Sacred Heart Home, New Bedford, 1958 Rev. Edward J. Gorman, Retired Pastor, St. Patrick, Somerset, 1964 Dec. 2 Rev. Arthur Savoie, Pastor, St. Hyacinth, New Bedford, 1917 Rev. Dennis W. Harrington, Assistant, St. Mary, Taunton, 1958 Rev. Stanislaus Basinski, Former Pastor, Holy Rosary, Taunton, 1970 Dec. 3 Rev. John W. McCarthy, P.R., Pastor, Sacred Heart, Fall River, 1926 Dec. 4 Rev. Patrick Byrne, Pastor, St. Mary, New Bedford, 1844 Rev. Charles Ouellette, Assistant, St. Jacques, Taunton, 1945 Rev. Edward C. Duffy, Pastor, St. Francis Xavier, Hyannis, 1994 Dec. 5 Rev. Eugene J. Boutin, Manchester Diocese, 1986 Rev. Coleman Conley, SS.CC., Chaplain, Sacred Heart Home, New Bedford, 1990 Dec. 6 Rev. Joseph L. Cabral, Pastor, Our Lady of the Angels, Fall River, 1959 Rt. Rev. Msgr. John H. Hackett, JCD, Chancellor, June-December 1966, 1966 Rev. Joseph K. Welsh, Retired Pastor, Our Lady of Victory, Centerville, 1971 Rev. John T. Higgins, Retired Pastor, St. Mary, Mansfield, 1985 Dec. 7 Rev. Thomas F. Daley, Retired Pastor, St. James, New Bedford, 1976 Rev. Ambrose Bowen, Retired Pastor, St. Joseph, Taunton, 1977 Rev. James W. Clark, Retired Pastor, St. Joan of Arc, Orleans, 2000

raised more than $550 million.

The Retirement Fund for Religious collection has been the most successful appeal in U.S. Catholic Church history. Donations have enabled NRRO to seed and stabilize retirement funds at religious institutes, leverage local fund raising, and assist capital campaigns. Grant awards have assisted investment and supported collaboration among religious institutes and helped ensure quality of life and adequate health care for thousands of women and men religious formerly at risk.

During the past two decades, however, the gap between assets available for retirement and the cost of living/health care for elderly women and men religious has widened from $2 billion to $9 billion and is expected to grow.

In 2023, the combined Social Security benefits of all retired religious is projected to be $184 million a year, but cost of care will total more than $1.6 billion annually.

More than 37,000 Catholic religious are now past age 70.

More than 4,900 women and men require skilled nursing care.

While costs for care in a skilled nursing facility in the U.S. average more than $55,200 annually, religious institutes have kept their average cost of skilled nursing care to $51,361. The average Social Security benefit for religious women and men is approximately one-third that paid to the average U.S. beneficiary.

“The statistics we provide reflect very real human need,” says NRRO executive director Janice Bader, a Sister of the Most Precious Blood of O’Fallon, Mo. “NRRO is in the midst of intense planning for its next 10 years of service. This planning will design expanded partnerships and initiatives with religious institutes for addressing the ongoing challenges of elder care, thus enabling religious institutes to remain viable in their ministries which are so important to the Church.”

Ninety-five percent of donations are awarded to religious institutes through basic grants.

Our readers respond

Disposing of innocent children Many years ago, it was suggested (only half-kiddingly) that Pro-Life activists would have a better chance of restoring legal right-to-life protection to unborn children by classifying them as animals. This was borne out on November 4 when more votes were cast in Massachusetts to protect dogs than were cast to protect human babies. What is wrong with this picture?

The votes cast against the innocent unborn were the votes cast for the most pro-abortion presidential candidate this coun-

try has ever seen, Barack Obama, who has previously voted, as a senator, for the legal destruction of the most helpless members of the human family before, during, and after birth. Further, he has promised that his first act as president will be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which will result in an estimated 125,000 additional innocent human being who will be sacrificed on the altar of choice.

Is anybody there? Does anybody care?

Richard A. Carey Needham

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20

The Anchor

November 28, 2008

Guaimacan visitors happy, eager to get home continued from page one

the beans and tortillas of home.

Jose Francisco Moncada Escoto, 18, and Edio Alexis Zuniga Martinez, 26, stopped in last week at The Anchor with Father Craig A. Pregana, their pastor at St. Francis and St. Rose of Lima parishes in Guaimaca — the Diocese of Fall River’s mission in Honduras.

It was the final leg of a journey that found the young men on their first trips abroad for a November 3 to 12 pilgrimage to Rome, and during a two-week visit to the diocese here including Christ the King Parish in Mashpee and St. Anthony’s in East Falmouth, to express thanks for personal visitations and charity to the missions that play such an important part of their lives.

They also visited the Provincial House of the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation in Dighton to see an old friend, Sister Lucia Gomez, who has served at the Guaimaca mission.

The young men were among 29 people from parishes in the Fall River Diocese who made

the Rome pilgrimage.

Because the young men speak only Spanish, Father Pregana acted as interpreter.

“They say that Rome offered them a great opportunity to see the Church and its foundation, and to also realize how important their local Church and their parish are so vital a part of it, and what it should mean to every Catholic,” said Father Pregana.

“They said they looked forward to visiting Rome because it meant seeing first-hand places they had only read about, and to experience the world outside the confines of their community in Guaimaca too. But also because it was timely and offered them the opportunity to gain the Pauline Year indulgences when they visited St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, for which they are appreciative,” explained Father Pregana.

The pilgrimage was also to include Escoto’s brother Daniel, a seminarian studying for the priesthood at Our Lady of Suyapa Seminary in Tegucigalpa, the

WALL FLOWERS — Pilgrims from several diocesan parishes and two young men from the diocesan mission in Guaimaca, Honduras recently visited St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. Front, from left: Linda Cash, Ann Brady, Zulmira Camara, Fatima DaSilva, Joanne Kudej, Donna Castle, Carolyn Malchodi, Linda Nason, Stacy Kaminski, Betty Mazzucchelli, Annabelle Sarno, and Fran Tyrrell.

Second row: Frank Cash, John Brady, Catherine Potter, Tom Castle, Lydia Kay, Judy Duffy, Joe Mazzucchelli, and Jack Sarno. Rear: Tony Domingo, Jose Moncada and Alexis Zuniga from Guaimaca, Father Craig A. Pregana, Butch Rich, Dan Silvia, Paul Diamond, Norman Aguiar, and Bill Malchodi.

capital of Honduras, but he did not receive the needed permission in time. Escoto, who will graduate in coming weeks from high school in Tegucigalpa, said because his brother Daniel has a strong devotion to St. Francis of

Assisi, the trip to Assisi took on a special meaning for him, “and he was greatly influenced by it,” he said.

Martinez, who prefers to be called Alexis and works in the Guaimaca parishes, when asked of what he found different in America, noted that U.S. Catholics are “more serious and solemn” when attending Mass.

He said the Masses in Honduras “were more active, more expressive, with more music and people moving around especially at time of extending the sign of peace.”

And the young men — wearing fall jackets — said cold weather was an entirely new

experience for them who hail from a region with a favorable tropical climate all year round.

Martinez and Escoto made it quite clear that while the food — especially the pasta dishes in Italy and of course the various fast foods in America — were very good and were much different from what they were used to.

With candor, yet with some temerity, they admitted they yearned for the favorite dishes they have grown up with.

They also had the opportunity to sample a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner that includes roasted turkey, hosted by Father Pregana’s dad and mom, Arthur and Florence Pregana at their home in Swansea.

“It will be on November 14 and not the 27th, because we will be leaving for Guaimaca long before that,” Father Pregana said.

Also on the immediate agenda is a social gathering at which the young men will be hosted by many of the diocesan parishioners who, over the recent years, have joined in the many pilgrimages to the Guaimacan parishes by students and adults to work in construction, teach and assist in ministry, help create classrooms, a library and a health center, a school and housing for young women, and to furnish them with needed donated supplies.

“Jose and Alexis said they looked forward to seeing their new-found friends again, offer an update on their lives and the mission, to express how much it meant to have people interested in their lives … as well as to say thank you,” Father Pregana added.