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Diocese of Fall River, Mass.

F riday , December 4, 2015

Local families embrace simplicity, anticipation of Advent season

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

NORTON — The hustle and bustle of the holiday season has arrived with its music, lights and commercials, but local Catholic families are celebrating the Advent season as they always do — by preparing Spiritually for the coming of Christ.

Parents are passing Advent traditions along to their children and teaching them about the true meaning of the season.

Families who spoke with The Anchor said they try to spend some quiet time with God this time of

Year of Mercy

year, sometimes attending daily Mass or adoration. They also do a variety of activities at home that anticipate the celebration of Jesus’ birth. Nearly every family said they have an Advent wreath that they light nightly, usually before dinner; they sing, pray and talk about the meaning of the candles.

Some families set up a stocking or crèche for Jesus. They fill the stocking with slips of paper that describe their children’s good deeds as a gift for Jesus, or they have their children place a piece of hay in the manger for each good deed so that Jesus will have a comfortable place to rest by

Dec. 8, 2015 to Nov. 20, 2016

Turn to page 15

One-woman Marian show to be presented at Assonet parish

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

ASSONET — Actress Elizabeth Montigny thinks the Blessed Mother can provide a unique perspective on the life of Christ.

That’s why she recently created the Marian Theatre Project, resulting in two one-woman performance pieces in which she portrays Our Lady.

The first, entitled “Walking With Our Mother,” is based on Christ’s Passion and was performed at parishes for Lent and Easter earlier this year.

Now she’s bringing “Our Mother’s Call,” an Advent and Christmas-

themed performance based on the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, to St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet on December 12 — the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

“It had been in the works for a while, and I finally put the gas on it last year,” Montigny recently told The Anchor. “I’ve already presented both of them, so it’s been good to know what type of feedback to expect. They’ve both been well-received.”

Written by and starring Montigny, “Our Mother’s Call” was inspired by similar one-woman shows based on the lives of various Turn to page 18

Bishop Connolly High School students Nicholas Mulvey and Emma Mello carry food baskets to the altar before the Fall River school’s recent Thanksgiving Mass. During a month-long food drive, BCHS students, faculty and staff collected 40 baskets of Thanksgiving meal items to benefit families in need across the community. Acts of mercy such as these are routinely conducted in diocesan schools across the area.

Former student brings area Maryknoll priest back into the spotlight

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff beckyaubut@anchornews.org

Maryknoll Father John “Red” Lawler celebrates his 25th anniversary of priesthood in 1967.

MONTEREY PARK, Calif. — The Anchor often gets its stories in press releases from schools or organizations, individuals calling and asking the paper to send a reporter to cover an event, or emails from random folks thinking the paper may be interested in doing a story on something they found attention-grabbing and worthwhile.

Then there’s Frederick Murga, a California resident whose innocent inquiry about a long dead priest uncovered a lasting legacy by a local son done good.

That isn’t to say there hadn’t already been articles written about the late Father John “Red” Lawler, M.M., but it’s hard to stay relevant when

you’ve been dead since 1977. But after speaking to Murga and hearing his story, this reporter did some digging in The Anchor archives and combined with Murga’s interview, will help shine a light once again on the Maryknoll priest who left a permanent impact on the impoverished people of Lima, Peru.

One of the first associations Catholics have with Lima, Peru, is St. Rose of Lima, the first person born in the Americas to become a canonized saint in the Catholic Church. So deep was her desire to live the life of Christ, she spent most of her time at home in solitude. During the last few years of her life, St. Rose set up a room in the house where she cared for homeless children, the elderly and the sick. This was a beginning Turn to page 14

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News From the Vatican

December 4, 2015

Honor your martyrs by putting faith into action, pope tells Ugandans

KAMPALA, Uganda (CNS) — As Pope Francis encouraged Ugandan Christians to draw inspiration from the 19th-century Ugandan Martyrs, he carried with him graphic images of the horrors the 45 Anglican and Catholic martyrs endured.

The pope recently made an early morning visit to the Anglican shrine and museum located on the site where many of the martyrs died. The main exhibit features realistic statues of men being tortured, bound and thrown on a fire.

Pope Francis had a look of shock on his face as Anglican Archbishop Stanley Ntagali of Uganda explained how the martyrs were executed on the orders of King Mwanga II in the late 1800s.

Afterward, the pope celebrated a Mass outside the nearby Catholic shrine to the martyrs. The shrine has an artificial lake, and Ugandan security patrolled it in a little rubber boat throughout the Liturgy.

In his homily, Pope Francis honored all the martyrs, noting that they shared the same faith in Jesus and they offer a witness to “the ecumenism of blood.”

Honoring the martyrs is not something to be done only on their feast day, he said, but must be done daily through upright behavior and loving care for others in the family, the neighborhood, at work and in society.

Keeping one’s eyes focused on God, he said, “does not diminish our concern for this world, as if we only look to the life to come. Instead, it gives purpose to our lives in this world and helps us to reach out to those in need, to cooperate with others for the common good and to build a more just society which promotes human dignity, defends God’s gift of life and protects the wonders of nature, His Creation and our common home.”

Heartbreaking modern challenges to faith led Pope Francis to abandon the text he had prepared for an afternoon meeting with Ugandan youths.

Instead, he tried to respond directly to the young woman and young man who addressed him, although the effort was plagued by technical problems with the microphone.

Winnie Nansumba, 24, told the pope she was born HIV-positive and, “as a young woman, I always found it hard to fall in love because I thought I didn’t have a right to love and

be loved.”

In the end, she said, she decided to use her story to teach other youths about HIV and AIDS, particularly that “we must respect our life and that of others,” changing behavior to prevent the spread of the disease.

“Take charge of your life and know your (HIV) status,” she told the estimated 150,000 youths gathered at the Kololo airstrip to see the pope. “AIDS is real, but it can be prevented and managed.”

More than seven percent of Ugandan adults are HIVpositive and tens of thousands continue to be infected each year. According to U.N. AIDS, because of sexual violence and lack of access to education, young women are particularly in danger in Uganda. U.N. figures estimate that 4.2 percent of Ugandan women aged 15-24 are HIV-positive while 2.4 percent of men that age are.

Pope Francis did not speak specifically about AIDS or its prevention, but he spoke instead about overcoming despair and depression and fighting for one’s life.

He also went on at length about courage, referring both to Nansumba and to Emmanuel Odokonyero, who had talked about being kidnapped by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army in 2003, tortured and escaping after three months.

From the late 1980s and for more than 20 years, the Lord’s Resistance Army terrorized Uganda, kidnapping thousands of children and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to seek safety in camps for displaced persons.

“In your veins, the blood of martyrs flows,” the pope told the two youths. “That is why your faith is so strong.”

The pope urged the young people to find positive challenges in the negative events of their lives, to trust Jesus to transform their suffering into joy and to turn to Mary when experiencing pain, just like a child runs to his or her mother after falling and getting hurt.

“Our families need to become ever more evident signs of God’s patient and merciful love, not only for our children and elders, but for all those in need,” the pope said. “Our parishes must not close their doors or their ears to the cry of the poor.

This is the royal road of Christian discipleship.”

Pope Francis opens the Holy Door as he begins the Holy Year of Mercy at the start of a Mass with priests, religious, catechists and youths at the cathedral in Bangui, Central African Republic. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Pope in Bangui: Open the doors of mercy, counter violence with love

BANGUI, Central African Republic (CNS) — Put down the weapons of war and work for justice, Pope Francis urged the people of the Central African Republic.

“Even when the powers of hell are unleashed, Christians must rise to the summons, their heads held high, and be ready to brave blows in this battle over which God will have the last Word. And that Word will be love and peace,” the pope said in an evening homily at Bangui’s cathedral.

A civil war that began in 2013 and ongoing outbursts of violence, including between mainly Muslim and mainly Christian militias, have sown terror in the Central African Republic, which already was on most lists of the five poorest countries in Africa. A fifth of the country’s population has fled abroad or is living in camps for displaced people.

Explaining to people outside the Bangui cathedral that their city was, for the day, “the Spiritual capital of the world,” Pope Francis prayed for the mercy and grace of peace as he used both hands and his body weight to push open the Holy Door of the cathedral. The main opening of the Year of Mercy will be December 8 at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Marking the first Sunday of Advent at the Mass with priests, religious, catechists and youths, Pope Francis urged the Catholic community to be committed to helping the country make a new start.

Christians, and especially those with a vocation to priesthood or religious life, are called

to love their enemies, “which protects us from the temptation to seek revenge and from the spiral of endless retaliation,” the pope said in his homily.

Anyone who has a role of evangelizer, teacher or preacher in the Christian community, he said, must be “first and foremost practitioners of forgiveness, specialists in reconciliation, experts in mercy.”

As Catholics observe the Advent time of waiting to celebrate Christ’s coming, he said, they should keep reminding themselves that God is a God of justice and of love — two things the people of Central African Republic need desperately.

“God is stronger than all else,” the pope said. “This conviction gives the believer serenity, courage and the strength to persevere in good amid the greatest hardships.”

“To all those who make unjust use of the weapons of this world, I make this appeal: Lay down these instruments of death! Arm yourselves instead with righteousness, with love and mercy, the authentic guarantors of peace,” the pope said.

Pope Francis arrived at the cathedral after a meeting with representatives of the Central African Republic’s evangelical and Protestant communities.

Catholic Archbishop Dieudonne Nzapalainga of Bangui, president of the Central African Republic bishops’ conference; Rev. Nicolas Guerekoyame-Gbangou, president of the Evangelical Alliance of the Central African Republic; and Imam Oumar Kobine Layama, president of the Islamic Community of Central African Republic,

have been working together to persuade their people to end the vendettas and embrace peace and reconciliation.

Rev. Guerekoyame-Gbangou was among those welcoming Pope Francis to a special meeting with representatives of the country’s evangelical and Protestant communities.

The pope publicly expressed “closeness and solidarity to Pastor Nicolas, whose home was recently ransacked and set on fire, as was the meeting-place of his community. In these difficult circumstances, the Lord keeps asking us to demonstrate to everyone His tenderness, compassion and mercy.”

For too long, too many Central Africans have been suffering, the pope said.

“There are also those who have been scarred in soul or body by hatred and violence, those whom war has deprived of everything: work, home and loved ones,” the pope said.

When God looks upon the suffering, He does not see members of one denomination or another.

“I have often called this the ecumenism of blood,” he said.

“All our communities suffer indiscriminately as a result of injustice and the blind hatred unleashed by the devil.”

Pope Francis urged the country’s Christians to continue on the path of ecumenism, cooperation and common prayer.

“The lack of unity among Christians is a scandal,” he said, “above all because it is contrary to God’s Will.”

But it is also a scandal in a world torn apart by hatred and violence, a world yearning for a word of peace and unity, he said.

The International Church Don’t let youth fall prey to Islamic extremism, French Muslim leaders say

December 4, 2015

Paris, France (CNA/EWTN News) — France’s leading Muslim organization has called on Muslims to counter radical forms of Islam, especially in the wake of the Islamic State group’s attacks on Paris.

The French Council for the Muslim Faith encouraged education of young people to “combat the ideas of hatred within our religion” so they don’t turn into “terrorist bombs that want to destroy the values of the Western countries but in reality are destroying Islam’s image and the future of Islam in France and Europe.”

The Muslim council emphasized that “the future of our religion is in play and the fate of your children and it’s up to us Muslims to decide to act or not.”

The text was broadcast for recent Friday prayers in the 2,500 mosques of France. The effort follows the deadly Islamic State attacks on Paris November 13 which left more than 120 dead and hundreds wounded.

Criticizing extremists, the declaration said that “according to the ideology of these ignorant Islamists, the Islam of tolerance and humanism, and openness to inter-religious dialogue has become an act of treason and collaboration with the West.”

The council warned that this situation has made it so that “tolerant imams have been threatened inside their own mosques by these extremists (who) have chosen harshness and hatred against anyone that might be different even if they are Muslims.”

“The leaders of Islam in France don’t measure up to the standards of the true values of Islam nor the true values of the Republic. They’ve made our universal Islam into a sectarian religion that does not accept openness or adaptation to European values,” the council said, according to the text published by the Italian newspaper Avvenire.

In addition, the Muslim council rejected “incompetent” imams as “failed leaders” who “should leave their positions to others who would be more competent and more open because they have not been able to reassure Muslims or the French.”

The council questioned why terrorists’ parents and families had not countered extremism.

“What kind of things have they taught them?

Have they been supplanted by the Internet and social media?”

The council said condemnation of the attacks has not been enough and warned Muslims against behaving like ostriches.

“We can’t hide our heads under the sand repeating that malevolent phrase, ‘it’s not us, it’s them!’”

“Every imam, every religious leader, and every Muslim has to take their part in responsibility because these criminal attacks have been committed in the name of our religion,” the council continued.

The council also said that Christians, Jews and atheists have “a hard time living in the Muslim world.”

“Building a church or synagogue is an impossible dream to realize in those countries that even needs the intervention of the president of the republic!”

Unlike Christians and Jews in some Muslim lands, they continued, “Muslims in France and Europe live in complete freedom and dignity.”

“They build mosques, Islamic centers, and religious schools without any sabotage or exclusion.”

The text noted that European countries “even offer us benefits and advantages we don’t find in our countries of origin in spite of all the hardships that certainly exist in the neighborhoods and outlying areas.”

Sodalitium Christianae Vitae forms ethics commission amid investigation of founder

LIMA (CNA) — The superior general of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae has announced the creation of an Ethics Commission for Justice and Reconciliation to assist and offer proposals amid investigations following accusations against its founder.

“We have seen with pain and shame the disclosure of credible accusations about the grave misconduct and abuse committed by Luis Fernando Figari and other members of the Sodalitium of Christian Life,” said Alessandro Moroni Llabrés, superior general of the group.

“To ensure the highest level of rigor and impartiality in this task we have called together a group of professionals, recognized for their quality and independence, to be part of an Ethics Commission for Justice and Reconciliation. Its aim will be to review what has happened, offer the highest level of assistance possible for victims and to propose the necessary (actions).”

The new commission includes the spokesman for the Peruvian Supreme Court; the former president of the Peruvian Justice Council; the bishop of Lurin, Peru; the former general director of the Peruvian National Institute of Mental Health; and a journalist.

The Sodalitium Christianae Vitae is a society of apostolic life which was founded in 1971 in Peru, and granted pontifical recognition in 1997.

An apostolic visitor from the Vatican is currently investigating allegations of sexual abuse, mistreatment and abuse of power against Figari. He stepped down as superior general in 2010.

In addition to Peru, the community operates throughout South America, as well as in the United States and Italy.

Moroni said that “Figari should remain in Rome until

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new instructions from Church authorities in order to not interfere with the investigations they are conducting.”

He explained that the new ethics commission is part of a period of review, reconciliation, and renewal for the community.

“This implies a profound examination and questioning of practices and processes of our organization so that we can face and resolve problems caused by the reprehensible behavior of some,” Moroni said.

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

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December 4, 2015 The Church in the U.S. Our Lady of Guadalupe shouldn’t be viewed as just a Mexican tradition

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been a religious and cultural hallmark for Mexican Catholics for centuries, but the custom received little attention from Anglo Catholics in the U.S. before the last few decades.

With the growing Latino population in the United States, the presence of Hispanics has steadily increased in Catholic churches throughout the country, creating a greater awareness of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas.

Catholic scholars say the significance of her feast day, December 12, has risen beyond the Americas with the emergence of the LatinAmerican Church on the world stage.

The dark-skinned image of Mary, known as Our Lady of Guadalupe, also has been identified by leaders of the universal Catholic Church as the face of the New Evangelization.

The story of how Mary appeared to a poor Aztec Indian in 1531 near presentday Mexico City brought more than six million indigenous people into the Catholic faith within a decade.

The image of Mary dressed in a way Aztecs could relate to her is credited with more than evangelization. It’s also an acknowledged factor in the easing of tensions between the native people of that region in the Americas and the European

settlers.

Latinos living in the U.S. celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe with zeal.

Their fervor for the feast day is a great example for Anglo Catholics, attracting more of them to the celebra-

Catholic tradition.

“Our Lady of Guadalupe is really for everybody, certainly the people of the Americas,” and not just Hispanic Catholics, said Bishop Peter F. Christensen of Boise, Idaho, a statewide diocese where Latinos now

“The story is captivating,” he told CNS. “That whole image of this 57-year-old Aztec Christian encountering this woman and not wanting to get involved with something he knew would be viewed with great skepticism.

Yet, (the news) was eventu-

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is featured on the clothing worn by many of the dancers participating in a recent event at Our Lady of the Valley Catholic Church in Caldwell, Idaho. (CNS photo/Chaz Muth)

tions, said Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Latino presence in the U.S. has helped educate more Anglo Catholics about Our Lady of Guadalupe, Archbishop Kurtz told Catholic News Service, and he said he hopes more will embrace this part of the

make up the majority of Catholics.

When Mary appeared to St. Juan Diego, the Spaniards and Aztecs were on the brink of war, and scholars believe it would have been brutal. Many have suggested the result of such a war could have diminished Christianity in the region.

Instead, the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe brought an end to the Aztec’s worship of stone gods and the practice of human sacrifice, said Father Michael Witczak, an associate professor of Liturgical studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington.

When the indigenous people embraced Catholicism, the religion of the Spaniards, the two groups discovered a way of living together in relative harmony, Father Witczak said.

ally seen as a miracle that helped spread Christianity throughout the Americas.”

It’s a story that should enrich the faith of all American Catholics, Archbishop Kurtz said.

Nevertheless, many Anglo Catholics either don’t know the story or understand the significance Our Lady of Guadalupe has in American Catholicism.

Father Adrian Vazquez, the administrator of four Idaho parishes in St. Anthony, Driggs, Island Park and Rexburg, said that every year as Latino parishioners prepare for the December 12 feast day, many Anglo Catholics approach him to learn more about Our Lady of Guadalupe.

“Yes, some (Anglo Catholics) are already participating, but many of them just don’t know the story,” he said.

“But, they do see the excitement among the Latinos and it makes them curious. Once they learn about the story, they are much more open to bringing it into their own faith tradition.”

Father Robert C. Irwin, pastor of St. Jerome Church in Jerome, Idaho, said he was unaware of the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a boy

growing up in the U.S. What he did know was that his friends with Mexican ancestry often paid homage to an image of Mary that didn’t look very much like the paintings of the Mother of God he had been accustomed to viewing during his Religious Education.

Pope Francis celebrated the feast day at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City in 2014.

During his homily, the pope said the dark-skinned image of Our Lady of Guadalupe — traditionally believed to have been miraculously impressed on Juan Diego’s cloak — proclaimed to the indigenous peoples of the Americas “the Good News that all its inhabitants shared the dignity of children of God. No more would anyone be a servant, but we are all children of the same Father and brothers and sisters to each other.”

Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Peter’s, signaling to Catholics worldwide its importance in the Universal Church, Father Witczak said.

“She’s not just the patroness of Mexico, but the patroness of the Americas,” he said.

The message from the last two popes is also that Catholics throughout the Americas should draw inspiration from the apparition of 1531, that the Mother of God’s appearance in their land was a sign of its significance to God, Father Witczak said.

In his homily on the 2014 feast day, Pope Francis said Mary did not just want to visit the Americas, but that the image on the cloak, or “tilma,” was a sign that “she wanted to remain with them.”

Archbishop Kurtz pointed out that the current nations in the Americas didn’t exist when Mary appeared before St. Juan Diego, so when he shared her image on his “tilma,” he wasn’t just sharing it with the indigenous people in his region. He was sharing it with inhabitants throughout North America and South America.

Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., will celebrate Mass in Spanish at St. Mary’s Cathedral on Saturday, Dec. 5 at 6 p.m. in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. All are welcome.

The Church in the U.S. As 2015 comes to close, high court says it will hear mandate appeals

December 4, 2015

LEVITTOWN, Pa. (CNS) — Religious freedom is at the heart of the debate over the Obama Administration’s contraceptive mandate, according to Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik and others involved in cases the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear.

The perception this is primarily a Catholic issue because of the Church’s long-standing natural-law teaching against artificial contraception and abortion is misplaced, he told Catholic News Service.

Although contraception is “the presenting issue,” he said he fears the regulations put in place by the Department of Health and Human Services in administering the health care law represent “a slippery slope” that would undermine religious freedom for many Americans.

Under the Affordable Care Act of 2010, most religious and other employers are required to cover contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients — drugs and devices that work by causing early abortion — through employer-provided health insurance.

On November 6, the U.S. Supreme Court said it will hear seven pending appeals in lawsuits brought by several Catholic and other faith-based entities against the contraceptive mandate. The justices will hear appeals from groups in Colorado, Maryland, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and the District of Columbia.

In 2015 several circuit courts ruled that religious entities, such as the Denver-based Little Sisters of the Poor, are not substantially burdened by opt-out procedures the federal government put in place for them to avoid the requirement to provide contraceptive coverage in employee health insurance. The Obama Administration’s “opt-out” requires these employers to fill out a form for HHS that states their objections to providing coverage and triggers an arrangement for a third party to provide the coverage for their employees. It is a provision they still find objectionable.

Only one circuit court, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a September ruling, accepted the nonprofits’ argument that complying with the opt-out provision violates their religious beliefs.

Bishop Zubik told CNS he meets regularly with an ecumenical group of Church leaders and that when he first brought the mandate issue up with them several years ago, their tendency was to consider it an issue for Catholics only.

But the bishop said he asked them to think about which of their teachings or practices might be infringed upon by a similar government encroachment if HHS is allowed to continue with the contraceptive mandate, and they wound up agreeing with him that it is a broadly important issue of religious freedom.

Others have been given exceptions on other grounds, Bishop Zubik said, and “from a moral standpoint” religious beliefs and practices should be respected on religious grounds.

The Dioceses of Pittsburgh and Erie, Penn., and the Archdiocese of Washington are among numerous plaintiffs from around the country consolidated into seven cases that the court has agreed to hear — probably in the spring — together under the general heading of Zubik v.

Burwell. Sylvia Mathews Burwell is the current HHS secretary.

Other named plaintiffs include the Little Sisters of the Poor, an international community that has served the elderly poor for 175 years, Priests for Life and a number of other Catholic and other Christian entities. Legal services are being provided by private or public-interest law firms at no cost to the plaintiffs.

Many other religious bodies will be affected by the outcome of the Supreme Court case, as their cases are at various stages working their way through appeals courts.

Since the Affordable Care Act was put into place, contraceptives — including abortifacients — have been among the services that must be included in health insurance coverage for all women.

These drugs and devices, which have the approval of the Food and Drug Administration, are already covered under Medicaid, but refusal to comply would make non-exempt employers subject to heavy fines.

A very narrow exemption, essentially including only churches and religious orders, was permitted from the start, but a great many Catholic and other religious institutions and ministries — colleges, hospitals, charitable endeavors of all sorts — as well as private individuals with conscience objections said they could not participate without violating their beliefs.

Robert A. Destro, a law professor at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law and founding director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion there, said that HHS requiring the Little Sisters of the Poor, for example, to “sign that piece of paper” — the form for HHS stating their objections — is a purely symbolic matter, designed “to establish the idea that everyone’s got to chip in” to the health care system.

In fact, Destro said, “you have to follow the money to make any sense of it at all.”

HHS doesn’t want individual women to have to pay for contraception, can’t get Congress to allocate funds for that purpose, and some employers are refusing on the basis of conscience to instruct their insurers to pay the costs. So he said HHS is taking the costs of the services out of the fees insurance companies pay to participate in state- and federally-run insurance exchanges, something HHS has no statutory power to do.

The symbolism, Destro said, is very powerful, and he believes the action was clearly aimed at the Catholic Church: “This had to have been a coldly calculated hit,” he said, noting that the Catholic Church was working for widely available health insurance long before the

Democratic Party was doing so. The U.S. bishops for years have advocated for access to affordable health care as a basic human right.

Daniel Blomberg, legal counsel with the Becket Fund, a public interest law firm that is representing a number of the plaintiffs in two of the seven groups of cases taken on by the Supreme Court, said the key question is “whether federal agencies can force religious ministries to violate their religious beliefs for no reason.”

The applicable law is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, passed by Congress in 1993 to protect the free exercise of religion. It is, Blomberg said, “always a balancing test” because it requires that if a law restricts the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the Constitution there must be a compelling government interest to do so and that even if there is a compelling interest it must not place an unreasonable burden on the religious exercise.

In the 2014 Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court relied on RFRA to rule in favor of two family-owned private businesses, Hobby Lobby Stores and its related chain of Christian bookstores, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, each of which proclaims its religious identity in its mission statement and objected to providing abortifacient drugs and devices

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as contrary to the owners’ Christian beliefs.

If the Supreme Court does not rule in the religious community’s favor, the Little Sisters of the Poor could face fines of $70 million every year, Blomberg continued.

The government has many other ways it could provide women with contraceptives “on its own dime and its own time without forcing religious ministries to be involved.”

This is a “very important” decision, Blomberg said. “Religious liberty for the rest of us is threatened” by the actions of a federal agency acting on its own. “That’s a very dangerous place for us all to be.”

Government officials, he said, shouldn’t be allowed to decide when a religious belief is serious and when it isn’t.

On November 18 Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, issued a statement announcing that seven medical groups had agreed to submit friend-of-the-court briefs to the Supreme Court in support of Priests’ for Life case. They include the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the Christian Medical Association, the National Catholic Bioethics Center and the National Association of Catholic Nurses.

Contacted by CNS for comment, the HHS referred the query to the Department of Justice, which did not respond.

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December 4, 2015

Anchor Editorial

Crossing over into the Year of Mercy

Christ’s invitation to “go across to the other side” (cf. Lk 8:22) is one to which Pope Francis made repeated references to earlier this week. On Sunday at the cathedral in Bangui, Central African Republic, he compared himself to “the Apostles Peter and John on their way to the Temple, who had neither gold nor silver to give to the paralytic in need, I have come to offer God’s strength and power; for these bring us healing, set us on our feet and enable us to embark on a new life, to ‘go across to the other side.’”

Unlike the “other side” to which the rock group The Doors said we needed to “break on through,” we do not head to this other side alone or fearful. The Holy Father reassured his listeners, “Jesus does not make us cross to the other side alone; instead, He asks us to make the crossing with Him, as each of us responds to his or her own specific vocation. We need to realize that making this crossing can only be done with Him, by freeing ourselves of divisive notions of family and blood in order to build a Church which is God’s family, open to everyone, concerned for those most in need. This presupposes closeness to our brothers and sisters; it implies a Spirit of communion. It is not primarily a question of financial means; it is enough just to share in the life of God’s people, in accounting for the hope which is in us (cf. 1 Pet 3:15), in testifying to the infinite mercy of God Who, as the Responsorial Psalm of this Sunday’s Liturgy makes clear, is ‘good [and] instructs sinners in the way’ (Ps 24:8). Having experienced forgiveness ourselves, we must forgive others in turn. This is our fundamental vocation: ‘You, therefore, must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect’” (Mt 5:48).

The pope’s themes in that paragraph echo the Year of Mercy which we are about to begin this Tuesday. Mercy comes from Christ and then we are called to share it by carrying out the Spiritual and corporal works of mercy (see Msgr. Oliveira’s column on page 13 for a list of them). “Those who evangelize [something we all have a duty to do due to our Baptism] must therefore be first and foremost practitioners of forgiveness, specialists in reconciliation, experts in mercy. This is how we can help our brothers and sisters to ‘cross to the other side’ — by showing them the secret of our strength, our hope, and our joy, all of which have their source in God, for they are grounded in the certainty that He is in the boat with us,” Pope Francis reminded a crowd of people who have been in a state of civil war for more than a year.

Knowing that reality (in part, that is why he was visiting that country), the pope reminded them why we Christians have hope. “It is amid unprecedented devastation that Jesus wishes to show His great power, His incomparable glory (cf. Lk 21:27) and the power of that love which stops at nothing, even before the falling of the heavens, the conflagration of the world or the tumult of the seas. God is stronger, more powerful, than all else. This conviction gives to the believer serenity, courage and the strength to persevere in goodness amid the

greatest hardships. Even when the powers of hell are unleashed, Christians must rise to the summons, their heads held high, and be ready to brave blows in this battle over which God will have the last word. And that word will be one of love and peace!”

The next day (Monday) the Holy Father again took up these themes at a Mass at the sports stadium in Bangui. “It is good, especially in times of difficulty, trials and suffering, when the future is uncertain and we feel weary and apprehensive, to come together before the Lord. To come together, as we do today, to rejoice in His presence and in the new life and the Salvation which He offers us, for He invites us to cross over to another shore.”

The pope then explained two meanings of that “other shore” for the Christian. “This other shore is, of course, eternal life, Heaven, which awaits us.

Looking towards the world to come has always been a source of strength for Christians, of the poor, of the least, on their earthly pilgrimage. Eternal life is not an illusion; it is not a flight from the world. It is a powerful reality which calls out to us and challenges us to persevere in faith and love.”

He then offered the second meaning, another shore which we need to reach if we are to attain that “other shore” in eternal life. “The more immediate other shore, which we are trying to reach is a reality which even now is transforming our lives and the world around us. ‘Faith in the heart leads to justification’ (Rom 10:10). Those who believe receive the very life of Christ, which enables them to love God and their brothers and sisters in a new way and to bring to birth a world renewed by love.” In other words, the “other shore” we need to arrive at right now is to be living in God’s grace (which is to be living in Christ’s love, loving as He loves).

Since we are still sinners (although trying to repent), we are “midstream,” the pontiff said. “Yet the fact is that we have not yet reached our destination.

In a certain sense we are in midstream, needing the courage to decide, with renewed missionary zeal, to pass to the other shore. All the baptized need to continually break with the remnants of the old Adam, the man of sin, ever ready to rise up again at the prompting of the devil. How often this happens in our world and in these times of conflict, hate and war! How easy it is to be led into selfishness, distrust, violence, destructiveness, vengeance, indifference to and exploitation of those who are most vulnerable.”

To not turn back to the shore of sin from which we embarked, we need to be “like the Apostles, full of hope and enthusiasm for the future. The other shore is at hand, and Jesus is crossing the river with us. He is risen from the dead; henceforth the trials and sufferings which we experience are always opportunities opening up to a new future, provided we are willing to follow Him.” May He cross over with us into this Year of Mercy, as we seek His mercy for our own sins and look to share mercy with our neighbors.

Pope Francis’ meeting with the Muslim community, central Mosque of Koudoukou, Bangui Dear Muslim friends, leaders and followers of Islam: It is a great joy for me to be with you and I thank you for your warm welcome. In a particular way I thank Imam Tidiani Moussa Naibi for his kind words of greeting. My pastoral visit to the Central African Republic would not

be complete if it did not include this encounter with the Muslim community.

Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters. We must therefore consider ourselves and conduct ourselves as such. We are well aware that the recent events and acts of violence which have shaken your country were OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER

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not grounded in properly religious motives. Those who claim to believe in God must also be men and women of peace. Christians, Muslims and members of the traditional religions have lived together in peace for many years. They ought, therefore, to remain united in working for an end to every act which, from whatever side, disfigures the Face of God and whose ultimate aim is to defend particular interests by any and all means, to the detriment of the common good. Together, we must say no to hatred, no to revenge and no to violence, particularly that violence which is perpetrated in the name of a religion or of God Himself.

God is peace, God salam.

In these dramatic times, Christian and Muslim leaders have sought to rise to the challenges of the mo-

ment. They have played an important role in reestablishing harmony and fraternity among all. I would like express my gratitude and appreciation for this.

We can also call to mind the many acts of solidarity which Christians and Muslims have shown with regard to their fellow citizens of other religious confessions, by welcoming them and defending them during this latest crisis in your country, as well as in other parts of the world.

We cannot fail to express hope that the forthcoming national consultations will provide the country with leaders capable of bringing Central Africans together, thus becoming symbols of national unity rather than merely representatives of one or another faction. I strongly urge you to make your country a welcoming

home for all its children, regardless of their ethnic origin, political affiliation or religious confession. The Central African Republic, situated in the heart of Africa, with the cooperation of all her sons and daughters, will then prove a stimulus in this regard to the entire continent. It will prove a positive influence and help extinguish the smoldering tensions which prevent Africans from benefitting from that development which they deserve and to which they have a right.

Dear friends, dear brothers, I invite you to pray and work for reconciliation, fraternity and solidarity among all people, without forgetting those who have suffered the most as a result of recent events.

May God bless you and protect you! Salam alaikum!

December 4, 2015

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n Christianity and in Judaism, when we mark an important anniversary of faith, we don’t just look back to a completed historical event.

The Jewish sense of zikkaron and the Christian sense of anamnesis refer to a type of memorializing in which we bring the past into the present. We not only recall but mysteriously enter into the experience of what we’re marking.

That’s what happens when the Jews celebrate Passover: they relive in a sense the night that is unlike any other night.

That’s what happens when Catholics celebrate Mass: we enter in time into the upper room and on Calvary as Jesus eternally gives His Body and Blood for us and our Salvation (CCC 1363). That’s what’s meant to happen, to some degree, when we celebrate the Liturgical feast of saints: we do far more than remember historical heroes, or even let their deeds and words from the past echo in the present; rather we recognize that they are still very much alive, in communion with us, seeking to pray for us and help us.

As we prepare to mark on Tuesday the golden jubilee of the close of the Second Vatican Council, I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we Catholics in faith relive what we remember.

Since Oct. 11, 2012, when we commemorated the 50th anniversary of the start of the council, we have had a three-year opportunity to revivify the graces of what many believe to be the most significant event in the life of the Church in the last 150, if not 450, years.

Pope Francis wrote in April that the “Church feels a great need to keep this event alive. With the council, the Church entered a new phase of her history. The Council Fathers strongly perceived,

Anchor Columnist Making up for a lost opportunity as a true breath of the letters or reflections to Holy Spirit, a need to talk help their people better about God to men and understand the continuing women of their time in a importance of the council more accessible way. It was and inspiring them to get a new phase of the same to know it better. And I evangelization that had regret to say that very few existed from the beginCatholic writers — myself ning, [a summons] for all included — took advanChristians to bear witness tage of the anniversary to their faith with greater to write much about the enthusiasm and conviccouncil. tion.”

And this was more than At the beginning of this triennium, Pope Benedict Putting Into declared a Year of the Deep Faith, declaring that the council

By Father was “the great Roger J. Landry grace bestowed on the Church in the 20th century” from which we could “find merely a missed chance for a sure compass by which Spiritual nourishment and to take our bearings” now growth. It was a wasted and into the future. He opportunity to correct the expressed the hope that ubiquitous false imprescelebrating a Year of Faith sions about the council would give an impetus for and to assist all the faithCatholics to enter into ful to understand, apprecithe ongoing work of the ate and carry out what the council by enthusiastically council really taught. owning and continuing its Even after 50 years, mission. That would inmany Catholics with good volve, he said, knowing the educations have never “texts bequeathed by the read the documents of the Council Fathers” — texts, Second Vatican Council. he added, that have “lost They erroneously think nothing of their brilliance” that it was basically a — learning how to “read blank check to revolutionthem correctly” and taking ize whatever needed to be them to heart “as importransformed in order to tant and normative texts” make the Church groove for evangelization today. with the times: it supposDespite Pope Benedict’s edly changed the Mass and Pope Francis’ hopes, and basically everything however, the council’s else, eliminated Gregothree-year anniversary rian chant and Latin, celebration basically has jettisoned high altars and been a dud, remaining irCommunion rails, whiterelevant on the outskirts washed Sanctuaries to of the Church’s life. place up hokey banners, Sure, the Vatican held gave religious the permissymposia with experts in sion to shorten or heave Rome to mark the annitheir habits, brought lay versaries of each of the 16 people into the Sanctudocuments of the council, ary, altered the Church’s but very few dioceses, teachings to accommoparishes, Catholic schools date the sexual revoluand universities, took tion, treated all religions advantage of the anniveras essentially the same, sary to help non-experts substituted one’s personal study the documents and opinions for a conscience implement the great deal guided by truth, and basithat remains to be done. cally treated as refuse what Very few bishops, pasthe Church had previously tors and priests, including considered Sacred. the pope, offered pastoral The fact that Vatican

II — as St. John XXIII said at its beginning and Blessed Paul VI reiterated at its close — was about reaffirming and teaching more vigorously and efficaciously the Sacred deposit of Christian doctrine to people today, understanding the Church properly as the universal Sacrament of Salvation, calling everyone to true holiness, helping people participate fully and actively in the Liturgy so that they would make their life a Mass, promoting religious liberty based on the freedom and duties of conscience, clarifying the Church’s relationship with believers of other faiths, and evangelizing the laity not principally so that they might enter the Sanctuary but so that they go out into the world and transform it, is something that comes as a total surprise to many.

As Pope Benedict has emphasized, the council was about reform in continuity, not rupture. Thanks, however, to popular narratives in certain circles of Catholics and the media who have desired to change some traditional Catholic teachings on faith and morals and who

7 have popularized an openended “spirit of Vatican II” instead of what Vatican II actually decided and taught, many have come to believe that the Second Vatican Council was the Church’s act of reinvention.

This three-year anniversary period was an opportunity to correct that myth and remedy its ongoing doctrinal and ecclesial damage. For the most part, however, it was a talent that the vast majority in the Church buried in the ground rather than invested.

Insofar as the council and its interpretation remain central to intraecclesial realities and the Church’s interaction with the modern world, it behooves us to repent of the opportunity lost and use the 50th anniversary of the close of the council as the catalyst to do what we could have been doing — and should have been doing — these last three years. Learning and living the real council according to its true Spirit indicated by its teachings.

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

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hen was the last time you were startled by something — perhaps by something falling off the shelf, or someone, unheard, coming up behind you? What happened? Was your attention focused, your senses heightened, your heartbeat quickened, preparing for what might happen next?

Our Gospel this weekend presents us with a scene meant to do exactly that — to startle us, to shake us out of Spiritual complacency, to make us sit up and realize that something new is happening in our lives.

Our Gospel proclaims: “The Word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert. John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” His message? “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths!”

December 4, 2015

Startled by grace

Lord doing in our lives? On Just imagine what that the one hand, Advent can be scene must have looked a time to reflect on our lives like! In the quiet wilderand take stock at how His ness, a wild-looking figure grace is having an effect in suddenly appears, wearing us. Where is God already at a cloak of camel hair and work in me? What impact proclaiming a message of have I, following the inspirarepentance and conversion.

What impact must this message have had Homily of the Week on the people of his day? What should Second Sunday his message, echoing of Advent down through the

By Father ages, mean to us?

Riley J. Williams Advent is a time to be startled, shaken to realize anew what impact the coming of God tion of His grace, made in into the world on that first the lives of others — in my Christmas still has upon family, with my friends, in us today. St. Paul writes the world? with great tenderness to The call of the Baptist, the Christian community however, should also bring at Philippi in Greece, “I am us to look at the present confident of this, that the and future. What can I do One Who began a good to prepare the way for the work in you will continue to Lord more fully in my life? complete it until the day of What attitudes do I need to Christ Jesus.” change, what actions need I What good work is the take, to live more authenti-

cally as a disciple of Christ?

Asking ourselves these questions may not be easy. It can be difficult to honestly reflect on our lives and admit to those areas where change need be made. It takes effort to put those changes into practice, and perseverance to continue to work towards greater virtue, even when we might stumble on the way to getting there.

But if all of this seems arduous, don’t worry! The message of the Baptist, at its heart, is that our God is coming to save us. Our lives aren’t lived alone; the grace of God, and our openness to it, is the decisive factor.

Through Christ’s presence in our lives, through the prayers we make and the Sacraments we receive, our lives are opened to this grace, allowing it to take ever deeper root in our lives.

Advent serves as a sea-

son of preparation for the celebration of the feast of Christ’s first coming into our world, but also as a time that looks at Christ’s continued presence in our lives now, and ahead to when He shall come again in glory at the end of time. May our prayer and reflection during this season give us a new — and perhaps startling — realization of how very present God is in our lives, and what this calls us to do to further prepare for His coming.

As St. Paul concludes this week’s passage, “That your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.” Father Williams is a parochial vicar of Corpus Christi Parish in East Sandwich.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Dec. 5, Is 30:19-21,23-26; Mt 9:35–10:1,5a,6-8. Sun. Dec. 6, Second Sunday of Advent, 6: Bar 5:1-9; Ps

126:1-6; Phil 1:4-6,8-11; Lk 3:1-6. Mon. Dec. 7, Is 35:1-10; Lk 5:17-26. Tues. Dec. 8, Gn 3:9-15,20; Ps 98:1-4; Eph 1:3-6,11-12; Lk 1:26-38.

Wed. Dec. 9, Is 40:25-31; Mt 11:28-30. Thurs. Dec. 10, Is 41:13-20; Mt 11:11-15. Fri. Dec. 11, Is 48:17-19; Mt 11:16-19.

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s I write, just before Thanksgiving, it’s been more than a month since Synod-2015 finished its work. Yet there is still no official translation of the synod’s final report into the major world languages from the original Italian (a language regularly used by 8/10 of one per cent of the world’s population). That’s a shame because, in the main, the Relatio Finalis is an impressive, often-moving statement of the Church’s convictions about chastity, Marriage, and the family: Biblically rich, theologically serious, pastorally sensitive, and well-crafted to meet the challenge of the cultural tsunami responsible for the contemporary crisis of Marriage and the family, which has left a lot of unhappiness in its wake.

It’s also a shame because the unavailability of the final report in the weeks after the synod has led to all sorts of spinning about its contents, and thus to no small amount of confusion, even consternation.

So while it’s impossible to do full justice to the Relatio

Synod-2015, revisited “doctrine” and “pastoral pracFinalis in a single column, tice,” for the traditional discilet me address some of those pline of the Church is based confusions through eight on the conviction that what bullet-points, based on the is at stake is the integrity of original Italian text and individuals before the Lord: informed by my experience of the discussions throughout in other words, worthiness to receive Holy Communion is a Synod-2015: 1. The final report reaffirms matter of living in the truth. the classic teaching of the Church on the indissolubility of Marriage and the conditions for worthiness to receive Holy Communion, both of

By George Weigel which are based on Divine revelation and are thus not subject to 4. In its now widelychange. controverted paragraph 85, 2. The final report does not endorse what has become the final report emphasizes that “pastoral accompaniknown as the Kasper Proment” of the divorced and posal, i.e., the readmission civilly remarried by a priest to Eucharistic Communion, in the “internal forum” must after a penitential period, of divorced and civilly remarried always be undertaken “according to the teaching of the Catholics whose prior MarChurch.” Those seven words riage has not been granted a were inserted in the Relatio decree of nullity by an eccleFinalis in the last 24 hours sial court. of the synod and provide the 3. In reaffirming these necessary anchor for any truly classics of Catholic faith and pastoral accompaniment in practice, the Relatio Finalis the case of the divorced and affirms that there can be no civilly remarried (or indeed wedge driven here between

The Catholic Difference

in any other case). For in pastoral life, as in the Gospels, truth and mercy work together.

5. The final report urges the Church’s pastors to provide whatever canonical/legal help they can in resolving difficult and painful situations of marital breakdown.

It also underscores the importance of effective Marriagepreparation programs, which are urgently needed in situations where the ambient public culture’s understanding of “marriage” and the Church’s understanding of “Marriage” are often dramatically different. Which is to say, Marriage preparation should be seen as an integral part of the New Evangelization, and an important ecclesial mission of mercy among the walking wounded who are sifting through what Pope Francis has described as the post-battlefield wreckage of contemporary culture.

6. The final report, like Cardinal Péter Erdő’s opening address to the synod as

its rapporteur-general, makes clear that there is no analogy at all between the Church’s understanding of Marriage and other living arrangements among consenting adults.

7. The Relatio Finalis (unlike the synod’s working document) celebrates children as a great blessing, praises large families, and urges support for families with special-needs kids.

8. In all of this, the final report emphasizes that the Church reads the “signs of the times” through the lens of Divine revelation (in this case, the unambiguous teaching of the Lord Jesus and St. Paul). The “signs of the times” do not judge the deposit of faith, although the most challenging of those “signs” can highlight the Church’s failures in teaching and witnessing to the truth.

For more, see my article, “What Really Happened at Synod 2015,” available at www.firstthings.com.

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

December 4, 2015

Wednesday 2 December 2015 — Homeport: Falmouth Harbor — Senator Joseph McCarthy censured (1954) reaching can be a minefield. It’s difficult to keep up with politically correct words and phrases, but anyone who speaks in public must try to stay current in this matter. The phrase “politically correct” itself has become politically incorrect. It is so last century.

For this reason, every word of my homily is carefully considered before I deliver it. I don’t want to misspeak. I certainly don’t want to inadvertently offend someone.

Nevertheless, there’s a giveand-take between the homilist and the congregation. You can tell whether or not people are with you. If I sense something is engaging my listeners, I’m apt to go off-script and run with it. It makes for a more effective homily, but it’s not without risk.

Sometimes, political incorrectness can occur reflexively, almost a knee-jerk reaction.

Once, while celebrating Mass, I had this pesky thought buzzing in my head that I was forgetting something. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what. The Mass ended.

The procession made its way down the aisle. Out the door

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s we conclude this series on fatherhood, in response to the initiative of Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix, Ariz. (found at intothebreach.org), we must wrap the truth of fatherhood into the larger marvel of the Incarnate Lord, for Whose birth we are preparing. In the well-worn tale of the Nativity of Jesus, perhaps this year we could examine the threads related to Joseph, and wonder anew at how pivotal His paternal care was to Salvation history. Truly, Mary’s trust in the plan of God was intricately related to her trust in Joseph’s dedication to her safety and that of her Divine Son, for her husband provided essential support, security, and shelter when she and the Word made Flesh were most vulnerable.

In contrasting the capable strength of Joseph and the vulnerability of his family, we find the heart of fatherhood, which Pope St. John Paul II outlines in Familiaris Consortio:

Anchor Columnists PC preaching

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threatened by my theology. It we went. Then the deacon reminded me, “You forgot the was, it seems, offensive to say collection.” I mumbled a mar- that the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony involves a man ginally naughty word under and a woman. Was someone my breath. Unfortunately, I being a bit too sensitive? Why was wearing a body microwould someone so offended phone. The word I whispered

by Catholic belief come volto myself echoed throughout untarily to a Catholic service? the church. People giggled. I was chagrined.

Another incident of alleged political The Ship’s Log incorrectness occurred Reflections of a at a wedding. In the Parish Priest priest’s prayer book, the instruction reads,

By Father Tim “(The homily) should Goldrick speak of the obligations of Marriage and other appropriGo figure. ate points.” So, I spoke of Political correctness has Marriage as a decision of the once again become a hotintellect, made freely and button issue across a broad without reservation; how the unbreakable bond of Marriage spectrum of forums — from is a total giving of oneself and candidates’ debates, to campus demonstrations, to intera receiving of the gift of another. I spoke of the need for a national diplomacy. This is not your parents’ political life-long commitment of love correctness. It’s the millenand honor between spouses and how married couples must nials’ version of PC. It’s all about hypersensitivity. It’s be open to the possibility of accepting and raising children. about imaginary insults, not at all intended. Inadvertently Oh, and I began by saying hurting someone’s feelings is that, first of all, you need a equated with attacking them man and woman of faith. In with a machete. celebrating any Sacrament, You, dear readers, know faith is a prerequisite.

Well, that generated a nasty the words and phrases presently considered proper. These letter to the local newspaper. change over time. Language Someone felt emotionally

evolves. They also vary from place to place. But here and now, there’s the gender thing.

A boy can no longer dream of being a fireman or a policeman.

Policemen today are police officers and firemen are now fire fighters. I can live with that.

Chairmen and chairwomen (both perfectly acceptable words) morphed into a piece of furniture — a chair. By that logic, a freshman should become a “fresh,” but no. He/she is a “first-year” (always hyphenated. Abbreviated as “FY”).

All postmistresses became postmasters long ago.

Now, that’s just strange.

Then there’s the country of origin issue. I once ordered French fries at a Dublin restaurant. The “server” responded, “You want French fries?

Go to France!” Oh, my.

What do you call French doors these days? What are conjoined twins, if not Siamese? Is there no longer such a thing as “Dutch treat”?

Does one person in the group now have to pay the entire bill? Are any meatballs Swedish? I’m confused.

There are no longer Caucasian, Negro, and oriental races, as I was taught in school. They are Asian, white, and black.

OK. No problem.

In formal address, there are still proper titles such as Mr., Mrs., Miss, and (more recently) Ms. But now there’s Mx. (for those who are gender “transitioning”). My rule of thumb is to call people what they prefer to be called. I’ll call her Caitlyn, but not Mx. Jenner.

For any homilist, political correctness can be a good thing. The Gospel is meant to challenge. It comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. The principle that we should treat others with respect (no matter their race, gender, income, or political persuasion) is the Christian and the American way.

Political correctness can also be a bad thing. Today’s political correctness is selfcentered, not other-centered.

It’s not about your dignity, it’s about my entitlement. I have an unalienable right to feel warm and fuzzy about myself.

You have no right to contradict, criticize, or challenge me.

How dare you make me feel uncomfortable?

Well, get over it. Grow up.

Quit whining. As one priest recently urged, “man-up.”

Oh, wait. He was politically incorrect in saying that.

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

Faith has two levels. We “A man is called upon to can embrace the tenets of our ensure the harmonious and creed, attesting to the fact that united development of all God is a Trinity of love, and the members of the family by that the Son was sent for our exercising generous responSalvation; but there’s another sibility for the life conceived under the heart of the mother, by a more solicitous commitment to education, a task he shares with his wife, by work which is never a cause of division in the family but

By Genevieve Kineke promotes its unity and stability, and by means of the witness he gives of an adult Christian life kind of faith: the trust that following the contours of that which effectively introduces creed, its Sacramental econthe children into the living omy, its prayer life, and the experience of Christ and the guidance of the Church will Church.”

From this we can draw two bring about the stability of life that allows families to thrive. conclusions: first, the family has enemies who sow seeds of While Jesus as Redeemer is irreplaceable, He is also the anxiety, instability, and diviway in a practical sense. That sion (surely all of us — since means that not only does His childhood — can attest to Blood ransom us, but His life that!); and second, the faith provides a model for living is ordered to combat each of — and to that end, we look those things.

not only to the lessons of His public ministry, but to the hidden years within the Holy Family. If Jesus and Mary — both sinless — were vulnerable, how much more are we?

We can best understand the security and peace attached to the family by taking stock of the dangers and snares that undermine it. Too often, cynicism sets in and the family is seen as a pious ideal, or a sentimental construct from the distant past.

Women have been taught that motherhood is an oppressive institution that squanders their true gifts, and men have been taught that their chivalric instincts are brutish anachronisms. Both are lies meant to weaken the family, and the degree to which they’re considered true is the degree to which the family as God designed it is made unstable.

Bishop Olmsted writes: “In original sin, we find a

primordial rebellion against God’s fatherhood, a desire to remove fatherhood itself.

This is our enemy’s underlying plan: to remove our reliance on God, the benevolent Father.” We must reject this primordial tendency, and work to strengthen fatherhood, so that “life conceived under the heart of the mother” is safeguarded and treasured by the man responsible. Just as the inconstancy of parents is reflected in the angst of their children, the renewal of the Sacred mission of the family will lead to peace and security for all its members. Meditating on the vocation of fatherhood is key to that mission — providing the straightest path to understanding the Fatherhood of God, and His Own gift of unsurpassing love.

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

She blogs at feminine-genius. typepad.com.

Joseph will lead us to the crèche

The Feminine Genius

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December 4, 2015

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W

It’s OK to be a blockhead

comparison to them, I was an hen I finally succumb outsider, a no name. In fact, one to one too many nailof the major reasons I’ve never biting New England Patriots’ attended a high school (or colgames, I want for people who knew me to say just one thing in lege) reunion is because I don’t think all that many classmates my memory: “He reminded me would remember me. I had of Charlie Brown.” friends in all the high school For me, that would be the categories: the jocks, the brains, ultimate epitaph.

I don’t want people to remember me as a blockhead; a neurotic individual with little or no self-esteem; a perpetual loser; an introvert; and a laughing

By Dave Jolivet stock — all of which have been, at one time or another, traits of and even the “not-so-scholarly,” the beloved “Peanuts” character but I really had no group of created by the beloved Charles which I was truly a part.

Schulz.

The trend continued in And, truth be told, all the college; largely because of my aforementioned characterisdemure stature and my shyness. tics have been, at one time or Aside from my portrait photo, another, mine as well.

As a young lad I knew certain there isn’t another image of me in the college yearbook. “friends” in the neighborhood Even in the workforce, I’ve would make fun of my small encountered alpha individuals stature and timid personality.

Before I even hit high school, in every job I’ve held. And even as my dear friends at The Anchor I often felt inferior to some of and I diligently work to keep the area kids.

In high school I had my share the paper in print, there are the detractors, some coming from of friends, good friends; but in

My View From the Stands

sources that would surprise you.

Yep, my Charlie Brown persona follows me everywhere.

I watched the 50th anniversary of good old Chuck on TV last night, and while I thought the production was lame and concentrated more on the guests than the honoree, it did remind me of the great virtues by which Charlie Brown leads his perpetually pre-teen life: honesty, caring, sympathy, charity, simplicity, and a heart as enormous as his “big, round head.”

During the show last night Schulz said that in the very first “Charlie Brown Christmas,” airing on national TV, he HAD to get in Luke’s Gospel account of the Birth of Christ. Unheard of then as it is now — very Charlie Brownesque.

I don’t care that I wasn’t the neighborhood hero, the BMOC in high school or college, or a CEO in the real world.

What I hope I have achieved and will achieve is living my life like Charlie Brown. In this upcoming Year of Mercy, that’s not a bad example to follow. davejolivet@anchornews.org.

11

December 4, 2015

Pope Francis’ stunning response to alleged murders

Bangui, Central African Republic (CNA/EWTN News) — Reported violence near a mosque Pope Francis was slated to visit in Central African Republic caused the pontiff to reply with an immediate, “can I go (be with them)?” according to a bishop who was standing close by.

After hearing of the alleged death of three youth this morning in a neighborhood of Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, Pope Francis voiced his desire to go the area, though it wasn’t in the schedule.

However, the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Franco Coppola, advised him against going, since it’s a dangerous area.

This is what the Bishop Juan José Aguirre of Bangassou told Spanish agency COPE during the lunch between Pope Francis and the country’s bishops.

Bishop Aguirre asked for prayers for the nation following reports that a number of people in the Fatima neighborhood of the capitol had been killed.

He explained that “this morning with all of the joy that there was in Bangui, with all of this overflowing joy at 1.5 kilometers (from the place where Pope Francis ate with the bishops) three people were killed in the Fatima neighborhood.”

“I was with the Holy Father and I told him: holiness, this morning three people were killed in this barrio (neighborhood) where there is a parish nearby, where there are three Comboni missionaries and 500 displaced persons.”

After hearing this, “the pope immediately asked the nuncio: “Can I go, can I go?’”and the nuncio replied: “No, holiness, it is very dangerous.”

In a recent report for Vatican Insider, Italian vaticanista Andrea Tornielli reported that the youth had been killed with machine guns as they tried to leave Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Bangui.

The church is run by the Comboni missionaries, and is located in a Muslim area where Pope Francis went the following morning to visit the city’s most important mosque.

“They would be people hiding in the parish to avoid the Seleka militants,” Tornielli said.

In his report, Tornielli said the act occurred at 8 a.m. local time November 29. According to Notre Dame Radio of Bangui, the youth were Christians who were trying to return

to their houses, which had been burned by the Seleka militants who control the area.

Details of the incident, however, are still unclear.

Tornielli reported that the head of the Vatican Gendarmerie, Domenico Giani, said later that only two had died instead of three. U.N. sources said the event was an episode of common crime, and that “there is no relation to the papal visit.”

Additionally, sources from the Comboni missionaries themselves later said it’s pos-

sible that no one died at all.

Tornielli said the ambiguity surrounding the details of the event is “a sign of the confusion that reigns in the city and, above all, in the Muslim neighborhood, where the Fatima parish is located.”

Until now, he said, “the only thing certain is the story of the Spanish bishop ( Juan José Aguirre of Bangassou) and the reaction of the pope, who would have immediately wanted to go to where the events took place.

12

December 4, 2015

OSCE media monitors criticize ‘Vatileaks’ trial of journalists

OXFORD, England (CNS) — Media monitors at the 57-country Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe condemned the Vatican’s trial of two journalists and urged the Holy See to honor its international press freedom commitments.

“Our main concern is for the protection of confidential sources — this is a pillar of investigative journalism,” said Gunnar Vrang, spokesman for the Vienna-based OSCE’s Media Freedom Office. “I can’t speculate on whether we’d bring intergovernmental pressure to bear, or on how this case may affect the image of Pope Francis.

But there will certainly be public pressure.”

In a recent interview with Catholic News Service, Vrang said there had been no Church reaction to a statement from the OSCE’s Media Freedom Representative, Dunja Mijatovic, calling on the Vatican to drop charges against Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi. The two are among five accused of involvement in leaking and publishing confidential documents about finances in the Vatican, which criminalized the release of “news and documents” in July 2013.

Vrang said Vatican claims that the journalists had exerted undue pressure on their informants were “only rumors,” and he said the Holy See was expected to respond to international criticisms at a recent session of the OSCE’s Permanent Council.

“This is our first statement

about the Vatican since our office was founded in 1998, and the ideal scenario is these charges will now be dropped and the journalists set free,” said Vrang. “But we can’t issue injunctions, and we’ve no practical mechanisms to ensure this happens — our only tool is to raise our voice.”

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also criticized the trial. In a recent statement, it said journalists “should be allowed to carry out their role as watchdog and investigate alleged wrongdoing without fear of repression.”

The OSCE office observes media developments “as part of an early warning function,” and seeks “to ensure the safety of journalists” and “the development of media pluralism,” according to its website.

In June, its report raised concerns about treatment of the media in 38 OSCE membercountries and urged states to “stop treating journalists, especially those holding different opinions, as enemies.”

In her statement, Mijatovic said Nuzzi and Fittipaldi had written about “alleged financial mismanagement and corruption in the Vatican City” and faced up to eight years in prison if convicted, adding that the OSCE was now calling on the Holy See to “protect journalists’ rights” under its commitments as an OSCE founder-member.

A spokeswoman for the Holy See’s Permanent Mission to the OSCE told Catholic News Service she could not comment on the criticisms.

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

Celebrant is Father Thomas McElroy, SS.CC., a retired Sacred Hearts Father.

Animated characters appear in the movie “The Good Dinosaur.” 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 Catholic News Service.

“Creed” (Warner Bros.)

This imaginative, and surprisingly gentle, reboot of the “Rocky” franchise takes viewers back to the series’ Philadelphia roots as the legendary former heavyweight champ (Sylvester Stallone) coaches the illegitimate son (Michael B. Jordan) of his long-deceased adversary-turned-ally, Apollo Creed. Director Ryan Coogler, who co-write the screenplay with Aaron Covington, is wise enough to touch lightly on all the familiar notes of the 1976 original, thus reminding his audience that he respects the past even as he reinvents for the future. The script’s underlying message is that, no matter what the circumstances, the cherished old values of self-sacrifice and discipline can prevail. That outlook may, in the judgment of many parents, extend the movie’s appropriate appeal, making it acceptable fare for mature adolescents. Bloody physical violence, fleeting rough language. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropri-

ate for children under 13.

“The Good Dinosaur” (Disney) A warm and fuzzy take on the human-dino dynamic of the “Jurassic” films, this 3-D comedy-adventure makes wholesome and hilarious entertainment for the entire family. Director and co-writer Peter Sohn gleefully reworks history in proposing that the asteroid which may have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs never happened.

Instead, they evolved in an anthropomorphic fashion, talking and acting just like humans. A young Apatosaurus (voice of Raymond Ochoa) is separated from his family, and must find his way home, with only a feral Neanderthal boy (voice of Jack Bright) as his companion. A few intense moments may upset the very youngest viewers, but all ages will be inspired as our plucky hero rises to his challenges.

The film is preceded by “Sanjay’s Super Team,” directed by Sanjay Patel, about an Indian lad who comes to respect his father’s devotion to Hinduism. Parents will appreciate the short’s affirmation of faith but may want to combat any potential confusion with an age-appropriate primer on the difference between even wisdom-graced speculation about the divine and revealed truth.

A few scenes of peril. The Catholic News Service 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.

“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2” (Lionsgate) Surprisingly glum franchise finale in which the resistance

fighter ( Jennifer Lawrence) who has become the symbol of the revolution (led by Julianne Moore and Philip Seymour Hoffman) sweeping her dystopian society secretly commits herself to the task of assassinating the tyrannical chief (Donald Sutherland) of the old order. Along the way to fulfilling this mission, she’s distracted by romantic complications involving two longstanding rivals for her love: one ( Josh Hutcherson) a fellow veteran of the gladiatorial tourney of the title who was subsequently captured, tortured and brainwashed by the enemy; the other (Liam Hemsworth) a childhood friend turned steadfast comrade. As director Francis Lawrence wraps up the four-part adaptation of novelist Suzanne Collins’ saga, his film avoids painting combat with too bright a palette. And the obscenity-free script, penned

by Peter Craig and Danny Strong, honorably explores the morality of war and the justice of targeting oppressors. But the wide audience for whom this briefly horror-tinged scifi outing is suitable may find the last stretches of its heroine’s long odyssey something of a slog. Much stylized and some harsh violence but with minimal gore, mature themes including war atrocities and suicide, potentially frightening scenes, an apparently innocent but possibly ambiguous bedroom encounter. The Catholic News Service 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.

13

December 4, 2015

Try to live this year as a Year of Mercy

S

everal years ago a mother lost her daughter, Rene.

She was killed in a drunken driving accident. After some time the mother found it within her soul to forgive the person who had killed her daughter.

Although it took some time, she was able to express forgiveness.

She said it was the only option to move forward with her life.

Recently at All Saints Catholic School, a diocesan-run school sponsored by St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford, they were having their mid-day prayer. The teacher in charge of the prayer for that day had prepared the video from YouTube entitled “Forgiveness” by Matthew West.

In the video he sings of the need for and the importance of forgiveness. He also relates how hard it is to forgive.

I took the occasion to explain to the students that we are fortunate as Catholics to have a Sacrament which allows us to be forgiven and helps us to forgive others — the Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation.

There are many “firsts” I remember as a priest. The first Mass is prime recollection. But I also remember going to Our Lady of Fatima Church in Swansea — now St. Francis of Assisi — to hear Confessions for the first time.

music plays in the background The pastor was ill and being and people come in at their conthe third priest (remember venience from 7-8 p.m. Whenwhen parishes had two or three ever I have done this, Confespriests?) close by at St. John of sions have lasted for more than God in Somerset, I was misan hour for both priests. Of sioned to go. course I mention it on the weekI entered the church and found the confessional. There was a note pinned on the priest’s Living door welcoming me the and telling me where the lights were for the Faith confessional. EventuBy Msgr. ally a penitent came in John J. Oliveira and confessed their sins.

I can recall thinking, “Why are they tellend as a perfect preparation for ing me this?” Of course I was a Christmas or Easter. priest and they sought Christ’s In all my years as a priest, I forgiveness. have been humbled and inspired I was acting in the Person by so many penitents who are of Christ as I prayed “I absolve striving to love and follow God. you from your sins” not “Christ They are aware of their own absolves you from your sins.” It weaknesses but also of the love was an overwhelming moment of God for them. So many are reconfirming my priesthood. trying very sincerely to follow In the 48 years of priesthood I have heard many Confessions. what God asks of them, some in very difficult circumstances.

Some say it is the forgotten While forgiveness may be Sacrament, and perhaps it is. difficult for us, it is easy for God. For those who know what it means, Confession will never be He sent His Son to die for us that we might have forgiveness forgotten. in His name.

Lately I have adopted the Confession gives us an oppractice of having an evening of portunity to examine our life in Confessions before Christmas relationship with God and how and Easter. I try to find another we live out this relationship with priest to join me. Meditative

our brothers and sisters; with each other.

God is merciful and His mercy is unending.

It is appropriate that our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has called for a Jubilee Year of Mercy. It gives us an opportunity to be aware of God’s mercy and to practice it.

It is doubtful that many Catholics can recite from memory the corporal and Spiritual works of mercy.

Part of the Year of Mercy should be the practice of the Spiritual works of mercy: to convert sinners, to instruct the ignorant, to advise the doubtful, to comfort the sorrowful, to bear wrongs patiently, to forgive injuries, and to pray for the living and the dead. All of these deal with the Spiritual nature of things.

The corporal works of mercy deal with the physical works of mercy toward others which should be practiced as well. They are: to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to care for the sick, to visit the imprisoned and to bury the dead.

Please try to live this year as a Year of Mercy as you practice the Spiritual and corporal works of mercy. May you also find and

experience God’s mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, at least at Christmas and Easter.

Let us join Pope Francis in his prayer for the Jubilee Year of Mercy: Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing so that the jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord, and Your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring the Good News to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed and restore sight to the blind.

God bless you and Happy Advent!

Dear readers at this point in my life I think it is time to start letting go of different projects. One of them is this column. I thank Father Wilson and Mr. Jolivet for their invitation to write for The Anchor for the past few years. They have always been most supportive and encouraging. I thank so many of you who have read my columns and took the time to mention it.

Your thoughtfulness is much appreciated. Be assured of my prayers for you and perhaps I might make a guest appearance in some future edition of The Anchor.

Anchor columnist Msgr.

Oliveira is pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford and director of the diocesan Propagation of the Faith and Permanent Diaconate offices.

National Geographic magazine’s cover story reveals Mary’s appeal WASHINGTON (CNS) — Maureen Orth, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine who has written about music icons, world leaders and Hollywood celebrities, tackled a completely different subject for National Geographic magazine: the Virgin Mary.

For the magazine’s December cover story, “Mary the most powerful woman in the world,” Orth visited several countries and interviewed dozens of people with strong devotional ties to the Mary — including from those who claim to have seen her, those who believe her intercession has healed them and those seeking her Spiritual guidance and intercession.

In the magazine’s Washington office, Orth, widow of Tim Russert, moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press,’’ who died in 2008, said what made the biggest impression on her while interviewing people for the article was Mary’s universal appeal across diverse cultures.

“It was a huge journey all over the world,” she said, noting that what particularly stands out

after a year of visiting Marian devotional sites in Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, Mexico, Egypt and Rwanda is that Mary is the “hope and solace of so many people including Muslims.”

The Muslim appreciation of Mary, as a “holy woman of God,” she told Catholic News Service, “is a bridge that ought to be explored,” especially in this time of strife caused by religious extremism.

Orth, a practicing Catholic, who certainly knew about Mary before this assignment, said she learned a great deal from talking with scholarly experts and reading mystics who wrote about the life of Mary but whose observations didn’t make it into the article.

She came away with a “more personal relationship” with Mary than an intellectual one, saying she understood Mary more as a person after talking with so many who are devoted to her.

She also witnessed the deep faith of many who have traveled great distances to be where apparitions of Mary are said to have taken place such as Medjugorje,

Bosnia-Herzegovina, where six village children said they first saw Mary in 1981 and continue to see apparitions there. A Vatican doctrinal congregation is still studying these claims.

In the small village, Orth met four stage-four cancer victims last November: Two have since died, one is under treatment and another shows no signs of the disease. All four spoke of Spiritual conversions and inner peace, she said.

A 59-year-old hockey dad from Boston told Orth that in 2000 one of the Medjugorje visionaries prayed with him for a cure of the cancer that riddled his body, giving him only months left to live. During the prayer, he felt a sensation of heat in his body. When he went back to Boston a week later, a CT scan at Massachusetts General Hospital revealed that his tumors were almost gone.

Since then, he’s been back to Medjugorje 13 times.

The editors at National Geographic wrote in the margin by Orth’s account of his story: “Why do miracles happen to some

people and not others?” Orth, who doesn’t have an answer to that theological query, noted the challenge of explaining Spiritual accounts in a scientific magazine.

One of Orth’s most inspiring stops for the story, primarily because she had not been unaware of it, was the small village of Kibeho, Rwanda, described as the place where Mary appeared to three young girls in the 1980s and foretold the genocide that took place in that country in 1994.

In 2001, that Vatican verified the claims of the three girls. One had been killed in the genocide, one became a monastic Sister in Italy and the third fled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and then Kenya during the three-month onslaught when the majority Hutu attacked the minority Tutsi and more than 800,000 people were killed.

The girls, Orth writes, “said they spent countless hours in conversations with the Virgin, who called herself Nyina wa Jambo, Mother of the Word.

Mary spoke to the girls so often that they called her Mama.”

But even though Mary is said to have spoken of the love of Jesus and gave these girls motherly advice, she is also said to have shown them images of Heaven, hell and purgatory along with horrific images of genocide that she warned could happen if Rwandans did not renew their hearts and dispel evil.

Orth said that the people she spoke with who said they saw apparitions all seemed genuine.

She approached them as she would an investigative journalist.

Their stories have been consistent throughout the years and they also have undergone extensive questioning from Vatican officials.

Orth pointed out that very little is known about Mary from the Bible, but as her story reveals, the lack of details about Mary has not stopped people from reaching out to her in prayer and devotion as a way to better understand and approach God. “The number of people who use her as their guide and their way to a higher meaning, that was impressive across the board,” Orth said.

14

December 4, 2015

Former student brings area Maryknoll priest into the spotlight continued from page one

of social services in Peru.

It seems fitting, then, that when Father Lawler was assigned to South America more than 300 years later, he would name a parish and the first parochial school in Lima after her.

Born in Preston, England on Christmas Eve in 1915, Father Lawler’s parents moved to New Bedford when he was still young. He attended Holy Family High School, entered Maryknoll in 1933, and upon completion of his studies in 1942, he was ordained and assigned to Bolivia — one of the first Maryknoll missionaries assigned to South America. He founded a Maryknoll school in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and was also the founder of St. Anne Parish in Cala Cala, a residential area of the city.

But Father Lawler left his true legacy to the people of South America when he was transferred to Lima, Peru in 1951, and established a parish, and then built a parochial school — the first in Peru — that served double duty as a school and temporary church. The parish expanded so rapidly that in 1963, Father Lawler wrote

to Bishop John W. Comber, M.M., then-superior general of the Maryknoll order, that his completed church now had more than 7,000 assisting at Mass.

By 1960, Father Lawler was putting the finishing touches on a comprehensive parochial complex that included grade and high school buildings, rectory, convent, auditorium and a social service center. In August of that year, and on the feast of St. Rose of Lima, he joined with Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston in dedicating Lima’s first church named in honor of St. Rose.

“Today the Church in Latin America is placing it emphasis on the building up of the native clergy,” said Father Lawler in an Anchor article during a surprise visit he made back home to New Bedford in October 1960.

“The Spanish conquistadors brought their own clergy from Spain. Then fewer Spanish priests came to the country and there were few native clergy.”

At the time of the article, Father Lawler had just completed building the school in Peru and hoped “to start

a native sisterhood in Lima, dedicated to teaching in the parochial schools.”

He continued to be active in Lima, even as his health deteriorated. Father Lawler passed away on Jan. 13, 1977, at age 61, with his Funeral Mass held at his beloved parish the next day.

Murga was born in Lima and attended St. Rose of Lima School from 1973-1983, and then the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, graduating in 1990. He stayed in Peru until 2004, and then immigrated to the United States, settling in Monterey Park and eventually becoming a real estate agent.

St. Rose of Lima School was bilingual, and coed, recalled Murga, “and we had a very active life in the school; our activities, trips to different companies, visiting to learn about nature — we were always under the cover of our parents association, and teachers were very involved in our education.”

Father Lawler died when Murga was in his fourth year at the school, and Murga never forgot the impact the Maryknoll staff members had on him as a student.

Murga used social media to reach out and contact his former schoolmates in 2013 through a Facebook page set up for alumni. Murga also felt compelled to begin research on the Maryknoll order and its history, “but when they referred to the Maryknollers in Peru, the line about Father Lawler was very short,” Murga said. “His name was kind of buried in the shadows.”

Murga began to look online for more information on Father Lawler, saying that when the priest arrived in Peru, he wanted to create the same model of a Catholic parish with a corresponding school, just like the United States had, said Murga; “He started building up a school and then the parish. The magic of Father John is that when he arrived, he received a lot of good intentions and good ideas, but nobody had the resources. He started doing fund raising and talking with everyone, and he was able to convince government officials, clergy, neighbors of where the school and parish would be built up, and Americans living in Lima — he started convincing them to create this American-style school with a high level of education in a neighborhood

that was still young, where poor families were trying to live. That was the success of Father John.”

Murga traveled to Peru to research more on the priest, and many of the stories he heard about Father Lawler were mainly through wordof-mouth, but “the school seemed to be forgetting his story. They refer to Father John as the founder, but that’s it,” said Murga. “All the works and the achievements he did are in booklets, but the students don’t know all that he did.”

Murga continues to pile up research on Father Lawler, and hopes to write a book that fills in the details of the priest’s life and his accomplishments but because he has limited resources, he’s acquiring his information piecemeal through emails, social media and online research.

St. Rose of Lima School will also be celebrating its founder on what would have been his 100th birthday with a Mass at St. Rose of Lima Parish on December 23, with a gathering afterwards in the school auditorium, and on December 24, there will be a pilgrimage to Father Lawler’s tomb at the British Cemetery in Callao, Peru.

Murga hopes his book will help highlight all that Father Lawler did for his people, not just for the education of the youth, but for the entire faith-filled community of his parish.

Father Lawler was a leader who was humble about his achievements, and Murga feels “that’s the reason all the references about him are low profile and in the shadows; he didn’t want everyone talking about him. He was always a man of God, a missionary; he was always focusing on the parishioners, helping them.”

15

December 4, 2015

Choice is clear, pope says: Protect environment or destroy it

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) — The international community is facing a stark and serious choice, “either to improve or to destroy the environment,” Pope Francis said, referring to the Paris Climate Conference.

“It would be sad, and I dare say even catastrophic, were special interests to prevail over the common good,” the pope said during a visit to the headquarters in Nairobi of the U.N. Environment Program and U.N. Habitat, an agency concerned with urban planning.

Under the auspices of the United Nations, the Paris conference November 30-December 11 has the aim of achieving a legally binding and universal agreement on measures to stem climate change and protect the environment.

Pope Francis spoke at length about the importance of the conference during his visit to the U.N. offices, and his top aides had a meeting the evening before with Kenya’s environment minister and other officials to discuss their hopes and strategies for the Paris meeting.

On his way into the meeting with U.N. officials and diplomats accredited to the two U.N. agencies, Pope Francis planted a tree.

While his speech contained ample quotes from his June encyclical on the environment, the pope also referred several times to the significance of planting trees and borrowed several lines from a speech he made in Bolivia in July to a variety of grassroots movements advocating for justice for the poor.

In fact, just as in the encyclical, “Laudato Si’,” the pope insisted in Nairobi that there is a close connection between environmental destruction and unjust economic and political policies that penalize the poor.

“We are faced with a great political and economic obligation to rethink and correct the dysfunctions and distortions of the current model of development,” he said, especially because of their emphasis on exploiting natural resources, but not sharing the benefits with local communities.

Planting a tree, he said, is an “invitation to continue the battle against phenomena like deforestation and desertification,” as well as “an incentive to keep trusting, hoping and above all working in practice to reverse all those situations of injustice

and deterioration which we currently experience.”

The Paris conference, the pope said, “represents an important stage in the process of developing a new energy system which depends on a minimal use of fossil fuels, aims at energy efficiency and makes use of energy sources with little or no carbon content.”

Pope Francis told those gathered at Nairobi’s U.N. offices that he hopes the Paris conference will result in a “global and ‘transformational’ agreement based on the principles of solidarity, justice, equality and participation; an agreement which targets three complex and interdependent goals: lessening the impact of climate change, fighting poverty and ensuring respect for human dignity.”

To achieve a comprehensive and fair agreement, he said, real dialogue is necessary among politicians, scientists, business leaders and representatives of civil society, including the poorest sectors of those societies.

Pope Francis insisted that human beings are capable of changing course, choosing what is good and making a fresh start. The key, he said, will be to put the economy and politics at the service of people, who are called to live in harmony with the rest of creation.

“Far from an idealistic utopia, this is a realistic prospect which makes the human person and human dignity the point of departure and the goal of everything,” he said.

A new respect for human dignity and for the environment are part of the same attitude of giving value to all that God made, he said.

Pope Francis called for “the adoption of a culture of care — care for oneself, care for others, care for the environment — in the place of a culture of waste, a throwaway culture where people use and discard themselves, others and the environment.”

The idea of a “throwaway culture” is not simply a strong figure of speech, he said, pointing to “new forms of slavery, human trafficking, forced labor, prostitution and trafficking in organs.”

“Many lives, many stories, many dreams have been shipwrecked in our day,” the pope said. “We cannot remain indifferent in the face of this. We have no right.”

Local families embrace simplicity, anticipation of Advent season continued from page one

Christmas. Others have Advent calendars with a daily activity like “say a prayer for your grandmother,” “do something kind for a friend” or “wash the dishes” — small, concrete actions that serve others.

Jeannie Oliver of Corpus Christi Parish in East Sandwich said she hopes the activities her children participate in will bring them outside of themselves and focus more on what they can do for others than what they are going to get for Christmas.

She tries to cultivate a “simple Spirit of waiting and preparation” in her home this time of year. The tasks of decorating the home and putting up the Christmas tree are saved for Christmas Eve. “The more children that I have, the better it is to be simple,” said Oliver, who has five children, ranging in age from nine years to 22 months old.

Many parents said they deemphasize presents and Santa Claus, with some teaching their children that Santa is a fictional character named after St. Nicholas and using that as an opportunity to teach them about the saint whose feast day falls on December 6.

“We’re definitely swimming against the tide when it comes to concentrating on Advent,” said Sally Jordan,

a Catholic mother of eight from Sandwich. “Materialism is so rampant. It seeps into us whether we like it or not. The only antidote is to keep on serving others.”

When her children were younger (her youngest is now 17), Jordan said each child was assigned a “secret Santa” who would leave little presents for them or assist them in small ways by doing things like picking up their socks off the floor. Sometimes the older kids were disappointed when a much younger sibling took on the role since they were less capable of helping out. Jordan used it to teach the lesson that “when someone gives you something, it’s a gift, and you say ‘thank you,’ no matter if it’s big or small.”

She said Advent is a great time to be thankful and she hopes her children learned that in the story of Christmas — Mary and Joseph seeking a place to stay with the Christ Child — Christians are called to be the open door the Holy Family found.

Some families use Advent as a time to highlight other stories from the Bible.

They may have a Jessie Tree, a tree with ornaments that illustrate stories from the Old Testament. The activity shows the continuity of the faithfulness of God across 4,000 years of history.

Many families rely on

resources provided online, like the Catholic program Holy Heroes, which provides free children’s activities for Advent and other times of year, or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Advent website, http://www.usccb. org/prayer-and-worship/ liturgical-year/advent/. The USCCB site features an electronic Advent calendar that includes the readings of the day as well as suggested prayer intentions and family activities.

Laura VerGow, director of Faith Formation at St. Mary Parish in Norton, said she provides the children she serves with an Advent calendar with a daily activity that they can do at home.

She also sends home prayers for an Advent wreath, and each week they talk with the children about what the colors and candles mean. They are taught that the Catholic Church starts its Liturgical year with anticipation and remembrance.

“I think it’s important for them because it’s not Christmas, and when they go out in the world — any place they go — they’re going to see Christmas for the next four weeks, and they need to know there’s a reason for waiting,” she said. “I love the season of Advent, and I try to build up that joy for the season.”

Supply is nearly sold out!

16

Youth Pages

Grades one through four recently celebrated their annual Thanksgiving feast with their classmates at St. Mary-Sacred Heart School in North Attleboro. The feast kicked off with skits and songs done by the students, followed by a prayer led by principal Denise Peixoto and firstgrader Ryan Birders. It was then followed by a tradition at the school where students place a popcorn kernel in a basket and say what they are most thankful for. Many students said they were thankful for the school, their friends, their families and one child was thankful for her freedom. Here, Peixoto collected the popcorn kernels while the children said what they are most thankful for.

December 4, 2015

Fourth-graders at St. Francis Xavier School in Acushnet had a great time exploring and putting their skills to use, assembling racing boats while on a recent field trip to the Boston Museum of Science.

Students in grades three through five at St. James-St. John School in New Bedford recently participated in a diabetes presentation.

Pre-k students at St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro recently learned how to make pizza as part of their healthy food week and nutrition lesson. The students rolled out their dough, poured the sauce and sprinkled the cheese. They got to enjoy it for snack time.

First- and second-grade students at St. Michael School in Fall River, with their teachers, Mrs. Greene and Mrs. Madeira, made homemade butter and enjoyed a corn muffin, with butter, crackers and cranberry juice in honor of Thanksgiving.​

At Holy Name School in Fall River, sixth-graders with their second-grader prayer partners, shared what they were thankful for during the Thanksgiving season.

December 4, 2015

H

appy Advent! I cannot believe that we are already into the second week of Advent.

And what a great theme for our world in this second week. Peace.

All we have to do is watch the news for one evening and know that peace is something that we desperately need.

As any good writer would do, I Googled the technical definition of peace. According to MerriamWebster, peace is “a state of tranquility or quiet.” I went on to a national news website and read about ISIS, a bomb threat at a school, a police officer who was shot and a shooting that killed four and wounded nine — without having to click on anything. I searched a local news website and on the homepage I read about a DUI, a fatal hit and run, a homicide and fire that caused significant damage. There is a cry for peace in our world.

In his homily on Sept. 1, 2013, Pope Francis said, “All men and women of good will are bound by the task of pursuing peace. I make a forceful and urgent call to the entire Catholic Church, and also to every Christian of other confessions, as well as to followers of every religion and to those brothers and sisters who do not believe: peace is a good which overcomes every barrier, because it belongs to all of humanity!” Pope Francis

Youth Pages Peace be with you reminds us that it is every person’s duty to work for peace. It is not just up to the government, the Church, the civil authorities, but each and everyone one of us to promote peace because it is a right of all humans. St. Pope John XXIII in his encyclical “Pacem in Terris” reminds us that in order to do so, it must start with

By Amanda cultivating Tarantelli relationships.

But I want to go back to the definition of peace. It is the “state of tranquility or quiet.” Peace is not just a lack of violence and destruction in the world but a lack of noise and unrest in our own lives. As I sit here typing this with a sleeping puppy on my lap, I am reminded exactly of what peace is. It’s about taking time away from everything and enjoying the quiet. It’s about putting away distractions and just sitting with those we love.

The Dalai Lama said “We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” Advent gives us a chance to work on peace within ourselves. We have to take advantage of this season. We need to

Be Not Afraid

step away from the crazy lines at the local stores, the stress on the bank account and how we are going to make it all work, the craziness of decorating, baking, cooking and make time for peace. We need to find time to set aside for more prayer. Spend time reading Scripture.

Listen to music. Turn off the TV, the phone, the tablet and just be still.

This is the gift of the Advent season. The Church in her wisdom sets aside time to prepare for the Birth of Christ not by giving us time off to go shopping but to spend time with God. Henri Nouwen says, “Waiting is a period of learning.

The longer we wait, the more

17 we hear about Him for Whom we are waiting.” While we wait for the joy that the Incarnation brings, we should spend more time getting to know the Incarnate One. I pray that you have a blessed Christmas, but I also pray that we use the gift of this season to find the peace that Christ offers us. As Mother Teresa reminds us, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” Let us spend this season of preparation remembering that we belong to one another because we belong to the One, true God. Anchor columnist Amanda Tarantelli has been a campus minister at Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth since 2005. She is married, a diehard sports fan, and resides in Cranston, R.I. She can be reached at atarantelli@bishopstang.com.

Noreen Cotter (center), wife of the late Timothy J. Cotter, recently visited Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River to award four students with scholarships given in her husband’s memory. Established to carry on the legacy of the respected community leader and former BankFive president, the Timothy J. Cotter Scholarship Fund has awarded more than $50,000 in scholarships since 2001 to help students pursue a Catholic education at Bishop Connolly. Cotter scholarship recipients for 2015-2016 include, from left: Colby Nowicki, Jacob Schnurr, Emily Fiola and Sarah Cabral.

St. Patrick’s Parish in Wareham recently held its Altar Server Appreciation Lunch, sponsored by the Parish Vocation Committee. Pastor Father John Sullivan and the Knights of Columbus did the cooking. The altar servers were able to build their own sundaes after lunch and there was a raffle for each altar server to put his/her name in the drawing for a chance to win two tickets to the recent Patriots/Bills game. Each altar server and their family members who attended also received a Rosary blessed

by Pope Francis on a recent trip to Rome by parish Religious Education director Paula Wilk and her husband John. They also received a trophy with their name engraved on it. The reason the committee did it is because in the CARA study, 80 percent of the current seminarians/priests had been altar servers. The committee wanted to appreciate not only the servers but their families as well.

Bishop Feehan High School (Attleboro) senior student-athletes Lauren Manis and Hannah Phelan recently signed letters of commitment for the College of the Holy Cross and Clemson University, respectively. Both received grant-in-aid scholarships.

St. John Paul II High School in Hyannis has named Charles “Chuck” Jancaterino as head varsity hockey coach. Jancaterino played and coached for the University of Connecticut and coached at Curry College. He coached Bourne High School Hockey for 14 years. He has served as varsity assistant coach at Barnstable High School for the last four years.

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December 4, 2015

One-woman Marian show to be presented at Assonet parish continued from page one

saints.

“Several years ago my mom encouraged me to do something like this because we had seen several onewoman shows and she knew that I had a theater background and she suggested I present something focusing on the Blessed Mother,” Montigny said. “It’s basically looking at the life of Jesus through the eyes of Mary.”

While there have been many one-woman shows based on people like St. Faustina and Mother Teresa, Montigny admitted the notion of creating a one-woman Marian experience was a little daunting at first.

“I had seen some shows based on women saints — and I know in Scripture, the Blessed Mother doesn’t talk all that much, but when she does, it’s very meaningful,” she said. “So I took those few moments in Scripture and built upon that. I really wanted to imagine what her life was like.”

Sensing the time was right to bring Our Lady’s story to the stage, about a year

ago Montigny’s work on the project began in earnest.

“It took me a while to get rolling, because I was writing the pieces as well, so it was a lot of stop and start,” she said. “Then, just last year, I really felt like I needed to do it. I thought it was a good way to bring together my theater and Spiritual side, plus with everything that’s going on in the world, I felt it was a message that people really needed to hear at this time.”

Tapping into her theatrical resources, Montigny worked with a director to shape the piece into a 20-minute stage presentation, then collaborated with seamstress and graphic designer to create a costume and logo, respectively.

“It was interesting when it came time to create the costume,” Montigny said. “I just went to a local seamstress in Fall River. I told her kind of what I was looking for and used a pattern. I think the costume is closer to what Our Lady would have worn from day-to-day. I

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think a lot of us imagine her as being majestic and clad in jewels, but that’s not how she lived on earth. It’s very simple and that’s the way I wanted to go with it.”

While the Lenten “Walking With Our Mother” presentation was more of a collaborative effort in terms of writing and directing, Montigny said “Our Mother’s Call” is something that she primarily “worked out on my own.”

“It’s mostly dialogue and it runs about 20 minutes,” she said. “I had set it up based on the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, so we hear Mary relate those mysteries from her perspective. I address the audience as Mary in costume. It’s pretty much Scripture-based, I’m not making any huge theological statements with it. I would say it’s very meditative and helpful to people who want a little retreat during Advent.”

As the mother of three boys herself, Montigny said she was able to tap into that experience for her performance.

“I think becoming a mother is what really started me moving towards putting these pieces together,” she said. “I really think it lit a fire under me, because having the experience of being a mother to three boys — and, of course, Mary was a mother to a Son — and just knowing that incredible love that you feel that will never go away, has definitely been helpful to me when I perform. Just imagining how great Mary’s love was, knowing that this is God, is just

incredible.”

Another source of inspiration for Montigny has been Pope Francis’ personal devotion and affection for Our Lady, which she witnessed firsthand during the World Meeting of Families in September.

“I was fortunate enough to go to Philadelphia to see Pope Francis, and it was a really amazing experience,” she said. “I was very moved by the pope’s devotion to Our Lady Undoer of Knots, and I got to see the shrine that was created there in Philadelphia in her honor and I was able to pray the Novena, which is quite powerful.

“Basically, I appreciate the pope’s depth of compassion and what he is also telling us about Our Lady — that she can help you bring your troubles to the Lord and help you find a way to loosen those knots and really be at peace with yourself and what’s going on.”

While Montigny has previously performed the shows in western Massachusetts, where she grew up, and in nearby Providence, R.I., the St. Bernard’s Parish event will mark her debut presentation within the Fall River Diocese.

“I went to a meeting of the Fall River chapter of the Massachusetts Citizens for Life, and that’s how I became involved with St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet,” Montigny said. “I met a member and she told me about a group there that meets one Saturday a month and on December 12 they are going to have a presentation on Our Lady of Guadalupe and she thought I could

This week in 50 years ago — Bishop James L. Connolly broke ground for his namesake boys’ high school in Fall River, in the presence of Very Rev. John V. O’Connor, S.J., provincial of the Jesuit order that would staff the new facility.

25 years ago — The 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in the United States was celebrated during a Mass at St. Julie Billiart Church in North Dartmouth.

follow that up with ‘Our Mother’s Call.’ She thought it would be a nice companion piece.”

The presentation will begin at 9 a.m. on December 12 at St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet and is free and open to the public.

Montigny will also be returning to the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus in Providence, R.I. for a performance of “Our Mother’s Call” on December 20 beginning at 5 p.m. in Our Lady’s Chapel.

She hopes to continue presenting the two Marian Theatre Projects at parishes throughout the area well into 2016.

“Word is starting to get out now, and I hope it’s something I can bring to other churches so people can experience it,” she said.

Montigny added that “Our Mother’s Call” is an ideal way for people to better understand and appreciate all that Mary went through in those days and weeks leading up to the birth of the Messiah.

“I hope people come away from the show understanding the importance of the gift of life — that the Lord would come into the world and that Mary was open and welcoming to that idea,” she said. “I also hope people realize the sacrifices that went along with that: nothing really came easy to the Holy Family, I don’t think.

From that perspective, I think we sometimes go to church and don’t see them as real people, but they were.

They faced a lot of struggles — as we all do — and you can have faith and call upon them for help.”

Diocesan history

10 years ago — St. Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford hosted a three-night workshop on Gregorian Chant led by Father John Ringley, former director of the Gregorian Schola at the North American College in Rome.

One year ago — Massachusetts voters extended the right to earn sick time to all wage earners in the state by approving Question 4 on the election ballot, which took effect on July 1, 2015.

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December 4, 2015

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

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

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

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

ATTLEBORO — There is a weekly time of Eucharistic Adoration Wednesdays from 7-9 p.m. at St. John the Evangelist Church on North Main Street.

Brewster — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the La Salette Chapel in the lower level of Our Lady of the Cape Church, 468 Stony Brook Road, on First Fridays beginning at noon until 7:45 a.m. First Saturday, concluding with Benediction and concluding with Mass at 8 a.m. buzzards Bay — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street, Monday through Saturday, from 6:30 to 8 a.m.; and every first Friday from noon to 8 a.m. on Saturday.

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

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

FAIRHAVEN — St. Mary’s Church, Main St., has Eucharistic Adoration every Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Chapel of Reconciliation, with Benediction at 11:30 a.m. Also, there is a First Friday Mass each month at 7 p.m., followed by a Holy Hour with Eucharistic Adoration. Refreshments follow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Falmouth — St. Patrick’s Church has Eucharistic Adoration each First Friday following the 7 a.m. Mass, with Benediction at 4:30 p.m.

HYANNIS — St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis, 347 South Street, Hyannis, has Eucharistic Adoration from noon to 3 p.m., daily Monday through Friday.

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

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

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

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

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

NEW BEDFORD — St. Lawrence Martyr Parish, 565 County Street, holds Eucharistic Adoration in the side chapel Fridays from 7:30-11:45 a.m. ending with a simple Benediction NORTH DARTMOUTH — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, every Tuesday from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., ending with Benediction. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WAREHAM — Eucharistic Adoration at St. Patrick’s Church begins each Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. and ends on Friday night at midnight. Adoration is held in our Adoration Chapel in the lower Parish Hall. ~ PERPETUAL EUCHARISTIC ADORATION ~ East Sandwich — The Corpus Christi Parish Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Chapel is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 324 Quaker Meeting House Road, East Sandwich. Use the Chapel entrance on the side of the church.

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

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

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

Plante Jewelers again to present Give a Gift program

FALL RIVER — Plante Jewelers is once again asking the community to join in making a special holiday for all the children and youths served by St. Vincent’s Home.

Making the holidays happier for children is the goal of Pierre and Nancy Plante’s Give a Gift program. “We want to make sure every child at St. Vincent’s has a gift to open at the holidays,’ said Pierre. “Last year we had a huge response from our customers!”

Going right up to December 24, customers who would like to join Plante’s in donating gifts for the children can visit the store with an unwrapped present. Each person who drops off a gift will be entered into a prize drawing. The drawing will be on December 22 and the prize is a diamond halo pendant.

The staff at St. Vincent’s will wrap and deliver the gifts to the children. Suggested presents include pajamas, warm hats and mittens, sweatshirts and pants, and toys or gift cards. A complete list is available at Plante Jewelers, or at St. Vincent’s website.

Plante Jewelers located at Swansea Crossings, 207

In Your Prayers

Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks 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 Dec. 8 Rev. John F. Broderick, Pastor, St. Mary, South Dartmouth, 1940 Dec. 9 Rev. Rene Patenaude, O.P., Retired Associate Pastor, St. Anne, Fall River, 1983 Dec. 10 Rev. Thomas C. Briscoe, Former Pastor, St. Anne, Fall River, 1918 Rev. Andrew S.P. Baj, Former Pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, New Bedford, 1971 Rev. Leonard M. Mullaney, 2014 Dec. 11 Rev. Edward L. Killigrew, Pastor, St. Kilian, New Bedford, 1959

Swansea Mall Dr. in Swansea, is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Thursday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Saturday 10 a.m. to

5 p.m.

For more information, call Nancy Plante at 508-673-0561 or email nplante@plantejewelers.com.

Around the Diocese A Mini Advent Retreat for Women will be held on December 5 beginning at 8 a.m. This Saturday morning retreat will include continental breakfast and presentations by Breadbox Media Radio host Allison Gingras and an opportunity for shopping! The event will wrap up by noontime. For reservations or information, call 508-243-1133 or visit www.ReconciledToYou.com.

An Advent Youth Retreat will be held December 5 at St. Anthony’s Parish in New Bedford from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Speakers will be Father Octavio Cortez, IVE; Father Leonard Kayondo from Rwanda; and Teresa Warburg of the Marian Apostolate at The Immaculate Conception Parish in Westerly, R.I. All are welcome.

St. John the Evangelist Parish in Pocasset will hold its Family Christmas Celebration on December 6 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Local crafters will be highlighted in the “Vendor’s Village” with beautiful hand-crafted items and delightful gifts for everyone on your list. Enjoy face painting and cookie decorating as well as delicious treats from the bake table. Santa Claus will also be arriving for a visit. Enjoy in the festivities with shopping, refreshments, raffles and more!

For information, contact Jane at 508-759-3566.

Holy Cross Parish, 225 Purchase Street in Easton, will host its Holly Fair on December 6 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., including Breakfast with Santa from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. Breakfast tickets can be purchased at the door. The fair will include fabulous raffle baskets and a silent auction, along with returning favorites such as the snowflake raffle, buck-a-bag for the kids, cookie stroll and Pat Brophy’s famous homemade jams and pickles.

A Healing Mass will be celebrated on December 7 at 6 p.m. at Our Lady of Victory Parish, 230 South Main Street in Centerville. The Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick will be offered at the end of Mass. There will be no Mass and meeting during January and February due to travel difficulty for many during winter weather. The monthly Mass and meeting will resume on March 7. The Cancer Support Group also offers an informal discussion opportunity for members who would prefer a smaller group that meets once a month. For information, contact Geri at 508-362-6909.

The Lazarus Committee of Our Lady of the Cape Parish, 468 Stony Brook Road in Brewster, is offering a holiday bereavement support workshop for people who have experienced the loss of a loved one within the past two years. The workshop, “Coping With Loss During the Holidays,” is scheduled to meet on two Mondays: December 7 and December 14 from 6 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. in the parish center. Judi Pregot, a bereavement counselor and LICSW, will facilitate the group. For required pre-registration and information, call 508-896-8355.

A screening of new film, “Down from the Mountaintop,” will be held on December 9 at 11 a.m. followed by Rosary prayer at 11:30 a.m. and Mass at noon. “Down from the Mountaintop,” released by Family Theater Productions of Hollywood, Calif., is a powerful drama that relates to Scripture and the fourth Luminous Mystery of the Rosary, “The Transfiguration,” when Christ’s disciples wished that they too could stay on the mountaintop. The event is free and open to the public and will be held at the Father Peyton Center of Holy Cross Family Ministries, 518 Washington Street in North Easton. For information call 508-238-4095.

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December 4, 2015