The Catholic Spirit - August 13, 2020

August 13, 2020 • Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

THE CHURCH

PREPARES

19 Prayer and Listening Events. 11 focus events.

8,173 participants. 35,026 comments.

Last year, Archbishop Bernard Hebda called for the archdiocese to embrace becoming a ‘listening Church’ in preparation for an archdiocesan Synod. From September 2019 to March 2020, thousands of Catholics shared what was on their hearts and minds when it comes to their parishes and the Church, and listened to what others had to say. Archbishop Hebda listened, too, and also tasked a team to code and analyze the information received. After prayerful discernment and consultation, the archbishop has determined which topics deserve a deeper dive as the local Church looks to its future.

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t the beginning of May, I shared with you that I was poring over the input that had been gathered at the 2019-2020 Pre-Synod Prayer and Listening Events and through the Disciple Maker Index survey. Not surprisingly, your feedback was superb and really insightful. Thank you! I was happy to learn that so many of you share my assessment that there are many indicators of vibrancy in our archdiocese, but we could be strengthened and enriched by a Synod process that would intensively address a limited number of targeted areas.

Having reviewed your comments, I am now pleased to announce that the 2022 Archdiocesan Synod will focus on three areas: 1) Forming parishes that are in the service of evangelization; 2) Forming missionary disciples who know Jesus’ love and respond to his call; and 3) Forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young.

For those of you who participated in the Synod prayer and listening events, the three focus areas chosen should not be surprising: We heard those three broad themes as priorities time and again. There was an awareness that we would be a stronger Church if we would focus our time and attention on these three areas in the next five years, giving us a foundation for addressing more vigorously some of the other areas of concern that surfaced at the prayer and listening events.

— Archbishop Bernard Hebda PLEASE TURN TO FOCUS AREAS ON PAGE 2A

AUGUST 13, 2020 ARCHDIOCESAN SYNOD: YEAR 2 to foster discipleship Focus areas: A deeper dive 2.HowTools can we offer meaningful life-long formation for

2A • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

FOCUS AREAS

This present moment

Archbishop Hebda is particularly looking forward to hearing responses to the following questions.

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By Archbishop Bernard Hebda

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hile the terminology might be contemporary, the underlying issues of our three focus areas are challenges that the Church has faced from the day of the Ascension: How are we to go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them what Christ had taught, and remembering that Christ would be with us always?

Archbishop John Ireland, who led our archdiocese from 1884 until his death in 1918, understood the fundamental importance of the great commission given by Christ to the Apostles in Matthew 28, and had the first few words inscribed in Latin above the entrance of our Cathedral to remind us always of that mission. Coming more than a century after the completion of the Cathedral, the Archdiocesan Synod is our contemporary response to that mission and challenge.

I wonder, however, if Archbishop Ireland could have imagined just how great the challenge would be in 2020. He died just before the 1918 flu pandemic began to take its toll.

While it fell to him to lead a largely uneducated and immigrant Church in an era when Catholics were sometimes seen as un-American and faced significant prejudices, his experience of the Church had been primarily one of great growth, as reflected in his ability to build contemporaneously the Cathedral and Basilica, two of the most magnificent Churches in our country.

Today’s circumstances (an archdiocese emerging from bankruptcy and scandal, showing a decline in Mass attendance and financial support, now exacerbated

by COVID-19, as well as significant reduction in the numbers of baptisms and weddings) would have been outside his wildest imagining. He would likewise be shocked, I suspect, to see the steady rise in the percentage of Americans, particularly young Americans, who indicate that they have no religious affiliation. He would surely share in our tears as we witness the ongoing effects of racism, or recognize the ways in which violence, addiction and abuse have impacted so many of our families and communities.

There is no question that we live in an age in which the need for personal conversion and institutional renewal is great. It is in moments such as these that the Church has the opportunity return to her roots and allow the power of Christ to shine through our weakness. Because of the potential for renewal, I feel blessed to be in this archdiocese precisely at this time.

In addressing the challenges before us, I realize that I have human resources available to me that Archbishop Ireland could never have imagined. Thanks to his ground-breaking vision for our archdiocese, and the teaching of the

Forming parishes that are at the service of evangelization.

1. Welcoming parishes What can we do to make parishes more welcoming and accessible? Are there those who feel excluded from parish life? How can we address them? What have we learned from livestreaming parish events to build inclusion?

2. Collaboration in parish ministry How can we promote a greater sense of ownership of parish activities? How do we call forth the gifts that God has given us to strengthen our parishes? How should parishioners be involved in setting a vision for the parish? How does a parish regularly assess its performance? How can a community provide for continuity when clergy and staff regularly change?

3. Liturgy and the Sunday experience What needs to happen for Sunday liturgies to more completely satisfy spiritual needs and send us forth for service? How should we address the needs of multicultural, multilingual communities at Mass? Are there ways to create an Archdiocesan liturgical identity so that we feel at home in any one of our parishes? What would be important components of that identity?

4. Parishes as “central driving force” of evangelization How do we foster the “pastoral conversion” of parishes to more fully serve the Church’s evangelizing mission? How can parishes train parishioners to be evangelizers, especially in homes and neighborhoods? What are parish practices that have worked in bringing Catholics back to the Church or in attracting new members?

5. Bringing the implications of the Gospel into our communities How can parishes be instruments of Christ’s healing? How do we transform parishes to be attentive to the needs of others and to engage in the work of justice and racial equality?

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Forming missionary disciples who know Jesus’ love and respond to his call.

1. Personally encountering Jesus What resources and experiences facilitate the personal encounter with Christ that is at the heart of missionary discipleship? What are concrete ways that our Church can credibly proclaim the core message of our faith (the “kerygma”) in ways that lead to real conversion?

Second Vatican Council that confirmed his instincts, we have extraordinarily creative lay leadership in this local Church. There’s a remarkable foundation of collaboration between clergy and laity that gives me great hope.

Think of the now national impact that the Jeremiah Program has had on young moms and their children, or the hope provided to families in search of affordable housing in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa because of CommonBond Communities. Take a moment to imagine the number of teenagers around our country who have had their faith renewed because of NET Ministries, or university students who have encountered Christ on college campuses because of Saint Paul’s Outreach. I’m the envy of my brother bishops when I speak about the Catechetical Institute or pull out photos of the new Dorothy Day Place, or talk about the impact that the Aim

discipleship? What are useful resources and experiences for learning how to pray, especially with sacred Scripture? What retreat experiences have borne fruit? How can we encourage faith-sharing in small groups? How can we encourage mentoring in the life of virtue and accompaniment at difficult moments?

3. Enhancing adult formation How can we promote a deepening in our understanding of the content of our faith? How can we more effectively meet the need for adult faith formation?

4. Fostering the universal call to holiness How do we deepen our understanding of the family as the domestic Church and our appreciation of marriage as a path for lifelong sanctification? How can the Church better accompany couples in living out their vocation throughout their marriage?

How can we be more responsive to the spiritual needs of those who are single, separated or divorced, or widowed?

5. Joyful service as a Gospel imperative How do we strengthen the tie between discipleship, love for neighbor and joyful service? How can we encourage individuals to manifest their faith in their works? How can we promote a greater sensitivity and response to the needs of others?

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Forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young.

1. Supporting parents as primary educators How can we better assist parents in forming children as disciples who know and love Jesus and his Church?

2. Helping the young encounter Jesus How do we give pre-teens a personal encounter with Jesus that fosters spiritual growth? How about teenagers? How should we teach them to pray or help them grow in virtue?

3. Education at the service of encountering Christ How can Catholic schools and religious education programs more effectively facilitate a relationship with Jesus? Do our sacramental preparation programs open young hearts to God’s grace and call?

4. Ministry to millennials How can we minister more effectively to college-age Catholics and single young adults? How about young married couples and young families?

5. Rethinking structures of young adult ministry What should be the role of peer ministry and young adult leadership in this apostolate? Is there a need for a more regionalized approach? What are avenues for developing young leadership and opening Church structures to the insights of young adults? How can we better use social media to nourish young adults?

Higher Foundation and Catholic Schools Center of Excellence (CSCOE) have had on stabilizing enrollment in our Catholic schools. We’re getting inquiries all the time from around the country about Extreme Faith Camp, the Seven Sisters Apostolate, the Chesterton Schools Network, Women in the New Evangelization (WINE), the Catholic Watchmen men’s apostolate, the Cana Family Institute and the Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota.

That all of those initiatives arose in this archdiocese speaks volumes about the types of passionate Catholic problemsolvers who have been nurtured in this local Church.

When I reflect on the phenomenal response that we received when we asked the priests and faithful of the archdiocese to come together for the Prayer and Listening Events, I know that those creative problem-solvers are still out there, and I become excited to think

YEAR TWO : THE CHURCH PREPARES JUNE Mass marks the beginning of Year 2

AUGUST Archbishop Hebda announces Synod focus areas

SEPTEMBER Praying with Scripture virtual series begins Sept. 13

JANUARY/FEBRUARY OCTOBER FEBRUARY Healing and Hope Faith and Culture series Lent: Synod virtual retreat at Home Deanery Consultation occurs begins Oct.18 over four Saturdays in social-distanced environment

about what might emerge from the next steps of the Synod process. The focus areas might seem somewhat predictable, but I am anticipating bold proposals for concrete action. My hope is that through the Synod process we will together be able to discern new and creative responses to a few issues that have challenged, and continue to challenge, this local Church.

Even in an era marked by COVID-19 and limited financial resources, the potential is boundless when we all put our heads and hearts together and allow the Holy Spirit to lead.

While the first phase of our process was focused on casting the net broadly to see what was on the minds and hearts of the faithful and thereby determine the topics for our Synod, the next phase needs to be more focused and go deeper.

In particular, the 2021 deanery and parish consultations will focus on how we can take action to address those topics. At the deanery level next January 3A>>

YEAR THREE: THE CHURCH ENGAGES SPRING Live events on the Focus Areas

JUNE Year 3 begins

SEPTEMBER Parish Consultation with Small Group Process begins

JUNE Synod Assembly takes place Pentecost weekend

NOVEMBER Archbishop Hebda releases pastoral plan

August 13, 2020 • Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Prayerful petals Flower farming a natural choice for 30-something Catholic couple who raise children amid colorful blooms.

— Pages 8B-9B

Classroom prep Catholic schools in the archdiocese gear up for in-person learning as parents weigh their education options.

— Page 5B

Cardinal comes to town DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Max Waltman, left, and his brother, Leo, open the doors of St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Vermillion for Cardinal Raymond Burke, right, who visited Aug. 11 at a friend’s invitation. Cardinal Burke praised the school in front of a small gathering of students, parents, teachers and staff, noting that he once attended and later taught at a Catholic school. “Don’t ever question what you’re doing here,” he said. “I know the sacrifices are great, but I urge you to think that you can’t do anything better, for the future of our society and our Church, than provide a good and solid Catholic education.” Cardinal Burke grew up in Wisconsin and was the bishop of La Crosse from 1995 to 2004, during which time he oversaw the building of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe near La Crosse. Walking into the pre-K-to-grade-four school with Cardinal Burke are, from left, Father Michael Tix, parochial administrator of St. John the Baptist parish; Archbishop Bernard Hebda; and Paul Dieltz (partially hidden), school principal. Max Waltman is entering second grade, and Leo graduated from the school and will be a fifth-grader.

Read more about Cardinal Burke’s visit at TheCatholicSpirit.com.

Goodbye, Dominicans Holy Rosary in Minneapolis bids farewell to order that has served there since parish founding 142 years ago.

— Page 6B

Young voters Experts track previous participation at the polls, say a ballot surge might be on the way in upcoming elections.

— Page 10B

More than a friend Local priest uses commentary on upcoming Gospel passage to help Catholics understand the sovereignty of Jesus.

— Page 12B

Mapping the faith Columnist Christina Capecchi describes how using Google Earth and learning landmarks can be like studying the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

— Page 13B

Iowans pray for COVID-stricken plant workers

By Barb Arland-Fye Catholic News Service A small group of deacon formation classmates, parishioners and family members stood across the road from Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, and prayed Morning Prayer (Lauds).

“We did so remembering those who have been affected by COVID-19, those who have died and now those who return to work,” said Kent Ferris, diocesan director of Social Action and of Catholic Charities. “While we prayed, a gentleman approached us. One from our group shared why we gathered. The gentleman responded, ‘I assumed you were Catholic.’”

The safety and well-being of workers at meatpacking plants weigh heavily on the mind of Ferris and other Catholics in the Diocese of Davenport. They learned through a July 22 Des Moines Register story the “first confirmed coronavirus outbreak at an Iowa meat-packing plant was far more severe than previously known.” They prayed in front of that plant July 24.

At a May 5 news conference, the state’s health department reported 221 employees at Tyson Foods in Columbus Junction tested positive for COVID-19.

The Des Moines Register learned through an open records law request that plant officials reported to the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration that 522 employees had been infected.

“We’re not currently aware of any active COVID cases involving team members employed at our Columbus Junction plant,” Gary Mickelson, senior director of public relations for Tyson Foods, said in a July 24 interview with The Catholic Messenger, Davenport’s diocesan newspaper.

“Our top priority is the health and safety of our workers and we’ve implemented a host of protective measures at our facilities that meet or exceed CDC and OSHA guidance for preventing COVID-19,” he said.

Representatives of the recently formed Iowa Council for Worker Safety say more needs to be done. “While Tyson can cite a list of pandemic responses that virtually every employer should be practicing, communities are still unclear on the overall strategy and have still not received a response to the information request that any good community partner should be willing and eager to share,” said Jesse Case, a council representative.

The information request refers to a

June 12 letter that the Iowa Council for Worker Safety sent to the plant manager of the Columbus Junction facility expressing concern about COVID-19 policies and procedures there. The Diocese of Davenport is among the letter’s signers.

The council sought details including social distancing in locker rooms, production and meal areas; safe transportation to and from work; leave and pay policies; workers’ rights and protection against retaliation; quality and quantity of personal protective equipment provided; and restroom use policies.

Mickelson shared a statement with The Catholic Messenger outlining about a dozen of the company’s COVID-19 protective measures and policies, including formation of a coronavirus task force in January.

Among other measures, the company is providing and requiring surgical-style face masks; conducting wellness health screening of all team members each time they arrive at the facility, using infrared walk-through temperature scanner. The company also has implemented socialdistancing measures, such as installing physical barriers between workstations and in break rooms, and it daily sanitizes plant production areas.

2B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

AUGUST 13, 2020

PAGETWO NEWS notes

12 The number of years Bishop John LeVoir has served as the leader of the Diocese of New Ulm. Citing health concerns, he resigned effective Aug. 6, according to a statement from the diocese. A Twin Cities native who was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1981, Bishop LeVoir, 74, has been undergoing physical and psychological assessment at Sacred Heart Mercy Health Care Center in Alma, Michigan, since early July. He will remain there until early September as he undertakes a therapy plan. Pope Francis, who accepted his resignation, has not yet appointed a successor. Msgr. Douglas Grams is serving as the diocesan administrator. While Bishop LeVoir was serving in New Ulm, the diocese filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to settle clergy sexual abuse cases filed against the diocese. In March, a U.S. bankruptcy judge gave final approval to a $34 million settlement agreement between 93 victim-survivors of clergy sexual abuse and the diocese and parishes within the diocese.

14 CNS

MARIAN APPARITIONS? Gisella Cardia kneels and looks skyward Aug. 3 in the moment devotees claim Mary appeared to her and revealed a message. The alleged apparitions occur on the third of every month in Trevignano Romano, Italy. Cardia claims Mary told her in September 2019 that a new disease would soon emerge from China, a prediction of the novel coronavirus. She also claims she regularly receives messages from Mary or Jesus, and has been receiving them since April 2016. Hundreds of Italians flock to the site.

With Trevignano Romano in the Diocese of Civita Castellana, the job of determining the credibility of the apparitions to Cardia falls to Bishop Romano Rossi, who says more time must pass. “If it comes from men, it will end; if it comes from God, it will grow,” he said. “We’ll see.”

The number of days St. Louis King of France in downtown St. Paul is expected to remain closed after a visiting priest tested positive for COVID-19. Three of the Marist priests serving there, including the pastor, Father John Sajdak, went into quarantine and the church was closed effective Aug. 5 when they learned a Marist priest from Boston, who was a guest at the rectory so he could attend a wedding, tested positive for the virus. The fourth Marist priest at the parish was traveling on vacation. The visiting priest had been ill but was recovering. The parish priests were not showing symptoms and the church is expected to reopen Aug. 19 — along with its ministries, primarily offering daily and weekend Masses and confessions.

2 The number of Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis that have particular ties to Lebanon and are especially impacted by two massive Aug. 4 explosions in Beirut that killed more than 100 people and wounded thousands.

The two Maronite-rite churches responded, with Holy Family in Mendota Heights dedicating a Mass Aug. 6 to victims of the explosion and St. Maron in Minneapolis holding two hours of adoration Aug. 7 while calling for a day of prayer and fasting Aug. 8. Father Nakhlé Ghorr, pastor of Holy Family, said Lebanon’s residents were struggling even before the explosions because of the country’s economic collapse and impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Chorbishop Sharbel Maroun, pastor of St. Maron, said every one of his parishioners has been impacted in some way by the explosions. People wishing to help can donate to Caritas Internationalis, the umbrella organization for Catholic charitable agencies including U.S.-based Catholic Relief Services, at caritas.org.

2019 CNS

BLESSED MCGIVNEY Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, supreme chaplain of the Knights of Columbus, left, prays Aug. 4 at the granite sarcophagus holding the remains of Father Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Conn. Later at the opening Mass of the Knights’ 138th annual Supreme Convention, it was announced a new Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center will be created at the current Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven. Father McGivney’s beatification will take place at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, Conn., Oct. 31. At right is Supreme Knight Carl Anderson.

REDISCOVER:Hour On the show that aired July 31, Rediscover:Hour host Patrick Conley interviewed Jennifer Meyer, executive director of Options for Women East, on how pro-life clinics have been faring on the front lines of the pandemic. Also, Janette Howe with the Seven Sisters Apostolate shares about ways people can pray for priests during these challenging times. A conversation with Anne Flynn outlines some tips on ways to make a backyard garden into an oasis for prayer.

Listen each week on Fridays at 9 a.m., Saturdays at noon and Sundays at 2 p.m. on Relevant Radio 1330 AM. Find past shows at rediscover.archspm.org.

The Catholic Spirit is published semi-monthly for The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

United in Faith, Hope and Love

Vol. 25 — No. 15 MOST REVEREND BERNARD A. HEBDA, Publisher TOM HALDEN, Associate Publisher MARIA C. WIERING, Editor-in-Chief JOE RUFF, News Editor

The year Blessed James Miller was beatified. His inaugural feast day will be Feb. 13, 2021. The Wisconsin native, De La Salle Christian brother and martyr had taught for several years at then-Cretin High School in St. Paul. He was killed by masked gunmen in Guatemala in 1982. Brother Miller was beatified Dec. 7, and a June 5 letter from the Vatican to Archbishop Bernard Hebda grants the archbishop his request to insert the feast day into the liturgical calendar for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis as an optional memorial. It also specifies liturgical texts that can be used to mark the day. Blessed James Miller has not yet been declared a saint, and the Church requires Vatican permission before placing someone who is beatified into the public liturgical calendar.

5 The number of years Father Christopher Johnson of Andover spent teaching before entering the Dominican novitiate in Denver. Father Johnson was ordained a Dominican priest Aug. 8 in River Forest, Illinois, and he will return to teaching this month at Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois. Father Johnson grew up as a member of St. Stephen in Anoka and graduated from its grade school in 2000. He then graduated from Totino-Grace High School in Fridley in 2004, studied history and secondary education at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, and began teaching at St. Peter Public Schools in St. Peter in 2008, then Shanley High School in Fargo, North Dakota, in 2009, before entering the novitiate in 2013. He made solemn vows in 2018.

He served as a deacon last summer at Holy Rosary in Minneapolis.

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AUGUST 13, 2020

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 3B

FROMTHEBISHOP ONLY JESUS | BISHOP ANDREW COZZENS

Our Lady’s invitation: Join her in prayer for world’s healing

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he end of the summer is always punctuated by one of my favorite holy days, which reminds all of us of the goal of our earthly pilgrimage. Our Lady’s Assumption (normally a holy day of obligation but not this year, because of the coronavirus) is an opportunity for us to meditate on the life of heaven, to which Our Lady has preceded us, and to which we hope to follow.

This year it has special meaning for me in light of the state of crisis in which we find our world.

As our world has been gripped with fear through the coronavirus and the sadness of racial injustice, violence and division, more than ever we need to be reminded that this life is not all there is. We need to be reminded that through Jesus, we live with a hope that nothing in this world has the power to destroy. As we see people gripped with fear of death, we know that death is not the greatest enemy in the world. As our Lord told us, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” (Mt 10:28).

Even as we work for justice against all discrimination, we remember that this deep thirst in our hearts for justice will only be fulfilled in the justice of heaven. Our Lady’s Assumption is a reminder to us of our eternal destiny. Where she has gone as the first member of the Church, we also hope to go. This gives us great peace, even in the midst of so many difficulties. As Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?” (Jn 14:2).

This doesn’t mean that we don’t work to end injustice in our world, or that we are callous about human life — exactly the opposite. Knowledge of our eternal destiny empowers us to give our whole lives to serve God and build the civilization of love on this earth, because we do not live for ourselves. We are able to endure great sufferings for the sake of others because we know that “although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:16-17).

As we live with our eyes fixed on heaven, working to build a civilization of love in these troubled times, I want to also highlight one strong but simple piece of advice from Our Heavenly Mother. The times of crisis in which we are living have reminded me of another time when the world was in crisis and Our Lady came from heaven to bring a message of peace. In 1917, as the world was embroiled in the worst war ever known, Our Lady of Fatima appeared six times to three young shepherd children (Lucia, age 10; Francisco, age 9; Jacinta, age 7). She brought to them a very simple message — a message she said would end the war and save the world from even greater destruction. She asked them to pray the rosary every day and to make sacrifices for the conversion of sinners.

These three young children, two of whom died as a result of the 1918 influenza epidemic — and whom Pope Francis canonized in 2017 — took Our Lady’s message to heart and began to pray the rosary daily and offer sacrifice for the conversion of the world.

A wonderful new movie entitled “Fatima,” which details their heroism and Our Lady’s message, will be

released on the eve of the Assumption, Aug. 14. I highly recommend it.

It is striking to me that in the gravity of the problems facing the world in 1917, the Mother of God chose to appear to children, and she gave them a solution against the evils of the time that even children could do. Perhaps we are sometimes too proud to believe that prayer can actually change the world, but it is certainly true that if we seek to build a civilization of love, we must root all our efforts in prayer, or they will not be successful. To this end, especially in light of the times in which we find ourselves, I’d like to invite all Catholics in the archdiocese to join me in responding to Our Lady’s call at Fatima to pray the rosary daily for the healing of our world.

We have a beautiful tradition in our Church of a 54-day rosary novena (not a light commitment!). If one begins praying the rosary daily Aug. 15, the 54-day novena ends Oct. 7, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Our Lady of Fatima, who called herself Our Lady of the Rosary, has given us this powerful weapon — not for destruction, but for peace — and she has invited us to pray it daily for the healing of the world.

To mark the beginning of this novena, at 10 a.m.

Aug. 15, some local Catholics will gather at Leif Erickson park, near the State Capitol, to pray the 15 mysteries of the rosary for the healing of our country and our world.

You can join them in person or online at facebook.com/ groups/15mysteries. These outdoor events are a great way to social distance while praying together for the healing of our world. I invite you to join me in this 54-day rosary novena for the healing of our country and our world, as we seek to build a civilization of love, a place where all people come to know the love that has overcome death!

Invitación de Nuestra Señora: Únase a ella en oración por la curación del mundo

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l final del verano siempre está marcado por uno de mis Días Santos favoritos, que nos recuerda a todos el objetivo de nuestro peregrinaje terrenal.

La Asunción de Nuestra Señora (normalmente un día de obligación pero no este año, a causa del coronavirus) es una oportunidad para que meditemos sobre la vida del cielo, a la que Nuestra Señora nos ha precedido y a la que esperamos seguir. Este año tiene un significado especial para mí a la luz del estado de crisis en el que nos encontramos con nuestro mundo.

A medida que nuestro mundo se ha apoderado del miedo a través del coronavirus y la tristeza de la injusticia racial, la violencia y la división, más que nunca debemos recordar que esta vida no es todo lo que hay. Necesitamos que se nos recuerde que a través de Jesús, vivimos con la esperanza de que nada en este mundo tiene el poder de destruir. Cuando vemos a la gente dominada por el miedo a la muerte, sabemos que la muerte no es el mayor enemigo del mundo. Como nos dijo Nuestro Señor, “No temáis a los que matan el cuerpo pero no pueden matar el alma; antes bien, temed al que puede destruir el alma y el cuerpo en el Gehena” (Mt 10:28).

Incluso mientras trabajamos por la justicia contra toda discriminación, recordamos que esta profunda sed de justicia en nuestros corazones solo se cumplirá en la justicia del cielo. La Asunción de Nuestra Señora es un recordatorio para nosotros de nuestro destino eterno.

Donde ella ha ido como primer miembro de la Iglesia, también esperamos ir. Esto nos da una gran paz, incluso en medio de tantas dificultades. Como dijo Jesús: “No se turbe vuestro corazón. Tienes fe en Dios; ten fe también en mí. En la casa de mi Padre hay muchas moradas. Si no lo hubiera, ¿te habría dicho que te voy a preparar un lugar? (Jn 14:2).

Mientras vivimos con los ojos fijos en el cielo, trabajando para construir una civilización del amor en estos tiempos difíciles. También quiero destacar un consejo fuerte pero simple de Nuestra Madre Celestial. Los tiempos de crisis en los que vivimos me han recordado otra época en la que el mundo estaba en crisis y Nuestra

Señora vino del cielo para traer un mensaje de paz. En 1917, cuando el mundo estaba envuelto en la peor guerra jamás conocida, Nuestra Señora de Fátima se apareció seis veces a tres niños pastores (Lucía, 10 años; Francisco, 9 años; Jacinta, 7 años). Les trajo un mensaje muy simple: un mensaje que dijo que pondría fin a la guerra y salvaría al mundo de una destrucción aún mayor. Les pidió que rezaran el rosario todos los días y que hicieran sacrificios por la conversión de los pecadores.

Estos tres niños pequeños, dos de los cuales murieron como resultado de la epidemia de influenza de 1918, y a quienes el Papa Francisco canonizó en 2017, tomaron en serio el mensaje de Nuestra Señora y comenzaron a rezar el rosario todos los días y ofrecer sacrificios por la conversión del mundo. Una nueva película maravillosa titulada “Fátima”, que detalla su heroísmo y el mensaje de Nuestra Señora, se estrenará la víspera de la Asunción, el 14 de agosto. Lo recomiendo mucho.

Es sorprendente que en la gravedad de los problemas que enfrenta el mundo en 1917, la Madre de Dios eligió aparecer a los niños y les dio una solución contra los males de la época que hasta los niños podían hacer.

Quizás a veces estamos demasiado orgullosos para creer que la oración realmente puede cambiar el mundo, pero es cierto que si buscamos construir una civilización del amor, debemos enraizar todos nuestros esfuerzos en la oración, o no tendrán éxito. Con este fin, especialmente a la luz de los tiempos en que nos encontramos, me gustaría invitar a todos los católicos de la arquidiócesis a unirse a mí para responder al llamado de Nuestra Señora en Fátima de rezar el rosario todos los días por la curación de nuestro mundo.

Tenemos una hermosa tradición en nuestra iglesia de una novena de rosario de 54 días (¡no un compromiso ligero!). Si uno comienza a rezar el rosario todos los días el 15 de agosto, la novena de 54 días termina el 7 de octubre, la fiesta de Nuestra Señora del Rosario. Nuestra Señora de Fátima, que se hacía llamar Nuestra Señora del Rosario, nos ha dado esta poderosa arma, no para la destrucción, sino para la paz, y nos ha invitado a rezarla

todos los días por la curación del mundo.

Para marcar el comienzo de esta novena, el 15 de agosto, algunos católicos locales se reunirán en el parque Leif Erickson, cerca del Capitolio del Estado, para rezar los 15 misterios del rosario por la curación de nuestro país y nuestro mundo. Puede unirse a ellos en persona o en línea en facebook.com/groups/15mysteries. Estos eventos al aire libre son una excelente manera de distanciarse socialmente mientras oramos juntos por la curación de nuestro mundo. Los invito a unirse a mí en esta novena del rosario de 54 días por la curación de nuestro país y nuestro mundo, mientras buscamos construir una civilización del amor, ¡un lugar donde todas las personas conozcan el amor que ha vencido a la muerte!

Lea una versión más larga de esta columna en español en TheCatholicSpirit.com.

OFFICIAL Archbishop Bernard Hebda has announced the following appointments in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis:

Effective July 1, 2020 Reverend Kevin Manthey, assigned as a chaplain of the Emmanuel School of Mission in the Archdiocese of New York, for a period of three years. Father Manthey previously served as chaplain to Hill-Murray School in Maplewood and as sacramental minister to the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Saint Paul.

Effective August 3, 2020 Reverend Biju Mathew Pattasseril, CFIC, assigned as parochial administrator of the Church of Saint Matthew in Saint Paul. This is in addition to his current assignments as parochial administrator of the Church of Saint Boniface in Minneapolis and as chaplain to Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Saint Paul.

4B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

AUGUST 13, 2020

LOCAL

SLICEof LIFE

ChasingMarch 9, 2017 bubbles ‘Angel’ among us

LOCAL

4 • The Catholic Spirit

SLICEof LIFE

Lauren Dennison, center, of Guardian Angels in Oakdale, tries to catch bubbles July 30 following a vacation Bible school activity at the church. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, much of the five-day vacation Bible school St.place Joseph of Carondelet Sisterbut Avis took virtually through Zoom, families Allmaras, center, talks with Rose had the option to come to the churchCarter, for both left, and Irene Eiden at Peace House a sing-a-long earlier in the week and the in south Minneapolis Sisterthrew Avis July 30 activity, WaterFeb. Day.27.

Children goesballoons, to the center weeklya and visitsand water ran through sprinkler frequent guests like Carter.

Eiden, shot squirt guns. “I think the kids likedof it,” said St.Manor, Williama in Fridley, a laycame consociate Will teen leaderiswho up with the Carondelet Sisters.

Peace House theofidea of the socially distanced Water Day.is a daywere shelter for fun the with poorthe andsquirt homeless.

“They having guns, “It’swere a real privilege to know these people they running through the sprinklers and and hear their stories,” Sister Avisfaith said. “I having a good time.”

Sara Fleetham, could not survive onsaid the she streets they formation coordinator, “feltlike it was do. Theretoare soan many giftedevent. peopleOther important” hold in-person here.”agreed.

Said Carter of Sister Avis: “She’s parents “We’ve been cooped up for angel.and Shewe hides her wings underBible that …an months, usually do vacation sweatshirt.

She trulysaid is anCori angel.” school every summer,” Murphy, who Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit brought two of her three children to Water Day. “So, this is just a great opportunity for my kids to safely interact with other kids and just get out of the house and have some fun together.

It helped usSisters just feelWeek like we National Catholic is had some normalcy in our life, and we couldof March 8-14. An official component getWomen’s out and do something look forward History Monthwe and toheadquartered doing every summer have fun as a at St.and Catherine University community together.” in St. Paul, the week celebrates women religious and their contributions to the Church and society. View local events, including two art exhibitions, at www.nationalcatholicsistersweek.org.

Celebrating sisters

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

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AUGUST 13, 2020

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 5B

LOCAL

‘A first day of school unlike any we’ve seen’ Catholic schools prepare for in-person learning, with flexibility as needs arise

Teacher Rose Coleman of St. Agnes School in St. Paul works with first-grader Luciana Brendale Aug. 5 during Summer Boost Week, a program designed for younger students to help them transition back to in-person learning. St. Agnes and other Catholic schools across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are preparing to open their doors this fall and will work to protect students, staff and parents from COVID-19.

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit Brandi Brandstrom of St. Timothy in Maple Lake knows what she wants for her children this fall, even during the novel coronavirus pandemic: in-person learning at St. Timothy’s School.

Perhaps more emphatically, so does her eighth-grade son, Isaac, who last year left St. Timothy’s to attend nearby Buffalo Community Middle School in Buffalo because of its strong soccer program, his mother said.

This year, he’s returning to St. Timothy because of inperson learning.

Gov. Tim Walz announced his safe return to school plan July 30, which includes a mask mandate for all staff, visitors and students in kindergarten through high school at public and nonpublic schools, including Catholic schools. It also takes into account COVID-19 counts in each county, with in-person learning at low levels of virus activity, a hybrid of in-person and distance learning at higher levels, and only distance learning at higher levels still.

“It’s going to be a first day of school unlike any we’ve seen,” said the governor, a former teacher.

With those trends in hand, public schools in Wright County, west of Minneapolis — including Buffalo — are preparing for elementary schools to offer in-person learning this fall, while middle and high schools offer a mix of in-person and distance learning.

St. Timothy’s School, however, is preparing for inperson learning for all of its prekindergarten through eighth-grade students, with the flexibility to return to distance learning if necessary. The other 90 Catholic elementary and high schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are doing likewise.

“With the announcement of what was to come this school year we sat him (Isaac) down, and he said ‘No way, mom. I am not doing distance learning. I want to talk to my teachers in person, right there,’” Brandstrom said. “The education side is very important to him.”

Another conclusion Sara Lawrence came to the opposite conclusion for her children. The mother of three has a 3-yearold, Ava, with chronic lung issues because she was born prematurely. Contracting COVID-19 would be particularly dangerous for Ava. So, second-grader Harper and first-grader Nora will learn from home instead of at All Saints Catholic School in Lakeville, south of the Twin Cities, much as they started doing in March, when schools across Minnesota closed their campuses against the virus and shifted to distance learning for the rest of that school year.

“My husband (Dominic) and I both work from home. We have worked, done school and summer from home. We’re not ready to go back, and if we go back, that might change” depending on the status of the coronavirus, Lawrence said.

All Saints plans to videotape teachers in the classroom for families who don’t want to immediately return to in-person learning this fall. That should work well, Lawrence said. The school also is flexible about having families who are distance learning enter the school later in the year, if that works best for them, she said.

The Lawrences, as well as the Brandstroms in Maple Lake, are committed Catholics who want to remain part of their communities. Staying with the schools in one form or another is important to them, they said.

“When we go back into a school, I need our kids to walk back into that school building,” Lawrence said of All Saints. “We literally have made some of our best friends there.”

Brandstrom, who also works from home because of the pandemic, as does her husband, Joshua, said distance learning was hard on all three of her children.

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Her son, Maximilian, is entering first grade and her daughter, Carly, is entering third, both at St. Timothy.

“My second-grader (Carly) was in her room, sobbing, because she wanted to be with her teacher, she wanted help,” Brandstrom said of distance learning. “I have no concerns about the health issues (of COVID-19). My biggest concerns are the social and emotional impact of not being in school.”

Benefits of in-person learning Many parents across the archdiocese have expressed similar sentiments about distance learning, and the challenges are affirmed in guidance by the Centers for Disease Control, which emphasizes the social, academic and mental health benefits of in-person learning, as well as economic benefits for many families who rely on school lunch and other programs, said Jason Slattery, director of Catholic education for the archdiocese.

Catholic schools also have a special calling to share the faith, encouraging students to develop a personal relationship with Jesus, said Emily Dahdah, associate director of Catholic education. That is best done in person and in community, she said.

“We cannot have a relationship with Jesus Christ without a relationship with each other,” she said. “Our relationship with God is the most important thing, from which all other relationships stem. That’s on top of all the academic and social benefits of in-person learning.”

Those were among the factors weighed by a Catholic Schools Task Force of experts in finance, communications, law, public health and mental health, who began to work in June to help the archdiocese determine what would be needed to safely return to in-person learning, Slattery said.

The Task Force developed a series of health and safety protocols for Catholic schools, which pastors, canonical administrators, heads of school or school boards have been asked to affirm before a given school opens this fall. Many schools are preparing for a Sept. 8 first day, Slattery said. “We’ve not been told by anyone to this point” that a Catholic school isn’t ready for in-person learning, he said.

That confidence comes even as Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools announce their plans to start the fall by offering only distance learning. Dahdah said one key difference is the scale of those districts versus a smaller Catholic school system that breaks down very quickly into still smaller individual schools.

“We are in good shape to decide at a building level” how to handle challenges such as COVID-19, she said.

County-by-county COVID-19 cases, which will be used to help determine the level of in-person learning at

To read highlights of benchmarks and protocols for a safe return to in-person learning prepared by a Catholic Schools Task Force and other experts, go to TheCatholicSpirit.com

GETTING READY All Saints Catholic School in Lakeville, like many Catholic schools in the archdiocese, is preparing a Sept. 8 opening day. Safety measures against COVID-19 are a top priority, said Carol Margarit, principal.

Students will face forward in each classroom to help prevent spread of the virus, instead of learning in circles, which has been the norm, she said. Students and staff will wear masks or face shields, and protective shields will be fitted to each desk.

Classrooms generally are large in the school, making social distancing relatively easy, even with 355 students in kindergarten through eighth grade and 90 in preschool, Margarit said. But accommodations also include art and music teachers not having their own classrooms this year to make still more room for several classes, such as middle school math and language arts, she said.

All Saints also is prepared to offer distance learning to families who choose that route, Margarit said. Some parents have requested that option because their child or someone in their family has an underlying condition that would make contracting COVID-19 particularly dangerous, she said.

At St. Timothy’s School in Maple Lake, 22 preschoolers and 94 K-8 students have an unusual safety measure —­­classrooms can open directly to the outdoors. With awnings to protect against the weather, that will all but eliminate students passing each other in hallways, said the principal, Julie Shelby.

In addition, the school has a large green space, where canopies will be set up so classes can be held outdoors before winter hits, she said.

“There will be many opportunities for outdoor learning,” Shelby said. ­ — Joe Ruff public schools, also will be important information for Catholic schools, Slattery said.

“It’s an important data point” in a multifaceted decision each Catholic school will make to determine whether to close as a campus, Slattery said.

If Walz were to order all public schools in the state to shift to distance learning because of the pandemic, Archbishop Bernard Hebda would ultimately decide if all Catholic schools in the archdiocese should follow suit, Slattery said.

Slattery said the school year will have its challenges, but it can be successful as families work to avoid COVID-19 as part of their daily routine, and as all parties work together. “It’s a real opportunity for growth in patience and grace,” he said. “There’ll be hard days, but there’ll be good days, too.”

LOCAL

6B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

AUGUST 13, 2020

After 142 years, Holy Rosary starts a new chapter Dominican order says goodbye to parish, but continues Twin Cities presence

A SPIRITUAL HOME

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit Holy Rosary in Minneapolis has marked numerous milestones throughout its 142-year history. A major one occurred June 30 with the departure of its last Dominican pastor. Dominicans have served the Phillips neighborhood parish since its founding.

Parishioners learned in February that the Dominican friars of the Central Province had decided to conclude their ministry at the parish. The final Dominican to lead the parish was Father Jerry Stookey, who had served as Holy Rosary’s pastor since July 2018.

Father Joseph Williams, pastor of St. Stephen in Minneapolis and archdiocesan vicar for Latino ministry, has been appointed the parish’s parochial administrator.

Joining Father Williams are Deacon Ramon Garcia Degollado as the director of parish life and pastoral care, and Pro Ecclesia Sancta Father Yamato Icochea, who was ordained May 30 and is a sacramental minister. Father Williams said Deacon Garcia will oversee pastoral care, and Father Icochea will celebrate Masses and hear confessions.

Despite the Dominicans’ departure from Holy Rosary and significant personnel limitations in the Dominicans’ Central Province, its members continue to live at their priory at nearby St. Albert the Great in Minneapolis and serve in other roles in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Young Dominicans have expressed a special interest in campus ministry and teaching, said Father Joseph Marchionda, prior provincial of the Dominican Friars’ Central Province in Chicago.

Tentative plans are being made for a “closing Mass” Aug. 30 to celebrate the Dominicans’ 142 years of service to Holy Rosary.

Founded in 1878 near the intersection of Cedar and Hiawatha avenues, Holy Rosary was the sixth parish founded in what is now Minneapolis. Known for their commitment to social justice, the Dominicans have led a parish that has long welcomed newly arrived immigrants — from the Irish at its founding to Germans, Italians, Hmong, Vietnamese, Native Americans and Somalis. Today, Holy Rosary predominantly serves immigrants from Mexico and other Spanishspeaking, Latin American countries. One Mass on Saturday and one of the two Masses on Sunday are celebrated in Spanish.

Today, the parish’s outreach center, Centro Guadalupano, serves a broad cross-section of the immigrant and refugee

COURTESY MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Holy Rosary School and church in Minneapolis are pictured around 1905 on the west side of 18th Avenue S. near 24th Street. community through adult English classes and an after-school program that focuses on academics and music.

Both Dominican priests and sisters have served Holy Rosary over the years. Sister Margaret McGuirk, a Sinsinawa Dominican who works with families in need at Incarnation in Minneapolis, worked at Holy Rosary for seven years starting in 2006 — first as administrator and later as executive director of Centro Guadalupano.

Sister McGuirk is also partial to preserving history, including Holy Rosary’s, and she readily shares her knowledge.

The parish’s first permanent school was dedicated in 1883, she said, and several years before that, Holy Rosary’s first pastor, Father Thomas Power, himself an Irish immigrant, asked his sister, Sinsinawa Dominican Prioress Emily Power, to send Dominican Sisters to Holy Rosary. By the summer of 1879, six sisters arrived to staff a temporary school. Holy Rosary School, which grew over the years to serve grades K-12, closed in 1993.

In the parish’s early days, Irish immigrants often worked on the railroad, and the church was adjacent to a large rail yard. The light stone exterior became black with soot from locomotives before it was sandblasted in the 1970s.

In 1935, St. Albert the Great parish was formed from the eastern portion of Holy Rosary’s geographic boundaries. Dominican Father Joe Gillespie, St. Albert’s pastor since 2006, was baptized at St. Albert and has strong family ties to Holy Rosary.

“Both sets of my grandparents are from Ireland and they ended up at Holy Rosary,” he said. “My parents were married there. My brother and sister were baptized there.”

He said he’s always had a soft spot in his heart for Holy Rosary.

“I’ve often thought that, in a

way, (Holy Rosary) is a building,” Father Gillespie said, “but it’s a building that welcomes whatever wave of immigrants were coming.”

More than 200 children and youth are in sacramental preparation for baptism, first Communion and confirmation.

Holy Rosary’s youth ministry program provides spiritual and social activities for preadolescents to young adults.

Dominican Father James Spahn, who ministered at Holy Rosary for nine years starting in 2009 and now is serving a parish in Denver, noted that Dominicans are known for preaching and speaking out about injustice.

Reflecting on his time at the parish, he said he enjoyed working directly with parishioners, especially immigrants. “It was just what my soul needed,” he said.

Father Stookey said he will miss the parish and its “great people,” but he is excited about his new role in St. Louis as director of the St. Dominic Mission Society, with special focus on the province’s new relationship with the Dominican Mission in Puerto Rico.

Father Williams said he is in the process of listening to staff, parish and financial council leadership, lay leadership and other groups to learn their hopes and to see how all can work together to make them a reality. Listening sessions with parishioners are planned to take place after Masses Sept. 12-13.

He noted that his grandfather was baptized at Holy Rosary.

“So many people have been touched by Dominicans’ ministry over the years,” Father Williams said, “and we’re grateful for their work.”

They did it with a lot of heart, he said, especially in their outreach to the immigrant community.

“We want to keep … that momentum,” he said. “We’re going to see what the Lord has in store.”

Hopkins resident Dave Horner said he has found a spiritual home at Holy Rosary for the past 20 years. Early on, he enjoyed attending Mass at the church because it was a midway point to meet his mother, who, before her death in 2017, lived in St. Paul. But he continues to drive a dozen miles or so for Mass at the south Minneapolis parish. He said he has found “good people” there, a beautiful building and wonderful friendships with pastors.

“I have great memories of going out to lunch on Sundays with a group of parishioners for good talk and good camaraderie,” he said. He recalled a former pastor, Dominican Father Charles Santoro, joining the group every month or two.

Horner said he will remember Father Stookey’s friendliness. “He tells stories with a lighthearted touch,” he said. “He’s quick to laugh and quick to point out the flaws we all have. He’s very humble and makes good stories out of it.”

Yectli Huerta, a Holy Rosary parishioner for the past 13 years, said many Dominican priests have served in Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba and Mexico. The priests often are assigned to various corners of the world, giving them a broad perspective, he said.

Huerta, who grew up in Texas and is bilingual, said that in addition to practicing his faith at the parish, he enjoys the opportunity to speak Spanish.

“I’ll miss the (Dominicans) because of their charism,” Huerta said.

“They’re good people. Father Jerry made miracles happen, given the parish’s financial circumstances.

“But we’ll make it work,” Huerta added. “It’s our church. It’s a team effort. We’ll carry on their legacy.”

— Barb Umberger

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Father Jerry Stookey waves to people after Mass June 28 at Holy Rosary in Minneapolis. He stood outside the church after all weekend Masses to give parishioners a chance to say goodbye.

TWIN CITIES DOMINICANS Father James Marchionda, prior provincial of the Dominican Friars’ Central Province in Chicago, said the order’s ministries in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis remain important to Dominicans and to the province. The province recently chose five cities, including Minneapolis, as Dominican Apostolic Centers, where Dominicans will serve in a number of ministries. Currently: u Father Joe Gillespie is pastor at St. Albert the Great in Minneapolis. u Father Brian Zuelke serves as part-time associate chaplain and adjunct theology instructor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. u Father Timothy Combs serves the St. Thomas faculty as a part-time associate chaplain and adjunct theology instructor.

Brother Matthew Paul Grote is a volunteer with St. Thomas Campus Ministry for the academic year as part of his formation. u Father Michael Monshau is assistant director of spiritual formation on The St. Paul Seminary faculty. u Father Cassian Sama is a hospital chaplain at the University of Minnesota Medical Center (M Health Fairview), Minneapolis.

AUGUST 13, 2020

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 7B

NATION+WORLD

Lebanese demand reform, Cabinet resigns after Beirut explosions

By Dale Gavlak Catholic News Service Viewing the burned wasteland of the Beirut port, one’s eye catches a grey concrete slab in the foreground.

It bears this stark message scribbled by the Lebanese in black ink: “My Government Did This.”

On Aug. 10, Lebanon’s Cabinet resigned over the Aug. 4 blasts at the Beirut port, the health minister said, a decision made under pressure as several ministers quit or expressed their intention to step down.

But observers believe that the changes many Lebanese demand to reform their political system could require a new electoral law, changes to the constitution and dismantling the sectarian-based system that has ruled Lebanon for decades.

After the explosions, grief-stricken and furious Lebanese took to the streets, battling rubber bullets and tear gas to demand their government’s dismissal over inaction and incompetence. The explosions killed at least 160 people and injured 6,000. A security official was killed as protesters stormed government ministries.

Vast areas of the capital have been destroyed, leaving 300,000 people homeless, including 80,000 children, according to UNICEF. It’s estimated that $15 billion will be needed in the short term to fix damages and aid the homeless in a city now in tatters and turmoil.

Other Lebanese formed armies of volunteers, sweeping up shards of glass from destroyed buildings.

They also rescued the belongings of families whose homes are no longer safe to live in, delivered first aid and food as well as prayed for consolation with those traumatized by tremendous loss.

In his Aug. 9 sermon, Lebanon’s powerful Catholic cleric, Cardinal Bechara Rai, Maronite patriarch, lent his voice to the popular rising tide against political leaders, many of whom were warlords from Lebanon’s

CNS

Anti-government protesters throw stones Aug. 8 during clashes with security forces in Beirut.

1975 to 1990 civil war. He called for the Cabinet to resign, saying it cannot “change the way it governs” the country, once known as the “Switzerland of the Middle East,” but now ravaged by corruption, financial mismanagement, soaring poverty and hyperinflation.

“The resignation of an MP or a minister is not enough ... the whole government should resign as it is unable to help the country recover,” Cardinal Rai said, pointing out that the angry demonstrations exhibited “the impatience of those who are oppressed.”

He also called for an international investigation into the deadly blast and expressed his “deep condolences to the families of the Lebanese martyrs and hope for a speedy recovery for the wounded,” according to his remarks reported by Lebanon’s National News Agency.

French President Emmanuel Macron has led the charge mobilizing international assistance, first bringing planes carrying equipment, rescue workers and investigators Aug. 6, then hosting an international

donors meeting that raised $297 million, of which the U.S. pledged $15 million, to aid the disaster recovery.

Neighboring Jordan sent medical workers to set up field hospitals around the blast site as Lebanon’s health care system was already heaving under the pressure of COVID-19 patients and tending some of the injured.

King Abdullah II has sent rescue teams, medical aid and food, joining dozens of other countries providing assistance. He also offered Jordan as a “logistics hub to facilitate international and regional humanitarian assistance to Lebanon” since its main port was lost.

Pope Francis donated 250,000 euro ($295,000) as initial aid to assist the Church in Lebanon’s difficulty and suffering. He made an emotional appeal during his Aug. 9 Angelus to the “bishops, priests and religious of Lebanon to be close to the people and to live a style of life marked by evangelical poverty, without luxury, because your people are suffering, suffering a lot.”

Acknowledging the fragility of coexistence in the multi-sectarian nation at this time, Pope Francis said he is nonetheless praying “that, with God’s help, and everyone’s genuine participation, (Lebanon) may be reborn free and strong.” International Catholic aid agencies also began helping and collecting money.

The 18 or more distinct religious groups is “something very rich for us,” commented Karim Makdisi, who teaches at the American University of Beirut about Lebanon’s historic model of coexistence.

“The diversity is a huge plus for us. It’s something that we need to rebuild as fundamentally part of Lebanon as we move forward, but taking it away from those politicians internationally and locally who use it for their own benefit, patronage, clientelism and bleeding the country as parasites, and transform it into something more positive that we can build,” Makdisi said, commenting on the need to overhaul Lebanon’s political system.

HEADLINES u Church leaders seek aid for Catholic students in coronavirus relief bill. Five cardinals, an archbishop and a bishop called for financial support for families to continue to send their children to Catholic and nonpublic schools in an Aug. 5 letter to Republican and Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives and Senate. Among them were Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Bishop Michael Barber of Oakland, California, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Catholic Education. u German author says retired Pope Benedict is ‘extremely frail.’ Peter Seewald, an author with a long and close relationship to retired Pope Benedict XVI, told a German newspaper that the 93-year-old is “extremely frail.” Quoted Aug. 3, Seewald said he visited with Pope Benedict Aug. 1 to present him with a copy of the authorized biography, “Benedict XVI: A Life.” The Vatican press office said late Aug. 3 that Archbishop George Ganswein, Pope Benedict’s personal secretary, insisted there was no reason “for particular concern” over the retired pope’s health other than a bout of shingles. u Pope names six women to previously all-male Council for Economy. Renewing the membership of the Vatican Council for the Economy, Pope Francis named six women to the previously all-male board that oversees the financial operations of all Vatican offices and entities. Statutes for the council, approved by the pope in 2015, say the body will have 15 members: eight cardinals or bishops and seven laypeople, each serving a five-year term.

u In light of global pandemic, social and environmental crises, pope will begin new series on social doctrine. Pope Francis announced Aug. 5 that he will begin a new series of general audience talks aimed at helping build “the future that we need.” u Weapons must be set aside for peace to flourish, pope says. For peace to flourish, weapons of war must be set aside, especially nuclear weapons that can obliterate entire cities and countries, Pope Francis said on the 75th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. “May the prophetic voices” of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “continue to serve as a warning to us and for coming generations,” he said in a written message sent Aug. 6 to Hidehiko Yuzaki, governor of the Hiroshima prefecture, who led a peace memorial ceremony. After the Angelus Aug. 9, the pope also invited people to pray for a world free of nuclear weapons. u ‘Journeying Together’ focuses on Church’s engagement with young people. The U.S. Catholic Church convened a yearlong intercultural process with young adults and ministry leaders July 25. The initiative aims to explore the Catholic Church’s engagement with young people of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and mobilize U.S. Catholics on issues and concerns related to culture and race in the United States. It is based on Pope Francis’ call for encounter and dialogue in his 2019 apostolic exhortation “Christus Vivit,” (“Christ Lives”) on the 2018 Synod of Bishops on young people, the faith and vocational discernment.

— Catholic News Service

Plans change.

It’s common to revisit your estate plan when life shifts.

Retirement, the sale of property, the loss of a loved one, or the birth of a grandchild are all milestones that could affect your current estate plan.

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Call 651.389.0300 or visit ccf-mn.org

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8B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

‘Lilies of the field’ Ham Lake couple trust God as they grow family flower farm business

By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit

“T

here are some Black-eyed Susans over here that I love,” Kristen Carlstrom said as she walked toward rows of yellow-petaled flowers with their signature chocolate-colored center. She crouched down and cradled one of the blooms in her hand.

“These are totally unique,” she said, noting that her variety has more layers of petals than the typical flower.

“The colors go beautifully with so many other things. I love how frilly it is.”

It was an evening in late July, and the lowering sun cast a golden hue over the quarter-acre flower field.

Kristen’s three children played nearby, with her oldest, 7-year-old Lilly, carefully cutting a small bouquet; 5-year-old John Paul offering to water the blooms; and 2-year-old Chiara eyeing the blossoms. As she walked between the rows, her Birkenstocks softly crunching the dry grass paths, she pointed out other flowers — Chocolate Lace, strawflowers, sweat peas — which she lovingly grows, harvests and sells in her family’s new cut flower business.

Kristen and her husband, Jonah, began Sparrow Farms this year, a project built on the dream of living and working at home together as a family, and leveraging the resources available to them. Neither Kristen nor Jonah grew up on a farm. High school sweethearts, the 30-year-olds met at the parish they still attend, St. Paul in Ham Lake. They went to college together at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio and married in 2012. Six years ago, they rented a farmhouse near Ham Lake, on 20 acres with a field bordered by pines. After it sat fallow for a few seasons, they approached their landlord and arranged to begin farming it. This spring, they planted a plot with 50 different types of flowers. Kristen cuts, arranges and sells bouquets.

Kristen and Jonah are convinced that God has led them to begin this venture, but they wear no rosecolored glasses about the challenge they’ve taken on.

When asked July 30 what he sees when he looks over the field, Jonah chuckled and said, “a lot of labor.” In the spring, he and Kristen ordered mounds of compost to prepare the field’s otherwise “sandbox” soil, spreading it over layers of salvaged cardboard to help retain moisture and quality. He built a fence to keep out deer, like the five he observed grazing across the road that evening, as well as an irrigation system.

Jonah holds a master’s degree in counseling, but decided the career wasn’t for him. He works as a house inspector, but is an entrepreneur at heart. The flower farm by far is the biggest risk he and Kristen have taken, he said. They hope that eventually it could become their full-time business.

When they began researching farming, they planned to grow organic food. They were inspired by the writings of Joel Salatin, a Christian farmer in Virginia who has become the godfather of a movement favoring smallscale, sustainable, family-based farming. The Carlstroms were thinking produce and chickens when, in the winter of 2019, Kristen came across a book titled “The Cut Flower Garden” by Erin Benzakein, a florist farmer in Washington.

“Basically, I just fell in love with it,” Kristen said. “It was kind of out of the blue for me.”

She had always kept a small flower garden with sunflowers and zinnias, but nothing large-scale. But once she began to think about flowers, she became convinced that was the direction she wanted to move.

“I knew we were going to take on something really big,” she said. “It was really important for me to be really passionate about it. And so, this was something

that just really took a hold of me. And I had so much energy with thinking of doing really hard stuff to make it happen.”

She and Jonah took Benzakein’s online course on flower farming, and dove into researching what would grow well in Minnesota’s climate. “Before we knew it, we’re like, we’re really doing it,” Kristen said.

Jonah gives Kristen all the credit for the flower focus.

“I never thought I would be a flower farmer — I don’t think many men do think of that,” Jonah said, sitting near the field. He agreed to the online course, “and I was just sort of open with the Lord; ‘Wherever you lead us.’”

“Ever since leaving school, I wanted to do something in nature. I love working outside. I’ve been praying along the way” for God’s guidance, he said. “Basically, I want to come home and I want to work from home.”

The Carlstroms don’t know any other young farmers, but they’re not alone among Catholic millennials. Jim Ennis, executive director of St. Paul-based Catholic Rural Life, said there are like-minded young Catholics across the United States who are exploring and adopting a rural lifestyle, including small-scale farming. Many are drawn to a slower, family-focused pace of life away from the demands of city living and corporate work.

Like the Carlstroms, many don’t have farming backgrounds, Ennis said, and it’s hard work without the guarantee of financial sustainability. But it’s rewarding, he said. Farming is creative work, where people can work in nature, with their hands, alongside family members, for the benefit of their own tables and their community. And even young children can see, understand and participate in their parents’ work, he said.

“There’s something very innate in many people’s DNA to connect with God’s creation in a closer way,” he said, “and I think that’s very Catholic and very Christian.”

Kristen admits that sometimes she’s thought the idea of turning stay-at-home mom to cut-flower florist is “crazy.” But, “there was a lot of discouragement that came whenever I tried to let it (the idea) go, and a lot of joy that was there when we kept pursuing it,” she said, so they forged ahead.

The field is easily accessible from the Carlstroms’ house through a path in the woods. Kristen spends patches of time throughout the day tending its 20, 100foot rows as she learns to orchestrate timing flowers’ harvesting with their longevity once cut to meet the needs of their customers. Already she’s prepared flowers to mark significant events, such as weddings and funerals. She also sells a bouquet subscription, where customers receive a fresh arrangement every one to two weeks.

“There’s a real time crunch … because as soon as a flower blooms, I need to sell it,” she said. “Now that we’re getting our feet under us with the rhythm of harvesting and processing the flowers and all that, we’re branching out into some more things.”

Sue Klejeski, director of family catechesis at St. Paul in Ham Lake, receives a Sparrow Farms arrangement every two weeks through its bouquet subscription. She learned about it on Kristen’s Instagram feed, and was inspired to receive her flowers. “I think we can all use an extra dose of beauty in our lives — especially now,” said Klejeski, 59. “I’m mostly working from home, and having one of Sparrow Farms’ bouquets in my workspace is a source of peace and beauty in the midst of all the current craziness. Honestly, having a subscription allowed me to simply say ‘yes’ to flowers once instead of needing to justify it every time. I also appreciate the serendipity of seeing what is waiting for me each time. Kristen does a beautiful job arranging the bouquets and a subscription takes the ‘Should I? Which ones?’ decisions out of my life.”

Klejeski said she also backs the Carlstroms’ vision for “a family-centered business in support of a simpler lifestyle.”

“Their pride and joy in the venture shines through every encounter I’ve had with them,” she said.

Among the farm’s new offerings is “Feast Day Flowers,” bouquets prepared specifically for celebrating the Church’s liturgical year through a selection of saints’ feast days. They’re delivered with a handlettered tag invoking the saint’s intercession. August

PHOTOS BY DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

(Flower farming) was something that just really took a hold of me. And I had so much energy with thinking of doing really hard stuff to make it happen.

Kristen Carlstrom offerings include the Assumption of Mary (Aug. 15), the Queenship of Mary (Aug. 22), and the feasts of motherson pair St. Monica and St. Augustine (Aug. 27 and 28).

Even as the Carlstroms labor in the first year of the flower farm, they’re thinking bigger. “We call this the ‘front door’ of the farm, because I feel like there’s going to be more that will come. And I hope one day we’ll be able to do this full time, where my husband will be here all the time and this will be what supports our family,” Kristen said.

She said her dream is for the farm to be a place that fosters community and respite, a place they share with others. That’s already happening at Sparrow Farms’ Mason Jar Mondays, where guests cut and arrange their own bouquets. They envision adding live music and food in the future.

Just as healthy food nourishes the body, flowers nourish the soul, Kristen said. “There is a healing aspect to beauty,” she said.

Jonah chose Sparrow Farms’ name in reference to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, where he tells his followers not to be anxious about their lives: “Look at the birds of the air: They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” and “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

AUGUST 13, 2020 • 9B

s

s

Kristen, left, and Jonah Carlstrom with their three children, Chiara, left, John Paul and Lilly.

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Kristen holds their 2-year-old daughter, Chiara, in their field.

This nontypicallooking Blackeyed Susan bloom is Kristen’s favorite flower.

s

Jonah Carlstrom carries fresh-cut flowers from the family’s field July 30. He and his wife, Kristen, started Sparrow Farms this year and hope it will one day support their family of five.

“It’s just like this call of trusting and being abandoned (of one’s own desires to God), and knowing he’ll provide for us; we don’t have to worry,” Kristen explained. “That’s been such a constant theme for us of the Lord showing us that.”

Jonah added that in creating the farm, it was like starting from scratch, to the point of importing the composted soil.

“Where I’ve seen the hand of God is, it’s like an analogy to my spiritual life, our family’s life: There was nothing here, and we followed the Lord, and now there’s something. And I think there’s something very biblical about that,” he said. “It’s like the birds of the air, God provides a home for them, he makes the flowers beautiful, and we don’t even know how. And I think that’s where the trust is, how we want to be with the Lord.”

Launching the business in the midst of COVID-19 feels providential to the Carlstroms. As Minnesota’s shutdown began in late March, the Carlstroms were waiting on a vital order of compost. They thought their timeline had been foiled, but despite the odds, they received the soil when

From left, John Paul, Lilly and Kristen cut flowers in their field s

they needed it. Even planting a seed takes an act of faith, Kristen said.

At one point in the spring, Jonah joined Kristen in the field one evening after putting their kids to bed. She recalls telling him that even if the farm doesn’t succeed, she feels blessed by the experience because they’d learned so much from it. “Like, even if it’s a total failure and we just fall on our faces and laugh about that time we spent way too much money on this stupid, crazy idea … it would still be worth it,” she said. “I still feel like the Lord led us here and he’d have something for us. And I’d do it over again.”

As she said that, flocks of birds started swooping gracefully up and down, circling the couple. Kristen got chills, and she took it as a sign.

“I was like, OK, I think this is going to be OK. I think God’s got something for this,” she said. “He’s just been using that Scripture for us and just confirmed it again and again. We don’t have to worry. … We are laboring over these flowers, but they don’t labor over themselves and they turn out perfectly. And so that’s how it is for the Lord: He’s laboring over us, he’s ‘gardening’ us.”

AUGUST 13, 2020

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 10B

FAITH+CULTURE

Is 2020 the year that gets young people to polls in bigger numbers?

By Betty Araya Catholic News Service

S

teven Millies, a scholar who explores the Catholic Church’s relationship to politics, feels more optimistic today than he has in a long time about young people in this country voting in a national election.

The reason for his optimism? The young people who continue to protest the sMay 25 death of George Floyd, an African American, at the hands of white police officers in Minneapolis, and demand racial justice. Millies predicts this activism will motivate young people to go to the polls Nov. 3.

“I’m frankly more encouraged than I have been in a long time by what we’ve seen on the streets in the last six weeks or so, because it’s a lot of different kinds of people who have taken to the streets since George Floyd,” said Millies, an associate professor of public theology and director of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

The United States has the lowest voter turnout of youth in the world.

For most national elections in the United States, youth have been underrepresented at the polls ever since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote, according to an academic paper, “Technology and Politics: Incentives for Youth Participation,” by Shanto Iyengar and Simon Jackman of Stanford University.

In 1976, one of the first elections in which 18-year-olds were able to vote, 18- to 24-year-olds made up 18% of all eligible voters in America, but only 13% actually voted — an underrepresentation of one-third, according to Iyengar and Jackman. In the next election in 1978, youth were underrepresented by 50%. In the 1996 presidential election, the number of young voters was 20%. In 1998, out of the 13% eligible youth voters in America, only 5% voted.

According to Tobi Walker in National Civic Review, the 2004 election was considered a “banner year in the history of youth voting” up to that point, with 47% of American young people casting their ballots. Then came the 2008 U.S. presidential election: Compared to four

CNS

A young voter in Louisville, Ky., casts her ballot during the Kentucky primary election June 23, during the coronavirus pandemic.

years earlier, the number of youth voters tripled and even quadrupled in some states.

In the 2016 elections, according to U.S. census data, nearly 36% of 18- to 29-yearolds reported voting, a 16% leap from the turnout in the 2014 midyear elections.

So why should anybody vote anyway?

The Catholic Church sees voting as a moral obligation. The U.S. Catholic bishops’ quadrennial document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” provides guidance to Catholic voters during a presidential election year and advises people they should be guided by their conscience rather than party affiliation.

“You have to deal with this (voting) in the crucible of your conscience and figure out what’s the right thing. And the Catholic standing next to you might see it very differently. And that is actually a good picture of what the length and breadth of the tradition tells us,” said Millies in an interview with Catholic News Service.

“I think ‘Faithful Citizenship’ is a good first step because it really sets forth the idea that we all have to weigh these things in good conscience sincerely according to what the faith tells us.”

Millies added, “It’s not a formation for voting, it’s a formation for Christian life, for the world.”

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Asked whether there is such a thing as a Catholic vote, he debunked the notion, referencing a study done by Pew Research Center a year ago. The study broke down data on Catholics from different parties on various issues.

“Statistically, they’re identical and so our real preferences are cooked by our lived experience in the world and the same kinds of divisions that plague us in political life plague us in Church life because we live in the world,” said Millies, who also is the author of the book “Good Intentions: A History of Catholic Voters’ Road from Roe to Trump,” which looks at voting patterns of Catholics over the past 50 years.

Jo Renee Formicola, professor of political science at Seton Hall University, said: “We’re all human beings and we all weigh things in different ways. We all have a conscience that’s informed in a different way.”

“Faithful Citizenship” says it’s important for Catholics “to see beyond party politics, to analyze campaign rhetoric critically, and to choose their political leaders according to principle, not party affiliation or mere self-interest.”

Formicola urged avoiding politicians’ rhetoric, which she said is a tool they all use to develop their brand but is a simplistic way to decide how to vote.

“They (politicians) try to show why it is they’re totally unique; why they’re the only ones who can solve a particular problem or a particular issue. And so, a lot of them do it rhetorically. They try to do it with simple words in a simple way,” Formicola told CNS. “But politics is very nuanced. You know, no issue is simply binary,” she said, using as an example the current debate over policing in the country.

“That’s not a binary decision where we completely defund all police and get rid of police departments. Or that we completely and totally support everything that the police do and their unions. This is a very nuanced question, which we may have to come to the center and say well, it’s not one or the other. It might be something in between, like reform,” she said.

To consider the complexity of4Cpolitical Job #: 40116-2018 Color(s): Size: and 9.75" confidently x 7.75" Bleed?: Y issues vote, Formicola Folded Size: NA Misc: Catholic Mirror suggested further educating oneself. “The

choice is always yours. But the choice really has to be an informed choice, one in which you understand the legal implications of what you’re doing and then the other one in which you have to understand the moral implications of what you’re doing,” she said.

Formicola criticized the media, stating that headlines are “not as critical as knowing where these people stand on issues that are really going to impact you and your family and the society in which you live.”

“I think I would always argue for ‘Go out. Learn what’s going on, talk to different people.’ Don’t live in an echo chamber. Don’t get on social media and just talk to the same kind of people over and over and over and over. You have to expand your mind and know what’s going on,” said Formicola.

She said she urges her students to consider their Catholicism, the same thing she said the bishops have asked. “I think every individual has an obligation to express their values. And if your values are Catholic values, you should not discount them or treat them as anything less important.

“And that’s one of the things that I teach when I teach Catholics in the political process. I try to just make students aware of the fact that Catholics do have a role to play,” she said. “They have a specific value system. And if they want to advance that value system, then they have to do it through the political process.”

Sister Simone Campbell, a Sister of Social Service who is executive director of the Catholic social justice lobby Network, echoed that view, saying, “Voting is the way we express our values. It’s how we hire the people who lead our country, and it’s an integral part of Catholic social teaching.”

“The most important concrete step I think we can take would be to destroy the notion that being Catholic out in a world where people disagree with us ... (is being) naive,” said Millies, reiterating that Catholic youth should not only vote, but do it holding onto their faith.

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FAITH+CULTURE

AUGUST 13, 2020

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 11B

Vatican: Laity have role, but most parishes must be led by priests

By Junno Arocho Esteves Catholic News Service

T

he Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy issued a new instruction on pastoral care that specifies the role of lay men and women in the Church’s mission of evangelization, and offers guidance in parish reforms and restructuring.

The 22-page document, titled “The Pastoral Conversion of the Parish Community in the Service of the Evangelizing Mission of the Church,” was released by the Vatican July 20.

While it does not introduce new legislation on pastoral care, the Vatican press office said it was developed by the congregation as a guide related “to the various projects of reform of parish communities and diocesan restructuring, already underway or in the planning process.” It also clarifies the role of the deacons, consecrated men and women, as well as the laity, in dioceses where there is a shortage or lack of priests.

Those entrusted with participation in the exercise of the pastoral care of the community, the document states, “will be directed by a priest with legitimate faculties, who will act as a ‘moderator of pastoral care,’ with the powers and functions of a parish priest, albeit without an office with its duties and rights.”

The document also instructs bishops to not designate deacons, consecrated and lay men and women who are given responsibilities in a priestless parish as “pastor,

CNS

Priests, wearing face masks, process past the faithful attending the first day of Mass July 12 at the Cathedral of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as the country reopened worship places during the coronavirus pandemic. The Vatican issued a new instruction July 20 on pastoral care that emphasizes the role of lay men and women in the Church’s mission, but said most parishes must be led by priests. co-pastor, chaplain, moderator, coordinator, parish manager,” which are typically reserved for priests “as they have a direct correlation to the ministerial profile of priests.”

Instead, those with responsibilities should be designated as “deacon cooperator, coordinator, pastoral cooperator, or pastoral associate or assistant,” it said.

Laypeople, the document states, are called “to make a generous commitment to the service of the mission of evangelization,” first and foremost, through the “general witness of their daily lives.”

The Vatican press office said, “The text, fundamentally, recalls that ‘in the Church there is room for all and everyone can find their place’ in the one family of God, respecting each person’s vocation.”

Msgr. Andrea Ripa, undersecretary of the Congregation for Clergy, said their office created the instruction as a way to help support and guide bishops and dioceses in parish reforms and diocesan restructuring.

The instruction was not a “one size fits all” approach, he wrote, but a concise overview of current norms and indications that can be utilized by the different dioceses and parishes according to their unique situations.

“Given that the Church is mandated by Christ to be missionary, evangelizing and outward-looking, a reform of her structures is continuously required in order to respond to the challenges of the day,” the monsignor wrote.

“Naturally, this involves a certain reorganization in the way the pastoral care of the faithful is exercised, so as to foster a greater co-responsibility and collaboration among all the baptized,” he wrote.

The importance of the laity in the parish community was emphasized in the way bishops work on restructuring the diocese, particularly when it comes to closing or merging parishes.

In order for such restructuring to succeed, the document said, many factors need to be taken into account, including all members of the parish.

“Dropping plans upon the people of God from above, without their involvement, should be avoided,” Msgr.

Ripa said in his written presentation.

The instruction underlined that certain reasons were not sufficient for suppressing a parish, including “the scarcity of diocesan clergy, the general financial situation of a diocese” or other situations that are temporary or reversible.

Legitimate reasons for suppression had to be “directly and organically connected to the interested parish community, and not on general considerations or theories,” it added.

Similarly, legitimate reasons for the deconsecration and sale of places of worship could not include “the lack of clergy, demographic decline or the grave financial state of the diocese,” it said.

— ­­­Carol Glatz of CNS contributed to this story.

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Peace of mind. Peace of heart.

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12B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

AUGUST 13, 2020

FOCUSONFAITH SUNDAY SCRIPTURES | FATHER NATHANIEL MEYERS

Sanitizing Jesus

When I was in high school, the movie “Dogma” was released in theaters to great controversy for its subversive and sacrilegious portrayal of the Catholic Church. I do not remember the movie in any great detail anymore (it was a poorly made and unfunny provocation), except for one image in it: Buddy Christ.

In the movie, the cardinal archbishop decides the Catholic Church needs a new image in the modern world, so he launches a PR campaign to make the Church seem hip, cool and interesting. The Buddy Christ is a statue of the Lord winking and giving a thumbs up, specifically designed in the movie to look ridiculous and be understood as a failed attempt to replace the iconography of Christ of the last two millennia.

However, while we can look at that image in the film “Dogma” and immediately see the preposterous nature of such an idea, our preaching and catechesis regularly look to do precisely the same thing. We sanitize the person of Jesus Christ and make the Lord more palatable to our modern sensibilities. We often speak of Jesus as our savior and even as a friend, but rarely do we consider him as our judge and our ruler. This coming Sunday’s Gospel from Matthew presents a curious passage that likely disturbs our modern conceptions of Christ. The Evangelist relays the story of a Canaanite woman approaching the Lord and paying him homage as she pleas for Jesus’ intervention for her possessed daughter, only to be greeted with the challenging reply: “It is not right to take the food of the

ASK FATHER MIKE | FATHER MICHAEL SCHMITZ

What can we do when people don’t love us?

Q. I think that my mom loves me, but I don’t know. She clearly loves my sister more than she loves me; they joke around and have a much easier relationship with each other. She seems more annoyed by me, and I just wish she would love me more. It is really painful for me. What can I do?

A. Thank you so much for being so honest in sharing this part of your life. I can imagine that this has affected you in more ways than one. We all have people in our lives who do not love us, or people who do not love us like we want them to. And that can be very painful. But when those are people who ought to love us, the pain can increase a great deal more. So please know that what I will offer here comes from a place of understanding and compassion.

Before anything else, what I hear in your question is the temptation to believe that there is something in you that is “wrong,” something in you that is unlovable. That needs to be addressed. You are not unlovable. Yes, there might be people who do not love you, but that does not mean that you are unlovable. As I noted above, we all have people we want to love us who do not. But that is less a reflection on you and more of a reflection on the world in which we live.

The first thing every one of us needs to acknowledge and accept is the fact that the people around us are afflicted with two distinct attributes: They are human and they are broken.

Here’s what I mean: As humans, we each have different likes and dislikes, personality traits and interests. This is neither good nor bad; it just is. But because of this, every single one of us will find certain other people a bit easier to like. You know that this is true in your own life. Have you ever had the situation where one person says something to you and you laugh at it, and another person says the exact same thing and you are annoyed by it? What was said (and sometimes even how it was said) could be identical, but because we get along with the first person, we are able to receive it with patience and good humor. This isn’t always because that first person is a “better” human or because the second person is a “bad” human; sometimes it is simply because we naturally get along with the first person better.

Backing up and looking at our relationship with those people we find it difficult to enjoy, we can usually identify certain behaviors or traits that we dislike. But if we examined the relationships with those whom we do enjoy, we would find certain traits in them that we don’t appreciate as well. For whatever reason, we simply find it easier to overlook those behaviors in some people. Again, this is not

children and throw it to the dogs.” The idea of Jesus — Friend of Sinners and the Good Shepherd — saying something so demeaning and harsh to our ears probably comes across as an anomaly, and perhaps even some homilies this weekend will try to lessen the impact for us to make each of us (priests included) feel a little more comfortable.

Yet, the Son of God did not come to offer us a life of comfort. On the contrary, Jesus Christ promises us a life of persecution, suffering and degradation. The Canaanite woman does not shy away from the teachings of Jesus that no doubt are what drew her to him in the first place. We would likely refuse the categorization of a dog, but the woman does not deny her undeserving status before God Incarnate. With great humility, the woman accepts Jesus’ authority and sovereignty and appeals only to his mercy. As the woman argues that “even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters,” Jesus answers that her faith is great and then grants the initial request.

In our relationship with Christ, we must become like the Canaanite woman and recognize the Lord is not to be considered on our terms and does not need to conform to our ideas, preferences or concepts. The disciple does not have the right to impose his or her image on the Lord, but rather must let the Lord impress his image on himself or herself. Jesus Christ most assuredly is our savior and we can even think of him as a friend, but the Lord still gets to define what it means to be the savior and our friend, as well as what that entails for us. In coming to know Jesus, we must let go of our own ideas and notions in order to arrive at the truth he reveals to us.

Father Meyers is the pastor of St. Francis Xavier in Buffalo.

He can be reached at nate.meyers@stfxb.org. because one group is good and the other is bad. We (as humans) have our preferences, and that tends to come out in who we choose to spend our time with.

There are some people with whom you will share interests. You might find it incredibly easy to have an animated conversation about those interests because you just “click” with them. This “clicking” is not necessarily based off of character or virtue. It is most often based on personality or temperament. And it isn’t that a person is more lovable or less lovable, or that they are good or bad. It is a “valueless” reality. We are all human in this way.

I have seen this go the other way as well. I’ve seen parents who have tried everything to invite their children into their hobbies and interests (or have asked to be invited into the hobbies and interests of their children), only to have the kids reject the presence of their parents. Sometimes, we can more clearly see the ways our parents have failed to love us than we can see the ways we have failed to actively love them. Which brings us to the second distinct attribute of the people around us: They (and we) are also broken.

Let’s just assume that your mom and your sister have more in common than you and your mom do. Let’s just assume that your mom finds it naturally easier to share thoughts and have conversations with her. Again, this might solely be based on personality and has nothing to do with your ability to be loved or your worth. But the next thing your mom (and all of us in these situations) is called to do is to give of herself. You are right: Your mom probably ought to love you better. And you probably ought to love her better. (And I ought to love the people around me better!)

And this is what we are made and called to do as followers of Christ: love our neighbors (and even our enemies). But we fail to love as we ought. Why? Because we are broken.

This is true for every person in our lives who has not loved us as they should. This is true for parents, spouses, siblings, friends, priests, religious and every other person whose role it is to love us well. We do not love each other as we should. When I don’t give the time or the attention that another person deserves, it isn’t because of them, it is because of my broken and anemic heart. When the people in our lives do not love us as they should, it isn’t because you and I are unlovable, it is because of their shallow and wounded heart.

In these cases, this affords us the opportunity to do two things: extend grace and receive grace. Your mom (and you) are broken. We don’t expect others to give what they don’t have. We give them the grace to be broken. We give them the grace to accept the love they do offer without the condition that they have to love us how we would prefer. This takes more than we typically have within us.

Because of that we need to receive grace. The people in our lives will always struggle and will always fail to love us well. But our Father in heaven loves you perfectly. He is not burdened by “personality” or brokenness. With him, you are not only lovable, you are loved.

Father Schmitz is director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth and chaplain of the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Reach him at fathermikeschmitz@gmail. com.

DAILY Scriptures Sunday, Aug. 16 Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Is 56:1, 6-7 Rom 11:13-15, 29-32 Mt 15:21-28 Monday, Aug. 17 Ez 24:15-23 Mt 19:16-22 Tuesday, Aug. 18 Ez 28:1-10 Mt 19:23-30 Wednesday, Aug. 19 Ez 34:1-11 Mt 20:1-16 Thursday, Aug. 20 St. Bernard, abbot and doctor of the Church Ez 36:23-28 Mt 22:1-14 Friday, Aug. 21 St. Pius X, pope Ez 37:1-14 Mt 22:34-40 Saturday, Aug. 22 Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ez 43:1-7ab Mt 23:1-12 Sunday, Aug. 23 Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time Is 22:19-23 Rom 11:33-36 Mt 16:13-20 Monday, Aug. 24 St. Bartholomew, apostle Rv 21:9b-14 Jn 1:45-51 Tuesday, Aug. 25 2 Thes 2:1-3a, 14-17 Mt 23:23-26 Wednesday, Aug. 26 2 Thes 3:6-10, 16-18 Mt 23:27-32 Thursday, Aug. 27 St. Monica 1 Cor 1:1-9 Mt 24:42-51 Friday, Aug. 28 St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the Church 1 Cor 1:17-25 Mt 25:1-13 Saturday, Aug. 29 The Passion of St. John the Baptist 1 Cor 1:26-31 Mk 6:17-29 Sunday, Aug. 30 Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time Jer 20:7-9 Rom 12:1-2 Mt 16:21-27

AUGUST 13, 2020

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 13B

COMMENTARY TWENTY SOMETHING | CHRISTINA CAPECCHI

Mapping it out: how to intimately learn Catholicism Fifteen years after Richard Louv’s bestseller “The Last Child in the Woods” was published, it is more relevant than ever. I’m fascinated by his insights on the “nature-deficit disorder” ailing kids.

I was struck by a passage about his 1950s Midwestern childhood: “I knew my woods and my fields; I knew every bend in the creek and dip in the beaten dirt paths. I wandered those woods even in my dreams.”

His knowledge of that place was so intimate, so vivid that it continued in his dreams, flashing like a movie reel. I want that for my kids, an elixir for the high-tech, low-attention world forming young minds.

Louv sees it the same way. “Nature is reflected in our capacity for wonder,” he wrote.

Shortly after I started reading Louv, I came upon a book that put legs on my yearning. “Make Map Art: Creatively Illustrate Your World,” written by the sisterbrother pair Salli Swindell and Nate Padavick. It is a tool kit to turn readers into map makers — complete with compasses, cartouches, legends and landmarks.

Salli and Nate’s line art is folksy and simple. Their lines are not parallel. Their squiggles don’t always connect. The goal is not perfection. It is, in fact, imperfection — evidence that the maps are hand drawn, not computer generated.

A map bursts with old-timey charm. When was the last time you pulled out a map from the glove compartment and used it as a guide?

Salli and Nate’s maps feel nostalgic and whimsical, like an invitation to silence the phone and study nature. Maps “define our place in the world, inspire daydreaming and ignite the wanderlust in all of us,” they wrote. “Maps are about remembering.”

Yes! Suddenly I was compelled to map out the island that has become our refuge this summer. We have played

ALREADY/NOT YET | JONATHAN LIEDL

An overlooked place of Christ’s presence A few weeks ago, I knew I was in need of a special dose of divine assistance. I was confused. I was uncertain. I was struggling to trust.

I knew I needed to seek out the Lord in an intentional way. Going to a physical place dedicated to the Mother of God seemed like a good idea, so I set aside a Saturday and, along with a brother seminarian, made a one-day pilgrimage to the Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

My time at the shrine was certainly blessed. The beautiful, verdant hillside on which the shrine is situated was the perfect place to be reminded of God’s closeness and care. And it was a privilege to be in the Lord’s presence at the Mass, to receive him in both the Eucharist and the Word.

Upon reflecting on the day, though, it seems like

Wouldn’t it be silly to practice Catholicism and miss out on this excellent guide? Wouldn’t it be ungrateful — irresponsible even — to inherit this faith but pass it up before reading its handbook?

ISTOCK PHOTOS | CRACKERCLIPS

beneath its gnarled oaks and soaring eagles. We have felt the pulse of the Mississippi River, the island’s clock, setting a pace entirely our own.

Mapping it out tested my knowledge of the island.

You cannot map something if you do not know it well.

Google Earth provided a helpful reference. Studying the island’s hooks and nooks made me feel like a Girl Scout again.

Just as the doodles can be crooked, the landmarks can be quirky. Salli and Nate call it your “personal geography.” So, I marked trees that had meaning to us — “bent oak,” “climber,” “eagles perch” — and delineated the “short cut,” “picnic spot” and “garden.”

Salli and Nate point out that anything can be mapped: future goals, passions, memories of your hometown.

It occurred to me what a rewarding challenge it would be to map out Catholicism. Just as a budding arborist turns to a tree field guide, my reference already exists, a comprehensive summary of our faith: the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

This book gets a bad rap as a stuffy rulebook. But it is poetic and probing, a distillation of salvation history, an introduction to saints and Scripture elegantly curated.

The Catechism shines a flashlight on life’s biggest questions. What is a soul? See part 1, section 1, paragraph 33. What is the goal of human existence?

Refer to part 3, section 1, paragraph 1719. It is our map of the oldest Christian faith.

My edition is only as tall as my hand, and when I hold it, I feel awe, mindful of the treasures tucked within.

Wouldn’t it be silly to practice Catholicism and miss out on this excellent guide? Wouldn’t it be ungrateful — irresponsible even — to inherit this faith but pass it up before reading its handbook?

To be a good steward — of land or of faith — is to do your homework, to get to know something well. That knowledge paves the way to gratitude and caretaking.

And so just as I study the island this summer, cedar by cedar, I’ll be turning over the catechism, stone by stone.

the Lord was also present, and working in a profound way, not only at the shrine, but on the way to and from La Crosse. During those five-and-a-half hours in the car, Jesus Christ was present to me in and through my friend, the fellow seminarian who made the trip with me. In the company of another “alter Christus,” a baptized brother in Christ, I was able to speak freely and frankly about my life — about my desires, my fears, my questions. Guided by Christian charity, we offered each other encouragement, and helped one another discern how the Lord was working in our lives. I don’t think it’s wrong or presumptuous to say that we were the presence of Christ to each other.

For some, this kind of language can seem scandalous — as if acknowledging Christ’s presence in Christian companionship is a threat to his real presence in the Eucharist. But God is not limited to such rigid binaries; his presence in one mode doesn’t exclude his presence in another. He can be truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, body and blood, soul and divinity, while also being present in Christian community.

In fact, he must be. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20). The Vatican II document “Gaudium et Spes” picks up on this thread, boldly teaching that “the brotherly charity of the faithful who are united in Spirit … and who prove themselves a sign of unity” does the most to reveal God’s presence to the modern world. Though we are blessed with faith, we Catholics also need to encounter Christ’s presence in this way! “(Christian community) is how the risen

Christ holds us in His embrace,” says Servant of God Luigi Giussani. “This companionship is Christ Himself present.”

Christian companionship doesn’t merely have a negative value — it isn’t merely a source of keeping us accountable and “on the straight and narrow.” Where it is intentional and open, it is a powerful gift, a place in which we are freer and more fully alive. It’s no coincidence that, after being stoned outside of Lystra, St. Paul rises only after “the disciples gathered around him” (Acts 14:20). Christ works through community. We are reminded of his love and presence in our own lives when our brothers and sisters witness to his love and presence in theirs.

In our hyper-individualized age, intentional Christian companionship can seem like a burden and an imposition on our autonomy. But when it’s absent from our lives, we are missing out on a powerful and privileged place of Christ’s presence. And shouldn’t we strive to seek Jesus wherever we can find him?

COVID-related restrictions have limited our access to Christ’s real and abiding presence in the sacraments.

They have also made it more difficult to encounter Christ in Christian companionship. Whenever we return to “normal,” I hope we also strive toward a greater appreciation of and commitment to intentional Christian community, in our families, friendships, parishes and archdiocese.

Capecchi is a writer from Inver Grove Heights.

Liedl is a seminarian for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

14B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

SIMPLE HOLINESS | KATE SOUCHERAY

When adult children move back home When young people return home for a period of time following college graduation, their Baby Boomer or Gen X parents are often surprised by the disruption this causes to their newly established routine. Becoming an empty-nester couple is not an easy transition, because so many couples become comfortable with the relationship that is formed through parenting their children. Bouncing back into an old routine is not as simple as it might seem.

Helping adult children achieve maturity is not the straightforward task it used to be, according to Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, research professor at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and author of “Emerging Adulthood.” Many young adults spend the decade of their 20s completing school, establishing a solid career path and figuring out what they will do with their life. Returning to the nest is often seen as part of this transition.

In fact, nearly 48% of young people find that moving back in with their parents during this time is a necessity, due to the expense of renting an apartment, getting after college debt and managing the demands of adult life. I sometimes say to young people they are creating the map in their 20s they will follow in the coming decades, and learning to manage the demands of adult life is a key component to happiness for the remainder of their lives.

Arnett explains that the three most important tasks young people must master in their 20s — known as the “Big Three” — include accepting responsibility

FAITH AT HOME | LAURA KELLY FANUCCI

The growing edge of liturgical living

Have you heard of “liturgical living”? The catchphrase has gained popularity in recent years among Catholics seeking to follow the rhythms of the Church year at home.

Celebrating feast days with special meals, decorating with liturgical colors and teaching children through crafts are examples of liturgical living, found in blogs and books that encourage families to embrace liturgical living as part of their Catholic identity.

But what is the purpose of liturgical living? Are crafts and celebrations enough to form our children in faith?

Returning to the roots of the liturgy orients us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines “liturgy” thus: “In Christian tradition it means the participation of the people of God in ‘the work of God.’ ... In the New Testament the word ‘liturgy’ refers not only to the celebration of divine worship but also to the proclamation of the Gospel and to active charity. In all of these situations it is a question of the service of God and neighbor” (No. 1069-70).

The liturgy is meant to give glory to God and to transform us by leading us to serve others. We praise God, seek forgiveness, listen to the Word and receive the Eucharist — to draw closer to Christ and by that proximity be changed.

The danger can be complacency or triumphalism, assuming we have arrived and forgetting we are still sinners on the way. If I go to Mass to fulfill an obligation but don’t leave renewed in my commitment to live out the Gospel, then my participation in the liturgy has fallen short.

Liturgical living must change us, too.

Catholic efforts to embody the Church year at home cannot stay self-contained celebrations. They need the wider community and continual conversion that

COMMENTARY for themselves, making independent decisions and becoming financially independent. He states that the attainment of these skills is incremental and gradual, not an all-at-once endeavor.

The fact that adulthood is not achieved by the age of 18 seems all too obvious to parents of today. According to Arnett, full adult maturity occurs at about the age of 29, nearly a full decade later than in previous generations.

And that process requires much more assistance from the parents in the young adult’s life.

Rejecting a young person who needs the security of returning home can create anxiety, frustration and personal disruption that may never be resolved. In addition, there should be some sort of plan in place for how long the young person intends to live at home, as well as an established system of contribution to the family by way of paying rent and perhaps contributing to the food budget.

Young adults must be expected to find a job and go to work, and pay the bills for which they are responsible, which include the aforementioned college debt. If they purchase a car, they must be expected to pay for gas, maintenance and all costs related to this purchase. There should be rules in place about guests in your home and the behavior you expect with regard to those guests. It must be conveyed that this is not a college dorm, with the hours of the day reversed and all behavior deemed acceptable.

Adult children are now visitors in your home, as you graciously provide a place for them to live temporarily until they are ready to move on to the next phase of their life. Establishing clear boundaries and expectations from the beginning of this arrangement provides clear guidelines for everyone. Providing well-defined expectations for this arrangement will benefit everyone involved.

Soucheray is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a member of Guardian Angels in Oakdale. She holds a master’s degree in theology from The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul and a doctorate in educational leadership from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. remind us we are still in need of grace to grow.

Interestingly, Catholic teaching does not talk about liturgical living, but the domestic church. Home is where children first learn about faith. Within their homes, Catholics are called to embrace what the Church is and does: “Many remain without a human family, often due to conditions of poverty. ... The doors of homes, the ‘domestic churches,’ and of the great family which is the church must be open to all of them. ‘No one is without a family in this world: the church is a home and family for everyone, especially those who ‘labor and are heavy laden’” (No. 1658).

If liturgy is meant to proclaim the Gospel through love of God and neighbor, and if the domestic church is meant to be open to all — especially those in poverty and need — then liturgical living must be oriented toward others.

Theologically, the goal of liturgical living is not only to celebrate within our domestic church, but to lead us toward the wider body of Christ.

If our family is celebrating our children’s saint days (the feasts of their namesakes), can we talk about where Christians are still being martyred for their beliefs today?

When our kids clamor to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, can we also pray about immigration in our country?

As we fill our home with liturgical colors, can we reflect on how their symbolism speaks to what is sorrowful or hopeful in our world?

These examples show the growing edge that liturgical living needs: an openness toward transformation, not a closed circle.

One rare silver lining brought about by the pandemic is the unexpected gift of more months to build our domestic churches. As families face a year with less time at church, this is a perfect moment to consider how we celebrate faith at home and where God may be calling us to grow.

May the doors of our homes always be open to Christ — and may the growing edge of liturgical living draw us toward those in deep need of God’s love.

Fanucci is a writer, speaker and author of several books including “Everyday Sacrament: The Messy Grace of Parenting.” Her work can be found at laurakellyfanucci.com.

AUGUST 13, 2020

LETTERS Masks are considerate I have never thought that the message of sneezing into my sleeve instead of in someone’s face was fear mongering, or an assault on my personal freedom.

Recently, however, I did become acutely aware that it would have been nice for the younger fellow who was giving us a roof estimate to wear a mask, even though we were socially distancing, especially when he inadvertently let some spit fly on my husband.

Wasn’t thinking Republican, Democrat or man in the moon, I was thinking I just wish he wouldn’t have inadvertently, in mid-sentence, spit on my husband, a senior citizen with pre-existing conditions. And I wasn’t thinking, “Gee, if only my priest had asked him to wear a mask in public.” I just wish he’d worn a mask, like we did for him. I have had people at my hardware store tell me they don’t believe in masks.

They don’t believe in the virus. They think it’s a hoax. Well, I want my uncle back. I want my dear friend John Roban back. And every night, I pray that my brother comes home safely from the hospital where he works, where he’s had to put people on ventilators, people who struggled to breathe with the virus coursing through their lungs. I am beginning to believe this virus is nature’s way of punishing America for being so doggone uppity. We seem to have completely lost the capability of being kind to and considerate of one another, without putting a political spin on it. What kind of Christians are we, that someone else’s life is less than that of a mask?

Elizabeth Rosenwinkel St. Albert the Great, Minneapolis

Not a scandal In this letter I am neither disparaging masks, nor arguing either for or against their effectiveness; however, my conscience demands that I go on record as saying that I am scandalized by Archbishop Hebda’s statement that not wearing masks constitutes “giving scandal to others.” Scandal is an extremely strong word, one that (in effect) publicly shames those people who don’t/can’t wear masks because of legitimate medical reasons. Recommending and encouraging masks is one thing. Calling it “scandal(ous)” to not wear them is something I would not expect from an archbishop. With all due respect, I am ashamed of him for his choice of words. I also wish to point out that I join many Minnesota Catholics in believing Gov. Walz has in fact overstepped the limits of his authority by issuing the mask mandate.

Jessica Schumacher Emily, Minnesota (Diocese of Duluth)

Persecution response is unity I have watched subtle changes take place over the years in the way that Christianity is viewed by modern society. Developments over the last few months have culminated into outright persecution of Catholics and Christianity. I’ve witnessed scenes in the last few weeks that I never thought possible in my beloved country in which religious freedom is supposed to be guaranteed by our Constitution. It started with statues of saints being toppled and destroyed. Then, Catholics were mocked and abused for praying the rosary in front of saint statues. The attacks escalated to statues of Jesus and Mary being desecrated, even on private church property, and churches were bombed.

Christian persecution is happening on a grand scale all around us. We must stand together as Christians in defending our Savior and our religion, and refuse to tolerate any radical groups or individuals who try to offer up Christianity as the perfect scapegoat for all our country’s problems.

Tracy Tourville St. Charles, Bayport Share your perspective by emailing TheCatholicSpirit@archspm. org. Please limit your letter to the editor to 150 words and include

your parish and phone number. The Commentary pages do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Catholic Spirit.

AUGUST 13, 2020

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 15B

CALENDAR

Twin Cities CRS chapter joins national effort to influence lawmakers

Praying with the Beatitudes: At-Home Retreat — Aug. 10-26 online. This two-week, at-home retreat from St. Thomas More in St. Paul provides the opportunity to pray with the beatitudes. Participants receive a video introduction on the beatitudes and nine days of prayer material. At the end, they will be able to reflect on and discuss their experiences in a small-group setting either in-person or via Zoom. morecommunity.org/beatitudes-retreat Archbishop Hebda and Bishop Svennungsen speak on welcoming refugees and immigrants — Aug. 31: 7–8:30 p.m. St. Frances Cabrini in Minneapolis is offering an online presentation by Bishop Ann Svennungsen, Minneapolis Area Synod, ELCA, and Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, as they expand on their joint statement, “Resettlement policy: Create a welcoming society, not more barriers, for refugees” published in the Star Tribune Dec. 23, 2019.

Register for free event at cabrinimn.org/tegeder-talk-signup.

“Open Wide Our Hearts: The Catholic Church Confronts Racism” — Sept. 9: 10 a.m.–noon. The Minnesota Catholic Conference, the public policy voice of the Catholic Church in Minnesota, is hosting this forum for priests, deacons, educators and lay ecclesial ministers on the memorial of St. Peter Claver to provide an opportunity for formation and reflection on critical community issues and how the Church can respond. Featured speaker is Bishop Shelton Fabre of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, the chairman of the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee against Racism. Panelists to be announced. Zoom webinar registration and details at mncatholic.org/openwideourhearts.

Knights of Columbus bingo — Wednesdays: 6–9 p.m. at Solanus Casey Council Hall, 1910 S. Greeley St., Stillwater.

CALENDAR submissions DEADLINE: Noon Thursday, 14 days before the anticipated Thursday date of publication. We cannot guarantee a submitted event will appear in the calendar. Priority is given to events occurring before the next issue date.

LISTINGS: Accepted are brief no­tices of upcoming events hosted by Catholic parishes and organizations. If the Catholic connection is not clear, please emphasize it in your submission.

Included in our listings are local events submitted by public sources that could be of interest to the larger Catholic community.

ITEMS MUST INCLUDE the following to be considered for publication: u Time and date of event u Full street address of event u Description of event u Contact information in case of questions ONLINE: THECATHOLICSPIRIT.COM/CALENDARSUBMISSIONS

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit The seeds of Mike Haasl’s advocacy were planted decades ago. In 1980-1981, he volunteered in a small village in Kenya, helping start community self-help programs ranging from agriculture to health care and road building. He lived without electricity — except when a generator ran for about an hour at night for meetings.

Life was simple, he said, but he also remembers very good, hard-working people.

Haasl, a member of St. Gerard Majella, Brooklyn Park, said the experience “turned his life upside down.” Living and working with young, local Kenyans profoundly affected how he viewed the world, he said, including an acute awareness of how many people worldwide struggle each day for bare essentials.

He and his family later worked as Maryknoll lay missioners in a poor Venezuelan barrio. Then, his work with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office for Mission from 2003-2018 took him to Kitui, Kenya, where the archdiocese has an inter-diocesan global solidarity partnership.

Those experiences motivated his advocacy for dignity and hope for similarly vulnerable adults and children around the world, he said.

But advocacy doesn’t have to involve international travel.

Today, Haasl is trying to effect change from his home in the Twin Cities, through the newly established Twin Cities Chapter of Catholic Relief Services.

Last fall, Baltimore-based CRS, which works in 100 countries to alleviate hunger and poverty, began a national program to engage parishioners to advocate with legislators for policies addressing international poverty and injustice. Its Twin Cities Chapter, which started in February, is doing just that. Chapter members call U.S. House and Senate offices to introduce themselves, talk with staff and advocate for legislation that helps improve lives of people living in poverty.

Minnesota is one of 15 states with CRS chapters, and there are 25 chapters nationwide. Currently, the Twin Cities chapter is the only one in the state.

Jessica Howell, director of the CRS Midwest Regional Office in Chicago, conducted training for local chapter members in February and March about effective advocacy. It included tips on writing letters to members of Congress and letters to the editor in newspapers, scripts for making calls to legislative offices, and tips for in-person meetings.

The training has already paid off. With more legislative advocacy to come, the chapter has advocated for passage of the Global Child Thrive Act, introduced by Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat from Texas, which requires the U.S. Agency for International Development to direct agencies to incorporate early childhood development into current programs and promote inclusive early childhood development in partner countries.

The bill does not require any extra federal funding at this

NANCY MCNALLY | COURTESY CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES

Preschool children break for play time at the Auray Catholic Mission School in Lesotho, an enclaved country within South Africa. A Catholic Relief Services program funded by the Better Way Foundation supports the school by building and strengthening integrated early childhood care and development programs. time, Haasl said. It does require all future child-focused funding for international assistance to include an early childhood development component. Through the chapter’s advocacy, Haasl said, three Twin Cities-area U.S. representatives — Democrats Angie Craig, Betty McCollum and Dean Phillips — have signed on as co-sponsors.

The bill passed the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in December and has been referred to the full House. An identical bill was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“Early childhood education makes a big difference in terms of cognitive development, brain development in the very early years,” Haasl said. Even reading to children, engaging them in interactive play or with colorful objects really helps, he said, and doesn’t cost a lot of money.

Chris Wolohan of Our Lady of Grace in Edina, a retired nurse and co-leader of the Twin Cities CRS chapter, has seen the impact of CRS’ work during CRS-sponsored trips to Haiti, Rwanda and Zambia. She said early childhood education could take place, for example, when an aid organization visits homes for childhood immunizations.

“They may say, ‘Do you have a book for your child, or do you sing and play with your child?’” The group would not receive extra money to discuss these topics, but could integrate them during interaction with families and the community, she said.

The benefit to every child who receives early childhood education is significant, added Esther van Stam, the chapter’s other co-leader and a member of St. Frances Cabrini in Minneapolis. Stimulation and security sets them up for not just living, but thriving, she said.

Wolohan sees her work today with CRS as being a vehicle, a mirror for Christ to reflect the truth that all people have dignity, she said.

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16B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

AUGUST 13, 2020

CATHOLIC PRAYER, MEDITATION APP HALLOW SEES GROWING POPULARITY From left, Hallow App co-founders Alex Jones, Alessandro DiSanto and Erich Kerekes pose together for this undated photo.

By Ian Alvano Catholic News Service

W

hen the developers of the Catholic meditation app Hallow launched it in 2018, they hoped to attract young Catholics, but what is now the country’s No. 1 Catholic app has a bigger reach than that.

“It started as this focus on young adults but actually we’ve seen a lot more ... parents and retired folks get really excited about it and start using it,” said Hallow’s CEO and co-founder, Alex Jones.

Hallow — found at hallow.com — has seen a dramatic increase in popularity and it is getting more and more users each day.

The No. 1 rating is based on “Apple’s algorithm, which they don’t disclose,” Jones told Catholic News Service in a July 21 interview. “It’s based on how many people have reviewed it in the last few weeks, how many people are downloading it, how many have viewed. We started off on the bottom of the list, went to No. 3, then jumped to No. 1 about six months ago.”

Hallow is based in Chicago even though the company started off in California’s Silicon Valley. Creation of the app is integrated with Jones’ own faith journey. His family raised him as a Catholic, but he strayed from the faith in high school and college. He went to the University of Notre Dame but he was going through a “relatively dark time in life,” he told Catholic News Service.

After he graduated from college, he wanted to figure out what he believed in. One thing that had always fascinated him was meditation. He noticed that whenever he meditated, his mind would be pulled to something spiritual.

He said he’d ask priests, nuns and others in religious life if there was a specific connection between meditation and faith. They told him that indeed there was a connection: It was called prayer.

When he was growing up, Jones said, he only thought of prayer as a way to ask for certain things or that it was just basic memorization of words. He only felt that he was talking to himself and going through the motions.

A priest friend encouraged him to listen more during prayer, Jones said, and he began to study the Catholic faith more and he tried “lectio divina,” a meditative reflection on the Scriptures.

Jones said this process actually led him to tears and eventually brought him back to his faith.

“It was a beautiful combination of this deep sense of peace and love, deeper than any other secular meditation or mindfulness meditation. It was this deep sense of peace combined with this real purpose that

CNS

CNS A rendering of the Catholic prayer and meditation Hallow App. calms our head space,” he said.

Jones recalled meditating on the Lord’s Prayer and the word that stuck out to him was “hallow” from the beginning of the prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” He knew what hallow meant, to make holy or sacred, but he didn’t know how it pertained to his life. He pondered if he should be helping others grow in holiness.

That’s how the Hallow app came to be.

“If Headspace and Calm can be successful helping people learn secular meditation and (be) done through an app,” he thought, “why can’t the same thing be done and be done better through teaching Catholic contemplative prayer?”

Headspace is an app that teaches you how to meditate; Calm is a leading app for meditation and sleep.

“It’s very important to us that everything on the app is 100% authentically Catholic and in line with Church

teachings,” Jones told CNS about Hallow.

He said the app’s developers have worked with priests, bishops and theologians to ensure they are conveying Catholic teachings correctly. He added that Hallow is a resource to people of all backgrounds, especially people who have fallen away from the faith. Its primary audience is Catholic, but users of the app include Protestants, Jews and even atheists. It also is hard to ignore the impact of COVID-19 on Hallow’s popularity.

According to Jones, there was a large increase in usage and downloads when Easter came around since everyone was advised to stay at home.

While the pandemic has been terrible and brought so much sadness to people’s lives, with loved ones and friends dying from COVID-19, Jones said, it provides us with an opportunity to work on our spiritual lives from home. The app has a “Family” feature that allows users to connect with family and friends and share prayers, reflections and prayer intentions with them even while being physically separated.

It also has a feature called the “Daily Minute Prayer Challenge.” Users are encouraged to build a habit of prayer by spending at least one minute in guided prayer with Hallow each day.

“The hardest part about praying is just doing it. It’s easy in the seasons of Lent and Advent when it’s top of mind, but over the summer when you’ve got a lot of other things going on, it’s easy to fall off that,” Jones said. “We do a bunch of things. You can set goals on the app. You can add members of your family and friends to the app to hold yourself accountable. You can set daily reminders.”

Hallow, which has over 5,000 five-star reviews, tries to be “an app that helps you disconnect from apps and technology,” according to Jones, which he admitted sounds like a contradiction.

But he explained that while other religious apps have users glued to their screen to read the Bible, Hallow allows its users to press “play,” close their eyes and listen to audio of a prayer.

ARCHDIOCESAN SYNOD: YEAR 2

AUGUST 13, 2020

How we got here

missionary disciples who know Jesus’ love and respond to his call, and 3) Forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young. tanding in front of hundreds of Catholics in Therese Coons, Synod director, said that the feedback St. Peter in Mendota in June 2019, Archbishop Archbishop Hebda received from the Prayer and Bernard Hebda prayed for the Holy Spirit to guide Listening Events was invaluable. the Synod process he was launching in the Archdiocese “Archbishop Hebda’s vision for the Synod — to draw of St. Paul and Minneapolis. “I look at our local Church on the gifts of the faithful to discern and establish clear and see it crying out to be molded, to be renewed, to be pastoral priorities — starts with a ‘listening Church,’ refreshed,” he said. “I’m confident that that’s the Lord’s listening to each other and to the Holy Spirit, with desire for us. I’m confident that he will send his Holy the disposition of heart that we all have something to Spirit upon us if we ask him.” learn,” said Coons, a parishioner of St. Anne in Hamel.

That Mass officially launched a multi-year Synod “The Prayer and Listening Events were designed to process designed to involve every Catholic in the provide an opportunity to listen to each other, and archdiocese. A few months later, at St. Victoria in Archbishop Hebda was at all 30 events, personally Victoria, Archbishop Hebda and a team of volunteers listening.” and archdiocesan staff kicked off the first of 19 Prayer She said that Synod leaders were grateful that more and Listening Events for the general population of than 8,000 people took three hours of time to come Catholics in the archdiocese. together for the good of the local Church. “They prayed Over the course of seven months, more than 8,000 together, they listened with respect to each other — Catholics gathered together in parishes across the even when different viewpoints were held — and shared archdiocese to reflect on what is working well in their wisdom by giving feedback,” she said. “It was the archdiocese, and what pastoral challenges and heartening to see so many people who care about the opportunities lie ahead. Archbishop Hebda attended future of our local Church.” each of those three-hour events, and Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens attended most. Eleven additional Bishop Cozzens, chair of the Synod Executive events focused on targeted groups, such as college Committee, said that he was impressed by participants’ students, parish staff members and youth. engagement and the depth of passion they expressed.

The Prayer and Listening Events dedicated the first He feared that the sessions might feel like a political hour-and-a-half to prayer and reflection, with a talk caucus, but was heartened that instead it was a forum from Archbishop Hebda about his vision for the Synod. for people to share on a deeper level their desires for That was followed by small-group table discussions their faith and the life of the local Church, he said. and an opportunity for some participants to share their The reason for that is prayer, Bishop Cozzens said. reflections, concerns and ideas with the archbishop and “All along, the goal of the Synod process is to let the all gathered.

Holy Spirit lead,” he said, “and since we wanted the In addition to English, some events also included Holy Spirit to lead, we knew that we needed to give speakers and materials using Spanish, Vietnamese, the Holy Spirit prominence. And we needed to give a Polish and American Sign Language. Although the final chance for people to listen to the Holy Spirit. And so scheduled open Prayer and Listening Event in March many people did comment on the beauty of that prayer was canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions, the 19 open time, and they were surprised how beautiful it was that events and 11 focus events yielded more than 35,000 the Holy Spirit did show up when we gave them time to comments.

From January to April, teams of volunteers transcribed pray.”

On May 31, Archbishop Hebda celebrated Pentecost handwritten comments, translated non-English Mass at the Cathedral of St. Paul, the first public Mass he comments, organized comments into 20 categories celebrated after public worship resumed in Minnesota with 144 subtopics, and then analyzed the data and during the COVID-19 pandemic. He noted that it felt presented it to Archbishop Hebda. Along with results from the Disciple Maker Index Survey, which Catholics “just like yesterday” that he had celebrated last year’s Pentecost Mass in Mendota opening the pre-Synod in the archdiocese had the opportunity to complete process. in February, and the materials prepared for the local “We give ourselves to the Holy Spirit this evening,” bishops’ ad limina visit to Rome in January, Archbishop the archbishop said at this year’s Mass, “that he might Hebda discerned three topic areas to narrow the focus use us to do great things in this local Church.” of the next phase of the Synod: 1) Forming parishes that are in the service of evangelization, 2) Forming — Maria Wiering

S

<<2A and February, consultations will

focus on how we can take action to address those topics. At the deanery level next January and February, we will be brainstorming, trying to surface concrete options for action that are particularly tailored to our archdiocese as we enter the third decade of this century. At the more extensive parish gatherings, scheduled for September and October of 2021, we will go deeper, evaluating and prioritizing those options in a way that will facilitate decision-making at the actual Synod Assembly at Pentecost in 2022.

While it is hard to imagine, we are going to need even greater involvement moving forward. I hope that those of you who experienced the beauty and power of coming together to ask for the guidance of the Holy Spirit and then respectfully sharing ideas will engage others to participate in the Synod process. It’s going to be most fruitful if we are able to have broad participation when we finally get together for our parish consultation with small groups in the Fall of 2021.

I remain committed to making good use of your time and ideas. The parish consultations will concretely determine what will be presented to the Synod delegates when we formally come

together on Pentecost weekend in 2022.

It will be that experience, based on your insights and discussion, that will inspire and give form to the post-Synodal pastoral letter that I will be issuing later that year on the Solemnity of Christ the King, and ultimately determine our concrete pastoral priorities in the three focus areas.

The pandemic may have required us to change our timeline, but I am already recognizing some blessings that will come from the change of schedule and from what we have learned about online engagement in the last few months. I am grateful that we will now have the time to lay some more groundwork for our Synod by offering targeted opportunities for virtual participation and enrichment.

The multi-week opportunities (see sidebar on page 4A) are reflective of the feedback that we received at the prayer and listening events concerning your desire to grow in prayer, your recognition of a need for greater healing in the archdiocese, your thirst for a better understanding of Church teaching in a few targeted areas and your desire to have the Synod strengthen even the bonds you share at home. While they will be offered serially over the next six months so that someone could theoretically participate

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 3A

‘AN OPEN PROCESS’ Father Joseph Bambenek, Synod assistant director, emphasized how important it was for Archbishop Hebda to hear from Catholics throughout the archdiocese, not just people who regularly have a role in parish or archdiocesan decision-making, during the Prayer and Listening Events.

“The goal was to have an open process where there were no ‘insiders,’ but everyone could engage in mutual listening,” he said.

“It reaffirmed how many faithful, thoughtful, prayerful, dedicated and talented people are in our Church.”

In Faribault, Sister Kathleen Hayes, a staff member at Divine Mercy, collaborated with nearby Bethlehem Academy theology teachers to encourage high school students to attend a Prayer and Listening Event the parish hosted in October. She wanted them to know that their voice was important, and that they have a place in the Church at large — a point she illustrated with a musical analogy. “They’re part of an orchestra, they’re not part of a band,” said Sister Hayes, 78, a Sinsinawa Dominican who is also one of Divine Mercy’s Synod parish ambassadors. “A band only has certain kinds of instruments. Orchestra brings it all in.”

Loralean Jordan, 51, a former youth minister at St. Peter Claver in St. Paul, said she attended the January listening session at her parish out of curiosity. “I know what’s in my heart and I know what’s on my mind in regards to the archdiocese, but being able to hear and see what other people are thinking” was important, she said. It was also meaningful for her to be heard “to express myself and charge the Church to listen to me as a member.”

Jordan was among those randomly selected — through a lottery — to share her thoughts with Archbishop Hebda following the small-group discussion, and she spoke in front of a packed church about the need for culturally-appropriate youth ministry.

And while concerns about youth and young people finding their place in the Church was mentioned at every Prayer and Listening Event, it was far from the only dominant topic. Synod Executive Committee member Sheryl Moran volunteered at most Prayer and Listening Events and helped with the data organization and analysis. Comments touched on every facet of the life of the Church, with some participants expressing very strong, but polar opposite, views, she said.

The events were “a great opportunity for us just to gather together as a Church, especially following the sex abuse crisis, and to be able to listen to one another and to start to heal,” said Moran, 57, a member of Our Lady of Grace in Edina “And I think Archbishop Hebda gave such a great example of how to listen.”

The Synod’s director, Therese Coons, was surprised by how much joy came from witnessing the small group discussions, “seeing so many people come together at discussion tables sharing what was on their hearts and minds, and listening with respect to one another, even when they held differing viewpoints.”

“It was a joy, inspiring and hope-filled,” she said. “It was a privilege to be part of, and an experience I will not forget.”

in all of them, they are being designed so that they would be beneficial even for those desiring to participate in only a single offering.

We are also profiting from the extended timeline to take a look at our internal processes at the central offices of the archdiocese. With the help of a talented team of expert consultants who are assisting us at no cost, we are working to make sure that the archdiocese is going to be organizationally prepared to respond effectively to whatever priorities emerge from the Synod. I am delighted that we now have more time to sharpen our institutional effectiveness and determine how best we can use the human and limited financial resources at our disposal.

There are two areas, however, where the postponement of the Synod has made it a less favorable means for providing feedback. I had initially hoped that the Synod would help us to provide criteria for evaluating the ongoing vitality of individual parishes for strategic planning purposes. I had also anticipated a fruitful discussion of how our parishes are expected to financially support the archdiocese, particularly in relationship to the funding of Catholic schools and ministries that cross parish boundaries (e.g., Latino ministry). Given the financial

pressures that have accompanied the coronavirus, it now seems prudent to accelerate those discussions. With that in mind, the Archdiocesan Finance Council and Corporate Board has already put together an ad hoc committee to study the funding questions. As for the parish vitality issue, I will be establishing a joint committee of the Presbyteral Council and Lay Advisory Board to work with our Archdiocesan Pastoral Planning group on this matter. As the work progresses in both of those areas, I will make sure that we have opportunities for broad discussion and comment.

All in all, however, the Synod remains a top priority for the archdiocese and I continue to anticipate great fruit from your generous participation. In the short term, I hope that you will join me in participating in the virtual programming scheduled for this fall and winter, that you will say yes if your pastor asks you to represent your parish in the deanery consultation, that you will plan to participate in the parish consultations in fall 2021, that you will begin to educate yourselves in each of the three focus areas, and that you will continue to pray that the Synod will bear good fruit in this local Church. Come Holy Spirit, enkindle in our hearts the fire of your love.

ARCHDIOCESAN SYNOD: YEAR 2

4A • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

What’s next Year 2: The Church Prepares

T

he Prayer and Listening Events wrapped up just as Minnesota’s officials began addressing the spread of the novel coronavirus in the state. Due to pandemic-related restrictions and uncertainty around in-person gatherings, Synod leaders decided in April to reorganize the Synod process and extend the timeline by a year. Instead of culminating in a Synod Assembly weekend in spring 2021, as originally planned, that event will be held in June 2022, with Archbishop Bernard Hebda planning to release a pastoral plan informed by the Synod later that year.

The extended timeline allows for the Synod to unfold in three phases: the first year (2019/2020) being The Church Listens; this upcoming year (2020-2021) being The Church Prepares, and the third year (2021-2022) being The Church Engages.

In this upcoming year of preparation, the Synod team is offering two series in the fall, and three in the winter/spring.

The series will start in September with a five-week virtual series on praying with Scripture taught by Archbishop Hebda and Bishop Andrew Cozzens, followed by a five-week virtual retreat beginning in October on healing and hope (see sidebar). The catechetical series this winter is designed to engage important topics that surfaced during the Prayer and Listening Events, including the dignity of women, sexuality and the family, and the nature of the priesthood.

The Synod at Home initiative during Lent 2021 will engage individuals, couples and families in a Synod process for their lives. The year will close with live events in the spring (assuming they are safe) on the focus areas.

Archdiocesan leaders acknowledge that people’s lives — and, for many, their relationship to their parish and Church — have changed during the pandemic.

While the pandemic required Synod leaders to extend the process, Father Joseph Bambenek, the Synod’s assistant director, sees the new timeline as a blessing in disguise, “one of many ways in which the Holy Spirit has taken our plans and made them better.”

“This year of preparation will allow us to be even more open to how the Holy Spirit wants to work through the process,” he said. “The biggest downside is that the archbishop and all of us involved are looking forward to the implementation of what comes out of the Synod to address the situation the Church faces. The process is important,

but the ultimate fruit is what will determine the success or not of the Synod. So the year delay means a year delay in reaping the fruit.”

Therese Coons, Synod director, hopes that people who participated in the Prayer and Listening Events feel inspired to continue their involvement with the Synod process. “The success in meeting the goal of the Synod — to set clear pastoral priorities in a way that promotes greater unity and leads us to more vigorous proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ — depends on the faithful being involved and sharing their wisdom,” she said.

“The Prayer and Listening Events were a first step, and an important step, but there are more important steps in the process that will benefit from (Catholics’) involvement,” Coons added.

“We hope they participate in the Year 2 opportunities. Most importantly, we hope they join in the small group discussions at their parish fall 2021 in the Parish Consultation Process.”

The Parish Consultation with Small Group Process will take place in the fall of 2021 and consist of parish-based small groups diving deeper into the focus areas Archbishop Hebda has just announced.

Even though that process is a year away, Father Bambenek encourages Catholics to begin praying about the focus areas now, observing how their own parish currently engages the topics, and discerning what best practices might look like.

Prior to the Parish Consultation Process, some parish representatives will gather in January or February within their deaneries — a geographic grouping of parishes — to discuss the focus areas.

Trained facilitators and scribes will assist those small group discussions, which will inform the Parish Consultation Process later in the year, Coons said.

The Parish Consultation Process will then inform the Synod Assembly, which will take place with about 500 participants Pentecost weekend, June 3-5, 2022.

“An important part of a Synod — why the archbishop has chosen to chart the path ahead through this vehicle — is that he believes in the importance of being a Listening Church, following the leadership of our Holy Father, Pope Francis,” Father Bambenek said. “That has not always been the leadership style in the archdiocese, and it takes time to grow in skill and even in the trust necessary for Year 3 and beyond to be fruitful.”

“The ultimate goal of the Synod,” he added, “is to help us as God’s people grow in unity in Christ and to develop a spiritual strategic plan to more vigorously proclaim the Gospel in our place and time.”

— Maria Wiering

PRAYER AND LISTENING EVENTS SITES

St. Victoria, Victoria • St. Michael, St. Michael • Guardian Angels, Oakdale • Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Paul • St. Peter, Forest Lake • Divine Mercy, Faribault • St. Wenceslaus, New Prague • All Saints, Lakeville • St. AnneSt. Joseph Hien, Minneapolis • Holy Cross, Minneapolis • St. Peter Claver, St. Paul • Pax Christi, Eden Prairie • St. Stephen, Minneapolis • Providence Academy, Plymouth • Lumen Christi, St. Paul • St. Stephen, Anoka • Our Lady of Grace, Edina • St. Pius V, Cannon Falls • Transfiguration, Oakdale

AUGUST 13, 2020

Synod at a glance: A brief overview Synods are gatherings of Church leaders to address particular topics in the Church. The best-known form of this is the Synod of Bishops, a meeting of bishops from around the world to discern a topic, such as the recent synods in Rome on the family in 2014 and 2015, and on young people in 2018. On the diocesan level, a Synod is a coming together of the local Church, and they’re intended to be held on a regular basis. Even though diocesan synods have a long history in the Church, the archdiocese of St. Paul has not held a synod since the late 1930s. Last year, Archbishop Bernard Hebda called for an archdiocesan Synod to help him discern and address the most pressing needs of the local Church. He stressed his desire for the archdiocese to be a “listening Church” — to hear and respond to the needs of the faithful — and the responsibility of the faithful to share their

needs with their bishops. He appointed a Synod Executive Team, which developed a multi-year pre-Synod process leading up to the Synod Assembly, planned for Pentecost weekend, June 3-5, 2022. Then Archbishop Hebda will prepare a pastoral plan for the archdiocese, which he expects to release Nov. 20, 2022, the feast of Christ the King. While the Synod Assembly will include about 500 representatives, the pre-synod process seeks to engage the entire local Church.

Already, more than 8,000 Catholics participated in the Prayer and Listening Events held September 2019 to March 2020, and more opportunities lie ahead for Catholics to continue their involvement or get involved in the pre-Synod process, especially the parish consultation process, which will take place through small groups in the fall of 2021. Learn more at archspm.org/synod.

UPCOMING EVENTS PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURE SERIES • SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2020 This five-part virtual series on praying with Scripture will offer practical tools for growing in holiness, drawing upon the rich tradition of the Catholic Church. Archbishop Hebda and Bishop Cozzens will teach the fundamentals of praying with Scripture and explain how to use a Prayer Companion resource to enrich your prayer experience. Participants can watch at their convenience with family, friends or on their own. This series begins Sept. 13.

HEALING AND HOPE SERIES • OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2020 This five-part virtual retreat will ground each person in his or her fundamental identity as a beloved child of God. Yet, each person has experienced wounds that bind. This retreat will explore how to unbind these knots through the intercession of Our Lady, Undoer of Knots, and open these wounds to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The aim is for participants to better understand how encountering Jesus’ love and mercy brings healing and hope. This series begins Oct. 18.

FAITH AND CULTURE SERIES • JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2021 Inspired by the thousands of participants at the Prayer and Listening Events, this series will connect their stories to the story of the Church. It will explore:

u The sources of Catholic teaching (Scripture, tradition and magisterium)

u The Church’s teaching on sexual morality and the family

u The Church’s understanding on the dignity of women

u The priesthood (both the baptized and ordained)

SYNOD AT HOME: GROWING IN FAITH TOGETHER • LENT 2021 In the Synod process, the Church is taking time to listen to one another, pray and discuss in order to determine priorities. These steps are important for every home, too. The Synod at Home will give local Catholics the structure and tools for walking through this process together. Individuals, couples and families will find their faith and relationships strengthened by this Synod at Home.

Volunteerdriven process

Behind the scenes of the past and upcoming pre-Synod events are dedicated staff and hundreds of volunteers who have generously given their time to ensure each phase of the process runs smoothly and achieves its goal.

SYNOD EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Nineteen people serve on the Synod Executive Committee.

Bishop Andrew Cozzens serves as the committee’s chair. Visit archspm.org/synod to see the full Executive Committee membership.

SYNOD PRAYER TEAM Twenty-six people who have committed significant time in prayer praying for the Holy Spirit to guide participants, the Executive Committee and Archbishop Hebda, as well as for the local Church.

PARISH AMBASSADORS Catholics who represent each parish and are trained to understand the Synod process so they can assist their pastor and fellow parishioners through each phase. Last year, members of the Synod executive team held 13 live trainings, attended by approximately 1,800 ambassadors.

PRAYER AND LISTENING EVENT VOLUNTEERS Numerous individuals and groups who assisted in the work of the first year Prayer and Listening events. At each of the 19 open Prayer and Listening events, a team of about 20 volunteers

from various groups across the archdiocese staffed the events. Others translated feedback into English and entered the feedback into an Excel spreadsheet so it could be analyzed by the Data Analysis team.

DMI PARISH POINT PEOPLE: One pastorappointed parishioner served as the information and communications hub regarding the Disciple Maker Index, a 70-question survey that was administered in each parish in February 2020. The Point People are now collaborating with parish leaders to understand and communicate their individual parish’s results.

PARISH DEANERY REPRESENTATIVES Up to 10 pastor-appointed parishioners who will represent their parish at the Deanery Consultation in 2021.

PARISH SMALL GROUP PROCESS MANAGERS Two people who, in collaboration with their pastor, will manage the small group process at their parish fall 2021.

SYNOD ASSEMBLY MEMBERS Two pastornominated parishioners who will represent their parish at the Synod Assembly June 2022.

FACILITATORS AND SCRIBES Parishioners who are trained to facilitate and provide feedback at parishes during the Parish Consultation with Small Group process. Another team of trained facilitators and scribes will assist with table discussion at the Deanery Consultation and Synod Assembly.