The Catholic Spirit - September 29, 2022

RETURNED TO EARTH NASA astronaut and 1985 Benilde-St. Margaret’s high school alumnus Mark Vande Hei returns a student ID to Anna Carr, a 2018 graduate of the school, that Vande Hei carried to the International Space Station in his first space mission in 2017. Vande Hei was honored Sept. 23 with an all-school academic convocation, school tour and other activities, and an official proclamation from Gov. Tim Walz declaring the day as Mark Vande Hei Day in Minnesota. In March, Vande Hei set the American record of 355 days in space aboard the ISS. He carried two student ID cards with him in 2017, the second for Nicolas Figueroa, who graduated two years ago. Figueroa’s brother, Mateo, a student at the school, received the card on behalf of his brother.

NEWS notes

A Sept. 17 groundbreaking at the annual parish festival Spirit Fest marked the construction phase of a new school and faith formation building at Divine Mercy in Faribault Fundraising for the $15 million complex continues, but the building — made possible by the parish’s United for Our Future capital campaign that has raised more than $6 million — is expected to be ready for the 2024-2025 school year. The building will include a gymnasium, cafeteria and other common spaces that can be shared with church groups, and it will be connected to the church, which was completed in 2009.

As he prepared for retirement after 45 years of supporting vulnerable young people through Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Andy Martin and his colleagues learned this month that he is the recipient of the 2022 Bishop M. Sullivan Award from Catholic Charities USA. The annual award recognizes someone’s distinguished work with children, youth and families at a Catholic Charities agency. Martin began working in overnight support in 1977 at the former St. Joseph’s Home for Children in Minneapolis. He later moved to administrative roles and recently returned to direct services at Hope Street for Youth, also in Minneapolis, a shelter that helps teens and young adults learn to live independently. Known for his facilitative leadership and empowering others, Martin said, “Plans work when other people believe in them, and people believe most in the plans they help create.”

Bishop Chad Zielinski, 58, was installed the fifth bishop of New Ulm Sept. 27 at St. Mary in Sleepy Eye. He succeeds Bishop John LeVoir, a Minneapolis native who led the diocese from 2008 until his retirement in 2020. Bishop Zielinski grew up in Michigan, served in the U.S. Air Force and in 1996 was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Gaylord, Michigan, and, beginning in 2002, ministered for more than a decade in the Archdiocese of Military Services. Prior to his appointment to New Ulm, he had served as bishop of Fairbanks, Alaska, beginning in 2014. Pope Francis named him to lead the New Ulm Diocese July 12.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul Twin Cities will hold its annual Friends of the Poor walk 10 a.m. Oct. 1 at Nativity of Mary in Bloomington. The proceeds will benefit people in need throughout the Twin Cities. Tacos, children’s games and a raffle will be offered after the walk. The society runs two thrift stores, one in Minneapolis and one in St. Paul. The society and its 28 parish conferences in the Twin Cities and around Minnesota provide food, emergency assistance, mentorship, job training and other services. To participate in the walk, make a pledge or learn more, visit SvdPmPlS org/community

The documentary film “Mother Teresa: No Greater Love” commemorating the 25th anniversary of the saint’s death will be shown 7 p.m. Oct. 3 or 4 in Twin Cities theaters including Minneapolis ShowPlace ICON Theatre & Kitchen, AMC Rosedale 14, AMC Southdale 16, AMC Eden Prairie Mall 18, Emagine White Bear and Marcus Oakdale Cinema. The film was produced by the Knights of Columbus and directed by Emmy award-winning filmmaker David Naglieri.

Nazareth Hall alumni are invited to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the former preparatory seminary in St. Paul at a special event Oct. 22 at University of Northwestern, which purchased the property on Lake Johanna from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1970. The event begins at 9 a.m. and includes time in the chapel, a campus tour including the university’s “Nazareth Hall: 100 Year Exhibit” and lunch. Registration is $20. RSVP by Oct. 3 at drmcdough@centurylink net or rjbaregi@gmail com, or by calling 952-935-5762.

PRACTICING Catholic

ON THE COVER Lezly Rodriguez of a local Aztec dancing troupe takes part in the processional of the Mass of Solidarity at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis Sept. 25, which was celebrated by Archbishop Bernard Hedba to acknowledge the World Day of Refugees and Migrants. This day has taken place on the last Sunday of September since 1914. In his homily, Archbishop Hebda acknowledged the various cultural groups within the archdiocese who wore cultural attire, burned incense, and sang and danced according to their native traditions throughout the Mass. “We have the opportunity to see and to celebrate how God enriches this local Church with the presence of Catholics from so many different cultures,” he said. “We need to recognize them as our brothers and sisters and be attentive to their needs and be willing to celebrate the goodness that they bring. … We are, indeed, one family united in Christ Jesus. We celebrate that this day, and we praise God for our diversity.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz declared Sept. 25, 2022, the Day of Migrants and Refugees. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan delivered the signed proclamation to the Mass. DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

On the Sept. 23 “Practicing Catholic” radio show, host Patrick Conley interviews Father Tom Margevicius, director of worship for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who describes the annual candlelight rosary procession from the State Capitol to the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul set for Oct. 7. The latest show also includes interviews with licensed marriage and family therapist Jake Voelker, who offers tips for navigating the early years of married life with joy; and figurative sculpture artist Maria Widstrom, who describes the two years she spent in art school in Florence, Italy, where she could involve her faith and learn about sculpture she could share with other Catholics. Listen to interviews after they have aired at PracticingcatholicShow com or anchor fm/Practicing catholic Show with links to podcasting platforms.

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DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

NEW SPACE Preschool teacher Amy Noran works with students Smith Mahoney, left, and Jane Strohkirch to make crosses in new classroom space at Our Lady of Grace Catholic School in Edina. The school recently finished and dedicated a two-story addition that includes classrooms and a gymnasium. After more than two decades without a preschool, the school has 109 preschool students in six classrooms.

COURTESY BENILDE-ST. MARGARET’S

FROMTHEMODERATOROF THECURIA

Don’t buy a religion

Iwas one of the top five sales people in a group of 1,000. I sold cellophane-wrapped caramel corn balls, boxes of candy, wreaths, vegetable and flower seeds, magazine subscriptions and occasionally tickets to win something. Everything I peddled from door to door was for our Catholic school and other parish activities. Yes, I was barely tall enough to ring the doorbell, but as my father used to say about my success in sales, “That kid could sell ice to Eskimos!”

As a child, it seemed that Catholics were the only ones selling things unless a Methodist became a Girl Scout. How did all those different faith communities keep the lights on if they weren’t out there selling things? As a child, I was impressed when a Jehovah’s Witness family gave me a comic book for free! They weren’t selling anything. Or were they? (By the way, it turned out not to be a comic book and my mother threw it away.)

After college, I thought I could sell real estate to make enough money so that I could teach full-time as a hobby. So, I obtained my real estate license. I walked with my first customers up the steps to my first listing. There, nailed to the front door, was a huge red sign that announced that a local authority had condemned the house as unfit for human habitation. Thus ended my career in sales.

The history of many Catholic parishes and schools includes a long list of selling things to raise money. Even as a pastor, I have walked past tables selling cookbooks, discount coupons, raffle tickets, flowers,

No compres una religión

Yo era uno de los cinco mejores vendedores en un grupo de mil. Vendí bolas de maíz acarameladas envueltas en celofán, cajas de dulces, coronas, semillas de vegetales y flores, suscripciones a revistas y, ocasionalmente, boletos para ganar algo. Todo lo que vendía de puerta en puerta era para nuestra escuela católica y otras actividades parroquiales. Sí, apenas era lo suficientemente alto como para tocar el timbre, pero como solía decir mi padre sobre mi éxito en las ventas: “¡Ese niño podría vender hielo a los esquimales!”

Cuando era niña, parecía que los católicos eran los únicos que vendían cosas a menos que un metodista se convirtiera en Girl Scout. ¿Cómo todas esas diferentes comunidades religiosas mantuvieron las luces encendidas si no estaban vendiendo cosas? Cuando era niño, me impresionó mucho que una familia de testigos de Jehová me regalara una historieta. No vendían nada. ¿O lo eran? Por cierto, resultó que no era un cómic y mi madre lo tiró.

Después de la universidad, pensé que podría vender bienes raíces para ganar suficiente dinero y poder enseñar a tiempo completo como pasatiempo. Entonces, obtuve mi licencia de bienes raíces. Caminé con mis primeros clientes por los escalones hasta mi primera lista. Allí, clavado en la puerta de entrada, había un enorme cartel

catechesis that our giving is necessary for our own life of faith.

There is a well-intended practice of funding as a reward. Some give if the conditions are right. Conditional giving is contradicted by Jesus himself. There could not have been an individual more critical of religious leaders and religious operations than Jesus. Yet in Matthew 17:24-27, Jesus sent Peter to the Sea of Galilee to catch a fish and retrieve from its mouth a coin to pay the temple tax. For Jesus, it was his duty. It was his offering. It was for God.

When we only give because the cause is good or the need is urgently pleaded, we are not making a freewill offering. It is but a judgmental decree on what is worthy of my money. Jesus honored his obligatory contribution regardless of how the Sanhedrin ran the temple.

iSTOCK PHOTO | BONGKARNTHANYAKIJ

Christmas cards and Mother’s Day corsages. Once, with a narthex full of hawkers for a good cause, I announced after Communion, “Jesus overturned the tables in the temple because they were cheating. Our sellers are honest, and it’s for a good cause!”

Catholic parishes and schools have come a long way. Parish fundraising is an emphasis on stewardship, sacrificial giving and the tried-but-still-true tripod of time, talent and treasure. The scriptural practice of “first fruits” was a gift of the best and choicest of time, talent and treasure. The time in prayer. The talent of service. The treasure that was the best fruits of labor as a gift of gratitude back to God. After all, the Apostles didn’t go around selling pomegranates to support the mission of Jesus Christ. It is simply a practical matter of ongoing

rojo que anunciaba que una autoridad local había declarado que la casa no era apta para ser habitada por humanos. Así terminó mi carrera en ventas.

La historia de muchas parroquias y escuelas católicas incluye una larga lista de ventas de cosas para recaudar dinero. Incluso como pastor, he pasado junto a mesas que venden libros de cocina, cupones de descuento, boletos de rifas, flores, tarjetas de Navidad y ramilletes del Día de la Madre. Una vez, con un nártex lleno de vendedores ambulantes por una buena causa, anuncié después de la Comunión: “Jesús volcó las mesas en el templo porque estaban haciendo trampa. ¡Nuestros vendedores son honestos y es por una buena causa!”

Las parroquias y escuelas católicas han recorrido un largo camino. La recaudación de fondos parroquial hace hincapié en la corresponsabilidad, la ofrenda sacrificial y el trípode del tiempo, el talento y el tesoro. La práctica bíblica de las “primicias” fue un regalo del mejor y más selecto tiempo, talento y tesoro. El tiempo en oración. El talento del servicio. El tesoro que fue los mejores frutos del trabajo como un regalo de agradecimiento a Dios. Después de todo, los Apóstoles no anduvieron vendiendo granadas para apoyar la misión de Jesucristo. Es simplemente una cuestión práctica de la catequesis continua que nuestro dar sea necesario para nuestra propia vida de fe.

Existe una práctica bien intencionada de financiación como recompensa. Algunos dan si las condiciones son las adecuadas. El dar condicional es contradicho por

At the time of Jesus, the first fruits of the people were brought to the temple. There were other worthy causes and people seeking alms. But the spiritual house came first. So too, our first and finest gifts are to be given to the parish, our spiritual house. It is in the parish where the sacramental life of the Church is celebrated and lived out. It is in a parish where we belong to a community in communion with the whole Church. As we seek to deepen our encounter with the person and real presence of Jesus Christ, God’s first fruit, we are to remember that for most of us, the holy sacrifice of the Mass is in a parish.

Generosity is the opposite of greed. It is putting a conscience on our dollars to first support our parish. It is not buying a religion. It is an unconditional gift of gratitude to God for all of God’s blessings and because we belong to a spiritual home.

el mismo Jesús. No pudo haber un individuo más crítico con los líderes religiosos y las operaciones religiosas que Jesús. Sin embargo, en Mateo 17:24-27, Jesús envió a Pedro al mar de Galilea para pescar un pez y sacar de su boca una moneda para pagar el impuesto del templo. Para Jesús, era su deber. Era su ofrenda. Fue por Dios.

Cuando solo damos porque la causa es buena o la necesidad es urgente, no estamos haciendo una ofrenda voluntaria. No es más que un decreto de juicio sobre lo que es digno de mi dinero. Jesús honró su contribución obligatoria sin importar cómo el Sanedrín dirigía el templo.

En la época de Jesús, se llevaban al templo las primicias del pueblo. Había otras causas dignas y gente que buscaba limosna. Pero la casa espiritual vino primero. Así también, nuestros primeros y mejores regalos deben ser entregados a la parroquia, nuestra casa espiritual. Es en la parroquia donde se celebra y se vive la vida sacramental de la Iglesia. Es en una parroquia donde pertenecemos a una comunidad en comunión con toda la Iglesia. Mientras buscamos profundizar nuestro encuentro con la persona y la presencia real de Jesucristo, la primicia de Dios, debemos recordar que para la mayoría de nosotros, el santo sacrificio de la Misa es en una parroquia.

La generosidad es lo opuesto a la codicia. Es poner conciencia en nuestros dólares para apoyar primero a nuestra parroquia. No es comprar una religión. Es un regalo incondicional de gratitud a Dios por todas las bendiciones de Dios y porque pertenecemos a un hogar espiritual.

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

Effective September 15, 2022

Reverend Michael Krenik, assigned as pastor of the Churches of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Minneapolis. Father Krenik has been serving as parochial administrator of the same parishes.

Effective October 1, 2022

Deacon Michael Braun, assigned as permanent deacon of the Church of the Guardian Angels in Oakdale. This is a transfer from his previous assignment at the Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Maplewood.

Deacon Michael Engel, assigned as permanent deacon of the Church of Saint Henry in Monticello. This is a transfer from his previous assignment at the Church of Saint Michael in Saint Michael.

Deacon Phil Grisez, assigned as permanent deacon of the Church of Saint Stephen in Anoka. This is a transfer from his previous assignment at the Church of Our Lady of Grace in Edina.

Deacon Michael Lane, assigned as permanent deacon of the Church of Lumen Christi in Saint Paul. This is a transfer from his previous assignment at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Saint Paul.

When we only give because the cause is good or the need is urgently pleaded, we are not making a freewill offering. It is but a judgmental decree on what is worthy of my money.

Solanus intercession

Father Michael Creagan, pastor of St. Joseph in West St. Paul, places a monstrance with the Eucharist on a small altar in honor of Blessed Solanus Casey built by Jennifer and Jerry Duszka to help commemorate the 25th annual Michaelmas Vespers and Eucharistic Procession Sept. 25. The event began with vespers at St. Michael in Stillwater and continued with a procession covering several blocks to St. Mary. There were two stops along the way, one at the Duszkas and the other at the home of Nick and Katie Sarokhanian, who built an altar in honor of St. Charles Borromeo as a way to acknowledge another nearby parish, St. Charles in Bayport. As a young man in the 1880s, before he entered seminary, Blessed Solanus spent time at St. Michael, where his uncle was pastor. The Michaelmas event — called by the traditional name for the Sept. 29 feast of St. Michael the Archangel, now the feast of the archangels, including Raphael and Gabriel — was started by Father Michael Skluzacek, who was then pastor of St. Michael and St. Mary. He gave a homily during this year’s event, and walked in the procession along with other priests including Father Michael Izen, pastor of St. Michael and St. Mary, and members of both parishes. Behind Father Creagan at the Blessed Solanus Casey altar are Deacons William Kratt, center, and Kyle Etzel.

Religious sisters’ streetside rally in St. Paul targets assault rifles

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

Sister Mary Calder felt moved to participate in a rally supporting a ban on assault rifles at the state and federal level Aug. 28 held outside of her residence, Carondelet Village in St. Paul. From her spot along the curb, the 90-year-old Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet held a sign that read “Ban and Buy Back.”

Hearing car horns and seeing drivers wave or give a thumbs up, Sister Mary said she thought most people driving past the rally on Fairview Avenue appeared to support the dozens of people who participated that afternoon.

One goal was to raise awareness of the issue, said Sister Mary, whose ministries before she retired included serving as a teacher in elementary schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and in school administration, including as associate principal at Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul. Another rally goal was “doing something to move people,” she said.

“We have to start someplace, and we just have to do something,” Sister Mary said. “And when we’re this old, we can’t do a whole lot, but we can do what we can do.”

Organizing the event were retired Father John Forliti, 86, and Mary Kruser, 82, also residents of Carondelet Village, a senior living center run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. Participants added their voices to those of national groups such as Minneapolis-based Women Against Military Madness, Father Forliti said. If more people speak up, “we’re likely to see more action,” he said.

On June 23, four bishops leading committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops submitted a letter to members of Congress stating support

for “a total ban on assault weapons, a ban on ‘bump stocks,’ limitations on civilian access to high-capacity weapons and ammunition magazines, and a more appropriate minimum age for gun ownership.” It also expressed the USCCB’s support for measures including universal background checks for all gun purchases.

The bishops’ letter followed up to their similar letter dated June 3, in which they referred to several recent mass shootings and wrote: “There is something deeply wrong with a culture where these acts of violence are increasingly common. There must be dialogue followed by concrete action to bring about a broader social renewal that addresses all aspects of the crisis, including mental health,

the state of families, the valuation of life, the influence of entertainment and gaming industries, bullying, and the availability of firearms. Among the many steps toward addressing this endemic of violence is the passage of reasonable gun control measures.”

In July, spurred by a series of mass shootings, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an assault weapons ban. The Senate has not taken action on the bill.

Since a federal ban on assault weapons expired 18 years ago, people have purchased millions of them, Father Forliti said. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade industry group, has estimated that in 2020 about 20 million assault weapons were in circulation in

the U.S.

“Our culture has been moved, shaped into a gun culture,” said Father Forliti, who favors stronger background checks and reinstating the national assault rifle ban.

Former Minneapolis Police Chief John Laux, an 80-year-old parishioner of St. Olaf in Minneapolis who is retired from decades of law enforcement, attended the rally at Father Forliti’s request.

“This group is fired up,” Laux said. “They want something to happen. And they will keep pounding away until they get their message out.”

A follow-up rally outside Carondelet Village was to be held Sept. 29 at the same location. This time, organizers have invited students from St. Catherine University and the University of St. Thomas, both in St. Paul, to join residents and neighbors.

Gun violence has also spurred a Minneapolis parish to action through educational efforts. After the May 24 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that took the lives of 19 students and two teachers, Our Lady of Peace in Minneapolis hosted a prayer service.

Parishioner Leah Kondes, a member of Moms Demand Action, a group advocating for gun safety and violence prevention in Minnesota, addressed gun reform after the service.

The parish also was to host a “Be Smart for Kids” workshop Sept. 28 for parents to learn gun safety tactics, and is planning a book discussion 12:20 p.m. Oct. 16 with James Densley, co-author of “The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic,” which will focus on the phenomenon of mass shootings in the U.S. and evidence-based strategies to stop them.

Ruff to lead The Catholic Spirit; Wiering joins OSV national Catholic news service

The Catholic Spirit

Joe Ruff, news editor of The Catholic Spirit since November 2018, has been promoted to editor-in-chief effective Oct. 10 as Maria Wiering, who has led the newspaper since 2015, joins Our Sunday Visitor newspaper and publishing company.

“We will greatly miss Maria,” Ruff said. “She will bring a love of the Catholic Church, journalistic precision and professionalism to her role at OSV.”

Ruff worked 18 years as a reporter and editor with The Associated Press, most of that time in Omaha, Nebraska. He joined The Omaha World-Herald as a business reporter in 2005, and was

named news editor of the Catholic Voice, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Omaha, in 2010.

“I am honored to work with a fantastic group of communicators and Church leaders in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis,” Ruff said. “It will be a blessing and a challenge to build on the fine tradition of The Catholic Spirit.”

Wiering will be senior writer, with a focus on in-depth news and feature writing, for OSV News, a Catholic news service launching Jan. 1 to fill the void

created by the Dec. 31 closure of Catholic News Service’s domestic news operations.

Wiering began her journalism career as an intern with The Catholic Spirit in 2004, and she was a reporter and news coordinator on its staff from 2006-2010, before returning in 2015 as editor and publications manager. She oversaw the newspaper through major challenges in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, including its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, its leadership transition from Archbishop

John Nienstedt to Archbishop Bernard Hebda, its resolution of civil and criminal charges related to a clergy sexual abuse case, and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as positive Church renewal efforts, especially the three-year Archdiocesan Synod process. The newspaper has won numerous Catholic Media Association awards during Wiering’s tenure.

“It has been a privilege to lead The Catholic Spirit during these pivotal years, and it has been an honor to work closely with Archbishop Hebda, our publisher,” Wiering said. “I have no doubt the newspaper will continue to strive to serve our Catholic community with energy and excellence under Joe’s capable leadership.”

Retired priest removed from ministry as abuse allegation is investigated

By Joe Ruff

The Catholic Spirit

A retired priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Father Michael Ince, has been placed on a leave of absence from priestly ministry while an allegation of abusing a minor in the 1980s is investigated.

“In accordance with archdiocesan policies, the archdiocesan Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment promptly reported this

to law enforcement, who advised that they are investigating the allegation,” Archbishop Bernard Hebda said in a statement Sept. 26. “Once law enforcement completes its investigation the archdiocese will follow its processes to determine next steps.

“Also, in accordance with archdiocesan practice, Father Ince is on a leave of absence and will not exercise priestly ministry during the investigation,” the archbishop continued. “This is a standard,

precautionary measure to promote safety and to ensure that a fair and thorough investigation may be conducted. I ask that no one prejudge this situation. Once the investigation determines what has happened, appropriate actions will be taken. Please pray for all involved in this situation.”

Father Ince, 86, was ordained in 1964. He began his ministry with assignments as an assistant priest of St. John the Baptist in Hugo, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin in Bloomington and

Immaculate Conception in Columbia Heights, where in 1972, he was named vicar econome.

In 1974, Father Ince was assigned as assistant priest of Holy Spirit in St. Paul. In 1976, he was assigned as assistant priest of St. Agnes in St. Paul until 1991, when he was assigned as pastor of Holy Trinity in Waterville and parochial administrator of St. Andrew in Elysian, ministering to both parishes. He retired from active ministry in July 2021.

MARIA WIERING

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

St. Joseph of Carondelet Sister Mary Calder joins a rally Aug. 28 at Carondelet Village in St. Paul supporting a ban on assault rifles.

JOE RUFF

Under implementation team, Synod outcomes to shape future

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

The work of implementing fruits of the three-day Archdiocesan Synod Assembly in June is ongoing, and it will gain steam as parishes forge responses to the major themes of a pastoral letter Archbishop Bernard Hebda is writing and plans to release Nov. 20, the feast of Christ the King.

“We had this beautiful experience over the past three years,” Archbishop Hebda said Sept. 16 on the “Practicing Catholic” program on Relevant Radio 1330 AM. “Now we have to make it concrete.”

An office of Synod implementation will help bring to life the Synod’s main focus areas, which were developed during a three-year preparation process and will be key to the pastoral letter, the archbishop said.

“What’s really key for us at the moment is preparing for a pastoral letter,” the archbishop said. “That will be, really, an unveiling of how it is that we’re going to concretize the priorities set forth in the Synod, and those things that have resonated in my heart as well.”

Parishes are creating and will be training teams to help act on the pastoral letter beginning in the fall of 2023, the archbishop said. The focus areas of the

Synod were: Forming parishes that are in the service of evangelization, forming missionary disciples who know Jesus’ love and respond to his call, and forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young.

In addition to programmatic elements, one of the implementation office’s main tasks will be to “help us remain faithful not only to the Synod process, but to its spiritual character,” the archbishop told Patrick Conley, host of “Practicing Catholic.”

Priest and theological advisory groups and others involved with the Synod process to date will also help implementation move forward, Archbishop Hebda said. The work will be supported by prayer teams, he said.

Pastors will be an important focus for the Synod implementation team, Archbishop Hebda said, as parishes assemble their own implementation teams.

Each pastor is asked to discern those people with “a missionary bent that will help us to do this work,” he said. The Synod implementation team is also helping prepare the archbishop’s pastoral letter and providing ideas on assimilating it into the life of parishes.

Deacon Joe Michalak is transitioning from his role as director of the Institute for Diaconate Formation at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul to a full-time position as director of the officially named Office of Synod Evangelization. Along with Father Joseph Bambenek, who has been closely involved throughout the Synod process, Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Williams and Father Michael Becker, pastor of Sts. Joachim and Anne in Shakopee, will also be involved with Synod implementation. They’ll be assisted by Jeff Cavins and Kelly Wahlquist from the Archbishop Flynn Catechetical Institute at The St. Paul Seminary.

Father Smith ‘a spiritual giant’ at St. Thomas

The Catholic Spirit

Father David Smith had a powerful effect on many students he taught over several decades at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. The retired faculty member of the university died Sept. 13. He was 85.

Paul Langenfeld, 59, was an undergraduate at UST in the 1980s and took classes from the man he first met at his home parish of Guardian Angels in Hastings (now St. Elizabeth Ann Seton) when he was about 12. His whole family got to know — and love — Father Smith who regularly celebrated weekend Masses at Guardian Angels. That led to meals at the Langenfeld home, and to Paul considering the priesthood and eventually earning both a bachelor’s degree at St. Thomas and a master’s degree at The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity.

“Not only was he a living saint, but he was my spiritual director for a decade. … He was also a mentor — my mentor — my role model, my trusted adviser and one of my dearest friends,” said Langenfeld, a parishioner of St. Peter Claver in St. Paul and founder, president and CEO of The Langenfeld Foundation, which helps people with disabilities. Others felt the same way about a man Langenfeld calls “a spiritual giant.” He recalled that during his undergraduate days, Father Smith would sometimes celebrate daily Mass in the basement of the main chapel at St. Thomas to “an overflow crowd.”

Father Smith, who grew up in Hinsdale, Illinois, was ordained in 1964 and served at Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul (1964-1966) and St. John the Baptist in Excelsior (1966) before starting graduate studies in 1967. In 1970, he joined the faculty at UST in the theology department, and later founded the Department of Justice and Peace in 1985. He retired in 2007.

Father Smith’s funeral Mass was Sept. 16 at UST. Interment was at Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota Heights. It was at St. Thomas that Father

Smith met Father Michael Joncas, also a longtime theology professor who retired in 2022.

ARCHBISHOP BERNARD HEBDA

“I’m hoping that as we roll out the pastoral letter and our plans for Synod implementation, that the people in the pews, and especially those who participated in the parish process, are going to be saying, ‘Oh, this is indeed what we were talking about,’ and that this is a reasonable and well-discerned path for moving forward on those points,” Archbishop Hebda said. “There should be some connection with what we’ve done over these last three years, but also moving from just the realm of the theoretical to something that’s very practical, that helps us at the archdiocese.”

— Joe Ruff contributed to this report.

Father Wang helped UST students solidify their faith

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

two years ago.

“When I, too, joined the theology department after my own doctoral study in Rome, David generously welcomed me and shared his wisdom about being a professor who tried to maintain high standards for his students, but was also understanding of their difficulties and generous with time for counsel,” said Father Joncas, 70. Father Smith’s passion for reading led to a collection of books that couldn’t be contained in his apartment at the Leo C. Byrne Residence for retired priests in St. Paul.

A priest originally from China who taught at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul for 29 years was remembered in part for the way he helped solidify students’ faith as he shared his deep knowledge of the Old Testament.

“He was a popular professor, very academic in his teaching,” but always pastoral, said retired Bishop Richard Pates, who knew Father Peter Wang for 40 years and delivered the homily at Father Wang’s Sept. 15 funeral in St. Paul. “He wasn’t just giving facts and figures,” Bishop Pates said, but was understanding and helpful.

While Father Wang was growing up in China, communists were coming into power, Bishop Pates said, so Father Wang traveled to Malaysia, then Belgium, to study theology in preparation for the priesthood. One of nine children, with a brother who also became a priest and a sister who became a nun, Father Wang was “a very gentle man,” and a gentleman in his interaction with others, the bishop said.

FATHER DAVID SMITH

John Krause, a longtime friend of Father Smith’s, helped move the priest from his apartment at St. Thomas to the Byrne Residence.

“When we moved him, I think he had three different bookshelves that were maybe 4 feet wide and maybe five shelves high, full of books,” said Krause, 79, a parishioner of St. Joseph in West St. Paul. Father Smith had more books that are housed in a nearby storage unit. Not bad for a man who for decades had to place books in a specially designed box to keep the fumes from making him sick. He had severe allergies to both chemicals and food, and would grind up bland foods and place them in a jar to take wherever he went.

“He lived a life without a lot of worldly pleasures, and yet he lived life to the fullest,” Langenfeld said.

Father Smith was part of an ecumenical Christian community called the People of Praise, and he was known for praying with people for healing, Krause said. Marty Roers, who works in social justice with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, said Father Smith also had a “commitment, passion and dedication to peace and nonviolence. He was very beloved and active in the peace community.”

Father Wang died Sept. 12 at age 91. He lived his final days at Little Sisters of the Poor Holy Family Residence in St. Paul, which offers nursing home services, assisted living and hospice care. His funeral was celebrated at the Chapel of the Little Sisters of the Poor, which is part of the same facility. Interment was at Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota Heights.

Bishop Pates, bishop emeritus of Des Moines, Iowa, and former auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis currently living in Mendota Heights, said he met Father Wang while serving as rector of St. John Vianney College Seminary starting in 1980. Father Wang was the “professor of Old Testament” at St. Thomas, Bishop Pates said. Their friendship continued through Father Wang’s stay at the Little Sisters of the Poor facility the past two years, as Bishop Pates served there as “a frequent visiting priest,” the bishop said. Father Wang had a strong devotion to the Virgin Mary, Bishop Pates said, and he noted the final events of his life corresponded with important Marian dates on the Church’s liturgical calendar: he died Sept. 12, the feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary, and was buried Sept. 15, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.

Ordained a priest in Belgium May 5, 1957, for the Archdiocese of Shenyang in China, Father Wang joined the UST faculty in 1967 and retired in 1996. He was incardinated into the archdiocese

Ramon Tan, 80, who once owned a wholesale grocery store and small café in Minneapolis called United Noodles, knew Father Wang for nearly 20 years. He recalled Father Wang and his late sister, Maria, coming to the store two to three times a week for groceries and often staying for lunch. Tan, a friend of his and the friend’s sister became close friends with Father Wang, who shared a knowledge of Mandarin Chinese and places in China. Father Wang also spoke English, Latin, French, German and Hebrew.

FATHER PETER WANG

“It was just like a family for many years,” Tan said. In fact, Father Wang asked Tan and another in the group to be his power of attorney, Tan said. Father Wang’s only living relative in the U.S. is his nephew, Father Peter Liu, 89, who lives in a nursing home in New York City, Tan said.

Bernard Brady, professor of theology and associate director of the Office for Mission at the University of St. Thomas, worked with Father Wang from 1989 to 1996. He said the priest was “a delightful colleague,” dedicated to Scripture scholarship and committed to students and teaching.

Brady recalled being approached by a former student of Father Wang’s at a St. Thomas event. Father Wang and the student had long since left the university, but the student told Brady what an impact the priest had made on his life. “I was amazed,” Brady said, recalling Father Wang’s “gentle presence.”

Dave Hrbacek

‘Priests-in-solidum’ assignments become more common in archdiocese

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

Five priests and one bishop have been assigned to serve the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis as priests-in-solidum, with the first two serving since last summer. The designation, which describes the pastoral care of one or more parishes to a team of priests, was introduced in the Church’s Code of Canon Law in 1983, but is just now being used more regularly within the archdiocese.

The archdiocese has some history in the 1980s and 1990s of assigning a team of priests to care for a parish, sometimes under the titles of co-pastors. In the priest-in-solidum arrangement, priests share the governing authority as equals, with a team approach to administering the parish, said Susan Mulheron, chancellor for canonical affairs. That’s different than a pastor and a parochial vicar relationship, where the pastor leads the parish with the vicar’s assistance.

One priest-in-solidum at an assignment is designated the moderator, similar to a “tie-breaker,” Mulheron said. But more than that, the moderator is the legal representative of the parish, she said, the person signing proxy requests for permissions for major transactions, advancing decisions made jointly by the pastoral team and answering for the business of the parish to the archbishop, she said.

But the moderator does not supervise other priestsin-solidum, Mulheron said. “It’s an equal relationship.”

Since July 1, 2021, Father Bryce Evans and Father Byron Hagan have served as priests-in-solidum at St. Mary in St. Paul. Father Hagan, the moderator, also serves as chaplain for Regions Hospital in St. Paul, and Father Evans works at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

This summer, Maternity of Mary and Holy Childhood in St. Paul also adopted the model, with Father Andrew Brinkman serving as moderator and priest-in-solidum alongside Father Philip Vigneron. Both are members of the Emmanuel Community, an

organization of clergy, married, single and consecrated members who respond to God’s call to holiness through its three “pillars” of adoration, compassion and evangelization. A community was formed in the archdiocese in 1999.

And since Sept. 8, Father James Bernard and Bishop Joseph Williams have served as priests-in-solidum at Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul, where the bishop had been serving as the parish’s parochial administrator. He is the moderator.

Assignments consider both a parish’s needs and available priests, Mulheron said. St. Mary does not need two full-time priests but both men sought community life and a shared assignment where each takes on a half-time assignment while serving elsewhere. When St. Mary needed a pastor, “the pieces

came together and made sense” for the priest-insolidum relationship, Mulheron said.

“We’re hearing from a lot of priests that they’re desiring community life and more of a team experience in ministry,” she said. The model can provide parishes a balance of leadership styles and skills, she said.

“We ask a lot of our pastors to be great at a wide variety of things, everything from preaching to spiritual care to administration,” she said. A team approach increases the chances of the priests complementing each other’s skills, which benefits parishioners, she said.

The model also gives the archbishop flexibility to provide pastoral care in a way he thinks is the best option for a parish’s circumstances, Mulheron said, and it has great potential as a model of parish governance.

The situation at Our Lady of Guadalupe is unique with Bishop Williams serving there, said Father Michael Van Sloun, the archdiocese’s director of clergy personnel. Because Bishop Williams also is vicar for Latino affairs, he can lead with his feet on the ground at a parish, providing guidance to other parishes doing the same ministry, he said.

It also gives Father Bernard’s position a bit more standing, Father Van Sloun said, as he will lead the parish when the bishop is tending to other obligations.

Father Bernard, ordained in 2021, lived with Bishop Williams when he was assigned as a seminarian to assist then-Father Williams at St. Stephen in Minneapolis, where the now-bishop ministered through Sept. 7. There, the two shared in prayer, which Father Bernard called “very formative.” Father Bernard said he believes with two priests at a parish, “we can focus on our strengths,” which benefits parishioners.

Father Bernard anticipates value in collaborating more intentionally. “It’s an opportunity to check with one another and … dissect different ideas,” he said, that could bring about better decisions for the parish.

“There’s a certain synergy of two people hashing out ideas and sharing thoughts,” he said.

Forest Lake pastor apologizes to victims, community for intervening for perpetrator

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit

The pastor of St. Peter in Forest Lake apologized to the victims, the faithful and the community for writing a letter to a judge in July seeking clemency for a longtime parishioner and parish volunteer who was convicted the month before and awaited sentencing for sexual misconduct with two boys while he was a teacher in a public school.

Father Daniel Bodin wrote back Sept. 14 to Washington County District Judge Richard Ilkka, who was presiding over the case, retracting his earlier letter and asking the judge to “not consider the contents of my prior letter as you determine the appropriate sentence in this matter.”

“I made a terrible mistake that has

compounded the pain of Jim Carter’s victims, their families and so many others impacted by the sin of sexual abuse,” Father Bodin said in a Sept. 15 statement. “I have reached out to apologize and have spoken personally with some of the people most affected. I think right now the focus should be on their well-being and I do not want to do anything that could cause more difficulty. My hope is that the next step toward healing occurs when Jim Carter is held accountable for his crimes and sentenced by the court.”

Father Bodin also expressed his regret and took full responsibility in an open letter dated Sept. 14 and posted on the parish website.

Carter, 58, was found guilty in June of one count of second-degree criminal sexual misconduct with a student

between April 2019 and August 2020 at his home, and one count of fourth-degree sexual misconduct for inappropriate contact with another student in December 2018, the Forest Lake Times reported. Carter, who was a Forest Lake Area School District middle school teacher of industrial technology and shop, was sentenced Sept. 16 to a year in jail and 25 years of supervised probation. The judge stayed a four-year prison term in lieu of probation that includes Carter completing a sex offender treatment program, having only court-approved contact with any minor and seeing a therapist trained in treating sex offenders.

Carter was a volunteer catechist for about eight years at St. Peter. When the allegations were raised in 2020, Carter was removed from that volunteer role and Father Bodin encouraged anyone at

the parish or school with information about misconduct by Carter to “please contact law enforcement immediately.”

No concerns were raised, Father Bodin told Ilkka in his July letter.

At Carter’s sentencing, the mother of one of the two victims said in court that Carter used his position in the community and in the church to lure children, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.

On the parish website, Father Bodin said he deeply regretted writing the first letter. “Children count on us for protection and I am committed to creating and maintaining safe environments both at our school and in our parish community,” he wrote.

“My first letter was incompatible with that commitment. I should have known better and foreseen the harm.”

Donors identify property near Stillwater for Catholic retreat and youth camp

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

A nonprofit group of private donors in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has been looking for a permanent site near the Twin Cities to hold summer camps for middle schoolers and fall, winter and spring retreats for parishes and schools — and leaders believe they have found the spot.

Minnesota Catholic Youth Partnership plans to purchase 600 acres north of Stillwater in Washington

County from the St. Paul-based Wilder Foundation. The group had been hoping to find more than 300 acres within 90 minutes of the Twin Cities’ downtown areas that provided “a good water experience,” said Tim Healy, a parishioner of Holy Name of Jesus in Medina, who, with his wife, Helen, leads the group. The targeted site includes three lakes.

The group intends to keep the property in its natural state and bring out the beauty of nature to young people who are struggling, Tim Healy said. The needs are great, he said.

“We feel strongly that as people get closer to nature, there’s a natural progression to get closer to God,” Healy said.

“We feel there’s such a great need to offer a faith-based camp experience for the young people of our diocese,” especially those in urban areas who have not been able to experience summer camp, Healy said. At the same time, the facility will be open to parishes and schools across the state, he said.

The group’s planned use for the property is consistent with its original

purpose and function, Healy said. “It was a summer camp and retreat center for 40 years, and we’re just taking it back to its original (function).” Most recently, the land has been the site of the River Grove charter school.

The Minnesota Catholic Youth Partnership plans to own and run the camp, with an operating agreement with Ohio-based Damascus Catholic Mission Campus to lead programming, Healy said. Other groups will be able to rent the facility as well, he said.

Healy expects the sale to be finalized in mid- to late winter.

BARB UMBERGER | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Bishop Joseph Williams and Father James Bernard stand outside Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul where both started serving together as priests-in-solidum Sept. 8.

U.S. synod report finds participants share common hopes, lingering pain

By Dennis Sadowski Catholic News Service

Catholics across the United States continue to feel wounded by the clergy abuse crisis, seek a more welcoming Church in which their “lived reality” is prioritized over rules and regulations, and desire lifelong spiritual, pastoral and catechetical formation as disciples, according to a report for the Vatican synthesizing a 10-month synodal process in dioceses.

Participants in the process also expressed concern that the U.S. Catholic Church is deeply divided and that a lack of unity exists among the bishops, spoke of a desire to “accompany with authenticity” LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, and voiced hope that laypeople’s gifts would be more widely utilized in a spirit of collaboration throughout the Church, the report said.

Released Sept. 19 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the report summarizes the concerns, hopes, pains and desires voiced by an estimated 700,000 participants who joined thousands of listening sessions and other events during the diocesan phase in the lead-up to the Synod of Bishops on synodality in October 2023.

There are roughly 66.8 million Catholics in the U.S., according to the report, meaning more than 1% of Catholics participated in the listening sessions. Among them were Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who took part in an online survey and three listening sessions with specific groups. The archdiocese’s local report also included information from its Archdiocesan Synod process, which began in 2019 and culminated with a Synod Assembly in June 2022.

“The listening is an opening movement toward a wise discernment locally, regionally and nationally about what our deepest concerns, our deepest hopes are right now at this moment in time,” said Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, who is overseeing the U.S. involvement in the synodal process.

Bishop Flores, who chairs the USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine, said the process that has unfolded since October 2021 — and led to the 16-page synthesis report — enabled people to respectfully listen to each other and develop a new understanding of what life in the Church can be. “It’s an important step that gives us an experience as a local Church,” Bishop Flores said. “That’s why I think it’s always important to see that this is a seed that is planted and has a chance to grow. I think that’s what the Holy Father is asking for us.”

Titled “National Synthesis of the People of God in the United States of America for the Diocesan Phase of the 2021-2023 Synod,” the report was prepared in advance of the Synod of Bishops called by Pope Francis. The synod’s theme is “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission.”

The report is the synthesis of 290 documents received by the USCCB from various contributors. The report said the documents “represent over 22,000 reports from individual parishes and other groups” that emerged from more

than 30,000 opportunities to join the synodal process.

The national synthesis report draws from the 14 intermediate syntheses submitted by teams from each of the geographic regions of the U.S. Church. All 178 Latin dioceses and archdioceses submitted syntheses that were incorporated into the regional reports.

The 18 Eastern Catholic eparchies and archeparchies, which make up a separate region under the USCCB, submitted their reports directly to the Vatican.

For the process, the USCCB created a 16th “region” for the numerous Catholic national ministries, universities, associations and organizations working throughout the country. Those organizations submitted 112 summary reports.

In a letter introducing the report, Bishop Flores described the document as “an attempt to synthesize and contextualize the common joys, hopes and wounds called forth with the help of the Holy Spirit in the unfolding of the synod.”

“While not a complete articulation of the many topics and perspectives shared in the listening process, this synthesis is an attempt to express the broader themes that seemed most prevalent in the dioceses and regions of our country,” he wrote.

The report is divided into four themes: “Enduring Wounds,” “Enhancing Communion and Participation,” “Ongoing Formation for Mission” and “Engaging Discernment.” Each section summarizes common observations raised in the listening sessions.

It includes directly quoted descriptions of common concerns, hopes and desires from individual regional reports raised in the local listening sessions.

The report cites several “enduring wounds” expressed during the sessions. In addition to the still unfolding effects of the sexual abuse crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to exact a toll on the sense of community people felt before the virus swept around the world in 2020.

“The pandemic itself ‘has led to the fraying of our communities in some

ways, accelerating a trend toward disengagement and intensifying the isolation and loneliness of many, youth and elderly in particular. A large number of faithful have not yet returned to worship,’” the report said, quoting the Region 12 submission from Northwestern states.

Divisiveness and polarization in the Church was a concern expressed in multiple regional reports. The Region 9 report covering four Midwestern states said division over the celebration of the Eucharist is disconcerting, particularly when it comes to the pre-Vatican II Mass.

“The limited access to the 1962 missal was lamented; many felt that the difference over how to celebrate the liturgy ‘sometimes reach the level of animosity. People on each side of the issue reported feeling judged by those who differ from them,’” the national synthesis report said, quoting the Region 9 submission.

Other concerns were expressed by people who feel marginalized. The report said marginalized people fall into two broad groups. One was made up of those who are vulnerable by their lack of social or economic power, including those with disabilities, the mentally ill, immigrants, ethnic minorities, people in the U.S. without documents, the unborn and their mothers, and those living in poverty, who are homeless, incarcerated or living with an addiction.

The second group includes women, “whose voices are frequently marginalized in the decision-making processes of the Church,” the report said. Others in the group include those who are marginalized “because circumstances in their own lives are experienced as impediments to full participation in the life of the Church” including people who identify as LGBTQ+ and people who are divorced and may have remarried, and those civilly but not sacramentally married.

Under the theme of “Enhancing Communion and Participation,” the sacramental life of the Church and the spirit of welcome within the Church were addressed. The report found that the wounds expressed among

participants in listening sessions could be addressed by the Church being more welcoming to those not in the mainstream.

Quoting the Region 13 report from Southwestern states, the synthesis report said participants were concerned with “obstacles to community within their parishes, partly due to the divisive political climate and resulting polarization within the country.”

People in the region also identified the centrality of the Eucharist as a “source of hope for greater unity.” They said in addition that “receiving Eucharist does bring them more closely in solidarity with the poor,” according to the synthesis report.

Concerns about racism within the Church and a lack of welcome to diverse cultural and ethnic communities emerged in listening sessions. The elderly, the report said, were particularly hurt by the departure of young people from Church life. “Young people themselves voiced a feeling of exclusion and desired to participate more fully as members of the parish community,” the synthesis report said.

The synthesis report also included the observation that “nearly all synodal consultations shared a deep appreciation for the powerful impact of women religious who have consistently led the way in carrying out the mission of the Church.”

Participants in listening sessions expressed a “desire for stronger leadership, discernment and decisionmaking roles for women — both lay and religious — in their parishes and communities.”

The synthesis report said a common hope that emerged nationwide was the “desire for lifelong spiritual, pastoral and catechetical formation as disciples,” and recognized the importance of evangelization.

The final theme, “Engaging Discernment,” concluded that the diocesan phase of the synodal process was the first step in a Church rooted in synodality, or walking together.

Going forward, the report called for continued engagement with communities that did not participate broadly in the listening sessions, particularly Indigenous people, ethnic communities and immigrants.

The next phase in preparation for the Synod of Bishops is called the continental phase. Teams will gather by continent to synthesize the reports submitted to the Vatican thus far. Synod officials will prepare the “instrumentum laboris,” or working document, to guide continental or regional ecclesial assemblies that will take place by March.

The North American report will be submitted by the U.S. and Canada.

Those assemblies will produce another set of documents that will help in the drafting of a second working document for the Synod of Bishops in October 2023. The synod is expected to produce a final document on how synodality can be practiced throughout the Church.

Editor’s Note: The full national synthesis report and each of the 14 regional intermediate reports are available online at usccb org/synod

VATICAN MEDIA | CNS

Pope Francis accepts a document on people with disabilities from Giulia Cirillo, a member of the Sant’Egidio community, at the end of the Sept. 21 general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. People with disabilities submitted a draft document to the Synod of Bishops on the needs of people with disabilities and their contributions to the life of the Church.

uFlorida bishop asks for God’s protection from Hurricane Ian. As the Tampa Bay area on Florida’s west coast prepared for what was expected to be a direct hit from Hurricane Ian, Bishop Gregory Parkes of St. Petersburg, which includes Tampa, invited all in the diocese to pray to God “for the protection of life and property as we face this serious threat” Sept. 27. Forecasters predicted the storm would strengthen before making landfall “likely near Tampa Bay” late Sept. 28 or Sept. 29.

uArizona judge rules 1864 law banning nearly all abortions can take effect. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich praised Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson for ruling Sept. 23 that a state law prohibiting nearly all abortions can take effect. The Republican attorney general filed a motion in July asking the court to allow the law to take effect. Enacted in 1864, before Arizona’s statehood, the law prohibits all abortions except to save the life of a pregnant woman. The law had been blocked since 1973, the year the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion across the country. With its ruling June 24 of this year that overturned Roe, the U.S. Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion to the states.

uCatholic group honors Fauci, wife for their life’s work in health care. Dr. Anthony Fauci and Christine Grady, his wife and a National Institutes of Health colleague, received the Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Award for Exemplary Public Service from the Ignatian Volunteer Corps of the National Capital Area Sept. 18 in North Bethesda, Maryland. Fauci has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health since 1984 and now also serves as the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. For more than two years, he has helped lead the United States’ efforts to confront the COVID-19 pandemic.

uSenate delays vote on measure to codify same-sex marriage in federal law. The U.S. Senate Sept. 15 delayed a vote on a bill to codify same-sex marriage in federal law until after the midterm elections. Catholic and other faith leaders opposed to the measure, titled the Respect for Marriage Act, said if it became law, it would jeopardize the religious freedom of millions of Americans “who have sincerely held beliefs” about traditional marriage. The U.S. House passed the bill July 19 with a large, bipartisan vote of 267-157. According to The Hill news outlet, the Senate vote delay was announced after a bipartisan group of negotiators decided to give more time to consider “an amendment designed to respond to the concerns of GOP lawmakers who feared the legislation could put churches and other religious institutions at legal risk if Congress voted to codify same-sex marriage rights.”

uBishops in Belgium authorize prayer for committed gay couples. The Flemish-speaking bishops of Belgium have appointed a contact person for ministry to and with gay Catholics and have authorized prayer for committed gay couples on the condition it is clear that it is not equivalent to a wedding blessing. The document, “Being pastorally close to homosexual persons: For a welcoming church that excludes no one,” was dated Sept. 20 and posted on the website of the Belgian bishops. In March 2021, the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the Catholic Church “does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless” same-sex unions. The Vatican press office had no comment when asked about the Belgian bishops’ statement Sept. 20.

Bill aims to protect pregnancy centers, investigate attacks

Catholic News Service

House sponsors of a new bill to protect pregnancy centers said the measure would require the Biden administration to publicly disclose how it is handling the investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators of violent attacks on pregnancy resource centers around the country.

“My goal is to foster an environment where no woman feels like their only option is abortion, and I am committed to supporting women and children at every stage of life,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., who co-sponsored the bill with Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.

“The violent attacks on pregnancy

centers in Washington state and across the country are reprehensible and only endanger and intimidate the women who depend on them for critical medical care, education and other resources,” Rodgers said in a statement Sept. 20, the day she and Smith introduced the bill.

The Protect Pregnancy Care Centers Act of 2022 quickly garnered 28 co-sponsors.

“I believe all extreme and hateful acts of violence should be condemned, which is why I’m helping lead this legislation to hold President (Joe) Biden accountable for his failure to respond to this threat with the urgency it deserves,” Rodgers said.

Nearly 70 acts of violence against such centers have been recorded since May, when a draft opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case was leaked. The court’s June 24 decision in the Dobbs case ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade, which had legalized abortion nationwide. The ruling allows states to decide their own laws regarding abortion.

Many of the pregnancy centers have been firebombed, vandalized and graffitied, including reports of vandalism and graffiti in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

— Joe Ruff of The Catholic Spirit contributed to this report.

Pew Research study: Christianity may lose majority status in U.S. by 2070

Catholic News Service

If trends of the past 30 years continue for the next 50, Christianity will lose its majority status in the United States by 2070, according to a new demographic study by the Pew Research Center.

If those trends, first identified in 1990, accelerate over the next halfcentury, Christianity will have fewer adherents than Americans who are not affiliated with any church, according to the study, “Modeling the Future of Religion in America,” released Sept. 13.

Even with the demographic modeling used by Pew, the numbers vary widely. Christians, put by Pew currently at 64% of the U.S. population, could slide to 54% — or plunge to 35% — by 2070.

By the same token, the religiously unaffiliated — called “nones” in some circles — currently at 29%, could rise to 34% of the population in the next half-century, or soar to 52%.

Pew used four different scenarios in making its projections. One was “no switching,” meaning that Americans would not switch from religious affiliation to disaffiliation,

or vice versa. Its counterpart was “steady switching,” in which 31% of Christians become unaffiliated, while 21% of the unaffiliated become Christian.

The study issued a conjecture that Christianity could rebound if it falls into minority status if adherents focus on retaining Christian identity, although “nones” currently show little tendency to join a religion. “While this bottoming out and regrowth of Christianity is theoretically possible,” Pew said, “it would require a reversal of the current trends in switching.”

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Dinner

guests at the Maurin House, a relatively new Catholic Worker community in Columbia Heights, might be tempted to describe what they see as an exceptional and lofty expression of Christian life.

Just don’t expect the two families that make up the community to necessarily agree.

“We really don’t think that what we’re doing is something that any ordinary Catholic couldn’t do, either,” explained Tyler Hambley, 37, who with his wife, Crystal, 38, longtime friends Colin and Leigh Miller (44 and 35), and each couple’s four children make up the Maurin House community.

The way the Hambleys and Millers live their lives, however, bucks the standard American ideal: They’ve prioritized intentional community — to the point that the Hambleys moved across the country for the sake of living next door to their close friends. They’ve converted a garage into a chapel and gather there for daily communal prayer. They open their home for an “all are welcome” style dinner two days a week. And they acquired a third house where the poor and the homeless are invited to live, joining them in community.

This might strike many Catholics as an extraordinary way of life, a response to a special call to go above and beyond normal Christian practice, but that’s not how the Hambleys and the Millers see it. They say they’re just following the Gospel and the Catholic faith, plain and simple.

“It might not look exactly the same as what we’ve done, but building Catholic community, offering hospitality and being present with others, especially the poor, over a shared dish is something all Catholics can do,” Tyler Hambley said.

In fact, the Maurin House community is guided by the conviction that these sorts of things aren’t optional aspects of following Christ — they’re integral to it.

The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount; the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience; and the spiritual and corporal works of mercy are some of the primary touchpoints of Christ’s teaching and the Church’s traditional practice that animate the Maurin House community and its commitments to prayer, simplicity, life in common and hospitality to the poor.

And unsurprisingly so, given that these sources are also at the heart of the Catholic Worker movement, a major source of inspiration for the Hambleys and Millers for more than a decade.

The Maurin House is named for Peter Maurin, who co-founded the Catholic Worker movement with Servant of God Dorothy Day in 1933 in an effort to help others “live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ” in the modern world. The French Catholic theologian, poet and social activist was adamant that poverty, chastity and obedience “are for everybody, not only for the monks.” Maurin was also a major advocate and articulator of “the gentle personalism of traditional Catholicism.” This, he explained in an essay on the beliefs of the Catholic Worker, entails “the personal obligation of looking after the needs of our brothers and sisters.”

This kind of “personalism,” explained Colin Miller, gives the Catholic Worker a distinctive way of understanding the relationship between Catholic social teaching and personal discipleship.

“They’re of one piece,” Miller said. “The Catholic Worker approach is that you don’t get to throw out the Sermon on the Mount and its claim on you personally when you’re thinking about its social implications.”

For example, the Catholic social teaching principle of subsidiarity underscores that “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower

order, depriving the latter of its functions,” according to the Catechism. For the Maurin House, the principle isn’t just a guide for how to think about macro-level policies and the “size of government,” it’s also a teaching that applies directly to their lives and their response to Christ’s command to care for “the least of these” — the poor.

“Christians are called to take personal responsibility for those who are in front of us,” Miller said. “If you can take care of this homeless person who is right in front of you, don’t send them to the shelter. Don’t go up one level without having to.”

The Catholic Worker approach also emphasizes that “prayer and work are one and the same thing,” Hambley said. “Our prayers are not just words, but speech-acts that can only be rendered true against the background of a form of life that makes sense of them.”

In other words, the prayers of the Church are intrinsically connected with living them out. For instance, Hambley points to Psalm 9:18, which the community recites in their Morning Prayer, that says, “May the hope of the poor not be taken away.”

“What kind of life do I have to live to render that speech true?” he asked rhetorically, adding that “prayer doesn’t stop at the ‘amen’ — that’s the green light to go and do.”

A ‘radical’ recovery

If the Maurin House’s approach to community life or hospitality to the poor strike others as “extraordinary,” the Millers and Hambleys suggest it might have less to do with their actions, and more to do with how far what presently passes for “ordinary” has moved from traditional Catholic practice.

At the heart of this shift, Maurin House members say, is modern society’s hellbent quest for individual autonomy and self-determination, which produces fragmentation and isolation.

“We love technology, politics, scientific institutions and insurance, because they advance our quest to be as independent as possible,” reads a document articulating the Maurin House’s convictions. “So, pretty soon, after a million cultural changes with this intention, it’s no surprise that we don’t need other people anymore. I wanted a life I could do by myself, and I got it.”

The result is that the individual is divorced from the community, man is cut off from nature, and the Church is isolated from the material and the social. Catholics are shaped by these forces, too, and can all too easily embrace isolating practices and systems for the sake of convenience and security. On this account, Christianity is reduced to a one-on-one relationship with Jesus or individualistic moralism, and social responsibility, such as the call to take personal responsibility for the poor, is outsourced to the government or to “professionalized” charities.

As an illustration of this shift, Leigh Miller pointed to Sigrid Undset’s 1928 Nobel Prizewinning trilogy “Kristin Lavransdatter,” which is seeing a popular resurgence and is celebrated in part for its accurate and compelling depiction of life in 14th century (and still Catholic) Norway. The narrative, Miller said, is defined by “the constant presence of the poor” and a corresponding eagerness to serve them and others in need.

In contrast, “what we have today, in this country, is an ability to not be around the poor unless one chooses to,” she said. “So, if you want to house the poor and feed the hungry, then you have to show some real intentionality in order to do it.”

The Maurin House members’ way of life also includes voluntary poverty and a kind of mutual dependence upon each other and the generosity of others. They see this as an attempt to break free from the fragmentation of modern society and return to a more communitarian and Catholic

‘A philosophy that it looks

The Maurin House in Columbia to the roots of

By Jonathan Liedl •

What we want to do is cling to the roots of the Church and the Gospel and see what difference that makes in our lives. We don’t have any desire to be against the flow of the world except insofar as the roots of the Gospel position us against the flow of the world.

Colin Miller

mode of living, re-integrating what modernity pulls apart. In their view, there might be no other way to fruitfully live the Catholic life today.

“We simply must find new ways of embedding the Gospel in, or rather, of allowing the Gospel to be, the social fabric, of real local communities, or face the real possibility of not being able to practice the Faith at all,” reads the Maurin House’s guiding document’s description of what Pennsylvania-based Catholic Worker and theologian Larry Chapp has described as “the Maurin Mandate.”

The Maurin House’s document makes clear that the Catholic Worker movement is not the only way of living out this conviction, but it’s also adamant that “the Gospel being what it is, and

our society being what it living will tend to take similar leadership, small community, hospitality, simplicity, friendship and a critical, Catholic analysis

Similar to Dorothy Day’s being called a saint because dismissed that easily,” the to all Catholics in the modern House members resistant kind of special ascetical celebrities.

“The point is, once you’re unreachable pedestal, or having some idiosyncratic then (one’s actions can ‘What’s good for you is

Clockwise from lower left, Solanus Miller, his mother, Leigh Miller; Crystal Hambley, daughter, the back yard of the Miller home in Columbia Heights. PHOTOS BY DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC

philosophy so old looks like new’

Columbia Heights gets back Christian living

For The Catholic Spirit

it is, intentional Catholic similar forms: liturgy, lay community, local living, friendship with the poor, analysis of our culture.”

Day’s famous resistance to because she didn’t “want to be the sense that this call applies modern world makes Maurin to being heralded as some celebrities.

you’re placed on some or even just thought of as idiosyncratic charism or mission, be dismissed as), well, good for you, and what’s

good for me is good for me,’” Hambley said.

Instead, they want to encourage others to think of a more communitarian life as the norm. This form of living has strong precedents in Catholic tradition, from the early Church community described in Acts that shared everything in common to Franciscan third-order lay communities. It’s “a philosophy so old that it looks like new,” reads a tagline on the Maurin House website, another phrase from Peter Maurin’s essays.

The same spirit informs “The Catholic Radical,” a “Catholic newspaper for a divided age” spearheaded by the Maurin House community.

“Radical” doesn’t mean “contrarian,” Colin Miller explained. Instead, it means getting to the root of

something.

“What we want to do is cling to the roots of the Church and the Gospel and see what difference that makes in our lives,” he said. “We don’t have any desire to be against the flow of the world except insofar as the roots of the Gospel position us against the flow of the world.”

And when the roots of the Gospel do in fact position Christians against the contemporary status quo, “It’s just a matter of being willing to look foolish, because the Gospel is foolishness to the world,” Miller said.

“You’re going to get blank stares from people and people who laugh at you and say, ‘That’s stupid’ and ‘They’re just young and idealistic,’” he said. “Well, so far, I’ve managed to stay young and idealistic for 12 years or so.”

Organic development

If the Hambleys and the Millers sound convinced, it’s because their lives have been marked by both the joys of living in thick, intentional community and the anguish experienced when living without it.

They first experienced this kind of community in Durham, North Carolina, over a decade ago, where they’d come for graduate studies at Duke University — and when they weren’t yet Catholic. As Miller explains, friendships that formed with people living on the street soon led to offering spare rooms to their homeless friends or renting out apartments for them. Miller described this as a “mom-and-pop” iteration of Catholic Worker-style hospitality houses.

Convicted by the fruitfulness of this way of life and desiring to commit to it more deeply, Miller said they went to the one place where graduate students naturally go when they have a question: the library. There, after searching for ways that Christians had lived with the homeless, they discovered the lives and writing of Dorothy Day (1897-1980) and Peter Maurin (1877-1949). They provided what Miller described as “by far the most compelling vision of interacting with the poor and homeless that I had come across.”

In 2012, the first Maurin House was established, described by Miller as an “Episcopal Catholic Worker house.” But Maurin and Day’s witness didn’t stop with providing a model for how to live with the poor.

“The long and short of it is we converted to Catholicism largely under the influence of Dorothy and Peter’s Catholicism,” said Miller, who became Catholic in June 2016; his wife became Catholic that December, and the Hambleys entered the Church in 2017. “You realize that (Day and Maurin’s) hospitality and the Catholic Worker is only intelligible as an outflowing of their Catholicism.”

The Millers lived in the Durham community for three years before moving to Pennsylvania so Colin, who had graduated with a doctorate in theology, could teach. They soon realized just how important the thick community they’d experienced in North Carolina really was.

When living in Durham, Miller recalled, “We’d always say, ‘Oh man, it must be so hard to live an authentically Christian life out there in the world, given all these dynamics we see in play.’ And then each of us left and went our separate ways and tried to live it out there and we were like, ‘Oh shoot, we were right. It’s really bad out here, and lonely.’”

Their experience of isolation prompted the Millers to move to Colin’s home state of Minnesota in 2018. The Hambleys, meanwhile, were experiencing something similar after moving back to Kansas to live near family.

“All that we once depended on in terms of community life was lost, and the only way we could start to get that back was to reach out to some old friends,” Hambley said. He described the move to Minnesota in 2020 as a decision to reject the “life of decision,” or constant choice.

“In other words, we knew we needed to ground

ourselves in those regular patterns of habits and practices a faithful Catholic form of life must take in the modern world if it’s going to survive. You can’t do that by yourself,” Hambley said.

By the grace of God, the Hambleys were able to purchase the house with an adjoining backyard to the Millers’ home. The two families tore down the fence between them, and set up their garage chapel, knowing that prayer together would be the basis of their communal life.

And from that common life in Christ and the conversations that surrounded it developed the various acts that define life at the Maurin House today, said Miller.

“We just started inviting people to come together and join us, and then very quickly after that, we’re like, ‘Well, we’ve got to have the poor, too,’ because that authenticates, in a particular way, Christian community,” avoiding the trap of “bourgeois Catholicism” that is still ultimately guided by choice and taste.

In addition to praying Evening Prayer together every day as a community, the Maurin House hosts 5:30 p.m. dinners every Monday and Friday. They’re not especially formal, but rather more “come as you are” style affairs, set in the backyard (at least when the weather permits) amid the chickens and the children. Their dinners are open to everyone and on any given night may include a local priest, a University of St. Thomas professor and his family, a curious med school student or one of the guests staying in the hospitality house.

The hospitality house was set up in October 2021 after the Maurin House community acquired a third home across the street, allowing them to convert the house in between the other two into a place of gathering and hospitality for the poor. At any given time, three or four previously homeless men live in the house of hospitality, where they’re invited to be part of the community.

“It’s been an accidental community,” Miller explained. “We didn’t set out from the beginning to say we’re going to have a hospitality house here in Minnesota. We just started living with our friends and praying together.”

Fruitful living

The Maurin House’s members are adamant that they are not living some kind of perfect Christian life. Sin and weakness still affect them, and the fragmenting forces of modern life still have a powerful pull. Furthermore, members insist that their efforts at hospitality and caring for the poor are small, meager and mixed with as many failures as successes.

“We’re not really doing all that much,” Leigh Miller said.

She also acknowledged that communal life “can be really challenging, and it is really challenging. But there’s a depth to it that is really beautiful and good.”

Colin said he’s motivated by the fruitfulness they’ve found by committing themselves to other Christians and “rubbing up against them daily, in a way that causes inconvenience on a regular basis and makes you dependent.”

“That brings me a great amount of joy,” he said. “Because we’re meant to be bound up, both spiritually and materially, with our fellow man.”

Hambley described living in intentional community as a revealing experience, in which one’s faults and conceits are exposed to others, and vice versa. Uncomfortable as this experience might be, “it is also extraordinarily freeing to relinquish the tyranny of self. At that point, you can let your hair down and just have fun.”

And while acknowledging that the experience of relinquishing control and security and depending more fully on God can be “terrifying,” Hambley said it can help one to more fully embrace and depend upon God’s baptismal promise of overcoming even death, providing freedom from fear and anxiety that come with grasping for security.

“Go on an adventure instead,” he said.

FAR

LEFT Crystal Hambley, right,

during

time before

as her

sits next to her.

daughter, Zelie, and husband, Tyler; and Daniel Hartig, and his wife, Darray, share a meal in CATHOLIC SPIRIT

FAITH+CULTURE

Invoking an archangel

Lakeville Catholic’s St. Michael Project brings police officers spiritual support

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

Jason Parnell does not go anywhere without his medal featuring St. Michael the Archangel. A U.S. Marshall in Brunswick, Georgia, he believes in the protective powers of the patron saint of law enforcement officers, even though he is not Catholic.

“I am very religious,” said Parnell, who has been in law enforcement for 22 years. “I have a strong faith, and I think that God does provide us protection, whether it be his own hand or angels working in his stead. It’s all part of our faith.”

He first received a St. Michael medal in 2021, when Ruth Laursen of All Saints in Lakeville stopped at his work. She was on vacation with her husband, Paul, and did what she always does when traveling — dropped off St. Michael medals at the local police department.

Laursen has distributed more than 30,000 medals in more than 20 states, especially throughout the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota. It’s all volunteer work, a labor of love and protection sparked by the 2016 shooting deaths of police officers in Dallas.

“I found a video of a woman that was at the rally (in Dallas), and she had gotten shot,” Laursen said. “She was with her son. She had snuck behind a car and she was hit. The officers, when they found out she was hit, came and laid on top of her and her son. They were human shields protecting her from any other gunfire. It just broke my heart what had happened.”

Her emotion stirred a reflection. “I felt that it was not just a physical battle that these police officers were in, but also a spiritual one. And, God just seemed to put on my heart that they needed some spiritual protection.”

Protecting all citizens

Laursen points out that handing out the St. Michael medals is not meant to be seen as taking sides in the political debates that surround questions about policing. She said she has the best interests of all citizens in mind.

“The medals, in my opinion, are not just for (the protection of police officers),” she said. “They’re also to help the officer make the right choices when it comes to interaction with people — that it (the medal) would protect not only the officer, but the people that they are involved with.”

Laursen discovered that St. Michael — whose feast day is Sept. 29, along with Archangels Gabriel and Raphael — is the patron saint of police officers. That prompted her to begin giving St. Michael medals to officers. She bought 200 medals, asked for them to be blessed by Archbishop Bernard Hebda, and set out to distribute them. She named her effort The St. Michael Project.

The nickel-sized medals feature a stamped image of St. Michael on one side and a guardian angel on the other, purchased from St. Paul Street Evangelization, a nonprofit Catholic organization in Michigan. Paul and Ruth attach a cord to the medals so they can be worn, and place the finished medals in a small Ziploc bag. Each bag contains a sheet with the explanation of the medal on one side and the prayer to St. Michael on the other. Ruth says the medals can help bring a “connection to God.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church acknowledges the use of blessed items such as these medals, called “sacramentals,” which are “sacred signs instituted by the Church” that can “sanctify different circumstances of life.”

Laursen’s first stop for medal distribution was the Lakeville Police Department, the closest one to her house. With no advance notice, she walked through the doorway of the building July 11, 2016, and announced her plan to bring medals.

Laursen told Commander Jim Puncochar she wanted to show support for police officers, and offered to bring St. Michael medals for all officers and staff in the department. The seemingly small gesture tapped into emotions he feels as both a police officer and a Catholic.

“I think every officer is driven in some way spiritually,” said Puncochar, who has been with the department for 28 years and attends Mass at several local parishes with his wife and three children. “That’s how we do our job. We know that, at the end of the day, ... we want to be safe, and we want to go home to our families. And, that spiritual component guides us in how we conduct ourselves as officers.”

He thought handing out St. Michael medals was “a great idea,” but was unsure about how the department’s officers would feel about it. Two weeks after the initial visit, Laursen showed up with 73 medals, which was enough to cover everyone in the department. She

later added 27 more so there would be some extras on hand.

Puncochar made the medals available to anyone who wanted them. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Some officers he thought would decline a medal responded enthusiastically, saying, “I want that,” he recalled.

“We still have some on supply,” Puncochar said. “New officers (can) get them as they get hired. I haven’t had one person turn them down yet.”

Puncochar, who is second in command at the department, said the police chief also “loves the idea,” and was one of the first ones to take a medal. Other officers feel the same way, and find special places for their medals.

“Some people wear it, some people keep it in their locker, some people have it in their duty bag, some people put it in their pocket,” Puncochar said. “Everyone has a different means of transporting it, or a place for it or location for it. I keep mine in my office. I’m kind of an office guy to begin with, and mine is hanging in my office every day. It’s just a reminder that a higher power guides us.”

Positive response

After her positive experience in Lakeville, Laursen has put medals in the hands of as many officers as she can. Everywhere she goes, the response is the same — eager acceptance of the medals, along with gratitude, she said. She estimates she has handed out a total of 30,000 to 32,000 medals, all blessed by Archbishop Hebda, to more than 300 police departments.

She went to Faribault in 2019 and found a very enthusiastic recipient in Connie Holm, an administrative assistant with the Faribault Police Department. At the time, her husband, Mark, was a state trooper in Rochester (he has since retired). She also has two children who work in law enforcement, one as a police officer and the other as a deputy sheriff.

When Laursen stopped by, Holm took 40 medals and sent an email to officers and staff to let them know. Within two days, almost all of the medals were gone.

Laursen also brought a medal to Mark Holm, making a trip to the district office where he worked and handing him a medal in person.

“I think it’s just amazing,” Connie Holm said of Laursen and her St. Michael Project. “Her kindness and thoughtfulness is just way above and beyond.”

Most of the time, Laursen works with administrative staff, but occasionally, she is able to talk to a police chief like Bill Messerich of the South St. Paul Police Department, who gladly accepted more than 40 medals in 2019.

“I’m all for it,” said Messerich, who retired in April. “This small token is huge for police officers, helping them through their difficult times, and just knowing that there’s people out there that care.”

Just days before his retirement, he remarked that there were no more medals left to hand out. Messerich, who was raised Catholic, dutifully kept one in his office.

In some instances, law enforcement personnel themselves become medal distributors. Since Parnell first received medals from Laursen in 2021, she has shipped him 400 more, and he has passed out at least 75% of those. He gives them away everywhere he goes.

“I keep one in my pocket,” he said. “And, if I come into contact with somebody that I think I should be giving that to, I’ll give them the one out of my pocket and replace it. … I keep a stack of them in my government car, in my personal vehicle, in my house. I try to keep plenty on hand because I don’t ever want to be without it if I feel like somebody could use it.”

Parnell said he thinks what Ruth is doing “is truly in the service of God.” He calls Ruth and Paul “amazing people” and said their show of support is especially meaningful during a time when police officers across the country have been under intense scrutiny and criticism because of the actions of some, like former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, a white police officer who was convicted of second- and thirddegree murder in April 2021 for the death of George Floyd, an African American, in May 2020 during an arrest.

“There’s a lot of tension,” Parnell said. “It’s very disheartening. And something like what The St. Michael Project does helps to kind of lift us up a bit. … It means a lot. To me, it’s a very big deal, and it’s got to be a true calling by God for them to be so passionate and devoted to it, and (be) touching and reaching so many people.”

Laursen has no plans to stop handing out St. Michael medals. She has since expanded her distribution efforts to include firefighters and emergency medical technicians. And now, like Parnell, she gives them to anyone she feels could use one.

“Hopefully, we’ll keep doing it as long as we can,” she said. “Eventually, when we retire (from a lawn care and snowplowing business), it would be kind of fun to do it full time. Whatever God has in store for us. We’re just going to go with God’s plan. We pray to do his will.”

For more information on the medals, visit thesaintmichaelproject

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

From left, Commander Jim Puncochar of the Lakeville Police Department stands outside of the police station with Ruth Laursen, who brought St. Michael medals to him in 2016.

Bringing farm-fresh food to urban families, the Catholic way

By Christina Capecchi For The Catholic Spirit

Dan Hartig, 40, is a Best Buy software engineer manager who founded a Catholic farm-to-table network called Fructus. His inspiration: an article he read in The Catholic Spirit about how farmers were suffering during the COVID-19 lockdown. Hartig lives in northeast Minneapolis, where he and his wife, Darray, are raising three young children — Anna, 6; Edith, 5; and Henry, 3. They belong to St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony.

Q How did Fructus come to be?

A What prompted it was I was reading in The Catholic Spirit about the hog killings in Minnesota. You had an interview with a farm family that couldn’t find a market for their hogs. I was thinking about how poorly the world is designed, that we’d come to this. At the same time, it was hard to find bacon in the store — those first couple months (of the pandemic). The idea was to connect farmers more directly to the market, with no middle men. We’ve got lots of pigs here in Minnesota and lots of people who like pork.

Q What was the timeline?

A I hadn’t really contemplated doing anything like this before, but we got the idea going in April and May, drove up to Bowlus, Minnesota, and met with five or six farmers and decided to kick it off, so we started doing it in June. I made a website (ourfructus com), started advertising in my parish and some nearby parishes and got a core group of customers.

Q Are you amazed it happened so quickly?

A It’s really kind of easy to get things together if you just want to get it done! And with COVID, we were shut down and had a lot of free time. I had lots of time to figure out how to register a nonprofit, file with the Secretary of State, register the website and buy coolers. It would be harder to do now. My kids are older.

dairy in particular. Hopefully, one day we’ll be moving hundreds of thousands of goods a week — and then more people can commit to farming. Right now, we’re moving hundreds of dollars of goods.

Q You deliver every Saturday morning.

A I do the driving, and I have three friends who routinely volunteer to drive. All our customers are closer together. We’re driving around northeast Minneapolis and up to New Brighton and Roseville, occasionally western St. Paul. And the farmers are clustered around Little Falls, St. Cloud and Litchfield.

Q Describe a delivery day.

A I wake up at 4 a.m., leave at 4:30 and on an average day, I’m done around 10 a.m. I have a little Tacoma pickup, which gets great mileage. I can do the whole run for about eight gallons of gas! We usually do six to 10 deliveries per week. We have about 40 active customers, and we’ve had close to 100 unique customers over the past two years.

Q There’s an educational piece to your work. Is it tiresome to explain or justify the cost?

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

be generous is what inspires me. I have a desire to connect people and demonstrate the benefits of this. I have to be patient. I’m doing it — I’m driving, I’m supporting it without taking money. I’m making it something that other people want to emulate.

Q Your Catholic faith has informed this whole project, including the 1891 encyclical by Pope Leo XIII called “Rerum Novarum,” which promotes social justice, class harmony and workers’ rights.

A A lot of what drives me is we need a reform of how things work in the United States — a new economy. My belief in that has been driven by the Catholic faith — things like G.K. Chesterton’s “distributism,” the points about fair treatment of workers in “Rerum Novarum,” the anticonsumerism in “Laudato si’.”

There is a Catholic economy out there that we can build to, and I think

this is the time to do it. There’s a lot of unhappiness about the state of America, in general. There’s a reason a lot of younger people are interested in socialism and communism. There’s a feeling that things aren’t working out for people. I think the Catholic worldview provides an answer. This is an important time to make that real in a way they can see. This is my contribution to that.

Q You’re a well-read Catholic!

A I’m a recent convert. My conversion process led to a lot of reading.

Q You became a dad in late 2017, became Catholic in 2019 and launched Fructus in 2020. You packed a lot into the span of two-and-a-half years!

A It feels like the way my life should’ve been all along. It literally was 15 years of change got unleashed when I got out of the military. All of a sudden, I got out and was like: Now what do I do with my time?

Q Are you hoping to move to a rural area at some point?

A We’ve thought about it a lot, but decided — based on chasing a career and working downtown — to live in the city. The biggest advantage is the proximity to a lot of things. We walk with our kids to church and school, pretty much yearround, as long as it’s above zero. One of the goals of city life is it gives kids more independence.

Q What do you know for sure?

A I am driven by the parable of the talents. I know I was given a lot, so I know it’s my responsibility to God to try to pay that back. That’s what underlies all these things.

Q

It was a matter of fact — you saw that you could help these farmers.

A That was it. We should do something. If they can’t sell stuff to people, why don’t we see if we can sell it? That’s something I’ve learned in my career, both in the Navy and especially doing software development. A lot of people spend a lot of time planning things that never happen. I’m very much, “Just do something! Get it done.”

We basically haven’t deviated from the initial plan. We drive once a week, picking up from the farmers and dropping them off at the customers’ homes. We’re like an Uber Eats or Door Dash.

Q But with a quarter beef, a half pig or a whole rabbit! Or an egg subscription — a great idea. The farmers must be so grateful.

A Minnesota has lost a ton of farmers,

A We’re letting farmers determine the price. When we advertise to people at church, some balk at the price, some get it. Many understand the concept of CSAs and farmers markets and why it’s priced the way it is.

Q Are you making a profit?

A Fructus makes enough money to cover gas, but I’m not paying the volunteers for their gas. For myself, I’ve put in more money than Fructus has made. But we’re starting to get charitable donations from people at our church. There’s a lot more to be done. We have grown. I have to make sure what we’re charging will cover the gas, and at some point we’ll pay drivers. I’ve gotten some investors.

Q What have you learned about generosity?

A Giving people the opportunity to

New Aim Higher president brings passion to Catholic scholarship efforts

By Maura Keller For The Catholic Spirit

For Ricky Austin, president of Aim Higher Foundation in St. Paul, Catholic school education is a vital component of the Church’s longevity — and something all children should have access to, regardless of a family’s economic status.

Those convictions are what drive the 39-year-old convert to Catholicism as he takes the helm of a foundation that awards $1,000 scholarships to children in families with demonstrated financial need who wish to attend Catholic schools.

“There was a report that (the University of) Notre Dame released in 2006 about the future of Catholic schools. That document asked a big question of whether our generation would oversee the demise or the closing of one of the most effective means for evangelization that the country’s ever seen, or would we respond to the call and write a new ending to the Catholic school story. It was that document that really spurred my connection with Catholic schools,” Austin said, just weeks after Aim Higher’s board appointed him president in August to succeed Jean Houghton, who was named director of mission advancement at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis effective Sept. 6.

His own conversion to Catholicism also plays a role. Born and raised in southern California, Austin said he was surrounded by various faith traditions,

including attending a Lutheran grade school and a Catholic high school. He went to Notre Dame, where he doublemajored in liberal studies and computer applications.

During his senior year at the university in South Bend, Indiana, Austin entered the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, and was on his way to joining the Catholic Church.

RICKY AUSTIN

“I was raised in a mixed faith household and I was exposed to a variety of faith traditions as a kid,” Austin said.

“And as soon as I got into middle school, in high school, I had a lot of questions. But at that time, I was getting answers that left me feeling unfulfilled. It was with a priest from my high school, Father Ricky Boyle, and while I was at Notre Dame, where I got to know the Catholic faith, the Catholic tradition and the deep intellectual history of how the Church wrestled with these questions — and provided deeply fulfilling, meaningful and lasting answers to the questions of why we’re here and what we’re called to do.”

In an RCIA small group session, Austin met a man who worked for Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education, a program that according to its website seeks to provide “a Catholic education of the highest quality to as many children as possible.” That planted the seed in Austin to consider teaching combined

with service. Ultimately, Austin threw his proverbial hat into the ring for ACE and was selected to teach second grade at a Catholic school in Oklahoma City, while working toward a master’s in education at Notre Dame. Later, he moved to Chicago to further his teaching career.

About that time, Austin saw the Notre Dame report about the future of Catholic schools, and he became involved in ACE’s graduate network, which eventually brought Austin and his wife, Megan, back to South Bend. He worked for seven years in ACE’s central office, initially in their effort to help mobilize ACE alumni in support of Catholic schools across the country. Eventually, Austin led ACE’s communications team.

“There are too many children that don’t have access to a great Catholic education,” Austin said. “And yet, in each of those communities, there are Catholic schools with empty seats. Data show time and time again, they’re more effective at educating disadvantaged children. In fact, the more disadvantaged a child is, the more Catholic school has an impact on them. And yet there’s a problem — they cost money. How is it that we can ensure Catholic schools are accessible to every family regardless the size of their household income?”

That’s where Austin’s role as president of the Aim Higher Foundation comes in. After spending seven years in South Bend, the Austin family, now with two children, headed to his wife’s home state of Minnesota to be closer to family. They joined St. Odilia in Shoreview,

then moved to St. Paul, where they have become parishioners of Nativity of Our Lord.

Austin was hired in 2017 as the director of scholarships and communication at Aim Higher and promoted in 2020 to vice president of advancement and operations.

In the past five years, the number of $1,000 scholarships awarded by the foundation to families with Catholic school children in kindergarten through eighth grade has tripled, from 700 scholarships in 2017 to 2,152 scholarships this school year. The average family income for those receiving scholarships is $37,000. Once a child receives a scholarship and the family remains eligible, he or she can receive $1,000 through eighth grade.

“There are too many children, particularly in this community, that don’t have access to a quality education,” Austin said. “So, there’s an underlying urgency for us to spread the word about what we’re doing, to engage new friends to our mission and to continue to grow. The financial support we receive and the overall support for our mission is vital.”

Choral project focuses on religions’ response to immigrants, refugees

By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit

After creating an interfaith choir to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation at the Vatican in 2018, the founders of the Together in Hope Project are preparing for the choir’s U.S. premiere of “The Stranger,” which explores major faiths’ traditions of welcoming the refugee, immigrant and outcast.

Drawing on Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu texts, “The Stranger” will be

performed 7:30 p.m. Oct. 16 and 3:30 p.m. Oct. 17 at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul.

The song’s text was created by the Together in Hope Project’s 2017 cofounders and Twin Cities residents Gary Aamodt and Celia Ellingson. The husband-and-wife team drew from firstperson immigrant poetry and religious texts, including the work of Mary Patricia Mulhall, a Brigidine Sister from Windsor, England, whose outreach has focused on human trafficking victims. In “The Stranger,” the choir sings her words:

Fears on the faces of those women, men and children frightened of the past fearful of the future

Will no one understand their pain?

Will anyone open a door to receive them?

“It’s a very basic human message that we all belong, we’re all here, we all have something to contribute and we all share many of the same desires,” Aamodt said.

Following the Together in Hope Project’s Vatican concert, which was attended by Archbishop Bernard Hebda and the Rev. Ann Svennungsen, bishop of the Minneapolis Area Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Aamodt and Ellingson reached out to the two faith leaders for ideas on their next project. Independently, Aamodt and Ellingson said, both Archbishop Hebda and Rev. Svennungsen suggested the plight of refugees and immigrants.

Members of the Together in Hope Project Choir perform “The Stranger” in its world premiere at the Trondheim International Olavsfest in Norway July 28.

do that in a different way, because we believe music touches people in a way that words alone can’t.”

TH H

Aamodt, 84, and Ellingson, 72, who are Lutheran, see a connection between the Vatican project, which celebrated recent efforts toward mutual understanding by the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation, and the challenges presented worldwide by widespread immigration and refugee crises, most recently among people fleeing the war in Ukraine.

“We describe ourselves as doing music with a purpose. And the purpose is raising awareness, promoting healing and reconciliation, whatever it looks like in the context of that issue, and frankly, activating people to do the right thing,” Ellingson said. “The common thread is using the platform of music to try to

“The Stranger” was composed by Kim André Arnesen, and the piece premiered July 28 in his hometown, Trondheim, Norway, during the opening concert of the Trondheim International Olavsfest. It was well received, Aamodt said.

“The powerful thing is that all the major religions in the world, all of them, have a very, very strong ethic of welcoming the stranger,” he said.

The Together in Hope choir has more than 50 members, including several Catholics.

“The Stranger” project was created in partnership with USA for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency that provides material and medical assistance to refugees. According to UNHCR, as of the end of 2021, there were 89.2 million forcibly displaced people worldwide.

For more information, visit ordway.org/events.

T H E T W I N C I T I E S C A T H O L I C C H O R A L E

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N G O F O U R

Aim Higher Foundation’s annual Night of Light fundraising gala will be 6-9 p.m. Oct. 7 at the InterContinental St. Paul Riverfront in St. Paul. More information and tickets are available at nightoflight info

NIGHT OF LIGHT

COURTESY THE TOGETHER IN HOPE PROJECT

| FATHER ALLAN PAUL EILEN

Pray to increase faith

Wise people know that before making judgments, it’s important to gather the facts. The same goes for growing in wisdom of the Scriptures. Knowing the context before and after a particular section helps enlighten the verses being studied, gaining for us insights that we can apply to our lives.

In the Gospel passage for Sunday, Oct. 2, “The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith’” (Lk 17:5). Just before their request, Scripture relates that Jesus spoke about temptation, sin and forgiveness. And after their request, Jesus healed 10 lepers, yet only one gave thanks, to whom Jesus said, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you” (Lk 17:19).

Throughout Scripture, Jesus often said, it was your faith that healed you, your faith that saved you. Faith is everything. For without the virtue of faith, we cannot know, be healed or saved by our God.

Faith, one of the three supernatural virtues (along with hope and love) infused into our soul at baptism, is an extraordinary gift from God. And because faith is a gift, we cannot manufacture it. Hence, faith either increases or decreases in our life to the degree that we exercise it, like a muscle. Therefore, like the Apostles, we too need to keep asking the Lord to increase our faith, like the father of the ill child who cried out to Jesus, “I do believe, help my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24).

Our world needs more Christian disciples (clergy and laity) who give humble and courageous witness to their faith in Jesus Christ

ASK FATHER MIKE | FATHER MICHAEL SCHMITZ

Can my ashes be scattered in the Boundary Waters?

Q I am hoping to be cremated when I die. I would also like my family to bring my ashes up to the Boundary Waters and scatter them there, since it is where I feel closest to God. Is that OK?

A Thank you so much for asking this question. I am very grateful that you are taking the time to find out whether your plans and wishes correspond with what the Church asks of those who are disciples of Jesus.

I do not want to gloss over that point: You are asking in order to live as a member of the Body of Christ. This is no small thing. We know that members of a family have a relationship with each other. Because of this relationship, they have certain rights. They can ask each other for help. They have a degree of access to each other. At the same time, real relationships also have real responsibilities. Because of this, the Church can also ask things of her family members. This is where obedience comes in.

Obedience is not blind. Nor is obedience slavish. As Catholic Christians, we are called to have the obedience of loved and respected sons and daughters (who in turn love and respect those over us). Loved and respected sons and daughters can ask for the reasons behind what is being asked of them. Many of us do that. And then we are called to act on what we have been called to do.

I say all of this because your question indicates that you already have a desire to be cremated and for your ashes to be scattered. In the first case, that is permissible. In the second case, that is not allowed. Let me try to explain why.

You are your body. And you are your soul. In fact, one item

and his Church. For this, let me offer some faithful petitions: Lord, increase our faith in the Scriptures. Lord, increase our faith in the sacraments (including confession and Eucharist). Lord, increase our faith in the commandments. Lord, increase our faith in your victory over sin and death. Lord, increase our faith in your mercy. Lord, increase our faith that the right to life, the foundation for all other rights, is the preeminent moral-social issue today. Lord, increase our faith in marriage (one man, one woman) and family as God’s plan for love and life. Lord, increase our faith that religious freedom comes from God, not from government. The list goes on and on.

For people of faith, it’s important to remind ourselves that God has given us everything we need today to live the Christian life. He’s given us his Son (Jesus), his mother (Mary), St. Joseph and all the saints, along with Scripture, the sacraments and powerful devotions, like the rosary.

Speaking of the rosary, if you really want to increase your faith, go to Jesus through Mary. For Jesus said at Calvary: “Woman, behold, your son … Then he said to the disciple, behold, your mother” (Jn 19:26-27).

Oct. 7 is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. I encourage you and your family — fathers take the lead — to pick up this powerful spiritual weapon and unite in faith with our Blessed Mother for the salvation of the world.

In fact, why not make it a holy habit to come together as a family for as little as five minutes each day to pray one decade of the rosary? I am certain that, in doing so, your faith, hope and love will increase, as the late “Rosary Priest,” the Venerable Congregation of Holy Cross Father Patrick Peyton always taught: “The family that prays together, stays together.”

Father Eilen is pastor of St. Patrick in Oak Grove. He can be reached at pastor@st patricks org

of belief that distinguishes Christians from other religions and worldviews is our view of the human person. We believe that a human person is a body-soul “composite.” It is what we are. This is one of the reasons why death is so “obscene” (to use a phrase from Dr. Peter Kreeft): It is the separation of what is meant to be a unity.

A soul without a body is a ghost, and a body without a soul is a corpse. A human person is the soul and body united. Therefore, you are your soul and you are your body. This belief is professed (even if obliquely) every time we utter the words, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead.” We believe that all of us will ultimately get our bodies back — some of us to the resurrection of glory in heaven, and some of us to the resurrection of condemnation in hell.

All of these assertions add up to the fact that we care for our bodies even in death. Since we believe that our bodies are an essential part of our selves, and since we believe in the resurrection of the dead, we treat bodies (even dead bodies) with dignity.

For years, the Church prohibited the cremation of dead bodies unless absolutely necessary. The reason behind this prohibition was the fact that many cultures the Church was evangelizing had a vastly different view of the body. For many cultures and worldviews, the body has been seen as a “trap” or a “cage” for the soul. Therefore, death was seen as the liberation of the “true self” and cremation was seen as a sign that a person was finally freed from the shackles of their body. Because of this, Christians were not allowed to choose cremation, since the people around them could see it as a validation of their low view of the body.

Now, however, there are very few people who would associate cremation with this worldview. Far more people would choose cremation merely for its economic benefits or for some other personal reason. For this reason, the Church allows people to choose cremation.

At the same time, the Church demands that Catholics are interred in holy ground. Whether it is the body of the person or the cremains of the person, Catholics may only be buried in ground that has been designated for the purpose of burial. Therefore, Catholics may not scatter the ashes of a deceased person who is Catholic, nor may they keep the ashes of a loved one in a vase or in a locket or other keepsake. This burial gives witness to the fact that

TURN TO ASK FATHER MIKE ON PAGE 19

DAILY Scriptures

Sunday, Oct. 2

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Hab 1:2-3; 2:2-4

2 Tm 1:6-8, 13-14 Lk 17:5-10

Monday, Oct. 3 Gal 1:6-12

Lk 10:25-37

Tuesday, Oct. 4

St. Francis of Assisi Gal 1:13-24

Lk 10:38-42

Wednesday, Oct. 5

Gal 2:1-2, 7-14

Lk 11:1-4

Thursday, Oct. 6 Gal 3:1-5

Lk 11:5-13

Friday, Oct. 7 Our Lady of the Rosary Gal 3:7-14 Lk 11:15-26

Saturday, Oct. 8 Gal 3:22-29 Lk 11:27-28

Sunday, Oct. 9

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Kgs 5:14-17

2 Tm 2:8-13 Lk 17:11-19

Monday, Oct. 10 Gal 4:22-24, 26-27, 31–5:1 Lk 11:29-32

Tuesday, Oct. 11 Gal 5:1-6 Lk 11:37-41

Wednesday, Oct. 12 Gal 5:18-25 Lk 11:42-46

Thursday, Oct. 13 Eph 1:1-10 Lk 11:47-54

Friday, Oct. 14 Eph 1:11-14 Lk 12:1-7

Saturday, Oct. 15

St. Teresa of Jesus, virgin and doctor of the Church Eph 1:15-23 Lk 12:8-12

Sunday, Oct. 16

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Ex 17:8-13

2 Tm 3:14–4:2 Lk 18:1-8

ST. BRUNO (1030-1101) Bruno was born to nobility in Cologne, Germany. After studies in France, he was ordained a priest and about 1056 began a 20-year stint teaching theology at Reims, France. But when Bruno denounced the archbishop for simony, he was forced to leave. With six companions, he withdrew to Chartreuse, France, to found the Carthusian order, combining solitary and communal living. In 1090, Pope Urban II summoned him to Rome as an adviser, but Bruno was unhappy away from his order. He was allowed to start another charterhouse in Calabria, Italy, where he later died. His feast day is Oct. 6.

AT

LAURA KELLY FANUCCI

Trust the manna

We’re flying by the seat of our pants.

School is back in swing. Work is back to busy-as-usual. Meanwhile, gas and groceries cost more than ever, and the future feels uncertain depending on the hour or the headlines.

It’s hard to know where to place our hope or trust these days.

Lately I’ve been carrying two Scripture stories with me: the mustard seed and the manna.

Jesus told the provocative parable of the mustard seed to catch the attention of those who heard his words (Mt 13:31-32). Who would plant a weed? How could God’s kingdom be compared to the smallest seed?

God gave manna to feed the Israelites in the wilderness, raining down bread each morning upon the hungry, grumbling people (Ex 16). How could flakes feed people for 40 years? Why wouldn’t God let them stockpile the goodness instead of gathering each day?

Both stories challenge me to ask each day how I’m living and locating myself (and my family) within God’s plan of providence. Am I operating out of a theology of scarcity or a theology of abundance? Will God truly provide, or is it up to me in the end?

The parable of the mustard seed teaches us to trust that God can take anything small — the grain of an idea or the seed of a dream — and grow it into something great. Any work we try to do for the kingdom of God can become a home big enough for many to come and dwell within it, a scraggly weed of hope that roots deep in the earth and stretches wide, strong branches into the sky.

‘I am not a cannibal!’

It was my habit as a freshman to attend daily Mass on my university campus. As I was leaving Mass one day, I ran into the boyfriend of a friend, we’ll call him “Brian.” He was a senior — and haughty. He had hopes of becoming an evangelical minister one day and starting his own church. He was also deeply suspicious of Catholics and didn’t hesitate to attack my faith when he could.

As he looked up to see me leaving the chapel, he smiled and said, “Daily Mass, huh?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking he might be moved by the fact that we celebrate Mass daily. He wasn’t.

“Your little daily cannibalism, huh?” he said, smirking.

It was such an offensive thought, and though this argument was nothing new to the Church, it was an insult I had never heard before. I was struck dumb. He started to pass me when I tossed out, “I am not a cannibal.”

“You Catholics,” he retorted smugly, “You eat Christ’s flesh and drink his blood, that’s cannibalism.”

Mortified by his claim, I stammered and said, “That’s not what we do!” But he shrugged past me, snorting, “You don’t even know your own religion.” He was gone before I could come up with a meaningful retort.

I’d had very little philosophy at that stage. I couldn’t have told you the difference between accidents and substance. I wouldn’t have been able to explain transubstantiation well, that only the accidents of bread and wine remain even though the substance

The story of manna reminds us how God gives mercies new each morning and bread for today. We are invited to believe that enough will be enough and hoarding is never holy. God provides for all, and we’re called to work together to make sure that everyone can survive, even thrive.

What about your own manna or mustard seed?

Trusting the manna is not just about working hard. Yes, you have to get out and gather what God gives, but you also have to honor the Sabbath and rest. You must not keep more than you need. God is waiting to pour out graces, often through unexpected means if you can open your hands to receive.

Your manna may be the gift of time when you feel pressed or stressed by the demands of your life. It may be attention when you are pulled in multiple directions, or energy when you are tired or burnt out.

God’s manna may be hope when the world’s suffering weighs heavy, or compassion when people are acting unlovable.

On the other hand, your mustard seed may be the hope of a new child, the dream of better work, the desire for a home or the longing for community. It may

of the Eucharist is changed into Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity. I didn’t have ready the argument that cannibals eat dead human flesh; they consume body parts and as they do, that flesh disappears. I wouldn’t have been able to argue that we don’t eat the dead body parts of Christ; Christ isn’t dead at all, he is risen! He remains completely unchanged no matter how often we partake of the Eucharist that contains the fullness of his Person. In the Blessed Sacrament, we become one with Christ and this union leads to more life, eternal life — not lunch.

In these years when we are working toward a eucharistic revival, let’s not be afraid to dust off our philosophy notes from freshman year if we have to, and arm ourselves with the language we need to explain our faith in the Blessed Sacrament. The claim of cannibalism and others that try to debunk the Real Presence deserve educated, thoughtful replies. The Church has an overabundance of brilliant and holy minds who have been supplying us with everything we need for more than two millennia to engage our culture in this conversation. Let’s lean on them.

And let’s remember, too, that arguments are important, but they can only go so far. Experiencing the presence of Jesus in the sacrament is more powerful and effective than any argument. Let’s allow the Lord to do the heavy lifting of conversion. If I had the chance to go back to that conversation with “Brian, the bully,” I would have invited him to take a closer look at what the Church teaches, but I would have also invited him to a Holy Hour or to Mass with me. If I could go back.

Is there someone in your world who would benefit from a similar invitation? Either to conversation or to accompany you to your next Holy Hour?

Lord, your word is spirit and life. Help us to bring others into your presence, that they may encounter for themselves your forgiveness and grace, your love and life. Amen.

Kelly Stanchina is the award-winning author of 10 books, including “Love Like a Saint: Cultivating Virtue with Holy Women.” Visit her website at lizk org

iSTOCK PHOTO | CHAINARONG PRASERTTHAI

be a gift you have to offer, or an ability you’ve been given to share: whatever small seed you pray would blossom into full bloom.

Remembering the mustard seed beckons us to see what is easy to overlook and to trust in what takes time to grow. Even the smallest seed can become a mighty tree, just as our acts of love and service allow others to experience God’s abundance.

The Exodus story invites us to invert our instincts and trust that whatever God gives will be enough. Jesus’ parable reminds us that what the world calls unreasonable is how God loves to work: starting from the least and growing into the greatest, making room enough for all who seek a home in the kingdom.

Wherever this autumn leads, take these two truths with you — and see what God is waiting to grow: Remember the mustard seed. Trust the manna.

Fanucci is a writer, speaker and author of several books, including “Everyday Sacrament: The Messy Grace of Parenting.” She is a parishioner of St. Joseph the Worker in Maple Grove. Her work can be found on her website laurakellyfanucci com

LETTERS

Broaden pro-life advocacy

Thanks to Terry Hawkins (“Care expansion necessary,” Letters, Aug. 25) for grasping my intentions in “Roe overturned, now what?” (July 28). I was not talking about pre-, peri- or even post-pregnancy. I was pointing out to readers very real situations that demand our involvement in the political realm, as Terry pointed out (“support for food stamps, school lunches and other government programs”). As Christians, we must help the less fortunate either with our own resources, or support programs which can give precious hope where there is none. In one somewhat jaded response, I brought up every conceivable bad situation that millions of children, youth and adults are faced with every day. Have you told your congressperson you want mental health services expanded? Parental leave? Universal health care?

Disability barriers removed? Racial inequities seriously addressed? Assault rifles banned? Equal rights for every human being, regardless of sex, religion or race? Clean water and air? Why can’t pro-lifers see the value in these? No, I don’t advocate killing children. Have I done enough to help them all live long, rewarding lives? Not even close. But as a Christian, I must try.

Elizabeth Rosenwinkel St. Albert the Great, Minneapolis

Touched by ‘God’s special servant’

In September 2016, our family wanted to donate school supplies to Sharing and Caring Hands (Sept. 15, “The sharing continues”). Since I worked in Minneapolis’ North Loop, I decided to carry the 25-pound box one-third mile to the site. When I arrived, the dock door sign showed opens 9 a.m. Arggh! The website showed 8 a.m. As I turned to leave, a car pulled up and out stepped Mary Jo Copeland and her husband, Dick. “Bless you for coming. I’ll get someone to help

LIZ KELLY

Am I operating out of a theology of scarcity or a theology of abundance? Will God truly provide, or is it up to me in the end?

CATHOLIC WATCHMEN | DEACON GORDON BIRD

Timeless treasure of the rosary

The month of the most holy rosary comes upon us in October to remind and refresh us — body and soul — that the prayer time we devote in honor of the Blessed Mother is a timeless treasure. To help keep us in the love of Christ, protect us from the evil of the world and lead us to the safe haven of the heart of God — this most powerful prayer we pray with the most powerful woman in the world is for all Christians.

By no coincidence does praying the rosary majestically align with fulfilling the mission of the Catholic Watchmen: “To call all Catholic men to live up to their duty as protectors, providers and leaders in their family and parish.” The prayer helps strengthen and preserve us in holiness through the Virgin Mary’s intercession. Both tactically and meditatively, the rosary teaches us to know, love and serve Christ through its Gospel messages. In its contemplation, the prayer enlivens our leadership as spiritual fathers.

The Catholic Watchmen prayer intention throughout October is: “To invigorate the powerful prayer of the holy rosary in the daily practices of family and parish life, holding fast to the faith and having confidence in the intercession of the Blessed Mother — sharing her mysteries which always leads us to Jesus.” Truly it is in meditation of the multivalent mysteries — joyful, luminous, sorrowful and glorious — that teach us

LETTERS

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

you,” she said. A minute later, the door opened and a smiling young man took the box. I thanked him and told Mary Jo, “You are God’s special servant.” She took my hand, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a laminated card that reads, “Do something beautiful for God and make a difference in the lives of others. Love, Mary Jo Copeland.” I still cherish that card.

Dan Scheller St. Thomas Becket, Eagan

Puzzled by Latin Mass shift

The movie “The King and I” stars Yul Brynner as the king of Siam. In his stellar performance ends his musical soliloquy, “it is a puzzlement.” So it is in these latter times, the Holy Father’s suppression of the centuriesold traditional Latin Mass. If the reasoning is liturgical uniformity, that ship has sailed centuries ago, with numerous rites: the most recent, and Anglican rite with its traditional married clergy. “It is a puzzlement.”

Everett C. Dehmer Cathedral of St. Paul, St. Paul

What ‘study’?

Kudos to The Catholic Spirit for thoroughly explaining the attorney general’s recent attempt to malign pregnancy resource centers, often referred to as crisis pregnancy centers, by issuing a consumer alert against them. The so-called “comprehensive study” of the centers, which was cited by Ellison’s office, was anything but truthful. In Minnesota, a group called Gender Justice collaborated in this “study.” It was quite simple to verify

the Gospel story through scriptural rosaries, provide spiritual fruits that each mystery produces, and lead us to better understand and trust in the saving knowledge of Jesus. All this is under the protective, contemplative mantle of the Blessed Mother and her powerful intercession. We believe and trust that Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, provides her love and prays along with us — along with all the angels and saints from whom we seek assistance.

Indeed, the timelessness and transcendence, the goodness, beauty and truth of our Catholic faith, incorporates an abundance of intercessors led by our number one saint, the Queen of Heaven. And we can confidently trust that our patron saint (defender, protector, father) of the universal Church, St. Joseph, in his endless attentiveness to the Blessed Mother, is diligently at her side. As he did in his essential earthly role in helping Jesus “increase in wisdom and stature” (Lk 2:52), he and Mary now intercede for God’s children on earth. Now we — albeit in time and space — are the recipients of God’s graces in developing, growing and preserving our life of faith.

Tying the timeless treasure of the rosary to each of the

Business

(seven) Catholic Watchmen disciplines creates ample opportunities to pray it. Daily: 1) be persistent in prayer — prioritize 15 minutes or so to pray it each day; 2) encounter Jesus in the sacred Scriptures — learn to link Bible verses to each mystery; 3) strive to be a spiritual father like St. Joseph — lead and guide your family through the rosary. Weekly: 4) attend Mass — meditate on the rosary before Sunday Mass begins; 5) serve others — share a fruit or virtue of each mystery as you pray (at least a decade) with someone in need. Monthly: 6) go to confession — perhaps go beyond a few penitential Hail Marys — recite a rosary on that day of contrition and healing to thank the Blessed Mother for her most powerful intercession; 7) gather regularly with others in fellowship — share a meal, listen to and discuss the key topic or witness of your time together; then allow some holy time for eucharistic adoration and to pray the rosary.

In this age of social media, there are an abundance of good small and large group apostolates to help you pray the rosary. All are united with the formidable intercession of the most powerful woman we could ever know and trust. And yet there are simple pamphlets, brochures or tracts on the rosary available in parishes, chapels and places of worship to facilitate praying in contemplation with our Blessed Mother who leads us to Jesus Christ, the king of the universe. Seek and find what suits you best, and pray the rosary with Our Lady, Queen of Heaven. Make October the month that not only emphasizes its devotion but preserves this compelling prayer as a timeless treasure in your spiritual life every day of the year.

Deacon Bird ministers to St. Joseph in Rosemount and All Saints in Lakeville and assists with the archdiocese’s Catholic Watchmen movement. For Watchmen start-up materials please contact him at gordonbird@rocketmail com Also, see heroicmen com for existing men’s ministry tools supported by the archdiocese.

that nobody from this group actually visited any of the 37 pregnancy resource centers affiliated with Elevate Life. No one ever walked into a center and said to the director, “Hey, I would love to know what you do here,” and thus giving the director the opportunity to explain their beautiful, compassionate mission. Instead, this “study” utilized statistics about pregnancy resource centers, misconstruing them to make inflammatory accusations. When these statistics are understood properly in context, the accusations are meaningless.

Mary Kay Becker

St. Peter, Forest Lake

Faith formation travel

In The Catholic Spirit issue of July 28, it showed a group of principals who were able to experience the Holy Land through donations from the Catholic Schools Center of Excellence. That is great news!

And since the mission of The Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota includes the statement that they want to “impact the community through purposeful grantmaking,” I believe it would be beneficial for The Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota to sponsor working, degreed faith formation directors to go to the Holy Land, too. One might begin with those closest to retirement. It would be money well spent.

Jeanne Conant

St. John the Evangelist, Little Canada

Share your perspective by emailing thecatholicSpirit@archSpm org The Commentary pages do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Catholic Spirit.

People of Faith and the New Normal in the Workplace

ursday, October 6, 2022 - e Minneapolis Club, 729 2nd Ave. S, Minneapolis 11:30 a.m.: check-in and meal, 12:00-1:30 p.m.: presentation

Regardless of industry or type of organization, the workplace as we knew it has changed and done so at an unprecedented pace. While we slowly move beyond the pandemic, our attention is turned to understanding the e ects of that change and the opportunities and challenges it presents. As leaders in business and civil society, we are tasked with shaping the new normal, addressing problems of equity and inclusion and attending to sustainability. Our faith calls us to be proactive in undertaking this task and ensuring our workplaces are structured to respect human dignity and promote human ourishing. We have a wealth of theological and spiritual resources available to aid us in accomplishing this task. Together we’ll examine some of these and their relationship to best practices as we consider appropriate ways to shape the new normal in the workplace.

Gina Wolfe is a Professor Emerita at Catholic eological Union and Senior Wicklander Fellow at DePaul University’s Institute for Business and Professional Ethics. She held the Christopher Chair in Business Ethics at Brennan School of Business Dominican University. She also served on the faculty at the School of eology and Seminary and is currently a member of the Board of Regents. Her publications include Alleviating Poverty rough Pro table Partnerships (2020) and Global Women Leaders: Breaking Boundaries (2017). Her research interests include women’s leadership and empowerment, corporate social responsibility, poverty alleviation and Christian hospitality. She holds a bachelor’s degree from McDonough School of Business Georgetown University, a master’s degree from the Jesuit School of eology in Chicago, and a PhD from King’s College London University of London.

Brought to you by:

Limited Seating, registration required - no walk-ins: Fee $20 (non-refundable), club parking $10 - cash only www.collegevilleMN.com/theologyday or 320-363-3570

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A Special Presentation for the Business Sector

Tom and Bonnie Brever

Ernie and Mary Stelzer

Dennis and Mary Kay Smid

Fr. Bob Flannery and SJU Men’s Chourus Alumni

Dan and Lynn Fazendin

Kay Ness

Paul and Connie Schnepf

COMMENTARY SEPTEMBER 29, 2022 THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 17 Tom & Mary McKeown

Nadège Kokoe Kreitzman Why I am Catholic

Like most Catholics, I was baptized into the Church as a little child. I therefore consider myself to be one of the very fortunate people on this earth to have been given this precious gift early on in life. The question that seems more fitting for me, then, is: “Why do I remain Catholic”? I can honestly say that I have never once considered any other teachings than those of the Catholic Church, but many personal experiences have played a role in keeping me in the Church. I will share a few that have been tremendously instrumental in my faith journey.

It all started with my mother and maternal grandmother, whose witness to the Catholic faith became a catalyst for my own spirituality. My grandmother had a great devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to our Blessed Mother, and she was faithful to the sacraments of the Church her entire life. She imparted her zeal of the Catholic faith to my mother, who in turn passed it on to me. My mother also inculcated in me the pride of belonging to the true Church of Christ and introduced me to the rewarding company of the saints while sharing timeless Catholic devotions with me. But most of all, my mother’s and grandmother’s testimonies of their personal encounter with Christ, in addition to the many graces they received throughout their lives from their Beloved, inspired me to cultivate and live out my own Christian faith.

As a young teen, I had the privilege of belonging to a Christian youth group that shared the Gospel through prayer, musical performances and community service. The group often visited several non-Catholic churches, and it was at this time that I was fully made aware of the True Presence of our Lord. I remember telling my mother that I felt as if something was missing when I went to those other churches. She revealed to me that the “something” that was missing was rather a Someone: Jesus Christ, fully present — body, blood, soul and divinity — in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, a priceless gift to his Church! This experience totally sealed the deal for me and propelled me to

completely fall in love with my Catholic faith.

When I became a young adult, I was still very involved in the Catholic Church, but I followed the “popular” lifestyles the world offered me and made choices that were not in harmony with the Church’s teachings. Eventually, by God’s grace, my previously formed conscience was awakened again and I fled to the confessional, where I tasted the sweetness of having grave sins forgiven. In addition to forgiveness, I have received many graces through the sacrament of reconciliation including healing, deliverance and personalized words of advice (pronounced by various priests) that I knew were from the Lord himself.

I realize every day how much I fall short in my relationship with Jesus, and my only regret in life is to have hurt him so deeply in the past. But the beauty of it all is that our God is a great and merciful God who has allowed me to fall deep into darkness so that I might fully cherish the light he alone brings to my soul. His love and patience sustain me daily, and he never fails to show me his faithfulness. I shall ever be thankful to the Lord for his Church — the one, holy and apostolic Catholic Church — from whom all graces flow, and whose sacraments undeniably lead us to our eternal home, heaven!

Filled with joy and awe, I also declare that “my cup overflows ... and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Ps 23: 5-6).

Kreitzman is a native of Togo, West Africa. She and her Wisconsinite husband, Ed, have two little boys. They are members of the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. She recently joined the preschool staff at St. Agnes School and is pursuing two master’s degrees (through the generosity of the Murray Institute) at the University of St. Thomas in music education (choral concentration) and Catholic Studies.

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

“Why I am Catholic” is an ongoing series in The Catholic Spirit. Want to share why you are Catholic? Submit your story in 300-500 words to CatholiCSpirit@arChSpm org with “Why I am Catholic” in the subject line.

CALENDAR

PARISH EVENTS

St. Thomas the Apostle Women’s Club Garage Sale — Oct. 5-7 at 20000 County Road 10, Corcoran. 1–8 p.m. Oct. 5, 8 a.m.–8 p.m. Oct. 6, 8 a.m.–1:30 p.m. Oct. 7. churchofstthomas org

St. Gabriel Fall Rummage Sale — Oct. 6-8 at 1310 Mainstreet (St. Joseph campus), Hopkins. 9:30 a.m.–7 p.m. Oct. 6, 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m. Oct. 7, 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Oct. 8. stgabrielhopkins org

St. Boniface Annual Polka Mass and German Dinner — Oct. 9: 11 a.m.–3 p.m. at 633 Second St. NE, Minneapolis. 11 a.m. Polka Mass followed by 33rd annual German dinner featuring roast pork, potato dumplings, sauerkraut, red cabbage and Bavarian dessert. Music by Rod Cerar Orchestra. Tickets $15 adults, $10 youth. stbonifacempls org

Holy Childhood Fall Rummage Sale — Oct. 13-14 at 1435 Midway Parkway, St. Paul. 9 a.m. –7 p.m. Oct 13; 9 a.m.–6 p.m. Oct. 14. No entrance fee. holychildhoodparish org

“Ave Verum Corpus” — Oct. 14: 7 p.m. at St. Nicholas, 51 Church St., Elko New Market. The choir of St. Nicholas pairs adoration with classical sacred music. Eucharistic adoration, vespers and Benediction. Confession will be available. stncc net/ave verum corpus

RETREATS+WORSHIP

Walking Together: Twin Cities — Sept. 30Oct. 1: Gichitwaa Kateri, 3045 Park Ave., Minneapolis. A penitential pilgrimage seeking the intercession of St. Kateri Tekakwitha and Servant of God Black Elk will include a Watch Fire Prayer Vigil from 6 p.m. Sept. 30 to 6 a.m. Oct. 1. Also, Oct. 1: 9 a.m.–noon pilgrimage from Basilica of St. Mary to Cristo Rey High School. mary org/news events/events

Candlelight Rosary Procession — Oct. 7: Line up begins at 6:30 p.m. on the State Capitol grounds, 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., St. Paul. Procession begins at 7 p.m. led by Bishop Joseph Williams. Parishes are encouraged to bring banners to represent their communities. Those who cannot walk the procession route can go directly to the Cathedral of St. Paul, 239 Selby Ave., St. Paul. Concludes at the Cathedral with Marian prayers, eucharistic adoration and Benediction. Sponsored by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in collaboration with the Family Rosary Processions Association. minnesotarosaryprocessions org

Cor Jesu (for Young Adults) — Oct. 7: 8 p.m. at The St. Paul Seminary, St. Mary’s Chapel, 2260 Summit Ave., St. Paul. Eucharistic adoration, confession, praise and worship music, and fellowship with young adults, college-age and older. Father David Blume, archdiocese’s vocations director, will preside. saintpaulseminary org

Annual White Mass for Health Care Workers — Oct. 15: 5 p.m. at Cathedral of St. Paul, 239 Selby Ave., St. Paul. Health care workers and their families are invited to this Mass in honor of health care patron St. Luke. Reception to follow in Hayden Hall, lower level of Cathedral. Sponsored by the St. Paul and Minneapolis Guild of the Catholic Medical Association and Curatio: An Apostolate of Catholic Health Care Professionals, with the archdiocesan Office for Marriage, Family and Life. Contact Sonya Flomo at 651-291-4488 or flomos@archspm org

71st Annual Red Mass — Oct. 19: Noon at Basilica of St. Mary, 1600 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis. Lawyers, judges and others involved in the administration of justice, along with their families, are invited with reception to follow. Celebrant is

Archbishop Bernard Hebda. Sponsored and presented by the Lawyers Guild of St. Thomas More.

Discernment Retreat with Archbishop Hebda — Oct. 28-30 at Christ the King Retreat Center, 621 First Ave. S., Buffalo. Annual retreat for juniors or seniors in high school through age 24 who do not have a college degree and are interested in the priesthood. Led by Archbishop Bernard Hebda and Father David Blume, archdiocese’s vocations director. 10000vocations org

Discernment Day with Bishop Joseph Williams — Oct. 29: 8:30 a.m.–7 p.m. at Aspirancy House, 1976 Dayton Ave., St. Paul. Retreat for men who have a college degree and are considering priesthood. Registration required at 10000vocations org

CONFERENCES+WORKSHOPS

“The Power of Forgiveness” (six-week series) — Mondays: Oct. 10, 17, 24; Nov. 7, 14, 21: 7–8:30 p.m. at Pax Christi,12100 Pioneer Trail, Eden Prairie. Receive God’s grace and freedom through forgiveness, healing and closeness to God, others. Register at paxchristi com

Well-Read Mom National Conference: “Everything is Gift” — Oct. 14-15 at Trinity School, 601 River Ridge Parkway, Eagan. Presentations on women’s unique role in homes, families and culture. Explore how literature plays a role in the development of culture. Registration at wellreadmom com/conference

SPEAKERS

“Everyday Sacrament: Celebrating the Sacraments at Home” — Oct. 4: 7–8 p.m. at Risen Savior, 1501 County Road 42 E., Burnsville. A fresh perspective on the seven sacraments from the lived experience of family life. Author and speaker Laura

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Kelly Fanucci will lead an evening of reflection and conversation on ways to deepen faith as parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and caregivers. risensavior org/event/everyday sacrament

Catholic United Regional Gathering — Oct. 15: 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. at Mary Queen of Peace, 21304 Church Ave., Rogers. Speakers, lunch, bingo, and a Gather4Good service project (packing hygiene kits). Learn about faith, finances and service. Speaker is Kelly Wahlquist, Archbishop Flynn Catechetical Institute director. catholicunitedfinancial org/ gathering

ASK FATHER MKE

CONTINED FROM PAGE 15

the body is sacred and is destined for resurrection.

Of course, there are bodies that get lost at sea or are destroyed by fire or some other calamity. There are times when there is very little of a person’s body to recover and bury. But even then, whatever remains we can treat with dignity we will treat with dignity. Every person’s body will likely disintegrate and will become dust once again, but we affirm the

resurrection when we do what we can to keep the body intact.

Many people will ask about the relics of saints. There are many saints whose bodies have been divided and distributed among the faithful. If a person can do that with a saint, why can’t one do that with a loved one? For at least two reasons. First, the relic is placed in a reliquary and is meant to be regularly venerated (thus affirming the dignity of the body). Second, the Church no longer approves of this practice, and it is prohibited unless special permission

has been granted.

All of this is to say: If you want, you can choose cremation as long as you do not have the motive of minimizing the dignity of the body. But you may not ask for your ashes to be scattered. Hopefully enough reason why has been offered so that you can follow this teaching in good faith.

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.

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To learn more about volunteering as a tutor to the children living at Mary’s Place (must be age 16+), please email kklement@sharingandcaring hands.org. To learn more about volunteering in the dental or medical clinic (must be a dentist, doctor, or nurse), please email mcozart@ sharingandcaringhands.org

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THELASTWORD

Prayers for persecuted Christians

Lebanon nun’s icon graces London shrine

By Doreen Abi Raad Catholic News Service

InLondon, prayers now rise up to God from the shrine of Mary, Mother of Persecuted Christians — and also from Lebanon, where the shrine’s icon originated.

The shrine is in the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory in central London. The nun who wrote the icon is from the Melkite Catholic community in Lebanon.

Melkite Sister Souraya Herro of Lebanon wrote the icon for persecuted Christians based on a traditional image widely known as the “Mother of Tenderness.” She said it was a joint effort with Melkite Sister Wafaa Fayad. Sister Souraya sketched the icon, and Sister Wafaa painted the garments of Mary and the Christ Child, with Sister Souraya concentrating on their faces and hands.

Father Benedict Kiely, founder of the Vermontbased nasarean.org, an aid and advocacy group for persecuted Christians, said the London shrine is the first in Europe specifically dedicated to prayer for persecuted Christians throughout the world. He has established a similar shrine at St. Michael’s Church in New York City, and another will be blessed at St. John the Evangelist Church in Clinton, Massachusetts, in October.

Father Kiely said he heard about Sister Souraya from the Melkite community.

“Her work is beautiful,” the priest said of the Lebanese nun. He said commissioning the icon is a way of helping the sisters in their mission at the convent of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Zouk Mosbeh, north of Beirut. His organization also helped reconstruct Sister Souraya’s iconography workshop there, which lacked electricity and was run down from water damage.

London, like so many big cities, is multicultural, the priest said, with diaspora from places in the world where Christians are facing persecution: China, Nigeria, Iraq and Syria. “So, it will be wonderful for them to come and pray for their families still there.”

“When Father Benedict asked me to do the icon, the first thought that came to mind is that it’s very touching that people in London are thinking about persecuted Christians,” Sister Souraya told Catholic News Service.

“When I was writing this icon, I was always praying for them and thinking about them, the people in London who will see the icon,” she said.

She began working on the icon in February, finished it in April and presented it to Father Kiely when he visited Lebanon in June. Sister Souraya believes Father Kiely chose this image to be the mother of the persecuted, “because she is tender and can feel their pain.”

In the icon, Sister Souraya explained, Mary is pointing to her Son, as if to say: “Look at him.”

“She’s the one who shows the way,” Sister Souraya said. Jesus is not looking at his mother, but is gazing outward in an attitude of contemplation.

Every process while writing the icon, Sister Souraya said, has a theological meaning.

Preparing the “canvas” of the icon — typically wood — requires seven layers. That represents the seven days of creation.

“The icon is a place where I can live my spiritual

life, because the icon brings you closer to God,” Sister Souraya said.

“People always ask, ‘Do you pray and fast before you write an icon?’” the nun shared. Rather, she said, “It’s the icon that teaches me how to pray, how to live, how to be patient.”

“In the silence, when contemplating, the time that we spend with the icon is a very powerful experience,” she said.

One of the most important steps in creating the icon is writing its title, Sister Souraya said. “It’s the final step.”

“Every icon must have a title, and the title gives the icon its identity.” Typically, it is written at the top of the icon, but not necessarily so.

The title, “Mary, Mother of Persecuted Christians” is written in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, the language of Jesus, still used in Iraq and Syria and in the liturgies in some Eastern churches, including the Maronite and Syriac Catholic rites.

Father Kiely said he hopes to have many more shrines for persecuted Christians with icons and, he said, “Sister Souraya will do most of them.”

“So often, the prayer for the persecuted Church just crops up as a Mass intention once in a while, and people forget it. We really need constant prayer for the persecuted,” Father Kiely said.

ABOVE Melkite Sister Souraya Herro poses with some of her artwork Sept. 7 in her workshop at the convent of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Zouk Mosbeh, Lebanon.

BELOW This icon of Mary and the Christ child was written by Sister Souraya for the shrine of Mary, Mother of Persecuted Christians located in the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory in central London.

So often, the prayer for the persecuted Church just crops up as a Mass intention once in a while, and people forget it. We really need constant prayer for the persecuted.

Father Benedict Kiely

DOREEN ABI RAAD | CNS

COURTESY FATHER BENEDICT KIELY | CNS