May 12, 2017

S E RV I N G C H R I ST A N D C O N N EC T I N G C AT H O L I C S I N W E ST E R N N O R T H C A R O L I N A

Simulated ordination of woman priest held in Asheville 3

St. Matthew’s pastor honored with endowment $250,000 donation to benefit World Hunger Drive 5

INDEX

Contact us.......................... 4 Events calendar................. 4 Our Faith............................. 2 Our Parishes................. 3-13 Schools......................... 14-15 Scripture readings............ 2 TV & Movies.......................16 U.S. news...................... 18-19 Viewpoints.................. 22-23 World news.................. 20-21

M ay 1 2 , 2 0 1 7

A blessed moment May means celebrating first Holy Communions and lauding Mary Photo galleries inside: 6-7

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FUNDED by the parishioners of the diocese of charlotte THANK YOU!

St. Thérèse Parish thanks departing priests Donates $35,000 to Jesuit Refugee Service in their honor 3

‘By the grace of God’

Christ the King’s Class of 2017 honors mothers

Charlotte girl battling leukemia to receive first Communion

Bishop Jugis blesses class gift of statue of Mary

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Our faith 2

catholicnewsherald.com | May 12, 2017 CATHOLIC NEWS HERALD

A saintly life

Pope Francis

Mary teaches people to hope in life’s darkest moments

M

ary, like many mothers throughout the world, is an example of strength and courage in accepting new life and in sharing the suffering of their children, Pope Francis said.

Although she had no idea of what awaited her when she accepted to bear God’s Son, “Mary in that instant appears to us like one of the many mothers in our world, courageous to the extreme,” the pope said May 10 at his weekly general audience.

Her motherly love and courage is seen again at the foot of the cross, he said, where “she teaches us the virtue of waiting even when everything appears meaningless.”

Just a few days before he was to visit Fatima, Portugal, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Marian apparitions there and as people in many countries were preparing to celebrate Mother’s Day, Pope Francis used his audience talk to focus on Mary and hope.

“We are not orphans, we have a mother in heaven,” he said. “In difficult moments, may Mary, the mother that Jesus has given to us all, always guide our steps.”

The Gospels portray Mary mostly as a “woman of silence,” but one who “meditated on every word and every event in her heart,” the pope said. “She is not a woman who is depressed in front of the uncertainties of life, especially when nothing seems to be going right. Instead, she is a woman who listens.”

Continuing his series of talks on Christian hope, Pope Francis reflected on Mary as “the mother of hope.”

“Don’t forget: There is always a great relationship between hope and listening. And Mary is a woman who listens, who welcomes existence as it comes to us with its happy days as well as its tragedies, which we never want to encounter,” he said.

Mary’s silence in the Gospel, the pope continued, is particularly evident in Jesus’ final moments where her presence during Christ’s passion is “eclipsed” until “she reappears at a crucial moment: when a good number of friends vanished because of fear.”

“Mothers do not betray, and in that instance, at the foot of the cross, none of us can say which one was the crueler passion: that of the innocent man who dies on the scaffold of the cross or the agony of a mother who accompanies her Son in His final moments of life,” he said.

Mary, he added, was “there” not just out of faithfulness to God’s divine plan but also because “of her instinct as a mother who just suffers” every time her child does.

Who were Sts. Nereus, Achilleus and Pancras?

So often we hear people or even ourselves excuse an action by saying “I was only following orders.” But for Nereus and Achilleus this excuse could not stand in the face of the cross.

Nereus and Achilleus were Roman soldiers of the Praetorian Guard (the emperor’s bodyguards) who were martyred at the end of the first century, and were said to have been baptized by St. Peter himself.

When they became Christians they gave up their posts, which they saw as immoral, and were exiled and then killed under the reign of the emperor Trajan.

Everything we know from authority about the two firstcentury martyrs comes from a testimony written by Pope St. Damasus in the fourth century and inscribed on a memorial tablet that commemorates their lives. But even this commentary comes 300 years after they died.

The epitaph written by St. Damasus says the following: “Nereus and Achilleus the martyrs joined the army and carried out the cruel orders of the tyrant, obeying his will continually out of fear.

Then came a miracle of faith. They suddenly gave up their savagery, they were converted, they fled the camp of their evil leader, throwing away their shields, armor, and bloody spears. Professing the faith of Christ, they are happy to witness to its triumph. From these words of Damasus understand what great deeds can be brought about by Christ’s glory.”

As participants in the persecution they knew perhaps better than any other Christian what pain awaited them. Faith, however, had triumphed over fear of death and the victory of faith was the sweetest they had known. We are told they were martyred, but Damasus doesn’t mention how.

Later legend had it that they served Flavia Domitilla, the greatniece of Emperor Domitian, and were exiled and executed with her when she converted. This legend probably originated in the

(Above) “St. Pancratius” by Lambert Sachs (Left) “Sts. Domitilla, Nereus, Achilleus” by Peter Paul Rubens

fact that the martyrs were buried in what was later known as the cemetery of Domitilla.

St. Pancras, or Pancratius, was a Syrian boy of pagan origin who went to Rome and was converted to Christianity. He was beheaded in 304 at the age of 14 during the persecution of the Emperor Diocletian. He is buried on the Via Aurelia in Rome and the Church of St. Pancratius, which still stands today, was built on his grave in the fourth century.

Sts. Nereus, Achilleus and Pancras have been honored together on May 12 since the fourth century.

— Catholic News Agency and Catholic Online

Your daily Scripture readings MAY 14-20

Sunday: Acts 6:1-7, 1 Peter 2:4-9, John 14:112; Monday (St. Isidore): Acts 14:5-18, John 14:21-26; Tuesday: Acts 14:19-28, John 14:27-31; Wednesday: Acts 15:1-6, John 15:1-8; Thursday (St. John I): Acts 15:7-21, John 15:9-11; Friday: Acts 15:22-31, John 15:12-17; Saturday (St. Bernardine of Siena): Acts 16:1-10, John 15:1821

MAY 21-27

Sunday: Acts 8:5-8, 14-17, 1 Peter 3:15-18, John 14:15-21; Monday (St. Rita of Cascia): Acts 16:11-15, John 15:26—16:4; Tuesday: Acts 16:22-34, John 16:5-11; Wednesday: Acts 17:15, 22—18:1, John 16:12-15; Thursday (The Ascension of the Lord): Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 1:17-23, Matthew 28:16-20; Friday (St. Philip Neri): Acts 18:9-18, John 16:20-23; Saturday (St. Augustine of Canterbury): Acts 18:23-28, John 16:23-28

MAY 28-JUNE 3

Sunday: Acts 1:12-14, 1 Peter 4:13-16, John 17:1-11; Monday: Acts 19:1-8, John 16:29-33; Tuesday: Acts 20:17-27, John 17:1-11; Wednesday (The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary): Zephaniah 3:14-18, Isaiah 12:2-6, Luke 1:39-56; Thursday (Justin): Acts 22:30, 23:6-11, John 17:20-26; Friday (Sts. Marcellinus and Peter): Acts 25:13-21, John 21:15-19; Saturday (St. Charles Lwanga and Companions): Acts 28:1620, 30-31, John 21:20-25

Our parishes

May 12, 2017 | catholicnewsherald.com catholic news heraldI

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Simulated ordination of woman priest held in Asheville

Jesuit priests of St. Thérèse Parish accept a $35,000 donation to Jesuit Refugee Service in their honor April 29.

Photos by SueAnn Howell | Catholic News Herald

St. Thérèse Parish thanks departing priests Donates $35,000 to Jesuit Refugee Service in their honor SueAnn Howell Senior reporter

MOORESVILLE — Amid smiles, tears and much applause, the four Jesuit priests of St. Thérèse Parish took the stage at a special celebration in their honor April 29 in the Parish Life Center. Hundreds of parishioners attended one of two celebrations that day to express their thanks for the many years of service the Jesuits have given to the Church in western North Carolina.

Starting July 11, 2017, the parish will revert to the care of priests of the Diocese of Charlotte. The Jesuit order is turning the parish back over to the diocese because of lack of manpower to continue serving the parish.

St. Thérèse Church has seen explosive growth since its founding. Established in 1956, the Mooresville parish has been among the fastest-growing parishes in the diocese in recent years. It now ranks as the diocese’s third-largest parish with 4,041 registered families, behind St. Matthew Church in Charlotte (10,000-plus families) and St. Mark Church in Huntersville (5,400 families), according to diocesan statistics.

During the evening celebration April 29, Father Vince Curtin, pastor, and Fathers Frank Reese, Dominic Totaro and Don Ward humbly accepted a $35,000 check to Jesuit Refugee Service from parishioners.

According to organizers, the amount donated surpassed the original goal by $10,000.

Janet Manzullo, a parishioner for 11 years, serves on the parish finance council and helped organize the JRS donation. She also served as emcee for the celebration.

“Father Vince said, ‘We don’t want a gift.

The pope has asked us as Jesuits to double our efforts with Jesuit Refugee Services, so I would rather you do that and give a gift.’

“They are so loving and they are so giving. They don’t want anything in return.

They are such a great example to me and to our community here of giving and loving.

They are wonderful people. They were key to our growth,” Manzullo said.

“Thank you very much,” Father Curtin said after the check presentation. “We all have said together what a gift it is to be here among you. This is a terrific Christian community. Just keep on keeping on. It’s wonderful. We want to say a personal farewell. We’re going to have some more parties. This is the start of the season!” he joked.

Father Curtin then took time to recognize Father Totaro and Father Reese, who are celebrating special events this summer.

Father Totaro marks 50 years a priest in June and Father Reese is celebrating his 90th birthday. Each priest was given a special plaque to mark their milestones.

Marsha Beck and her husband Dick have been members of St. Thérèse Church for the past 25 years. “We have loved the Jesuits here for their understanding of humanity and their generous spirits. They have set us aglow at St. Thérèse, and we cry

ASHEVILLE — A dissident group recently attempted to ordain a woman as a Catholic priest at a nondenominational church in Asheville.

Abigail Eltzroth went through a simulated ordination ceremony April 30 at Jubilee Community Church that was presided over by Bridget Mary Meehan, who presents herself as a Catholic bishop. The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, a Sarasota, Fla.-based group that does not accept Catholic teaching on the priesthood, organized the event.

Eltzroth, 64, reportedly identifies herself as Catholic, having converted from Presbyterianism in her 50s. She told the Charlotte Observer that she intends to start a community in the Asheville area.

“I hope that Catholics in the diocese will understand that it would be sinful to receive a fake sacrament from a woman priest and that includes attending a fake Mass,” said David Hains, communication director for the Diocese of Charlotte.

The Church follows the will of Jesus Christ in selecting only men for the sacrament of holy orders. Because God chose to become incarnate as a man and He chose 12 men to be His apostles, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord Himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.”

The Church recognizes a priest to be an “alter Christus” (“another Christ”) who is called by God and ordained by the Church to act “in persona Christi” (“in the person of Christ”) in building up the Church. Because Jesus Christ was a man, those who act “in persona Christi” and are an “alter Christus” must also be men. responds, SEE page 17

(Above) Jesuit Father Frank Reese rejoices as parishioners applaud for him in celebration of his 90th birthday. at their leaving.”

Denise and Ray Pausback, parishioners for 24 years, are also sad the Jesuits are leaving. “The Jesuits are very community minded, so we’ve done a lot more volunteering under this leadership,” Denise Pausback said. “We’ve done much more community outreach. We’ve become much more involved in the Christian way of life. The Jesuits bring that to the table.”

Parishioner Marilyn Schammel agreed.

“We’ve enjoyed having the Jesuits here and ST. THÉRÈSE, SEE page 17

Photo from the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests website

Abigail Eltzroth took part in a simulated ordination April 30 in Asheville that was organized by the dissident group Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests.

UPcoming events 4

catholicnewsherald.com | May 12, 2017 CATHOLIC NEWS HERALD

Bishop Peter J. Jugis will participate in the following upcoming events: May 12 – 10 a.m.

Diocesan Finance Council Meeting Pastoral Center, Charlotte

May 15 – 6 p.m.

Sacrament of Confirmation Our Lady of Mercy Church, Winston-Salem

May 22 – 6 p.m.

Sacrament of Confirmation St. Paul Church, Greensboro

May 13 – 11 a.m.

Mass for the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima St. Patrick Cathedral, Charlotte

May 17 – 6 p.m.

Sacrament of Confirmation Our Lady of Grace Church, Greensboro

May 25 – 7:30 p.m.

Baccalaureate Mass for Bishop McGuinness High School St. Pius X Church, Greensboro

May 13 – 5 p.m.

Sacrament of Confirmation Our Lady of the Annunciation Church, Albemarle

May 20 – 5 p.m.

Sacrament of Confirmation St. Benedict Church, Greensboro

May 29 – 11 a.m.

Mass for the Military St. Patrick Cathedral, Charlotte

Men’s Prayer Group: 7:30-8 a.m. Thursdays at St. Patrick Cathedral, 1621 Dilworth Road East, Charlotte.

Join Father Christopher Roux, rector and pastor, and other area Catholic men for Sunday Gospel meditations, the rosary and fellowship. For details, call the parish office at 704-334-2283.

For details, call Suzanne Bach at 704-335-0253

Diocesan calendar of events May 12, 2017

ENTERTAINMENT

Volume 26 • Number 16

Spring Fling for SEniors: 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 16, at St. Matthew Church, 8015 Ballantyne Commons Pkwy., Charlotte. Group entertainment and crafts. Lunch provided. Mass celebrated at 3 p.m. To register, call Sandra Breakfield at 704-370-3220. Sponsored by the Diocese of Charlotte Elder Ministry.

1123 S. Church St. Charlotte, N.C. 28203-4003 catholicnews@charlottediocese.org

704-370-3333

SAFE ENVIRONMENT TRAINING

‘Liberating a Continent – John Paul II and the Fall of Communism’ documentary: 6:30 p.m.

Saturday, May 20, Room D of the Ministry Center at St. Gabriel Church, 3016 Providence Road, Charlotte.

Discussion and light refreshments afterwards. Organized

by UNC-Charlotte faculty members Dr. Dean Hoffman and Dr. Kamila Valenta. For details, email dhoffman@uncc.edu or kvalenta@uncc.edu.

“Protecting God’s Children” workshops are intended to educate parish volunteers to recognize and prevent sexual abuse. For details, contact your parish office. To register and confirm workshop times, go to www.virtus. org. Upcoming workshops are:

EDITOR: Patricia L. Guilfoyle 704-370-3334, plguilfoyle@charlottediocese.org

NATURAL Family Planning

Candler: 9:30 a.m. Saturday, May 20, St. Joan of Arc Church, 768 Asbury Road

ADVERTISING MANAGER: Kevin Eagan 704-370-3332, keeagan@charlottediocese.org

NFP Introduction and Full Course: 1-5 p.m.

Saturday, May 20, at St. Matthew Church, 8015 Ballantyne Commons Pkwy., Charlotte. Topics include: effectiveness of modern NFP, health risks of popular contraceptives and what the Church teaches about responsible parenting. Sponsored by Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte. RSVP to Batrice Adcock, MSN, RN, at 704-3703230.

PUBLISHER: The Most Reverend Peter J. Jugis, Bishop of Charlotte

STAFF

SENIOR REPORTER: SueAnn Howell 704-370-3354, sahowell@charlottediocese.org Online reporter: Kimberly Bender 704-808-7341, kdbender@charlottediocese.org GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Tim Faragher 704-370-3331, tpfaragher@charlottediocese.org COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANT/CIRCULATION: Erika Robinson, 704-370-3333, catholicnews@ charlottediocese.org

The Catholic News Herald is published by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte 26 times a year.

NEWS: The Catholic News Herald welcomes your news and photos. Please e-mail information, attaching photos in JPG format with a recommended resolution of 150 dpi or higher, to catholicnews@charlottediocese.org. All submitted items become the property of the Catholic News Herald and are subject to reuse, in whole or in part, in print, electronic formats and archives.

ADVERTISING: Reach 165,000 Catholics across western North Carolina! For advertising rates and information, contact Advertising Manager Kevin Eagan at 704-370-3332 or keeagan@charlottediocese.org. The Catholic News Herald reserves the right to reject or cancel advertising for any reason, and does not recommend or guarantee any product, service or benefit claimed by our advertisers.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: $15 per year for all registered parishioners of the Diocese of Charlotte and $23 per year for all others.

POSTMASTER: Periodicals class postage (USPC 007-393) paid at Charlotte, N.C. Send address corrections to the Catholic News Herald, 1123 S. Church St., Charlotte, N.C. 28203.

PRAYER SERVICES & Groups Centennial Anniversary of Fatima: 7:30 p.m.

Meets every 13th of each month from May- October, at St. Michael the Archangel, 708 St. Michael’s Lane, Gastonia.

All are invited to the recitation of the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, outdoor candlelight procession and a small reception. For details, contact the parish office at 704-867-6212.

Pro-Life Rosary: 9 a.m. Saturday, June 3, at 901 North Main St. and Sunset Dr., High Point. Outdoors, rain or shine. Parking available nearby. Come to pray for the end of abortion. For details, call Jim Hoyng at 336-882-9593 or Paul Klosterman at 336-848-6835.

CHARLOTTE Maronite Mission: Masses are offered every Sunday at 12:30 p.m. at St. Matthew Church’s Waxhaw Campus, 4116 Waxhaw-Marvin Road, Waxhaw. The Maronite Mission of Charlotte is an Eastern rite Catholic Church in full communion with the pope.

Healing Mass and Anointing of the Sick: 2 p.m. every third Sunday of the month, St. Margaret of Scotland Church, 37 Murphy Dr., Maggie Valley. Individual prayers over people after Mass by Charismatic Prayer Group members. For details, call the parish office at 828-926-0106.

Evening Novenas: Every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Christ the King Church, 1505 East Kivett Dr., High Point. All are invited to pray the Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Join them in praying for the needs of your families and for our hurting world. For details, call the parish at 336-883-0244.

CHARLOTTE: 6:30 p.m. Monday, May 15, St. John Neumann Church, 8451 Idlewild Road

kernersville: 9:30 a.m. Saturday, May 20, Holy Cross Church, 616 South Cherry St. SEMINARs FRee EState Planning Seminar: 6:30-8 p.m.

Wednesday, May 17, at the Diocesan Pastoral Center, 1123 S. Church St., Charlotte. Attendees will learn about wills, trusts, powers of attorney, probate, bequests and other planned gifts, as well as Catholic teaching on end-oflife issues. Attorney Christian Cherry with Grier Furr & Crisp will present legal information. His presentation will include Q&A. Provided by the diocesan planned giving office. Parking is free and light refreshments will be served. For details, contact Judy Smith at jmsmith@ charlottediocese.org or call 704-370-3320.

‘The Intersection of Poverty, Race, and Wealth in America’: 7-8:30 p.m. Thursday, May 18, at St. Eugene Church, 72 Culvern St., Asheville. Bilingual talk

by Ralph McCloud, director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, For details, go to www. ccdoc.org/education. RSVP by May 15 to nphaskell@ charlottediocese.org. Sponsored by Catholic Charities and the diocesan African American Affairs Ministry.

‘The Intersection of Poverty, Race, and Wealth, and Health Outcomes in America – A Review of Current Data and Research’: 9:30 a.m.-1 p.m.

Saturday, May 20, at St. Gabriel Church, 3016 Providence Road, Charlotte. Talk by Ralph McCloud, director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, and Joseph Purello, Catholic Charities Social Concerns and Advocacy director. For details, go to www.ccdoc.org/education.

RSVP by May 15 to jtpurello@charlottediocese.org.

Sponsored by Catholic Charities and the diocesan African American Affairs Ministry.

Alzheimer’s Caregiver and Family Support Group: Meets the first Monday of the month, 6:30-8 p.m., in Family Center Room 203 at St. Mark Church, Huntersville. Organized with the Alzheimer’s Association, the monthly meetings are for the caregivers and family members of people with Alzheimer’s. For details, email Janet Urban at jgraceart@ yahoo.com.

YOUNG ADULTS ASHEVILLE THEOLOGY ON TAP: For Catholics in their 20s and 30s in the Asheville region. For details, check them out on Facebook, Twitter or MeetUp. CHARLOTTE AREA: Groups for Catholics in their 20s and 30s, single or married, are active on MeetUp at www. meetup.com/charlottecatholicyoungadultministry, and at: Our Lady of Consolation Church: contact Denise Duliepre, 917-575-0871 St. Gabriel Church: on Facebook at “St. Gabriel Young Adult Ministry” St. John Neumann Church: call Meg VanGoethem, 815-545-2587.

St. Matthew Church: on Facebook at “Young Adult Life: A St. Matthew Ministry” St. Patrick Cathedral: on Facebook at “The Cathedral of St. Patrick - Young Adult Ministry” St. Peter Church: look them up on MeetUp at www. meetup.com/St-Peters-Catholic-Young-Adult-MinistryCharlotte-NC. St. Thomas Aquinas Church: online at “Aquinas’ Finest,” www.stacharlotte.com/finest.

St. Mark Church in Huntersville: online at www. meetup.com/St-Mark-Catholic-Church-Youth-AdultMinistry/ Holy Spirit Church in Denver: call Nicole Lehman, 704-607-5207.

ST. LEO The great church in Winston-Salem: online at “Winston Salem Frassati,” www.wsfrassati.com GREENSBORO WAY OF CHRIST: The young adult ministry at St. Pius X Church in Greensboro: at www.stpiusxnc.com/woc, on Facebook at “wayofchrist” and Twitter @wocgreensboro or email Dan McCool at wocgreensboro@gmail.com St. Michael Church in Gastonia: For Catholics in their 20s and 30s in the Gastonia area. Meets once a month.

Online at www.stmichaelsgastonia.org/young-adults.

SUPPORT GROUPS Shining Stars Adult day respite: Meets on Mondays and Wednesdays at St. Gabriel Church, 3016 Providence Road, Charlotte. Shining Stars is a nonprofit adult day respite program for members of the community with early to moderate Alzheimer’s disease.

Is your PARISH OR SCHOOL hosting a free event open to the public? Deadline for all submissions is 10 days prior to desired publication date. Submit in writing to catholicnews@charlottediocese.org.

May 12, 2017 | catholicnewsherald.com

OUR PARISHESI

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St. Matthew pastor honored with endowment to end hunger $250,000 donation to benefit parish World Hunger Drive SueAnn Howell Senior reporter

CHARLOTTE — Monsignor John McSweeney is known for being direct.

From upstate New York, he is a person of few words but long on action and making a difference in people’s lives. He is a pastor who gets things done, with the support of his staff and 10,000-plus registered families who comprise the nation’s largest Catholic parish.

To memorialize his efforts as pastor over the past 18 years, an anonymous donor has given $250,000 to establish an endowment for a cause dear to Monsignor McSweeney’s heart: the parish World Hunger Drive.

Each summer, St. Matthew parishioners form an army of volunteers who help collect literally tons of non-perishable food, then assemble and pack more than 300,000 meals that are shipped overseas to people in need. Agencies that benefit from the parish’s outreach include the Missionaries of the Poor, Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte and Second Harvest Food Bank.

The Monsignor McSweeney World Hunger Outreach Program Endowment Fund will help ensure an annual funding source to continue this work at the parish.

“I was humbled by the endowment that is being placed in my name,” Monsignor McSweeney said. “I see that as a tremendous love of the donors for the poor, as I do myself. The hope is that those funds will be able to assist in those times of unique need for individuals.”

Mark Creasser, coordinator of the parish’s World Hunger Drive, calls the ministry an important outreach effort by the St. Matthew parish family to serve people in Haiti and Jamaica.

McSweeney “Our parishioners feel blessed that we can assist the Missionaries of the Poor and others who are helping the people in these countries,” Creasser said. “Last year, our parishioners volunteered 4,000 hours in packing, collecting and shipping of eight 40-foot containers. We have shipped over 2.2 million pounds of food and materials (to Haiti and Jamaica through the Missionaries of the Poor) since we began the program in 2003.”

Judy Smith, of the office of development

with the diocese, calls the endowment “a wonderful example of how a thoughtful and generous donor can make an impact where there is great need, and one that will last for many future generations.”

The anonymous donor explained the reasoning behind setting up this endowment: “Under Monsignor McSweeney, St. Matthew World Hunger Drive has served the poor internationally and locally since beginning 14 years ago.

The endowment will ensure the Monsignor McSweeney World Hunger Drive continues on as St. Matthew parishioners put into practice, ‘An Attitude of Gratitude.’ ” The endowment will be administered through the Diocese of Charlotte Foundation.

Established in 1994, the foundation has grown to encompass 246 endowments and more than $43 million in total assets.

To date, more than 900 people have indicated that they are making gifts to the Church in their estates, anywhere from the thousands to the millions of dollars.

Endowments provide an ongoing source of support, as the principal funds remain intact and the recipient entity receives funds from the income.

Recent endowments include an estate gift last year to St. Barnabas Church in Arden –

the largest endowment gift the diocese has ever received. Originally the endowment was estimated to be $3.6 million, but that figure has now increased to $4.1 million upon the estate being finalized, diocesan officials said.

Also, a couple from Immaculate Conception Church in Hendersonville recently donated a condo that was sold to generate an endowment of $403,000 for Immaculata School. That means the school will be able to use approximately $20,000 annually to help fund scholarships and provide other financial help to the school.

The Monsignor McSweeney World Hunger Outreach Program Endowment Fund was a cash gift.

“This endowment means that our program can continue for years to come,” Creasser explained. “It is heartwarming to see this incredible gift in the name of Monsignor McSweeney, who has been a great supporter of World Hunger Drive. We want to thank the wonderful people who made this gift possible, and ask that the good Lord bless them and their family.”

For details about establishing an endowment or providing an estate gift, contact Ray-Eric Correia, diocesan director of planned giving, at 704-370-3364 or recorreia@charlottediocese.org.

First Communicants help reenact Fatima apparitions at St. Mark Parish SueAnn Howell Senior reporter

HUNTERSVILLE — For more than eight years, representatives of the Te Deum Foundation have been visiting parishes around the state sharing the message of Fatima with classes of children preparing to make their first Holy Communion.

Billie Mobley, president of the Te Deum Foundation, and volunteers Barbara and Joe Barreto, share the messages from the Angel of Peace to three children which took place in 1916 in Fatima, Portugal.

The Fatima children said three apparitions of the Angel of Peace occurred in 1916 prior to apparitions of Our Lady which took place six times between May 13 and Oct. 13, 1917, at Cova da Iria.

During the apparitions of the Angel of Peace, the three young shepherds, Lucía dos Santos, and her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, said they saw a transparent figure in the form of a young man, whiter than snow and of great beauty. He appeared over the trees and said, ‘Do not be afraid! I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me.’

At the time the apparitions began, Lucía was 9 years old, Francisco was 8 and Jacinta was 6. The children said the Angel of Peace taught them special prayers, how to make sacrifices and how to make reparation for sin.

During her apparitions to the children in 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary asked for frequent recitation of the rosary and urged works of mortification for the conversion of sinners.

On April 29, Mobley and the Barretos shared the story of the apparitions of the Angel of Peace with two groups of first Communicants at St. Mark Church in Huntersville. They brought the events to life by asking for several children to come up and help reenact some of what occurred between the Angel of Peace and the three shepherd children during the angel’s three appearances to them.

Joe Barreto, a native of Portugal, also relayed insights about village life in his homeland. As he placed a little hat on the boy’s head who volunteered to play Francisco during the reenactment, Joe talked about the traditional Portuguese hat Francisco wore and the many purposes it served in the early 1900s.

“This is a hat back then that a lot of people would wear – especially near the coast, the fishermen used it to store their pipe and tobacco,” he explained.

“Sometimes kids would also wear it and (use it) if perhaps they did not have a little bag to put their food or a little snack in.”

Barbara Barreto led the interactive presentation and also introduced the first Communicants to the prayers given to the children by the Angel of Peace. Each child was given a glow-in-the-dark rosary and a copy of the Chaplet of Adoration and Reparation that is based on the prayers the Angel of Peace taught to Lucía, Francisco and Jacinta.

The prayers were originally prayed as a chaplet on rosary beads by many religious orders in Fatima. Father Christopher Roux, pastor and rector of St. Patrick Cathedral in Charlotte, brought this “Angel Prayer” back from one of his annual pilgrimages to Fatima at the request of the Irish Dominican Sisters of the Rosary for the approval of Bishop Peter Jugis.

Bishop Jugis desired to encourage Eucharistic Adoration, so he granted his imprimatur for the chaplet on Dec. 8, 2004, during the Year of the Eucharist. He is the only bishop in the world to have granted an imprimatur for the prayers of the Angel of Peace.

The Te Deum Foundation offers prayer cards of this chaplet in nine languages: English, Italian, Russian, French, Polish, Spanish (Castilian), German, Portuguese, Spanish (Latino) and Hungarian.

Barbara Barreto said she enjoys sharing the chaplet and the Fatima story with children because “it gives me an

First Communicants at St. Mark Church in Huntersville participated in a reenactment of the apparitions of the Angel of Peace to the three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, that occurred in 1916.

They and their families all learned the Chaplet of Adoration and Reparation given an imprimatur

by Bishop Peter Jugis which will be prayed on the Eternal Word Television Network at 3 p.m. ET on Saturday, May 13, the 100th anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. sue ann howell | catholic news herald

education.”

“I did not know about the Angel of Peace appearing to the children. It’s been rewarding to me to grow in my faith. It’s been great to have adults there too (the parents), because they usually don’t know there was an angel who appeared.”

She believes this is a wonderful presentation for all children preparing for their first Holy Communion.

Mobley agrees and hopes more parishes contact the foundation to set up similar presentations to help spread the message of Fatima. Most importantly, she hopes the children take away something very important from learning about the Angel of Peace and the children of Fatima: “Say your prayers and ask God to make you a saint when you make your first Communion,” she encouraged them at the end of the presentation.

Chaplet coming to EWTN For the first time, the Chaplet of Reparation and Adoration will be prayed on television on EWTN, the Eternal Word Television Network. The chaplet will be recited at 3 p.m. ET Saturday, May 13, on the 100th anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima.

More inside Read more about the Fatima story on page 22.

— Catholic News Service contributed.

More online At www.tedeumfoundation.org/ Fatima/#chaplet: Order copies of the Chaplet of Adoration and Reparation

At www.catholicnewsherald.com/faith/ fatima: Get more information about the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima

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catholicnewsherald.com | May 12, 2017 OUR PARISHES

Crowning Mary HUNTERSVILLE — St. Mark preschoolers honored Mary with their yearly crowning ceremony May 5. Five-year-old Madeline Fender, the oldest girl in the preschool, had the honor of placing the crown on Mary’s head in the church’s Mary garden while all of the other preschool children sang songs and placed flowers in vases that surround the statue. This is the 16th year that the preschool has held this May ceremony.

Photo provided

by Amy Burger

DENVER — For the first time ever, Holy Spirit Church’s Knights of Columbus brought the statue of Mary in at the beginning of Mass and placed her in the sanctuary.

Then a group of the parish’s first Communicants placed flowers before the statue, making this year’s May crowning very special.

CHARLOTTE — Christina Kay crowned a statue of Mary May 7 at St. Thomas Aquinas Church.

Doreen Sugierski | Catholic News Herald

John Cosmas | Catholic News Herald

Patrick Hession | Catholic News Herald

JEFFERSON — St. Francis of Assisi Church also held a May crowning earlier this month.

Giuliana Polinari Riley | Catholic News Herald

FOREST CITY — Emily Jimenez, assisted by Ricki Tounge, crowned a statue of Mary May 7 at Immaculate Conception Church.

Photo provided by Deacon David Reiser

CHARLOTTE — Our Lady of the Assumption School held its May crowning May 4.

May 12, 2017 | catholicnewsherald.com

OUR PARISHESI

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Celebrating first Holy Communion

Photos provided by Connie Ries

STATESVILLE — Forty-seven children received their first Holy Communion May 7 at St. Philip the Apostle Church, during Mary was crowned by one of the Communicants, and the rest of the children laid flowers at her feet. After each Mass Mass offered by Father Thomas J. Kessler, pastor. At the conclusion of each Mass, the statue of the Blessed Virgin light refreshments were served in the parish Social Hall for the first Communicants, their families and friends.

BOONE — Twenty children received their first Holy Communion April 29 at St. Elizabeth Church.

Amber Mellon | Catholic News Herald

SALISBURY — Josephina Huynh receives her first Holy Communion from Father John Eckert, pastor, during Mass at Sacred Heart Church May 6. Also pictured is the entire class of first Communicants at the parish.

Photos by Bill Washington | Catholic News Herald

Photo provided by Amy Burger

HUNTERSVILLE — In May, more than 270 children at St. Mark Church in Huntersville received their first Holy Communion during several Masses celebrated by Father John Putnam, pastor. During his homily May 5, Father Putnam pointed out the new statue of Jesus placed in the sanctuary especially for that celebration. “The statue shows how Jesus continues to give us His body, His blood, His soul and His divinity in Communion with the Chalice and the Host,” he explained, and encouraged everyone present to see with the eyes of faith, using their “God-given imagination,” when they come up to receive Communion at Mass. “It is Jesus who celebrates the Mass and Jesus who gives you first Communion,” he said.

Photos by John Cosmas | Catholic News Herald

CHARLOTTE — Ten children at St. Ann Church received first Holy Communion April 30 during the parish’s regular Mass in the Extraordinary Form.

Father Jason Barone, priest in residence, offered the High Mass, which was accompanied by the St. Ann Schola and the Cantate Dominio Latin Choir. The Mass also marked a record crowd of more than 400 attendees – demonstrating the continued growth of the Sunday Latin Mass in Charlotte, noted the Charlotte Latin Mass Community.

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catholicnewsherald.com | May 12, 2017 OUR PARISHES

‘By the grace of God’ Charlotte girl battling leukemia to receive first Communion Kimberly Bender Online reporter

CHARLOTTE — Mya McKenzie Nguyen, who has been battling leukemia for nearly six years, is hopeful she makes her first Holy Communion this month. Her parents credit their faith in God and his many blessings for the successes they’ve had in her treatment over the past few years.

Diagnosed when she was 3 years old, now 8-year-old Mya McKenzie has relapsed five times, trying experimental and other options to treat the cancer as it returns.

“Every time when we have our backs against the wall, God has always led us to a path for treatment,” her father Thanh Nguyen says. “Through all our hardships, our faith and trust in our Lord has seen us through, no matter how desperate it may have appeared at times.”

Thanh and Mya Nguyen are parishioners of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Charlotte and their only child, Mya McKenzie, has attended St. Gabriel School when her health allowed. Other times, she’s been homeschooled. She has enrolled to start fourth grade at St. Gabriel in the fall, her father says.

“One prayer I had when she was first diagnosed, I actually asked God, ‘Please let me see the day my daughter would receive You for her First Communion.’ That year, that month, I ordered a First Communion kit that I recently gave to her,” Thanh says.

“With all the trials and relapses, I’m hopeful I’ll be able to see that first Communion five years later.”

Mya McKenzie was a healthy baby and young girl, until she developed a cough and was very weak, her father recounts. After repeated trips to the pediatrician and cough medicines that didn’t alleviate the issue, a blood test led their family to be referred to a specialist.

“She was diagnosed with precursor B-cell lymphoblastic leukemia,” Thanh says. “That was very devastating for our family.”

The diagnosis came in the spring. That Easter, a couple weeks later, Thanh recalls attending Mass without his wife and daughter, who were at the hospital for treatment.

“We rotated going to church. When I was at church on Easter Sunday, I really believe I received a special message from God that she would be OK and would be cured,” he says. “It’s a faith I’ve carried with me the next few years.”

Mya McKenzie’s first relapse was met with treatment options. She was fine for almost a year before her second relapse, her father says.

“After the second, we didn’t know what to do,” Thanh says. “The first thing we did was go to the Adoration Chapel at St. Gabriel Church, and we went there and prayed. It was really serious because it seemed to be aggressive this time. When we had our backs against the

Photo provided by Thanh Nguyen

Thanh, Mya and Mya McKenzie Nguyen are pictured after Mass on Easter. wall, all of a sudden we found this brand new treatment.”

Mya McKenzie was the first patient at Duke University Medical Center to participate in a then-new clinical trial which consisted of an adoptive transfer of T cells expressing chimeric antigen receptors. It’s a promising anti-cancer therapy, as the modified cells can be engineered to target virtually any tumor-associated antigen.

“It’s programmed to recognize a certain target. They grow enough of the cells, then re-energize the cells and re-fuse it back into your body,” her father explains. “We really felt it was a blessing for us to have this treatment option.”

Six months later, though, the leukemia returned.

“The first thing we did was turn to God, again. We went

back to the chapel and prayed about it. Every time we do that, we get really inspired. We got a sense of peace to be able to fight again to do whatever we need to do help our child,” Thanh says.

The doctors recommended a course of light chemotherapy while they explored other clinical trial treatments. From just the chemo, Mya McKenzie was quickly judged cancer-free again. Their family learned of this during Holy Week 2016.

“The next day, Holy Thursday, we found out my wife is a perfect match for a bone marrow transplant, which is rare,” Thanh says. “All of a sudden, she was cancer free and we had a perfect donor.”

Mya McKenzie received that transplant and all was going well again until last October, when the disease returned.

This time, her family turned to the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md., for another successful round of treatment.

“Even though it is a federal hospital, there was a standalone Blessed Sacrament chapel,” Thanh says. “I spent a lot of time there, praying for our child and giving thanks to God for this opportunity.

“My daughter has had more than four relapses, and every time we’ve felt there was nothing to do. There’s always something that’s come into our direction. Usually around Easter is when we get blessed.”

Mya McKenzie’s leukemia returned last month, and her family is back at the National Institutes of Health for treatment and they remain hopeful for positive results.

Mya McKenzie received her first sacrament of penance with her classmates and while she was in remission earlier this year, she attended classes to prepare to receive her first Communion. While she missed out on receiving the sacrament with classmates, her father says she is still expected to receive her first Communion later this month.

One the greatest assets through this whole ordeal, her father says, is that Mya McKenzie has been blessed with a special grace to handle the news as it comes and remain positive. She’s been known to even console her parents, he says.

“She loves to play doctor and is very observant. She helps the nurses. She’s very courageous and not scared of those things by any means. If it hurts, she cries, but she’s right back up smiling soon. It’s really amazing.”

Mya McKenzie says she hasn’t been scared because she has faith.

“God helped me – I felt Him with me when I was in pain,” she says. “I trust in God. I wasn’t afraid. I felt God was helping me. I’m never really scared.”

Her father hopes by sharing his family’s story they can inspire others dealing with hardships to put their faith in God. “I want to convey all the times we were down and low, it was our faith and prayers and those praying for us,” he says.

“I really believe all the prayers from our families, friends and schoolmates and saints in heaven help. I think that’s how we’re doing so well.”

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1/8 Pa 5.1042

May 12, 2017 | catholicnewsherald.com catholic news heraldI

Where are you going?

QUO VADIS DAYS 2017

June 12-16, 2017 * Belmont Abbey College Event open to young men 15 thru 19 years old A camp for Catholic men to learn more about the priesthood, deepen their faith, and help discern God’s call in their lives.

REGISTRATION CLOSES MAY 29

www.charlottevocations.org

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catholicnewsherald.com | May 12, 2017 OUR PARISHES

Photo provided by Denys Davis Giuliana Polinari Riley | Catholic News Herald

Walking for Life FOREST CITY — The 24th annual Walk for Life, organized by Hands of Hope, was held April 29 at Immaculate Conception Church. Approximately 170 people from 25 churches participated in the two-mile walk that raised more than $11,000.

Sponsors for the event, in addition to Immaculate Conception Church, included Woodforest National Bank, Hampton Cab LLC, McArthur Landscaping, Rutherford Veterinary Hospital, Green Hill Store, Steve McCurry Painting, Carolina Cafe and The Shake Shop. Hands of HOPE (Help Offered in a Pregnancy Experience) is a non-profit Christian pro-life pregnancy care ministry. The organization offers free pregnancy testing, prenatal and parenting education, life skills workshops, Christian counseling, Bible studies and material assistance (diapers, wipes, baby and maternity clothes, etc.). The event included food, live music, games, face painting and door prizes. One of the organizers was Traci Burnett, who is Hands of Hope Client services director and a member of Immaculate Conception Church.

THE ORATORY 434 Charlotte Avenue, P.O. Box 11586 Rock Hill, SC 29731-1586

(803) 327-2097

Holy Cross confirmation students serve others KERNERSVILLE — Before receiving the sacrament of confirmation May 6, confirmation students at Holy Cross Church spent one of their last classes focused on understanding mercy, the Beatitudes, and service to others. For parishioners at Holy Cross, the students made soup mixes in jars to give to the parish’s care office for the sick and homebound. In service to the Kernersville community, the students made birthday bags for Crisis Control that included supplies for a birthday party; they crafted dog chew toys for the local animal shelter; no-sew quilts were put together for the homeless; they pinned dress material to help the local Columbiettes Auxiliary 8509 with their pillowcase dress project; and they helped the local Knights of Columbus Auxiliary 8509 with their Stars for Our Troops project. They pushed even further to reach others outside of their immediate world by clipping coupons for overseas veteran families and by partnering with an organization called Sole Hope (based in Salisbury) to cut material for children’s shoes that will be made and dispersed in Uganda.

Center for Spirituality rockhilloratory.net

oratorycenter@gmail.com

Visions in Faith

Sunday, June 11 – Wednesday, June 14, 2017 Carl McColman

Learning to Pray with the Saints and Mystics One of life’s most important questions is simply this: “How can I draw closer to God?” Traditionally this means learning how to pray. The Catholic tradition is blessed by 2,000 years of history in which holy men and women have left us advice and instruction on how to draw closer to God. We will explore different approaches to Christian prayer, grounded in the wisdom of the saints and mystics, and presented in a practical, down to earth way. We will pray together, learn together, spend time in silence and hopefully have some fun as well.

This event is offered for laity and religious, with a late afternoon / evening schedule that is suitable for commuters.

Carl McColman is a Lay Cistercian – a Catholic layperson under the spiritual guidance of Trappist monks. He is the author of several books on Christian spirituality, including: Befriending Silence, The Big Book of Christian Mysticism and Answering the Contemplative Call.

$125 – Tuition for All Sessions

$40 – Per Day $200 – Room and Board $21 – Daily Supper for Commuters

CCDOC.ORG

Refugee Employment Each year nearly 400 new refugees are resettled in the Charlotte area.

A dedicated team of professionals at Catholic Charities works closely with these refugees to prepare them for the local workforce. If you are a small business owner or hiring manager we would like to invite you to learn about potential employment opportunities. With a strong work ethic and determination to succeed, refugees can help your business grow.

Serve your community by hiring reliable and hardworking refugees. Visit ccdoc.org for more information about refugee employment or call 704.370.3283.

May 12, 2017 | catholicnewsherald.com catholic news heraldI

“Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity.

Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” — St. John Paul II

DUC IN ALTUM June 26 - 30, 2017 * Belmont Abbey College

Retreat for women, freshman in high school to freshman in college Register by June 16, 2017 www.charlottevocations.org

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catholicnewsherald.com | May 12, 2017 OUR PARISHES Please join us for the Inaugural

Sacred Heart Lecture with

Dr. Carrie Gress

Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church Indian Land, SC

Friday, June 2, 2017 6:30 – 8:30 pm The Marian Option: God’s Solution to a Civilization in Crisis 6:30 pm Concert of Sacred Music 7:00 pm Talk by Dr. Carrie Gress 7:45 pm Wine and Cheese Reception

Carrie Gress has a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and is a faculty member at Pontifex University. She is the author of Nudging Conversions: A Practical Guide to Bringing Those You Love Back to the Church, Ultimate Makeover: The Transforming Power of Motherhood, The Marian Option: God's Solution to a Civilization in Crisis and co-author with George Weigel of City of Saints; A Pilgrim’s Guide to John Paul II’s Krakow. A homeschooling mother of four, Dr. Gress and her family live in Virginia.

There is no charge to attend but donations are appreciated No RSVP required www.gracewepray.org

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For the latest news 24/7: catholicnewsherald.com

In Brief Parochial vicar announced for Winston-Salem parish WINSTON-SALEM — Bishop Peter Jugis announces the appointment of Conventual Franciscan Father Calixto Salvatierra Moreno as parochial vicar of Our Lady of Mercy Parish in WinstonSalem effective March 30.

Father Moreno was born in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. The son of Donald Salvatierra and Elena Moreno, he has two brothers and three sisters. He completed his basic studies Moreno at the Colegio Nacional Minero in Santa Cruz and his higher studies at the Catholic University of San Pablo in the city of Cochabamba.

In 2002 he professed his solemn vows with the Conventual Franciscans in Bolivia. He was ordained a priest in 2004 by Archbishop Tito Solari of the Archdiocese of Cochabamba.

He holds a degree in theology, philosophy and civil and ecclesiastical masters in theologymissionology. He also has years of experience in teaching at the Catholic University among other academic centers, and considerable national (Bolivia) and international conferences in the field of missiological and ecumenical issues. He speaks Spanish, Italian and English.

— Catholic News Herald

Talks about poverty and race to be held in Asheville, Charlotte Ralph McCloud, director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, will speak about “The Intersection of Poverty, Race, and Wealth in America” from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Thursday, May 18, at St. Eugene Church, located at 72 Culvern St. in Asheville. This is a bilingual event, offered in English and Spanish. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Joseph Purello, director of Catholic Charities’ Social Concerns and Advocacy office, will join McCloud for a related talk two days later at St. Gabriel Church in Charlotte. They will speak on “The Intersection of Poverty, Race, and Wealth, and Health Outcomes in America – A Review of Current Data and Research” from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, May 20, at St. Gabriel Church, located at 3016 Providence Road in Charlotte.

RSVP to these events, sponsored by Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte and the diocesan African American Affairs Ministry, by Monday, May 15. See www.ccdoc.org/education for details.

Knitting group donates items CHARLOTTE — The Knit and Crochet group at St. Matthew Church recently made and donated BRIEFS, SEE page 13

May 12, 2017 | catholicnewsherald.com

OUR PARISHESI

BRIEFS FROM PAGE 12

more than 500 items including hats, prayer shawls and lap blankets to Mira Via, a project that they do twice a year. Pictured are some of the group members and the items they donated.

Father Binoy Davis blessed all the items before they were delivered to Mira Via. — Ann McDonald and Kathy Keegan

Knights support Room At The Inn

Making Easter baskets for needy children CHARLOTTE — The Santa Zita Circle of St. Vincent de Paul Church recently donated dozens of Easter baskets to needy children in the Charlotte area including distributions at the Sisters of Mercy, Catherine’s House, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools and A Child’s Place. Over the past 15-plus years, the circle of 20 women make between 25-50 Easter baskets that are given to various charities. Pictured are circle members Helen Mayhew and Margaret Shannon delivering Easter baskets to A Child’s Place in Charlotte.

— Peggy Gibbons

Columbiettes earn major degree CLEMMONS — Twenty-nine Columbiettes in the Diocese of Charlotte received their major degree at a ceremony at Holy Family Church April 22. A Major Degree member is considered a full-fledged participating member and is privileged to hold an office in the order.

— Lisa Viola

WINSTON-SALEM — Room At The Inn has a raffle each year to raise money for its programs that help single pregnant homeless women to choose life for their babies and transition to an independent future full of hope. Each ticket costs $100 and only 300 are sold. The winner receives $5,000. This year’s winner was Knights of Columbus Santa Maria Council 2829 from St. Leo the Great Church in Winston-Salem. The Knights council has been supporting Room At The Inn for many years as well as taking part in many other pro-life activities locally. Last week Room At The Inn received a check in the mail returning half of their winnings!

Room At The Inn would like to thank Knights Council 2829 for their continuing generous support as well as all the councils around the state who also support the mothers and babies in their programs.

Invest in your success!

Advertise in the Catholic News Herald Kevin Eagan, Advertising Manager 704-370-3332 keeagan@charlottediocese.org

catholicnewsherald.com CCDOC.ORG

— Marianne Donadio

Emergency responder awards given out GREENSBORO — On March 25, Piedmont Council 939 of the Knights of Columbus hosted its Emergency Responders Awards Dinner, continuing a long tradition dating back to 1973. Thirty-five people representing the four services and more than 89 Knights and wives were in attendance. Past Grand Knight Tom Thompson welcomed the group and Sheriff B.J. Barnes led the prayer before the meal.

After a meal prepared by Chef Tony Pupello and his crew of servers, awards were presented to the following: Greensboro Police Officer Heather Jefferson, presented by Capt. J.P. Kimmel; Greensboro Fire Captain Ted D. Norris, presented by Engineer Jason Jobe; Guilford County Sheriff’s Department Master Cpl. Scott A. Nelson, presented by Lt. Anthony M. Whitley and Sgt. James Rouse; and Guilford County EMS’s Travis Norris, presented by Capt. Richard Mathews.

— Tom Thompson

Discover Natural Family Planning Modern Natural Family Planning (NFP) provides a practical and empowering alternative used to achieve or avoid pregnancy. It upholds the dignity of the person within the context of marriage and family and promotes openness to life by respecting the love-giving and life-giving natures of marriage.

What will you learn by taking a free, one-day class?

• Effectiveness of modern NFP methods.

• Health, relational, and spiritual benefits.

• Health risks of popular contraceptives.

• Church teachings on responsible parenting.

• How to use Natural Family Planning.

May 20th - St. Matthew Catholic Church, Charlotte | One Day Class May 21st - Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Monroe | Spanish Class June 10th - St. Barnabas Catholic Church, Arden | Three Class Series June 24th - St. Matthew Catholic Church, Charlotte | One Day Class For more information visit our website or contact Batrice Adcock, MSN at 704.370.3230 or bnadcock@charlottediocese.org.

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Our schools 14

catholicnewsherald.com | May 12, 2017 CATHOLIC NEWS HERALD

For the latest news 24/7: catholicnewsherald.com

In Brief

IHM students help clean up local stream HIGH POINT — Immaculate Heart of Mary School’s Environmental Club, the “Eco-Eagles,” recently adopted a stream, located at the corner of Deep River Road and Hickswood Road, in north High Point, which feeds into the Deep River. After Kelsey Burgess, High Point’s storm water specialist, came to an Environmental Club meeting to discuss storm water run-off and water pollution, students voted to adopt the stream through the Keep High Point Beautiful Organization.

Storm water drains empty into streams, rivers and lakes and the Eco-Eagles want to help the environment by keeping pollution out of their community’s waterways. The City of High Point provides the supplies for the clean-ups and students are responsible for cleaning litter and debris from the stream and nearby roadway at least twice a year for at least two years. Since October, the Eco-Eagles have cleaned this area three times – finding tires, wooden cable spools, buckets, a basketball and more, filling a total of 18 bags of trash and recyclables during the clean-ups.

— Carrie Vest

Charlotte Catholic Symphonic Band earns superior ratings CHARLOTTE — The Charlotte Catholic High School Symphonic Band received straight superior ratings after a performance assessment by the South Central District Bandmasters Association. Hickory Ridge High School in Harrisburg hosted the March 27-31 event. This was the band’s first assessment appearance under the direction of Timothy Cook, and its first straight superior rating since 2012.

Three adjudicators from across the state evaluated the band’s performance, which included works by composers Ron Nelson, Edwin Franko Goldman and North Carolina composer Steven Bryant.

“The judges were very complimentary toward the band,” Cook said. “There are few places where a director has the opportunity to push students the way I can here at Charlotte Catholic, and I’m very thankful for that. It’s an amazing process to witness.”

The next Symphonic Band performance will be May 21 at Charlotte Catholic High School. Everyone is welcome to attend.

— Carolyn Kramer Tillman

14 Charlotte Catholic juniors recognized for outstanding PSAT scores CHARLOTTE — Fourteen members of the junior class at Charlotte Catholic High School will receive recognition this fall in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program.

The 14 juniors are Jacob Daniel, Austin Franks, Sarah Gilles, Ariel Hobbs, Charles Nenichka, Mary Polking, John Powell, John Roselli, Connor Ruff, Lauren Schmidt, Nicholas Scibelli, Andrew Shooman, Matthew Weber, and David Williams.

Each year, more than 1.5 million students take the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT). Nationwide, the 50,000 highestscoring students are recognized as showing outstanding academic potential. From the 50,000 high-scorers, approximately 16,000 will be named National Merit Program Semifinalists, who then will have an opportunity to continue in a competition for approximately 7,400 Merit Scholarship awards.

— Carolyn Kramer Tillman

sueann howell | catholic news herald

Bishop Peter Jugis blesses a statue of the Blessed Mother May 5 at Christ the King High School in Huntersville. The Class of 2017 donated the statue to the school in honor of Our Lady and their mothers, especially two mothers of seniors who have passed away.

Christ the King’s Class of 2017 honors mothers Bishop Jugis blesses class gift of statue of Mary SueAnn Howell Senior reporter

HUNTERSVILLE — Christ the King High School’s Class of 2017 has left an enduring memory and symbol of faith as their class gift to the school. A four-foot statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary now graces the entrance of the high school near the chapel.

“We decided that a statue of the Blessed Mother would be a special way to honor the mothers of our class, who we recognize as strong and important forces in our lives,” explains senior and student body president Emily Mayernik.

“Two of our classmates have lost their mothers, so we wanted to remember them in this way. Mary has an extremely important role in the Church, and I think the statue is a great way to recognize this.”

Bishop Peter Jugis celebrated Mass May 5 for the students, faculty, families and special guests.

“Today we have the great honor of dedicating and blessing the senior class gift given to the school, the statue of the Blessed Mother, which is beautifully stationed out in front of the entrance to the school,” Bishop Jugis said in his homily.

“Now, why the Blessed Mother? If you are looking for a saint who is a great saint to follow, a great model to follow, of all the saints she is the best. She is the most perfect follower of Jesus. She is sinless by the gift of God’s grace.

“At every moment, she was totally for Jesus. There was never any question, never any doubt, never any opposition – she was totally consecrated and dedicated to Jesus.”

“Which is how all of us should be as disciples of Christ,” he continued. “We’re working and striving towards that goal of being more and more dedicated to Jesus – more and more putting Him first in our lives, more and more consecrating everything we have and everything we are to Jesus.

“So who better an example or a better model do we have in our lives than the Blessed Mother?”

A statue of Mary is prominently displayed, he noted, because she leads us to Jesus. “Look at her fidelity to Jesus, faithfulness to Jesus. Even to the cross she is there to the very end.”

Mary’s prayerfulness, humility and desire to follow God’s will are all virtues we should imitate, he emphasized.

“If you can imagine the Mother of God, Mary, saying, ‘I am the servant of the Lord.’ She’s the greatest creature to ever live on the face of the earth. She brought God to birth on earth and she said of herself in all humility, ‘I am a servant.’

“That is why for all of us Christians, she is the greatest model, the greatest example of striving for holiness and striving to grow close to the Lord.”

“It is a great honor during this month of May – traditionally dedicated to honoring Mary – to be blessing the statue today, as it is a great way for the senior class of 2017 to be remembered for future generations,” he said. “It is a great gift to the Church and a great gift to the school.”

Principal Michael Smith also addressed those gathered for the statue dedication. “I want to thank all of the mothers of the Class of 2017 with us today for their devotion and dedication and all that they have done for our school and the examples they have provided for their children,” he said.

“I also want to recognize that this statue is in memory of Brenda Lee and Michelle Stanley, two mothers of the Class of 2017 who are not with us today. We would like for their families to know that our prayers are always with you.”

“Our class wanted to leave Mary to welcome everybody to Christ the King every day,” Mayernik noted. “We pray Mary continues to intercede and watch over Christ the King students and their families as the Class of 2017 moves on to college and beyond.”

More online At www.catholicnewsherald.com: See more photos from the Mass and dedication ceremony at Christ the King High School

May 12, 2017 | catholicnewsherald.com catholic news heraldI

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Charlotte Catholic students minister to the poor in Jamaica Carolyn Kramer Tillman Special to the Catholic News Herald

CHARLOTTE — Twenty-two Charlotte Catholic students traveled to Kingston, Jamaica, for their spring break – not to spend time on the beach or to see the sights, but to work alongside the Missionaries of the Poor, providing help and companionship to those with little or nothing.

The Missionaries of the Poor run several different centers in Kingston, tending to the needs of orphaned children, adults with AIDS, and adults with severe mental and physical disabilities. The high school sophomores, juniors and seniors clothed, diapered, fed and played with the children. The young men in the group shaved and talked with the men at the centers, assisting with many of their needs. They cleaned and helped wherever they could at the adult center, rubbing cream on the elderly, feeding those unable to feed themselves and providing companionship – all the while respecting the dignity of each person they encountered. In addition, they worked alongside the MOP sisters at the mission, helping the elderly and orphaned children in their care.

Junior MeKayla Gough was taken aback at first by the joy that exuded from the children.

“These kids at the orphanage have nothing,” Gough said. “No parents, toys or even clothing to call their own.

Despite their situations and personal disabilities, those kids are the happiest children I’ve ever had the joy of meeting.”

“These kids have changed my life,” she continued. “One little boy named Bob is missing an arm and a leg, yet I have never seen a wider smile on anyone’s face. He’s my hero, because despite the hand that life dealt him, he can somehow still see the joy and hope in life.”

The students immersed themselves in the missionary life, living with the MOP brothers, praying daily with them, and partaking of the life to which the brothers have committed themselves. They attended Holy Thursday Mass with the Missionaries of the Poor and engaged in the washing of the feet with the Church community.

“It was most joyful when we offered each other the sign

of peace,” said Jen Murlless, Charlotte Catholic High School counselor who accompanied the students. “The church sang out with ‘Amen’ over and over, to the beat of the drum and the clanging of the tambourine, while everyone walked around the church shaking hands and hugging the brothers, sisters and church members.”

“We were welcomed into the community with open arms,” Gough added. There were no barriers whatsoever and I think that’s what was so beautiful about the entire trip. I’ve honestly never experienced such an engaging and joyful Mass. I think I hugged every person in that church!”

On Good Friday, the students walked throughout Kingston praying the Stations of the Cross. Michael Neel, a sophomore, and Gary Hoilett, a chaperone, carried the cross while many of the students carried an image of each station.

“It was an intense experience,” Gough said. “It was sweltering hot, and we were kneeling on the burning-hot street. When we got back to the church, Father asked his how we felt. We all said we were exhausted. He then asked us how Jesus must have felt, because we had only walked 200 meters around a park. And that was something to really think about.”

“The week was so very meaningful,” Murlless said. “The people we served are at the mercy of those who help them, yet they are filled with great joy for what little they have or what they can do. I was so proud of our students as individuals and as a group. They were wonderful to the people and to each other.”

The high school’s Campus Ministry Team, Mary Jayne (MJ) Dawson and Theresa Hintz, provided organization and direction to the effort.

“We began these mission trips in 2007,” Dawson said.

“We started with a trip to Peru that first year, and have been to many other places, including coal-mining areas of West Virginia and places hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. There is such need in Jamaica, but our students experience such love and joy, as well. We are already looking forward to next year.”

Especialista En Comunicaciones Hispanas El Catholic News Herald, periódico con circulación de 59,000 hogares al servicio de la diócesis de Charlotte, Carolina del Norte, está buscando a un periodista con experiencia bilingüe para cubrir las noticias y eventos de la comunidad católica-hispana, lo cual incluye escribir historias, tomar fotos, audio y videos, etc., para su publicación en el Catholic News Herald, en español y en inglés, y a través de una variedad de canales de comunicación. Esta posición también implica el desarrollo de comunicación en las redes sociales y la radio para la comunidad hispana.

Los candidatos deben tener experiencia en periodismo, además de una licenciatura en periodismo, marketing u otro campo relacionado; fluidez verbal y escrita en inglés y español; competencia con la fotografía digital y videografía, audio y video, edición de software, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, y canales de redes sociales (como Facebook, Twitter, YouTube); familiaridad con la Iglesia Católica y sus enseñanzas; atención al detalle y precisión; y capacidad para trabajar bajo plazos regulares.

Ofrecemos un paquete de beneficios competitivos que incluye sueldo acorde con experiencia, seguro médico y dental, 403 (b) y pago de vacaciones.

Por favor enviar hoja de vida, resume: Patricia Guilfoyle, Editor, plguilfoyle@charlottediocese.org.

No llamadas, por favor.

The 22 Charlotte Catholic High School students who went on the mission trip are pictured with Brother Elijah of the Missionaries of the Poor in Kingston, Jamaica.

(Pictured from left) Anna Fitzpatrick, MeKayla Gough, and Aleesha Miller enjoy some bonding time with three children from the Missionaries of the Poor’s orphanage.

Sophomore Caitlin Murlless and senior Megan Murlless minister to the elderly in Kingston.

Photos provided

by Carolyn Kramer Tillman

Hispanic Communications Specialist The Catholic News Herald, a 59,000-circulation newspaper serving the Diocese of Charlotte, N.C., is seeking an experienced bilingual journalist to cover news and events about the local Hispanic Catholic community – writing stories, taking photos, shooting video and audio, etc. – for publication in the Catholic News Herald, in Spanish and in English, and through a variety of other communications channels. This position also involves developing future radio, online and social media communications for and about the Hispanic community.

Candidates must have previous journalism experience, plus a bachelor’s degree in journalism, marketing or other related field; verbal and written fluency in English and Spanish; proficiency with digital photography and videography, audio and video editing software, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, online content management systems, and social media channels (such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube); familiarity with the Catholic Church and its teachings; attention to detail and accuracy; and ability to work under and meet regular deadlines.

We offer a competitive benefits package that includes salary commensurate with experience, health and dental insurance, 403(b) and paid holidays. EOE Please submit resume to: PatriciaGuilfoyle, Editor plguilfoyle@charlottediocese.org No phone calls, please.

Mix 16

catholicnewsherald.com | May 12, 2017 CATHOLIC NEWS HERALD

For the latest movie reviews: catholicnewsherald.com

On TV n Friday, May 12, 1 p.m. (EWTN) “Prayer and Visit to the Chapel of the Apparitions.” Pope Francis makes a pilgrimage to this Fatima chapel. Live from Portugal.

In theaters

n Friday, May 12, 6:15 p.m. (EWTN) “St. Henry De Osso.” The life of St. Henry De Osso through pictures, music and narration, encouraging your little ones to follow his example by living and loving as Jesus did. Animated. n Friday, May 12, 8 p.m. (EWTN) “The Three Little Shepherds.” Several experts on the Fatima phenomenon collaborate to create an in depth look at the spiritual lives and psychological profiles of the three shepherd children who witnessed an apparition of the Virgin Mary. n Saturday, May 13, 12 p.m. (EWTN) “Holy Mass with Canonizations.” Pope Francis celebrates Mass in honor of Our Lady of Fatima and canonizes Francisco and Jacinta Marto. From the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Portugal.

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ Sci-fi follow-up in which the hero (Chris Pratt) of the 2014 original encounters his long-lost father (Kurt Russell), a demi-god who created, and rules over, his own paradise-like planet.

Though the two quickly bond, all is not as it seems. Family troubles also dog the alien, (Zoe Zaldana) the protagonist would like to make his girlfriend as she pursues her longstanding rivalry with her scheming sister. In between these clan conflicts, the group of the title, its membership rounded out by a tactless musclebound extraterrestrial, a racoon and an undersized tree-like creature, does a battle with an array of adversaries, one band of them led by the space pirate who raised Pratt’s character after his human mother died. Use of religiouslythemed music and imagery. Mostly stylized combat violence with little gore, occasional crude and more frequent crass talk.

CNS: A-III (adults); MPAA: PG-13

‘The Circle’ A cautionary tale about a young office worker (Emma Watson) who is thrilled when she gets a job at the world’s leading social media company (led by founders Tom Hanks). But the corporate culture turns out to be unsettlingly cult-like and the outfit’s stated goal of enlisting every person on the planet as a member raises troubling issues about privacy and the power of big business. The protagonist’s initial enthusiasm is also dampened by her encounters with the nowmarginalized, and disenchanted, third creator of the firm. Director James Ponsoldt fails to insert much energy into the proceedings, and the film’s ultimate message remains unclear.

While perfectly acceptable for a wide swath of grown-ups, a crucial scene probably puts this drama over the line for all but the most mature teens. A few uses of profanity, several crude and crass words.

CNS: A-III (adults); MPAA: PG-13

‘Free Fire’ The premise of this action comedy is that a single extended gunfight can sustain an entire film, provided the participants in the showdown keep making incongruously funny and mordant remarks. The setup involves a deal to buy assault rifles that quickly goes bad. So the two sides, represented, most prominently, by would-be gun buyer Brie Larson and arms dealer Sharlto Copley spend the rest of the run time pulling their triggers and reloading while attempting to retrieve a briefcase loaded with cash. Pervasive gun and physical violence, occasional profanities, constant rough language.

CNS: L (limited adult audience); MPAA: R

n Saturday, May 13, 4 p.m. (EWTN) “The Message of Fatima: The First Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima.” Shortly after Pope Benedict XV’s appeal for all to pray for an end to World War I, Our Lady appeared to the three little shepherds in Fatima and shared her first message.

Study: Parents just as attached to devices as their kids are Mark Pattison Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON, D.C. — For adults complaining about America’s youth being saturated in media usage, it appears the apple hasn’t fallen far from the iPad. Parents spend more than nine hours a day with screen media, and the vast majority of that time is spent with personal screen media, according to a study issued Dec. 6 by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based organization that has long been tracking children’s media usage.

Even so, according to the study, 78 percent of parents believe they are good media and technology role models for their children.

When it came to parents’ screen-time use, 51 percent said they used it for eight hours or more each day, 30 percent said for four to eight hours, 13 percent for two to four hours, and 6 percent for less than 2 hours.

Common Sense said it is possible for people – parents and children alike – to use more than one form of media simultaneously, such as listening to music while engaging in social media. Still, some groups’ habits skew the survey’s results.

While only 61 percent of parents reported playing video games the day before they were polled, the study said, “these users played video games for an average of 2:27 (hours and minutes), compared to only 1:30 among all parents in our sample, which includes the 39 percent of parents who played no video games at all,” the study said. “Similarly, the 61 percent of parents who used social media yesterday spent 1:48 doing so, compared with the average of 1:06 among all parents. Only 19 percent of

parents used e-readers yesterday, but those who did spent 1:16 reading e-books.”

The notion of a nation of workers chained to their computer screens was dispelled in the study, which showed that only 1:39 was spent on work screen media compared to 7:43 on personal screen media.

The most-used device by parents was the television, DVD player and/or video, for an average of 3:17. Groups watching TV for more than four hours were blacks, Hispanics, those whose education stopped at high school or earlier, and those making under $35,000 a year.

Those parent groups spending the most time each day with media – in hours and minutes – were blacks (12:42), those making under $35,000 (10:21), those with a high school education or less (10:10) and Hispanics (10:01). The group spending the least time with media, at 8:13 daily, were those with at least a bachelor’s degree.

Fifty-eight percent of parents said they listen to music while working, 48 percent sent text messages, 38 percent used social media, and 33 percent watched TV, the study said, while 63 percent reported their tweens and teens have their own cellphones, and 51 percent of them have their own tablet.

Negotiating media use with their children causes conflicts for 37 percent of parents, according to Common Sense.

Forty percent of parents of boys said that negotiating media use causes conflicts, compared to 34 percent of parents of girls. Only 35 percent of parents felt that technologies such as smartphones and tablets make parenting easier.

MEDIA, SEE page 17

n Saturday, May 13, 8 p.m. (EWTN) “Fatima.” This feature film recounts the events of Fatima through the eyes of a Catholic peasant singer whose boyfriend converts from atheism by the supernatural grace of the apparitions. n Monday, May 15, 6 a.m. (EWTN) “Our Lady of Fatima and the First Saturday Devotion: Mary’s Immaculate Conception.” Father Andrew Apostoli offers an introductory examination of Our Lady of Fatima’s request for First Saturday Devotions to repair for the insults and offenses against Her Immaculate Heart. n Tuesday, May 16, 6 a.m. (EWTN) “Mary’s Perpetual Virginity.” Father Apostoli talks about how people continue to refuse acknowledgment of Mary’s Perpetual Virginity and how that impacts the person, society and the world. n Wednesday, May 17, 4:30 p.m.

(EWTN) “Saints and Heroes: Day the Sun Danced.” Find out why the Blessed Mother appeared to three peasant children in Fatima, Portugal.

The adventure unfolds as the police, the bishop, and the townspeople gradually come to believe the children’s remarkable story. Animated. n Friday, May 19, 8 p.m. (EWTN) “Our Lady of the Rosary at Pompeii.” A look at the founding of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary at Pompeii, Italy, by Blessed Bartolo Longo, along with the history of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, in which victory over the invaders was won by the faithful praying the rosary. n Wednesday, May 24, 4:30 p.m.

(EWTN) “The Chimes.” Charles Dickens’ story of a poor 19th century porter, who is magically transported to the future from the sounds of chiming bells and his hope is restored. Narrated by Derek Jacobi.

May 12, 2017 | catholicnewsherald.com catholic news heraldI

RESPONDS FROM PAGE 3

The Church’s understanding of ordination is based on Scripture as well as the writings of the Church Fathers, who battled heretical groups that also attempted to ordain women early in Church history.

St. John Paul II reiterated Church teaching in 1994, when he declared in his apostolic letter “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis,” “The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held

MEDIA FROM PAGE 16

While more than one-third of parents reported being “moderately” or “extremely” worried about their children’s internet use in a variety of ways, parents of “tweens” – defined in the study as children ages 8-12 – were consistently more worried than parents of teens.

Forty-three percent of all parents say their kids spend too much time on media, the Common Sense Media study said.

More than two-thirds, or 67 percent, of parents said monitoring their children’s media use is more important than respecting their privacy.

Hispanic parents, the study said, tend to be more aware and more concerned, and they manage their children’s media use more than other parents – 60 percent for Hispanics as opposed to 37 percent for whites and 33 percent for blacks.

“A majority of parents do report,

ST. THÉRÈSE FROM PAGE 3

we are sad that they are leaving,” she said.

“This is a very bittersweet moment,” Manzullo said. “We’ve been avoiding this moment for almost a year. But we’re very happy for our priests moving on to their next step. We look forward to hearing lots of good things that they will continue to do like they have done for us here.”

Looking at all four priests she continued, “On behalf everyone here, we can’t thank you enough for what you have done, for what you have built and what

by all the Church’s faithful.”

Attempted ordination of a woman is automatic excommunication for both the person attempting the ordination and the person attempting to be ordained.

The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests traces itself back to the attempted ordination of seven women on a ship cruising the Danube River in 2002.

According to its website, the group has 16 “inclusive” communities in California, Kentucky, Florida, New Hampshire, New York and Ohio.

— Catholic News Herald. CNA/EWTN News contributed.

however, that children are not allowed to use devices during family meals (78 percent) or at bedtime (63 percent),” the study said.

Results were obtained by interviewing 1,786 U.S. parents of children ages 8-18.

Interviews were conducted July 8-25, Parent media activities covered in the survey included watching TV, movies and videos, playing video games, listening to music, using social media, reading either print or electronic books, and using digital devices for other purposes, such as browsing websites and playing games.

They also were asked about computer, smartphone and tablet use for work purposes.

The media devices or technologies covered in the survey include video game consoles, handheld video game players, TV sets, desktop and laptop computers, tablets, smartphones, cellphones that are not smartphones, and e-readers. The survey, which can be found at http://tinyurl.com/ jp3ywwn, also asked about print reading materials, such as books, newspapers and magazines.

you have given to us. We thank you very much.”

Father Curtin will move to Portland, Maine, to serve as senior priest at Our Lady of Hope Church. Father Totaro will move to Washington, D.C., to serve as a consultant on the Spiritual Exercises at Gonzaga High School. Father Ward will move to Richmond, Va., to serve as priest in residence at Sacred Heart Church. Father Reese will join the community of senior Jesuits at St. Claude de Columbere House in Baltimore, Md. Jesuits will continue to staff two other parishes in North Carolina: St. Peter Church in Charlotte and St. Raphael the Archangel Church in Raleigh.

Looking for a food service job with no late nights?

Waltonwood Senior Living has two locations in the Charlotte area and is looking for Dining Room Servers and Cooks. We provide our residents with elegant senior housing and a wide spectrum of services including a high quality dining room service experience.

We can offer you: • Competitive pay • Paid time off

• Benefits • No Late Nights

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Join us for St. John Neumann Catholic Church 8451 Idlewild Road | Charlotte, NC 28227 Friday, June 9, 5:00 PM-11:00 PM Saturday, June 10, 4:00 PM-11:00 PM

Admission is free!

• Tickets available for purchase for food, rides and games.

• Purchase a wristband for unlimited rides on Friday night!

• Carnival rides!

• Try your skill at our midway games and win a prize!

• Great food! Hot Dogs, funnel cakes, cheese steak sandwiches, and INTERNATIONAL FOOD! • Continuous live music!

• Silent auction and BINGO inside the Parish Hall.

• Fantastic FIRE WORKS show on Saturday night!

Hamburger eating contests sponsored by American Burger Company all weekend long!

17

Our nation 18

catholicnewsherald.com | May 12, 2017 CATHOLIC NEWS HERALD

U.S. bishops’ committee chairman: Fix flaws in American Health Care Act Mark Pattison Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Health Care Act that passed by a four-vote margin May 4 in the House has “major defects,” said Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Fla., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Social Development.

“It is deeply disappointing that the voices of those who will be most severely impacted were not heeded,” Bishop Dewane said in a May 4 statement. “The AHCA does offer critical life protections, and our health care system desperately needs these safeguards. But still, vulnerable people must not be left in poor and worsening circumstances as Congress attempts to fix the current and impending problems with the Affordable Care Act.” He added, “When the Senate takes up the AHCA, it must act decisively to remove the harmful proposals from the bill that will affect low-income people – including immigrants – as well as add vital conscience protections, or begin reform efforts anew. Our health care policy must honor all human life and dignity from conception to natural death, as well as defend the sincerely held moral and religious beliefs of those who have any role in the health care system.”

One of 20 Republicans to vote against the bill was Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.

“I voted no on the AHCA largely because it cuts Medicaid funding by $839 billion; undercuts essential health benefits such as maternity care, newborn care, hospitalization and pediatric services; includes ‘per capita caps’ and weakens coverage for pre-existing health conditions -- all of which will hurt disabled persons, especially and including children and adults with autism, the elderly and the working poor,” Smith said.

“Over the past several years, we have seen the flaws of Obamacare, including increased premiums and deductibles, diminishing health care options and patients

losing plans they were assured they could keep. These very real problems underscore the need for meaningful bipartisan reform,” he added.

Those opposing the bill cited reductions in coverage and cost increases. Those favoring the bill cited its pro-life provisions.

“The vote falls far short of protecting the millions of Americans who have insurance or gained it under the Affordable Care Act,” said a May 4 statement from Dominican Sister Donna Markham, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA. “It also fails to provide access to affordable health care for the millions who still live without coverage.”

“The role of health care should implicitly be to provide the highest quality care for the largest number of people, in the interest of maintaining dignity and quality of life, as our faith calls us to do. It is immoral to restrict access to care for anyone, but especially for the most vulnerable, including those who need consistent treatment and our aging population, said a May 5 statement by Patrick Carolan, executive director of the Franciscan Action Network.

“As arguably the most powerful, developed country in the world, it is inexcusable that our health care system is failing so many. We can and must do better,” Carolan said.

“Today’s House vote marks the beginning of the end of the shell game Planned Parenthood plays with public money. That the American Health Care Act limits Medicaid funds to entities that don’t kill people is entirely appropriate, not to mention a step that’s long overdue,” said a May 4 statement by Father Frank Pavone, national president of Priests for Life.

“Sending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to an organization that dismembers 320,000 unborn babies a year adds up to a travesty of justice,” he added. “The Senate should approve the defunding legislation as soon as possible and send it to the president’s desk. The scam of using public money to prop up abortion businesses needs to be terminated.”

“Abortion is not health care, and in light of that -this bill provides Hyde (Amendment)-like protections and redirects funding away from our America’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, to community health centers that offer comprehensive women’s care, and already outnumber Planned Parenthood clinics by 20 to 1,” said a May 4 statement by Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life.

“We urge our U.S. senators to follow the House’s lead and ensure that pro-life protections and the redirection of Planned Parenthood funding remain, because without it – this bill will fail,” Mancini said.

“National Right to Life praises the Republican leadership for putting this bill together and making sure the most vulnerable members of our society are protected,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, in a May 4 statement. “Over 2 million Americans are alive today because of the Hyde Amendment. This new health care bill ensures that we are one step closer to getting the federal government entirely out of the business of subsidizing abortion.”

“This is a hugely important step, but it is just the first step to improving health care for all Americans, especially the vulnerable,” said a May 4 statement by Louis Brown, director of the Christ Medicus Foundation, based in the Detroit suburb of Troy, Mich.

“The American Health Care Act begins the process of increasing meaningful medical access for individuals and families across the country by returning focus to the doctor-patient relationship,” Brown said.

“Since failing to pass the original AHCA, House leadership has made the legislation worse by providing even fewer protections for family farmers and rural Americans,” said Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, in a May 4 statement. “NFU’s priority for any bill is that it offers coverage for more people rather than fewer. We look forward to working with members of the Senate to defeat this legislation that would fail millions of people, especially family farmers and rural Americans.”

Church leaders view religious freedom order as positive step Carol Zimmermann Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Many religious leaders viewed President Donald Trump’s executive order on religious freedom, which he signed in a White House Rose Garden ceremony May 4, as a step in the right direction.

In a ceremony for the National Day of Prayer prior to signing the executive order, Trump told the assembled religious leaders: “We’re taking big steps to protect religious liberty” and he assured them the government “won’t stand for religious discrimination.”

Three religious leaders, including Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl, offered prayers during the ceremony. Just prior to the event, Cardinal Wuerl and Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of GalvestonHouston, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, met with Trump about the order.

In an interview with Catholic News Service at Reagan National Airport just after the White House ceremony, Cardinal DiNardo said the meeting with the president was brief but productive.

Earlier, in a statement, the cardinal said the executive order “begins the process of

alleviating the serious burden of the HHS mandate,” referring to the mandate issued by the federal Department of Health and Human Services requiring most religious employers to provide coverage of artificial birth control for their employees even if they morally oppose it.

But Cardinal DiNardo also stressed that the U.S. bishops will “have to review the details of any regulatory proposals.”

The text of the order, “Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty,” states that cabinet offices “shall consider issuing amended regulations, consistent with applicable law, to address conscience-based objections to the preventive-care mandate.”

During the White House ceremony, Trump told some of the Little Sisters of the Poor in the crowd: “Your long ordeal will soon be over.” The sisters are just one of the groups that challenged the federal contraceptive mandate all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mother Loraine Marie Maguire, superior of the Little Sisters’ Baltimore province, said in a statement that the sisters are “grateful for the president’s order and look forward to the agencies giving us an exemption so that we can continue caring for the elderly poor and dying” without fear of government punishment.

Another aspect of the order is a weakening of what Trump called the “unfair” Johnson Amendment during the May 4 event. The 1954 amendment bans churches and nonprofit organizations of all types from participating in partisan political activity at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status.

Trump told the religious leaders that the order’s attempt to lessen restrictions of the amendment will be “giving our churches their voices back.”

The order states the Treasury Department shall ensure and “respect and protect the freedom of persons and organizations to engage in religious and political speech.”

It also calls for department officials to “not take any adverse action against any individual, house of worship, or other religious organization” for speaking about “moral or political issues from a religious perspective.”

Regarding religious liberty, the order is not very specific. It states: “In order to guide all agencies in complying with relevant federal law, the attorney general shall, as appropriate, issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in federal law.”

Cardinal DiNardo, in his statement,

stressed that in recent years, “people of faith have experienced pressing restrictions on religious freedom from both the federal government and state governments that receive federal funding.”

He noted that Church agencies have specifically experienced such a restriction in adoption, education, health care and other social services, where he said “widely held moral and religious beliefs, especially regarding the protection of human life as well as preserving marriage and family, have been maligned in recent years as bigotry or hostility.”

“But disagreement on moral and religious issues is not discrimination; instead, it is the inevitable and desirable fruit of a free, civil society marked by genuine religious diversity,” he added.

Cardinal DiNardo told CNS that the executive order emphasizes that there should “not be an overly intrusive federal government” involved when a person or group is exercising one’s faith.

He also said the president seems to be putting some of these religious liberty issues directly in the hands of federal departments and the attorney general, which he called “an important dimension” and a “good way to have this unpacked.”

May 12, 2017 | catholicnewsherald.com catholic news heraldI

For the latest news 24/7: catholicnewsherald.com

In Brief Pope Francis to meet Trump at Vatican May 24 WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump will visit the Vatican and meet with Pope Francis May 24 as part of his first foreign trip as president. White House officials said the visit will be part of a trip that will include stops in Israel and Saudi Arabia before Trump attends a NATO meeting in Brussels May 25 and the G7 summit in Taormina on the island of Sicily May 26-27. The trip was an attempt to unite three of the world’s leading religious faiths in the common cause of fighting terrorism, reining in Iran, and “unifying the world against intolerance,” White House officials said May 4.

The pope’s meeting with Pope Francis was to take place in the Apostolic Palace and will include Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, secretary for relations with states.

Pope Francis, on his return flight from Egypt April 29, told reporters that he had not yet been informed by the Vatican secretary of state’s office about a request for an audience from U.S. officials. But he added, “I receive every head of state who asks for an audience.”

Cardinal Dolan slams DNC pledge to support only pro-abortion candidates WASHINGTON, D.C. — New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan described the recent pledge from the Democratic National Committee’s chair to support only pro-abortion candidates “disturbing” and “intolerant.” The cardinal, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, urged members of the Democratic party to “challenge their leadership to recant this intolerant position.”

The cardinal’s April 26 statement was in reaction to recent comments by DNC chair Tom Perez who said: “Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.” Perez went on to say in an April 21 statement: “At a time when women’s rights are under assault from the White House, the Republican Congress, and in states across the country, we must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice.”

Perez’s statement came after a DNC “unity tour” rally in Nebraska, where another DNC leader and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., appeared April 20 with a former state senator, Heath Mello, the Democratic mayoral candidate in Omaha.

The DNC tour was sharply criticized by proabortion groups for joining forces with Mello, who sponsored a 2009 state Senate bill requiring that women be informed of their right to request a fetal ultrasound before having an abortion.

Catholic leaders decry fourth Justice Department holds Arkansas execution in eight days on to Affordable Care Act’s WASHINGTON, D.C. — After Arkansas executed its fourth death-row inmate in eight contraceptive mandate days April 27, Sister Helen Prejean, a longtime opponent of capital punishment, said “future generations will look back upon the events unfolding in Arkansas tonight with horror. The barbarity is overwhelming.” Sister Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille, tweeted that message 30 minutes after Kenneth Williams was pronounced dead.

His lawyers unsuccessfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay, saying the inmate should not be executed because three health care professionals had determined he was “intellectually disabled.” Relatives of a man killed by Williams in a crash during his 1999 escape from prison also pleaded with the governor to call off his execution. “There is nothing pro-life about the state-sanctioned killing of an intellectually disabled man,” was just one of the many messages Sister Prejean tweeted during Williams’ final hours.

Catholic Mobilizing Network in Washington, an advocacy group seeking to end the death penalty, similarly sent Twitter updates the night of the execution and each of the eight days when other inmates were executed, including two executions April 24.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Groups that legally challenged the Affordable Care Act’s contraception requirement for employers still do not have clear direction on how to move forward because nearly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court sent their cases back to the lower courts, the Justice Department still is appealing some of them. On April 24, the Justice Department asked the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for 60 more days to essentially pause the ruling in favor of East Texas Baptist University and several other religious groups that had objected on moral grounds to providing contraceptive coverage in their employee health plans.

In its petition to the Fifth Circuit, the Justice Department said it was asking for more time because the issues “presented by the Supreme Court’s remand are complex” and several department positions remain unfilled. But the request is a particularly surprising move for religious groups who were confident the mandate would be done away with under the Trump administration, especially because he promised that during his campaign.

— Catholic News Service

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Our world 20

catholicnewsherald.com | May 12, 2017 CATHOLIC NEWS HERALD

Catholic leaders: Papal trip was blessing for Christian, Muslim Egyptians Dale Gavlak Catholic News Service

AMMAN, Jordan — Pope Francis’ historic, 72-hour visit to Cairo has left a profound mark on Egyptians, Catholic leaders said, as they anticipate increased ties with fellow Orthodox Christians and Muslims.

“The pope’s visit was a big blessing to the Egyptians, both Muslims and Christians. It boosted the morale of the Egyptian people, especially after the Palm Sunday blasts,” Father Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Egyptian bishops, said. “He gave a message of love, peace and hope.”

Father Greiche referred to a pair of terrorist attacks April 9 at two Egyptian churches. The Islamic State group claimed credit for the attacks, which killed at least 45 people, injured more than 100 others and shook the Middle East’s largest Christian community to the core.

“The pope’s visit for Catholics in Egypt was a great happening, very positive,” Jesuit Father Samir Khalil Samir, a noted Egyptian Catholic theologian and Islamic studies scholar, said. The professor teaches at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome and St. Joseph’s University in Beirut.

Even more important, he said, was the historic improvement in ecumenical ties between the Catholic and the Coptic Orthodox churches. Pope Francis and Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II signed a declaration on common baptism.

“This was a big step,” said Father Samir.

“In Egypt, there are a lot of mixed marriages between Catholics and Orthodox,” Father Samir explained, citing the previous Coptic Orthodox requirement that new members joining the church – including those who had previously been baptized as Catholic – had to be baptized again.

“This was very unhappy,” he said. Now both churches agreed to recognize each other’s sacrament of baptism and pledged to continue working toward greater unity.

“In general, the ecumenical relations with the Coptic Orthodox Church made very good steps and can go further,” Father Samir predicted, citing a possible reconciliation over the celebration dates of Christmas and Easter.

He also said Pope Francis and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi reached a better understanding. This is important for the country’s Christians, among the oldest communities in the Middle East, dating back to the apostle Mark.

Pope Francis has backed Egypt’s efforts to tackle Islamic militancy, saying the country has a special role to play in forging regional peace as well as in “vanquishing all violence and terrorism.”

Yet, Father Greiche believes it may be difficult to protect Christians and other Egyptians from growing acts of extremist violence.

“Criminal acts are designed in the heads of terrorists first. You cannot say that Christians are safe or anybody is safe from any terrorist attack. We pray and we ask for our Savior to help us and not to experience more than what we already have,” the priest said.

CNS | Paul Haring

Pope Francis, Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the Eastern Orthodox churches, attend an ecumenical prayer service at the Church of St. Peter in Cairo April 28.

Pope tells Egypt’s Catholics:

True faith means loving others to the extreme Carol Glatz Catholic News Service

CAIRO — The only kind of fanaticism that is acceptable to God is being fanatical about loving and helping others, Pope Francis said on his final day in Egypt.

“True faith,” he told Catholics, “makes us more charitable, more merciful, more honest and more humane. It moves our hearts to love everyone without counting the cost.”

The pope celebrated an open-air Mass April 29 in Cairo’s Air Defense Stadium, built by the anti-aircraft branch of the Egyptian armed forces. The pope concelebrated with Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak of Alexandria and leaders of the other Catholic rites in Egypt.

After spending the first day of his visit in meetings with Muslim leaders, government officials, diplomats and members of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the pope dedicated the second day of his trip to Egypt’s minority Catholic community.

Arriving at the stadium in a blue Fiat, the pope was slowly driven around the stadium’s red running track in a small and low golf cart, far from the thousands seated in the stands high above. Yellow balloons and a long chain of blue balloons tied together like a rosary were released into the sky as a military helicopter circled high above the venue.

Surrounded by security, the pope managed to personally greet only one small group of children who were dressed as pharaohs and other traditional figures. They hugged the pope affectionately as security tightly closed in on the group.

In his homily, the pope used the day’s Gospel reading of the two disciples’ journey to Emmaus to highlight how easy it is to feel disappointment, despair and defeat when one is trapped by a

false notion of who God really is.

The disciples could not believe that the one who could raise others from the dead and heal the sick could “end up on hanging on the cross of shame,” the pope said. Believing Jesus was dead, all their dreams died with Him on the cross and were buried in the tomb.

“How often do we paralyze ourselves by refusing to transcend our own ideas about God, a god created in the image and likeness of man,” he said. “How often do we despair by refusing to believe that God’s omnipotence is not one of power and authority, but rather of love, forgiveness and life.”

Like the disciples, he said, Christians will never recognize the true face of God until they let their mistaken ideas die on the cross, rise up from the tomb of their limited understanding and shatter their hardened hearts like the “breaking of the bread” in the Eucharist.

“We cannot encounter God without first crucifying our narrow notions of a god who reflects only our own understanding of omnipotence and power,” the pope said.

True faith “makes us see the other not as an enemy to be overcome, but a brother or sister to be loved, served and helped,” he said, and it leads to dialogue and respect and the courage to defend the rights and dignity of everyone, not just oneself.

“God is pleased only by a faith that is proclaimed by our lives, for the only fanaticism believers can have is that of charity. Any other fanaticism does not come from God and is not pleasing to Him,” he said.

More online

At www.catholicnewsherald.com: See more from Pope Francis’ historic trip to Egypt

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In Brief Priests should ease, not add to faithful’s burdens, pope says VATICAN CITY — A priest who does not willingly embrace Christ’s cross and who does not try to lighten the burdens of his people is not worthy of the name, Pope Francis told 10 men he was about to ordain. “A priest who perhaps has studied a lot of theology and has one, two or three degrees, but has not learned to carry the cross of Christ is useless,” the pope said May 7. “He might be a good academic, a good professor, but not a priest.” During Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis ordained six priests for the Diocese of Rome and one each for the Brothers of Our Lady of Mercy, the Peru-based Family of Disciples, the Apostolic Prefecture of Azerbaijan and the Diocese of Nocera Inferiore-Sarno, Italy. The men were between the ages of 26 and 38. Pope Francis used the prescribed homily for the ordination although, as usual, he added comments. To the admonition that priests nourish their people with sound doctrine, Pope Francis added a request that they speak simply and clearly.

Struggle against the ‘culture of destruction,’ pope tells teens VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis told Italian students he was shocked when a massive U.S. bomb used in Afghanistan was referred to as “the mother of all bombs. They called it ‘the mother of all bombs,’” the pope told the Italian youths. But “a mother gives life and this brought death.” The 7,000 young people were participating in a course on peace and human rights sponsored by the Italian ministry of education. They gave the pope sustained applause May 6 for his comment about the U.S. bomb, formally called the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB). U.S. forces used it in Afghanistan on a tunnel complex for suspected Islamic State militants April 13. Pope Francis told the young people they should be worried about the state of the world, which seems to be embracing a “culture of destruction” when God made human beings “to build, give life, move forward, create community and live in peace.” At the same time, he said there are millions of people in the world giving their lives in service to others. The vast majority of them are “hidden” and never make the news, but they exist and the young people should join their ranks.

Mexican bishops call for action on missing persons, mass graves MEXICO CITY — The Mexican bishops’ conference has issued a call for action on the cases of the country’s thousands of missing persons, most of whom disappeared during the country’s decades-long drug war and whose bodies are increasingly being unearthed from mass graves. Many of those graves have been discovered by desperate family members acting on their own and without the assistance of the authorities, who are often accused of showing disinterest in finding the disappeared. “For close to 10 years we have heard of graves discovered throughout the country. Media have told us continuously of ‘human cemeteries,’” said the bishops’ statement, issued May 5 and signed by the conference secretary-general, Auxiliary Bishop Alfonso Miranda Guardiola of Monterrey.

“Until a few years ago, the cases of disappeared persons were discovered in an isolated way.

But now we know that there are disappeared persons in almost all places and at every level,” the statement continued. “We are experiencing a crisis of mistrust and constant fear.”

Pope moves on sainthood causes of U.S. priest, Vietnamese cardinal VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis advanced the sainthood causes of Wisconsin-born Capuchin Father Solanus Casey, five religious, four laypeople and two cardinals, including Vietnamese Cardinal Francois Nguyen Van Thuan. The pope approved the decrees during an audience May 4 with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes.

Father Casey (1870-1957) was known for his great faith, humility and compassion and for his ministry as spiritual counselor. He gained a popular following during his lifetime, with healings attributed to his intercession both before and after his death. He was the sixth of 16 children of Irish immigrant parents. He was born on a farm near Oak Grove, Wisconsin, and as a young man worked as a logger, a hospital orderly, a streetcar operator and a prison guard before entering the Capuchins at age 26. He was ordained in 1904 as a “simplex priest,” one who is unable to hear confessions or preach dogmatic sermons because he had not performed very well in his studies. He carried out humble tasks in the monastery and, while serving in Yonkers, New York, Father Casey was assigned to be the friary’s porter, or doorkeeper, a ministry he would carry out for the rest of his life.

Pope, Myanmar leader meet, launch diplomatic relations VATICAN CITY — Shortly after Pope Francis met privately with Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Holy See and Myanmar announced they were establishing full diplomatic relations. The Vatican announced May 4 that the pope would appoint a nuncio to the southeast Asian nation and that Myanmar would name an ambassador to the Vatican.

The agreement brings to 183 the number of countries with which the Holy See has full diplomatic relations. Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, had spent almost 15 years of the period between 1989 and 2010 under house arrest. Her party, the National League for Democracy, won the general election in 2015 and she was named the de facto head of government in April 2016.

of Malta for a one-year period, will work on a constitutional reform that “will address potential institutional weaknesses,” the order said in a press release following the election. “The recent crisis has shown some weaknesses in the checks and balances in governance,” it said. “The reform will take this into consideration.” Born in Rome, Dalla Torre has been a member of the order since 1985 and held several prominent roles in the order’s hierarchy. Following the death of the 78th grand master, Fra’ Andrew Bertie, he served as lieutenant ad interim prior to the election of Fra’ Matthew Festing. Dalla Torre’s election closes a difficult chapter in the order’s history and tensions that lead to Festing’s resignation Jan. 24 at the behest of Pope Francis, who had established a commission to investigate his removal of the order’s grand chancellor, Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager.

Vatican conference unites science, religion’s search for truth VATICAN CITY — Science and religion are not at odds but are united in the continuing search for truth in unlocking the mysteries of the cosmos. The scientific conference titled, “Black Holes, Gravitational Waves and SpaceTime Singularities,” is an opportunity to show that “the church supports good science,” said Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory. “We are hoping that this meeting will also be an encounter of people with very different opinions but very close friendships that come from having the same common desire to understand the truth of the universe and how we can understand that truth,” he told journalists May 8. Renowned experts from around the world were to meet at Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo for the May 9-12 conference, which seeks to bring together science and religion in the continuing search for truth in understanding the mysteries of the universe, he said. The 2016 discovery of the existence of gravitational waves, predicted nearly 100 years ago by Albert Einstein in his

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general theory of relativity, was to be one of the topics of discussion. The discovery could open a new chapter in understanding celestial events and black hole regions in the universe, something that previously could only be hypothesized.

Belgian Brothers to allow euthanasia for nonterminal psych patients MANCHESTER, England — A group of psychiatric care centers run by a Catholic religious order in Belgium has announced it will permit doctors to undertake the euthanasia of “nonterminal” mentally ill patients on its premises. In a nine-page document, the Brothers of Charity Group stated that it would allow doctors to perform euthanasia in any of its 15 centers, which provide care to more than 5,000 patients a year, subject to carefully stipulated criteria. Brother Rene Stockman, the superior general, has distanced himself from the decision of the group’s largely lay board of directors, however, and has told Belgian media that the policy was a tragedy. “We cannot accept that euthanasia is carried out within the walls of our institutions,” said Brother Stockman, a specialist in psychiatric care, in an April 27 interview with De Morgen newspaper in Brussels. He told the newspaper that he intended to raise the matter with Catholic authorities in Rome and with the Belgian bishops. Carine Brochier, a Catholic bioethicist from Brussels, told Catholic News Service in a May 3 telephone interview she was certain that political and financial pressure was exerted on the Brothers of Charity Group to allow euthanasia. The group’s new policy document, which was drafted in March, comes about a year after a court fined the St. Augustine Catholic rest home in Diest, Belgium, for refusing to allow the euthanasia of a lung cancer patient on its premises.

— Catholic News Service

SOLEMN HIGH LATIN MASS

Pope plans Pentecost celebrations with charismatics and Pentecostals VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has invited thousands of Catholic charismatics and members of Pentecostal and Evangelical churches to Rome to celebrate Pentecost and mark the 50th anniversary of what became the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. The pope will lead a prayer vigil June 3, the eve of Pentecost, at Rome’s Circus Maximus, an open field that was the site of an ancient Roman stadium used for chariot races. Participants will join the pope the next morning for Pentecost Mass in St. Peter’s Square. In 2014, Pope Francis had invited charismatics and Pentecostals to Rome in 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Catholic charismatic movement, which traces its origins to a retreat held in 1967 at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. The anniversary event is being organized by the Vatican-based International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services. The jubilee celebrations will begin in Rome May 31 with prayer meetings, a youth festival, meetings for theologians and workshops.

New head of Knights of Malta to lead reform efforts ROME — The new lieutenant of the grand master of the Knights of Malta will lead efforts to reform the order following a tumultuous period that brought to light many of the ancient institution’s internal disputes. Fra’ Giacomo Dalla Torre, elected April 29 to lead the Knights

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ViewPoints 22

catholicnewsherald.com | May 12, 2017 CATHOLIC NEWS HERALD

Fatima: The third apparition T

he sufferings of the three children intensified as their families, neighbors and even their pastor condemned them for making claims that Our Lady appeared to them. Their pastor told the people that the children’s claims were the “invention of the devil.” One of the few who believed the children replied to him saying, “There is praying at the Cova da Iria, and the devil does not like that.” “The devil, even, goes to the Communion rail,” countered the priest.

Such was the persecution of the three seers.

Despite the condemnation and the sorrow it invoked, Jacinta and Francisco were the happiest children in the world. However, Lucía was filled with doubt and despair.

Her mother constantly repeated the words of the pastor to her. Lucía understood that it was possible the apparitions were from the devil. That possibility disturbed her so much that she made up her mind not to go to the Cova da Iria again.

The eve of July 13, the day when they expected to see the Lady again, Lucía went to Jacinta and Francisco and told them of her decision not to go to the Cova the next day. This brought them to tears. They tried to convince her to go, but Lucía grew angry. She told her cousins, “No, I am not going. Look! If the Lady asks for me, tell her I am not going because I fear she is the devil.” At that Lucía left them.

The morning of July 13 arrived. Lucía felt the same doubt and confusion.

However, she was interiorly compelled to go there when it was time to leave for the Cova. She could not ignore it. Once she decided to go, every doubt, every fear vanished. Her heart was transformed from sadness to joy. Upon arriving at her cousins’ house, she found both of them kneeling by the side of the bed, crying their eyes out. Realizing that Lucía had changed her mind, they jumped to their feet.

So off they went, the three of them, walking happily through the crowds of people that jammed the roads to the Cova. The three children could not hurry, because many people stopped them, asking them to speak to Our Lady and ask special favors for them.

THE THIRD APPARITION

At the Cova, they knelt and Lucía led them in praying the rosary. When the rosary was over, Lucía stood up, looked towards the east and cried out, “Our Lady is coming!” The crowd saw something like a small greyish cloud hovering over the holm oak. The sun turned hazy and a refreshing breeze began to blow. It no longer felt like the height of summer. The crowd fell silent.

Like a loving mother bending over her sick child, wishing to strengthen and console the children in the truth of the apparitions, the beautiful Lady engulfed the three in her immense light and rested her loving eyes on Lucía. The girl could not speak for joy. Jacinta nudged her, “Lucía, go ahead, speak to her. She is already speaking to you.”

So Lucía, looking up towards Our Lady, her eyes filled with loving devotion, asked, “What do you want of me?”

“I want you to return here on the 13th of next month,” the Lady said. “Continue to say the rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war; for she alone can save it.”

previous months. The light reflecting from them seemed to penetrate into the earth, and we saw as if into a sea of fire, and immersed in that fire were devils and souls with human form, as if they were transparent black or bronze embers floating in the fire and swayed by the flames that issued from them along with clouds of smoke, falling upon every side just like the falling of sparks in great fires, without weight or equilibrium, amidst wailing and cries of pain and despair that horrified and shook us with terror. We could tell the devils by their horrible and nauseous figures of baleful and unknown animals, but transparent as the black coals in a fire.”

All three children witnessed this. The crowd could see they were frightened.

One person said the children turned deathly pale. Unable to bear these visions, they raised their eyes to Our Lady for help as Lucía cried out.

“Oh... Our Lady!”

Our Lady then explained what they had seen: “You have seen hell – where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them God wants to establish throughout the world the devotion to My Immaculate Heart.

“If people will do what I tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace. The war is going to end.

“But if they do not stop offending God, another and worse war will break out CNS | Paul Haring in the reign of Pius Pope Francis touches a statue of Our Lady of Fatima after praying in front XI. When you see a of it during his general audience in 2015 in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. night illumined by an Celebrating the 100th anniversary of apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, Pope unknown light, know Francis will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima May 12-13. For full coverage, go that it is the great to www.catholicnewsherald.com. sign that God gives you, that He is going to punish the world for its crimes by means I will not cure him or take him out of his of war, hunger, persecution of the Church poverty, but he must say the rosary every and of the Holy Father. day with his family.”

“To forestall this, I shall come to ask Lucía told her of the case of a sick person for the Consecration of Russia to My who wished to be taken soon to heaven.

Immaculate Heart and the Communion of “He should not try to hurry things. I Reparation on the First Saturdays. know well when I shall come for him.”

“If they heed my request, Russia will be Lucía asked for the conversion of some converted, and there will be peace. If not, people. The answer of the Lady was, as with she shall spread her errors throughout the the crippled boy, the recitation of the rosary. world, promoting wars and persecutions Then, to remind the children of their special of the Church; the good will be martyred, vocation and to inspire them to greater fervor the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and courage for the future, the Lady said: various nations will be annihilated; in the “Sacrifice yourselves for sinners; and end, My Immaculate Heart shall triumph. say often, especially when you make some The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to sacrifice: ‘My Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation me, which will be converted, and some time of peace will be given to the world. for sins committed against the Immaculate “In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will Heart of Mary.’” be kept always.

“As Our Lady said these words,” Lucía “Do not tell this to anyone. To Francisco, described many years later, “She opened yes, you may tell it.” her hands again as she had done the two Lucía couldn’t help but think of what the pastor had said. She wanted to clear up the doubts in her mind. So she asked, “Will you please tell us who you are and perform a miracle so that everyone will believe that you really appear to us?”

“Continue to come here every month.

In October, I will say who I am and what I desire and I will perform a miracle all shall see, so that they believe.”

Then Lucía spoke of the petitions of the people. Our Lady answered, “Some I will cure and others not. As to the crippled boy,

Lucía, seeing how Our Lady looked sad as well, wanted to do something heroic for her Lady. She asked, in childlike way, “Don’t you want anything else from me?”

“No; today I desire nothing else from you.”

At this point the crowd heard something like thunder, and a little grotto that had been set up to hold vigil lanterns shook as if there had been an earthquake. Lucía stood up quickly and exclaimed, “There she goes,” pointing up to heaven, then a few moments later, “She’s gone!” The small grey cloud witnessed by those present vanished.

Immediately, the inquisitive crowd surrounded them, asking, “What did the Lady say to make you look so sad?”

“It is a secret,” she responded.

“Is it something good?”

“For some, it is good; for others, it is evil.”

“Won’t you tell it?” they pressed.

“No, I cannot tell it,” she answered with convincing determination.

The people kept pushing so much that they almost smothered the children.

Jacinta and Francisco’s father, Ti Marto, who had believed the children from the beginning, was frightened for their safety.

He picked up Jacinta. Another relative took Francisco in his arms. A man from the village carried Lucía. The three men took the three visionaries safely home.

As was the case in all the heavenly encounters before, Lucía was the only one of the three to speak to Our Lady. Jacinta could see and hear Our Lady. Francisco was permitted to see but not hear her words. In previous apparitions, Our Lady taught them in a comforting, assuring way.

This time, though, was different. They saw Our Lady but were also allowed to see into the revolting, foul and vile reality of hell.

Her lesson to them was unlike her previous consoling ones.

She had prepared them the month before to begin conveying to the world God’s desire to increase devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in order to bring peace and end the war. Now the children were told what would come if God’s plan was not followed. Yet they were not permitted to tell anyone. That would come later.

Knowing this knowledge would only increase the children’s sufferings, she taught them that those sufferings would be meritorious. She gave them a simple prayer, “My Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” The children would endure far more suffering before Our Lady visited them again. This prayer, by taking refuge in the Immaculate Heart, was their sole source of comfort.

They did not know what was to come.

They did not know what they were supposed to do with the knowledge given them. But they were now prepared to endure it all prayerfully and for the salvation of souls.

During this centennial anniversary of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Fatima, Portugal, the Catholic News Herald is publishing a series of commentaries examining each of her six visits to the children, the messages given to them and how Fatima’s past prepared the future to receive God’s divine plan for peace. Father James Ebright, priest in residence at St. Michael the Archangel Church in Gastonia, is among those writing this series on behalf of the Te Deum Foundation, online at www.tedeumfoundation.org.

May 12, 2017 | catholicnewsherald.com catholic news heraldI

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Deacon James H. Toner

What we know that ain’t so:

“What you think is the right road may lead to death” (Prv 14:12)

Women deacons What we think is the right road

T

he Catholic priesthood is temporarily closed to women, but we can still make a progressive change in holy orders.

There are male deacons, so why can’t there be female deacons? Women deacons would be a good start on the path, after a few more years, to a priesthood that does not discriminate against women. They have a right to holy orders, too.

But it’s the wrong road The above adverb “temporarily” is mistaken. St. John Paul II wrote: “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful” (“Ordinatio Sacerdotalis,” May 22, 1994). On Oct. 28, 1995, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith affirmed the infallibility of the pope’s apostolic letter.

“No sacramental rite may be modified or manipulated at the will of the minister or community” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1125) – which includes the substitution of a “reflection” for the homily or sermon. “No one,” the catechism teaches, “has a right to receive the sacrament of holy orders” (1578), and only a baptized man may receive ordination (1577).

So often, we “The Burden of mistakenly view Proof Concerning the Church Women Deacons,” through lenses

by Sister Sara Butler, provided by M.S.B.T., in “First Things,” society, whereas Aug. 11, 2016. we ought to be viewing society by the lenses provided by the Church. We live at a time and in a place which encourages us to “choose our biology.”

The “brave new world” written about in 1931

by Aldous Huxley, in many ways even he could never have dreamed about, has come to pass. Catholic moral theology, in this regard, is founded upon the biblical principle that God makes us male and female (Gen 1:27), and that we must not discard that eternal truth, or discount it by appealing to the fads, fancies and fashions of society.

Anyone – even a non-baptized person with the right intention – can and should baptize in an emergency. That women serve as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, lectors and teachers does not confer an analogical right to ordination.

It is, similarly, a fallacy to conclude that, because a man and woman being married confer upon each other the sacrament of holy matrimony (CCC 1623), they may claim the right to priestly (or diaconal) ordination.

The presence of the priest (or deacon) “visibly expresses the fact that the marriage is an ecclesial reality” (CCC 1630).

Suggested reading

That Jesus chose only men to the apostolic priesthood (and no Gentiles) must mean, one sometimes hears from critics with their tongues firmly in their cheeks, that we must have a Jewish priesthood. But Our Lord was not “politically correct,” and we are eminently justified (see Mt 22:16) in believing that, had He wanted to ordain women – to whom he showed a respect equal to men – He surely would have.

Jesus did not ordain even His own Blessed Mother, who is free of sin. (see St. John Paul, “Mulieres Dignitatem”). Nor is there a single biblical or early Church reference to women being called to holy orders (see Acts 6:1-6, Phil 1:1, and 1 Cor 12:4-5).

The deaconesses mentioned in, say, First Timothy, were “appointed (a key word) for special tasks but not ordained for sacramental ministry in the strict sense.

The First Council of Nicaea decreed in 325 A.D. that women deacons are numbered among the laity and not among the ordained clergy” (Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch, “Ignatius Catholic Study Bible”).

Deacons are not “junior priests.” They are ordained to their particular ministry, not to the priesthood (Vatican II, “Lumen Gentium”). Here is the real nub of the argument about women deacons. If the service ministry of deacons is “generic” and does not proceed from holy orders, then the argument for women deacons may be meritorious.

Here, though, is the testimony of Sister Sara Butler, MSBT: “The evidence to date indicates that deaconesses belonged to a women’s order analogous to the male diaconate, carried out a ministry to women..., were ordained in rites similar but not identical to those for men..., and were prohibited from the liturgical ministry at the altar entrusted to deacons. ...The properly theological question...is the sacramentality of the diaconate itself.

Deacons are ordained to the ‘ministry’ as distinct from the ‘priesthood’ (CCC 1569), but their office, exercised without interruption since apostolic times, has been recognized as belonging to ‘major orders’ since the 12th century. And the Church has always taught that the sacrament of holy orders is reserved to men (CCC 1577).”

There are those – Phyllis Zagano of Hofstra University among them – who dispute Sister Butler’s judgment. Father Kevin M. Cusick of the Archdiocese of Washington has recently suggested that the actual “endgame” of those seeking women’s ordination to the diaconate is rejection of the male priesthood.

Father Cusick doubts that deliberations about women deacons “will lay to rest the complaints among those who have a congenital instinct to see the Church as an ever-changing canvas for self-expression rather than the place of faith where sinners undergo saintly change for the sake of their salvation.”

Deacon James H. Toner serves at Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro.

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