Columbia Magazine January 2002

COLUMBIA KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS

We Remember.

We Resolve.

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JANUARY 2002 • VOLUME 82 • NUMBER 1

C O V E R S T O R Y CHARITY. UNITY. FRATERNITY. PATRIOTISM.

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P E N I N G O D E 2 FROM THE EDITOR Remembrances and Resolutions BY TIM S. HICKEY 3 MESSAGES The witness of the North American Martyrs can be an example for us who are committed to the cause for life.

From the first moments of the attacks of Sept. 11 to today, the Knights of Columbus has responded to the tragedy in the best traditions of our Order.

BY SUPREME KNIGHT CARL A. ANDERSON

We need to understand why Christ is so important to us, especially at the start of a new year.

BY SUPREME CHAPLAIN BISHOP THOMAS

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V. DAILY

Agents of Mercy Knights of Columbus insurance agents deliver immediate financial relief to widows of fallen heroes. PAGE 9

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THE KNIGHTS: NOW MORE THAN EVER In a special message, the supreme knight says the events of Sept. 11 make the Order’s contributions to society needed now more than ever.

BY SUPREME KNIGHT CARL A. ANDERSON

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THE POPE SPEAKS TO THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD

A new series of columns exclusively for Columbia magazine on the encyclicals and major writings of Pope John Paul II. In this first column, “Reflection and Guidance,” the pope’s unique teaching role is examined.

BY BISHOP DONALD WUERL

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BY BERNARD CASSERLY

19 THE FATHER McGIVNEY GUILD Strength Amid Adversity BY DOMINICAN FATHER GABRIEL B. O’DONNELL

KNIGHTS in Action 23 SUPREME COUNCIL NEWS Knights named Champions of Peace by Vatican’s Path to Peace Foundation.

24 ALL ABOUT YOUR BENEFITS New Knights of Columbus insurance agents reap more than financial rewards from their careers.

25 COUNCIL, ASSEMBLY AND CIRCLE REPORTS

LEARNING FOR LIFE

Through two new grassroots groups for seminarians by seminarians, the Church’s wisdom on life issues is being imparted to the next generation of pro-life priests.

BY MOLLY MULQUEEN

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I E W P O I N T S 10-14 WASHINGTON Terrorism and Abortion

BY RUSSELL SHAW FAMILY Even God Took a Day Off BY MONICA AND BILL DODDS VATICAN Can John Paul Breach China’s Great Wall? BY GREG BURKE THE TIME OF OUR LIVES Readers Respond from the Heart

BUILDING A NEW CULTURE OF LIFE

Wondering how your council or parish can help proclaim the Gospel of Life in 2002? Here are 10 ideas for your consideration, including preparing for the March 25 observance of the first Knights of Columbus Day of the Unborn Child.

BY BILL DODDS

Knights respond to Sept. 11 with prayers and funds. SPOTLIGHT Ontario council preserves region’s history by rebuilding roadside crucifixes. BY MIKE MASTROMATTEO 32 PHOTO FINISH Photos of Knights in action from around the Order.

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E R S O N 30 PUT OUT INTO THE DEEP Father Mychal’s Island BY PETER A. DEANE

COVER: AP Photo/Beth A. Keiser

KNIGHTS

OF

COLUMBUS

Opening

Publisher

SUPREME OFFICERS CARL A. ANDERSON Supreme Knight MOST REV. THOMAS V. DAILY, D.D. Supreme Chaplain JEAN MIGNEAULT Deputy Supreme Knight CHARLES H. FOOS Supreme Secretary DEACON KENNETH N. RYAN Supreme Treasurer

EDITORIAL TIM S. HICKEY, EDITOR 203-772-2130, x. 303 tim.hickey@kofc-supreme.com BRIAN CAULFIELD, MANAGING EDITOR 203-772-2130, x. 209 brian.caulfield@kofc-supreme.com JIM SKOWRONSKI, SENIOR EDITOR 203-772-2130, x. 400 jim.skowronski@kofc-supreme.com GERRY BRUNELLE GREG BURKE BERNARD CASSERLY MONICA AND BILL DODDS REV. JOHN A. FARREN, OP REV. GABRIEL B. O’DONNELL, OP RUSSELL SHAW MOST REV. DONALD W. WUERL, S.T.D. Contributing Editors ARTHUR F. HINCKLEY JR. Graphic Designer FatherMichael J. McGivney (1852-90) — Apostle to the Young, Protector of Christian Family Life and Founder of the Knights of Columbus, Intercede for Us.

How to Reach Us MAIL Columbia 1 Columbus Plaza New Haven, CT 06510-3326 PHONE 203-772-2130, x. 398 FAX 203-777-0114 INTERNET For Columbia Online, news and information about the Knights: http://www.kofc.org MOVING? Notify your local council. Send your new address and mailing label to: Knights of Columbus Dept. of Membership Records PO Box 1670 New Haven, CT 06507-0901

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Remembrances and Resolutions early every day since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, my afterwork routine has been fairly predictable. Once home, I sit down with the day’s New York Times and turn to its special “A Nation Challenged” section, which features stories on the war in Afghanistan, the war on terrorism and the recovery efforts at the World Trade Center. Then, I begin reading the “Portraits of Grief.”

This is an entire page devoted to brief profiles FROM THE EDITOR of the thousands of peoTIM S. HICKEY ple people reported dead or missing in the World Trade Center attack. These stories, usually less than 250 words each, include a small photograph of the deceased and a headline that captures the essence of the individual: “The Strength in That Smile,” “Known by Her Embrace,” “Family, and a Simple Life,” “Giving His Very Self.” These aren’t obituaries; rather, they are celebrations of life.

Through these “Portraits of Grief” I’ve “met” many of the brother Knights and members of the Columbian family killed on Sept. 11. There was a 29-year-old woman, soon to be married, who was described as devoted to her faith and to her parish, where she was president of the local Columbiettes K of C ladies’ auxiliary. There was the brother Knight who was a Port Authority police officer. He and his wife had made plans to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary with their four children on Sept. 12. And then there was the brother Knight, a financial executive in his 50s, whose profile mentioned how dedicated he was to the Knights and how involved he was in his council.

After reading these profiles, invariably I shake my head at the loss of so many young fathers with toddlers, of so many of New York’s finest and bravest who were really so much more than just a badge or a helmet, of so many lives of promise dead-ended. I also shake my head in sadness, because too many of the men — the

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firefighters and police officers — buried from their parish churches in the days since, were not Knights.

Sept. 11 was a day of profound loss and devastation. It was also a day of great courage and compassion, with stories of heroism and bravery we will never know.

Sept. 11, many believe, has also marked the beginning of a new era of volunteerism and civic involvement, of conviction and unity. We should all be proud of just how quickly, how resolutely and how charitably our Order responded to these historic events. (See the story “Charity.

Unity. Fraternity. Patriotism.” page 6, and special reports on page 26 of the “Knights in Action” section.)

Our $1 million Knights of Columbus Heroes Fund, established less than 24 hours after the terrorist attacks, has provided $3,000 checks to hundreds of grieving families of the fallen rescue workers.

Hand delivered to these families by our general and field agents in the days following Sept. 11, even weeks later these checks for many families were still the only money they had received.

January is traditionally a month to remember the year gone by and resolve to do things differently in the year ahead. As an Order, we will long remember the events of Sept. 11, but we must also resolve never to forget the heroes of that tragic day. Using the vast resources of people and prayer that we have at our disposal, we Knights and our families can have an important role in whatever lies ahead. We should take a page from our own history, remembering how vital we were to efforts both home and abroad during World War I and II, and vow to do whatever we’re asked — and then do even more.

Might I suggest we begin by asking those eligible firemen and police officers in our parishes to join the Knights of Columbus. Let’s also ask those young family men who are filling the pews each Sunday in so many suburban parishes.

Father Michael J. McGivney founded our Order to help families in crisis. Let us do what he would do today and always.v

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JA N UA RY

FROM SUPREME KNIGHT CARL A. ANDERSON AND SUPREME CHAPLAIN BISHOP THOMAS V. DAILY

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ays before last August’s 119th Annual Supreme Council Meeting in Toronto, members of the board of directors joined me on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Midland, Ont. There, Supreme Chaplain Bishop Thomas V. Daily celebrated Mass for the intention that God would continue to bless our Order, all Knights and our families. After Mass, we prayed before the relics of the Jesuit missionaries, St. Jean de Brebeuf and St. Gabriel Lalemant, who were martyred together in 1649 a short distance from the shrine.

St. Jean de Brebeuf was tortured to death by Iroquois warriors who, after killing him, cut out his heart and ate it in the hope of gaining some measure of the courage the priest had shown in the final hours of his life.

The martyrdom of the Jesuit priests bears compelling witness to the true nature of the initial evangelization of North America. These men brought the Good CARL A. News of the Gospel to a continent through ANDERSON their courage, humility and, ultimately, by their willingness to suffer death.They offered themselves in self-sacrifice to make visible to the people of the New World the self-sacrifice of the Son of God. Many of the first European explorers and settlers shared the view that the Native peoples were not worth the effort.

The ministry of the North American Martyrs showed that the early evangelizers of this continent saw things differently. Father de Brebeuf saw the Iroquois as human beings who were drawn to the Savior of the world who had offered himself for all men and women.

The witness of St. Jean de Brebeuf and his fellow martyrs can be an example for us who are committed to the right to life from conception to natural death. One way to look at modern history is to see it as the struggle to achieve respect for an ever-increasing part of the human family. For much of this time certain social, economic, racial or national groups were relegated to a type of “nonpersonhood.”

That status made it easier to discriminate against them and even at times to kill them.

Today, these new “nonpersons” have more to do with medical, rather than social ethics. The public debates over embryonic stem cell research, abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide make that clear. Political progress on these issues has been slow. A greater witness to the sanctity of all human life is called for now, and Pope John Paul II is leading the way.

The attacks of Sept. 11 show once and again that the Culture of Death will continue to surprise us with new and ever more devastating threats to human life.

Surely St. Jean de Brebeuf also saw himself surrounded by a deeply rooted Culture of Death.The courage and credibility of his witness on the continent of North America stands as an example to us all.

Vivat Jesus! v

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ho among us would deny that in these difficult times we need a Savior? We need a Savior in our deep inner selves more clearly and perhaps more urgently than ever before. Ravaged by the events of Sept. 11, and wary of what evil people are plotting against us, we Knights and our families need Jesus Christ. We need to understand why he is so important to us, especially now today at the start of the year 2002.

Jesus Christ the Son of God, himself God, became man like us in all things but sin. He became subject to the flow of time, growing as he did in wisdom, age and grace. He learned language to listen to others, to read and speak and write. He felt hunger and thirst and the delight of eating with his friends. He was angered by disrespect and saddened to tears by the disdain of some he sought to convince. He knew the sharpness of physical and emotional pain, a scourging, a bloody sweat, the abandonment of friends and, in BISHOP THOMAS one moment of time, death.

V. DAILY But his story did not end there. His story goes on. Executed by crucifixion and buried behind a boulder, he rose from the dead to a new order of life. Because of his love, he became the Lord, the giver of life. He ascended to the right hand of the Father where he always intercedes for us but in this world, in us, in his Church, in us and in our families.Through us and with us, we do his work. Life means Christ for us.

Today Christ is living as part of our history. He weeps with us when we weep. He is pained when we are pained.

And when we die, he shares with us his life eternally. He admonishes us when we cower in fear, and says, “Let not your hearts be troubled or be afraid. Have confidence in me. I have overcome the world.”

Christ came upon this earth to overcome all forms of evil, that destructive chaotic power for which we can find no reason. For evil is never reasonable, whether in the magnitude of terrorists or the small failures of our human hearts and inadequacies. Evil is never a tool of God’s design to shape a wayward world into a form of beauty or ourselves into mirrors of his love.

We have a right to feel moral outrage and a righteous indignation at the vicious atrocities inflicted upon us. We need to pray for and prosecute those who have done them, but unless we are free from the reckless condemnation of all those innocent people who may be like the terrorists in their religious and ethnic background, we are guilty of unholy prejudice. Then we do the evil we deplore and avoid the good we proclaim.

Today, Christ is the Savior of our cities, our countries, our world. He is the light shining in the darkness. He is the hope that all human life has meaning and purpose.The way we live his message and continue his work on earth will reveal his truth and reveal his kingdom in history until in the end he hands it over to God the Father, when all evil will be vanquished.

Praise be Jesus Christ, yesterday, today and forever! v Columbia/January 2002

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A Special Message from Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson

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he world changed forever on Sept. 11. But not the Knights of Columbus.

Terrorist attacks, sadly, are regular occurrences in some parts of the world, but they are new to North America. The events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath have had a profound effect on all of us.

The purpose of terrorism is not to destroy armies in the field. It is to destroy the will of a people to resist and therefore make their armies useless. The purpose of terrorism is to take away a people’s sense of security and to destroy a people’s culture and their very civilization. It is to take away what it is that armies fight to defend. Its purpose is to destroy what makes a people a “people”; thus, terrorists do not hesitate to make war on the people themselves.

The world changed forever on Sept. 11 because, in part, everyone is now a target. And so everyone must now assume the responsibility of a response.

Today, at the start of a new year, we must ask ourselves what will be our response? What role is the Knights of Columbus to play in the events that are shaping the history of our nations?

indivisible from its moral and spiritual strength.Today more than ever society needs men who will stand shoulder to shoulder in its defense.

EVERY MEMBER NEEDED Today more than ever society needs the Knights of Columbus.

The Knights of Columbus must be on the frontline of homeland defense in each of the countries where we exist.

Our councils must be centers from which works of charity and unity radiate out into our communities. Our assemblies must be places where patriotism and fraternity shine so that everyone can be inspired.

We must work in our parishes to provide opportunities for spiritual strength for our families through rosaries and corporate Communions. We must continue all our programs for youth so that they may look forward to the future with security and hope. And we must continue to provide financial security to our families through our top-rated insurance program.

Every member of our Order, regardless of his circumstances, can contribute in some way to this great effort in the days

THE KNIGHTS: NOW MORE THAN EVER The answer is found in the fundamental mission of our Order. It is found in our guiding principles of charity, unity, fraternity and patriotism.My brother Knights and families, the historic mission of the Knights of Columbus is needed today more than ever.

The first expression of our response to the events of Sept. 11 was the establishment, on the very next day, of the $1 million Knights of Columbus Heroes Fund to provide immediate assistance to the families of the rescue workers killed as a result of the terrorist attacks.

I am proud to report that in each case $3,000 in immediate assistance was personally delivered to the affected families by our own insurance agents in the New York City area. I would like to thank each of our agents who worked to make this effort such a success. Our gratitude is extended to our Agency Department and the general and field agents in the New York City area who dedicated so many hours to ensuring that these families received our help as quickly as possible. What better example could we have of our motto “Protecting Families for Generations” than the success of this program?

Today more than ever society needs men who will place the common good above personal interest. Today more than ever society needs men committed to self-sacrifice and not selfishness — men who understand that in times of crisis charity is a duty.

Today more than ever society needs men who understand that unity and fraternity are the foundations of strong communities.Today more than ever society needs men who understand that patriotism is the sinew that binds together a nation’s strength.

Today more than ever society needs men who realize that the economic and political strength of a nation are

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ahead — and every member should.

The most effective way we can respond to the threat that terrrorism poses to our culture and its values is to strengthen our families and communities through our volunteer and fraternal programs.

Responding to a national or international crisis is not new to the Knights of Columbus. We take pride in the efforts of our brother Knights during World War I to support our servicemen, and we remember that both the first and the last U.S. servicemen to be killed in the line of duty in Europe during that terrible conflict were brother Knights.

We honor in a special way the nearly 1,700 brother Knights who died fighting during World War II. Their sacrifice is recorded as are their names on a bronze memorial in the courtyard of the Order’s new museum in New Haven, Conn.

And, of course, members of the Order served with distinction in Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm.

We remember those heroes in New York — including 29 members of the Order who in offering a lifesaving hand on Sept. 11 — lost their own lives.

Let us remember their heroism, and let us resolve now to do our part. The work ahead of us this year is important; in fact, it has never been more important.

The last quarter of 2001 witnessed many achievements in membership recruitment and new council development. In October we experienced the best membership intake we’ve had in a decade. It also was our best month for net gain since the 1990-91 fraternal year.While we have recently been doing great in recruiting new members,

more needs to be done to stop the loss of members from suspensions.

In November we passed another milestone with the institution of council number 13,000. We must continue to establish new councils and reinstitute inactive ones until every parish has the active presence of a K of C council.

Membership in our Order is more important today than it has ever been. In the coming days we must put more hands to the helm so that our nations may stay steady on their course.

FAITH AND WORKS This year will be a great year for the Knights of Columbus — a great year in membership, a great year in insurance and a great year in volunteerism. I am confident that by all of us working together — by all of us standing shoulder to shoulder — this will be so.

The poet Walt Whitman once wrote: “It takes struggles in life to make strength; it takes fight for principles to make fortitude; it takes crisis to give courage and singleness of purpose to reach an objective.” Those words should increase our confidence in the days ahead, because what the Knights of Columbus has never lacked is strength, fortitude, courage and purpose.

I am confident that by all of us working together — by all of us standing shoulder to shoulder — this will be a great year for the Knights of Columbus.

The basis for our success has always been the spiritual heritage left to us by our founder, the Servant of God Father Michael J. McGivney. His spirituality and his moral vision will always remain our guiding light.

During the coming year we look forward with great expectation to our first Knights of Columbus Eucharistic Congress to be held June 22-23 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. The theme of this great event will be “To Serve the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the Hope of the World.”

This theme is taken from the theme of the last fall’s world Synod of Bishops convened by Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. In choosing this theme we emphasize our solidarity with the bishops of our various countries and with the Holy Father. In choosing this theme we declare again that during this time of world conflict and uncertainty, it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is now and will be forever the hope of the world.

This eucharistic congress will be the occasion to pray for world peace with justice, and it will be a symbol and beacon of hope. I ask each of you to participate in this great event by either coming to Washington to be with us at the National Shrine or by sponsoring local corporate Communions on the weekend of June 22-23.

Last fall, the Holy Father renewed his intention to travel to Toronto this coming July for World Youth Day. The Knights of Columbus will be there to greet him. It contin-

ues to be our hope that thousands of brother Knights will join our Holy Father in Toronto and with him offer hope to the young people of the world.

Your preparations also should be under way for the observance on March 25 of the first international Knights of Columbus Day of the Unborn Child. May the feast of the Annunciation be the occasion for all of us to witness to the sanctity of God’s great gift of life and to further resolve to protect and defend it.

Finally, I ask each of you to participate in a new Orderwide initiative this February. I ask every jurisdiction during February to sponsor what has come to be known as a Blue Mass — a corporate Communion for police and firefighters.A Blue Mass corporate Communion will become an annual program at the Order’s birthplace, St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Conn.

This program will be one of the best ways to demonstrate on a continuing basis our solidarity with and support for our police and firefighters. Year after year it will say to them,‘We remember and we resolve.’ I hope that a Knights of Columbus-sponsored Blue Mass will be held annually by every council.

STAND OUR GROUND As I said before, this is a time of great challenge. It also can be a time of great accomplishment. We have put in place the building blocks for a successful fraternal year. All that is needed is the determination and effort to bring it to completion.

These are times of conflict, of violence and of armies.

The Knights of Columbus is the size of a great army, and we must not flee from the great conflict that is around us.

We must be that great army that St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians calls us to be when he writes:“So stand your ground, with truth buckled around your waist, and integrity for a breastplate, wearing for shoes on your feet the eagerness to spread the gospel of peace and always carrying the shield of faith so that you can use it to put out the burning arrows of the evil one. And then you must accept salvation from God to be your helmet and receive the word of God from the Spirit to use as a sword” (6:14-17).

As we look forward to the next six months of this fraternal year we see the Knights of Columbus as a great army at prayer: F for our police and firefighters during February.

F for the sanctity of human life on March 25.

F for the hope of the world before the Blessed Sacrament on June 22-23.

F and for the youth of the world in July.

The citizens of ancient Athens, the world’s first democracy, were required to take a sacred oath. Its conclusion is as follows:“We will transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.”

That is the oath I ask that you take in your hearts after reading this message so that standing shoulder to shoulder we will transmit this great Order which we love not only not less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.

Vivat Jesus! v TELL US WHAT YOU THINK Share your ideas with Supreme Knight Anderson via e-mail at carl.anderson@kofc-supreme.com. Or write to Columbia, 1 Columbus Plaza, New Haven, CT 06510-3326; fax: 203777-0114.

Columbia/January 2002

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Charity.

Unity.

Fraternity.

Patriotism.

From the first moments of the attacks of Sept. 11, the Knights of Columbus went into action with financial and material aid for those who were killed, injured or bereaved.

Columbia Staff Report

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incent R. Mileo knew something was wrong the morning of Sept.

11 from the boom of jet engines that filled his Little Italy neighborhood in lower Manhattan. A passenger plane was flying so low, he said, “you could’ve reached up and touched it.”

The plane couldn’t be touched, however, and crowds quickly gathered on the sidewalks to watch in horror as first one hijacked jet then another flew full throttle into the World Trade Center’s twin towers.

“We were watching it burn, and when it fell everybody was screaming,” he said.

Mileo is financial secretary of Knickerbocker Council 221 in New York City. The council meets in the basement of Our Lady of Vilnius Church by the entrance to the Holland Tunnel and is the closest K of C facility to ground zero. Literally shaken by the events, council members hastened to respond, sending a donation for the widows of the local firehouse, which lost a number of men in the rescue effort.

Mileo’s nephew, Donald Delapenha, who worked at the World Trade Center, perished in the tragedy. “He called his wife on his cell phone from the 86th floor and said they were evacuating,” Mileo said. He called again Left: AP Photo/Stuart Ramson

from the stairwell to say there was a slowdown of the evacuation line.

“That’s the last she heard from him.”

From that fateful morning to today, the Knights of Columbus has been a part of the worldwide effort to help heal the wounds caused by the terrorist attacks. The Order’s response ranges from the $1 million Knights of Columbus Heroes Fund, set up the day after the disaster, for families of professional rescue workers who were killed, to council-sponsored fund-raisers for widows and children.

Among the first to act was James V. Kavanaugh Council 5293 in MasticShirley N.Y., on the southeast end of Long Island. Within 10 minutes after the first plane struck, the council had a fund-raising drive under way. Knight David Walsh and his family rounded up donations of bottled water, food and other supplies for rescuers and dropped them at the local firehouse.

The council paid for a large supply of water to be shipped to ground zero and also made a donation to organizations assisting in the relief effort.

Each night for four weeks after the attacks, St. John’s Council 1345 in Dumont, N.J., cooked 200 hot meals at its council home and delivered them via member-owned vans to the Jacob Javits Center in New York, where police, firefighters and others working at ground zero gathered to eat and rest. “Everybody came out of the woodwork to help,” said council member Philip Fredericks, general agent for northeastern New Jersey. As the project went on, other councils in northern New Jersey supported it financially and joined in by taking over the cooking for a day.

Shown from left during a Nov. 1 visit to ground zero in New York City are Msgr.

Ralph J. Maresca, Supreme Chaplain Bishop Thomas V. Daily, New York Police Department chaplain and Knight Father Robert J. Romano and Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson. Msgr. Maresca is Bishop Daily’s secretary.

Fallen Heroes Announcing the Heroes Fund at a news conference Sept. 13, Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson said that $3,000 would go to the survivors of full-time, professional firefighters, police officers and emergency medical personnel who lost their lives at the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. As of Nov. 19, more than $1 million had been disbursed by Knights of Columbus insurance agents, and more than $500,000 had been sent to the fund by local K of C units and individual members (see “Agents of Mercy,” page 9).

A large number of Knights were involved in the rescue and recovery efforts. At least 16 firefighters and police officers who are Knights lost their lives at the World Trade Center, and others continue to labor at the site, removing the tons of debris and recovering body parts of the thousands who died. Retired Navy Capt.

John D. Yaminicky Sr., a past grand knight of Dr. John Henry Griffin Council 2293 in Bryantown, Md., was among the passengers aboard the flight that crashed into the Pentagon.

One of the highest ranking New York City firefighters to die was Chief Donald J. Burns, citywide tour commander and past grand knight of Holy Mother Mary Council 3958 in Columbia/January 2002

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Smithtown, N.Y. He left behind his wife Elizabeth and their three children.

Mario T.Truglio, a past grand knight of the Smithtown council, said that Burns was active in council activities despite the fact that he was constantly on call for emergencies in New York City.

“He was always with the guys. If he wasn’t leading, he was helping,” Truglio said.

News of the disaster brought back memories for Anthony D. Russo, grand knight of Staten Island Council 1662.

His wife, Rosemarie, had been trapped at the World Trade Center when a terrorist bomb exploded there in 1993. A teacher on Staten Island, she was on the observation deck with her students during a class trip and had to be escorted by police officers down the 110 flights of the tower.

“When I heard about the attacks, it occurred to me that the same policemen who rescued her then were probably the ones who bravely ran into the towers and never came out,” Russo said. “You know people, everybody knows people who didn’t make it out.” Three relatives of council members were killed, he said.

One council member, Joseph Garbie, opened his door to two New Jersey residents who jumped on a ferry to escape the mayhem in lower Manhattan. “They had no way of getting home, so he invited them in, fed them and put them up for the night,” Russo said.

Russo opened the council home that evening for members to gather, share stories and set up a phone tree to check on fellow Knights. In the next month, the council sponsored a dance and a golf outing that raised $15,000 for a fund earmarked for families on Staten Island.

Clergy Offer Solace Two of the busiest priests in New York have been Msgr. Marc A. Filacchione, a fire department chaplain and pastor of St. Michael Church in New York, and Father Robert J. Romano, head administrative chaplain for the New York Police Department and pastor of St Bernadette Church in Brooklyn.

A member of Assumption Council 1694 on Staten Island, Msgr. Filacchione was for weeks on a marathon schedule of memorial Masses, prayer

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‘Our hope is founded in the resurrection of Jesus, in whom death and evil are overcome.’

—Bishop Thomas V. Daily, Supreme Chaplain services and counseling sessions with firefighters and families. Near the twin towers when they collapsed, he escaped the waves of flying debris by rushing down a flight of stairs into a subway station. When he emerged from another flight of steps, the area was filled with smoke and soot. He was taken to St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center for respiratory treatment. After being released he ministered to other victims being brought from the site.

A member of Don Bosco Council 4960 in Brooklyn, Father Romano has spent countless hours at ground zero and with police officers and their families.“This tragedy has not just affected me as a parish priest and as chaplain, it has affected me as a human being. I lost my godson, college classmate and two dear friends,” he said.“When I deal with those who are grieving, I can honestly say that I do understand their pain.” (Editor’s Note: Father Romano will be profiled further in the February issue.)

After meeting at ground zero with Father Romano on Nov. 1, Supreme Knight Anderson agreed to the priest’s request for 2,500 Catholic Bibles for priests ministering to the city’s bravest and finest and their families.

Even priests visiting Manhattan from out of town responded. Father Jeff Ethen, a priest of the St. Cloud (Minn.) Diocese, was vacationing in New York with fellow Minnesota priest Father Peter K. Kirchner Jr. They had planned to visit the observation deck of the World Trade Center the morning of the attacks, but lingered instead over a cup of coffee. Hearing of the attacks, they joined other priests at St. Vincent’s hospital, and continued their ministry in the city until the nationwide ban on commercial flights was lifted.

“I was approached all week by people who had found faith in the wake of the tragedy and were asking to be baptized. I referred them to their local parishes,” said Father Ethen, a member of Chesterton Council 1995 in Brandon, Minn. “It was a tremendous evangelizing moment.”

Previously scheduled council events took on a new meaning after Sept. 11. John Hughes Council 481 in Brooklyn invited firefighters and police officers to its family day on Sept. 16.

Still suffering from the loss of so many of their colleagues, the city’s bravest and finest were hailed as heroes by the Knights and their families.

Supreme Chaplain Bishop Thomas V. Daily saw the twin towers burn from his office window in downtown Brooklyn and offered Mass that day in St. James Cathedral Basilica. He urged congregants to hold a crucifix in their hands,“gaze on the image of Jesus who died on the cross, and talk to him for consolation.” Two days later, he visited the site of what he called “this chilling and cataclysmic event.”

Bishop Daily spoke about the virtue of hope at the Sept. 23 Prayer for America service in Yankee Stadium, where he joined religious leaders of many faiths.“Hope is a divine plan. For Christians, our hope is founded in the resurrection of Jesus, in whom death and evil are overcome,” Bishop Daily said. “Hope moves us to survive.

Without forgetting the pain in our hearts, hope energizes us. Without forgetting those who died, hope moves us to affirm life in the face of death.”v Above: AP Photo/Amy Sacetta Right: AP Photo/Shawn Baldwin

Agents of Mercy Knights of Columbus insurance agents deliver financial relief to widows of fallen heroes

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incent P.Valerio was driving to the Bronx when he heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

“I was in Manhattan that day, at the World Trade Center about an hour before the first plane crashed,” he said.

He later saw photos of where he was that bright September morning.

Nothing was left. Nothing but dust, debris and death.“You wonder why…”

Valerio says.

Valerio is a retired captain in New York City’s Department of Correction.

He’s also a field agent for the Knights of Columbus. Six months into his new career, he had delivered more than 70 of the Order’s Heroes Fund checks to the next of kin of the police, firefighters and emergency medical rescue personnel who died in the terrorist attacks.

The Order’s general agents and field agents in the New York metropolitan area were the point men in the K of C’s outpouring of concern for the victims. Within days of the Sept. 12 creation of the $1 million Knights of Columbus Heroes Fund by the Order’s Board of Directors, state and local units had forwarded checks and held fund-raisers to support the effort.

By Nov. 19 the Order had received donations totaling more than $500,000 for the fund. Donations ranged from $70,000 from Knights and families in Florida to $1 from a 92year-old woman living on Social Security. U.S. and Canadian agents also donated more than $10,000 to the Heroes Fund. (See page 26 for reports of council and assembly responses to Sept. 11.)

By Dec. 1 the Knights of Columbus insurance agents had delivered $3,000 Heroes Fund checks to the families of 417 New York City firefighters, police New York City firefighters carry the coffin of Capt. Walter Hynes from St. Francis Catholic Church following his funeral Mass on Sept. 19. Hynes, a member of Rockaway Council 2672 in Rockaway Beach, N.Y., was killed during rescue efforts at the World Trade Center.

officers and Port Authority police officers lost in the attacks, a total of $1,251,000.

“From what I understand, this is the first benefit, outside of pay, that many of [the families] received,” said John Scherer, a retired New York City patrolman who is the Order’s general agent for Brooklyn. Scherer represented the Order at 1 Police Plaza where families of hero police officers met with representatives of agencies offering them aid. Heroes Fund benefits were conveyed to those families within a week, he added.

“Our goal was to get the process completed and checks out as fast as possible,” said Kim Bambace, general agent for Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island. He and his field agents delivered more than 130 Heroes Fund checks before Nov. 1. They also visited scores of firehouses and talked with union officials to make the Heroes Fund benefit known to firefighters.

“They’re young people,” Bambace said. “I’d say 90 percent of them were around 25.” He said he talked with a widow with 10 children and another widow who was married only a few days. “They’re crying,” he added. “It’s been a very heart-wrenching experience the last couple of weeks.”

General Agent Louis LaMedica of

Essex County, N.J., said his visit with the widow of a Port Authority police lieutenant was the hardest he’s made in his 10 years with the Knights.

“As soon as I got to the house, on the front door there was a sign that said, ‘Come home soon, Daddy.’ Right then I welled up, and I knew that it was going to be a tough thing.

Surprisingly his widow was a very, very strong person.”

“He was highly decorated and, from what she told me, just an all-around great guy,” LaMedica added.“It just broke my heart, because she said, ‘You know, I’m sure the Port Authority is going to take care of us, but up till now we’ve seen no money at all.’ The Knights of Columbus were the first people to come and offer this type of assistance…

And, she said, ‘Lou, this is going to take care of two months’ mortgage.’”

“Thank you so much for the financial (and emotional) support you have given to me and my family during this time of CRISIS,” one widow wrote in her thank you note to Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson. “My husband was a battalion chief in the FDNY who was taken from us 9-11-01 at the WTC. He may be considered a hero now, but he was always a hero in the eyes of his family. He was loved very much and will be greatly missed.”

“The Knights of Columbus’ generosity was an enormous help to my family and myself,” the widow of a hero emergency medical worker wrote to Field Agent Kevin M. Kelly of Floral Park, N.Y.“I would like to thank you for your kindness and assistance in this matter. There aren’t enough words to express how grateful we are.”

“There was a Port Authority police officer’s widow and very young child, a child about 10 months, who really stick out in my mind,”Valerio said.“She just didn’t know which way to turn, this girl, and we sat down trying to go over some things…and I offered that service to pretty much all the families of uniformed personnel… She stands out quite a bit with the baby, the cutest little thing.” v Columbia/January 2002

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I E W P O I N T S

n WASHINGTON

Pro-life forces must resist with equal vigilance the Culture of Death evident in the attacks on our country by terrorists and the threats to life allowed by law.

Terrorism and Abortion he connection between legal abortion in the United States and last September’s smoldering piles of rubble at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon may not be immediately apparent, but it is entirely real. These are hideous symbols and symptoms of the spread of Culture of Death.

In saying this, I hasten to add that I am not suggesting that abortion causes international terrorism. That would be absurd. Nor am I attempting to make a cheap case for the notion that there is moral equivalence here.

Moral equivalence is usually an irrelevant idea, and it is entirely beside the point in this RUSSELL SHAW context.

But I do mean to underline the obvious point that in both instances — the terrorist attacks on the United States, and the killing of the unborn that for many years has been taking place with the approval of the law — the horrible belief is operative that human life can be destroyed in the pursuit of some “higher” end.

And that is the fundamental idea which lies at the very heart of the Culture of Death.

It is significant that Pope John Paul II listed both abortion and “attacks on human life by terrorism, organized even on an international scale” among the expressions of this deadly mentality in his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Dominum et Vivificantem, published in 1986. Other instances of the same thing, he said, include war, the arms race and the threat of nuclear war, and “death-dealing poverty and famine.” In the modern world, “the signs and symptoms of death have become particularly present and frequent,” said this pope, who is by far the leading champion of life in our day.

At the same time, of course, it hardly needs saying that terrorism and abor-

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tion are different in critically important ways.

Terrorism of the sort lately witnessed is a weapon favored by the kind of premodern (or is it postmodern?) fundamentalism now dangerously loose in the world. While calling this fundamentalism “religious” or “Islamic” may be unfair to religion and Islam, it does have religious roots.

Legalized abortion, by contrast, is presented as a tool of human empowerment associated with contemporary secularism. It expresses what Leon Kass, the University of Chicago ethicist named by President Bush to head a new presidential bioethics commission, calls “the erosion…of the idea of man as noble, dignified, precious, or godlike, and its replacement with a

n terrorist attacks and the killing of the unborn, the belief is operative that human life can be destroyed in the pursuit of some ‘higher’ end.

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view of man…as mere raw material for manipulation.”

Obviously, fundamentalism and secularism are sworn enemies. Each sees the other as a deadly ideological foe.

From this perspective, there is little or nothing joining the two things except — as the legalization of abortion and the use of terrorism make clear — willingness to destroy human life when its destruction suits them.

The United States in this situation finds itself in a more peculiar position than is commonly recognized. Even as the country battles the Culture of Death in its threatening, terrorist guise, many Americans also embrace it in the form of legalized abortion and other life-destroying practices congenial to the secularist mind.

The historian Gertrude Himmelfarb and others have called America a nation of “two cultures.”The analysis is correct. One culture is led by people who hold to traditional religious beliefs and moral values; the other is headed by those who by and large have abandoned both.

The terrorist attacks had the unifying effect of bringing Americans of both cultures together in a shared experience of horror, anger and fear precisely because the attacks made no distinction between them. From a moral perspective, what is crucial now is that the necessary response be carried out in the spirit of self-defense, not vengeance.

By contrast, there is nothing at all unifying in the experience of legalized abortion. On the contrary, 28 years after the Supreme Court abruptly and unilaterally imposed this horror on the nation by its Roe v. Wade decision of Jan. 22, 1973, the United States continues to be deeply divided on the issue as well as on a raft of other life-related questions that have become part of the public debate since then.

This should come as no surprise.

Destroy respect for human life, and the very idea of community is in danger.

Respect for life binds people together in civilized societies. Where it does not exist, no one is safe. The Culture of Death must be rejected and resisted on all fronts, not just one.

Russell Shaw, who writes from Washington for the Knights of Columbus, serves as a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

Above: The Dialog/Diocese of Wilmington, Del.

Does society have the right to put a criminal to death for a heinous crime?

Catholics and Capital Punishment The Catholic Information Service (CIS) of the Knights of Columbus offers a 22-page booklet on the morality of capital punishment according to Church teaching. To obtain your copy, send your name and address, along with $1 (U.S. or Canadian currency only) to: Columbia, 1 Columbus Plaza, New Haven, CT 06510-3326. All funds received are used to help defray the printing and mailing costs of all CIS booklets.

n FAMILY The beginning of a new year is good for setting aside time for family, friends and yourself.

Even God Took a Day Off hile it’s still easy to find complimentary calendars at the start of a new year, free time is harder to come by. In that respect, today’s families don’t seem to be doing as well as previous generations did.

Nostalgia’s rose-colored glasses show past times as less hectic, less complicated, less demanding. They were in some ways, but let’s be honest here: All times can be hectic, complicated and demanding.

Raising children is often hectic, complicated and demanding.

That’s why as Catholics taking our cue from the One who created us, we’d be wise to remember that even God took a day off. This isn’t just a matter of all work and no play. Rather, all go, go, MONICA AND go and never slow, slow, BILL DODDS slow make Jack and Jill and their family very unhappy.

Sometimes wise time management isn’t mastering the ability of cramming more tasks into each hour. It’s making sure that every week includes some hours that aren’t crammed. A body — a mind and a soul — can’t go full speed full time. A human life, a family’s life, is too important to be led that way.

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© 1999 Rubberball Productions

As the 21st century continues to unfold, it’s becoming ever easier to give in to the belief that the one who dies with the most items checked off his or her “To Do List” wins.

T’ain’t so.

It can be frustrating and discouraging that one lifetime just isn’t enough to accomplish all the things we’d like to get done. It’s cause for hope and consolation that one lifetime is enough to accomplish all the things we need to get done, all the things God is asking of us. After all, if God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, he certainly isn’t going to give us more to handle than we have time for.

The tricky part is listening to the Holy Spirit and recognizing what’s on God’s list for each of us — for our marriage, for our family, for our work. It’s remembering that God asks faithfulness and perseverance, not “success” as the world defines that word.

The world still loves a Martha and just isn’t too sure about a Mary. You remember the story, from Luke’s Gospel (cf. 10:38-42). Jesus comes to visit them, and Martha is “burdened with much serving” while Mary plants herself right down and listens to what Jesus has to say.

The challenge of every life is still, and always will be, properly balancing

et aside some family time. Set aside some spouse time. Set aside some self time, which isn’t being selfish.

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those two roles. As a spouse, it’s doing it within a marriage, as a parent, within a family.

The beginning of a new year is a good time to set aside some days in the months ahead, to block time off on that pristine 2002 calendar before it begins to look like last year’s ended up looking. Set aside some family time. Set aside some spouse time. Set aside some self time, which isn’t being selfish.

“God’s action is the model for human action,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us. “If ‘God rested and was refreshed’ on the seventh day, man [woman and child!] ought to ‘rest’ and should let others, especially the poor, ‘be refreshed.’ The sabbath brings everyday work to a halt and provides a respite. It is a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money” (2172).

God doesn’t demand gleaming tiles, dustless corners, a spotless home.

Rather, he invites us to slow down and get to know him better by spending casual time with our children, our spouse and ourselves.

So, this can be the year — make a resolution! — when you get so much more out of life by doing less. This is the chance for you to “squander” a few hours on yourself, an evening with your spouse or a day with your family, and discover how rich that time is. It’s beyond valuable; it’s priceless. Those new calendars offer another reminder: how quickly time passes. How quickly a life passes. How quickly your life is passing. But there’s enough time.

Monica and Bill Dodds can be contacted at BillandMonica@BillDodds.com. Their Web site is www.BillDodds.com. Bill’s latest books are Your Grieving Child: Answers to Questions on Death and Dying (Our Sunday Visitor) and Your One-Stop Guide to Heaven, Hell and Purgatory (Servant Publications).

n VATICAN

Establishing diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China continues to be a priority for Pope John Paul II.

Can John Paul Breach the Great Wall? ne of the first articles I wrote after arriving in Rome was about relations between the Holy See and

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Columbia/January 2002

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the People’s Republic of China. That would have been a difficult subject even for a veteran to handle, and was certainly well beyond my capabilities as a Vatican cub reporter. However, I remember that the headline was not bad: “The Vatican’s Slow Boat to China.”

The boat is still moving, and “slow” is the operative word. However, it’s interesting to see how closely Pope John Paul II has followed this issue.

While it’s a complicated affair, given the history of persecution of Roman Catholics in China, and the existence there of an official, government-sponsored church known as the Patriotic Association, what the Holy See wants is simple: full diplomatic relations.

John Paul’s request was loud and clear in a message he sent last fall to a scholarly meeting in Rome that was celebrating the 400th anniversary of Father Matteo Ricci’s arrival in Beijing. Ricci GREG BURKE was an Italian Jesuit missionary and man of science. Known to the Chinese as the “Sage of the West,” he had spent nearly 30 years in China when he died in 1610.

“I am pleased here to recall that when Father Ricci arrived in Beijing, he wrote a Memorial to the Emperor Wan-li, in which he introduced himself as a celibate religious who sought no privilege at court, asking only to be able to place at the service of His Majesty his own person and the expertise in the sciences which he had acquired in the ‘great West’ from which he had come,” the pope wrote.

John Paul placed the words “sought no privilege at court” in italics, indicating that this is still the case today. The Church seeks no privileges.

China has complained that naming bishops freely — as the Church does in most countries — is an interference in the country’s internal affairs.

Echoing St. Paul, who wrote of becoming all things to all men, John Paul lauded Father Ricci for his ability to achieve an extraordinary inner harmony between what was Catholic and what was Oriental, between the Italian and the Chinese.“His merit lay above all in the realm of inculturation,” the pope wrote. “Father Ricci forged a Chinese terminology for Catholic theology and

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he Holy See has relations with all sorts of countries, not all of them models of democracy.

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Chinese Catholics attending Midnight Mass in 1998. Catholics are a small minority in China, which is officially an atheist state.

liturgy, and thus created the conditions for making Christ known and for incarnating the Gospel message and the Church within Chinese culture.”

Father Ricci, the pope wrote, based his entire apostolate on two pillars, to which he remained faithful to his death. One was that the Chinese who embraced Christianity did not have to renounce loyalty to their country. The second was that Christian revelation in no way destroyed the good and holy in Chinese tradition, but actually enriched it.

John Paul had words of praise for China. “The Holy See regards the Chinese people with deep affection and close attention,” he wrote. “Let it be known to China: the Catholic Church has a keen desire to offer, once more, her humble and selfless service for the good of Chinese Catholics and all the people of the country.”

He also issued a kind of mea culpa

on behalf of the Church for errors of the past, asking forgiveness for the impression of a lack of respect and esteem for the Chinese people, making them feel that the Church was motivated by feelings of hostility toward China. He pointed out that China and the Catholic Church are two of the most ancient institutions in the world.

“It is with this renewed and deeply felt friendship towards all the Chinese people that I express the hope that concrete forms of communication and cooperation between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China may soon be established,” the pope wrote. It probably won’t be soon, but the pope has not lost hope for diplomatic relations.

“Friendship is nourished by contacts, by a sharing in the joy and sadness of different situations, by solidarity and mutual assistance,” John Paul wrote. “The Apostolic See sincerely seeks to be a friend to all peoples and to collaborate with persons of good will everywhere in the world.”

The Holy See has relations with all sorts of countries, not all of them models of democracy. Cuba and Iraq, for example, both have diplomatic relations with Rome. We should not be shocked that the Church is anxious to have China on the list. Relations mean communication, and communication normally helps improve situations.

Perhaps it’s time for the slow boat to come in to port.

Greg Burke writes from Rome about the Vatican for numerous Catholic and secular publications.

n THE TIME OF OUR LIVES Letters reveal the depth of human experience, and the hand of God that guides our every action.

Readers Respond from the Heart he tears are falling as I write,” began the letter postmarked last August in Paterson, N.J. The Columbia reader identified herself only as the wife of a Fourth Degree Knight.

Knowing the power of a woman’s tears, I selected her handwritten message as the best letter sent to me in the last 12 months.

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“It is as if time stood still,” she wrote, “and I am once again a child of the Depression. I was seven years old, but the memories are as real today as they were then. It was the dead of night. We lived in a third-floor walkup.

On the street below a homeless man huddled against the cold. My mother suddenly went to the stove, took a glass jar, filled it with hot coffee and told me to bring it to the man.

“The coffee was meant for my father, but mother felt the man needed it more. Snow was on the ground, and when the man saw the coffee he became very emotional. However, he never BERNARD had a chance to enjoy CASSERLY the coffee. He placed the jar in a snow mound, and it broke.

I don’t know who was more upset, my mother or the vagrant.”

The writer was reacting to my August column, headlined “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime.” That essay about the Great Depression also was the most popular of all those I wrote during the past year if you measure by the number of letters received.

The second most popular appeared in the May Columbia. Called “Why Say the Rosary, and How,” it brought many letters from readers who said their beads in many strange places and situations.

Lt. William R. Dermott, a U.S. Marine Corps chaplain and member of Trinity Council 313 in Bethlehem, Pa., e-mailed me from Okinawa that he often says his beads while flying.

Gerald R. Darr of St. Jude Council 3904 in South Toledo, Ohio, reported saying the rosary daily, including one night at the edge of a woods during World War II when a German flare went off.

Many marvelous stories were related in letters sent me between November 2000 and October 2001.

Most writers were reacting to a column. My essay on my first airplane trip inspired some great writing.

Richard A. Harrington, a member of Orland (Calif.) 3606, described a flight more than 50 years ago from San Francisco to Los Angeles. When he and his future wife climbed aboard a DC-3, they saw three men in white overalls wheel up a ladder to fix the engine on their side.

“From somewhere,” Harrington Above, right © PhotoDisc Inc. Left: AP Photo/Chien-min Chung

t is as if time stood still,’ she wrote, ‘and I am again a child of the Depression.’

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wrote, a voice said, ‘They just replaced the engine on that side!’ Next, while one man appeared to be guarding the ladder, the other men appeared to be praying. No, they were down on their hands and knees patting the ground with their hands. Standing up, one man showed the other two what he found!

“One man raced up the ladder steps and used the object to fasten the cowling. About the same time, the pilot came striding up the aisle. Before he vanished into the cockpit area, I heard him say,‘Now, let’s get this bucket of bolts into the air.’ ” Then everything was ready, Harrington wrote, and they took off.

“Without a care in the world, I relaxed, smiled at my intended, and prepared for the one hour flight to Los Angeles.

Suddenly, lights raced by the windows! Lights in the sky? No, the rumble of landing gear announced our arrival in Oakland just a few miles from San Francisco to pick up more passengers! The rest of the trip went on schedule.”

The rosary column of last May brought in a dramatic story from Victor G. Debono of Humber Valley

Council 3945 in Weston, Ont. It’s about an English Spitfire pilot, a Catholic, assigned to patrol the island of Malta.

Debono lived there during WWII when it was under heavy German fire.

The pilot told his story to Debono on a visit to Malta after his retirement from the Royal Air Force. During a dogfight with a German fighter the pilot was struck in the head by a bullet.“He radioed the tower to tell them he was coming in.The tower replied that they could see his plane. Shortly after, he radioed again that the blood from the wound had blinded him.

“The tower tried to assure him they would direct him in. So they said keep talking. The pilot started by saying: ‘Our Father who art in heaven.’

When he finished, he started again… and again, at the same time listening to the directions of the tower and doing his best to follow. He said he was scared, of course, but he believed that God would spare him from a horrible death.”

Bernard Casserly is editor emeritus of The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

Rosary Prayer Card Available The Knights of Columbus offers a free wallet-size rosary prayer card.

The card features the prayers of the rosary, the Mysteries plus instructions for praying the rosary.

For a sample copy, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to: Columbia, 1 Columbus Plaza, New Haven, CT 06510-3326.

Columbia/January 2002

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The Pope Speaks to the Church and the World

Reflection and Guidance The first in a new series of columns on Pope John Paul II’s encyclicals and other major teaching documents. By Bishop Donald Wuerl n Sunday, Oct. 22, 1978, the world watched as Pope John Paul II, the 264th bishop of Rome and vicar of Christ, stepped out of St. Peter’s to celebrate the eucharistic liturgy before tens of thousands of people filling St. Peter’s Square.

The first-ever Polish pope, and first non-Italian elected by the College of Cardinals since the 16th century, caught the imagination and hearts of people from the moment he appeared at the basilica’s balcony on the evening of his election, six days earlier. What John Paul was to say during his homily BISHOP DONALD would mark the solemn beginning of his minWUERL istry as universal pastor of the Church and set the focus of his entire pontificate.

HIS INITIAL MESSAGE It was an exciting day, made all the more so by the challenging message of John Paul’s

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first homily “urbi et orbi” (to the city of Rome and the world). “Open wide the doors for Christ,” he announced.

The image was a dramatic one — doors being broken off their hinges to make way for Christ into our hearts and into the world.

In his first words addressed to the whole Church the pope went on to say: “Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid to welcome Christ and accept his power… Do not be afraid… Let Christ speak… He alone has words of life, yes, of eternal life.”

In his homily the pope set before the Church the figure of Christ and the importance of faith. “‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ These words,” the pope continued, “were spoken by Simon, son of Jonah, in the district of Caesarea Philippi…

These words mark the beginning of Peter’s mission in the history of salvation, in the history of the people of God. From that moment, from that confession of faith, the sacred history of salvation and of the people of God was bound to take on a new dimension: to express itself in the historical dimension of the Church.”

UNIQUE TEACHING ROLE Not long after he began his papal ministry John Paul wrote his first encyclical letter, Redemptor Hominis (The Redeemer of Man). That letter was addressed to his “Venerable brothers in the episcopate, the priests, the religious families, the sons and daughters of the Church and to all men and women of good will.” In it, he set the point of reference for his entire pontificate, whose fruits we are experiencing in such great abundance today as we begin a new millennium.

This and subsequent articles will attempt to unfold some of the teaching of this extraordinary shepherd of a flock of 1 billion followers as it is found in both his encyclical letters and post-synodal apostolic exhortations. Each document will be examined for its spiritual and pas-

toral wealth and its meaning to our lives today.

As we begin our journey through this rich field of papal reflection and pastoral guidance, let’s look first at what an encyclical letter and an apostolic exhortation are. The pope, as successor to Peter and vicar of Christ, has a unique teaching role. At a pivotal moment in St. Matthew’s Gospel we read the account of Simon, the disciple of Jesus, making a profoundly moving profession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah (cf. Mt 16:13-20). This episode, as we noted, formed part of the pope’s first homily as the supreme pastor of the universal Church.

When Simon had come to place his faith in Jesus, the Lord conferred on him a new, sacred role and identity. Jesus gave him the name “Peter,” which means “rock,” and promised Peter that he would be the rock or foundation on which he (Jesus) would build his Church. To Peter, the “rock,” Jesus would give the keys to the kingdom — the authority to bind and to loose, the authorization to lead his flock and to do so in the name and by the power of Christ.

Around the magnificent Michelangelo dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, hundreds of feet in the air above the place where tradition and archeological excavations tell us Peter was buried, in letters six feet high is the Latin inscription proclaiming this citation from the Gospel According to St. Matthew. The pope, every pope, succeeds to the role of Peter and the awesome responsibility of teaching the faith and providing pastoral leadership for the Church universal.

The fulfillment of the Petrine promises is recorded as well in the Gospels. John tells us how after the resurrection Jesus confirmed Peter in the role of shepherd and leader of his flock:“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’

Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep’” (Jn 21:15, 17).

Peter’s role was to continue in the Church. Distinguished ecclesiastical writers of the early centuries, including

Read His Words Origen and Eusebius, confirm that St. Clement was the third successor to Peter as bishop of Rome. His name is found in the ancient list of popes compiled by St. Irenaeus. Clement seems to have served as a sort of auxiliary bishop for the two popes who followed St. Peter, Linus and Cletus. His own service as the “servant of the servants of God” lasted nine years until he was martyred under the Emperor Trajan in 99 AD. ‘VOICE OF PETER’ St. Clement is noted among other things for his letter to the Corinthians in which he intervenes in the affairs of the Church of Corinth. Clement is writing as bishop of Rome. Under that title he does not hesitate to correct, rebuke and order other churches. He makes no justification for his intervention in the internal affairs of Corinth other than that he is bishop of Rome. As such he is the voice of Peter competent to speak with the authority of Christ.

His letter and its instruction show us another fact about the make-up of the Church in its earliest days. It was a hierarchical Church. St. Clement speaks very clearly of the role of clergy (bishops and deacons) within the Church. He points out that all authority within the Church is channeled through apostolic succession. He is also quite explicit in noting that bishops were appointed by the Apostles when the Apostles knew that they were to die and that others would carry on their work. All of this takes place before the end of the first century of the Christian era.

The reverence paid to the voice of Pope John Paul II is a respect which grows out of the understanding that Christ sent the Apostles, and the Apostles through their successors continue Christ’s ministry with Peter at their head.

The shepherding role conferred on Peter is that of leading and guiding the Church. To the Apostles as a group, in conjunction with Peter, Christ gave the commission to exercise authority in his Church.Yet it is always to Peter as head of the college of Apostles and to his successor as head of the college of bishops that the Church looks for guidance, instruction, teaching and leadership.

FORMAL PAPAL LETTERS An encyclical (literally “circular letter”) is a letter through which the pope exercises his teaching responsibility. © L’Osservatore Romano

Essentially an encyclical letter is a pastoral letter written by the pope for the whole Church.

There is a long history of formal papal letters written for a specific local or diocesan Church yet applicable to the Church universal. The letter of Clement to the Corinthians is an example. The modern usage of the encyclical as we know it is dated by most historians to Benedict XIV and his Dec. 3, 1740, encyclical letter Ubi Primum, which dealt with the responsibilities of bishops.

Since then, whenever a pope determines that it is time to offer some guidance, teaching or instruction to the whole Church — to all the faithful — he expresses himself in the form of a letter sent to all of the bishops so that they can circulate or share it with all of the faithful.

Over the decades, the teaching function of encyclicals is apparent. To cite but a few: Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (On Labor), 1891; Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage), 1930; Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), 1963, and Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae (On Human Life), 1968.

APOSTOLIC EXHORTATIONS With the conclusion in 1965 of the Second Vatican Council, there arose a new institution in the Church called the Synod of Bishops. So enriching for the Church was the council that many of the council fathers, including Pope Paul VI, felt that there should be some mechanism to bring together not all the bishops of the world but a number of bishops representative of the Church in different parts of the world to offer advice to the pope on issues he would select. Thus came into existence the modern day ecclesiastical institution, the Synod of Bishops. The most recent was held last fall in Rome.

Pope Paul VI issued the first postsynodal apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (On Evangelization of the Modern World) on Dec. 8, 1975.

This began the tradition of the pope summing up the work of the synod and presenting it in the form of an instruction to the faithful — but in his own name and on his own authority.

On Oct. 16, 1979, the first anniversary of his election to the See of Peter, Pope John Paul II published Catechesi Tradendae (On Catechesis in Our

There is no substitute for the words of our Holy Father expressed beautifully and clearly in his writings. Our Sunday Visitor offers a two-volume work containing the texts of Pope John Paul’s encyclicals and apostolic exhortations together with an introduction to each. The Encyclicals of Pope John Paul II and The Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortations of Pope John Paul II, both edited by J. Michael Miller, CSB, are available by contacting Our Sunday Visitor at 1-800-348-2440 or www.osv. com. The English text of all the encyclicals and letters can be found at the Vatican Web site at: http://www. vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ ii/index.htm. — Bishop Wuerl

Time). His inaugural apostolic exhortation was issued, he said, “in response to the request which was expressly formulated by the bishops at the end of the fourth general assembly of the synod” which met in the fall of 1977.

In this way Pope John Paul II continued the initial practice of Paul VI and has published to date six such exhortations meant for the entire Church.

The pope himself recognizes the Synod of Bishops to be an instrument of ecclesial communion. In an address in 1990 to the Roman Curia he said that the Synod of Bishops is “a unique expression of the collegiality of the bishops with the pope.” Since the practice has arisen of the pope using the “propositions” or points of reflection prepared by the members of the synod, it is clear that the exhortation is “not something in contradistinction to the Synod, but is meant to be a faithful and coherent expression of it, a fruit of collegiality” (Christifideles Laici, 2:12).

FUTURE ARTICLES In subsequent articles, each of the encyclical letters and the post-synodal apostolic exhortations of Pope John Paul II in chronological order will be examined.

These essays will review what the pope has said to us, what teaching he has presented for our direction and what guidance he gives us. These articles will each conclude with some pastoral advice and suggestions on how we apply the pope’s teaching as we face the challenge of living out our Catholic faith in today’s world. v Bishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh is a member of Duquesne Council 264 and the author of The Catholic Way: Faith for Living (Doubleday, 2001), a collection of the articles on the Catechism of the Catholic Church he wrote for Columbia.

Columbia/January 2002

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SEMINARIANS STEP UP TO DEFEND LIFE

Learning For Life

BY MOLLY MULQUEEN Two groups are helping tomorrow’s priests

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he next generation of priests committed to the pro-life cause may be the best trained yet to help Catholics confront the Culture of Death. Two pro-life organizations recently were formed by seminarians for seminarians. Both groups aim to round out pastoral and classroom training with practical training in prolife issues.

Seminarians for Life and Seminarian Life Link offer information and support ranging from tips on pro-life homilies to organizing effective activities for parish pro-life groups. Using the Internet, these groups also put seminarians from across the United States in touch with one another, broadening the base of pro-life leadership.

“We ask them to use the formation process of each seminary to form their priestly identity on the fundamental truth that all life is created by God in his image and likeness. We encourage them to use their class assignments to do research projects that would strengthen this truth of the Imago Dei [image of God],” explained Eric Bowman, national director of Seminarian Life Link and a student at Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary of the West in Cincinnati. Bowman is a member of Beavercreek (Ohio) Council 7981 at St. Luke’s Parish, where he is currently a pastoral associate.

“We do encourage the men to be involved with local crisis pregnancy centers to offer them support,” Bowman said. “We encourage our brothers to be visibly present at abortion facilities to pray for all of the women and their babies, and especially to pray for the workers and supporters of the abortion industry.”

He added,“We really encourage the men to begin to develop strategies to discuss life issues from the pulpit and to have the confidence to boldly proclaim that the Gospel of Christ is the Gospel of Life. So, in one sense, we ask them to use what the seminaries Left: © Comstock Inc. 1999 Above: © Life Issues Institute Inc.

already have present for them to strengthen their pro-life stance. Then, we also ask them to be present and visible for the laity who are working very hard to stop abortion and all attacks on the sacredness of life.”

“This is about seminarians serving other seminarians. We hope that makes for an organization of peers, a brother-to-brother approach,” said Deacon John Cyr, national director of Seminarians for Life, a member of Bishop McNamara Council 1622 in Frederick, Md., and a Fourth Degree Knight. “We are trying to organize some information that will help seminarians in their pro-life activity. We are trying to keep each other up-to-date and on the same page.”

The Knights of Columbus Supreme Council has provided financial assistance to Seminarians for Life for its operations.

A Thirst and a Fervor for Life Father Frank A. Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, is encouraged by these new organizations. “These two groups have come to me, on their own, because they see that this is a logical progression. We [Priests for Life] work to train priests. If they help on a peer-to-peer level with their brother seminarians, not only to get more training, but also the inspiration to join the pro-life cause, it certainly makes our job easier,” he said.“It is also a great satisfaction for us when we speak in seminaries, because we see this thirst and we see this fervor. So there is an integration here that makes a lot of sense among all these different groups.”

It is no small task to stay abreast of the most current information regarding the legislative debates, court decis i o n s a n d b i o t e ch n o l o g y b re a k throughs that surround pro-life issues in the 21st century. But Seminarians for Life and Seminarian Life Link both

Unborn child approximately 17 to 20 weeks from conception.

make information, ideas and the support of like-minded seminarians easily accessible.

“An open response from seminarians is necessary, and a willingness to get involved is crucial,” said Steve Pokorny, a student at St. Mary Seminary in Cleveland and member of Immaculata Council 3767 in Euclid, Ohio. “Seminarians need to step up and take a stand. Although we need to be attentive to our studies, sometimes we get caught up in the mentality of society that says ‘The issue is too big; there’s too much to be done, so why bother?’ It’s a mindset that needs to be overcome through education and prayer, as well as by keeping our souls open to the needs of others.”

Pro-life education is a part of the curriculum in every Catholic seminary to differing degrees. At Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, for example, it is addressed both in the classroom and outside of it.

“In his apostolic exhortation after the Synod on Priestly Formation in 1992 [Pastores Dabo Vobis (I Give You Shepherds)], the Holy Father talks about apostolic, pastoral, intellectual and spiritual formation for seminariColumbia/January 2002

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ans. I would like to think that we are making an effort to include formation for respect for life in all four of those areas,” said Father Patrick F. Halfpenny, vice rector and dean of seminarian formation at Sacred Heart Major Seminary. Father Halfpenny is a member of Msgr A.X.M. Sharpe Council 600 in Keego Harbor, Mich.

“Both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, the students have courses on moral theology which make extensive use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and papal documents, such as the Holy Father’s encyclical on the Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae). So, intellectually they are being formed,” Father Half-

our Lord and empty ourselves and embrace the cross of victory once again, the Culture of Death will remain a strong influence on society,” Bowman said. “I also believe that our priests must speak out against the horrors that are taking place against life directly, such as contraception, abortion and euthanasia. Our priests need to be actively encouraging our faithful.

That may mean that our priests be seen at abortion facilities protesting, or helping out at pregnancy centers, and it most assuredly means that they continue to study and learn about the next wave of attacks on life, and that is the bio-tech area.”

He continued, “Where I believe

lot of today’s seminarians have grown up with the pro-life movement and now are better equipped to promote the Gospel of Life.

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penny explained. “Pastorally, they are being formed in ways that are more overt. We always send a delegation from the student body to the March for Life in Washington every January.

We try to make sure that different students get the chance to attend. When they come back, we give them an opportunity to give personal testimony to their respective student communities. Then locally, on a voluntary basis, there are significant numbers of students who participate in the Life Chain, and weekly there is a group who goes to different abortion provider clinics in the metropolitan area to witness and pray. Spiritually, of course, their concern for pro-life issues shows up very frequently at morning and evening prayer and at daily Mass with their many intentions for recovery of respect for life from conception until natural death.”

Action, Knowledge and Prayer Action as well as knowledge is needed to fight the Culture of Death, and Bowman and Deacon Cyr agree that priests need to take an active role in the pro-life movement.

“I believe that in order for the Culture of Death to be defeated, there needs to be a revival of sorts among the people of faith. Until we imitate

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that priests will have the biggest impact is the post-abortive age that has begun. There have been roughly 35 million abortions since Roe v.

Wade, so that means almost 70 million individuals suffer directly from postabortive symptoms. Our priests need to work to heal and forgive these individuals. They need to bathe these individuals in the oceans of God’s mercy.”

Both groups acknowledge that the demanding life of a seminarian and a priest may not allow as much time for pro-life work as they would like. But both groups put a lot of emphasis on the importance of preaching about pro-life issues to their congregations, no matter what else they are able to do for the cause.

“One of the primary things a priest can do is to preach the pro-life message from the pulpit directly at least twice a year,” Deacon Cyr stated, such as near the Roe anniversary in January and on Respect Life Sunday in October. “There are little ways to be constantly pro-life from the pulpit, even preaching at daily Mass and every weekend. When a pro-life theme

comes up in Scripture, even if it is not the main focus in every homily, it can be something that is underneath everything we are preaching and everything that we stand for.”

A Pro-Life Vocation Many young men currently studying for the priesthood credit their pro-life activities with helping them to discern their vocation and to answer the call.

“It does seem to me that a significant number of candidates who present themselves for priestly formation these days come with a deep conviction of the importance of respect for life and a willingness to evangelize,” said Father Halfpenny.

Father Pavone agrees.“I have found throughout the United States that more and more of the men who go into the priesthood today have found their vocations through the pro-life movement. Many of them have been brought up by parents who had them at their knees while the parents walked back and forth in front of abortion clinics protesting and peacefully praying. A lot of these seminarians today have grown up with this movement and now are going to be even better equipped to lead the next generation into this movement — hopefully a generation that will bring the movement to its intended goal.”

There are a lot of seminarians and priests with a passion for pro-life work who would like to devote themselves entirely to prayer and activism for this cause. Some new religious orders of women were founded with pro-life apostolates, such as the Sisters of Life in New York and the Servants of the Gospel of Life in Indianapolis. But due to the shortage of priests in most U.S. dioceses, most priests are not able to do pro-life work full time. Many of them hope that in the future the Church will allow the formation of a religious order of men dedicated to pro-life ministry. v Molly Mulqueen writes regularly for the Catholic press from West Bloomfield, Mich., where she is a wife and mother.

FOR MORE INFORMATION on Seminarian Life Link, visit www.abortabortion.org.

Additional information on Seminarians for Life may be found at the Priests for Life Web site, www.priestsforlife.org. Links to several pro-life groups are included on the Order’s Web site. Visit www.kofc.org/faith/prolife/links.cfm.

Strength Amid Adversity As we enter the new year after the terrorist attacks, we look to Father McGivney, who led the faithful through difficult days. he first days of a new year are full of hope. Ongoing project was well beyond the financial wars and political unrest and the uneasiness they means of the largely immigrant Irish bring intensify our hope that God will effect a swift and Italian parishioners, the fiscal health of resolution to the violence and terrorism of the past the parish was no small matter for the pastoral staff. The few months. As Knights, we would do well to heavy debt brought the parish to near ruin on several occainvoke the intercession of our founder, the Servant of God sions.

Father Michael J. McGivney.

Father McGivney worked hard to amortize the debt on During the last quarter of 2001, the work of the Guild the church that now serves as the resting place for his morwas focused on finalizing the positio, the presentation on tal remains. Little did the young curate realize that a centuwhy there is good cause to bring Father ry after his death he would “come home” to St. Mary’s to McGivney to the honors of the altar. The take up permanent residence. positio includes an essay on Father McGivIn addition to his usual pastoral duties, Father McGivney ney’s spirituality and a lengthy biography. I took on the responsibility for the St. Joseph Total am pleased to report to you that in October Abstinence Society for Young Men and became treasurer the Congregation for the Causes of Saints for the St. Mary’s Total Abstinence and Literary Society. issued a decree of validity for the diocesan These involvements suggest his concern for one of the process regarding the miracle attributed to social ills that plagued the Irish community: alcohol abuse.

REV. GABRIEL B. We know, too, that Father McGivney was devoted to his O’DONNELL, OP Father McGivney. This is an important step for the Congregation to take; we hope the pastoral work ministering to prisoners in the New Haven next step that it will take, perhaps early this year, will be to jail. During this time, the priest also began to act on his conissue the decree of heroic virtue regarding his life.Then the cern for the problems young husbands and fathers faced in Congregation would declare Father McGivney to have the providing for their families. title “Venerable.”

In early 1882, Father McGivney’s prayer and reflection A brief survey of Father McGivney’s life illustrates the came to fruition in the founding of the Knights of great need he had for God’s strength and guidColumbus. Today, 120 years ance as he faced serious challenges in the early later, we Knights and our famweeks of each year. Ordained in December ilies are the beneficiaries of 1877, at the start of 1878 the 25-year-old priest his wisdom, determination was already in his first pastoral assignment as and pastoral action. As memassistant pastor at St. Mary’s Church in New bers of the brotherhood he Haven, Conn. Father John Murphy, the pastor, founded, we are united to was just a few years older than Father him through charity and fraMcGivney but was in such poor health that he ternity. was often away from the parish for extended It is no stretch of the periods. Father McGivney would later report imagination to suggest that that he did not have a single day off during his Father McGivney at times first year of service at St. Mary’s. became discouraged and On Nov. 4, Cardinal William H. Keeler of BalIn their zeal to have a suitable place of timore dedicated an information kiosk on Father exhausted, and was even worship, the parishioners of St. Mary’s built a McGivney at the Basilica of the National Shrine tempted to take things a bit beautiful structure, once referred to as “the of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, easier. He was only human cathedral of Hillhouse Avenue.” Because the where Father McGivney was ordained in 1877. after all. It was at those times, however, that he turned to Servant of God Father Michael J. McGivney the Lord, to the Sacred Heart, for solace, strength and the courage to persevere.

Michael J. McGivney was born in Waterbury, Conn., Aug. This month marks a new beginning for us all. Viewed 12, 1852. His parents, Patrick and Mary (Lynch) McGivney, had from the standpoint of our faith, it can be a time of confiarrived in the great 19th century wave of Irish immigration.

Patrick McGivney became a molder in the heat and noxious dence in God and optimism for the future. If viewed only fumes of a Waterbury brass mill. Mary McGivney gave birth to from the perspective of the events of the last four months, 13 children, six of whom died in infancy. As the first child, however, we might be overwhelmed by doubt, fear and disMichael, with four living sisters and two brothers, learned early couragement. It is now that we should take up anew the about sorrow and the harsh grip of poverty. He also learned spirit of Father McGivney. He continues to aid us with his about the powers of love, faith and family fortitude. It was spiritual support and care. v those lessons that helped form him as a priest and which he

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brought with him to the founding of the Knights of Columbus.

JOIN THE GUILD: SEE FORM ON PAGE 31

Dominican Father Gabriel B. O’Donnell is postulator of the cause for canonization of Father McGivney.

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Building A New Culture Of Life TEN SIMPLE WAYS TO JOIN THE CRUSADE FOR LIFE

By Bill Dodds

t the fall meeting of the U.S. bishops held Nov. 12-15 in Washington, D.C., a pastoral plan for pro-life activities was high on the agenda. “A Campaign in Support of Life,” drafted by the Committee for Pro-Life Activities chaired by Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore, is meant to serve as a pattern for the Church at every level to promote increased respect for human life. Cardinal Keeler is a member of Cardinal Sheehan Council 205 in Baltimore.

The bishops’ plan reaffirms three core areas of involvement: education, public policy and pastoral outreach. Highlighted as a separate, fourth category, is prayer, which the Church has long proclaimed undergirds all activities in support of life.

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Have you been wondering how to make your council or parish even more pro-life? How to kick up that commitment a notch or two? Here are 10 suggestions: 1. Ask How You Can Help.

Contact your diocesan office for family life or pro-life, pregnancy aid group or Catholic Charities office and ask what’s needed.

Offering support — both volunteer hours and money — for something that’s already up and running isn’t as exciting as starting a project from scratch but it offers three advantages: First, your efforts and income aren’t wasted reinventing the wheel by duplicating what some other group is already doing, or trying to do.

Second, often those working in the field are the experts at knowing what’s needed in that field. What you think, assume or imagine will really help may be low on their list of priorities.

Third, humility is good for the soul.

Let that organization, group or office stand in the spotlight. Let your council or parish man the light.

2. Set Up a Web Site.

Go high tech. For as little as $15 to $20 a month, your council or parish can have its own pro-life Web site, offering information on local and national resources and giving Internet users links to dozens of other pro-life sites.

Registering a domain name costs about $35. Renewing it might be another $25 annually.

Odds are your council or parish All: © PhotoDisc Inc.

already has its own Web site, so it may be just a matter of adding a regular pro-life column to it.

If not, ask at the parish office or put a request in the Sunday bulletin. A volunteer could have a terrific site set up in only a few hours. Maintaining it can take as little or as much time as the person wants to spend.

Because the object of the site is not to promote your council or parish, but to help individuals and families facing a crisis pregnancy, it may be best to keep the sponsoring group’s name to a minimum. Small type at the bottom of the home page could let visitors know the site is “Sponsored and maintained by Knights of Columbus of Pierce County” or “St. Mary Church.”

3. Adopt a Project or Program.

Needless to say, many pro-life agencies and groups operate on a shoestring. (Or a baby bootie string.) One in your area may be hesitating to commit to a much-needed project because of concern that funding won’t be there for it in six or 12 months.

Or it may have a program in place that’s teetering on the brink of extinction because of budget cuts.

So “adopt” that project or program.

Agree to supply the necessary volunteers and capital to get it up and running, and to keep it going — whether

it’s new or it’s been around awhile — for three to five years.

Remember, it isn’t just multimillion-dollar foundations that can offer grants, you can, too.

It well may be that the money and manpower you supply doesn’t seem like a lot to your council or parish. But for the executive director and the budget committee at the agency, it’s a tremendous relief to know that a project’s expenses are covered.

You’re helping them give uninterrupted service. And your gift means one less task for the staff or board members who would have to go searching for a new revenue source in a short 12 months.

4. Better Educate Yourselves and Your Parish.

Ask about having part of a shelf in the vestibule magazine rack for prolife pamphlets. Keep the material time-

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f your parish doesn’t have perpetual adoration, ask about having the council spearhead exposition of the Blessed Sacrament for 24 hours on First Fridays.

Make it a day of prayer for life. ly. For example, put out information on stem cell research or cloning when those topics are making front-page news.

But offer what is timeless as well, such as the writings of Pope John Paul II and statements from the bishops’ conferences. The U.S. bishops’ pro-life pastoral letter can be read at http://www.nccbuscc.org/prolife/ pastoralplan.htm. Information about purchasing bulk orders of the statement can also be found at the bishops’ Web site.

Put current pro-life information in the council newsletter. See about having a “pro-life corner” in the parish bulletin on a regular basis. Information in the newsletter or bulletin should be short, easy to read and simple to understand; perhaps 100 words but no more than that. Always include the source and tell the readers where they can get more information.

It can help to have a regular forColumbia/January 2002

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mat. A good one is “Did You Know?”, followed by three or four bullet items that are one sentence each.

5. Sponsor a Speaker.

Bring in a national speaker. This could be done in conjunction with other councils in the district. Put the word out at the parishes and at their schools and religious education classes.

Advertise, advertise, advertise. Plan far enough in advance to be listed in the calendars in the diocesan newspaper and the local papers. Make sure there are notices in neighboring parishes’ bulletins. If your council is near a Catholic college, inquire whether members of its faculty or staff speak on pro-life issues or would be interested in collaborating on bringing a nationally known speaker to the area.

Invite the public, especially neighboring non-Catholic parishes.

It could be that your guest is willing to deliver more than one talk, or will do so for a modest increase in his or her fee. Ask the speaker about talking at your parish grade school or at the local Catholic high school, and about giving a short presentation to the parish senior group or chatting with the youth group or the mothers’ group.

What a great way to kick off a “pro-life year” at the parish or the school, to energize, encourage and excite listeners while informing them.

Your speaker will probably have additional suggestions for drumming up a crowd and for taking advantage of those various audiences’ desire to go out and do something.

6. Host a Pro-life Contest.

Talk to the parish school principal and director of religious education about a “Kids for Kids” poster and essay contest. Just as moms took the forefront in battling drunk driving, youngsters can be powerful and effective advocates for promoting the sanctity of human life.

Let the younger students draw pictures. Let those in the upper grades do some research and writing. Both age levels can use the same theme:“Pro-life Means…” “I’m Pro-life Because…”

“How to Be a Pro-Life Kid…” The judges can be parishioners, Knights, representatives from pro-life agencies or the pastor.

Offer prizes. Maybe $25 for the

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winners in the upper and lower divisions and a $100 donation to each agency that supplied a judge. Checks can be presented as part of an alreadyscheduled school assembly or in the classrooms.

Because the whole school or religious education department took part, you may want to host a “Pro-life Pizza Party” for all the students. It’ll make pro-life time fun time as well.

Send a news release to the diocesan and local community newspaper saying who won, who judged and what agencies received donations.

7. Pray.

If your parish doesn’t have perpetual adoration, ask about having the council spearhead exposition of the Blessed Sacrament for 24 hours on First Fridays.

Make it a day of prayer for life.

It’s understandable if a pastor is hesitant unless the council has a firm

members to offer their heartfelt appreciation when, in some way, the community says “yes” to life.

9. Take a Wider View.

Consider ways to inform and involve the whole parish, from the moms-and-tots group to the seniors who get together after weekday Mass.

How is the Church’s pro-life message getting to teens, to students in the grade school and religious education program, to young adults and singles?

Make it easier for them to learn more about life and become active in the pro-life movement.

10. ‘Put Out into the Deep.’

Be bold. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill your minds and hearts with courage, and fire your imaginations with possibilities.

Check out what other councils are doing by reading the “Knights in Action” section. Don’t hesitate to imitate not just their style their specific actions. repare to observe the first but Three examples: Knights Orderwide Knights of in Billings, Mont., are spearheading an effort to Columbus Day of the make 10,000 (yes, Unborn Child this March 10,000!) baby bath tow25, the feast of the els for a local crisis pregAnnunciation. Take your nancy center. St. Mary of cue from the Blessed Virgin the Assumption Council 9302 in Upper Marlboro, Mary. Believe.

Md., hosts an annual “Swim Laps for Life” to commitment from at least two Knights raise funds for a center in that area. or their family members per hour. Of And Oconto (Wis.) Council 1475 gives course others are encouraged to sign its specially designed “Rose for Life” up and welcome simply to show up. baseball caps to new parents there.

Those 24 hours of pro-life prayers Don’t immediately skip over an could begin following Mass on Friday idea because it seems too costly or farmorning and end with Mass on fetched.

Saturday.

Take your cue from Mary, as the If your parish has perpetual adora- Knights Orderwide prepare to tion, recruit Knights and their family observe the Day of the Unborn Child members for those 24 hours each First this March 25th, the feast of the Friday.

Annunciation. When the Archangel 8. Praise the Good.

Gabriel told her she was to be the Send thank you letters to mer- Mother of the Savior, she didn’t dischants and businesses that support miss the notion by answering “That’s life. Send letters to the editor when impossible!” your local newspaper includes accuYes, she wondered aloud “How is rate facts, an unbiased report, a life- that possible?” But she didn’t hesitate affirming feature or an op-ed piece to continue, “Let it be done.” that’s pro-life. (Do not begin your letFollow her example. Don’t hesiter with “Thank you for finally,” even if tate. Believe. Move forward proclaimthat’s the case.) ing the greatness of the Lord and the Make it a short, simple thanks. This human life he creates. v isn’t the forum for reams of statistics Bill Dodds is Columbia’s “Family” colum(although, sadly, reams are available). nist.

It’s an opportunity for your council

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KNIGHTS in Action SUPREME COUNCIL NEWS

Knights Named ‘Champions of Peace’ by Vatican Foundation Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson has called on all Catholics to join the Knights of Columbus in working together with all people of good will “to build a global culture of peace.”

“Peace is not a utopian dream. It is a worthy and reachable goal,” Anderson said. He made his remarks before the Path to Peace Foundation.

The foundation awarded its 2001 Champion of Peace Award to the Knights of Columbus for “uncompromising defense of human life and the family.” Archbishop Renato R. Martino, apostolic nuncio of the Holy See’s mission at the United Nations and president of the Path to Peace Foundation, presented the award to Anderson at ceremonies in New York City Nov. 26.

In accepting the award, Anderson referred to the “horrifying” terrorist

Archbishop Renato R. Martino presents the Path to Peace Foundation’s Champion of Peace Award to Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson in ceremonies Nov. 26.

acts of Sept. 11 “that took so many innocent lives.” Even as we respond to those attacks, Anderson noted, the cause of peace must be pursued: “Tonight, while our military forces act to defend our nation against those who continue to threaten to harm us, we come here to rededicate ourselves to the cause of peace. And it is right that we should do so.”

The Path to Peace Foundation is a nonprofit foundation established to provide support for the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations in promoting the Church’s message of peace. Through its programs, chiefly at the United Nations, the Path to Peace Foundation attempts to keep the Gospel message before the international community and assist the pope in encouraging all toward peaceful resolution of conflicts.

KNIGHTS MUST WORK ‘SHOULDER TO SHOULDER’ IN 2002 Today, and especially in light of recent world events, the unique fraternal-insurance programs available only from the Knights of Columbus are needed more than ever. That was the message Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson delivered to the Order’s state deputies and general agents at a joint meeting in Hilton Head, S.C., Nov. 16-18, 2001. “We have to demonstrate that the Knights of Columbus will add value to the new member’s life,” he said.

The theme of the meeting was “Still Standing Shoulder to Shoulder.” Anderson said the Order had become the “strong right arm of the Church because of the relationship between fraternalism and insurance.” Father Michael J. McGivney, the Order’s founder, saw the need for a death benefit for members just as clearly as he saw the need for Knights to join together in fraternity and acts of charity, Anderson said.

James F. Shea

MEMBERSHIP CAMPAIGN The Order’s current “Celebrate — Faith, Family and Fraternity” membership campaign will continue through June 30, 2002. Every council is urged to recruit at least two new members during January and February.

Getting new members active and keeping them active is the goal of a new incentive campaign called the “Shining Armor Award.” To qualify for the award, during their first year of membership new Knights must get involved in at least three volunteer programs, attend three business meetings, receive their Second and Third Degrees, meet with their insurance agent and recruit at least one new member. Lapel pins and certificates of recognition are available for those Knights who qualify.

PRAYERFUL FOCUS During the next few months, Knights and their families will be given several opportunities to advance the aims of the

Order and the Church through spiritual programs. In February, councils are urged to host Blue Masses to honor law enforcement officials. On March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, the Order will observe the first Knights of Columbus Day of the Unborn Child. On June 22-23, the Order will host the first-ever Knights of Columbus Eucharistic Congress at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Finally, in July, the Knights will join with the youth of North America and the world in welcoming Pope John Paul II to Toronto for World Youth Day. “As we look forward to the coming months,” Anderson said, “we see the Knights of Columbus as a great army at prayer.”

GO ONLINE For additional news from the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council, visit the Order’s official Web site, www.kofc.org. From the home page, click on the link marked “News.”

Columbia/January 2002

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KNIGHTS in Action ALL ABOUT YOUR BENEFITS

New Insurance Agents Reap Many Benefits James Cavanaugh never figured he’d be good at selling insurance.

Jerry Penisten knew he could sell, but didn’t think the market was big enough to make a decent living.

James Cincurak was worried about supporting his family during a transition period between an old career and a new one.

With different outlooks and motivations, these three Knights recently began careers as field agents, selling the Order’s top-rated insurance to brother Knights and their families.

Although they work in different regions of the United States and Canada, the three are of one mind about their new occupation: It’s not just a job, it’s a vocation.

Penisten, a member of St. Joseph Council 12819 in Norman, Okla., speaks for the others when he says, “It runs a lot deeper than selling insurance. I tell my brother Knights that this is their company too. By participating in our insurance plans, they should have a sense of ownership.”

Cincurak, of St. Joseph Council 5642 in River Canard, Ont., said that he talks to fellow Knights not only about insurance but also about building strong Catholic families.“I’m very sincere with the members when I sit down with them. As a devout Catholic man, I consider what the Knights offer to be very important for my family and the families of all members.”

Because of the natural bond among Knights, there is no need for a high-pressure sales pitch, said Cavanaugh, a member of St. Patrick’s Council 4057 in Carlisle, Pa. “There’s a built-in relationship, especially when you meet new members and their families,” he stated. “I explain to them that this is not a big-profit company, that the Knights are involved in so many good causes in the Church and in the communities.”

24

Most Knights join the Order to take part in those good works and enjoy the benefits of Catholic fraternalism. Not as many know about the insurance program, which has been an integral part of Columbianism from the Order’s founding. Knowing that the Gospel calls for Christians to care for the temporal as well as the spiritual welfare of others, Father Michael J. McGivney made sure from the start that the new organization provided a death benefit to families as part of membership.

shipping company that was downsizing when General Agent John Mitchell paid him a visit.They spoke about a career with the Knights, but Cavanaugh didn’t think he was a good salesman. He accompanied Mitchell on some sales calls and decided that selling K of C insurance was the job for him.

After a thorough training period, Cavanaugh became an agent in March 2001. Like most K of C agents, he works from a home office.

“It’s the best job I ever had,” he

‘The great part is that I really believe in what I’m selling, and I work for an organization that supports my Catholic beliefs. There are no moral or ethical conflicts.’

The Knights of Columbus now has more than $42 billion of life insurance in force and for several years has earned top ratings from independent reviewers Standard & Poor’s (AAA, Extremely Strong) and the A. M. Best Co. (A++, Superior).

The decision to sell insurance did not come naturally to Cavanaugh, who is 32 and has a wife and three children. He had been laid off from a

MORE THAN A JOB, A VOCATION Looking for a rewarding career? Consider becoming a Knights of Columbus agent. For details, contact Thomas P. Smith Jr. 1 Columbus Plaza New Haven, CT 06510-3326 or call 1-800-345-5632.

You can also fax your resume to 1-203-777-2229 or e-mail it to field@kofc-supreme.com.

Additional information on career opportunities as a Knights of Columbus insurance agent can be found at www.kofcinsurance.com.

said. “The great part is that I really believe in what I’m selling, and I work for an organization that supports my Catholic beliefs. There are no moral or ethical conflicts.”

Penisten, 49, was a health insurance salesman and a Knight for years before he considered selling the Order’s products. His two sons are also Knights.

Recently he visited the Supreme Council office in New Haven, Conn., and stopped by St. Mary’s Church, where the Order was founded.

“I thought,‘I’m doing what Father McGivney was doing in his day. I’m carrying out his mission,’” Penisten said.

Cincurak, 31, was urged by a friend who is a field agent to give the job a try. He hesitated at first, wondering if he would sell enough initially to provide for his wife and baby daughter. Even if the members he visits don’t buy insurance, Cincurak considers the meeting worthwhile.

He talks about the faith, builds friendships and often leaves booklets from the Order’s Catholic Information Service.

“I’m looking after people’s eternal needs, as well as their material needs,” he said. — Brian Caulfield

KNIGHTS in Action REPORTS FROM COUNCILS, ASSEMBLIES AND COLUMBIAN SQUIRES CIRCLES homeless, which are delivered on the weekends.

Veterans Remembered For Veterans Day, Mother Teresa Assembly in Douglasville, Ga., presented U.S. flag lapel pins and patriotic service awards to 125 veterans of World War II and Korea who are living in nursing homes in Douglas, Paulding and Carroll counties.

Pius XII Council 996 in Fort Smith, Ark., donated a statue of Our Lady of Fatima to St. Boniface School. The statue is given to the family of a different pupil each week for use at home.

Tabernacle Sent to Nigeria St. Jude’s Council 12092 in Blackwood, N.J., restored a tabernacle that hadn’t been used by St. Jude’s Parish since a new church was constructed in 1978. The parish and Knights donated the tabernacle to Immaculate Heart Convent in Ikenazizi, Nigeria. Father John C. Muscat, council chaplain, donated several chalices to the convent.

$10,000 for Church Renovations St. Lawrence Council 1695 in Asheville, N.C., provided $10,000 for renovations to St. Joan of Arc Church and endowed two $15,000 scholarship funds, one for children of council members and the other for seminarians. The council also provided $1,000 in support each to the Spanish and youth ministries at the Basilica of St. Lawrence.

Radio Rosary Bellevue (Pa.) Council 1400 has assumed sponsorship of a Pittsburgh-area AM radio station’s daily 6 p.m. broadcast of the rosary. In the first six months of its sponsorship, the council raised about $10,000 for the program.

Christmas Toy Drive Constitution Council 11572 in Port St. Joe, Fla., The Star newspaper and the corporation Arvida co-sponsored their first Christmas toy drive for needy children.

The drive raised a total of $3,600, and three toys each were distributed to 110 children.

Skip A Meal Knights from Benedictine College Council 4708 in Atchison, Kan., skip one meal every Wednesday and are reimbursed by the school cafeteria. The funds are used to make bag lunches for area needy and

Fraternity in Action Upon returning home after having part of his right leg amputated, Joseph P. Cavanaugh of Corpus Christi Council 2502 in Mineola, N.Y., found that his brother Knights had constructed a deck and wheelchair ramp at his home. “[T]he beautifully constructed ramp and deck were waiting for me,” he wrote. “I will never forget the feeling of love and comradeship that enveloped me.”

Donations to Boysville The wives of Knights in Michigan donated 1,300 sweatshirts and sweaters as well as slippers and toiletries to Boysville of Michigan, which treats troubled children ages 12 to 17 at 31 homes in Michigan and Ohio. Boysville has been the Michigan Knights’ primary charity since being founded by the state’s bishops in 1948. Knights also donated $30,000 to Boys-

Archbishop John F. Donoghue of Atlanta gave a blessing with a relic of Father Michael J. McGivney, founder of the Order, to Christine Pekatos, left, and Bridget Jeffs, who were both diagnosed with serious medical conditions. Bridget is the daughter of Paul G. Jeffs and Christine the granddaughter of Joseph J. Wittman, both members of All Saints Council 11402 in Dunwoody.

ville for an educational program for 24 children with mental retardation.

Food Co-op To help each other with their Christmas basket programs for needy families, Rio Grande Council 2688 in Del Norte, Colo., and Grand Mesa Council 2731 in Delta conducted a produce swap. Members of Council 2688 drove three pickup trucks loaded with six tons of potatoes grown in its area to the Knights in Delta. In exchange, the Delta Knights provided Council 2688 with 1,500 pounds of apples, a ton of pinto beans and 1,300 pounds of onions grown in its area.

GO ONLINE More reports can be found at www.kofc.org.

Click on the link for “Columbia.” Reports are updated monthly.

Columbia/January 2002

25

KNIGHTS in Action KNIGHTS OFFER PRAYERS, FUNDS Throughout the Order, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks brought Knights shoulder to shoulder in prayer and patriotism.

Some councils far from the attacks were presented with unique opportunities for service. When 38 airliners with 7,000 passengers were diverted to Gander, Nfld., McCormack Council 5769 welcomed 154 of these passengers to its council home, where they would eat, sleep and watch TV news for three days before being allowed to resume their flights to the United States.

On the day of the attack, state deputies like California’s James Scroggin and Alabama’s Jerome H. Henley sent e-mails and letters across their states asking for prayers, blood donations and contributions. On Sept.

18, California’s 15 chapters each sponsored a memorial Mass for the victims. Fourth Degree color corps were prominent at all of them.

“As a state council, we have sent $1,000 to each of the state deputies in New York, Virginia and Washington, D.C., and $2,000 to the Heroes Fund,” Scroggin said.

Father Vincent R. Capodanno Assembly in Foxfield, Colo., coordinated a statewide Veterans Day collection for the Heroes Fund. State Deputy Levi C. Leyba Sr. also asked all councils and assemblies in New Mexico to donate to the Heroes Fund, and like many other state deputies also called for blood drives and prayer. State Deputy Hugo F. Maldonado of Central-South Mexico said Knights in his jurisdiction began a campaign that included prayer, Masses and the rosary for the victims of the attacks.

Sequim (Wash.) Council 8455 decided to help a needy family of a Knight who died at the World Trade Center.

Through the Internet it reached Grand Knight Dennis M. Brown of Father Joseph M. O’Connell Council 3481 in Oceanside, N.Y. Brown recommended the family of a deceased member of his council. Sequim Council forwarded a $1,300 donation to Council 3481, which presented it to the widow.

The ladies’ group of Yukon (Okla.) Council 6478 also made contact with Brown. Yukon Council’s auxiliary wrote letters to 67 councils, 19 assemblies and seven ladies’ groups in Oklahoma urging breakfast fund-raisers during October for the victims’ families.

In Iowa, the annual K of C campout the weekend of Sept. 14 included a candlelight prayer service in memory of those who lost their lives, their families and rescue workers, said Iowa State Deputy David A. Bellendier.

Other councils were equally quick, generous and creative in response to the attack.

Grand Knight Bob Brooks of Pope John XXIII Council 7302 in Cole Harbour, N.S., reported that his council’s regularly scheduled blood drive on Sept. 11 took on added urgency in the wake of the terrorist attacks. At the request of the Canadian Blood Services, the council’s drive stayed

26

IN

9-11 AFTERMATH

open longer than normal and 135 people qualified and donated blood.

“Our council shares in the shock and grief of the entire nation,” wrote Financial Secretary Donald Legatt in donating $10,000 to the Heroes Fund on behalf of WrightHennepin Council 4174 in St. Michael, Minn.

“We were strongly affected here in Canada by what happened on Sept. 11,” wrote Frank Kennedy of North York (Ont.) Council 4393, which made a $2,000 donation to the Heroes Fund.

Actions like these by councils in Georgia were repeated throughout the Order in the days following the attacks: Father John Kennedy Council 4913 in Valdosta raised $1,100 through bingo; Franciscan Martyrs of Georgia Council 10210 in Hinesville held a benefit dinner, raising $200; Father Thomas O’Reilly Council 4358 in Decatur sold doughnuts after Masses, raising $600; and Blue Ridge Council 12126 raised $545 with a parish picnic.

Proceeds from each event went to the Heroes Fund.

Mount Pleasant Council 98 in West Roxbury, Mass., and Father Michael J. McGivney Assembly co-sponsored a “Rally for America” where patriotic songs were sung.

Joseph P. Doherty Council 6730 in Morristown, Tenn., and three high school students collected $887 for the American Red Cross in five hours from people attending youth soccer matches. Msgr. James Ruddy Council 3477 in Gillette, Wyo., donated the entire proceeds of its Oct. 28 bingo to the Heroes Fund. Two councils in Idaho immediately held blood drives.

Knights in Virginia prayed the rosary for those killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and for the safety of U.S. residents during a “Tribute to Heroes” ceremony in Manassas. The ceremony included a flag-draped coffin to symbolize the thousands of people killed, a flag ceremony adapted from the military and the playing of “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes.

John Hughes Council 481 in Brooklyn, N.Y., led the community in a salute to firefighters from Engine 248 and Ladder Co. 149 in their neighborhood.

Church. Youngstown Council 274 hosted a supper for the group.

SPOTLIGHT Lift High the Cross

Charity Dinner-Dance Ontario council spearheads cross restorations

Alabama District Master Eldon A. Matherne exemplifies 79-year-old Knight Willie L. Whetstone, a veteran of World War II, into the Fourth Degree.

Whetstone, a member of Deacon Charles Troncale Assembly in Prattville, received a standing ovation when he overcame the difficulty he has walking to receive his degree.

Prayers at Abortion Facility Nearly 50 Knights from the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, joined Bishop Thomas J. Tobin and others in praying the rosary outside a Youngstown abortion facility. Vice Supreme Master Baci J. Carpico led the Fourth Degree honor guard for Bishop Tobin at a Respect Life Mass that followed at St. Dominic

Twenty councils and two assemblies in the Diocese of Hamilton, Ont., sponsored the 16th annual Bishop Anthony F. Tonnos Favourite Charities Dinner Dance, attended by about 800 people. Since its inception the event has raised more than $250,000 for local, national and international charities selected by the bishop.

Science Fair More than 500 people attended the awards presentation of the fifth annual parochial school science fair sponsored by the Utah State Council. Nearly 300 science projects were entered in the fair. Savings bonds totaling $1,125 and plaques were awarded to winners in 11 categories.

Lecture Series Notre Dame Council 2901 in Baltimore sponsored a lecture series for Knights and wives following its regular meetings. Retired Archbishop William D. Borders of Baltimore spoke on spirituality. A K of C field agent

Tihen Council 1717 in David City, Neb., placed this billboard depicting the Divine Mercy of Jesus along State Highway 92.

by Mike Mastromatteo

St. Casimir’s Council 12218 in Round Lake Centre, Ont., played a leading role in refurbishing and re-erecting seven wooden crucifixes that for decades stood as dignified symbols of Christianity in Renfrew County.

The crosses, some nearly 100 years old, served as places of prayer for Catholics in the early years of the 20th century, when only one Catholic church stood in the remote area just east of Algonquin Provincial Park. Many early settlers stopped at these roadside crosses to pray and worship. Praying at roadside crucifixes was a vibrant tradition in Poland, and many Poles settling in the area kept the tradition alive in their adopted homeland.

With time, neglect and harsh weather, however, many of the crosses fell into disrepair. Others had fallen down.

The sight of the neglected crosses was too much to bear for Grand Knight Raymond J. Borutski, who grew up in the area and has fond memories of praying before the crosses as a boy. At Borutski’s urging, the 50 members of the council took on the cross rehabilitation project. Members donated money, materials and plain hard work to restore the crosses to their former glory. The council also organized a number of fund-raisers for the project.

Members fashioned the new crosses from cedar, and reinforced each one with metal pockets and braces. The new crosses stand on 4-foot cement foundations at prominent intersections throughout the county. The council also commissioned new corpuses of Christ for each cross.

Msgr. Michael J. Barry, diocesan administrator of Pembroke Diocese, praised the Knights for their efforts.

“I was pleased to learn that St. Casimir’s Council had undertaken the project of rebuilding the outdoor crucifixes that had deteriorated over time due to inclement weather,” Msgr. Barry said. “This effort by the Knights is most appreciated and serves as an example of their dedication and loyal service to the Church.”

Msgr. Barry also said the Knights’ effort has important symbolic value for residents and visitors alike. “We live in an age where we constantly need symbols as reminders of our faith and the sufferings of Christ to offset the everincreasing secular and material views which permeate society. These crucifixes will serve that worthy purpose.”

Mike Mastromatteo is a freelance writer from Toronto.

Columbia/January 2002

27

KNIGHTS in Action spoke on the Order’s longterm care insurance. Other topics included changes in medical care and state legislation.

donated funds to send athletes to international games and contributed $34,000 to renovate a garage at the Special Olympics state offices.

Adopt-A-Kid For the past 10 years, members of Msgr. Frederick A. Koch Council 6528 in Southern Pines, N.C., have visited special learning classes at five schools in Moore County on a weekly basis. Under their “Adopt-aKid” program, the Knights assist students with math, reading, English and physical education skills. They also host Christmas and birthday parties for students, fund field trips and purchase classroom equipment.

Teddy Bears for Police Cars Knights are making sure that every police car patrolling California’s Monterey Peninsula carries two teddy bears. Police give the stuffed animals to children at accident sites or domestic violence investigations to help ease their stress.

Monterey Council 1465, St. Francis Xavier Council 5261 in Seaside and St. Jude

Council Homes

Bill and Carolyn Morris, representing Archbishop J. L. Wilhelm Council 1008 in Belleville, Ont., and the Catholic Women’s League, presented rosaries and prayer books to the first Communion class at Most Holy Rosary Church.

Council 7155 in Marina make sure a total of 70 police cars are constantly supplied with two bears.

A Good Day of Fishing Sacred Heart Council 11663 in Mathis and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department treated 240 youngsters to a fishing clinic at Lake Corpus Christi State Park. A total of 1,300 rainbow trout were stocked for the event. Knights and park staff cleaned and bagged the fish. Children received fishing equipment and barbecued food.

Fitzgerald Council 833 in Lincoln, Neb., tore down its old council home to develop the property into a town house community, called Knights Court, for people age 55 and over. A total of 25 town houses will be built. Proceeds from the sale of the 25 lots will finance a new council home, which will serve as the centerpiece of the development. The project will enable the council to build a trust fund for operating expenses and charitable projects.

‘Totus Tuus’ Program Holy Name Council 4713 in Winfield, Kan., donated a total of $6,000 to the Totus Tuus (Totally Yours) program of the Diocese of Wichita. During the weeklong program, teams of college students, seminarians and religious sisters provide instruction on the faith to children and teens.

For the first time in many years a Fourth Degree exemplification was held at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Conn., the Order’s birthplace. The Honorable W. Patrick Donlin Assembly hosted the exemplication for the Connecticut District. Nearly 100 Knights took their Fourth Degree.

Parking Cars Pays Off Members of Oklahoma State University Council 11135 in Stillwater parked cars in the lot of St. John’s University Parish during home football games, raising $8,000 for the parish. A similar effort during basketball season netted funds for Birth Choice and helped pay the travel expenses of students working at missions on spring break.

Special Olympics Hall of Fame

Dunkirk (N.Y.) Council 929 placed a respect life sign in front of St. Hedwig Church.

28

The Massachusetts State Council has been inducted into the Massachusetts Special Olympics Hall of Fame. Knights manage Special Olympics bowling, and volunteer for athletics and aquatics competitions.

The state council has also

For Vocations Day, Assisi Council 10367 in Deltona, Fla., displayed Knights of Columbus vocations materials at St. Clare Church.

Father Christopher Hoffmann, pastor, was the principal speaker.

SIR KNIGHTS

IN

ACTION

Msgr. John F. Clerico Assembly in Greenwood, Miss., provided an honor guard for the 90th anniversary Mass of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church. … Cardinal Stritch Assembly in Memphis, Tenn., provided an honor guard at the groundbreaking for St. Martin de Porres Shrine and Institute and St. Peter Parish Center. … Father Peyri Assembly in Vista, Calif., formed an honor guard for a Mass honoring the Child Jesus at St. Mark Church. …

Santa Maria Assembly in Lancaster, Pa., provided a 14man honor guard when Msgr. Richard A. Youtz, council chaplain, celebrated an inaugural Mass for St. John Neumann Council 12532. … Commodore Barry Assembly in Pittsburg, Kan., provided a 10-man honor guard for Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Wichita when he administered confirmation at St. Michael Church in Girard.

Oven Repaired St. Joseph Assembly in Edmonton, Alta., purchased $5,000 in parts and repaired one of three ovens used by the Adorers of the Precious Blood sisters to make altar bread. The repairs improved the old oven’s performance enabling the sisters to continue producing about 300 sheets of altar bread a day.

School of Theology Aided Trinity Council 4580 in Hales Corners, Wis., made the first $10,000 installment of its $100,000 pledge to help upgrade the communications system and provide computers to all faculty and students at Sacred Heart School of Theology.

Help for the Homeless In a one-day street canvass, 66 members of St. Philip the Apostle Council 9884 in Lewisville, Texas, collected $14,561 for the council program for homeless people. The Knights distribute funds to those in need at the request of social service agencies and churches.

Baptismal Font Donated St. Martha’s Council 12033 in Kennebunk, Maine, fulfilled a $10,000 pledge for a baptismal font for the new St. Martha’s Church.

Medical Missionaries Sts. Andrew and Clare Council 10947 in Clifton, Va., collected about $7,000 worth of medical equipment, hygiene products and over-the-counter pain relievers from parishioners of St. Andrew the Apostle Church and donated them to Medical Missionaries.

The supplies are sent regularly to teams of physicians, nurses and dentists treating poor people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

bethton and Teutopolis (Ill.) Council 2874. Francis A. Brummer of Council 2874 fashioned a 6-by-12foot polished aluminum Celtic cross for the top of the new church. The parish is the first Catholic parish in Johnson County and the only one within a 40-mile radius.

Father-Daughter Dance A total of 163 Knights, daughters and guests attended the Valentine’s Day father-daughter dance hosted by St. Thomas of Aquinas Council 10505 in Charlotte, N.C. The event raised $1,275 for the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. Alopecia Areata is a medical condition causing sudden hair loss in children.

Classes for Families St. Paul Davao Council 8069 and Circle 3136 in Davao City, Mindanao, conducted a six-week program for 1,300 needy families. It included tutorials for children and classes on the environment, arts, music,

sports, health and sanitation.

Visit Papal Cultural Center Battlefield Council 10246 in Spotsylvania, Va., organized a family trip to the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center and Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. A total of 96 people made the trip. In conjunction with it, the council sponsored an essay contest for seventh-graders at St. Patrick School. Students were asked to explain why they wanted to visit the Cultural Center.

Bicycles Go to South Africa Sts. Andrew and Clare Council 10947 in Clifton, Va., collected 127 used bicycles for Pedals for Progress, which ships them to partner agencies around the world for distribution to poor people needing transport to school or work. The council also paid $760 to help ship the bicycles to Afribike in South Africa, which distributed them.

Rural Parish Supported When Franciscan Father Thomas J. Vos went about building the first church for St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Mountain City, Tenn., he found support among old friends in the Knights of Columbus.

Raising funds for the new church were St. Elizabeth Council 10743 in Eliza-

Lake City (Fla.) Council 7589 contributed $5,000 toward a new van for CARC-Advocates for Citizens with Disabilities Inc., which provides employment and training for people with disabilities in Columbia County. Supported living coach M. L. Lewis thanks council Community Activities Director Robert B. Heeke while Pam and Joseph Dicks look on.

Columbia/January 2002

29

FIRST PERSON

PUT OUT INTO THE DEEP

BY PETER A. DEANE

Father Mychal’s Island

day after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, I did something I had been putting on hold for the last couple of years: I rejoined the Knights of Columbus. Archbishop Moeller Council 3861 in Cincinnati was never far from my thoughts, but it took the events of that horrific day for me to renew my membership. I needed to reconnect with men who share my Catholic faith.

I am a firefighter and was kept busy all that week. Local 48, my firefighters’ union, held fund raisers for our counterparts in New York. I volunteered my time to raise money for the hundreds of families of my brothers lost in the World Trade Center.

When the weekend came, I went to the council home to discuss world affairs. To my disappointment, the hall was empty. I decided to go home, but that’s when a flagpole at one end of the parking lot caught my eye. I stopped my truck and stared at it rising in the middle of a small grassy island.

It was naked, abandoned and rusting. The rope that once held high our symbol of freedom was fraying and tied tight around the base of the pole.

It was then I decided to repaint the pole, replace the rope and redress the pole with a new flag.

When I got home, I called Grand Knight Anthony Russo and asked him if it would be OK if I bought some paint, refurbished the flagpole and purchased a new flag. He agreed, but reminded me how difficult it had become in the wake of the terrorist attacks to buy a U.S. flag.

My wife then told me of a neighbor who worked at a local flag company. I called the woman, but she informed me that a two-year wait had been placed on ordering flags. When I told her of my plan, however, she said she would try to get me a flag. She did.

Painting the pole was a simple task. I climbed to the top of my aluminum ladder and looked down at all the cars in the council lot. They belonged to the students attending the nearby high school. My thoughts turned to them. Many of these students, I thought, may see action in

A

© AP Photo/Kathy Willens-Pool

A New York City firefighter touches the helmet on the casket of Franciscan Father Mychal F. Judge during the funeral Mass for the fire department chaplain at St. Francis of Assisi Church in New York, Sept. 15. Father Judge died in the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Afghanistan after graduating. I was happy to know that they would view our flag waving in the wind day after day, and below it a statue of the Virgin Mary reaching out to welcome any student coming to gaze upon the flag.

I continued painting and thought of my father, who served the United States in World War II as a gunner on B17s. I remembered him crying one night as he spoke about his older brother Lawrence, who had died in the war at the age of 25. I felt their presence was with me as my roller slid more paint onto the pole. My splatters reminded me of the tears that ran down my father’s face as he remembered my dead uncle.

I painted to the pole’s base and as I stepped off the ladder, I noticed there wasn’t a plaque naming this small grassy island. My mind quickly drew up some names of possible honorees:The Island of Our Lady of Guadalupe… Blessed Kateri’s Island, for Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, the Mohawk who came to love the Lord despite being rejected by her people… And then it came to me: St. Michael’s Island. I could see St. Michael fighting the forces of evil as

the devil and his legions fled deep into the pits of hell.

I applied a few final strokes of paint and noticed that a moth had gotten stuck to the wet paint. His brown wings reminded me of the brown robes of the Franciscan friars and one friar in particular, Father Mychal Judge, the New York Fire Department chaplain who lost his life while offering last rites to a firefighter at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. The name for our island then struck me.

We rededicated the flagpole on Father Mychal’s Island in the company of Brother Dominic, a Franciscan, who offered a special prayer he had written: “O God we stand before you this afternoon in deep humility and sorrow.The terrorist attacks on our nation Sept. 11 has saddened all civilized people. Our prayer is that hatred and animosity will be banished from the face of the earth. Today we wish to honor all the brave men and women who have given their lives in the search and rescue mission that terrible day. We also want to single out Father Mychal Judge, OFM, who died while administering the last rites to a firefighter. God have mercy on his soul and all the innocent victims of this horrible tragedy. We trust in your providence, knowing you hold all of us in the palm of your hand.”

The ceremony ended with Brother Dominic leading us Knights and families in the Prayer of St. Francis. “Father Mychal would have said this many times during his life,” he said.

Under my breath I offered one more prayer: “Father Mychal, pray for us all as we try to live the words that you and so many others of peace once spoke, and may this war be won by those who live in the holiness of Jesus Christ and to those who defend the lives of the innocent in America and elsewhere. May they come to know victory. Amen.” v Peter A. Deane is a husband, father of three, firefighter and advocate for the poor in Cincinnati. He belongs to Archbishop Moeller Council 3861 in Cincinnati.

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To owners of Knights of Columbus insurance policies and persons responsible for payment of premiums on such policies: Notice is hereby given that in accordance with the provisions of Section 84 of the Laws of the Order, payment of insurance premiums due on a monthly basis to the Knights of Columbus by check made payable to Knights of Columbus and mailed to same at PO Box 1492, NEW HAVEN, CT 06506-1492, before the expiration of the grace period set forth in the policy. In Canada: Knights of Columbus, CASE POSTALE 935, Station d’Armes, Montréal, PQ H2Y 3J4 ALL MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOS, ARTWORK, EDITORIAL MATTER, ADVERTISING INQUIRIES AND INSERTION ORDERS SHOULD BE MAILED TO: COLUMBIA, PO BOX 1670, NEW HAVEN, CT 06507-0901. REJECTED MATERIAL WILL BE RETURNED IF ACCOMPANIED BY A SELF-ADDRESSED ENVELOPE AND RETURN POSTAGE. PURCHASED MATERIAL WILL NOT BE RETURNED. COLUMBIA (ISSN 0010-1869) IS PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS, 1 COLUMBUS PLAZA, NEW HAVEN, CT 06510-3326. PHONE: 203-7722130. INTERNET: http://www.kofc.org. PRODUCED IN USA. COPYRIGHT © 2001 BY KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT NEW HAVEN, CT AND ADDITIONAL MAILING OFFICES. POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO COLUMBIA, MEMBERSHIP DEPARTMENT, PO BOX 1670, NEW HAVEN, CT 06507-0901.

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If you and your family are not members of The Father McGivney Guild complete the coupon and mail to:

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The Father McGivney Guild Knights of Columbus 1 Columbus Plaza New Haven, CT 06510-3326

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Register online at www.kofc.org.

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Guild members receive a bi-monthly newsletter on the status of the cause, a special prayer card, and additional materials as they are developed. Members may also submit prayer and Mass intentions to the director of the Guild. K of C membership does not make one automatically a Guild member.

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Columbia/January 2002

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KNIGHTS in Action

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PHOTO FINISH A. For Respect Life Sunday in October, Msgr. Vicente T. Martinez Council 11394 on Saipan sponsored a children’s drawing contest promoting the Culture of Life. … B. Los Padres Council 9162 in Paso Robles, Calif., sponsored a billboard for Care Net, which aids women with crisis pregnancies.… C. St. Anthony Council 11585 in Wood-Ridge, N.J., cleans a section of Route 17 four times a year. … D. Our Lady of the Rosary Assembly in Bonita Springs, Fla., awarded cash prizes to the top three essayists from Bonita Springs Middle School in its “What the Flag Means to Me” essay contest. Faithful Captain John Barry, left, made the presentation. … E. Holy Rosary Council 11333 in Buenavista, Visayas, raises livestock for the market to generate income for council charities. … F. Marian Assembly in Springfield, Va., placed a wreath at the

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Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.

Serving in the honor guard were Stephen A Burnley and John Jay Doherty, foreground, and Duane F. Hollein and Faithful Navigator Glen D. Waldis. … G. Twice a year Porterville (Calif.) Council 2329 hosts a breakfast for parishioners after the Sunday morning Masses of St. Anne’s Church. … H. St. Dominic Savio Council 12457 in Edmonton, Alta., celebrated the 149th anniversary of the birth of the Servant of God Father Michael J. McGivney, founder of the Order, with a Mass. St. Joseph Assembly provided the honor guard. … I. Members of St. Francis of Assisi Council 10824 and Circle 4473 in Ruston, La., painted the home of a widow of a council member.

2001 CHAMPION OF PEACE AWARD to KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS in recognition of their Outstanding Service and Uncompromising Defense of the Sanctity of Human Life and of the Family, thereby Promoting the Cause of World Peace.

Archbishop Renato R. Martino Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations

She answered the call. Is there one for you?

™

Lots of Choices In my home parish of St. Francis of Assisi in Brainerd, Minn., the Knights of Columbus were part of the Catholic culture and we were touched directly because my father was an active member of the local council. Growing up I wanted to be a fashion designer or a teacher, or get married and have ten kids. But on my confirmation day, I also sensed an inner affirmation of the reality of my vocation. For my final two years of high school I was an aspirant at the motherhouse of the Duluth Benedictines. During that time I experienced health problems that made it impossible for the Benedictines to accept me. But I thought there must be a way!

Benedictines to the Rescue While investigating other religious communities I went to Viterbo College. I had heard about the Sisters of Jesus Crucified who were a community founded for women in poor physical health, as well as those in good health. To my teenage mind it sounded like an old folks’ home; however, I discovered that most of the sisters were young and lively. No rocking chairs there!

I was accepted, and as soon as I turned 20 entered the Benedictine community where the liturgy, the Mass and Divine Office, held pride of place.

Continued Help from K of C The Knights of Columbus in suburban Philadelphia have played a huge role My father, a longtime Knight. (and still do) in my community’s life through many years of endorsing us as their principal charity. We now look forward to meeting other Knights in our new location in Branford, Conn.

For more detailed information on vocations write: Vocations Committee Knights of Columbus 1 Columbus Plaza, New Haven, CT 06510-3326 Or visit our Web site at: www.kofc.org

Sister M. Zita Wenker, OSB Monastery of the Glorious Cross Branford, CT

VOCATIONS ARE EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS