Columbia August 2014

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K N I G H T S O F C O L U M BU S

AUGUST 2014

COLUMBIA

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KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS AuguSt 2014 ♦ VOluMe 94 ♦ NuMber 8

COLUMBIA

F E AT U R E S

8 The Icon of Communion The family’s irreplaceable mission of love is essential to building up the Church and healing society.

BY CARL A. ANDERSON

12 A Preparation for Love The Church’s wisdom helps to prepare young people and engaged couples for happy and holy marriages.

BY COLLEEN ROULEAU

16 The Sacramentality of Marriage The vocation of Christian marriage is a call to participate in Christ’s undying love for his bride, the Church.

BY NICHOLAS J. HEALY JR.

18 Healing the Wounds As the number of children of divorce grows, new pastoral initiatives help to bring mercy and hope.

BY SHAINA TANGUAY-COLUCCI

22 Our Domestic Church The fundamental cell of the Church and society, the family lies at the heart of the new evangelization.

BY CARLA GALDO

24 Calming the Perfect Storm The teachings of Karol Wojtyła help us to recover the forgotten truth about what it means to be human.

BY MSGR. J. BRIAN BRANSFIELD

A mosaic depicting the Presentation in the Temple is pictured in the infirmary chapel of the Society of Jesus in Rome. The mosaic was completed in 2012

by Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik and the team of the Ezio Aletti Study and Research Center.

D E PA RT M E N T S 3

Building a better world The vocation of the Christian family, founded on the sacrament of marriage, is to manifest Christ’s love in the world.

BY SUPREME KNIGHT CARL A. ANDERSON

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Learning the faith, living the faith

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Knights of Columbus News State Deputies Meeting Emphasizes Order’s Founding Vision • Knights Charter New Military Council at Fort Campbell • Order Earns Top Rating from A.M. Best for 39th Consecutive Year • Illuminated Saint John’s Bible on Display at K of C Museum

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Building the Domestic Church The Order prepares to launch a yearlong program for families.

BY ANDREW J. MATT

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Knights in Action

MOSAIC: Centro Aletti

The world has changed, but the family’s vital role of living and passing on the faith has not.

BY SUPREME CHAPLAIN ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM E. LORI

PLUS: Catholic Man of the Month

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‘Become What You Are’ IN HIS WEEKLY AUDIENCE April 2, Pope Francis concluded a series of catecheses on the sacraments by reflecting on matrimony. Noting that God is “mirrored” in the love of a husband and wife, he said, “Marriage is the icon of God’s love for us. Indeed, God is communion, too: the three Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit live eternally in perfect unity.” It is appropriate that this address took place on the anniversary of the death of St. John Paul II, whom Pope Francis canonized several weeks later and whom he called “the pope of the family.”

Throughout his ministry, John Paul II articulated a Christian vision of marriage and the human person, and he emphasized the central importance of the family for the future of the Church and society.

Now, in the face of prevailing ideologies that are hostile to this Christian vision, Pope Francis has called for an extraordinary synod of bishops that will gather in October to address “the pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization.”

In planning for the upcoming synod, the Vatican has prepared an instrumentum laboris (working document), which summarizes input from bishops’ conferences throughout the world. The document lists various factors that contribute to a lack of understanding of Church teaching, including “the influence of mass media, the hedonistic culture, relativism, materialism, individualism [and] the growing secularism.” These, in turn, bring with them the concept of “autonomy in human freedom, which is not necessarily tied to an objective order in the nature of things” and a reductive concept of “hap-

piness, which is simply understood as the realization of personal desires.” In the final analysis, this leads to a loss of understanding of “natural law” and “tends to eliminate the interconnection of love, sexuality and fertility, which is understood to be the essence of marriage.”

While this worldview underlies the grim statistics surrounding the family today, many bishops’ conferences also noted that “when the teaching of the Church is clearly communicated in its authentic, human and Christian beauty, it is enthusiastically received for the most part by the faithful.” This is demonstrated, for instance, by the success of a growing number of dynamic catechetical resources and parish programs (see page 12). Yet, in order for these programs to bear fruit, individual Catholics must also recognize the duty to learn the faith and pass it on to others — especially within their own families. Moreover, the Church’s teachings must not only be taught and understood; they must also be lived.

Thus, while this issue of Columbia largely focuses on the theological and philosophical foundations of the Church’s teachings about marriage and family, the practical implications are even more important. The challenge to Knights and their families is clear: “Family, become what you are.” Recognize your irreplaceable role in “forming a community of persons; serving life; participating in the development of society; and sharing in the life and mission of the Church” (Familiaris Consortio, 17).♦ ALTON J. PELOWSKI EDITOR

Featured Book: Oil on the Wounds IN 2008, the Knights of Columbus and the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family co-sponsored an international congress in Rome on the Church’s pastoral response to suffering caused to families by abortion and divorce (see page 18). The proceedings, including an address by Pope Benedict XVI, are presented in a book titled Oil on the Wounds. A limited number of copies are available for $15 each (including shipping). For more information, call 203-752-4398.

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COLUMBIA PUBLISHER Knights of Columbus ________ SUPREME OFFICERS Carl A. Anderson SUPREME KNIGHT Most Rev. William E. Lori, S.T.D. SUPREME CHAPLAIN Logan T. Ludwig DEPUTY SUPREME KNIGHT Charles E. Maurer Jr. SUPREME SECRETARY Michael J. O’Connor SUPREME TREASURER John A. Marrella SUPREME ADVOCATE ________ EDITORIAL Alton J. Pelowski EDITOR Andrew J. Matt MANAGING EDITOR Patrick Scalisi SENIOR EDITOR ________

Venerable Michael 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 ADDRESS CHANGES 203-752-4580 OTHER INQUIRIES 203-752-4398 FAX 203-752-4109 CUSTOMER SERVICE 1-800-380-9995 E-MAIL columbia@kofc.org INTERNET kofc.org/columbia ________ Membership in the Knights of Columbus is open to men 18 years of age or older who are practical (that is, practicing) Catholics in union with the Holy See. This means that an applicant or member accepts the teaching authority of the Catholic Church on matters of faith and morals, aspires to live in accord with the precepts of the Catholic Church, and is in good standing in the Catholic Church.

________ Copyright © 2014 All rights reserved ________ ON THE COVER The Holy Family is depicted in a painting titled “The Presentation in the Temple” by Canadian Catholic artist Michael D. O’Brien.

FRONT COVER: CNS photo/courtesy of Michael D. O’Brien

E D I TO R I A L

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BUILDING A BETTER WORLD

A Place of Encounter The vocation of the Christian family, founded on the sacrament of marriage, is to manifest Christ’s love in the world

by Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson

ON NEW YEAR’S EVE 1978, 77 ily. He noted that the first World days after he was elected pope, St. Synod of Bishops that he had called to strengthen its life and mission. In John Paul II celebrated a Te Deum would soon meet on the theme of the this way, the Christian family can truly Mass of Thanksgiving. In his homily, family, and he proceeded to offer a re- become the “domestic church.” he could have spoken about many flection to assist the world’s bishops in Recently, Pope Francis reiterated this things. He chose to speak about the their preparation for the synod. idea of the domestic church as a place Holy Family and the importance of He said, “In the sacrament of mar- of encounter. In an address June 1, he the Christian family for the Church riage, a man and a woman — who at said, “Families are the domestic and society. baptism became members of Christ church, where Jesus grows; he grows in He observed that the family “con- and hence have the duty of manifest- the love of spouses, he grows in the stitutes the primary, fundamental and ing Christ’s attitudes in their lives — lives of children. That is why the irreplaceable community for enemy so often attacks the man.” And he said that the family. The devil does not family has as its vocation the want the family; he tries to In contemporary society, the task of protecting the dignity destroy it, to make sure that Christian family is the principal of the person. According to there is no love there.”

St. John Paul II, the ChrisThus, as Pope Francis so point of encounter between tian family fulfills this vocastarkly reminded us, the famtion first through the ily is a place of encounter not secular culture and the Gospel. absolute mutual faithfulness only on a temporal level, but of husband and wife until also on a spiritual one. death and then in the way that they are assured of the help they need to This is why the Knights of Columrespect the lives of their children from develop their love in a faithful and in- bus has worked so diligently to defend the moment of conception. dissoluble union, and to respond with and strengthen Christian family life, “The Church,” John Paul II ex- generosity to the gift of parenthood. and it is why the Order will soon iniplained, “can never dispense herself As the Second Vatican Council de- tiate a new program titled, “Building from the obligation of guarding these clared: Through this sacrament, the Domestic Church: The Family two fundamental values, connected Christ himself becomes present in the Fully Alive.” This new program will with the vocation of the family. Cus- life of the married couple and accom- help our families and councils prepare tody of them was entrusted to the panies them, so that they may love for the upcoming synod of bishops on Church by Christ.” each other and their children, just as the family as well as the 2015 World Therefore, he added, “it is necessary Christ loved his Church by giving Meeting of Families, which will take to defend these fundamental values himself up for her.” place in Philadelphia. tenaciously and firmly.” And for the St. John Paul II understood clearly But most importantly, it will ennext 26 years he did just that. that in contemporary society the Chris- courage every Knight of Columbus Almost one year to the day after St. tian family is the principal point of en- family to be, in the words of Pope John Paul II was elected pope, he cel- counter between secular culture and the Francis, a place where Jesus grows in ebrated Mass on the National Mall in Gospel. He also understood that if the the love of spouses and in the lives of Washington, D.C. On that occasion, Christian family is to be faithful to its children. he again chose to speak about the fam- vocation, it must allow the sacraments Vivat Jesus!

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LEARNING THE FAITH, LIVING THE FAITH

The Church in the Home The world has changed, but the family’s vital role of living and passing on the faith has not

by Supreme Chaplain Archbishop William E. Lori

GROWING UP in New Albany, Ind., during the 1950s, I never heard the term “domestic church,” but I knew what it meant. I knew it because my parents and my friends’ parents made their homes domestic churches, even before that phrase from our Catholic tradition was retrieved during the Second Vatican Council. I guess you could say that my childhood friends and neighbors were at home in church and in church at home.

book. My mother still has her cookbook and a special rolling pin used for my favorite recipe: German Christmas cookies, called Springerles.

The preaching was also practical, and often family-centered. When Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz divorced in 1960, the assistant pastor addressed the issue.

He urged parents not to be scandalized but instead to redouble their efforts to remain faithful and provide a good

ordinary and extraordinary ups and downs — and we still do. We had arguments and dilemmas, moments of joy and sorrow. Through it all, though, there was never a time when the faith we professed and celebrated on Sunday didn’t impact our lives. That’s what helped to make our homes domestic churches.

MODELS OF FAITH AND LOVE GROWING UP The most evident “church-like” While our home was church-like quality of my family’s home was CATHOLIC In practical terms, what did it prayer. We were hardly living in a because of prayer, religious mean that we experienced the monastery, but we did pray the family as a domestic church? instruction and moral formation, morning offering, prayers before For one thing, it meant that bedtime, prayers before meals, the most church-like quality nearly every Catholic family and most evenings we prayed the we knew went to Mass each rosary. I recall turning on the of all was love.

Sunday. My family’s parish, radio one evening because a Our Lady of Perpetual Help, bishop was leading the rosary. As was blessed with many young a child of about 10, I hoped he families and children. Nearly everyone Catholic home for their children. Fam- would move it along a little faster. followed along at Mass with a Sunday ilies were encouraged to have an Advent In those days, there was no cable TV, Missal. wreath in their homes each year, to pray but we did have Bishop Fulton Sheen’s The pastor, Father Wagner, often re- the rosary every evening and to come to weekly show, Life Is Worth Living. I’m minded the congregation to give gener- Mass on weekdays when possible. On not sure I saw it every week, but it did ously and to be patient in exiting the almost every Saturday, there were long make a deep impression on me. I once parking lot after Mass. When the lines of parishioners for confession. wrote to then-Bishop Sheen to ask him Knights of Columbus volunteered for a The point here is not to idealize the to pray for my dad, who was having parish project, the pastor rolled up his past but to learn from it. The parish was back trouble. The bishop sent a beautisleeves and worked right alongside them. the center of our lives in past genera- ful letter in reply, and, on the bottom in I’ll never forget seeing him on a ladder tions. We felt at home in the church, his own hand, he told me he would also in a white shirt putting up ceiling tiles. and because of that our homes had a pray for my priestly vocation.

There was also a strong women’s “church-like” quality. It’s not as if dad It was also expected that students at group called the “Madonna Circle” that wore his suit around the house or that my parish elementary school study The prayed, took care of the altar, volun- mom went around with a mantilla on Baltimore Catechism and Bible history. teered and published a wonderful cook- her head. Like every family, we had both Many evenings, my parents patiently 4 ♦ COLUMBIA ♦

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LEARNING THE FAITH, LIVING THE FAITH

helped me to memorize my catechism lessons. They made sure I knew the fundamentals of the faith. After my confirmation in the fourth grade, I began to speak about my desire to become a priest. Mom and Dad encouraged but never pressured me. The unspoken assumption was that the home was where children were supposed to discover what God wanted them to do with their lives.

Life, of course, was not idyllic. There were class bullies, tussles on the playground, and lost homework. Occasionally, there were calls from the religious sisters who taught me, which seldom brought good news. Mom faced challenges at home, and Dad had his share

POPE FRANCIS: CNS photo/Paul Haring — JOHN THE BAPTIST: © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge / Art Resource, NY (detail) / Bartolome Esteban Murillo, ca. 1655

HOLY FATHER’S PRAYER INTENTIONS

Offered in Solidarity with Pope Francis GENERAL: That refugees, forced by violence to abandon their homes, may find a generous welcome and the protection of their rights.

MISSION: That Christians in Oceania may joyfully announce the faith to all the people of that region.

of them at work. But it was in these daily events that I was taught the importance of honesty, fair play and selfcontrol. I was not always the willing recipient of these lessons, but thank goodness my parents persevered.

While our home was church-like because of prayer, religious instruction and moral formation, the most church-like quality of all was love. Love in good times and in bad — a sacrificial love to the very end. And after 67 years of marriage, the commitment that my parents made to the Lord and to each other continues to this day.

The world has changed dramatically since I was a child. But the fundamen-

tal need for children to have a mother and father who love each other and who are faithful to the Lord, the Church and each other remains unchanged. Families still need to feel at home in their parish church and welcome its influence into their home.

Families still need to go to confession, pray at home, and go to Mass on Sunday. Moms and dads still need to open the hearts of their children to Jesus and oversee their religious instruction.

No one can model love and teach moral virtue better than one’s parents.

They have been given the sacred duty to pass the faith from one generation to the next.♦

C AT H O L I C M A N O F T H E M O N T H

St. John the Baptist THE LAST AND GREATEST of the Old Testament prophets, St. John the Baptist is known as the forerunner of Jesus — the “voice” crying out, “Prepare the way of the Lord” (Mk 1:3). Born in first-century Palestine to the aged priest Zechariah and his barren wife, Elizabeth, John heralded Christ even before birth. When greeted by her pregnant cousin, Mary of Nazareth, Elizabeth announced that “the child in [her] womb leaped for joy” (Lk 1:44).

Clothed in camel hair and nourished on locusts and wild honey, John lived an austere life of intense prayer in the Judean desert. During the reign of Emperor Tiberius circa A.D. 27, John began preaching a baptism of repentance. People from Jerusalem and every part of Judea flocked to be baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. When Jesus presented himself, John initially resisted: “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?” (Mt 3:14).

After Jesus emerged from the waters, John saw the Holy Spirit descend upon him. Later, John declared, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” (Jn 1:36).

John the Baptist bore humble witness to the truth without compromise, even when it meant rebuking those in political power. Thus, when King Herod married his brother’s wife, Herodias, John did not hesitate to denounce the act as adultery. Cast into prison and later beheaded by Herod, John’s martyrdom gave eloquent witness to his statement, “He [Jesus] must increase, I must decrease” (Jn 3:30).

Following Christ’s testimony that “no one is greater than John” (Lk 7:28), the Church honors St. John the Baptist as one of its greatest saints. He has two feast days: his birth June 24 and his martyrdom Aug. 29.♦

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KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS NEWS

State Deputies Meeting Emphasizes Order’s Founding Vision

FRATERNAL LEADERS from each of the Order’s jurisdictions gathered in New Haven, Conn., June 11-15 for the annual Organizational Meeting of Knights of Columbus State Deputies. Throughout the five-day event, new and re-elected state deputies heard keynote addresses on the work of the Order and participated in workshops focusing on membership and service initiatives.

In his opening remarks June 11, Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson said that the Order’s success is defined by fidelity to its founding mission.

“The Venerable Michael McGivney had a vision of Catholic men dedicated to serving and protecting their families, their Church, their country,” he said. “Our success will be measured by how faithful we are to his vision and to his principles of unity, fraternity, and charity.”

Addressing the meeting’s opening business session the following day, the supreme knight presented “10 Keys to Success as State Deputy.” He encouraged leadership to open the door of K of C membership to every eligible Catholic man by reaching out to Catholic communities regardless of where they are located, by adapting to changing demographics and by focusing on recruitment 365 days a year.

Thomas Smith, chief insurance officer, later outlined the highly rated Knights of Columbus Insurance program that offers financial security to members and their families and helps to fund the Order’s impressive list of charitable programs. He also underscored the need for a partnership between fraternal leaders of the Order and the insurance force.

George Hanna, supreme warden and senior vice president of Fraternal Services, discussed how the Order’s wideranging charitable works assist councils in recruiting and 6 ♦ COLUMBIA ♦

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retaining members and how these efforts bring immediate assistance to those most in need in parishes and communities throughout the world.

The newly elected state deputies received their jewels of office June 13 at the conclusion of a Mass celebrated

by Supreme Chaplain Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore at the Knights’ birthplace, St. Mary’s Church in New Haven.

In his homily, Archbishop Lori urged K of C leaders to accept their position as “a challenge to bear witness” to Christ. “True to Father McGivney’s vision,” he said, “we seek to build up each and every local council first and foremost to help our members find the Lord in their lives and rediscover the importance and meaning of the faith as essential to becoming better disciples, husbands and fathers.”

In an address later that same day, the supreme chaplain emphasized Pope Francis’ “call that we become ‘missionary disciples’ of Christ.” Part of the Knights’ response, Archbishop Lori said, is to “be on the front lines” of defending religious freedom and strengthening families.

The meeting was also an opportunity to announce the Order’s latest record-breaking statistics for charitable giving. According to the Annual Survey of Fraternal Activity for the year ending Dec. 31, 2013, Knights donated more than $170 million and more than 70.5 million hours.

Charitable contributions increased for the 14th consecutive year, growing by more than $2.3 million. Likewise, the number of volunteer service hours rose in 2013 over the 2012 total. Cumulative figures show that during the past decade the Knights of Columbus has donated nearly $1.5 billion to charity and 683 million hours of volunteer service in support of charitable initiatives.♦

Photos by Tom Serafin

From left: Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson delivers his keynote address July 12 at the opening business session of the State Deputies Meeting. • State deputies and their wives place roses on the tomb of Venerable Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus. • The supreme knight greets newly elected California State Deputy Avelino C. Doliente and invests him with his jewel of office.

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KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS NEWS

SAINT JOHN’S BIBLE: Photo courtesy of Donald Jackson’s Scriptorium, Wales

Knights Charter New Military Council at Fort Campbell ON MAY 31, Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson led a delegation from the Supreme Council to Fort Campbell, Ky., to present a charter to the new military council at the base.

Fort Campbell is a U.S. Army Base that straddles the state line between Kentucky and Tennessee and is home to the 101st Airborne Division, known as the “Screaming Eagles.” The new council is named for Father Francis L. Sampson, a renowned military chaplain who served in three wars, eventually attaining the rank of major general, among many other honors. A member of the Knights of Columbus for 55 years, Father Sampson belonged to Big Sioux Council 5029 in Flandreau, S.D. Father Grant Gaskin, the current chaplain for the base’s Catholic community, had requested that the council be formed, and celebrated Mass for those assembled.

After the Mass, Supreme Knight Anderson reflected on the role of those who serve in the military. “If the great commandment of love of neighbor is foundational to the Christian life,” he said, “and if this vocation to love is represented at its highest point by laying down one’s life for another, then who better than a soldier understands the sacrifices necessary for building a civilization of love?”

Concluding his remarks, the supreme knight called on the members of the new council to conduct themselves “in such

a fashion that Father Sampson’s words may always ring true — that America’s military will always embody ‘the highest ideals of any man’ and that, like Father Sampson, America’s Catholic warriors will always provide its proudest examples.”

A fraternal dinner followed with military Knights and their wives. With the addition of Fort Campbell, the Order now has more than 60 military councils at U.S. military bases around the world.♦

Order Earns Top Rating from A.M. Best for 39th Consecutive Year

Illuminated Saint John’s Bible on Display at K of C Museum

CITING THE KNIGHTS’ strong presence in Catholic communities and its members’ loyalty, ratings agency A.M. Best reaffirmed the Order’s rating of A++ (Superior) for financial strength.

The announcement June 24 marked the 39th consecutive year that the Knights of Columbus has earned a top rating. The Order has $94 billion of life insurance in force and $21 billion in assets under management. No insurer in North America is more highly rated.

“Our top rating from A.M Best underscores our commitment to our members and their families,” said Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson. “We were founded to protect the financial futures of Catholic families, and we take that obligation seriously. In our sales, operations and investments, we keep in mind that Knights and their families are more than customers, they are members of our fraternal family.”

A.M. Best noted that the rating reflects the Order’s “strong fraternal and insurance presence within the Catholic communities in the United States and Canada, its strong risk-adjusted capitalizations … and its consistently positive statutory operating results.” The Knights, it added, “has a strong affinity with its large membership base through its charitable programs and competitive portfolio of life insurance and annuity products.”♦

ORIGINAL ARTWORK from the first handwritten and hand-illustrated Bible to be commissioned by a Benedictine monastery in 500 years is now on display at the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven, Conn.

Titled “Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible,” the exhibit presents 68 original pages from all seven volumes of the Saint John’s Bible, which was completed in 2011, along with tools, sketches and other materials. The exhibit, the first of its kind in the Northeast, opened June 2 and will continue through October.

The process of creating the Saint John’s Bible began in 1996 in collaboration with Saint John’s Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minn. A team of 23 professional scribes, artists and assistants completed the project in Wales, under the artistic direction of renowned Western calligrapher Donald Jackson.

For more information, visit kofcmuseum.org.♦

Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson presents a K of C charter to members of the newly formed Father Francis L. Sampson Council 15914 at Fort Campbell, Ky.

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The Icon of Communion The family’s irreplaceable mission of love is essential to building up the Church and healing society

by Carl A. Anderson t the outset of his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), Pope Francis describes a “new chapter” in the Church’s work of evangelization, founded upon “a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ” (3). He warns against secular society’s tendency to reduce Christianity merely to an ethical system with unpopular moral rules, and adds: “I never tire of repeating those words of Benedict XVI which take us to the very heart of the Gospel: ‘Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon’” (7, cf. Deus Caritas Est, 1).

St. John Paul II made a similar point when he stated that the Gospel of Life is not “merely a commandment aimed at raising awareness and bringing about significant changes in society. Still less is it an illusory promise of a better future. The Gospel of Life is something concrete and personal, for it consists in the proclamation of the very person of Jesus” (Evangelium Vitae, 29).

Thus, we need to avoid the trap that secularism places in the Church’s path of evangelization — that is, the portrayal of Christians as people who seek to “impose new obligations” on those around them rather than as “people who wish to share their joy” (Evangelii Gaudium, 15).

Echoing Pope Emeritus Benedict, Pope Francis affirmed, “It is not by proselytizing that the Church grows, but ‘by attraction’” (18).

In this cultural context, the writings and personal witness of St. John Paul II are both inspirational and instructive. It should be remembered that his belief in the beauty of the family stemmed not from some blindness to the times, but rather from experience and from his profound understanding of man and the challenges of modernity. In his renowned document on the family, Familiaris Consortio (On the Christian Family 8 ♦ COLUMBIA ♦

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in the Modern World), John Paul II recognized the fundamental divergence between secular culture and Christian family culture, noting an “anthropological and moral” difference reflected in the Church’s integral vision of the person (cf. 32).

From this vision arises a positive and life-affirming message in response to the fear and anxiety prevalent in contemporary society: “Against the pessimism and selfishness which cast a shadow over the world, the Church stands for life: in each human life she sees the splendor of that ‘Yes,’ that ‘Amen,’ who is Christ himself ” (30).

INTRODUCING LOVE INTO LOVE Beginning more than two decades before Familiaris Consortio, Karol Wojtyła presented a series of reflections on marriage that were recently published in Italian under the title, Bellezza e Spiritualità dell’Amore Coniugale (Beauty and Spirituality of Conjugal Love). In these reflections, the future pope argued that the Church can convincingly defend the family only if it is theologically and pastorally able to demonstrate the beauty of family life and the possibility of joyfully and authentically living the vocation of marriage.

Wojtyła likewise recognized that the Church must overcome the impression that its view of the family is essentially legalistic. “It will not succeed,” he wrote, “if right from the start it supports a negative norm, that is a certain ‘one must not.’” He noted that marriage had been viewed negatively in the past, from the perspective of sin, as a “thing of the flesh” in opposition to the things of the spirit.

These ideas were further developed by Wojtyła in a series of lectures at the Catholic University of Lublin, published a year later in 1960 under the title Love and Responsibility. In Wojtyła’s introduction to the first edition, he said that spiritual advisors to Catholic married couples are faced with the “constant

Scala / Art Resource, NY — Andrei Rublev, Icon of the Trinity, c.1410.

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Knights of Columbus Multimedia Archives

Pope John Paul II blesses Pat Wahlmeier of Pius XII Council 1123 in Hastings, Neb., father of the Order’s 1994 International Family of the Year, at the Aqueduct Raceway in Queens, N.Y., Oct. 6, 1995. Also pictured are two of Wahlmeier’s sons. confrontation of doctrine and life.” In other words, Wojtyła’s pastoral approach arose from the concrete practical experiences and concerns of the numerous young married couples with whom he interacted. In order to help these married couples, he maintained that the advisor’s “task is not only to command or forbid, but also to justify, interpret and explain … to put the norms of Catholic sexual ethics on a firm basis.”

Wojtyła saw the issue as a “problem which can be described as ‘introducing love into love’” and, more specifically, as a “problem of changing the second type of love [sexual love] into the first, the love of which the New Testament speaks.”

What is required is “the integration of love ‘within’ the person and ‘between’ persons.”

Obviously, what Wojtyła describes as the “education of love” is not something that happens automatically. This pastoral challenge therefore remained a central theme of his min-

istry as archbishop of Kraków, and it continued to inform his teachings as pope.

The positive pastoral approach to marriage, focused on the vocation to holiness, is reinforced by the recognition of the social benefits of the Christian view of the family, particularly as it relates to poverty. Indeed, Pope Francis has called for a heightened awareness of the social dimension of evangelization, reminding us that “the need to resolve the structural causes of poverty cannot be delayed” (Evangelii Gaudium, 202).

According to a 2010 study of the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of married families living below poverty level in the United States was 6.2 percent. For single-mother households, the poverty rate was 31.6 percent. Children raised with married parents are 82 percent less likely to be poor than those living with a single parent — a disparity that remains even among those of the same race and educational level. SinAUGUST 2014

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POPE BENEDICT: CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano via Catholic Press Photo — POPE FRANCIS: AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino

Pope Benedict XVI greets a family during a private audience in Clementine Hall at the Vatican Jan. 28, 2010. • Pope Francis receives the offertory gifts from a family during Mass on Pentecost Sunday, May 19, 2013.

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gle-parent households account for approximately 75 percent of welfare assistance going to families with children in the United States. In 2011, government assistance provided approximately $330 billion in cash, food, housing, medical care and social services to poor, single-parent families.

Today in the United States, 7 out of 10 poor families with children are those headed by a single parent — the vast majority of which are headed by single mothers. The economic realities faced by these families are often devastating. But the emotional, psychological and spiritual pathologies can be even more devastating. Summarizing the sociological data, the Heritage Foundation notes, “Compared to children raised in an intact family, children raised in single-parent homes are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems; be physically abused; smoke, drink, and use drugs; be aggressive; engage in violent, delinquent, and criminal behavior; have poor school performance; and drop out of high school.”

himself to us when God opened his life to the world in the form of his Son, Jesus Christ. As St. John Paul II explained, because man is made in the image of God, he “is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless” if he does not encounter this love (cf. Redemptor Hominis, 10).

The world needs to see the God revealed by Jesus Christ, saving man in all his relationships. It also needs to see families that are true communities of life, love and forgiveness.

St. John Paul II emphasized that the family is essentially missionary, for it “has the mission to guard, reveal and communicate love” — love that reflects the Trinitarian communion and that shares in “God’s love for humanity and the love of Christ the Lord for the Church his bride” (Familiaris Consortio, 17).

In the Church’s mission of evangelization, love alone is “effective” — the love of the Lord, which Christian spouses first receive as a divine gift and a task.

Since 1981, it has been the responsibility of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on THE GOSPEL OF MERCY Marriage and Family to assist scholA significant contribution to the ars, teachers, pastors, bishops, reliChurch’s understanding of these isgious and married couples to become sues occurred during a 2008 interever more conscious of the pressing T. J OHN PAUL II national congress titled “Oil on the need to help the Christian family in Wounds: A Contemporary Examiits mission “to become what it is” (cf.

EMPHASIZED THAT THE nation of the Effects of Divorce and Familiaris Consortio, 17).

Abortion on Children and Their Christian families need to be enFAMILY “ HAS THE MISSION Families.” Co-sponsored by the Poncouraged to become active in TO GUARD, REVEAL AND tifical John Paul II Institute for parishes and ecclesial groups, in Studies on Marriage and Family in charitable works, and in transmitCOMMUNICATE LOVE .”

Rome and the Knights of Columting the faith to younger generabus, the meeting brought together tions. Above all, families need to international experts to provide not simply come to an awareness that only diagnostic examinations of they are an icon of God’s own comthese issues, but also the implicamunion and a “saved and saving tions for the development of adequate pastoral responses. community” — a sacramental reality at the heart of the [EDITOR’S NOTE: See related article on page 22.]

Church’s mission of evangelization (cf. Familiaris Consortio, The spirit of our work was beautifully summarized by Pope 49). This is the only way for the family to be a place of healBenedict XVI in his April 5, 2008, address to the congress: ing and of humanity for the men and women of our time.

“The Church’s first duty is to approach these people with And we can hope to accomplish this only if we transmit in love and consideration, with caring and motherly attention, an undiminished way the sacramental beauty of Christian to proclaim the merciful closeness of God in Jesus Christ. In- marriage. deed, as the Fathers teach, it is he who is the true Good This assistance is needed not only for the sake of the family Samaritan, who has made himself close to us, who pours oil itself. As St. John Paul II clearly understood, the great point and wine on our wounds and takes us into the inn, the of encounter between Christianity and culture in our time is Church, where he has us treated, entrusting us to her minis- the family. In our world, ever-increasing numbers of our ters and personally paying in advance for our recovery. Yes, brothers and sisters are deprived of God and thus deprived the Gospel of love and life is also always the Gospel of mercy.” of a genuine experience of communion and joy. Those who The world in which we live, where millions of people have do not believe or whose faith wavers need the family to be a yet to encounter love in any meaningful way, is in urgent living witness to the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, need of mercy and healing. The Church’s pastoral work in the source of all the beauty in the world.♦ this regard is inseparably related to the renewal and support of the Christian family, which is called to be an icon of the EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was adapted from a presentation God who is communion.

Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson delivered at the Pontifical Our faith teaches that God is love, that he is a unity in John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the communion, a Trinity. This love made an irrevocable gift of Lateran University in Rome in March 2014.

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A Preparation for Love The Church’s wisdom helps to prepare young people and engaged couples for happy and holy marriages

by Colleen Rouleau

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OPPOSITE PAGE: Photo by Brett Beadle Photography — PHOENIX: Photo by Tamara Tirado

ouples preparing for marriage today face many challenges. Michael Phelan, director of marriage and respect life for the Diocese of Phoenix and a member of Father Marcel Salinas Council 11536, is well aware of the daunting landscape: Mass attendance is declining, the cohabitation rate is rising, and an increasing number of children are growing up in single-parent homes.

“In many ways, young people receive an ‘anti-preparation’ for marriage. The cultural air they breathe hardly fosters lifelong commitments,” said Phelan.

These could be discouraging realities, yet Phelan has a different perspective. Approximately 1,000 couples each year take the marriage preparation program offered by the Phoenix Diocese.

“Those who come to us and are working toward marriage have made good decisions,” he said. “I have Above: Michael Phelan, a member tremendous hope.”

Christians is essentially a “discovery of the ‘Christian mystery,’” a faith rooted in Christ (PSM, 25).

In practice, this preparation unfolds in three stages: remote, proximate and immediate. Remote preparation is the encounter with Christ in one’s family, receiving an education in the faith and forming healthy friendships as one matures. Catechesis continues during the proximate preparation phase, during which a couple discerns that they are called to the vocation of marriage.

The couple learns about the mystery of the sacrament of marriage and the grace of Christ, as well as responsible parenthood.

Immediate preparation involves opportunities for prayer, reception of the sacrament of reconciliation and plans for the wedding liturgy.

The Pontifical Council for the Family called for the entire diocese to be involved in offering preparation support, of Father Marcel Salinas Council since many parishes lack the 11536 in Mesa, Ariz., oversees marriage preparation and family proresources to run complete grams for the Diocese of Phoenix. • Opposite page: Dominic and Lisa COVENANT OF LOVE programs on their own.

Price are pictured in Vancouver, British Columbia, where they assist Marriage preparation is usu“In 2010, we began a other Catholic couples with natural family planning training. ally understood to be a formal process of changing marriage course that couples take durpreparation to more adeing their engagement. St. John quately reflect John Paul II’s Paul II, however, invited the Church to adopt a broader un- developments,” explained Phelan. “It is called ‘Covenant of derstanding of what preparing for marriage means. In his 1981 Love,’ and it is now a nine-month process from the time the apostolic exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, he asked the faith- couple contacts the parish to the wedding date.” ful to commit resources to the task of marriage preparation The program consists of three components: a married life that is both “gradual and continuous” in order to foster strong skills class; a “mini-catechumenate” similar to Engaged Enand healthy marriages (66). counter that cultivates communication and evangelization; Following John Paul II’s lead, the Pontifical Council for the and a one-day intensive class on the sacramentality of marFamily released a document in 1996 titled Preparation for the riage and natural family planning.

Sacrament of Marriage. It emphasized that everyone has a stake According to Phelan, this model is bearing good fruit. After in preparing and educating those called to marriage, since taking the courses, 43 percent of cohabiting couples said they marriage is not only for the good of the couple, but also for will live separately before marriage, while the majority of couall of society. Moreover, the goal of marriage preparation for ples said they will definitely use NFP in their marriage.

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“We then keep the last two months prior to the wedding free in order to allow time for their immediate preparation — prayer with each other, preparing the liturgy with their pastor and the reception of reconciliation,” said Phelan.

Haley and David Hernandez of Phoenix are one couple that completed this course. “I was apprehensive about the ‘rules’ of the Church,” recalled Haley. “We were already living together before our wedding and did not want to be judged. Yet Mike and his team presented their message with love, humor, compassion and facts. My heart was changed from within. All of the presenters were humble and real — the priest was amazing.

It made me cry because I wanted an exceptional marriage.”

Gradually, Haley’s relationship with the Church and her fiancé grew into one of trust. “The course helped me understand our vocation,” she continued. “We chose to move apart until the wedding took place.”

Other marriage preparation initiatives have seen similar success. Pavel Reid, director of the Office of Life, Marriage & Family for the Archdiocese of Vancouver, British Columbia, is also committed to deepening and broadening the marriage classes offered to parishioners.

Simply presenting information in an attractive way is working, noted Reid, who is a member of Coquitlam (British Columbia) Council 5540. “We increased the amount of time spent on NFP and theology of the body from approximately two hours to six.”

The results? Requests for complete one-on-one training in various NFP methods increased from 5 percent to more than 20 percent in one year.

Originally from Trinidad, Lisa and Dominic Price have been assisting Reid as NFP teachers in the Vancouver area for the past two years. Lisa had heard of NFP as a teenager, but it was during preparation for her own wedding that she actually learned what it really meant. “I was so amazed by it,” she recalled, “that I knew I wanted this to be my ministry to other couples.”

Dominic added, “I tell each engaged man that he has an amazing and unique opportunity to know the wonder of his wife’s fertility — to know her intimately in a way no other person will ever know her. This really resonates with them.

This is something the couples want.”

CHRIST: THE FOUNDATION Just as marriage is much more than the wedding day, marriage preparation must be understood “as a journey of faith that continues throughout family life” (PSM, 16). Jason and Elise Angelette, co-directors of the Faith & Marriage Ministry of the Willwoods Community in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, bear witness to this farsighted approach. Weekend-long enrichment retreats are offered year-round to married couples, and marriage enrichment becomes an extension of preparation, another opportunity to meet Christ and deepen one’s faith.

“Enrichment cannot be reduced to a set of communication tools,” noted Jason, who belongs to Mary, Queen of Peace Council 12072 in Mandeville, La. “No one builds a house on a toolbox. You build a house on a foundation. As a sacrament, 14 ♦ C O L U M B I A ♦

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the foundation of marriage is Christ.”

Through the enrichment retreats, couples are given the chance to pray together — often for the first time in their marriages. “This opens them to a level of intimacy they have never known,” said Elise. “It renews their marriage and family relationships.”

Reaction to a couple going on retreat is often one of embarrassment, assuming the couple is having trouble.

“This is what we want to change,” said Jason. “Going on retreat with your spouse is something really healthy.”

In addition, the Angelettes have also witnessed the encouragement that couples receive when they realize it is normal to face problems and that there is an entire community to support them.

“We need the parish, we need the sacraments,” emphasized Jason. “This is where we meet each other.”

In many cases, Jason added, participating couples come back to lead retreats themselves as a way of giving back to the community.

Moreover, the renewed emphasis on marriage preparation and marriage enrichment brings with it an emphasis on youth and education within the family. The Diocese of Phoenix, for instance, has begun offering a leadership course for high school students that is focused on St. John Paul II’s catechesis on human love.

“This is something concrete that can be put on a résumé application for college, but is also very formative,” noted Phelan.

There are likewise efforts to provide catechesis to parents, so that they will be better prepared to share with their children the Church’s teachings regarding marriage and family.

Citing John Paul II’s 1994 Letter to Families, the Preparation for the Sacrament of Marriage document reminds us that parents are “the first and most important educators of their own children … they are educators because they are parents” (28, emphasis in original).

It is here that marriage preparation comes full circle, equipping families to carry out the “remote” preparation for marriage.

“We can’t immediately measure these results,” said Reid, “but they are contributing to this ‘remote’ preparation the Church asks of us in order to support marriage and families.”

Those working in marriage preparation are eagerly anticipating further guidance from the Church following the upcoming synod of bishops on the pastoral care of the family.

“I am really looking forward to a concrete plan to continue following. Guidelines are immensely helpful,” said Phelan.

“Pope Francis has reminded us that anywhere there is a baptized person we have all the resources we need to overcome any difficulties.”

In the end, all of these initiatives have one common goal: to make Christ tangible for every marriage, and thereby transform culture. After working with hundreds of married couples, the Angelettes see one common thread: “Christ is the game changer,” said Jason. “If a couple has Christ, they can face anything.”♦ COLLEEN ROULEAU writes from Edmonton, Alberta.

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TOP: Photo by Tamara Tirado

Above: Newlyweds David and Haley Hernandez enjoy a laugh together while cooking in their Phoenix home. • Jason Angelette, a member of Mary, Queen of Peace Council 12072 in Mandeville, La., and his wife, Elise, direct a marriage enrichment program in the New Orleans area.

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The Sacramentality of

Marriage The vocation of Christian marriage is a call to participate in Christ’s undying love for his bride, the Church

by Nicholas J. Healy Jr.

I

n his noted interview with Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro in August 2013, Pope Francis summed up his vision for the Church with a memorable image: “I see the Church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars. You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds. Heal the wounds.”

Among the most painful and most serious wounds of our time is the widespread breakdown of marriages. This wound is both a human tragedy — a source of deep suffering for the spouses and especially for their children — and, as Pope Francis argues, a “profound cultural crisis … because the family is the fundamental cell in society” (Evangelii Gaudium, 66).

In order to address this challenge, Pope Francis has called for a renewed pastoral approach that situates marriage and the family at the heart of the Church’s evangelical mission. The Church’s ability to heal wounds depends on her faithful witness to God’s merciful love incarnate in Jesus Christ and communicated in the sacraments. One of the tasks of the upcoming synod on the family is to help the faithful rediscover the vital connection between the sacraments and pastoral care in difficult situations.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines a sacrament as an “efficacious sign of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us” (1131).

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himself with creation. The sacraments are a masterwork of God whereby the saving mystery of Christ’s life, death and resurrection is extended in time and communicated to us in order to gather us into communion with him. Through the Holy Spirit, the ordinary things of God’s good creation — water, oil, bread, wine — become signs that contain and mediate God’s love for us. Just as in the Incarnation God assumed an entire human existence, so too do the sacraments enable God’s grace to encounter and heal all of the important moments of human life. Birth, marriage, illness and even death are brought into communion with God’s life and love.

Among the seven sacraments, marriage has a unique significance insofar as the natural institution of marriage belongs to the order of creation. As the Catechism puts it, “The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator” (1603). The new gift that Christ brings to marriage restores the original order of creation that had been wounded by sin. Christ heals and restores marriage by making the conjugal love between a man and a woman a real symbol of his love for the Church.

St. John Paul II taught us that, through the grace of the sacrament, the consent by which spouses mutually give and receive one another “participates in ... the very charity of Christ who gave himself on the Cross” (Familiaris Consortio, 13). For this reason, a sacramental marriage concluded and consummated between baptized persons can never be dissolved.

Photo by Melanie Reyes Photography

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One of the great insights of St. John Paul II concerns the relationship between human love and the indissolubility of Christian marriage.

He wrote: “Being rooted in the personal and total self-giving of the couple, and being required by the good of the children, the indissolubility of marriage finds its ultimate truth in the plan that God has manifested in his revelation: He wills and he communicates the indissolubility of marriage as a fruit, a sign and a requirement of the absolutely faithful love that God has for man and that the Lord Jesus has for the Church. ... Christian couples are called to participate truly in the irrevocable indissolubility that binds Christ to the Church his bride, loved by him to the end” (Familiaris Consortio, 20).

Sacramental indissolubility is a supreme gift of mercy whereby divine love indwells human love and allows this love to grow beyond itself to participate in God’s love and faithfulness. This grace enables those who exchange wedding vows to say in truth, “I pledge my life to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, unto death,” and know that these words are true. The gift of indissolubility means that despite the difficulties and suffering that come with human failure and sin, the sacramental marriage bond remains an abiding source of mercy, forgiveness and healing.

In this light, let us return to the image of a field hospital after a battle. In one sense, the Church is the hospital and the

sacraments are the medicine that really contain and mediate the healing grace of God’s love. Yet there is always more to the sacraments, especially the sacrament of the Eucharist, which sums up our faith and encompasses the whole of our lives. The sacraments are not just medicine; they are more like the hospital itself — a place of healing and renewal. And more than being simply a hospital, the sacraments disclose the deepest truth of creation. They open a space for authentic human life, for mercy and forgiveness, and for the renewal of all creation.

The sacraments are surprisingly capacious gifts. In the Eucharist, the whole mystery of Christ’s life and love is, as it were, concentrated and really given to the Church. So too in marriage, a sacramental bond gathers up and contains all of one’s life, even the most difficult and painful situations of illness, suffering and abandonment. Forgiveness and mercy are always present, not simply as an ideal or in spite of the supposed failure of the marriage, but in and through the undying marriage bond. It is this sacramental bond, “strong as death” (Song 8:6), that remains a sign and source of mercy and a real symbol of Christ’s victory.♦ NICHOLAS J. HEALY JR, is assistant professor of philosophy and culture at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C. He is a member of Father Rosensteel Council 2169 in Silver Spring, Md. AUGUST 2014

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Healing theWounds As the number of children of divorce grows, new pastoral initiatives help to bring mercy and hope

by Shaina Tanguay-Colucci

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y parents’ divorce was finalized the week I graduated from In his address to congress participants, Pope Benedict XVI college. I spent the next decade of my life trying to un- encouraged the Church to assume the Good Samaritan’s “attiderstand what I had lost and feeling as though I had to begin tude of merciful love” toward those who have suffered as a result every personal encounter with a disclaimer: I am broken, I am of divorce or abortion. “In the often purely ideological debate, wounded, I am not enough. Gradually, I discovered my true a sort of conspiracy of silence is created in their regard,” he said. identity through the teachings of the Catholic Church and the “It is in fact inevitable that when the conjugal covenant is brolove of God that was generously shared with me by and through ken, those who suffer most are the children who are the living others. I learned that my wounds did not define me after all; I sign of its indissolubility.” was defined by love.

One of the speakers at the congress was Elizabeth MarIn a widely publicized interview last August, Pope Francis de- quardt, author of the landmark book Between Two Worlds: The scribed the Church as “a field hospital after battle.” Challenging Inner Lives of Children of Divorce (2005). Marquardt’s principal the faithful, he said, “I see clearly that the thing the Church claim was that even children from amicable divorces suffer needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the tremendously. hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, “While a ‘good’ divorce is better proximity.” than a bad divorce, it isn’t good,” More than 1 million children in the Marquardt said. “Even ‘good’ diUnited States alone are affected by divorces hand children the lonely job of HERE ’ S THE POSSI vorce every year. With U.S. Catholics making sense of their parents’ differdivorcing at nearly the same rate as ent worlds, a job that formerly beBILITY OF FORGIVENESS , non-Catholics, this includes an alarmlonged first to their parents.” ing proportion of those sitting in our Marquardt’s work was pivotal in OF RENEWAL , OF BEING parish pews. In response to the crisis, drawing attention to the issue, exnew pastoral initiatives have been plained David L. Schindler, one of FAITHFUL , BECAUSE G OD launched, including the Center for the founders of the Center for CulIS FAITHFUL .”

Cultural and Pastoral Research at the tural and Pastoral Research. EstabPontifical John Paul II Institute for lished following the congress in 2008 Studies on Marriage and Family in and supported by the Order, the Washington, D.C. — the fruit of a CCPR is dedicated to engaging cul2008 congress on divorce held in tural issues that affect the vulnerable.

Rome and co-sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. These pas“We speak of divorce as if it enables healing, but it’s extremely toral efforts are a concrete sign that the Church’s “field hospital” important that we keep in mind the suffering of the children,” is actively at work to heal hearts wounded by what has been called said Schindler, dean emeritus of the Washington session of the the “divorce revolution.”

John Paul II Institute and a member of Potomac Council 433 in Washington, D.C. THE MYTH OF A ‘GOOD’ DIVORCE The identity of the child, he explained, is intrinsically bound In 2007, Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson presented several up with the love between a mother and a father. papers at the Lateran University in Rome on the topics of divorce “The most important thing that parents give to their children and abortion. This inspired an international congress the follow- is their love for each other. It’s their love for each other that is ing year titled “Oil on the Wounds: A Contemporary Examina- at the root of the child in the first place,” Schindler said. When tion of the Effects of Divorce and Abortion on Children and that love is fractured, he added, it inflicts a deep wound on the Their Families.” Co-sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and child, whose identity is threatened. the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Over the past six years, the CCPR has hosted lecture series Family in Rome, the event gathered experts from eight countries. and conferences on this and related topics. It also publishes a

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PAINTING: V&A Images, London / Art Resource, NY

Recent popes have emphasized the need for the Church to witness to the Gospel of Mercy, which is exemplified in Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan, depicted here in an 1852 painting by Eugène Delacroix. quarterly review titled Humanum on issues related to family, culture and science.

Dr. Margaret McCarthy, director of the CCPR and a professor at the John Paul II Institute, explained that the center seeks to reach across disciplines by promoting conversations and developing pastoral resources. “The culture often wants some kind of anesthesia as a solution for suffering,” she added, “but Christianity allows people to look at the wound in the face and go through it to see what’s most true.”

AN EDUCATION IN LOVE In 2012, the CCPR hosted a conference titled “Adult Children of Divorce: Recovering Origins,” which brought together people from various backgrounds and disciplines who shared a common concern — namely, that children of divorce need to be recognized.

After the conference, McCarthy wrote that the “proceedings reveal that the children of divorce are a ‘voice crying in the

wilderness’ amid a culture that would cancel out its deepest memory, the memory of God.” In the years since, CCPR has developed a pastoral initiative called “Recovering Origins,” designed specifically for adult children of divorce. According to McCarthy, “The program seeks to help children of divorce shift their identity and allow the experience to point them to what’s deeper: God the Father’s love.”

Sister Maximilia Um, vice-chancellor and a canon lawyer for the Diocese of Springfield, Ill., as well as an adjunct professor at the John Paul II Institute, assisted in developing the Recovering Origins curriculum.

“There is a profound need for an education in love,” Sister Um emphasized. “In canon law and tribunal work, we encounter very human problems: people who have not really had a home; people who have never learned how to relate to each other or forgive.”

Sister Um said that the majority of annulment cases that she encounters involve a spouse who comes from a divorced home.

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She added, “People can’t learn how to love unless they are loved Press Association in 2014. and accompanied, unless someone takes the time to teach them Speaking at the Oil on the Wounds congress in 2008, Cashow to sacrifice and give of oneself.” sella-Kapusinski said, “One of the profound gifts of this minLisa Lickona, who holds a licentiate degree from the John istry is that it gives a direct and immediate way to instill Paul II Institute and is now a wife and mother of eight, like- healthy attitudes about moral suffering to children from sepwise participated in the Adult Children of Divorce conference arated or divorced families as well as their parents.” She added in 2012 and has assisted with the pastoral initiative. that Jesus can help young people find meaning in their sufWhile children of divorce may appear to be survivors on fering so that it will not triumph over them, but will instead the outside, they are wounded lead them toward good. on the inside, said Lickona, Inspired by the work of Caswho is herself a child of divorce. sella-Kapusinski and others, “The woundedness has to do there is a growing recognition with the permanence of love,” of the Church’s need to redirect Lickona explained. “Parents are the gaze of her children — parsupposed to witness to the perticularly those wounded by dimanence of love, to the fidelity vorce — to something more of love and ultimately to God’s definitive: their identity in love and fidelity.”

God. Acknowledging the sadness One organization that has and hurt caused by divorce, she taken strides to do this is the added, is essential to growing in Ruth Institute, which is dediconfidence in God’s love. cated to educating young adults “When your parents’ marriage about the truth of marriage. breaks down, God’s fidelity has The institute recently adapted not ended; you have to give it its academic approach to a over to God,” Lickona said. more pastoral emphasis and, in “The Church is our Mother and February, hosted the inaugural God is our Father. There’s the “Healing the 21st Century possibility of forgiveness, of reFamily” conference in San newal, of being faithful, because Diego, which sought to affirm God is faithful.” and empower those from broThis message is at the heart of ken homes. the Recovering Origins curricu“It became clear to us that lum, which has already been pithere are so many people walking loted in parishes in the D.C. around wounded,” said Jennifer area and has attracted interest Roback Morse, the organization’s Sister Maximilia Um, vice-chancellor and a canon lawyer for from as far away as England. founder and president. the Diocese of Springfield, Ill., has assisted in developing pastoral Supreme Knight Anderson materials to assist people whose parents have divorced.

SUFFERING AND MERCY echoed this sentiment during The work of the CCPR complean address in Rome March 20 ments other pastoral initiatives in which he called attention to that have been developed in recent years, including one that the “virtually invisible” children and young adults who have focuses on younger children affected by divorce. In 2002, been affected by divorce. “Is it not time,” he asked, “that the Lynn Cassella-Kapusinski founded the Faith Journeys Foun- millions of children whose childhood has been destroyed by dation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting children of sepa- divorce be shown mercy by the pastors of the Church?” rated or divorced families.

Indeed, the Center for Cultural and Pastoral Research and A school counselor, Cassella-Kapusinski is convinced that other like-minded organizations have begun the important ongoing intervention is necessary to help children of divorce. task of identifying and assisting those in need of compassion.

At-risk behaviors often don’t appear right away, she said, since In undertaking this mission, they are taking seriously the idea young children tend to repress their pain. of the Church as a “field hospital,” working to heal one marSeeing that there was no literature to reach out to children riage, one family, one child at a time.♦ of divorce from a Catholic perspective, Cassella-Kapusinski wrote three books on the topic and developed a faith-based SHAINA TANGUAY-COLUCCI is a 2010 graduate of the curriculum for young people. Her most recent book, When John Paul II Institute for Studies in Marriage and Family at The Parents Divorce or Separate: I Can Get Through This (A Catholic Catholic University of America and currently teaches theology Guide for Kids), won a first-place award from the Catholic at St. Joseph’s High School in Trumbull, Conn.

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BU I L D I N G T H E D O M E S T I C C H U RC H

‘The Family Fully Alive’ The Order prepares to launch a yearlong program for families

by Andrew J. Matt

CNS photo/Mic Smith

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eginning in October, the Knights of Columbus will for a “prayer corner.” Families are encouraged to display a launch a yearlong, multi-dimensional program de- Bible, rosary, crucifix and religious images or icons, such signed to help families and councils prepare for the 8th as the image of the Holy Family that comes with the bookWorld Meeting of Families to be held in Philadelphia Sept. let. In addition to “A Family Prayer,” composed by 22-27, 2015. Titled “Building the Domestic Church: The Supreme Chaplain Archbishop William E. Lori of BaltiFamily Fully Alive,” the new initiative also coincides with more and printed on an included prayer card, the booklet the upcoming synod of bishfeatures a selection of songs, ops on the family. psalms and other prayers.

Announcing the program Divided into 12 monthly last month, Supreme Knight themes, the program invites Carl A. Anderson said that participating families to take the purpose of the initiative part in three monthly events: is to strengthen “families so a home-based family project, they can more fully realize a council-wide volunteer projtheir mission to be authentic ect and a movie night. domestic churches through For example, October’s daily prayer, catechesis and theme is “Bringing GeneraScripture reading, as well as tions Together,” and projects through monthly charitable include making a family tree and volunteer projects that volunteering at a Knights of they can do as a family.”

Columbus Food for Families The program is modeled event. December’s theme is on a similar initiative called “The Family at Prayer,” and “Toward a Family Friendly projects include designing a Parish,” which was developed manger scene set in Bethleand implemented in 2013 by hem and participating in a Allen Tuncap, a member of Fort Belvoir (Va.) Council members of the Disciples of Christmas Posada celebra11170, and his wife, Janell, are pictured at a park in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, tion. Movie nights feature Charleston, S.C., with their children in 2012. The family a religious community based family-friendly films such as caught a ride on a military cargo flight to attend the World in Madrid, Spain, and the It’s a Wonderful Life, The Lion Meeting of Families that year in Milan. staff of St. Mary Parish in King and Toy Story, among Littleton, Colo. Father Luis others.

Granados, who serves as parochial vicar of St. Mary Parish, Father Granados, who helped in adapting the “Building explained that the 12-month parish-based curriculum was the Domestic Church” initiative, described the program as inspired by St. John Paul II’s teaching on the vocation of a way for families to become more fully engaged in the new the family and its “mission to guard, reveal and communi- evangelization. cate love” (Familiaris Consortio, 17).

“For Knights, it is an ideal way to grow in faith as hus“The Church cannot be salt of the earth, cannot accom- bands and fathers with their families — as domestic plish its mission, without the family,” said Father Grana- churches — together with their councils and parishes,” he dos, who is a member of Dr. Earl C. Bach Council 3340 said. “When this happens, families come alive and the in Littleton. “The domestic church is a place of salvation.” Church comes alive with them.”

Adapted for use by K of C families and councils, “BuildProgram materials will be mailed to local councils foling the Domestic Church” is grounded in prayer and ex- lowing the Supreme Convention in August. An online verpressed through family- and council-oriented projects — sion of the program booklet will also be available.♦ all of which is explained in the program booklet.

The first step involves setting aside space in the home ANDREW J. MATT is managing editor of Columbia.

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OUR DOMESTIC CHURCH The fundamental cell of the Church and society, the family lies at the heart of the new evangelization

by Carla Galdo

The author and her husband, Michael, who is a member of St. Francis Council 11136 in Purcellville, Va., are pictured with their children at home in Lovettsville.

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s a family with four young children, we do our best to follow the ebb and flow of the liturgical calendar — whether in quiet prayer in the dark evenings of Advent, or in festive song with our parish on Easter morning, or among friends and family to celebrate baptisms, first Communions and the feast days of our favorite saints. In this way, as well as in the everyday events of our lives, we mirror the life of the universal Church. In lifting our eyes in faith amid our daily failings and foibles and making our way by God’s grace, we are reminded that as Christian family we are called to a higher purpose.

The Second Vatican Council declared, “The family, is, so to speak, the domestic Church. In it parents should, by their word and example, be the first teachers of the faith to their children” (Lumen Gentium, 11). A decade after the close of the council, Pope Paul VI likewise called the family “an evangelized and evangelizing community” (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 71). Finally, this vision of the family as a domestic church and as the 22 ♦ C O L U M B I A ♦

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center of evangelization became a guiding theme of St. John Paul II’s pontificate.

My husband and I take seriously this charge as we endeavor in a variety of ways to keep the Word of God central to our family’s life. A hardcover Bible holds a place of honor on our mantel, unless we’ve taken it down to read a passage during mealtime. Recently, we’ve begun to listen to audio versions of the Sunday readings during our ride to Mass, followed by a mom-invented quiz, complete with prizes, for those who were paying good attention. At day’s end, the mysteries of the rosary, told story-style by my husband and illustrated by a piece of sacred art held in the upstretched arms of my proud-to-have-a-job 2-year-old, serve as vivid doorways into Jesus’ life.

While each season brings its own challenges, setbacks and little victories, we strive to bear witness to the Gospel and grow as a domestic church.

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THE CHURCH IN MINIATURE The Second Vatican Council revived the expression ecclesia domestica, or domestic church, but did not invent it. It was actually used by St. John Chrysostom in the fourth century and has its roots in the earliest days of Christianity.

Scripture often speaks about the conversion of entire households (e.g., Acts 11:14, 16:15, 18:8). Family homes, like little islands of Christian life, became the first centers of worship for the growing Church. So, too, the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out, “in our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith” (1656).

Mothers and fathers are rightfully called the first heralds of the faith to their children. After all, much of the formation and education of children depends on the teaching and lived example of their parents. At the same time, mothers and fathers are often drawn to deeper faith through their children.

We know that in the smallest souls there is already present a home for Christ. Unless we become “like children,” Jesus teaches, our hearts will be prideful and hardened, too coarse to recognize him and too self-concerned to enter the kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt 18:3).

My infant’s toothy, crinkle-nosed smile forces me to pause and take joy in life, giving thanks to God for all my blessings.

My 7-year-old, in the midst of our hectic schedule, inspires me to take time to rest in God’s mercy. Despite his young age, he likes to tell our family that if frequent confession is good enough for St. John Paul II and Pope Francis, it’s good enough for us.

One day a question from my 5-year-old inspired me to pause and think more deeply about the life of the Holy Family.

He walked up to me, concerned. “Mama,” he said quietly, “why didn’t Jesus have any brothers and sisters?” He realized what a gift his siblings are, despite their frequent disagreements, and was worrying that Jesus might not have had anyone to play with while he was growing up. I began to explain how special it was that Mary had only one baby, who was the Son of God, and how Jesus had plenty to do while he helped St. Joseph with his work.

My son’s face brightened, as he held up three fingers and said, “Mama Mary, St. Joseph and Jesus — one, two, three, like the Trinity!” Satisfied, he bounced off to ride his bike in the driveway. While his intuition didn’t exactly plumb the depths of the Trinitarian mystery, I was gently reminded of the significance of the fact that Jesus made his earthly entrance by way of a family. The Son of God was born like all of us and grew up obedient to a father and a mother, employed in the humble life of a small household for most of his days.

In fact, John Paul II called the Holy Family “the original ‘ecclesia domestica,’” in which “every Christian family must be reflected” (Redemptoris Custos, 7). Later, in his Letter to Families, he noted that “the primordial model of the family is to be sought in God himself, in the Trinitarian mystery of his life” (6).

Practically speaking, this means that when I stop amid my own activities to attend to one of my children, I’m not just

muddling through; I’m offering myself in an ever-so-small way like the Son offered his life in obedience. Likewise, when my husband tries to form our children’s habits for the better, his loving authority echoes that of God the Father. And our children are not simply the inevitable results of biology, but, like the Holy Spirit, living testaments to the fruitfulness of selfgiving love.

THE VITAL CELL OF SOCIETY It is essential that we cultivate a living faith in a world that is increasingly hostile to faith and family alike. As St. John Paul II affirmed, “the family is the first and vital cell of society” and thus “the future of humanity passes by way of the family” (Familiaris Consortio, 42; 86). Much like a garden, the family’s life flourishes in direct proportion to the amount of care and nourishment it receives. The living water of the family is prayer and participation in the sacraments, while the weeds of selfishness and vice are removed by a life of mutual affection and forgiveness, hospitality and generosity toward those in need (cf. CCC 1657). Enlightened by the word of God, we grow strong enough to announce the Gospel with joy to others and put ourselves at their service, in imitation of Christ.

Pope Francis reminds us that “the word of God constantly shows us how God challenges those who believe in him ‘to go forth’” (Evangelii Gaudium, 20). Caring for babies and little ones, much of our family’s energy is focused on just getting through the day, but we try to keep our hearts turned outward as well. Sometimes we “go forth” one by one — my husband does small tasks at the homes of those who need help, while I bring meals to aid new mothers. Sometimes we “go forth” all together. These days, just packing everyone in the car and traveling to visit relatives can be a little act of charity, considering the logistical challenges of travel with many small children!

My husband and I also try to plant the seeds of generosity and sensitivity toward the poor, letting our children carry our monthly offering of groceries to our parish for the Knights’ monthly food drive or inviting them to shop for gifts for K of Csponsored toy drives at Christmas. While our acts of hospitality and service are small, we hope that we are setting the stage for an ever-growing life of charity as our children grow older.

If there is one thing that I have learned as we strive to live up to the name “domestic church,” it is that it is hardly automatic or easy. We often fall short, letting a cloud of sin obscure the radiance of the Gospel message with which we’ve been entrusted. Still, even our failings bring with them moments of grace. We recall our need for God’s mercy and of the need to apologize and forgive. Above all, we remember that any excellence or beauty that comes from within our home is not our own. Our little domestic church, like the universal Church, must always in humility point back toward the source of its radiance. The Christian family, like the Church, has no other light but Christ.♦ CARLA GALDO writes from her home in Lovettsville, Va. Her husband, Michael, is a member of St. Francis Council 11136 in Purcellville. They have four children.

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Calming the Perfect Storm The teachings of Karol Wojtyła help us to recover the forgotten truth about what it means to be human

by Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield

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arol Wojtyła, the man who became St. John Paul II, regularly escaped from two of the worst totalitarian regimes in history: German Nazism, and later, Soviet Communism.

By “escaped,” I do not mean that he ran away. Rather, as a priest and bishop, he escaped only by going deeper.

As the secret police patrolled the streets of Kraków, Father Wojtyła escaped into the mountains of Poland with young married couples. He enlisted not a militia but young men and women united by the permanent, faithful, fruitful bond of marriage — because he knew they were the target. The goal of totalitarian regimes is not simply to conquer lands, but to control a people’s entire culture, to change the unchangeable 24 ♦ C O L U M B I A ♦

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meaning of things.

So, there in the freedom of the mountains, Wojtyła went deeper still: He spoke about the unchangeable nature of the human person. He taught about the enduring meaning of marriage and the nature of the family. Years later as pope, John Paul II underscored these truths in his landmark document on the Christian family, Familiaris Consortio: “The future of humanity passes by way of the family” (86).

And with his proclamation of St. John Paul II as “the pope of the family,” Pope Francis has signaled that the Church needs to meditate on the late pope’s insights in response to the confusion and violence of our modern era.

Photos by Thinkstock/iStock

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THREE REVOLUTIONS In the year 2000, Josef Seifert, rector of the International Academy of Philosophy in Lichtenstein, noted that more people were murdered in the 20th century than at any period in history. The primary reason for this, Seifert explained, was “a mere logical application to politics and private life of ideas about man which highly respected scientists and philosophers have taught for decades at the most prestigious universities around the globe.” More people are killed as a result of political ideologies, Seifert said, than by a “relapse to animal passions” or by “dark feelings of national pride or vengeance.”

If these words seem to refer to the bygone era of Nazi death camps and Soviet gulags, consider the following facts: One of the most renowned professors of ethics in the United States maintains that a healthy chimpanzee has more of a right to life than a sick child. According to a 1997 study in the British medical journal The Lancet, nearly one-third of pediatricians in the Netherlands had euthanized malformed infants, sometimes even without the permission of the parent. In February 2007, the Supreme Court of Switzerland declared that the mentally ill have a constitutional right to be eliminated. The World Health Organization estimates there are as many as 50 million surgical abortions worldwide every year. Consider further the innumerable evils of war, abuse, terrorism, poverty and hunger.

Many, with unsettling accuracy, point out that our age is marked by the rejection of God. Still, the daily headlines indict us; we have not only rejected God, but we have forgotten what it means to be human.

What lies at the heart of this cultural amnesia? Over the last 150 years, a perfect storm of sinister proportions has been gathering force. It has all but swept from our contemporary consciousness any sense of what it means to be human.

The first wave of the storm began with the Industrial Revolution. In the latter half of the 1800s, American society went from being based on the local community, with the family at its center, to being centered on the factory and the assembly line. Of course, industrial society ushered in some undeniably positive things, but as the nature of manufacturing and production changed, something else changed as well. Fathers, mothers and even children had to go to the factories for long hours. Hours meant output, and output meant profits.

Human work became less about the human being, about making a living for one’s family, and more about the bottom line and an individual keeping score with others. Gradually, the sense of being a person became, “I am successful if I acquire … profits, position, status.”

The second wave of the perfect storm, the sexual revolution, came with gale force in the second half of the 20th century. Human sexuality was no longer about a permanent, faithful and fruitful gift of self in marriage and family, but simply about satisfying an individual’s personal erotic need.

And so, adultery and cohabitation spread rampantly. No-fault divorce was presented as a panacea, yet it produced an epidemic of fatherlessness. Pornography went from being a dirty little secret in the 1920s to a cottage industry in the 1950s to

The industrial, sexual and technological revolutions have together influenced how people understand themselves and their relationships in the modern world. a lifestyle and career option in the year 2000. Now, to be human, the goal was not simply to acquire things, but to acquire pleasure, which had lost its reference to genuine beauty.

The third wave of the perfect storm began to rage in the late 1970s with the advent of the technological revolution.

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bile device is now the unquestioned third party in every rela- measurable openness at every level of a man and woman’s tionship. The digital screen has replaced the face. being. This openness is directed to the reciprocal gift of self Something else crept in along with the advances of the tech- in the two-in-one-flesh communion of persons proper to the nological revolution. The goal became speed: quicker access union of man and woman in marriage. In other words, the to the Internet, to information, to communication. In fact, human body, in its male and female particularity, is not somehigh-speed access is often too slow. Even instant gratification thing added to the person. Rather, it is inseparable from one’s does not seem fast enough. And now, when we are not on a very identity. All of our being, especially the blessing of our digital device, we anxiously want everyday people to get out human sexuality, is called to express total, self-giving love, of our way — in traffic, on the elevator or at the checkout which is integral to the meaning of the human person. counter.

Some people mistakenly think that in order to be holy, one Today, as a result of the perfect storm, what it means to be has to be a priest or a religious. Some may even think that human is not simply to acquire pleasure, but to acquire pleas- priests and religious set the rules for married couples or that ure quickly. marriage is some kind of consolation prize for those who By pleasure I mean something more understated than in- could not be priests or nuns. On the contrary, the genuine dulging in hedonism. It is the subtly insistent background love of husband and wife sets a pattern for what it is to be a music pressuring us to approach our entertainment, educa- priest or a religious. The life-giving gift of self in married love tion, finance, home life, job and even our religion according is the very form of the life-giving gift of self that is at the heart to rules of consumerism, power of being a priest or religious. and individualism. Failing to acIn Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II quire pleasure quickly is tantawrote, “Christian revelation recognizes mount to failing as a human being. two specific ways of realizing the vocaRecall Professor Seifert’s key intion of the human person in its enO FIND MYSELF I HAVE sight: Transposed into political idetirety, to love: marriage and virginity ologies, these ideas about man have or celibacy” (11).

TO GIVE MYSELF. TO BE killed and continue to kill millions.

God has chosen, from the beginning The headlines are clear: Modern of time, to mediate something of his FILLED UP INSIDE , I HAVE man straddles the extremes of unineffable love into the universe TO GO OUTSIDE IN THE restrained pleasure and untold viothrough human love. In fact, on the lence. The irony is that the more cross, Christ the Bridegroom offers AUTHENTIC GIFT OF SELF. society attempts to “acquire pleashimself completely in the sacrifice of ure quickly,” the more everyone love to his bride the Church. suffers.

Married love is thus meant to convey something of divine love in the THE RECOVERY world, and God has a plan by which When Karol Wojtyła was elected pope in 1978, in the middle this happens. In the very same moment that he creates human of the perfect storm, he knew what to do. He had faced total- life, God also creates the sexual difference between man and itarian regimes before. He went deeper, always deeper. This woman: “God created mankind in his image; in the image of time, he did not lead young people into the mountains of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gn Poland. He led the world into the center of the Church by 1:27). Jesus confirms this great truth of Genesis and proclaims proclaiming what it means to be a human being. it anew when he teaches about marriage in reference to “the Throughout his pontificate, St. John Paul II fearlessly beginning” (cf. Mt 19:4ff ). taught the great truth that countless generations had long We find the first and primary form of the gift of self in marknown, a truth confirmed by both sacred Scripture and the riage. The Second Vatican Council puts it this way: “God did living tradition of the Church: Human life and the beauty of not create man as a solitary, for from the beginning ‘male and man and woman are not toys or tools; they are gifts, and as female he created them’ (Gn 1:27). Their companionship prosuch, are meant to show us something not only about our- duces the primary form of interpersonal communion” selves, but about God. (Gaudium et Spes, 12).

The human being is created in the image of God, who is The council further teaches that man “cannot fully find love (cf. Gn 1:26-27, 1 Jn 4:8). In the “quick fix” mentality himself except through a sincere gift of himself ” (GS, 24). of our age, we can think that love is about me and getting my To find myself I have to give myself. Think about this paraway. But genuine love is not about me; it is about a gift of self dox. It is not the mantra of the so-called reality shows. To to the other who is different from me. be filled up inside, I have to go outside in the authentic gift The sexual difference that exists between man and woman of self. is not simply a biological fact. It is essential, irreplaceable and Man’s first recorded words in Scripture confirm the counnaturally foundational to human existence itself. Sexual dif- cil’s teaching. Man and woman first come to recognize one ference expresses a deeper meaning, an unparalleled and im- another on the basis of their bodies: “This one, at last, is bone

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Father Karol Wojtyła, who later became Pope John Paul II, is pictured in the early 1950s surrounded by young people. Father Wojtyła would regularly go ´ meaning environment or milieu. on mountain excursions with a group of young married couples and students that called itself Srodowisko,

Archival Collection of Adam Bujak

of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” says Adam in joy and wonder. “This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man this one has been taken” (Gn 2:23).

It is only in the sight of woman, recognizing the meaning of their personhood through their respective bodies, that Adam can name Eve. In naming her, he also names himself and knows who he is. His identity becomes clear, as does hers on seeing him.

THE BEAUTY OF LOVE For husbands and wives, the conjugal act is a crowning moment of the lifelong, daily gift of self. This total gift of conjugal union, by which all their other daily gifts are summed up in their very flesh, is so significant that God has made it the source of the greatest of gifts: new human life.

Even though the conjugal act does not always result in a new life, it is always meant to reflect and manifest the total, complete and fruitful self-giving of marriage.

New life, like human sexuality, is a gift. Sadly, many people misuse the gift of sexuality by living through the dark prism of acquiring pleasure quickly. As a result, they likewise fail to recognize the gift of new life and treat it instead as a prize, a trophy or a curse.

The pleasure-seeking pressures of our culture are never far away, but neither are the mountains. The wisdom of the Church helps us to see that we are not meant to acquire pleasure quickly; we are meant, always and everywhere, to give beauty slowly.

Karol Wojtyła regularly escaped. He escaped deeper and proclaimed the central idea about man, the mountainous meaning of genuine love inscribed in the flesh of man and woman. He also knew, as human reason testifies and as Jesus taught, that if genuine love doesn’t begin with man and woman in marriage, it doesn’t begin at all.

The nature of the family — the bond of father, mother and child — reveals something about the inner structure of love that exists in its fullness only in God himself. To say that married love possesses this transcendent meaning is not to seek a naïve return to some idyllic past. It is to return to Christ, to return to who we are really called to be.♦ MSGR. J. BRIAN BRANSFIELD, STD, serves as the associate general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is the author of The Human Person: According to John Paul II (Pauline, 2010) and Meeting Jesus Christ: Meditations on the Word (Pauline, 2013).

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KNIGHTS IN ACTION

REPORTS FROM COUNCILS, ASSEMBLIES AND COLUMBIAN SQUIRES CIRCLES

rectly to recipients. Over the past 36 years, the “Pitch-In” campaign has raised more than $234,000.

ENDOWMENT FUND

Kenora (Ontario) Council 2806 created a $50,000 endowment fund with the Kenora and Lake of the Woods Regional Community Foundation to support the creation of student bursaries at St. Thomas Aquinas High School and meet welfare needs in the region. The fund was created following the sale of the council’s social hall.

MOVING AROUND Christian Theroux of Santa Rosalia Assembly in Monterey, Calif., holds a holy water aspersorium for Father Freddy Calario as he blesses a 1929 Model A Ford at the Carmel Mission Concours, sponsored by Carmel Mission Council 4593. Held in the courtyard of the historic San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo Mission, the event brought together 35 classic cars and motorcycles.

More than 500 people attended the event, which featured entertainment and a wine tasting.

The concours raised $25,000 for various charitable initiatives.

Over the past several years, St. Damien of Molokai Council 11411 in Rochester, N.Y., has sponsored Masses and rosary devotions to pray for an increase in vocations to the priesthood. Several young men who have participated in these prayer events have since entered discernment for the priesthood or religious life.

Church of the Holy Spirit to raise funds for a pro-life trip. The breakfast raised $540.

PITCHING IN

YOUTHFUL REGARD

Father Shine Council 1966 in Plattsmouth, Neb., sponsored a benefit breakfast for Lourdes Central High School’s “T4:12” group, which takes its name from 1 Timothy 4:12: “Let no one have contempt for your youth, but set an example for those who believe, in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity.” Seven students served breakfast to parishioners and guests at the 28 ♦ C O L U M B I A ♦

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PARISH TALK

Pope John Paul I Council 7315 in Nipawin, Saskatchewan, organized a parish mission with guest speaker Deacon Alex Jones, a former Pentecostal pastor from Detroit. The mission explored the pope’s message of the new evangelization.

Thai Nguyen of Father Michael J. Bader Assembly in Newport News, Va., sings the National Anthem before the start of a football game between the Newport News Shipbuilding Apprentice School and Ave Maria University. Knights were asked to present the colors before the game, and Sir Knight Nguyen was honored to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Msgr. Thomas Dillon Council 1014 in Huntington, Ind., conducted its annual “PitchIn” campaign to help Huntington County citizens who have temporary financial needs and are not participating in a government-sponsored program. Each year, more than 70 Knights participate in the initiative, which raises funds through direct mail solicitations and contribution stations located throughout the city. The council covers all costs, so every dollar raised goes di-

Russ Harrison of Daniel Patrick Sullivan Council 10208 in Hot Springs, Ark., collects a donation from a passing motorist during the council’s annual fund drive for people with intellectual disabilities. Knights solicited funds from local businesses and banks and set up eight collection points to net nearly $18,000. Among the recipients of the funds were Special Olympics, First Steps and Abilities Unlimited.

UPPER LEFT: Photo by Dale Quinio, daleqphotography.com

PRAYING FOR VOCATIONS

Father Robert D. Burns Council 13126 in North Wales, Pa., donated $647 from a council-sponsored charity breakfast to the Global Wheelchair Mission to help purchase mobility devices for needy recipients around the world.

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KNIGHTS IN ACTION

nation of the World Mission rosary, which Venerable Sheen introduced on his radio program in 1951. After listening to the history of the rosary, the students prayed together.

Vice Supreme Master Donald Hall (at podium) joins members of Msgr. Patrick R. Dunigan Assembly in Flint, Mich., to dedicate a black onyx memorial to all branches of the armed forces at Great Lakes National Cemetery. Knights fought to have the memorial placed at the national military cemetery because it contains the word “God” in the inscription. About 80 Fourth Degree Knights and 100 guests attended the dedication of the memorial, which also includes the emblem of the Order and the Fourth Degree emblem.

KITCHEN UPGRADES

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Council 5482 in Accokeek, Md., donated $10,000 to St. Mary’s of Piscataway Church to assist the parish in bringing its school kitchen up to code. From its building corporation investments, the council funded upgrades such as grease traps, commercial ovens, and sinks. The council also donated $20,000 to St. Mary, Star of the Sea Church to upgrade a refrigeration unit used for the parish’s “Food for the Needy” program.

WORLD MISSION ROSARIES

Belle Vernon (Pa.) Council 3026 presented more than 200 World Mission rosaries to students at St. Sebastian Regional Catholic School.

Students also received a prayer card for the canonization of Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen and an expla-

FINDING A HOME

Holy Trinity Council 4400 in Joliet, Ill., donated toiletries and other necessary items to the Permanent Supportive Housing Program that is run

by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Joliet. The program offers services that include case management, independent living skills training, access to employment support and more.

District Deputy Claude Lagacé of Manitoba District #3 and State Deputy Paul J. E. Dupré have their heads shaved at a “Brave the Shave” event hosted by La Salle Circle 5576. Several Squires, as well as district and state officers, had their heads shaved at St. Hyacinthe Church in support of breast cancer research. For losing their locks, Knights and Squires raised $7,360.

GROUNDS CLEANED

Members of St. Francis de Sales Council 8853 in Burnaby, British Columbia, helped Father Tom Smith, council chaplain, clear a fallen tree branch and aided in cleaning the rectory grounds. By doing the work themselves, Knights saved the parish from having to hire a professional tree service.

Phyllis Allen (right) from Crest Area for Life and Jerry Katzer of General Sheridan Council 1228 in Creston, Iowa, hold a pro-life billboard in place while erecting the sign on a road in Union County. Knights teamed with Crest Area for Life to erect three double-sided signs throughout the county. Knights donated $1,183 to cover half the cost of materials and also volunteered to erect the billboards.

NEW HOME FOR BETHLEHEM HOUSE

Easthampton (Mass.) Council 1116 volunteered more than 400 hours to renovate the rectory at Our Lady of the Valley Parish’s Sacred Heart Campus. Bethlehem House, a nonprofit faithbased organization which offers free and confidential pregnancy resources, moved into the newly renovated rectory. Members of the council repaired and painted all walls and ceilings, removed old carpeting, performed electrical and carpentry repairs, and moved furniture and supplies from Bethlehem House’s old location.

‘SOCKS FOR THE HOMELESS’

Bishop John J. Kaising Council 14223 at U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan, South Korea, conducted its annual “Socks for the Homeless” initiative in conjunction with a local parish. The Knights escorted students from the parish’s confirmation class to a soup kitchen in nearby Incheon where they distributed 150 “sock-bags” filled with socks

and other toiletries to about 130 local residents in need. A similar event took place the following week at the Ansan Galilea Migrant Center.

Rydar Smith, 3, the grandson of John Springer of Father Henry J. Banks Council 9740 in Canyon Country, Calif., collects spare change during the council’s annual fund drive for people with intellectual disabilities. Assisted by their families and

by Boy Scouts, Knights collected $4,200 for Carousel Ranch in Agua Dulce, a therapeutic equine program for people with special needs.

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KNIGHTS IN ACTION

participated in the event, displaying 64 quilts from the surrounding area. The show also included vendors, music, raffles, auctions and prizes.

Additionally, the day included a salute to the military, and each veteran in attendance received a complimentary lap quilt and a free meal.

SCHOOL ASSISTANCE

Larry Cannon of St. Patrick Council 10567 in Adamsville, Ala., and Joan Marks of the council’s ladies’ auxiliary light candles of remembrance during a council-sponsored memorial Mass for deceased members at St. Patrick Church. Knights hosted the Mass to honor deceased members and their wives.

Bishop Joseph Durick Assembly provided an honor guard for the event, which was followed by a reception.

Archbishop Swint Council 4694 in St. Albans, W.Va., donated $5,200 to St. Francis of Assisi School. The funds were raised through a golf tournament hosted jointly by the council and the school.

Half of the funds will be used for teaching supplies, and the other half will be used for scholarships.

PAPAL BLESSING

ANNIVERSARY DONATION

In honor of its 58th anniversary, Señor Cura Manuel Velázquez Morán Council 4062 in La Barca, Mexico Central, donated 25,000 pesos (approximately $2,000) to Father José Luís Perez Barba, pastor of Santa Monica Parish, for the reconstruction of the parish atrium.

DECKS RESTORED

Sts. Peter and Paul Council 11475 in Palmyra, Va., rebuilt two badly worn rear decks at St. Joseph Church.

The church has a very small

congregation and the need for repairs was great. In just two days, Knights restored the two decaying decks and installed a new one.

QUILT SHOW

Kline-Vincent Council 12672 in Hempstead, Texas, held its annual quilt show and chicken fried steak dinner to benefit local charities. Since the event started in 2010, the council has raised more than $30,000 for needy families.

The feature presentation of the show was a 15-foot-wide quilt depicting the Last Supper. Three local quilt guilds

Father William A. Daly Council 2122 in Great Neck, N.Y., presented Father Raphael Soadwah, council chaplain, with a framed papal blessing in honor of his 25th anniversary as a priest. Along with Don Bosco Circle 548, the council also presented a check for $4,500 to support seminarians in the Diocese of Rockville Center.

WATTS OF LOVE

Perez Council 1176 of Lockport, Ill., presented a donation of $2,500 to Watts of Love, a charity that provides solar-charged LED lights to areas of the Philippines that have no electricity. The council’s donation was part of a larger campaign within the local parish, which raised more than $15,000 for Watts of Love.

HELPING FAMILIES

San Juan Bautista Council 1543 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, along with its ladies’ auxiliary, donated goods and assistance to the Quality of 30 ♦ C O L U M B I A ♦

AUGUST 2014

Participants in a prayer march to the Cemetery of Palmiry, which was organized in part

by Holy Family Council 14002 in Lomianki, Poland, hold torches and candles during a stop at one of the march’s prayer stations. Young people, Knights and clergy began the march at a memorial commemorating the Katyn massacre and proceeded through the Kampinos National Park to Palmiry, which was the site of mass executions by German occupying forces during World War II. Refreshments for all those in attendance were provided for all attendees following the patriotic march.

Family and Communal Life Center of Cupey Alto, which serves low-income residents of nearby neighborhoods.

The council donated beds, mattresses, food, cabinets, linens, furniture, toys and a hot water heater. The council also offered volunteer labor to a local family in need.

TUITION BAKE SALE

St. Viator Council 8282 in Las Vegas donated $3,000 to St. Viator School. The funds were raised through the council’s bake sale to aid school families in need of tuition assistance.

BAPTISM ROSES

Following every baptism at St. Olaf Church in Williamsburg, Va., members of St. Olaf Council 12589 provide each mother with a red rose and give the child his or her first rosary.

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KNIGHTS IN ACTION

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Special Olympics athlete Mike (last name not given) demonstrates the proper technique for tossing a bocce ball during a tournament hosted by Father Michael F. Barrett Council 9875 in Annville, Pa. Knights invited athletes and their family members to attend a picnic and tournament. Knights also taught athletes who were unfamiliar with bocce how to play the game.

FIGHTING ARTHRITIS

Father William Fitzgerald Council 6091 in Hagersville, Ontario, conducted its annual drive for the Arthritis Society of Canada. During the campaign, the council raised more than $3,600 for research and advocacy in fighting arthritis. Over the past 20 years, the council has raised more than $100,000 for the Arthritis Society.

home in a fire. The council also volunteered at a community-wide benefit for the same family, where members served breakfast and oversaw a silent auction. That event raised $32,000 for the family, and part of the funds will be used to set up a scholarship in memory of the family’s daughter.

CHARITY FROM TRAGEDY

St. Andrew the Apostle Council 14543 in Hawley, Minn., held a pancake breakfast that raised $375 for a local family that lost its 15-year-old daughter and its

kofc.org exclusive See more “Knights in Action” reports and photos at www.kofc.org/ knightsinaction

August 1959

FEATURE ARTICLE The August issue led off with a scientific article titled “Mystery at Our Feet” about the vast riches of Earth’s oceans. Author James C. G. Conniff wrote, “The potential wealth of the ocean is of such dimensions that it could raise the standard of living everywhere, wipe out starvation and famine, put an end to the hysterical babble about out ‘exploding’ world population, and obviate whatever causes of international conflict exist outside of ... the fallen nature of man.”

FROM THE SUPREME COUNCIL A prominent news article notes that Supreme Knight Luke E. Hart delivered a $500,000 check to Archbishop Patrick A. O’Boyle of Washington to complete the Order’s pledge of $1 million for the Knights Tower at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The carillon in the tower celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2013.

WHAT KNIGHTS ARE DOING For the second consecutive year, Gentilly Council 2925 in Louisiana conducted a “Knights of Columbus Public Relations Program” at local Catholic high schools.

Knights spoke about the history and activities of the Order, and the state’s insurance agent was present at each talk to answer questions about K of C Insurance.

AMAZING ADVERTISING

CORRECTIONS In the July 2014 issue of Columbia, the photo on page 30 erroneously identifies the serviceman at the Tomb of the Unknowns as a U.S. Marine. He is, in fact, a member of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), headquartered at Fort Myer, Va. Sentinels at the Tomb are comprised solely of volunteers from this regiment, which is the oldest active-duty infantry unit in the Army, serving the United States since 1784.

Calorie conscious? Then try a piece of Switzer’s Old-Fashioned Licorice to satisfy your sweet tooth. With treats this delicious, it’s no surprise that Switzer’s is nearly as old as the Knights of Columbus — and still making candy today.

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KNIGHTS IN ACTION

FOURTH DEGREE K OF C SUPPLIES

Back to School

IN THE UNITED STATES THE ENGLISH COMPANY INC. Official council and Fourth Degree equipment 1-800-444-5632 • www.kofcsupplies.com

As students return to classrooms, Knights support a variety of academic initiatives

LYNCH AND KELLY INC. Official council and Fourth Degree equipment and officer robes 1-888-548-3890 • www.lynchkelly.com IN CANADA ROGER SAUVÉ INC. Official council and Fourth Degree equipment and officer robes 1-888-266-1211 • www.roger-sauve.com

JOIN THE FATHER MCGIVNEY GUILD

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08/14

Please enroll me in the Father McGivney Guild: NAME ADDRESS CITY STATE/PROVINCE ZIP/POSTAL CODE Complete this coupon and mail to: The Father McGivney Guild, 1 Columbus Plaza, New Haven, CT 06510-3326 or enroll online at: www.fathermcgivney.org

OFFICIAL AUG. 1, 2014: 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, Place d’Armes Station, P.O. Box 220, Montreal, QC H2Y 3G7 ALL MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOS, ARTWORK, EDITORIAL MATTER, AND ADVERTISING INQUIRIES 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. OPINIONS BY WRITERS ARE THEIR OWN AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS. SUBSCRIPTION RATES — IN THE U.S.: 1 YEAR, $6; 2 YEARS, $11; 3 YEARS, $15. FOR OTHER COUNTRIES ADD $2 PER YEAR. EXCEPT FOR CANADIAN SUBSCRIPTIONS, PAYMENT IN U.S. CURRENCY ONLY. SEND ORDERS AND CHECKS TO: ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT, PO BOX 1670, NEW HAVEN, CT 06507-0901.

COLUMBIA (ISSN 0010-1869/USPS #123-740) IS PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS, 1 COLUMBUS PLAZA, NEW HAVEN, CT 06510-3326. PHONE: 203-752-4000, www.kofc.org. PRODUCED IN USA. COPYRIGHT © 2014 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.

CANADIAN POSTMASTER — PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 1473549. RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO: KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS, 50 MACINTOSH BOULEVARD, CONCORD, ONTARIO L4K 4P3 PHILIPPINES — FOR PHILIPPINES SECOND-CLASS MAIL AT THE MANILA CENTRAL POST OFFICE. SEND RETURN COPIES TO KCFAPI, FRATERNAL SERVICES DEPARTMENT, PO BOX 1511, MANILA.

32 ♦ C O L U M B I A ♦

AUGUST 2014

[Clockwise from top] Members of Banal na Sakramento Council 8753 in Quezon City, Luzon, paint a fence gate at Placido del Mundo Elementary School during a Brigada Eskewla project to clean the school in preparation for the new academic year. • Ken Gitobu of St. Michael the Archangel Council 12577 in Leawood, Kan., makes pancakes during one of the council's charity breakfasts. The council sponsors four breakfasts each year, with proceeds used to fund college scholarships. • Members of St. Theresa, the Little Flower Council 12866 in Houston stand with Father Phil Lloyd and the bus that Knights helped to purchase for St. Theresa Church and School. Knights and students worked for three years to raise funds for the bus, which is handicapped-accessible and will be used for school field trips and other church functions.

PLUS :

Look for a full list of Supreme Council scholarship winners in the September issue!

Aug 14 Covers E 7_15 FINAL_Layout 1 7/15/14 6:24 PM Page 33

Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit, Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis

K N I G H T S O F C O L UM B U S

Building a better world one council at a time Every day, Knights all over the world are given opportunities to make a difference — whether through community service, raising money or prayer. We celebrate each and every Knight for his strength, his compassion and his dedication to building a better world.

TO

BE FEATURED HERE , SEND YOUR COUNCIL’ S

With the State Capitol as a backdrop, Matthew Vogel (left) and Karl Hendrickson of Father Lucien Galtier Council 4184 in St. Paul, Minn., help carry a statue of Mary at the start of the 67th annual Family Rosary Procession of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis. The procession went from the capitol to the Cathedral of St. Paul, with Auxiliary Bishop Lee A. Piché and Fourth Degree Knights walking with the marchers. The event also featured a bilingual rosary.

“K NIGHTS IN A CTION ” C OLUMBIA , 1 C OLUMBUS P LAZA , N EW H AVEN , CT 06510-3326

PHOTO AS WELL AS ITS DESCRIPTION TO : OR E - MAIL : COLUMBIA @ KOFC . ORG .

AUGUST 2014

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Aug 14 Covers E 7_15 FINAL_Layout 1 7/15/14 6:25 PM Page 34

PLEASE, DO ALL YOU CAN TO ENCOURAGE PRIESTLY AND RELIGIOUS VOCATIONS. YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

K E E P T H E F A IT H A L I V E

‘DON’T WAIT. SEIZE THE HAND OF CHRIST.’

DEACON JOHN L. MCDERMOTT Society of the Missionaries of the Holy Apostles Cromwell, Conn.

Photo by Katie Pugliese Photography

I was blessed to be raised in a strong Catholic community. Our neighborhood cul-de-sac was home to 65 Catholic children, all of whom hopped and skipped their way to daily Mass. My father was a Knight of Columbus, and he always spoke with esteem about the Order.

After attending Catholic grade school and high school taught by sisters and Xaverian Brothers, I began to dream of being a Catholic missionary overseas. But the work seemed too radical and gave me pause. Instead, I followed a path to the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, the U.S. Navy, the Defense Intelligence Agency and 35 years of law practice in Honolulu. Still, the Lord kept calling softly.

Following Ignatius of Loyola, I read about the lives of the saints and began to engage in more Catholic activities. By God’s hand, I then discovered the Society of the Missionaries of Holy Apostles.

For those discerning a vocation — don’t wait.

Seize the hand of Christ. Persevere, persevere, persevere. As I approach priestly ordination, my joy is still in pursuit of the Lord.