February 11, 2005

Catholic san Francisco

Catholic san Francisco

Catholic san Francisco

Serving San Francisco, Marin and the Peninsula

See ‘About the cover,’ page 17

Serving San Francisco, Marin and the Peninsula

Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Sharing stories, building faith

10-11 From the rubble of Assisi -an exhibit of masterpieces and treasures: artifacts and art

The first issue of Catholic San Francisco was published Feb. 12, 1999.

Five years later, in June 2004, Catholic San Francisco was honored by the Catholic Press Association of North America with the prestigious award for “General Excellence.”

EDITORIAL, page 12

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9

Local students, schools wrestle with confusion, pain of Columbine High

Refugee relatives being sought in Bay Area by relief agencies

Jubilee Mass 2000 November 3, 2000

April 30, 1999

Catholic san Francisco

Catholic san Francisco

Abuse norms

Catholic san Francisco

Serving San Francisco, Marin and the Peninsula

Serving San Francisco, Marin and the Peninsula

FIFTY CENTS

‘When I was in prison . . . ’

Vigil in St. Mary’s Cathedral, baptizing one of the catechumens, above, and administering confirmation, lower left. Holding a candle at the top left is Javier Gutarra. Below is Janis Ng, one of seven students from St. Brigid School who were baptized during the liturgy.

(PHOTOS BY LUIS GRIS)

For more on St. Brigid’s students, see a story and picture on Page 3.

April 20, 2001

FIFTY CENTS

Catholic san Francisco

VOLUME 3

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No. 16

Pope John Paul II

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VOLUME 3

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No. 30

Fall Fest stories and pictures: Pages 5 and 13 Life Conference: Page 3

Vocations section: Blending old and new

‘Ten Commandments for Long Haul’ . . . . . . . . . . . 17

~ Pages 10-15 ~

Capsule Film Reviews . . . . . 22

FIFTY CENTS

Sesquicentennial Issue

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION Uphill battle for life

Pope pleads for peace, suffering children . . . . . . . . . 5

January 11, 2002

Proclaiming the Good News to All Creation

ABUSE NORMS, page 8

The News in Brief . . . . . . . . . 4

~ Page 3 ~

Sesquicentennial Issue

To the left: Therese Troppy and her daughter Briana at the cathedral.

Below: Fall Fest participants gather at the University of San Francisco

On the Street Where You Live . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Interfaith observance will focus on peace

COVERAGE OF THE TERRORIST ATTACK ON AMERICA BEGINS ON PAGE 3.

September 21, 2001

While the questions to be examined are not minor ones, Vatican officials confirmed the optimistic prediction of U.S. church leaders that finetuning on the norms could be finished by midNovember.

“I’m certain an agreement will be reached, maybe even before November. It’s a question of improving the language, not rewriting the policy,” one senior Vatican official said Oct. 21.

The official said it was wrong to read the Vatican’s uneasiness with some of the norms as censure. “Just because they said some language was ambiguous doesn’t necessarily mean they considered it awful,” the official said.

He confirmed that while commission members had yet to be formally named, some work had already begun in Rome.

At a meeting in Dallas last June, the bishops overwhelmingly approved the “essential norms” that outlined strict penalties against priests who sexually abuse minors, along with a “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

Vatican approval, or “recognitio,” would make the norms binding in all U.S. dioceses.

Almost immediately after the bishops presented the norms, however, experts at the Vatican found fault with some points. They questioned the policy’s wide definition of sexual abuse, the lack of a statute of limitations, the role of lay review boards and the harshness of penalties imposed, including automatic removal from priestly ministry.

Yet even with those misgivings, some of the Vatican’s top officials were prepared to allow the norms to be implemented on an experimental basis, with a joint review after a year or two of experience.

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION

Catholic san Fr ancisco

Shepherd to the World:

Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

(PHOTO BY ARTURO VERA)

(PHOTOS BY CATHY JOYCE)

(CNS PHOTOS FROM REUTERS)

The terrorist attacks on America marked September 11 as "a dark day for humanity,’ said. Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, president of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops. Above: Clockwise from the top left are the World Trade Center collapsing, then standing in ruins, the fire as seen across the Brooklyn Bridge, mourners at the funeral of New York fire chaplain Franciscan Father Mychal Judge, Pope John Paul II praying for the victims. Bottom left: religious and civic leaders at San Francisco’s Day of Remembrance.

Archdiocese of San Francisco 1853 – 2003

(PHOTOS BY CATHY JOYCE)

New Light, New Life Archbishop William Levada presides at the Easter

VOLUME 3

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No. 37

More than 300 young adults gathered at the University of San Francisco Oct. 19 for the sixth annual Fall Fest, exploring the theme: “God: A Really Big Issue.

Where is God in Our Lives?”

The annual Respect Life Conference, “Celebrating Life,” also last Saturday explored a variety of issues in a series of sessions at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

News Analysis

Inmates at San Quentin join in a Mass celebrated in the prison last month by Archbishop William Levada.

The liturgy is one aspect of the Archdiocese’s ministry to prisoners.

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Catholic san Francisco

Looking for God, Celebrating Life

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The creation of a U.S.-Vatican commission to revise the U.S. bishops’ sex abuse norms reflected a compromise between Vatican officials who wanted to reject the norms outright and others who favored an experimental implementation.

By creating an additional step, the Vatican gave everyone more time to study the details — and offered the bishops another chance to win the Vatican’s blessing.

VOLUME 2

No. 12

Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

By John Thavis Catholic News Service

A DARK DAY FOR HUMANITY

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Catholic san Francisco

Revisions sought

by Vatican could be done in month

Serving San Francisco, Marin and the Peninsula

VOLUME 1

See stories and photos on pages 10, 11, 13

FIFTY CENTS

Crime, punishment and redemption

~ Page 7 ~

Archbishop’s Message. . . . . 3

Bishops make a friendly baseball bet. . . . . . 2

Former Archbishops of San Francisco

Support for Father Vitale . . 6 Grieving, Healing . . . . . 9-12

Greatest Moments . . . . . . . 6

Call to evangelize . . . . . . . 15

~ Page 14 ~

~ Pages 14–15 ~

Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

We are the Body of Christ

Notable Quotes . . . . . . . . 18

~ Pages 16-17 ~

Remembrances & Hopes . . 24

October 25, 2002

No. 1

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Catholic san Francisco

Catholic san Francisco

Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Serving San Francisco, Marin and the Peninsula

VOLUME 4

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No. 34

Parish Chronology . . . . . . 22

Current News. . . . . . A1-A24

Film reviews. . . . . . . . . . . 18

www.catholic-sf.org July 25, 2003

FIFTY CENTS

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No. 24

Catholic san Francisco

Grace, a CRS health worker, is on staff at the Lebone refugee camp in Southern Sudan.

Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — While governments should not have a religious identity, they weaken democracy if they try to limit their citizens’ expressions of faith to the private sphere, Pope John Paul II said.

“While respecting a healthy sense of the state’s secular nature, the positive role of believers in public life should be recognized,” the pope said Oct. 10 during a meeting with the parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Some 330 parliamentarians from 49 countries were in Rome for the assembly’s Oct. 9-10 conference on the freedom of religion.

Pope John Paul told the group, “It is true that many young people today grow up without being aware of the spiritual heritage that is theirs.”

But, at the same time, he said, religious faith continues to influence large groups of citizens who have a right to bring their religious and moral values to bear on public life.

When believers are free to express their faith and when they respect the religious beliefs of others, a “healthy pluralism” and an increase in democracy follow, he said.

“When states are disciplined and balanced in the expression of their secular nature, dialogue between the different social sectors is fostered and, consequently, WEAKER DEMOCRACY, page 18

Pope John Paul II soon after his election in 1978.

Church in politics . . . . . . . . 3

News-in-brief Iranian lawyer wins Nobel Peace prize ~ Page 5 ~

~ Page 9 ~

Fall Fest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 History on TV . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Pope John Paul II . . . . . 10-15 Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Movie reviews . . . . . . . . . . 22

www.catholic-sf.org Ocotber 17, 2003

FIFTY CENTS

VOLUME 5

By Agostino Bono Catholic News Service WASHINGTON — The steady rise in the number of poor people in the United States and those without health insurance challenges the nation to a nonpartisan reassessment of its priorities, said a Catholic expert in health care issues.

“These are chronic ills that have plagued our society for decades — through both Democratic and Republican administrations,” said Father Michael D. Place, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association.

Father Place was commenting on

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION Oct. 19 beatification of Mother Teresa at St. Peter’s Basilica

U.S. Catholic officials worried by rise in number of poor, uninsured

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No. 33

Cover Art: The Virgin Mary and Christ Child are depicted in the icon of the Theotokos or Mother of God - from the Byzantine-Ruthenian chapel at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Fourth sunday Immaculate Conception in of advent: Washington.

December 21

December 19, 2003

the Aug. 26 release by the U.S. Census Bureau of its annual report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage.

The report, for the year 2003, said the number of people below the U.S. poverty line increased by 1.3 million with more than 60 percent of the increase among children under 18 years of age.

In terms of percentage, the number of poor increased by 0.4 percent to 12.5 percent of the U.S. population.

The Census Bureau also reported a 1.4 million rise in the number of people lacking health insurance and said household POOR AND UNINSURED, page 18

Children at a Catholic Relief Services agricultural demonstration site in Northern Uganda. Story on page 12.

State’s Bishops support challenge to constitutionality of statute law

By Jack Smith

"The Daffodils," a collage brush painting by last year’s kindergarten class at St. John Elementary School, took the bronze medal in San Francisco Youth Arts Festival competitions. The artwork is hanging in the Civic Center Courthouse, 400 McAllister St., through May 2005.

Diane Aubry is St. John’s kindergarten teacher.

Liturgy adaptations . . . . . . . 6 Oakland Cathedral . . . . . . . 8 St. Thomas the Apostle . . . 9

St. Joseph’s Family Center

Editorial & Letters. . . . . . 12

~ Pages 10-11 ~

www.catholic-sf.org

St. Patrick Seminary . . 14-15

VOLUME 5

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No. 41

News-in-brief ~ Pages 4-5 ~

Pastoral Plan Update ~ Pages 10-11 ~

September 3, 2004

‘Hero’ movie review ~ Page 17 ~

FIFTY CENTS

January 1, 2003, plaintiffs could file civil claims in sexual abuse cases regardless of the age of the alleged offense, whether the claim had already been settled, or whether the claim was previously barred by statute of limitations.

Bishops’ Statement . . . . . .PAGE 14 By the close of 2003 nearly 800 previously barred civil actions were filed; nearly 500 such cases against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Cases involve allegations of abuse dating as far back as 70 years. One-third of the cases in Los Angeles involve allegations against 68 priests who are deceased.

The challenge to the constitutionality of the law concerns a case filed in California against Davenport priest Father James Jannsen and the Diocese of Davenport. In 2003, an unnamed plaintiff filed suit in California accusing the Iowa priest of abusing him nearly 30 years ago during a trip to California. The Davenport Diocese was granted the right May 25 to have the case heard in Federal Court, instead of a California State court, where the diocese will challenge the constitutionality of SB 1779.

Susan Oliver, an attorney representing the Davenport Diocese said, “This case gives us an avenue STATUTE LAW, page 21

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION

Archbishop’s column . . . . . 3

FIFTY CENTS

California’s Catholic Bishops issued a statement this week endorsing a challenge by the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to a California law eliminating the time limit on seeking civil damages in decades-old sexual abuse cases. The bishops claim the 2002 law, Senate Bill 1779 sponsored

by Senator John Burton (D-San Francisco, violates the ex post facto, due process and bill of attainder clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

The California Legislature passed SB 1779 in June 2002 and Gov. Gray Davis signed the bill into law later that year. For a period of one year, beginning

(CNS PHOTO BY GREG TARCZYNSKI)

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

(CNS FILE PHOTO BY ARTURO MARI)

Democracy weaker if faith excluded from public life, pope says

San Rafael’s St. Raphael Parish opened Marin county’s first Catholic pre-school August 23. Pre-schools are in operation at several parishes in the Archdiocese including St. Paul’s and Sts. Peter and Paul in San Francisco, and Our Lady of Angels in Burlingame. From left: Mary Lessard, director; Marleny Samayoa, Zachary Martinez, Father Paul Rossi, pastor; Socorro Sandoval, Edith Yates, head teacher; Susan Flores, Jordan Mulligan.

(PHOTOS BY CRS)

(CNS FILE PHOTO)

Pope John Paul II greets a throng of people gathered for Mass near the Caracas airport in Venezuela in 1996.

In 25 years, the pontiff has logged more than 700,000 travel miles visiting 129 countries.

(PHOTO BY SUSAN NEFF)

(CNS PHOTO BY NICK CRETTIER, COURTESY THE BASILICA OF THE NATIONAL SHRINE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION)

Historic Papacy Marks 25 Years

Seminarians on celibacy. . . 3

Portland bankruptcy . . . . . . 3

New principals. . . . . . . . . . 6

News-in-brief. . . . . . . . . . . 4-5

First day of school . . . . . . . 9

Clergy study days . . . . . . . . 6

Columnists. . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Public schools abuse . . . . . . . 7

Scripture and reflection . . . 14

Columnists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Catholic perspective . . . . . 15 Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

This Catholic Life

Stuart Hall’s first graduating class

Feast of the Chinese Martyrs

Archbishop’s column . . . . . . 17

www.catholic-sf.org

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~ Page 10 ~

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www.catholic-sf.org

VOLUME 6

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No. 27

July 16, 2004

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Datebook & Review . . . . 18-19 VOLUME 6

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No. 23

Walk for Life . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Christians in Iraq. . . . . . . . . 6

Catholic Schools Week Section News-in-brief ~ Page 4 ~ January 28, 2005

~ Pages 1CS-12CS ~

Archbishop on settlements. . 7 Editorial and letters . . . . . . . 8 Columnists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Scripture and reflection . . . 10

Indonesia tsunami aid Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 ~ Page 13 ~ www.catholic-sf.org

SIXTY CENTS

VOLUME 7

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No. 3

Vatican says pope’s condition improves, hospitalization is precaution

By John Thavis ROME (CNS) – Earlier this week, the Vatican said Pope John Paul II continued to improve, but his doctors were keeping him in the hospital for a few more days as a precaution.

The 84-year-old pontiff felt well enough to deliver a brief blessing to the faithful six days after he was hospitalized for flu-related breathing problems.

But his weak health prompted renewed speculation over papal resignation.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, told reporters Feb. 7 that eventual resignation was a decision that must be left to the “conscience” of the pope.

The cardinal added that he hoped the pope would continue in the papacy for several more years.

Although the pope’s respiratory condition continued to improve and his fever was

gone, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said this week that the pope would remain in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital for “prudential reasons” at least until Feb. 10.

Navarro-Valls said the pope was eating regularly, sitting in a chair several hours a day and reading some of the hundreds of get-well messages and letters that have poured into the hospital.

The pope also was glancing at the daily newspapers. According to the papal spokesman, the pope said he was doing so “in order to follow the progress of my illness.”

The pope was rushed to the hospital Feb. 1 after he had trouble breathing.

Doctors at Gemelli diagnosed an “acute laryngeal tracheitis,” or swelling in the throat, with “laryngeal spasms,” which cut off the air supply. The Vatican said the spasms had not recurred.

POPE’S CONDITION, page 5

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION Parental notification . . . . . . 3 News-in-brief . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Megan Furth Academy at Sacred Heart/ St. Dominic Post-Tsunami efforts

~ Pages 10-11 ~

Assisted suicide . . . . . . . . . 8 Commentaries . . . . . . . . . 13 Scripture and reflection . . . 14 Parenting books . . . . . . . . 18

Million Dollar Baby

Classified ads . . . . . . . . . . 19

~ Page 17 ~

www.catholic-sf.org

~ Page 5 ~ February 11, 2005

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No. 5

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Catholic San Francisco

February 11, 2005

On The Where You Live

by Tom Burke Grateful for Pedro Frias’ 30 years among them is the parish family of St. Gabriel Parish in San Francisco. “Pedro came to St. Gabriel in 1974 when Monsignor Francis Quinn, now Bishop Quinn, was pastor,” said Mercy Sister Pauline Borghello, principal, St. Gabriel Elementary School. “He is often the one person who knows all the details about Christmas had many facets at life around the parish plant.

Many times the staff can be San Domenico High School including a gingerbread house heard responding to quescompetition. Among competing tions about the compound with ‘Ask Pedro.’” Sister seniors were, from left, Pauline has been principal of Katherine Edwards, Jaime Castner, and Rebecca Busch. St. Gabe’s for 24 years.

Pedro and his wife, Shirley, are the proud parents of Damacia, Pedro Jr. and Virginia….Students at San Mateo’s St. Matthew Elementary School have donated more than $3,500 to tsunami relief. “With plastic bags of pennies, nickels and dimes, the students responded eagerly to the need for help,” said school mom, Liz Doherty.

Liz and her husband Jim are parents of 4th grade triplets, Matthew, Kathryn and Christine. Daughter Lindsey, a St.

Father John Ryan, pastor, St. Gabriel Parish, and Pedro Frias.

Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Official newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco

Most Reverend William J. Levada, publisher Maurice E. Healy, associate publisher & editor Editorial Staff: Jack Smith, assistant editor; Evelyn Zappia, feature editor; Tom Burke, “On the Street” and Datebook; Patrick Joyce, contributing editor/senior writer; Sharon Abercrombie, reporter Advertising: Joseph Pena, director; Mary Podesta, account representative Production: Karessa McCartney, manager; Tiffany Doesken Business Office: Marta Rebagliati, assistant business manager; Virginia Marshall, advertising and promotion services; Judy Morris, circulation and subscriber services Advisory Board: Jeffrey Burns, Ph.D., James Clifford, Fr. Thomas Daly, Joan Frawley Desmond, James Kelly, Deacon William Mitchell, Kevin Starr, Ph.D. Catholic San Francisco editorial offices are located at One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco, CA 94109. Tel: (415) 614-5640 Circulation: 1-800-563-0008 or (415) 614-5638 News fax: (415) 614-5633 Advertising: (415) 614-5642; Advertising fax: (415) 614-5641 Advertising E-mail: jpena@catholic-sf.org Catholic San Francisco (ISSN 15255298) is published weekly except the Fridays after Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas and the first Friday in January, twice a month during summer by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, 1500 Mission Rd., P.O. Box 1577, Colma, CA 94014. Periodical postage paid at South San Francisco, California.

Postmaster: Send address changes to Catholic San Francisco, 1500 Mission Rd., P.O. Box 1577, Colma, CA 94014 If there is an error in the mailing label affixed to this newspaper, call 1-800-563-0008. It is helpful to refer to the current mailing label.

Student Council reps hold proud proceeds from tsunami relief collection at St. Matthew Elementary School. Back from left: Samantha Pastorino, Gianna Rossi, Kyle Nelson, Chris Afiesh, Brent Jackson, Meagan Martin, Kristen Schrup. Middle from left: Abby Jones, Tommy Wall, Jeanette Jacobo. Front from left: Kimmy Ransom, Jordan Kelleher, Stephen McEvoy, Rosie Ceja, Rachel Cunningham, Alex Wall.

Matt’s and Notre Dame High School alum, is now a freshman Carolyn Moore, a member of the Mercy faculty for 34 years, at Westmont College in Santa Barbara. Happy anniversary to has been recognized as a California Teacher of Excellence. The Jim’s folks, Gloria and Jim Doherty, longtime parishioners of honor comes from the California Association of Teachers of St. Catherine of Siena in Burlingame and married 49 years in English and acknowledges Carolyn’s “continued brilliance in the classroom, her commitment to profesDecember…. Welcome aboard at Mercy sional development and her generosity in High School, San Francisco to Colleen working with fellow teachers,” said colMcGuinn, the school’s new Director of league Liz McAninch. English teacher School Advancement and Public Charles Schaefer has been named a Relations. She’s the proud mom of Alaina, 2004 Claes Nobel Educator of 4-1/2 and Jack, just a few days shy of his Distinction. “The award recognizes indifirst birthday. Colleen graduated from San viduals who excel in encouraging young Rafael’s Terra Linda High School and people to strive for greatness and to completed undergraduate work at San embrace their mantle as our future world Diego State University. She has made her leaders,” Colleen said. Charles was nomihome in Florida for the last 10 years. nated for the honor by junior, Gabriella Colleen’s mom is Mercy alum Louise Third-graders Lucie Ackley, Kiana Rolfes McGuinn and her dad is retired Cacchione, Eric Timmerman, and Andrew Tellez, one of his students….The email address for Street is now City firefighter Martin J. McGuinn, Caine came to school at Atherton’s St. Jr. of St. Isabella Parish in San Rafael Joseph’s School of the Sacred Heart with- burket@sfarchdiocese.org. As this conwhere Louise “taught 4th grade forever and out socks so they could understand what tinues to be but an empty space without now is a resource person,” Colleen said. hundreds of people experience every day. you, please jot it down and get those items Joining Colleen as Mercy’s newest staffer is The sans socks exercise prepared the stu- in here??!! All the rest is the same. Mailed Nilsa Lennig, Director of Community dents for their school-wide clothing drive items should be sent to “Street,” One and Alumnae Relations. Nilsa is a grad of where they collected 1230 pairs of socks, Peter Yorke Way, SF 94109. Pix should St. Stephen Elementary and Mercy, class 950 pairs of underwear, and $1200 worth of be hard copy or electronic jpeg at 300 of 1998. She holds an undergraduate degree gift cards for clients of Catholic Charities dpi. You can reach me at (415) 614-5634.

Thank you!!! from University of California at Davis. who are living in transitional housing.

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February 11, 2005

Catholic San Francisco

3

One parental notification initiative seeks signatures, another fears confusion

By Patrick Joyce The Parents Right to Know and Child Protection Initiative, a measure requiring parental notification before an abortion is performed on a daughter under 18, has gathered 475,000 signatures and seems well on its way to a place on the California ballot next year.

Backers of the initiative say the number of abortions in California would drop “a minimum of 20,000” in the first year, if the initiative becomes law. The state’s Legislative Analyst says that, based on experience in other states, the rate of abortions on minors in California would be cut by up to 25 percent a year.

The initiative prohibits a physician from performing an abortion on a minor until 48 hours after notifying at least one of the girl’s parents or guardians that their daughter is seeking an abortion. The initiative allows for an immediate abortion in a medical emergency. It defines a medical emergency as a condition so serious as to require “an abortion to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”

Minors in California may now undergo abortions without the knowledge or consent of their parents. A 1987 law required parental consent or a court order but it was struck down by the state Supreme Court in 1997 as a violation of the state constitution’s right to privacy provision.

A second parental notification initiative has also qualified for circulation but its backers have not begun seeking signatures. They say the first initiative is legally flawed, but they are in the process of deciding whether it is wise to have competing initiatives in circulation.

The California Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of California’s bishops, is concerned about the potential for legal questions and the possibility of voter confusion. “An attempt to put one or both of these initiatives on the ballot at this time will do little to advance either the cause of life or family,” said Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the conference.

Dolejsi said the first initiative is unlikely to win voter approval or survive legal challenges. The second would have a better chance of winning but if both measures are on the same ballot, confusion among voters would make its passage “problematic,” he said.

“Polls have consistently shown that a parental notification initiative focused on parental responsibility and/or family unity can pass in California because it enjoys support of both ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ voters,” he said.

The first initiative will not capture that broad base of support, he said. Its “sanctions, record-keeping and reporting requirements” will allow the initiative’s opponents “to characterize it as an attack on the ‘right to choose’” rather than a family-oriented measure, Dolejsi said. “In addition, our lawyers have warned us that it may be successfully challenged on legal grounds.”

“The language of the second initiative is the result of a consensus among pro-life affinity groups, including the CCC, and their lawyers, all of whom met six months ago,”

Dolejsi said. “Its political prospects appear positive, but given that it could be competing with a similar subject initiative—thereby dividing and confusing the electorate—its passage becomes problematic.”

However, Albin Rhomberg, spokesman for the first initiative said it will survive legal challenges, get on the ballot, win voter approval and become law. Supporters cite polls showing strong support for parental notification: 71 percent in a 2002 Zogby poll in California. Last year, 73 percent favored laws requiring parental consent for abortions on minors, according to a nationwide Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll taken last year.

Because of the popularity of such laws, anyone who opposes the initiative “will do it at considerable political peril,” Rhomberg said. “Planned Parenthood and the ACLU will oppose it but I doubt that the Democrat Party will.”

Rhomberg claimed the first initiative would withstand legal challenges. As an amendment to the California Constitution, it could not be overturned in state court, and it was crafted in a way that will make it impossible for opponents to get a court order to stop its implementation, he said. The measure has been designed to survive challenges in federal court, too. It is modeled on other states’ parental notification laws that have been upheld in federal court, he said.

The initiative allows parents to waive the 48-hour notification period, and daughters could go to court to avoid having their parents notified. Doctors would be required to report abortions on minors and the state health department to publish annual statistics. The minor would not be named in the doctors’ reports and the identity of the doctor would be confidential. The initiative does not include criminal penalties for violations of the law.

A final provision of the initiative prohibits forcing a minor to undergo an abortion. This provision is strongly opposed by backers of the second parental notification initiative that has qualified for circulation.

Nonetheless, the first measure might not even get on the ballot because its provision on coerced abortions violates the “single subject rule” for initiatives, supporters of the second initiative say. Even if it does qualify, they say, it will fail to win voter approval because other provisions, especially a requirement that doctors report abortions on minors, will alienate “pro-choice” voters.

Mark Bucher, a spokesman for the second initiative, said the rhetoric of supporters of the first measure, such as the use of the word “abortionist” in its literature, also will make it difficult to attract voters who support both abortion rights and parental rights. Rhomberg acknowledges the need to attract “pro-choice” voters in an election but said that in signature gathering, “You appeal to the base. That’s what we’re doing to get it qualified.”

“The single subject rule is the biggest problem,” Bucher said. “I’m an attorney and it scares me to death. . . Their initiative is all about parental notification but two clauses at the very end prohibit forcing a girl to have an abortion, presum-

Post-abortion healing groups to be offered Project Rachel, the post-abortion healing ministry of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, is organizing a small group healing program, to start in late February. The program will be an opportunity for women hurting from the pain of an abortion to gather for group support and healing under the facilitation of a licensed Catholic psychologist. The program is open both to women who have experienced a healing process and desire continuing support and to newcomers suffering hurt from a past abortion.

Project Rachel has offered one on one confidential peer

counseling for several years. This new program will offer women “the ability to share their pain together with the security of a skilled facilitator and to feel the outpouring of Christ’s mercy while healing with the support of others,” said Mary Ann Schwab, Project Rachel coordinator.

The confidential small group meetings will take place on Saturday mornings in Menlo Park from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. Cost is $40 per session, but scholarships are available. Call confidentially at 415-717-6428 to register or for more information.

Ned Dolejsi ably by the parents. What does a parent forcing their daughter to have an abortion have to do with parental notification?”

Katie Short, legal director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, said the provision will withstand a single-subject challenge. The initiative is about “child protection,” she said. That means “protecting her from her own inexperience” by notifying her parents and protecting her from being forced into having an abortion by a boy friend, parents or anyone else.

In addition to including the anti-coercion provision, the first initiative requires the use of Spanish as well as English in the notifications. The second initiative does not.

The first initiative campaign plans to spend up to $1 million on signature gathering. Its supporters include Jim Holman, publisher of weekly newspapers, former California Senate president pro tem David Roberti, and former Assemblywoman Barbara Alby, a promoter of the state’s original parental consent law.

The second initiative is backed by a coalition of organizations including the Christian Coalition, Focus on Family and the California Republican Assembly, Bucher said.

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Catholic San Francisco

NEWS

February 11, 2005

in brief

(CNS PHOTO BY ALESSIA GIULIANI, CATHOLIC PRESS PHOTO)

4

Catholic leaders criticize challenge to conscience clause on abortion OAKLAND — California’s Catholic bishops and a spokesman for Catholic health care organizations in the state have expressed dismay at efforts to overturn a federal “conscience clause” protecting those who refuse to perform abortions. In a joint statement, Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, who is president of the California Catholic Conference, and William J. Cox, president of the Alliance of Catholic Health Care, objected to a suit filed late last month by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer to challenge the clause as unconstitutional. The provision, the Hyde-Weldon Amendment, was part of the 2005 Health and Human Services appropriation bill signed by President George W. Bush two months ago. It states that agencies or local governments that discriminate against doctors, hospitals or programs for refusing to provide, pay for or refer for abortions may not receive funding under the act. Lockyer said the amendment would allow the U.S. government to block $49 billion in funds allocated to California if the state barred funding to a hospital or health care provider who refused to perform an emergency abortion.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, at the Vatican Feb. 8. Rice, on an eight-nation European tour, urged Europe to put aside differences over the Iraq War and open a new chapter in relations with the United States to help it spread democracy worldwide.

assets. Since then two other dioceses — Tucson, Ariz., and Spokane, Wash. — have also filed for Chapter 11 protection from bankruptcy. Under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, an entity does not actually go bankrupt; it works to restructure itself under court supervision to compensate creditors and claimants equitably without having to liquidate all its assets and dissolve itself. Of 148 Catholic parishes and missions in western Oregon, 69 have joined a coalition to protect parish interests in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings.

authorities killed two protesters during a Jan. 11 protest outside the proposed mine site, according to a Jan. 26 action alert issued by the Geneva-based Franciscans International. Guatemalan President Oscar Berger later said Bishop Ramazzini should have calmed the protesters. Amnesty International, in a Jan. 21 announcement, catalogued five assaults or threats against Guatemalan human rights activists in the first two weeks of January. “The number of attacks against human rights defenders can be linked to the lack of political will to deal with the longstanding issue of lack of justice and clandestine groups in Guatemala,” Amnesty International said.

sex abuse, including rape, the Boston Archdiocese reaffirmed its apology for “the crimes and harm perpetrated against children by priests.” The verdict could mean a life sentence for a man who has been one of the main figures in the clergy child sex abuse scandal that erupted in the Boston Archdiocese in 2002 and spread throughout the U.S. church. His sentencing was set for Feb. 15.

“Survivors of clergy sexual abuse, their family and friends have endured much suffering as a result of the depraved violations of human dignity perpetrated on them as children and teenagers,” said a statement released by the archdiocese Feb. 7. “It is important for the Archdiocese of Boston, in this moment, to again apologize for the crimes and harm perpetrated against children by priests who held the trust and esteem of families and the community,” said the statement. “Survivors and families who bear the wounds of these shameful acts are held with great tenderness in our prayers.” Shanley, 74, was found guilty on two counts of raping a child and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child. All the charges involved the same person, who said he was repeatedly abused by Shanley in the 1980s. The Boston Archdiocese announced last May that Shanley had been laicized. Laicization is permanent dismissal from the clerical state.

VATICAN CITY — On her first visit to the Vatican and Italy as U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice was unable to meet with Pope John Paul II and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, as both men were ill. Rice instead had separate meetings Feb. 8 with the No. 2 Vatican official, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, and with Gianfranco Fini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, as part of her seven-day tour of Europe and Israel. During a 45-minute closed-door meeting, Rice, Cardinal Sodano and other officials from the Holy See’s Secretariat of State focused their talks on “various international problems,” particularly concerning the Holy Land, the Middle East and the situation in Asian countries,” spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said. “Attention was also given to the theme of religious freedom in various parts of the world” and “certain questions concerning bilateral relations were considered, reaffirming the will to collaborate in safeguarding and promoting spiritual values,” the Vatican text said. Rice’s visit was part of an eight-nation tour setting the stage for a trip by President Bush Europe later in February.

Court hearing set to determine whether archdiocese owns parishes In Boston, Shanley convicted on PORTLAND, Ore. — The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Portland has scheduled a hearing May 9 to begin addressing one four counts of child sexual abuse U.S. secretary of state meets CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — After a jury found laicized of the most vital questions in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing of the Portland Archdiocese: Who owns the Catholic priest Paul R. Shanley guilty on all four counts of child Vatican and Italian officials

(CNS PHOTO BY ERICK ROMMEL, CATHOLIC SPIRIT)

parishes and parish schools in the archdiocese? Dioceses across the country will be paying attention. The court’s ruling could have an impact nationwide on the way lawyers for victims of clergy sexual abuse seek to evaluate what church assets dioceses can be forced to use for settlement of damage claims. In late January the archdiocese, which covers the western third of Oregon, sent histories of 10 parishes to Judge Elizabeth Perris as test cases. The documents detail religious motivation, the purchase of land and construction of buildings, many built by parishioners’ volunteer labor. Lawyers for sex-abuse plaintiffs claim the archdiocese owns the parishes, an assertion rejected by church lawyers as contrary to canon law. When he announced the bankruptcy filing last July, Portland Archbishop John G. Vlazny told reporters church law barred him from seizing parish

Franciscan Sister M. Anne Maskey works with fourthgrader Katie Noble in late January at Sacred Heart School in South Amboy, N.J. Sister Maskey, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, is an instructional aide who helps students with their schoolwork. They give her the opportunity to return to the classroom environment that she loves.

HELPLINES FOR CLERGY/CHURCH SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIMS 415-614-5506 This number is answered by Barbara Elordi, Archdiocesan Pastoral Outreach Coordinator.

This is a secured line and is answered only

by Barbara Elordi.

415-614-5503 If you wish to speak to a non-archdiocesan employee please call this nunmber. This is also a secured line and is answered only by a victim survivor.

U.S. church leaders appeal for Guatemalan bishop’s safety WASHINGTON — U.S. church leaders, concerned over death threats directed against Guatemalan Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini Imeri, have appealed to U.S. and Guatemalan leaders to protect him. “For some time now, we have been receiving disturbing reports of attacks against church workers in migrant ministry, including break-ins of migrant centers and, more recently, of the death threats directed at some of these workers and at Bishop Ramazzini himself,” said Bishop John H. Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International Policy. In a Feb. 7 letter, Bishop Ricard asked John R. Hamilton, U.S. ambassador to Guatemala, to tell Guatemalan authorities “the concerns these reports have raised with people in this country.” Bishop Ramazzini, who heads the Diocese of San Marcos, has been an active advocate for Guatemala’s indigenous people and for land reform. He also has opposed a Canadian-U.S. firm’s creation of a gold mine where many indigenous people live in San Marcos. Guatemalan

Vatican official: Ukrainians are example to world VATICAN CITY — Ukrainians have stood up for their rights and adhered to their principles despite decades of communism and a recent election scandal, proving themselves to be an example to the world, said a Vatican official. Ukrainians “have given a splendid example to the world of the defense of a principle — the principle of the need for fair and honest elections in a democratic society,” said U.S. Archbishop John P. Foley in a Feb. 7 address to staff and students of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Archbishop Foley, head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, praised the country for what has been called “a miracle of peaceful protest and transition to a democratically elected government.” The Vatican released the archbishop’s written remarks Feb. 7. After Ukraine declared former Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych the winner of a Nov. 21 presidential election, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians protested peacefully. Opposition candidate Victor Yushchenko charged fraud and appealed to the Supreme Court, which ordered the Dec. 26 rerun. Yushchenko was declared the new president. The archbishop also praised Ukrainians who made many sacrifices under Soviet communist rule in order to profess their faith in God and their “desire to remain in union” with the pope.

– Catholic News Service

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Catholic San Francisco

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Parish spearheads post-tsunami efforts on Indonesia’s Nias island SIROMBU, Indonesia (CNS) — Thirty-year-old Faanle sought treatment at the medical clinic at Holy Cross Parish.

He was not sure what his ailment was, and the medical staff could do little to cure his daily aches and pains.

But Faanle, whose only child drowned in the Dec. 26 disaster, stays at the parish most days, deriving comfort from the priests, nuns and lay volunteers who come to Nias island from all over Indonesia to serve tsunami survivors.

Like Faanle, others also spend their days at the parish, and a continual stream of visitors waits in line to meet with the priests.

In late January, Amajuli Gulo, 50, brought two young villagers who sought the parish’s help. Gulo’s wife and four children were killed in the disaster.

Although he said he was still grieving and weeps at night when he is alone. Gulo said he has no desire to discuss his grief, preferring instead to focus on helping his equally traumatized neighbors survive.

“I still remember my wife and children, and when I remember, I cry. But I do not want to talk. I believe that God knows what I feel,” he said.

The tsunamis hit a sparsely populated area on the West coast of Nias, a predominantly Christian island of 700,000 people. However, those who lived in the traditional stilted, thatched-roof homes along the beach stood little chance of surviving because a dirt road accessible by motorbike offered the only escape route, explained Crosier Father Mathias Kuppens.

(CNS PHOTO BY PAUL HARING)

By Stephen Steele

Asimuni Giawa, 2, rests at a camp for people displaced by the tsunamis on the Indonesian island of Nias.

Father Kuppens, a barrel-chested 68-year-old Dutch missionary, coordinated the recovery effort, carrying corpses by motorbike several miles up a hill from the beach.

The priest said he sometimes carried a body in each arm while sitting behind a seminarian who drove the motorbike.

“By the third day, the bodies had decomposed so badly that we had no choice (but) to bury them in a mass grave. Every villager was there. There was a lot of crying and sadness, but we prayed that God would take care of them,” he said.

The bodies of all of the island’s dead were accounted for, an important element in the mourning process as the islanders’

Pope’s condition . . .

On Feb. 8, a group of Polish mountaineers serenaded the pope below his 10th-floor hospital room. They wore traditional costumes from the Tatra mountain region, where the pope used to hike as a young man, and carried a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. The pope did not come to the window.

Two days earlier, the pope pronounced a Sunday blessing in a weak voice from his hospital window and waved to well-wishers. The pope looked alert throughout the 10- Pope John Paul II waves to well-wishers from the window minute appearance, and several times he raised his hand in of his suite at Gemelli Hospital in Rome Feb. 6. greeting. That was enough to buoy many of the people who gathered on the hospital grounds and others who watched stantly for their intentions and for the needs of the world on giant video screens in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. during his hospital stay.

“In this way, even here in the hospital, among the other When the pope pronounced the blessing, however, it was in a feeble and hoarse voice that could barely be heard. sick people to whom my affectionate thoughts go out, I conPilgrims who gathered to watch at the Vatican expressed tinue to serve the church and all of humanity,” the text said.

Navarro-Valls said an “enormous package” of mail, includhope and some concern.

“Of course we’re worried, but we’re also very hopeful. ing many letters from the sick, had arrived at the hospital for the He seems to be recovering well,” said Trena Pilegaard, a pope. One woman enclosed a photo of her cancer-stricken boy.

“These are very touching letters from people who are 21-year-old student at the Rome program of Virginia’s opening their hearts to the Holy Father and confiding their Christendom College.

“Every rosary we say, we remember the pope,” she added. sufferings. The pope is keeping all of them in his prayers,” The pope had hoped to be able to pronounce his week- Navarro-Valls said. ly Angelus talk, but doctors ruled that out. Instead, Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, an assistant secretary of state, read the talk for him; the pope shifted occasionally in his chair and at times took a deep breath.

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■ Continued from cover

tradition is to bury the dead close to home, he added.

In Nias’ animist tradition, bad occurrences are believed to be retribution from God, but the priest said the tsunami was different.

“No one believes God had anything to do with this,” Father Kuppens said.

Since the disaster, Holy Cross Parish has hosted a number of dignitaries and celebrities who have promised to rebuild the island. In early January, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono held a press conference on parish grounds.

Father Kuppens, who has worked in Indonesia for about 40 years and is familiar with its culture of corruption, said he told the president’s wife, “Make sure you tell your husband not to let corruption steal from the people.”

Several hundred Nias residents were left homeless by the disaster, and the Indonesian government has promised to rebuild every destroyed home. It asked the Catholic Church to oversee most of the recovery effort.

Father Mickael To, a priest of the Sibolga Diocese appointed to head the tsunami relief effort, said the church will ensure that every penny donated to the island will be spent on survivors and those in need.

He said the church and government will rebuild some 300 homes and supply each villager with a small plot of land for farmers or provide fishing boats for fishermen.

Each home will cost about $1,000, he said.

“This is a grant; there will be no loans. We want to rebuild every home and help the people,” he said.

After the pope made the sign of the cross at the end of the blessing, he lingered a few moments at the window.

Cries of “Long live the pope!” went up.

Sister Maria Yasiurka, a Presentation sister from the pope’s native Archdiocese of Krakow, stood looking up at the pope’s window.

“We pray for him every day in our convent,” she said. “We also pray that he returns soon to the Vatican. We want to see him in St. Peter’s Square every Sunday for the Angelus.”

The pope has a neurological disorder believed to be Parkinson's disease, which has sometimes made breathing difficult during his public appearances. Medical experts said Parkinson's disease typically diminishes lung capacity as it progresses.

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Catholic San Francisco

February 11, 2005

T

ake a moment to look at these two photos. It’s hard to believe that it’s the same child.

Before

Imagine being

When Lester arrived at a nutritional center in Guatemala for malnourished children, he was on the brink of death.

At 13 months, he weighed just nine pounds and was suffering from diarrhea, vomiting, pneumonia and parasites.

In his first year of life, Lester knew nothing but hunger and sickness. His family took him to one hospital after another, where he was briefly treated and then released. At one hospital, he was refused admittance and his family was told, “He isn’t worth taking care of because he is going to die.”

told that your child isn’t worth helping because he is going to die.

After

to nurse a severely malnourished child back to health.

Crop failures and other natural disasters have had a devastating effect on Guatemala and many other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. Food shortages are increasingly common and it is often the children who suffer most.

Fortunately, the nun in charge of the nutritional center doesn’t believe in such death sentences. Sister Cristina believes in God’s healing power and lovingly took him in.

Throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, Food For The Poor works with churches, the clergy, missionaries and other servants of the Lord like Sister Cristina to help feed hungry children and their families. The need is overwhelming, but as you can see from Lester’s dramatic improvement, these efforts can make a profound difference.

After just two months of treatment, Lester had a renewed chance at life.

His weight nearly doubled to almost 16 pounds. The staff at the center cares for him and 60 other children, nourishing them not only with food, but also with love and faith.

Love and faith are what keep this center open. As Sister Cristina explains, “We operate solely on donations here.” It is God’s mercy and compassion at work in

others that enables her to heal these fragile children.

Unfortunately, malnutrition and starvation are all too common in Latin

America and the Caribbean. Without adequate nutrition, children’s minds and bodies cannot grow and develop properly. It can take months

Founded in 1982, Food For The Poor is a ministry working to end the suffering of the poor in the Caribbean and Latin America. Not only does the organization help nutritional clinics by providing food, medicines and medical equipment, but it also provides food to

February 11, 2005

Catholic San Francisco

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Catholic San Francisco

February 11, 2005

Hearings begin in California Assembly on assisted suicide legislation

By Patrick Joyce Assemblymember Patty Berg insisted that she is not trying to legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide but everyone – supporters as well as opponents – who attended a hearing last week in the Capitol clearly understood what her proposed legislation would do: allow doctors to help patients kill themselves.

Assemblyman Lloyd Levine and other supporters of the legislation described assisted suicide as an individual choice, beyond the reach of moral codes. “This is a very personal issue. . . It is not up to me to substitute my moral views on you and it’s not up to anyone else to substitute their moral views on anyone else,” Levine told an audience of several hundred, many of them opposed to assisted suicide.

Supporters of the legislation, however, frequently justified it by appealing not to scientific or legal principles but to a moral value: “compassion.” That use of the word was challenged by one speaker. “The root meaning of compassion is to ‘suffer with.’ That is why the true compassionate method of caring for dying people is hospice care,” Wesley Smith said.

Dr. Kenneth Stevens, a radiation oncologist from Portland, said Oregon’s assisted suicide law, the model for Berg’s proposal, does not give people who commit suicide any new rights. Instead, it provides legal protection for doctors who prescribe lethal doses of medication, Stevens said.

Supporters of the legislation did not disagree with him but praised the law as a compassionate way of dealing with painful death.

During the four-hour hearing, advocates of assisted suicide told stories about the deaths of loved ones. Natural deaths were long and painful, suicides quick and peaceful.

Opponents, many of them people with disabilities, spoke out strongly against the proposed legislation as the first step down a slippery slope. At the bottom, they said, is the doctor-assisted “suicide” of people who were never asked if the wanted to die.

Berg insisted that her proposal “is not euthanasia in which a physician or someone else directly administers a medication to end another’s life, Neither is it assisted suicide in which someone else assists the patient in hastening their own death.” Her bill is not in final form, but she told an audience of several hundred that, following the lead of Oregon’s seven-year-old law, it would give “mentally competent, terminally ill Californians who have less than six months to live the right to control their own death.”

“Our measure is a compassionate measure that provides choice at the end of one’s life with a long list of carefully crafted safeguards,” Berg, chair of the Assembly Aging and Long-Term Care Committee, said. “It is patient-controlled from start to finish. No one may make this choice on the patient’s behalf . . . Two physicians must confirm the diagnosis and prognosis and agree that the patient has less than six months to live. The patient must be found mentally capable of making decisions. . . .”

Opponents of the law said those “safeguards” don’t work in Oregon. They said doctors there have written lethal prescriptions for mentally incompetent people and for some people who may not even have had a terminal illness.

A psychiatrist found that an Alzheimer’s patient, Kate Cheney, did not have the ability to make informed choice.

He also reported that Ms. Cheney’s daughter seemed to be the moving force behind the request for assisted suicide.

The family then went “doctor shopping” and found a psychologist who said Ms. Cheney was mentally competent.

She later killed herself with doctor-prescribed medication.

Doctor shopping is a routine part of the assisted suicide process in Oregon, said Wesley J. Smith, a consultant for

the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide and author of the book “Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder.”

Euthanasia advocacy groups there refer patients “to doctors willing to write lethal prescriptions,” he said. “As a result, in some cases the death-prescribing doctors never treated the patients for their illnesses.”

The California Hospice Association opposed the proposed legislation, saying that California should focus its efforts on improving care for dying people rather than assisting them in killing themselves. “The association believes we should not spend limited resources helping people end their lives because they fear loss of autonomy and suffering,” Peter Kellison, a spokesman for the group said. Instead, California should “remove the barriers that result in those fears.”

Sally Adelus, a nurse who has been “on the frontlines of hospice and palliative care for over 20 years,” agreed. Her top priorities for the dying are early access to hospice services and effective pain management, often referred to as “palliative” care at the hearing. While care for the dying has improved in recent years, Adelus, executive director of the Hospice of the Valley in San Jose, said, “Much remains to be accomplished in long term care,” especially in providing adequate pain medication. “Early, I repeat early, access to effective pain management is paramount to relief of their suffering. . . . not just in the terminal stage. . . .”

As an example of the kinds of problems encountered by hospice workers, she described a patient who came to the hospice reluctant and frightened. His doctor had just shown him x-rays of his diseased throat and warned the patient he might “suffocate to death,” she said. “He was very fearful.

He wanted to go home. . . . This patient was experiencing profound anxiety, despair, absolute fear of suffocation.”

The man finally agreed to receive hospice care. The staff provided him with counseling and pain relief. His anxiety subsided and he “died very comfortably in his own home surrounded by his family,” Ms. Adelus said.

She concluded with two questions: “Are we truly confident that all terminally ill patients in California are in receipt of early – and I repeat early – access to effective pain management and have we maximized all palliative care options throughout the advancing disease? Only after we have definitively answered yes to these questions, can we begin to address the ensuing debate over physicianassisted suicide.”

Gary Passmore told the hearing that California should not wait until then. He told the hearing that he wished that “physician aid in dying” had been legal when his father was near death 15 years ago. His voice choking, Passmore described how his mother, aided by a son-law who was a doctor, had killed his father with a lethal injection 15 years ago.

While his father suffered a “living hell” in the final stages of cancer, Passmore said, his mother was the “real victim.” If Oregon-style physician-assisted suicide had been available at the time, he was sure his father would have chosen it and his mother would have been spared the suffering of killing “her partner of 45 years.”

Along with several other witnesses, Smith cited the dangers of legalizing doctor-assisted suicide in a cost-conscious health system. “The cost for the drugs used in assisted suicide is about $50,” he said. “It could take $500,000 to provide the patient with proper care so they don’t want

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assisted suicide. Should assisted suicide become legalized and legitimized, the economic force of gravity is obvious.

After all, what could be a ‘cheaper’ medical treatment then hastened death?”

In a public comment hearing, another speaker pointed out that for insurance companies, a patient’s $50 cost of a lethal prescription is “their last insurance claim.”

Dr. Kathryn Locatell, a geriatrician and palliative care specialist, took the opposite view about the profit motive.

“The medical industrial complex driving our state’s health care system makes far more money foisting unneeded, painful invasive treatments than it would by withholding them,” she said.

In her work with the dying, Dr. Locatell, said, “I have heard their wishes and hopes for a death that is as quiet and peaceful as is possible. I hope to ease the suffering of people as they die. Too many people die in our state in inhumane circumstances, contrary to their previously expressed wishes and with great suffering and pain.”

It is more common that doctors and family members force these patients to undergo, rather than forego, treatment, she said. “Patients have the right to determine what type of medical care they will receive when death is imminent,” she said. Those “treatment options” should include killing themselves with prescribed medication, Dr. Locatell said. If the Berg bill becomes law, she would offer this option to her patients, she said.

Steve Mason of Ashland, Oregon, enthusiastically agreed with Dr. Locatell’s position. Nine months ago, Mason said, he learned he had at most six months to live and decided to take advantage of Oregon’s assisted suicide law. Mason, who was described at the hearing as “poet laureate of the Vietnam Veterans of America,” said he is dying of cancer caused by herbicides used by American forces in Vietnam.

Mason said he would rather kill himself with prescription medication than “wither away to 80 pounds and have a nurse shave my beard to put a tube in my mouth.”

“The day I learned I was terminally ill . . . I decided I wanted to live as long as I could, as best I was able, and I wanted to die with the dignity with which I had lived,” he told the hearing. “So my life remains for me today as full as it has ever been . . . I am so liberated by knowing that when my time is up I get to choose, I an empowered.”

“I am a single entity but I am one with it all and it would be very difficult for me to speak truthfully that I am not concerned about the hundreds of thousands of others throughout this country who are suffering needlessly, hopelessly. . . . This is not anything but a civil rights issue.”

This is the first of a three-part series on assisted suicide.

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Catholic San Francisco

9

Real love or romance? Catholic college students examine differences

By Carol Zimmermann WASHINGTON (CNS) — By the time students finish taking Santa Clara University’s theology of marriage class, the professors are pretty sure these students will be able to tell the difference between romantic notions of love that are constantly thrown at them and the real thing.

“We break down the ‘knight in shining armor’ idea that there is one person just for you,” said Frederick J. Parrella, a religious studies professor at the Jesuit-run university who has been teaching the popular marriage course, which constantly has a waiting list, for more than 15 years. “We’re all made in God’s image,” the theologian stressed, adding that based on that idea, there is not necessarily one soul mate out there for everyone.

Finding the right person for a committed relationship involves meeting people, making the right decisions and not just going by feelings, which are bound to go away, he told Catholic News Service in a Feb. 4 telephone interview from Santa Clara, Calif.

One of the first assignments Parrella gives his students, who are primarily seniors, is to write about their deepest fears about relationships. Many of them say they are afraid to be alone or worried that they will choose a spouse too quickly while the person better suited for them remains at large.

In the span of the 10-week course, Parrella steers his students through the sometimes tricky love terrain by juxtaposing current books and movies that deal with love with deeper theological writings that delve into marriage as a sacrament and a reflection of God’s love.

The students watch clips from popular movies that present romantic love, such as Disney films, or Oscar-winners such as “American Beauty” and “As Good as it Gets,” and read “I and Thou,” by the late Jewish scholar Martin Buber, and “The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts,” by Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee.

Parrella points out that many people influenced by modern culture tend to idealize both the person they love and the whole notion of love.

To deflate some of this idealized romance, another professor who also teaches the class has his students finish their course work by doing a series of interviews with couples who have been married for at least 10 years.

After the students have had plenty of discussion about love on the big screen compared to a day-in-day-out commitment over the long haul, they are asked to test theories on these couples.

“I want them to go to the couple’s house, sit on the couch with the cat hair, watch the kids run around. Be right there in the middle of the chaos,” said religious studies professor Robert Brancatelli. “I want them to get a taste of that reality.”

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After conducting the interviews, the students write a 20-page report.

Parrella does not have his students interview the whole family because he feels they can draw enough background material, both good and bad, from their own experiences of growing up in a family.

He said his students are “remarkably savvy and aware” and sometimes will bring up examples from Frederick J. Parrella their own families, pointing out, for example, that their parents are divorced and wondering how they can avoid falling into that same pattern.

Over the 40 years the course has been offered at the university, Parrella said, it has evolved, particularly with different reading materials.

But one thing that has been a constant is the notion of committed love. He hopes his students leave the course with a deeper sense of what that is.

“It’s not something you get after you go to school, after you get a job,” he said. “It’s with you since the beginning.

It grows with you. We can either grow with it, or reject it.”

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Catholic San Francisco

February 11, 2005

February 11, 2005

Inspired, quality education in the Western Addition ne day in 2001, Jesuit Father Charles Gagan made a visit to a troubled Western Addition Catholic Elementary School and went back home to his parish of St. Ignatius to pray about it. Through much tumult and with the aid of an ever-widening group of supporters, that initial spark of interest and grace has resulted in the foundation of a new and innovative school in the heart of San Francisco – The Megan Furth Academy at Sacred Heart and Saint Dominic.

Four years ago, Sacred Heart Elementary, facing declining enrollment and rising deficits, was on the brink of closure. Fr. Gagan brought together a group of businessmen and educators with the short-term goal of raising the money to keep the school open for one more year. With that time, he and a committee of advisors hoped to be able to improve the school’s curriculum and physical plant in order to increase student performance and attract more applicants. “Fr. Gagan pulled together a strategic planning board committed to education in the Western Addition,” said Assistant Principal Savita Sahi, “He was the guardian angel.”

The fundraising was successful, and Sacred Heart began making significant improvements. In 2003, Sacred Heart merged with San Francisco’s other Western Addition Catholic School, St. Dominic.

Students in Kindergarten through Fourth Grade are at the Saint Dominic Campus and students in Fifth through Eighth grades are at the Sacred Heart Campus.

The merger initially aimed at the conservation of resources, but what has emerged through the redoubling of efforts by staff, Fr. Gagan and school Right, fourth grader benefactors is a high quality Catholic school offering Jana-Kaye Cruz a demanding classical, liberal arts education tailored to the needs of individual students. “At Megan prays with Fr. Charles Furth Academy, you’re seeing children who are ecoGagan, SJ at nomically disadvantaged receiving the exact educaceremony unveiling tional formula which has been the exclusive right of "Megan Furth the wealthy,” Principal Norma Dahnken told Catholic San Francisco. The goal of Megan Furth Academy" plaque.

Academy is that “every student who matriculates will be prepared by eighth grade to attend the High School of their choice,” Dahnken said.

Much of the thanks for the re-creation of Sacred Heart and St. Dominic as a highquality, high school preparatory school is due to the “significant, long-term commitment” of businessman and attorney, Mr. Fred Furth. In addition to a major financial commitment, Furth is involved in guiding and motivating the school, and this year has purchased all new desks and uniforms for the student body. The uniforms and the school now bear the name of Furth’s daughter Megan, herself an educator, who died unexpectedly two years ago. “Mr. Furth could have invested in a statue or a building to memorialize Megan,” Dahnken said, “but he wanted something living – to invest in the lives of children.”

Dahnken is “incredibly impressed” by the commitment of Mr. Furth and other supporters from the business community to Catholic education for inner-city students. “They recognized that if the students of these schools received quality education and it was a pro-

O

gram specifically tailored for their needs, then these students would be successful. . . . Not only do they believe it, they insist on it.”

Megan Furth academy is very upfront about the aid the school receives from donors.

“It is important that we all learn gratitude. Gratitude is part of what it means to be human,” Dahnken said. Nearly 60 percent of the school’s budget is covered by direct aid from donors and another 26 percent is paid by way of tuition assistance from private organizations. The school’s board and benefactors “are very committed to being the Church’s presence to children in the Western Addition,” Dahnken said, “They are very committed to providing a values-based, college preparatory education to children independent of their financial means.” Gratitude also helps students be successful, Dahnken believes. “When someone has made a sacrifice . . . When someone believes in you . . . then you are not by yourself because you have the strength and belief and trust of others behind you.”

The reciprocity of giving and receiving was demonstrated at a ceremony unveiling a plaque naming the school for Megan Furth in October. Mr. Furth assured the students on behalf of the board, “We will give you what you need to make choices to move ahead.” One of the student body officers then made the unsolicited remark to Mr. Furth, “We want you to know that Megan will stay alive through all of us.”

Dahnken, who sent her own children through Sacred Heart School, has a particular commitment to education for under-served or “mis-served” students. Prior to joining Megan Furth Academy, Dahnken was an “East Side” public school teacher and administrator. She sees the arrangement of a split campus, small classes and Catholic identity all in the service of the best possible education. Students in K through four and five through eight require a very different educational focus, she said. “In K through 4, you’re really building the educational foundation of skills. In five through eight, you’re still working on the foundation, but also applying it more to content.”

Assistant Principal Sahi said the split campus gives young students an early experience of responsibility. “The fourth graders are the big kids on campus,” at St. Dominic, she said. The primary campus has its own student Fred Furth unveils the “Megan government and student newspaper, and fourth graders assume responsibility by supFurth Academy” plaque. porting the lunch program, reinforcing rules on the school yard, teaching younger kids how to play games, and running a recycling program.

The small class size also helps in addressing the specific needs of each student, whether they need remedial help or would benefit from the school’s accelerated program, Sahi said.

The staff at each campus works together as a team and has received special training to implement the school’s philosophy and program, Dahnken said. “Each student needs to be identified individually and addressed individually.” The school has an integrated curriculum specifically designed for students who may not have received a good foundation, without sacrificing content, grade level, or a standards based approach to teaching, Dahnken said. “It’s sort of like you’re addressing the pier and re-checking the pilings to make sure everything is in place.”

While the school offers accelerated programs, it also expects much of students needing remedial help. “State standards are only a baseline,” Sahi said. Teachers and students are expected to “meet and exceed state standards . . . pushing Kindergarten into First grade expectations.”

11

Right, eighth grader Joshua Jetton and Dominican Father Peter Rogers at Mass in Sacred Heart Spiritual Center.

Megan Furth Academy at Sacred Heart – St. Dominic School

By Jack Smith

Catholic San Francisco

Second graders Emma Stokes and Zaunique Washington.

Left, third grader Antonio Jackson with Assistant Principal Savita Sahi.

Fourth grader Jada Hodge practices for Lunar New Year celebration.

An innovative and highly successful portion of the school’s program is its extended and attending a weekly Mass. On the primary campus, Mass is held at St. Dominic Church academic day. The Megan Furth Academy school day extends until 4 p.m., and during and on the intermediate campus at “Sacred Heart Spiritual Center.” extended session students are aided by “bridge teachers.” Some of these teachers are volWhile Mass has already been held in the Spiritual Center, it will be officially dedicated unteers or parents. The purpose of the extended session is to “bridge the classroom envilater this year. When Sacred Heart Church was closed for seismic safety reasons, the school’s ronment and the home environment,” according to Sahi. leadership team needed a place for worship. Thanks to a The extended session follows a structured format, and this $100,000 grant, which among other things, renovated year is focused on improving reading comprehension. kitchens on both campuses, a large room on Sacred Heart Accelerated classes for Seventh and Eighth graders campus was renovated to serve as both a dining room and include a study of the “Great Books,” introduction to High chapel. Student Government representatives from both School essay writing, and formal logic. All students at all campuses composed a letter to Archbishop William J. grade levels began an introduction to Latin this year. As Levada earlier this year asking for use of the Sacred Heart the curriculum advances and the children accommodate statue from the now closed church. Archbishop Levada by acquiring and building upon skills, an introduction to wrote back to the student council and gave them the statSpanish and Mandarin will be added. ue, which will be moved in a procession with students, staff Through the school’s Applied Academic and supporters later this year.

Curriculum and special Fun Friday learning opportuniAll students receive education in the Catholic faith and ties, students at Megan Furth Academy receive a broad also join in communal prayer and blessing of their teachers, education in culture and arts. Earlier this year, the benefactors, parents, and each other, every day. Sr. Anne is a African-American Shakespeare Company visited the presence in the lives of students through teaching religion, school and this week students will celebrate Lunar New St. Dominic Pastor Xavier Lavagetto, leading prayer, and becoming involved by visiting students Year. “We want students to value their own culture in the and families, particularly in crisis situations.

OP; Peggy Furth; Megan’ s father Fred context of learning about the cultures of the City,” Prayer is even a part of the sports program. Athletic Furth; Principal Norma Dahnken; Dahnken said. “In the process of learning about the Director Mike Ward not only leads students in praying the cultures of the City, students are able to see themselves Our Father before basketball games, he invites the opposMegan’s mother Donna Furth; Mr. as integrated and see their own culture as an important ing team and spectators to join in.

Furth’ s son-in-law Tom Bonomi; St. part of the City.”

“We teach religion, but we can’t teach faith,” Principal Ignatius Pastor Charles Gagan, SJ. Of critical importance to the success of Megan Furth Dahnken said, “Faith is a gift.” The school works to bring Academy and informing every aspect of its educational faith also “by our actions, by our care for the children, by livenvironment is the school’s Catholic identity. While a majority of students at Megan Furth ing and inculcating Christian values, and not neutralizing or hiding what we are – Catholic.”

Academy are not Catholic, Principal Dahnken said, “We are very clearly a Catholic school “We are the only statement for the Church in this part of the City,” Dahnken said. This and a Catholic presence in the Western Addition.” year 18 students have sought baptism or communion with the Catholic Church. What is The school chaplain is Dominican Father Peter Rogers and San Rafael Dominican more impressive, Dahnken thinks, is that several of these children have sparked the interSister Ann Providence is Director of Religious Education. Classes take turns preparing for est of their parents, some of whom are now enrolled in RCIA classes.

Right, Director of Religious Education Sister Ann Providence and Principal Norma Dahnken at Sacred Heart campus.

(PHOTOS BY JACK SMITH)

Left, second grader Dane Bradley presents a drawing of Megan Furth to her father Fred.

Children in first grade show off their new desks.

Students thank the Furth Family at ceremony unveiling "Megan Furth Academy" plaque.

12

Catholic San Francisco

February 11, 2005

Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Sharing stories, building faith ■ Continued from cover

Judges in the annual CPA award competition said, “This newspaper reflects the ethnic diversity of the Archdiocese of San Francisco in its international, national, and local reporting as well as its focus on overseas mission. Well-written stories are enhanced by sharp photographs, offering the reader a clean layout and a magazine feel.”

As we mark the sixth anniversary of Catholic San Francisco during Catholic Press Month, we look with pride upon the nearly 40 CPA awards won by the newspaper in a few short years for news and feature writing, investigative reporting, columns, design and layout, photography, advertising, special issues, editorial and commentary section and editorials.

In establishing Catholic San Francisco, Archbishop William J. Levada said, “The commitment to a weekly newspaper reflects a deeply held belief that increased communication will help us build a stronger community of faith, a more informed and involved laity, and a renewed commitment to the mission of the Church.”

Auxiliary Bishop John Wester, in an early reflection in Catholic San Francisco, said there is an extraordinary impact on our lives when we hear one another’s stories of faith, something he said the newspaper was uniquely able to accomplish in large scope.

Auxiliary Bishop Ignatius Wang also has been a contributor, knowing that without a newspaper, many of the stories of faith simply would not be written or shared by the people of the local Church, which is the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

In reviewing the past six years, the newspaper has been blessed by the contributions and support – seen and unseen — of pastors, clergy, religious and lay leaders. They allowed a place for Catholic San Francisco, and their openness has been rewarded.

Catholic San Francisco consistently has benefited from the hard work of a small but dedicated staff, and each staff member — current or former – has my sincere and heartfelt gratitude.

In the end, though, Catholic San Francisco always has been in the hands of God. When doubts clouded our vision, or worries weighed us down, or anxieties clawed at our resolve, we found peace and strength in Christ.

Catholic San Francisco, published 41 times a year, is provided free to all registered parishioners of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. We are grateful to parishioners for their contributions to the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal, a portion of which helps to support the paper. We also are thankful for the many benefactors who provide direct donations in our annual solicitation.

The largest source of funding for the paper comes from advertising revenue, and we have great appreciation for our advertisers.

Finally, we thank you, our readers. Your interest, support and loyalty are a daily inspiration as we work to maintain the respect you have given the newspaper.

We encourage you to share Catholic San Francisco with others.

If you have family members or friends who do not live in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, you can have the newspaper sent to them simply by purchasing a “non-parishioner” subscription. For addresses within California, the non-parishioner subscription rate is $27. For U.S. addresses outside of California, the nonparishioner subscription rate is $36. To arrange for a non-parishioner subscription, send name and full address to us – Catholic San Francisco, One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco, CA 94109 – along with a check covering the non-parishioner subscription amount.

MEH

Torture vs’ torture I was confused by the editorial of February 4th. While Father Coleman may be an expert on moral theology, he is not an expert on the Geneva Conventions. Terrorists are not prisoners of war as defined by the Geneva Conventions and therefore deserve none of the protections afforded to lawful POWs. In addition, these terrorists routinely violate the Conventions’ proscriptions against hostage-taking, killing of innocents, summary executions, etc.

Does Father Coleman believe that terrorists deserve the same safeguards as legitimate POWs? Father Coleman’s definition of torture lacks perspective. If he defines torture as the use of sodium pentothal (aka “truth serum”), isolation, playing of loud music, what word would he use to describe the terrorists’ treatment of hostages or the real torture under Sadaam’s regime (e.g. feeding dissidents feet-first into wood chippers). Is it Father Coleman’s opinion that these acts are morally equivalent?

Noting that those involved in the humiliation of prisoners have been sent to prison, why does Father Coleman believe that the only reason for our interrogations is “revenge” rather than the pursuit of information that could save the lives of military personnel and civilians alike?

But most of all, what does Father Coleman suggest when he states that the Church “cannot accept violence” and that “violence always provokes violence?”

What about the Church’s Just War Theory? And exactly what does he think will happen if we do not violently oppose these fascist-terrorists? I’m no expert on moral theology but I believe it is better to “violently” protect the innocent than it is to pray for their departed souls.

Kent Grealish Captain, SC, USNR (retired) Daly City

justify acts that seem undeniably torture (evil) in the name of fighting evil. How can this “end-justifies-the-means” approach support the ideals of American democracy, which, Fr. Murray asserts, rest upon a “religiously informed vision of the dignity of the human person and the role of the community in enhancing that dignity?” Can we not pray with the Pope’s Lenten message to “always respect and promote human life” even, I would add, when it is the life of a terror suspect?

Jack Hitchcock San Mateo

All called to battle In the last issue of Catholic San Francisco, my family’s favorite newspaper, we were inspired by the wisdom of Father Ron Rolheiser once again.

The good Father spoke about the theory of Satan and the ways and means we should focus on the destructive temptations of the prince of jealousy, bitterness, paranoia, obsession and lies.

I also read the letters to the editor, and thought about a concern that one of our flock spoke about; namely, the lack of representation San Franciscans had on the Board of Supervisors. The letter led me to believe that many of us rely upon individuals to represent us. We confuse issues that have temporary impacts with issues that have major lasting impact on the direction society may go; a direction that may differ with our Christian beliefs.

The question is, should we rely upon an individual, or should we rely upon the teachings of Christ? The eternal battle to do Christ’s work and our responsibility to spread the teachings of Jesus Christ may just be assisted by the privilege to vote.

Over the years it has become evident that Catholics and persons of other Christian faiths, must also fight against one of Satan’s most convenient and devious weapons used to thwart Christianity; namely, despair.

As Christians we must, I believe, realize that during our short time of life we carry a responsibility to devote our lives and work together for the betterment of all; devoid of self-aggrandizements that interfere and disrupt traditional family values consistent with our teachings.

Simply put, one way to fight the battle is to get involved with the voting process.

I believe it prudent to work closer as a community, to vote for issues and candidates that represent Christian values and to have faith, not despair, confidence and not reliance on a single individual. Together we can spread the will of Christ.

Richard Bodisco San Francisco

L E T T E R S

Respecting all life I found the February 4, 2005 issue particularly interesting, especially because of the editorial by Fr. Gerald Coleman on the subject of “torture and the human person” and the article by Msgr. Robert McElroy on the American theologian John Courtney Murray.

I have been struck that the torture dialogue going on in this country seems to be focused on laws, treaties and legal distinctions regarding who is entitled to their protections. The two articles mentioned above rather discuss the innate (God-given) dignity of the human person and that governments should act always to uphold that dignity. This is obviously a Gospel imperative.

Some in our government place most importance on such distinctions as “prisoner of war” vs. “terrorist suspect” to

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Year of the Eucharist In the 48 years that I’ve had rheumatoid arthritis, I’ve had 25 orthopedic surgeries. My strength and comfort has always been the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

In this “Year of the Eucharist,” may we all receive Jesus as often as possible, for he awaits to bring each of us an abundance of His wisdom and power in communion with one another.

Adrienne Moore, OCDS Novato

Need more marching I commend all the more than 7000 who participated in the “Walk for Life.” My question is where are all these people, especially clergy, when we march and demonstrate for the homeless who die on our streets; the people being killed in Iraq; the people on death row being killed in our name? Are not all these lives as precious in God’s eyes as the unborn?

Maria Brann Pacifica

February 11, 2005

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The Catholic Difference Prior to the devastating tsunami that wrought havoc across the Indian Ocean last December, many Christians probably thought that St. Paul was waxing metaphorical when he wrote about creation “groaning in travail” as it “awaits with eager longing the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8: 22, 19). Now we know. Or, perhaps better, now we have been reminded: creation is “groaning,” because creation has not experienced the finality of redemption. And when creation “groans,” its travail can have devastating effects.

It was probably inevitable that the tsunami would trigger a worldwide round of God-bashing, God-questioning, and God-denying (although it was a little surprising to find Dr. Rowan Williams, spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, publishing an op-ed piece under the title, “Of course this makes us doubt God’s existence”). Yet with the exception of Orthodox theologian David Hart, no one else I heard or watched or read asked what seemed to be the obvious question, which is not so much about God as about Satan. Surely someone in the punditocracy beyond the brilliant Dr. Hart might have asked, where is the Evil One in all this?

It’s not as if we live in a culture from which the idea of Satan has disappeared — not with the plethora of books, films, and creepy CDs on the satanic available over-the-counter at your local Barnes & Noble or Borders. But perhaps the satanic has been trivialized to the point where it seems unreal. It’s tough to sit in a megastore’s coffee shop, sip a latte, browse a

gothic novel, and take the satanic seriously – much less the “groaning” of creation. Then came the Asian tsunami: the expression of wounded and unredeemed nature, which will continue “groaning in travail” until the Second Coming, because of the damage done to the natural order in that primordial catastrophe tradition calls the fall of the angels.

Perhaps environmentalism also played an unwitting role in the lack of attention given the Evil One following the tsunami. The environmental movement has a lot of things to its credit, including the fact that air and water in the developed world are cleaner than they’ve been in half a millennium. Yet environmentalism has also reinforced an anti-biblical trend in western thought that first cropped up in 18th century Romanticism: the tendency to see the natural world as gentle and benign and the human world (like the world of cities) as broken, damaged, warped. In this construal of things, nature is “naturally” good, and civilization is ambiguous. The path to redemption lies in a return to nature from the corrupting influences of civilization and cities.

Yet the biblical image of the redeemed world is a city, the New Jerusalem, “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2). The city, not the world of nature, is where we shall find “the dwelling of God...with men,” the place where redeemed mankind will be “his people and God himself...will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more” (Revelation 21:3-4). What God has in mind for the consumma-

tion of creation and history is not what the Beatles had in mind: “Strawberry Fields Forever.” What God has in mind is a city. In the biblical view of things, nature is not unsullied and innocent; nature suffers from the George Weigel after-effects of the angelic fall; nature awaits its final redemption. Until that happens, nature is capable of, and will do, terrible things.

This is exactly the opposite of what much of our culture teaches us. The message from both Romanticism and environmentalism is that nature is innocent until it’s corrupted by human influence and human artifacts. There was nothing “innocent” about the tsunami, however; and human agency had nothing to do with its murderous effects. Indeed, it was a lack of human agency (in the form of undersea detection devices connected to land-based warning systems) that contributed to the vastness of the great wave’s destruction.

Creation is groaning. The Evil One is the reason why.

Something to think about during Lent.

them to consider suicide as a ‘solution.’ Few schools and communities have suicide prevention plans that include screening, referral and crisis-intervention programs for youth.”

Families and friends of suicide victims suffer many different feelings after the one they love has committed suicide — mainly loss, but many times guilt, a guilt that is not easily discarded. These feelings of guilt overwhelm the families of those who have taken their lives and lead them to ask: “What could I have done to prevent this? What did I or didn’t I do to make this happen?” Sometimes this spiraling guilt even leads to depression and suicide for those left behind.

A young man sat with his father night and day as he watched his dad fall closer and closer to his own demise.

Vowing never to leave him, not to let him take his own life, he gave up much of his own life for the time being. One evening he came back from work to find the house completely locked up, and then he heard the gun go off. When he found his father’s body, the son felt that he shouldn’t have left to go to work or to the store. He felt that if he hadn’t left, his father would not have done this.

But the truth is, the son didn’t really have, and couldn’t have, this kind of control over the situation.

So, when those thoughts pop up that say, “No one will care” or “No one will get hurt but Kase Johnstun me,” it’s time to rethink.

It’s so hard to accept that suicide is the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 24. However, according the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it is. And if a teen or a parent reading this thinks that suicide is not a problem, it’s time to think again.

There may be someone nearby who needs some help.

what you love without unhealthily wanting it for yourself.”

He’d also tell you that this can be a good place to be, a biblical and mystical place. That doesn’t make it less painful or humiliating, it just gives you the consolation of knowing that you’re in a valid place, a necessary one, and that everyone before you, Jesus included, spent some time there and everyone, including all those people who seem to be forever on top of the world, will spend some time there too. The desert spares nobody. Dark nights eventually find us all.

Knowing this, of course, doesn’t make it easier to accept feeling lost and on the outside, especially in a world in which being successful is everything. That’s why it’s hard to ever admit, even to our closest friends, that we’re struggling, tasting more ashes than glory. Small wonder that our Christmas letters to our friends each year invariably are a list of all that’s gone well in our lives and never an admittance of struggle or humiliation.

The need to name being lost, as a valid place is important for us, both communally and personally.

In many ways, at least in the Western world, that’s exactly where the church is today, namely, in the desert, in a dark night, lost, being pruned, undergoing a purifying alchemy.

We’re experiencing public humiliation in the sexual abuse scandal, in our greying and emptying churches, and in the strong anti-clericalism inside our culture. We’re aging, unsure of ourselves, lacking in vocations, and becoming ever more marginalized. But that’s a place too, a good place to be. From the edges, humbled and insecure, we can again become church.

The same holds true in our personal lives. We have our good seasons, but we have seasons too where we lose relationships, lose health, lose friends, lose spouses, lose children, lose jobs, lose prestige, lose our grip, lose our dreams, lose our

meaning, and end up humbled, alone, and lonely on a Friday night. But that’s a place too, a valid and an important one.

Inside that place, our souls are being shaped in ways we cannot understand but in ways that will Father stretch and widen them Ron Rolheiser for a deeper love and happiness in the future.

Good wines are aged in cracked old barrels. That’s what makes them rich and mellow. They can, of course, go sour during the process.

That’s the risk. The soul works in the same way and, thus, we might ask whether failure and loneliness, as they shape our souls, need to be re-imagined aesthetically: Are maturity and transformation, growth in beauty, not about more than success, health, having it all, and looking like a million dollars?

Beauty is ultimately more about the size of our hearts, about how much they can empathize, and about how widely and unselfishly they can embrace. To that end, the desert-heat of loneliness is helpful in softening the heart, enough at least to let it be painfully stretched. That happens more easily when we’re lost, feeling like unanimity-minus-one, unsure of ourselves, empty of consolation, aching in frustration, and running a psychic temperature. Not pleasant, but that’s a place too.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

Coming of Age

Suicide realities A man described as deranged and suicidal parked his vehicle on railroad tracks in California Jan. 26, causing a commuter-train crash that killed 11 people outside Los Angeles, officials said. “‘I think he was intent at that time on taking his own life, but changed his mind prior to the train actually striking his vehicle,” Glendale Police Chief Randy Adams was quoted as saying.

It is a common misperception that suicide only hurts those who commit it, that those around them won’t care and do not care. The California case is extreme, but it is a concrete example of how one person taking his own life can create a train wreck in many others’ lives.

According the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control: “The overall rate of suicide among youth has declined slowly since 1992 (Lubell, Swahn, Crosby and Kegler, 2004).

Even so, rates remain unacceptably high. Adolescents and young adults often experience stress, confusion and depression from situations occurring in their families, schools and communities. Such feelings can overwhelm young people and lead

Kase Johnstun writes for the Intermountain Catholic in Salt Lake City.

Spirituality

Lost is a place too In her book, Survivor, Christina Crawford writes: “Lost is a place, too.”

That’s more than a clever sound-byte. It’s a deep truth that’s often lost in a world within which success, achievement, and good appearance define meaning and value.

What can that phrase teach us? That sometimes it’s good to be without success, without health, without achievements to bolster us, without good appearance, and even without meaning. Being down-and-out, alone, lost, struggling for meaning, and looking bad, is also a valid place to be.

One of the greatest spiritual writers of all time, John of the Cross, would agree with that. If he was your spiritual director and you explained to him that you were going through a dark, painful patch in life and asked him: “What’s wrong with me?” He would likely answer: “There’s nothing wrong with you; indeed, there’s a lot right with you. You’re where you should be right now: in the desert, letting the merciless sun do its work; in a dark night, undergoing an alchemy of soul; in exile, lamenting on a foreign shore so that you can better understand your homeland; in the garden, sweating the blood that needs to be sweated to live out your commitments; being pruned, undergoing spiritual chemotherapy, to shrink the tumours of emotional and spiritual dead-wood that have built up from wrong-turns taken; in the upper room, unsure of yourself, waiting for pentecost before you can set out again with any confidence; undergoing positive disintegration, having your life ripped apart so that you can rearrange it in a more lifegiving way; sitting in the ashes, like Cinderella, because only a certain kind of humiliation will ready your soul for celebration; and undergoing purgatory, right here on earth, so your heart, soul, and body can, through this painful purging, learn to embrace

Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author.

JOHN EARLE PHOTO

Creation groans

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Catholic San Francisco

February 11, 2005

FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT

Scripture

Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17; Romans 5:12-19 or 5:12. 17-19; Matthew 4:1-11 A READING FROM THE BOOK OF GENESIS (GEN 2:7-9; 3:1-7) The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being.

Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made various trees grow that were delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the Lord God had made. The serpent asked the woman, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” The woman answered the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM (PS 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17) R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.

Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me.

R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

For I acknowledge my offense, and my sin is before me always: “Against you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight.”

R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.

Cast me not out from your presence, and your Holy spirit take not from me.

R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

Give me back the joy of your salvation, and a willing spirit sustain in me.

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

A READING FROM THE LETTER OF SAINT PAUL TO THE ROMANS (ROM 5:12-19 OR 5: 12, 17-19) Brothers and sisters: Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned — for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law. But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin after the pattern of the trespass of Adam, who is the type of the one who was to come.

But the gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one, the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many. And the gift is not like the result of the one who sinned. For after one sin there was the judgment that brought condemnation; but the gift, after many transgressions, brought acquittal. For if, by the transgression of the one, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. In conclusion, just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so, through one righteous act, acquittal and life came to all. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.

A READING FROM THE HOLY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW (MT 4:1-11) At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” He said in reply, “It is written: One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you and with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

Jesus answered him, “Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”

Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.” At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written: The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”

Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him.

MARK SHEA

The Temptation of Christ If we are serious Catholics, we must recognize that our Faith calls us to acknowledge a much-disliked and disputed doctrine: the Fall. The teaching, in the words of Paul, is that “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned “ (Romans 5:12).

The doctrine of original sin says that what is wrong with the human race is something like a birth defect. Our fallenness consists not of something Adam and Eve gave us, but of something they didn’t give us: a relationship of union with God that should have been there but isn’t. The result is that we are born with a hole in our soul where God should be, but isn’t.

How our race got this way is recounted in the tragic story of Genesis 3. An enormous number of people still imagine the Fall was basically tantamount to the discovery of sex. This naive Pleasantville version of history fancies Eve got in touch with her sexuality, seduced Adam and that God (ever the prude) got mad about this display of animal passion and threw them out. A quick reality check, however, shows the folly of this. For God is the character in the creation story whose first command is an enthusiastic “Be fruitful and multiply!”

If God is so hung up on sex, He has a funny way of showing it.

No, the problem in Genesis is not sex, it’s Pride. Adam and Eve fall prey to the central lie of the Serpent: “Eat this, it’ll make you gods!” and they, being good consumers, buy it hook, line, and sinker. They gulp down the lie and discover the “wisdom” that they are but dust.

The devil, being a liar, tries the exact opposite tactic with God incarnate in Matthew 4. Just as he tried to get our First Parents to deny their creatureliness and be gods, so he tries to get God to deny his deity and settle for being a creature. Three times he says to Jesus “If you are the Son of God...”

As with Eve, Satan makes his first appeal, not through sex, but through the stomach. He tries first to get Jesus to turn stones to bread. It is, by the way, notable that food, not sex, is regarded in Scripture as centrally significant in the fall (the

Apple), in temptation (stones made bread) and in redemption (the Eucharist). But then food, not sexual pleasure, is the most fundamental sign of our dependence. Without it, we die. If it is a poisoned Apple, we grow sick. If it is the Bread of Life, we live.

Failing this first temptation, Old Scratch turns up the heat. If a full belly won’t do the trick, what about fame and the chance of a guest shot as “Amazing Messiah Man and His Death-Defying Temple Jump”? The devil even makes an appeal to Scripture this time, assuring Jesus that this isn’t really about self-aggrandizement. No, it’s noble and pious even.

Still no dice.

So Satan pulls out the stops. Here is a Son of Adam. So the Tempter falls back on the tried and true and makes a naked appeal to the root of Adam’s fallenness: Pride. He offers to make Jesus King of the World with all the gold, guns and girls he could ask for.

It is a classic Faustian bargain: Jesus’ soul in exchange for everything a selfish soul could want. “Think of the good you could do with that sort of power,” whispers the Tempter, “What will be accomplished by this futile course of action?” Poverty-stricken, hungry, obscure, living a zillion miles from the bright center of the Empire, faced with the certain knowledge of an arduous and lonely future capped by an incredibly painful betrayal and death at the hands of the Best Authorities, Jesus nonetheless refuses.

In so doing, he signals the first break in the monotony of human history since the fall. For here finally is Man and God in union: Someone who actually lives out the command of Deuteronomy to “Do homage to the Lord your God and adore him alone.”

(Deut. 6:13). In contrast to Adam, who sought to be God and found he was dust, the Son of Man seeks to be dust for us and is revealed as God so that “as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous” (Roman 5:19).

Mark Shea is Senior Content Editor for CatholicExchange.com.

Prayer for this Sunday The Lord of all cannot hold back love; it pours out over all creation.

God asks return of love but makes no demands.

God desires to be chosen by us, and so gives us freedom of choice.

Help us, Jesus.

You know our battlefield well.

Our day-to-day skirmishes over doing what is right, cunning and fierce desires slithering around us.

“Choose us! Choose us!” they clamor.

Take us to a desert place.

Let your Spirit speak to our hearts and fortify us with yourself.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, make our choices into signs of our love for you.

– Center for Liturgy, St. Louis University

Temptation on the Mount – Duccio di Buoninsegna, c. 1308-1311.

February 11, 2005

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Year of the Eucharist

Born again — and again and again For “cradle Catholics” Lent is a penitential season in which we prepare, by fasting, prayer and works of mercy, for the celebration of Holy Week and Easter. The restoration of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) highlights another important aspect of this season: Lent marks the final period of intense preparation for those who will be plunged into the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection in the sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil.

On the First Sunday of Lent the candidates are presented to the Archbishop in the Rite of Election. The stories of how God’s providence has led these individuals to be united with Christ in the communion of the Church are as varied as the candidates themselves, and their enthusiasm is infectious. Where formerly conversion tended to be handled privately, now the process involves the whole parish family, and the excitement of these converts rekindles the fervor of those who are already Catholic. Lent has become not only a season for personal penance, but a kind of retreat for the whole community.

The beginning of this holy season invites us to reflect on the Eucharist as a sacrament of initiation.

According to the Catechism the Eucharist completes Christian initiation: “Those who have been raised to the dignity of the royal priesthood by Baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by Confirmation participate with the whole community in the Lord’s own sacrifice…” (CCC 1322) The Eucharist is the crowning

moment of initiation, following immediately upon Baptism and Confirmation.

For most of us, the pattern was different: Baptism as infants, First Communion as young children, Confirmation some years later. How did this change in sequence come about? There is evidence that infants and children were baptized from the earliest days of the Church, and eventually this became the norm. At the same time the number of Christians had grown considerably, and it was not possible for the bishop to participate in every celebration of sacramental initiation.

The East and the West adopted two different solutions to this problem. The East opted to keep the three sacraments of initiation together: the priest confirmed the newlybaptized infant and administered Holy Communion. The West chose to retain the practice of having the bishop confirm at some point after Baptism, and Eucharist was celebrated some time after Confirmation. Confirmation became detached from Baptism, and over the centuries there have been varying customs regarding the age at which it should be given.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Pope Pius X was anxious to encourage more frequent reception of the Eucharist, and decided that one means of doing so would be to get people accustomed to approaching the Lord’s Table at a younger age. He directed that First Communion be given at around age seven; from this time on, Confirmation usually was administered some years later. In the popular mind

Confirmation, not Eucharist, came to be regarded as the completion of sacramental initiation.

In liturgical and catechetical circles there is much discussion these days about how and when the sacraments of initiation should be celebrated for born Catholics.

Whatever patterns are followed, it is important for us to see the Eucharist in relation to Baptism and Confirmation.

When viewed as the culmination of the process of initiation, the Eucharist is revealed as the deepest communion with Christ that we can enjoy in this world; the process of conversion leads here.

Leads here, but does not end here. Conversion is not a one-time event, it is a renewable resource. We receive Baptism and Confirmation only once, but we receive the Eucharist repeatedly. Every time we do we renew the experience of being plunged into the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection and the reception of the Holy Spirit which we celebrated in Baptism and Confirmation. This is why we bless ourselves with holy water whenever we enter the place where the Eucharist is celebrated: Eucharist is the fruit of Baptism, a fruit which nourishes us not just once, but always.

Part of a series presented by the Liturgical Commission of the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

Family Life

Marriage isn’t all glitter and gold After a mere four and a half years, Hollywood’s most celebrated marriage — between America’s heartthrob Brad Pitt and “Friends” favorite star Jennifer Aniston — has ended in speculation that has the tabloids guessing everything from extramarital affairs, ultimatums about babies and the usual celebrity gossip about jealousy, careers and whether beautiful people can remain faithful in a world of glitter.

My naive self was among the many young adults who invested hope in Jen’s and Brad’s marriage because, like the nuptials of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, it seemed like the one fairy tale that wouldn’t end as half of marriages do — in bitter divorce.

As a product of a split family, nothing gives me nightmares more than messy breakups. Like many brides, I uttered my vows knowing that marriage wasn’t always going to be as easy as it appeared on that gorgeous June day

that I said “I do.” Yet I didn’t expect the newness to wear off at the same hour as the mundane responsibilities of playing house with someone — fixing busted disposals, taking out the trash, washing endless loads of laundry and especially feeding and bathing children — introduced me to domesticity’s boring side.

Like half of American wives today, I can say that I’m in this relationship for the long haul. The big, white gown and the wedding ring (to which I’m now allergic) weren’t just props for a personalized pageant. They signified the end of a me-first attitude and the beginning of a life together with someone I love.

A friend who recently celebrated her 25th wedding anniversary told me that marriage at nine years (or seven or six) is much more difficult than it is at 25 years. In the earlier years, a couple hasn’t worked out all the kinks.

Perhaps that’s why many of my friends are divorcing

Anniversary Mass — Feb. 12 The fourth annual “Anniversary Mass” will be celebrated by Archbishop William J. Levada at St. Mary’s Cathedral, at Gough and Geary in San Francisco, at noon Saturday, Feb. 12. Catholic couples who are celebrating 25, 50 or more years of marriage and their families and friends are invited to the Mass. Catholic couples within the first ten years of their marriage also have a special invitation to the Mass, said Chris Lyford, director of the Office of Marriage and Family Life for the Archdiocese. A reception follows the Mass at the cathedral. For more information, call 415 614-5680.

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QUESTION CORNER Dietzen Father John

Q. When did celibacy become one of the church’s rules for priests? Was it something that started with the Jews before Jesus and then was continued by the church? We understand that many early priests and bishops, even popes, were married. True? (Pennsylvania) A. The story of clerical celibacy in the church is long and complex. But the following is at least a brief outline.

First, the Christian practice did not originate with the Jewish people. The thought of a celibate life for men and women was generally offensive to Jewish culture, as it was to most other cultures of the time. As the Scriptures show often, a house full of children was considered a sign of God’s blessing. For a woman to be unmarried and childless was a mark of shame.

I believe the only major figure in the Old Testament who was celibate was Jeremiah, who lived around the time

after four, five or six years of marriage. Just as the romance fades, the real work starts. You realize your spouse snores after a glass of red wine, burps after eating Mexican food and is quite grumpy Therese J. when he has the flu. But Borchard you love him anyway.

And if you happen to fall in love with a person, place or thing — with a city or a community that inspires you; with a new job or career that promises fulfillment; with a new philosophy of life or political viewpoint; or with a person who energizes you in a way that you thought impossible — you do so as a married entity, with a respectful distance so as to not break the bonds of your commitment.

Marriage isn’t for sissies or for people used to glitter and gold. More often than not, the daily give-and-take of a committed relationship chips away at a person’s selfishness and ego, making her into a kinder, more compassionate human being. But that only comes with a little boredom.

Therese J. Borchard writes a column for Catholic News Service.

Priestly celibacy: When it all began of the Babylonian Captivity, six centuries before Christ.

The Lord told him not to marry, as a sign to the people that children then being born would die in the coming military and political calamities.

The practice of celibacy was generally spotty in the church until the later part of the fourth century when the first general law obliging clergy to a celibate life appeared in the Western church. Several popes and regional councils in Africa and Europe, beginning probably with Pope Damasus (366384), decreed that ordained clergy should not be married.

During the next 700 years, marriage of bishops, priests and deacons was unlawful in the Western church. (Practices and regulations concerning celibacy were, and remain, different in most Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.)

The movement toward clerical celibacy continued, however, and culminated in the 12th century at the First and Second Lateran Councils when marriages of clerics were declared not only illicit (unlawful) but invalid.

Much later, at the Council of Trent in 1563, the law of celibacy was reaffirmed. Interestingly, however, against enormous opposition the council declared that celibacy of the clergy was a matter of church law, not of divine law.

This means that the church could change its legislation concerning celibacy. A change was made, in fact, for deacons when Vatican Council II instituted a married permanent

diaconate. In addition, as most Catholics are aware, married men who joined the Catholic faith from other Christian denominations have been ordained and now serve as Catholic priests, especially in the United States and Europe.

As the above summary suggests, married clergy were common during earlier Christian centuries. St. Peter, of course, was married (see Mark 1:30), as were other popes.

Family records for many of them are sparse, so we know little about their marital status before or after they became pope.

One pope, St. Hormisdas (514-523), was married before he became pope, as was, it seems, his son, Pope St. Silverius (536-538). As far as we know, the last married bishop of Rome was Adrian II (867-872), who apparently lived with his wife and family in the Lateran Palace, the pope’s residence at the time, though an unmarried clergy was by then not uncommon in the West.

The road of clerical celibacy has not been smooth through the centuries, especially in the early Middle Ages and in the years before the Protestant Reformation. Smooth or not, however, it is clear that the church does not plan to alter easily or quickly a practice which has been so intimate a part of its life for the past 1,700 years.

(Questions may be sent to Father Dietzen at the same address, or e-mail: jjdietzen@aol.com.)

16

Catholic San Francisco

Lenten Opportunities Sundays of Lent: Walking with Biblical Personalities along the Path of the Enneagram: Spiritual Reflection for Lent 2005 at St. Thomas More Church in San Francisco. Claudia Devaux facilitates. $50 for entire series. Enrollment limited.

Call (415) 452-9634.

Feb. 11, 12, 25, 26: “Smallest of All” A musical rendition of “Song of Bernadette” at 7:30 p.m. St. Thomas More 1300 Junipero Serra near Brotherhood Way. Donation of $10 suggested. Kids 14 & under Free. Also playing Feb 18, 19 at 7:30 p.m. and 20th at 2 p.m. at St. Boniface Theater 175 Golden Gate Ave near Leavenworth. www.stmchurch.com (415) 637-1484.

Feb. 12: Lenten Day of Centering Prayer at Vallombrosa Center, 250 Oak Grove Ave., Menlo Park, and Feb. 14th, Be My Valentine, a celebration of friendship and love. Call (650) 325-5614.

Feb. 12: The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur continue Morning of Prayer series “Become Beatitude People” 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. “Blessed are the Persecuted: what might these words mean today?” is the focus with Marlene M. De Nardo, an educator, spiritual director and teacher at Naropa University in Oakland. Takes place at Notre Dame Province Center, 1520 Ralston Avenue in Belmont, across from Ralston Hall on the campus of Notre Dame de Namur University. Call (650) 593-2045 X 277 or www.SistersofNotreDameCA.org.

Feb. 12: The Gospel of Life in Action, potluck dinner and presentation sponsored by Marin County Respect Life Program at St. Sebastian Church, 373 Bon Air Rd. at Sir Francis Drake Blvd. in Greenbrae. Call Vicki Evans at (415) 945-0180.

Feb. 12: Annual Mori Point Walk benefiting works of Kateri Tekakwitha Fund and its efforts for the poor in Guatemala. “A guided tour of beautiful Mori Point begins at 11 a.m. Fair Trade Coffee will be provided,” the group said. Sign in at Café salada, 220 Paloma Ave. at Oceana Blvd. in Pacifica at 10 a.m. Call (650) 355-8104. Cost $15.

Feb. 16, 23 and March 2: The Year of the Eucharist, a Lenten Series with Father David Pettingill at St. Gabriel Church, 40th Ave. at Ulloa in SF, 7 – 8:30 p.m. Call (415_ 731-6161.

Feb. 13: Pianist J.R. Manolito performs at 4 p.m. as part of Concerts at St. Stephen’s. $10 donation benefits parish music ministry. Call (415) 6812444. The church is at Eucalyptus Dr. and 23rd Ave. in San Francisco.

Feb. 13: Building Strong Families, a Retreat for the Entire Family sponsored by parishes of Deanery 11 at Vallombrosa Retreat Center, 250 Oak Grove Ave., Menlo Park, 1:30 – 4:30 p.m.

Facilitators are Tim and Popie Stafford. Call Laurie Coulter at (650) 366-7085; Sister Mary Keefe at (650) 368-0429; Sister Norberta Villasenor at (415) 368-8237.

Feb. 26: Training for New Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion at St. Matthew Church, 675 1 Notre Dame Ave., San Mateo Sat., 9 a.m.3:30.p.m. Please pre-register at (415)614-5585.

Feb. 26: Potluck Supper at 6:30 p.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral conference center. Sponsored by Divorced and Separated Ministry of the Archdiocese. Call Vonnie at (650) 873-4236.

Mar. 12: Training for New Lectors at St. Matthew Church, 1 Notre Dame Ave., San Mateo. Sat., 9 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. Please pre-register at (415)614-5585.

2005

official directory

ORDER FORM Name City Credit Card #: Signature:

March 12: St. Cecilia Elementary, class of ’50 at the parish Collins Center. Call Doris Grimley at (415) 664-2247.

March 31: Star of the Sea Academy, classes ’39 to ’45. Contact Marie at (415) 564-2603 or Dorothy at (415) 681-1493.

We are on a Star Search for graduates of Star of the Sea Academy, Class of ‘55. A 50th Reunion is in the planning stage. Let us know where you are.

Contact Patricia Lawless Sack at 415-472-5732.You won’t want to miss this one!

Datebook

Young Adults

More than 750 people attended the annual Godparent / Godchild Mass January 9th at All Souls Church in South San Francisco. “Traditionally held on the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, this special Mass attracts people from all over the Bay Area as Godparents and their Godchildren come together to celebrate and nurture their unique relationship,” said Sandra Firpo, who helps coordinate the liturgy with her husband, Steve. Alfredo Gomez, his daughter, Ariana, and godsons, Alex and Marc Anthony were among the assembly.

Taize Prayer 3rd Wed. at 7:30 p.m. with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in their Province Center Chapel, 1520 Ralston Ave., Belmont across from Ralston Hall on the campus of their Notre Dame de Namur University. Call (650) 593-2045, ext. 350 or www.SistersofNotreDameCa.org.

1st Fri. at 8 p.m. at Mercy Center, 2300 Adeline Dr., Burlingame with Mercy Sister Suzanne Toolan. Call (650) 340-7452; Church of the Nativity, 210 Oak Grove Ave., Menlo Park at 7:30 p.m. Call Deacon Dominic Peloso at (650) 3223013.

3rd Fri. at 8 p.m. at Woodside Priory Chapel, 302 Portola Rd., Portola Valley. Call Dean Miller at (650) 474-2882.

1st Sat. at 8:30 p.m. at SF Presidio Main Post Chapel, 130 Fisher Loop. Call Catherine Rondainaro at (415) 713-0225

St. Mary’s Cathedral The following events are taking place at or are coordinated by the cathedral of the Archdiocese located at Gough and Geary St. in San Francisco. Call (415) 567-2020 for more information.

March 9: Carol Williams, British concert organist, performs an exciting and unusual “classical jazz” program on the great organ of St. Mary’s Cathedral at 7 pm. Composers will include Philip Glass, William Bolcom, Dan Locklair, Giles Swayne and more! Carol Williams is well known for her delightful concerts in Balboa Park in San Diego. Suggested donation will be $10. For more information please call (415) 567-2020 ext 213 or email ctietze@stmarycathedralsf.org.

Cathedral Autumn Group: All people 55 and over are cordially invited. March 17: Morning

Lenten Reflection with Father Lawrence Finegan, Cathedral Parochial Vicar, Monsignor Bowe Room. Call (415) 567-2020 ext. 218.

Food & Fun March 9: Annual Spring Luncheon and Boutique of North Marin Auxiliary of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. No-host cocktails at 11 a.m.. Luncheon at 12:15 p.m. Proceeds benefit SVDP Dining Room in San Rafael and works of SVDP Conference of St. Anthony Parish in Novato. Tickets $37 per person.

Call Gwen Johnson at (415) 883-3055.

3rd Wed.: All you can eat Spaghetti Luncheon at Immaculate Conception cafeteria, 1550 Treat St., SF. $7 per person includes salad and French bread.

All you can eat from noon on! Reservations not required. Call (415) 824-1762. Proceeds benefit St. Anthony-Immaculate Conception School.

3rd Sat.: Handicapables gather for Mass and lunch at St. Mary Cathedral, Gough and Geary St., SF, at noon.

Volunteer drivers always needed. Call (415) 585-9085.

4th Sat.: Handicapables of Marin meet at noon in the recreation room of the Maria B. Freitas Senior Community adjacent to St. Isabella Church, Terra Linda, for Mass, lunch and entertainment. Call (415) 457-7859.

California Handicapables needs volunteers including drivers, servers, donors, and recruiters of those who might benefit from the experience. Call Jane Cunningham at (415) 585-9085.

Reunions Class of ’75 from St. John Ursuline High School is planning a 30th reunion for this fall!!

Classmates should contact Kathy Grimley at (650) 342-7633 or kathygbnp@aol.com.

Class of ’86 from St. Rose Academy is “Gone but not forgotten” and planning a reunion, said Beatriz St. John. “Rascals” should contact bebe@ski.org.

Office of Young Adult Ministry: Connecting late teens, 20s and 30s, single and married to the Catholic Church. Contact Mary Jansen, 415614-5596, jansenm@sfarchdiocese.org. Check out our website www.sfyam.org for a list of events around the Bay Area.

Feb. 16, 7:30 p.m.: “Sex and Love: Learning from Our Experience” This will be a practical look at the challenging issues of sexuality in today’s world from the Catholic perspective. We will reflect on our past and how certain decisions we have made have strengthened or damaged us. How do we want to be loved and what do we hope for in love? St. Dominic Parish at Bush & Steiner Streets in San Francisco. www.stdominics.org/youngadults Feb. 23, 7:30 p.m.:”Sex and Love: Searching for God’s Design” We will explore and learn about John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. The Pope says that we find ourselves in being a gift to others. Can relationships ever be mutual self giving? St. Dominic Parish at Bush & Steiner Streets in San Francisco. www.stdominics.org/youngadults March 2, 7:30 p.m.: - “Sex and Love: Living in the Real World” What are some obstacles to real love? How can we overcome those obstacles and find true freedom? St. Dominic Parish at Bush & Steiner Streets in San Francisco. www.stdominics.org/youngadults

Single, Divorced, Separated Feb. 26: Potluck Supper at 6:30 p.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral conference center. Sponsored by Divorced and Separated Ministry of the Archdiocese. Call Vonnie at (650) 873-4236.

Separated and Divorced support groups meet 3rd Sat. at 6:30 p.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral, call Pat at (415) 492-3331; and 1st and 3rd Wed. at 7:30 p.m. at St. Stephen Parish Center, SF, call Gail at (650) 591-8452.

Catholic Adult Singles Assoc. of Marin meets for support and activities. Call Bob at (415) 897-0639 for information.

Meetings 2nd Wed.: Men’s Evening of Reflection: Being Catholic in the Modern World at the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, 610 Vallejo St. at Columbus, SF beginning at 7 p.m. Call (415) 983-0405.

Courage, a Catholic support group for persons with same-sex attraction, meets Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. Call Father Lawrence Goode at (650) 322-2152.

Datebook is a free listing for parishes, schools and non-profit groups. Please include event name, time, date, place, address and an information phone number. Listing must reach Catholic San Francisco at least two weeks before the Friday publication date desired.

Mail your notice to: Datebook, Catholic San Francisco, One Peter Yorke Way, S.F. 94109, or fax it to (415) 614-5633.

ARCHDIOCESE OF SAN FRANCISCO 2005 DELUXE DIRECTORY

of

Archdiocese San Francisco

March 5, 2005: 33rd Annual United for Life Dinner, 6 PM No Host Cocktails & Fellowship with 7 PM Dinner, Irish Cultural Center, 45th Avenue at Sloat in SF. Curtis Martin President & Founder “Fellowship of Catholic University Students” (FOCUS) is guest speaker.The father of seven will “Focus on Youth.” Tickets are $40 per person. Call (415) 567-2293 for reservations.

February 11, 2005

INCLUDES: Archdiocesan Officials and Departments, Catholic Charities, Parishes & Missions, Parish Staff Listings.

Latest E-mail Addresses, Phone Directory Yellow Pages, Mass Schedules. Schools: Elementary, High Schools, Universities & Colleges. Religious Orders, Religious Organizations, etc. . . .

Please send me

copies of the Directory Address Zip Code

Copies @ $17.50 Each: $ Includes Postage and Handling

Method of Payment: ❑ Visa ❑ Mastercard Exp. Date: ❑ Check ❑ Money Order

Catholic San Francisco, One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco, CA 94109

Catholic San Francisco

February 11, 2005

Music TV

Books RADIO Film

17

Stage

By Frederica Mathewes-Green Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby has won a basketful of Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. If they gave one for Best Kept Secret, it might win that as well. There’s a twist in the plot of Million Dollar Baby. It’s not a whiplash turn, like that Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects. It’s more of an unexpected plot morph that turns it from one kind of movie into another.

Movie critics know, and if they don’t they learn the hard way, that readers don’t want to be told about plot twists.

So reviews of Million Dollar Baby have been coy about what happens. Reviewers have been saying that the movie “takes a surprising turn” or “it isn’t what you think it is” or “it raises unexpected questions.”

The problem is that those unexpected questions touch on some very serious issues: disability, suicide, the loss of fame, depression. If you can’t discuss the ending, you can’t discuss these issues, or whether Eastwood handles them well.

Critical self-censorship means the film’s assumptions aren’t getting the kind of open debate they deserve.

So I’m going to tell you the plot twist, and if you still don’t want to know, stop reading right now. The first two thirds of the movie is a quiet, gently melancholy character study set in the world of professional boxing. A young woman, Maggie (Hilary Swank), wants to be a boxer, and asks Frankie (Clint Eastwood) to train her. Maggie comes from a hardscrabble background and has always felt like “trash,” she says. Boxing is the only thing that makes her feel good. She turns out to be a gifted boxer and is on the way to a world championship. So far, nothing too surprising.

Then a ruthless opponent lands a surprise punch between rounds, and Maggie falls, smacking her head brutally against the stool placed in her corner. She wakes up paralyzed from the neck down.

Frankie begins to make arrangements for her new life. He brings her a catalog for the community college, and says he’s found a kind of wheelchair she can steer by blowing into a tube. But Maggie asks Frankie instead to help her commit suicide.

Why? She doesn’t say she’s in intractable pain, and doesn’t look it either; this is accurate, because medical advances mean that now virtually all pain can be managed. She does suffer from bedsores, to the point that a leg must be amputated; this is inaccurate, because such a condition would be a sign of culpably bad nursing care. She says she needs Frankie’s help to die, but this is also inaccurate, since anyone dependent on a ventilator can legally ask that it be removed.

Maggie doesn’t seem distraught over being an athlete who is now disabled. She doesn’t seem depressed at all, actually.

That’s not the reason she wants to die.

Here’s what she tells Frankie: “I can’t be like this, boss, not after what I’ve done.

I’ve seen the world. People chanted my name. I was in magazines.”

In other words, she can’t bear to be a has-been. By this standard, anyone who comes to the end of their 15 minutes of fame is justified in seeking suicide. Truth is, a real-life Maggie would be far from unknown. A beautiful, feisty young woman is tragically paralyzed in a boxing-ring accident? She’d be another Christopher Reeve.

When a new paraplegic is distraught and suicidal, it should be treated like any other depression, rather than a warrant for suicide. The people who love her should try to help her envision a different kind of future, one that’s very different from what she expected, but still valuable. They have the task of persuading her not to have the ventilator removed. That’s what Frankie was doing, with his college catalog and offer of a wheelchair.

But when Frankie eventually steals in one midnight, unplugs Maggie’s ventilator, and gives her a lethal injection (without triggering alarms in the nursing sta-

TRAVEL DIRECTORY For Advertising Information Pleae call (415) 614-5642

(CNS PHOTO FROM WARNER BROS.)

Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank star in a scene from the movie "Million Dollar Baby." The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents are strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

tion?), we’re left with the impression that he did the loving thing. Eastwood claims that it’s only a movie: “I don’t advocate.

I’m playing a part.” Yet the film doesn’t leave room for much ambivalence.

The film raises a theme that it doesn’t explore sufficiently: respect. The opening voice-over tells us that boxing is not about violence; it’s not like people who try to see bloody bodies at a car wreck. “Boxing is about respect: getting it for yourself, and taking it away from the other guy.”

Well, that gives you plenty to think about. Morbid curiosity about injured bodies seems to me less troubling — and less inherently about “violence” — than the idea that a good way to get respect is to punch other people. Or that there is only so much respect in the world, and to get some you have to take it away from someone else. That’s the reasoning behind a lot of killings, from inner-city drive-bys to 19th century duels to most of the wars you can think of. Yes, if Maggie’s only

source of respect is punching another woman in the face, she’s not going to be able to do that any more. Using her inner mettle to put a new life together, going to college, becoming a spokesperson for the disabled, could have opened a new world of respect for her. Million Dollar Baby could have addressed some of these deeper questions about the intersection of boxing, violence, and respect, but failed to do so. Instead, it leaves us with the idea that a paraplegic is right when she says she would be better off dead.

Frederica Mathewes-Green writes regularly for NPR’s Morning Edition, Beliefnet.com, Christianity Today, and other publications. She is the author of Gender: Men, Women, Sex and Feminism, among other books.

This article originally appeared in National Review Online.

Reprinted with permission.

Catholic San Francisco invites you

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Pilgrimage Tour to Europe 15 Days, June 8 - 22, 2005 Fr. Jack Russi, S.M., chaplain at Archbishop Riordan High School will be leading an adult pilgrimage-tour to France and Spain with visits to Marian Shrines. The tour will start out in Paris, go to Bordeaux, then to St. Jean de Luz, Lourdes, Our Lady of the Pillar in Saragossa Spain, Barcelona and visit the shrine of the ‘Black Madonna’ in Montserrat Spain.

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Lourdes

For a FREE brochure on these pilgrimages contact: Virginia Marshall – Catholic San Francisco

(415) 614-5640 Please leave your name, mailing address and your phone number California Registered Seller of Travel Registration Number CST-2037190-40 (Registration as a Seller of Travel does not constitute approval by the State of California)

18

Catholic San Francisco

February 11, 2005

Music TV

Books RADIO Film

Stage

Parenting books give earnest advice for a tough job RAISING COURAGEOUS KIDS: EIGHT STEPS TO PRACTICAL HEROISM, by Charles A. Smith.

Sorin Books (Notre Dame, Ind., 2004). 252 pp., $14.95.

101 SECRETS A GOOD DAD KNOWS, by Walter Browder and Sue Ellin Browder. Rutledge Hill Press (Nashville, Tenn., 2004). 239 pp., $14.99.

A NEW DAD’S GUIDE TO PLAYING GOD: REFLECTIONS ON THE VOCATION OF FATHERHOOD, by James Penrice. Alba House, St. Paul’s Press (New York, 2004). 132 pp., $12.95.

Reviewed by Mark Pattison Catholic News Service Anyone who says parenting is easy must not be one.

To borrow a slogan: Parenting is the toughest job you’ll ever love.

Second toughest is reading books about parenting.

The three books reviewed here have much to offer, but advice writers tread close to the line that separates giving helpful hints from being condescending — or even worse, making readers seem like bad parents because they don’t already know their tricks of the trade.

Raising courageous kids is a noble goal. Charles A. Smith’s “Raising Courageous Kids: Eight Steps to Practical Heroism” is filled with stories of young people doing heroic deeds. As I read it, I wished I had it in ninth grade religion class to counter my teacher’s assertion that children were not capable of doing great things.

The courageous kids’ stories come courtesy of the Carnegie Hero Commission, which figures quite prominently in this book. But heroism isn’t just for kids, who need to learn by example. “Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez and Mother Teresa achieved greatness because they did not allow fear to determine their course of action,” Smith writes.

At another point he notes: “Morality cannot flourish when fear of reprisal enforced moral rules. If children remain locked into an external locus of control, then borrowed values are weak and short-lived. If we want our influence to endure, we have to let our children

make choices. If we deprive them of opportunities to make moral choices, we rob them of independently won integrity.”

Smith lists these eight steps in the path to becoming courageous: from power to willpower; from community to caring; from danger to vigilance; from fear to composure; from self to empathy; from morality to integrity; from justice to honor; and from responsibility to valor.

In “101 Secrets a Good Dad Knows,” Walter and Sue Ellin Browder try hard to demonstrate the kind of skills fathers can pass on to their children — they are skills that take quality time to learn and teach. But the book is poorly sequenced; I’d much rather learn how to pick up a cat (secret No. 23) before learning how to give a cat its medicine (No. 16).

What’s more, I’d be eager to find out just how many of these 101 secrets any dad (or child) knows. My father was a good man and a good dad. Yet after reading this book, I counted only 25 of these skills — 26, maybe — that I learned from him and can now pass on to my little one. And I turned out reasonably OK. (You can stop chortling now.) And there are a few secrets I’d still like to know. Maybe a companion volume — say, “101

S E R V I C E

Secrets a Good Mom Knows” — would tell me how to fold a fitted sheet.

James Penrice’s “A New Dad’s Guide to Playing God: Reflections on the Vocation of Fatherhood” has the best (meaning the least dorky-looking) cover art, and is by far the most earnest of these three tomes. He tackles the meaning of his could-be-provocative title right off the bat, saying that his vision of “playing God” doesn’t include a vengeance-seeking deity also capable of other random, heartless acts.

Penrice also takes on such topics as the mother’s role in the home (through the dogma of the Immaculate Conception) and Catholic teaching on marriage and baptism in such a way as to be deceptively simple, although skeptics are likely to view his essays on these matters as simplistic. But give him high marks for at least trying.

“God continually lays out the expectations that we fail to meet,” he writes. “We certainly frustrate God as much as our children frustrate us — even more so.”

Amen I say to that!

Pattison, who is media editor for Catholic News Service, read these books while on paternity leave.

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February 11, 2005

Catholic San Francisco

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Say prayer 9 times a day for 9 days.

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Prayer For Motherhood O good St. Gerard, powerful intercessor before God and Wonder-worker of our day, I call upon thee and seek thy aid.

Thou who on earth didst always fulfill God’s design help me do the Holy Will of God. Beseech the Master of Life, from Whom all paternity proceedeth to render me fruitful in offspring, that I may raise up children to God in this life and heirs to the Kingdom of His glory in the world to come.

Amen.

T.D.P.

Help Wanted

Call (415) 614-5642 or Fax: (415) 614-5641 e-mail: jpena@catholic-sf.org

HELP WANTED

TheArtofPerú.com

The Department of Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of San Francisco is seeking elementary principals for the 2005-2006 school year. Candidates must be practicing Roman Catholic in good standing with the Church, possess a valid teaching credential, a Master’s degree in educational leadership, an administrative credential, and five years of successful teaching experience at the appropriate level.

Free Housing in Exchange for Companionship

❑ Prayer to the Blessed Virgin ❑ Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Please send resume and a letter of interest by February 28th, 2005 to:

Elderly catholic lady needs another lady, preferably mature, but not elderly, to be at home overnight. This is not for a caregiver, but for someone to be in the home in case of emergency. There are caregivers with my sister during the day, so it is O.K. for a working woman. The home is located on 17th Avenue near Noriega. The lady we choose would have a separate bedroom and the run of the house. There is a laundry in the home, plus a parking space for use of whomever becomes a resident.

Marilyn Lynch Associate Superintendent of Schools One Peter Yorke Way San Francisco, California 94109 Fax (415) 614-5665 E-mail: Lynchm@SFArchdiocese.org

Special Needs Companion Services

Phone Brian – (415) 752-4922

We are looking for you.

• Honest • Generous • Compassionate • Make a Difference • Respectful

Help Wanted

Work Full or Part-time in San Francisco – Marin County • Provide non medical elder care in the home • Generous benefit package

ADVERTISING SALES For The Largest Publisher of Catholic Church Bulletins

Fax your resume to: Jeannie McCullough Stiles, RN 415-435-0421

This is a Career Opportunity!

• Generous Commissions • Minimal Travel • Excellent Benefit Package • Stong Office Support • Work in Your Community

Send your resume: Jeannie McCullough Stiles, RN Special Needs Nursing, Inc. 98 Main Street, #427 Tiburon, Ca 94920

Call 1-800-675-5051, Fax resume: 707-258-1195

Special Needs Nursing, Inc. RNs or LVNs We are looking for you.

CHRISTIAN BROTHERS

Work FULL or PART time while your children are in school.

HIGH SCHOOL of SACRAMENTO

Nurses are needed to provide specialized nursing care for children in the San Francisco Public School setting.

Generous benefit packages for generous nurses.

Kneeler Wanted Wanted KNEELER in any condition.

650-365-5718

Caregiver Companion Irish caregivers available days/nights. Many years experience, excellent local references. Responsible and reliable. Please call for rates and availability

415-374-1598.

INCOME OPPORTUNITY Marketing Position Beyond Freedom – A Personal, Professional and Spiritual Development Program and easy to follow system. Learn to earn $100K+/Yr working from home PT. Call 24hrs. for free info 800-631-8230. email: sales@achieveverything.com website: www.achieveverything.com

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GIFT IDEAS Gifts from Perú and around the world

Name Adress Phone MC/VISA # Exp.

Catholic San Francisco

Position Available

Fax your resume to: Jeannie McCullough Stiles, RN 415-435-0421 Send your resume: Jeannie McCullough Stiles, RN Special Needs Nursing, Inc. 98 Main Street, #427 Tiburon, Ca 94920

DIRECTOR OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION Opening for a full-time Director of Religious Education in a spirit-filled Catholic community of 4,000 families. Responsible for the supervision of the leadership of the following programs: Sunday School/Vacation Bible School, Children’s Liturgy of the Word, Elementary Relegious Education (1st - 5th), Junior High Youth Ministry (6th - 8th), High School Youth Ministry (9th - 12th), Confirmation, Adult Religious Education, and RCIA. Oversee adult small faith groups and other adult educational opportunities. Involves approximately 150 volunteer Catechists, 1,100 children and young people and 50 volunteer team leaders. Seeking a person with strong collaborative and administrative skills and pastoral or ministry training. An undergraduate or graduate degree in Theology, Religious Education or an approved equivalent. Have a minimum of three (3) years of supervisory experience in religious education and some recent teaching experience with skills in organization and an abiltiy to coordinate multiple events. Knowledgeable of Catholic Church policy and position on various social and moral issues. Computer literate. Experience in working with adult volunteers. A record of attendance at workshops and seminars in management and administrative skills. Position is open immediately, but will consider a delayed starting date. Additional information regarding the parish can be obtained from the parish webpage: www.stphilipchurch.org along with the DRE Job Description and Employment Application. Send request for application materials to: Mr. Alvin Sandrini, DRE Search Chairman, P.O. Box 11777, Bakersfield, CA 93389, Ph: 661-834-7483, Fax: 661-834-2214, Email: asandrini1@bak.rr.com.

Principal A Catholic, co-educational, college preparatory, secondary school established in 1876 by the De La Salle Christian Brothers. Our student body of over 1,000 is both ethnically and economically diverse.

The ideal candidate will be a practicing Roman Catholic with a commitment to Catholic education as a ministry: ●

Have earned a masters degree or higher

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Have 10 or more years experience as teacher and/or administrator

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Be a high energy leader with a passion for students, faith formation community building, character development, learning & excellence Exhibit excellent oral and written communication skills

Position Available:

Assume responsibilities July 1, 2005

Compensation:

Competitive salary with full benefits

Job Description:

Please call for a complete Job Description

Contact:

(916) 733-3643 dmcvay@cbhs-sacramento.org

Application:

Send résumé, letter of intent, plus a short personal mission statement and description of your educational philosophy (1 page at most) to:

Br. George Van Grieken, FSC Christian Brothers High School 4315 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.

Sacramento, CA 95820-2727

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Catholic San Francisco

February 11, 2005