February 13, 2009 by Catholic San Francisco

(PHOTOS BY JOSE AGUIRRE)

Hundreds of sick people and their caregivers were blessed at a Mass commemorating World Day of the Sick. At right, Archbishop George H. Niederauer, the principal celebrant, anoints a woman in a wheelchair. Above, another celebrant blesses a caregiver’s hands.

Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Mass for the World Day of the Sick: “Next best thing to Lourdes” By Tom Burke More than 600 people, primarily the sick and their caregivers, gathered at St. Mary’s Cathedral Feb. 7 for a Mass commemorating the World Day of the Sick. Archbishop George H. Niederauer celebrated, with former San Francisco Archbishop John R. Quinn and more than a dozen priests concelebrating.

See Archbishop’s Homily

Page 17

The liturgy was sponsored by the Order of Malta, which hosted similar rites in the dioceses of Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Seattle, Orange and Phoenix. More than 80 Knights and Dames of Malta were on hand to assist at the San Francisco Mass.

The sick and their caregivers gathered in response to Archbishop Niederauer’s request to receive the Sacrament of the Sick and the blessing of the caregivers’ hands. The Mass also prayed for the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes. “The looks on the faces of the sick as they receive the Sacrament of the Sick are just like the looks on the faces of the sick in Lourdes,” said William Regan, president of the Western States region of the Order of Malta and a parishioner of St. Bartholomew Parish in San Mateo, recalling his 15 pilgrimages to the shrine. Regan coordinated the event with Randy DeVoto, president of the San Francisco Malta chapter and a parishioner of St. Anselm Parish in Ross. Mary WORLD DAY OF THE SICK, page 12

Pope asks for protection, support for children VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Countless sick and suffering children are in urgent need of help and protection, Pope Benedict XVI said in his message for the Feb. 11 celebration of World Day of the Sick. He urged Catholics to not be indifferent to the suffering of these “weakest and most defenseless creatures” and to recognize a “pressing duty to intervene.” The pope focused his message on children and called attention to those who are struck by crippling diseases or are battling illnesses that are still incurable despite great medical advancements. He underlined the plight of children “wounded in body and soul as a consequence of conflict and war and other innocent victims of the senseless hatred of adults.” He noted the difficulties children living on the street face because they are deprived of “the warmth of a family” and are left to fend for themselves. The pope also spoke of the psychological scars children live with SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN, page 13

Pope and Chancellor discuss Holocaustdenying bishop By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Taking one step to deal with a recent controversy surrounding a traditionalist bishop who has denied the Holocaust, Pope Benedict XVI spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel via telephone late last week. Vatican officials said the conversation was “cordial and constructive, marked by a common and profound agreement that the Shoah is a perpetually valid warning for humanity,” Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, papal spokesman. He said the Feb. 8 phone conversation was marked by “a climate of great respect” and included mention of Pope Benedict’s Jan. 28 statement about the importance of remembering the Holocaust and Merkel’s Feb. 3 request that the Vatican make it clear that it would not tolerate Holocaust denial. The controversy began in late January when a television station aired a November interview with Bishop Richard Williamson, who was excommunicated in 1988 after being ordained against papal orders. The late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who ordained him, and three other bishops ordained at the same ceremony also were excommunicated. The interview aired just before the Vatican published the news that Pope Benedict had signed a decree lifting the excommunications of the four bishops. The Vatican Secretariat of State issued a further statement Feb. 4, the day after Merkel’s public request, stating that Bishop Williamson would not be received into full communion with the church unless he disavowed in “an absolutely unequivocal and public manner” his statement that reports of 6 million Jews dying in the Holocaust were an exaggeration and that no Jews died in Nazi gas chambers. In an interview published Feb. 7 by the German magazine Der Spiegel, Bishop Williamson said he was willing to review the historical evidence about the Holocaust, and “if I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time.” POPE AND CHANCELLOR, page 8

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION On the Street . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 News in Brief . . . . . . . . . . 4-5 Immigration reform . . . . . . . 6 Faith-based office . . . . . . . . 10 Columnists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Jesuit General visits San Francisco ~ Page 3 ~ February 13, 2009

Scripture Reflection ‘My Will Be Done’ ~ Page 16 ~

Three new books on Mother Teresa ~ Page 20 ~

SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS

Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Classified ads . . . . . . . . 22-23

www.catholic-sf.org VOLUME 11

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No. 6

Catholic San Francisco

February 13, 2009

On The

Not much of a stocking stuffer but tasty nonetheless are flapjacks, the celebrated main dish of the pancake breakfast at St. Thomas More School Dec. 7. Santa, known other times of the year as Joe D’Aura, waits hungrily with cooks of the day Krity Vanneli, left, Anarose Schelstrate and Marcella Arrospide.

Where You Live By Tom Burke “Both patients are doing well,” Sandy Hufford told me about her daughter, Michelle, who received a new kidney from her donor dad, Chuck Hufford, Jan. 8. “I am an RN so they had their own private nurse when they got home,” Sandy said, noting Chuck, 64, is “back golfing” and Michelle L. Forshner Michelle, 43, is “back running her needlepoint shop in San Rafael.” Parishioners of St. Patrick’s in Larkspur, the Hufford family has been on prayer lists all over Marin County. “Father Joe Eagan at St. Anselm’s said a special Mass for us and Father Paul Arnoult, pastor at St. Patrick’s, said Mass for Michelle and Chuck the day of their surgery,” Sandy reported. Sandy also pointed out that St. Benedict is patron saint of Kidney patients. …. Had a chance to talk with Msgr. John T. Foudy, retired pastor of St. Anne of the Sunset Parish and now living at Alma Via Residence in San Francisco. “The still like me around here,” he told me with a chuckle. Msgr. Foudy celebrated his 95th birthday Oct. 1 and will be a priest 69 years on May 18. Also enjoying life at

Alma Via is Father Zachary Shore, retired pastor, Church of the Visitacion Parish in San Francisco. “This is its own little world,” Father Shore told me about Alma Via. “Many residents and visitors are from our parishes so, often, I know them or they know me.” Father Shore continues to occasionally assist with Sunday supply at St. Thomas More Church, which is right next door to Alma Via, and is a regular presider at the facility’s house Mass each Friday. Father Shore will be 72 years old March 31 and will celebrate his 28th year as a priest November 28. Father Shore and Msgr. Foudy can be reached at Alma Via, One Thomas More Way, San Francisco 94132…. Welcome aboard to Michelle L. Forshner, new Development Associate and Special Events Coordinator at St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco. Michelle started with SVDP Jan. 19 and is already knee-deep with the upcoming “Discarded to Divine” - www.discardedetodivine.org. Michelle is a San Diego

Kathy King, executive director of Seton Health Services Foundation, takes the keys from Dr. Leonilo Malabed, a longtime Seton Medical Center physician, who donated his 1988 Rolls Royce Corniche II to the organization. Sale of the car brought $45,000 to the group, which helps fund charity care at the Daly City hospital. “We were thrilled,” said Laurie Glynn, events coordinator, noting the car will now make its home on California’s Central Coast.

native and headed her own communications and public relations firm there for five years. Also a journalist, she has most recently managed PR and several other areas of importance for Orange Coast Interfaith Shelter in Southern California. “It is my goal to not only increase awareness of SVDP’s programming throughout the City but to unite multiple community groups in an effort to keep all of our programs running strong into our 150th year in 2010,” Michelle told this column. She called the current economy cause for extra attention to those suffering from “poverty, homelessness, domestic violence and addiction.”… By the way, I’m thinking of paying my California State Tax this year with an I.O.U. In addition, I may file my federal return taking advantage of that three to four year lapse in payment recently shown by a few cabinet nominees. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll be singing, “Do you know the way to Leavenworth?”…This is an empty space without you! E-mail items and pictures to burket@ sfarchdiocese.org. Mail items and pictures to “Street”, One Peter Yorke Way, SF 94109.Pix should be hard copy or electronic jpeg at 300 dpi. Don’t forget to include a follow-up phone number. Call me at (415) 614-5634 and I’ll walk you through it.

Michelle and Chuck Hufford

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February 13, 2009

Catholic San Francisco

Jesuit Father General stresses importance of international dialogue By Michael Vick

Father Nicolás, head of the Jesuit Order worldwide, blesses a woman at St. Ignatius Church during his recent visit. (PHOTOS BY MICHEAL VICK/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

In a wide-ranging press conference at the University of San Francisco Feb. 4, the head of the Society of Jesus, Jesuit Father General Adolfo Nicolás told Catholic San Francisco the Jesuit order stands ready to help the Vatican as it reaches out to Asia, Africa and Latin America. “How is the Church going to become more universal, more open to other cultures other traditions, other countries?” asked Father Nicolás. “The only way is through encounters.” Father Nicolás said that while Europe has been the center of Christian thought for millennia, the openness to input from the wider Church worldwide expressed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI is welcome. “What I would encourage is that the people in Rome travel as much as possible, not to speak, but to see and to listen and to mix with other people who realize that God has been very busy at work while in Rome we were sleeping,” Father Nicolás said. “Like the Gospels say, the seed grows at night while the farmer is sleeping.” Prior to his election as head of the Jesuit order, the Spanish-born priest spent decades people live, the struggles of people, and in Japan as a professor of systematic theol- then to make that part of their studies,” ogy and later as provincial of the Jesuit Father Nicolás said. “This is the Jesuit idea Province of Japan. Drawing on that experi- of humanistic education that touches the ence, Father Nicolás said the Church must whole person, not only intellectual input, but be watchful in its efforts to get a true picture education of the heart, the sensibilities.” He said the perof the experiences spectives of nonof Catholics from Western cultures have around the world. much to offer both the “There has been Society of Jesus and an effort to bring the Church at large. in non-Europeans to “India has a lot the Vatican,” Father to offer in terms of Nicolás said. “If we tradition and depth,” are not careful we Father Nicolás said. will bring Asians who “Africa has a lot to have been trained in offer that we haven’t Europe, or Africans even tapped in terms who have been trained of culture, and the in Europe. Therefore integration of the the European bias person. East Asia continues. What we has possibilities. My have to do is bring guess is that for the in dangerous people, future, different parts people who think of the world will condifferently, and who tribute.” open a new internaFather Nicolás tional dialogue inside said his trips to local the Vatican.” Jesuit provinces help Father Nicolás him to learn about said that international dialogue has already Jesuit Father General Adolfo Nicolás each province so as to help the society to begun in Jesuit edudelivers a homily focusing on grow. cational institutions. Christian martyrdom at St. Ignatius “What are the After meeting with Parish in San Francisco Feb. 4. strong and the weak USF administrators points?” asked Father and USF’s president Jesuit Father Stephen Privett, Father Nicolás. “The strong points can be a help Nicolás said the school’s efforts to bring for the rest of the world. As for the weak multicultural sensitivity to the student body points, the rest of the world can help. It’s this dialogue of encounters that makes the is laudable. “They are taking young people to dif- interchange richer and more productive.” The Jesuit Father General’s visit to ferent parts of the world to experience how

California included stops in Los Angeles, where he toured Homeboy Industries, a job-training program for former gang members, had dinner with migrant men at the Guadalupe Homeless Project, and delivered a keynote address at Loyola Marymount University; Hollywood, where he celebrated a multilingual Mass at Blessed Sacrament Parish; Sacramento, where he attended an assembly at Jesuit High School for students of JHS and Cristo Rey High School; San Francisco, where he celebrated Mass at St. Ignatius Church, and met with officials at the University of San Francisco; the East Bay, where he visited the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley and the group People

Improving Communities through Organizing in Oakland; San Jose, where he celebrated a multilingual Mass at Most Holy Trinity Parish. He concluded his visit at the Jesuit Retreat Center of Los Altos. While in California, Father Nicolás met with Archbishop George H. Niederauer of San Francisco, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, Bishop Patrick J. McGrath of San Jose, and Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento. The Society of Jesus is the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church, with 18,815 members – 13,305 priests, 2,295 scholastic students, 1,758 brothers and 827 novices.

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Catholic San Francisco

NEWS

February 13, 2009

in brief

SAN FRANCISCO – California’s Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Thursday, March 5 in three cases challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the initiative approved by voters in November, which states that only marriage between a man and a woman is recognized or valid in California. The session will be held in the Supreme Court’s Courtroom, Earl Warren Center, Fourth Floor, 350 McAllister St., in San Francisco. The court has issued an order listing the following three issues to be argued: Is Prop 8 invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than an amendment to, the California Constitution? Does it violate the separation of powers doctrine under the California Constitution? If the initiative is not unconstitutional, what is its effect, if any, on the marriages of same-sex couples performed before the adoption of Prop 8? The three cases before the court were filed Nov. 5, the day following the voters’ approval of Prop 8. On Nov. 19, the court agreed to hear the cases, denied a request to stay the operation of Prop 8 pending the court’s resolution of the cases. The session will be broadcast on the California Channel, a public affairs cable network.

Ministry supports couples SILVER SPRING, Md. – Cubby LaHood will never forget the news her doctor told her 20 years ago. LaHood, then 13-weeks pregnant with her second child, was told her unborn baby had several fatal abnormalities and would likely die within one week after birth. She was advised – in the best interest of the baby, herself and her family – to terminate the pregnancy. LaHood and her husband, Dan, were devastated by the news but did not end the pregnancy. Their son, Francis, was alive for just a few minutes before he died of kidney complications. He died in his parents’ arms as they held him, sang to him, spoke to him and cried. After the death of their son, Cubby LaHood began attending a hospital support group for those suffering miscarriages, infant deaths and stillbirths. Through the program she met Nancy Mayer-Whittington, whose daughter, Angela, also died just minutes after birth. They agreed that getting support after their ordeal was important, but said they would have benefited from having someone to talk to once they learned of their baby’s diagnosis. In 1994, the women started a group to do just that; it’s called Isaiah’s Promise, on the Web at www.isaiahspromise.net.

For Lent: Operation Rice Bowl WASHINGTON – Catholic families can share Lenten devotion and help needy people around the world through

(CNS PHOTO/MOHAMMED SALEM, REUTERS)

Prop 8 hearing set for March 5

Palestinian women stand in front of tents near their destroyed house in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip Jan. 29. Amid the ruins left by a 22-day conflict with Israel, Palestinian families have built makeshift shelters to escape the cold.

Catholic Relief Services’ Operation Rice Bowl, a program that combines praying, fasting, learning and giving. Alms are a part of a Lenten sacrifice that includes praying and fasting. With the help of materials such as the Home Calendar, participants have a daily guide for prayer and fasting in solidarity with the poor. In addition to giving alms, participants also have the opportunity to learn more about the developing world and to deepen their Lenten experience with spiritual reflection. More than 13,500 parishes, schools and faith communities gave $8 million in Operation Rice Bowl 2008. Seventy-five percent of Operation Rice Bowl contributions fund CRS development projects overseas and Lenten education projects in the United States. The rest remains in U.S. dioceses to help fund hunger and poverty alleviation projects.

Public opposes lifting of ban WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s decision to reverse the prohibition on funding for overseas familyplanning providers “may be the least popular thing he has done so far,” according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll. In one his first acts in office, Obama signed an executive order that forbade federal government money from going to overseas family-planning groups that provide abortions or offer abortion counseling. Fifty-eight percent of Americans disapprove of Obama’s decision to lift the ban, while only 35 percent approve, according to the poll, which was conducted Jan. 30-Feb. 1. President George W. Bush re-instituted the ban in

2001 after Bill Clinton had lifted Ronald Reagan’s prohibition. The poll found that of seven actions Obama took at the outset of his presidency, all but lifting the family-planning funding ban and closing Guantanamo Bay prison are highly popular.

Praise for SCHIP bill WASHINGTON – Joined by representatives of Catholic Charities USA and the Catholic Health Association, President Barack Obama signed into law Feb. 4 legislation reauthorizing and expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP. Obama called the $32.8 billion bill – one of the first signed during his presidency – “only a first step” and a “down payment on my commitment to cover every single American.” Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, who attended the signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House, praised Congress and Obama “for acting so swiftly on this vital law.” He added in a statement, “Without SCHIP, vulnerable children of low-income families would not receive the care they need to be strong and healthy citizens and productive individuals in our society.” Kathleen Curran, CHA’s senior director for public policy, represented CHA at the signing ceremony. NEWS IN BRIEF, page 5

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February 13, 2009

News in brief . . .

Catholic San Francisco

ages included blankets, candles, towels, hygiene items, baby formula and detergent. CRS purchased the items in January with a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development and $100,000 from its American donors.

■ Continued from page 4

Development programs aim

Tensions rise in Venezuela

(CNS PHOTO/CARLOS GARCIA RAWLINS, REUTERS)

UNITED NATIONS – The “ultimate purpose” of development programs must be to give people “the concrete possibility to shape their own lives” and make sure even the most vulnerable groups feel they are a part of the larger society, said the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to the United Nations. He said “social cohesion, as an expression of social justice, must be assured” to all people, and is an “indispensable condition to meet the global crises that confront humanity today.” The archbishop made his remarks in a Feb. 5 address to a meeting of the U.N. Economic and Social Council’s Commission for Social Development. Commission members gathered Feb. 4-13 at the United Nations to consider how to help vulnerable groups from being excluded in society and to review the implementation of various U.N. action plans for groups such as disabled people, youths, the elderly and families. Archbishop Migliore praised efforts already under way by the United Nations to fight poverty and to foster the “inclusion and the participation of all persons and social groups,” but he stressed that more could be done to involve those who have been excluded.

Better ways to protect life VATICAN CITY – The Feb. 9 death of Eluana Englaro after nutrition and hydration were withheld should lead Italian citizens and their government to find more effective ways to protect and promote human life, said the Vatican spokesman. “In the name of Eluana we must continue to seek more effective ways to serve life,” said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. Englaro, who had been in a persistent vegetative state for more than 17 years, died at a private clinic in Udine, Italy, less than a week after her doctors, with the support of her father, began withholding nutrition and hydration. By Feb. 7, doctors said she was receiving only sedatives. News of her death interrupted an Italian parliamentary debate on an emergency measure to make it illegal to withhold nutrition and hydration from patients who are disabled or in a persistent vegetative state. Vatican officials repeatedly have said that the provision of nutrition and hydration is an obligatory, basic part of caring for a person who cannot care for him or herself; it is not an extraordinary means of keeping someone alive and cannot be withdrawn.

Catholic relief for Gaza JERUSALEM – Humanitarian aid packages sent by Catholic

People in Caracas, Venezuela, take part in a Feb. 7 campaign rally against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s proposed constitutional changes. Venezuelans will vote Feb. 15 on proposals that would allow Chavez and other politicians to stay in office as long as they keep winning elections.

organizations into the Gaza Strip have reached more than 5,000 families, but sometimes with difficulty and delay. Omar Shaban, a project coordinator in Gaza for the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Relief Services, said that by Feb. 9 CRS completed three shipments of food and nonfood items, which were distributed to some 1,500 families in three different regions of the Gaza Strip. “The distribution went smoothly,” Shaban told Catholic News Service in a Feb. 9 phone interview. “The people were so happy with the contents.” In addition to food, the pack-

BOGOTA, Colombia – With a referendum on a constitutional amendment to remove term limits just days away, tensions are rising in Venezuela, and at least one Catholic analyst warned that passing the amendment would weaken the nation’s democratic system. On Feb. 15 Venezuelans will vote on whether or not to remove term limits for all elected officials. Attention has focused primarily on Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez, who was first elected in 1998 and is constitutionally barred from running again after his current term expires in 2012. Chavez’s backers say he has used the nation’s great petroleum earnings to improve life for Venezuela’s poor by creating new education and health services. But Chavez’s critics, who include Catholic Church leaders, say the president has concentrated a dangerous amount of power in his own hands, mismanaged the economy, polarized the country and permitted soaring crime rates. Chavez and church leaders have clashed repeatedly during Chavez’s decade in power. Chavez once accused Catholic bishops of hiding demons under their robes.

Catholics return in Kosovo PRISTINA, Kosovo – Although armed conflict in Kosovo ended nearly a decade ago, the capital city still feels like a place hit recently by war or natural disaster. Electricity goes out often, water is strictly rationed, U.N. jeeps are ubiquitous and people look harried. Along the main road leading to Pristina, every other lot is full of old cars, stolen from other European countries and picked clean or abandoned by families who fled the war. But during Sunday Masses at the Church of St. Anthony of Padua, an active Catholic community packs the pews. There are families and old people, a full-voiced choir, eight young altar servers and long lines to receive the Eucharist. The church, located in a working-class neighborhood, was built in the 1960s after the communist regime demolished the Catholic cathedral in the city’s center. “We are small but very alive. Children from every grade are in catechism (classes),” said Father Albert Jakaj, 30, whose identical twin is a priest in Montenegro. “People are coming back to their old faith. We have whole families coming back to their roots.” – From Catholic News Service and Catholic San Francisco

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Catholic San Francisco

February 13, 2009

San Francisco conference Moral, political claims vie as president weighs opening for immigration reform By Rick DelVecchio Immigrant rights advocates see an ally in President Obama in their quest for comprehensive reform and are looking to people of faith, especially Catholics, to keep the debate focused on human dignity. Some 120 interfaith advocates met Feb. 4 at St. Patrick Church in San Francisco to discuss their legislative goals and how to respond to creeping anti-immigrant sentiment linked to the economic crisis. There is an opening for legislative reform early in the Obama Administration, and people of faith will have a crucial role to play as proposals go to a Congress fixated on economic fears, they said.

chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is sensitive to the political dangers of pushing immigration reform, yet the president enjoyed wide support from Latino immigrants in the November election and risks losing their backing in 2012 if he fails to move. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re hearing on the ground,â&#x20AC;? Cube said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;is Obama needs to show his gratitude for Latino support.â&#x20AC;? In Congress, undecided members could be swung either by cries for a crackdown or for compassion. Now is the time for people of faith to let their lawmakers know that compassion is the morally higher and less politically risky course, the advocates said, noting that the political risk will grow as the 2010 midterm elections near. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to try to move Catholics in states with Catholic legislators,â&#x20AC;? Cube said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If we can move opposition down to 3-to-1, it will give Catholic legislators some cover.â&#x20AC;? He added: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re asking people of faith, Catholics in particular, to view this outside the secular realm. As people of faith, step back and view this issue with compassion. Try to put yourself in that other personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shoes. They lack resources, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why they come here.â&#x20AC;?

Antonio Cube, U.S. bishopsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Justice for Immigrants national manager.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The ducks are in a row for us for this year or early next year,â&#x20AC;? said Antonio Cube, national manager for the U.S. Catholic Bishopsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Justice for Immigrants Campaign. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our allies are looking at moving legislation through the House by the end of November, into the Senate by December and going to the presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s desk for his signature sometime early in February.â&#x20AC;? The bishops and their allies have been meeting with administration officials on what they want to see included in a reform package. They plan to meet next month with Janet Napolitano, the presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Homeland Security Secretary, to argue for measures that can be taken without legislation, including cutting back on raids, restoring due process in immigration court and phasing out the â&#x20AC;&#x153;E-Verifyâ&#x20AC;? service that allows employers to check new hiresâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; immigration status online. Change will not be easy, Cube and other conference speakers noted. The politics of immigration reform are tricky for Obama and more so for lawmakers in districts hit hard by job losses. Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Catholics on Immigration Would you support or oppose U.S. government assistance and trade policies that would create jobs abroad in order to prevent immigrants from coming here illegally to seek employment?

37% support 57%

Would you support or oppose federal legislation to build a wall along the entire U.S.Mexico border that is intended to stop illegal immigration?

Do you agree or disagree that the church has a moral obligation to help provide for the humanitarian needs of immigrants regardless of their legal status?

oppose

38% support 60%

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75%

agree

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Telephone survey conducted among 1,000 Catholic adults in the U.S. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

Ana Perez, executive director, Central American Resource Center.

The faith community in the Bay Area, with its history of compassion for immigrants, is vital in the national debate, said Ana Perez, executive director of the Central American Resource Center in San Francisco. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We need to keep our eyes on the prize, which is federal immigration reform, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really crucial we remember that what we do here to protect immigrants is crucial because it sends a national message,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The faith community has an amazing opportunity,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have the moral background to advocate for fair

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treatment of immigrants.â&#x20AC;? The Obama Administration has begun to shift from a punitive to a more compassionate approach, Perez said. But the new presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s advisers are asking reform advocates tough questions on why comprehensive reform should be tried a third time when it failed twice before in Congress and how to justify legalizing 12 million people who are in the country illegally. â&#x20AC;&#x153;How do we justify the claim to legalize 12 million undocumented workers when in the last quarter of the year 1.8 million jobs were lost in the this country and in the first quarter of this year weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to lose 1.5. million?â&#x20AC;? Perez asked. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What moral claim can we make? How do we re-frame the issue from seeing immigrants as terrorists to individuals who have something to add and bring value to the country?â&#x20AC;? The Obama Administration is linking immigration reform with trade and foreign policy, Perez said. That echoes a theme by Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the U.S. Catholic Bishopsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Committee on Migration, who on Jan. 12 urged President-elect Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon to work together to end abuses against migrantsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;both in the United States and Mexicoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and to address â&#x20AC;&#x153;pushâ&#x20AC;? factors that compel migrants to undertake dan-

T T T

ÂŠ2008 CNS

gerous journeys to the United States. Perez said the enforcement crackdown under the Bush Administration and the job losses in the recession combined to create a harsh climate for immigrant families. The U.S. population of undocumented workers fell by a half-million last year because of â&#x20AC;&#x153;massive economic crisis,â&#x20AC;? she said. Enforcement under the Obama Administration is expected to be less severe, but immigrant families continue to suffer, she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the last year more than 19 different bills went through Congress: more enforcement, more spending on the border,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;All along the southern border in the last four years our country has just been covered with detention camps. Do we want to have a country that detains workers for coming to support their families?â&#x20AC;? The conference was sponsored by the Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights, the East Bay Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. More information is available online at www.interfaithimmigration.org. See the Multimedia section of Catholic San Francisco Online, www. catholic-sf.org, for an interview with Ana Perez on immigration enforcementâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impact in San Francisco.

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February 13, 2009

Catholic San Francisco

National pro-life postcard campaign called more important than ever

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On catholic-sf.org

BISHOP JUSTICE Curiosity as a path to Jesus Curiosity was the theme of Bishop William Justice’s homily at a Mass opening the recent convention of the National Catholic Office for the Deaf Pastoral Week. “We are all here because of curiosity, heart-filled listening and reaching out to others in Jesus’ name,” he preached. “It is so important that we bridge the gap for those to whom we minister; those who are afraid to go beyond curiosity; those who just listen but do not act; and those of us who are the ministers who do not return again and again to our listening hearts to be renewed to proclaim with joyful hearts the way to the place that Jesus lives.” VIDEO “A huge humanitarian crisis” Federal immigration authorities are conducting nearly a dozen raids daily throughout the country, said Ana Perez, executive director of the Central American Resource Center in San Francisco. Because of a backlash last summer triggered by extensive publicity over what she said were two or three cases of violence committed by minors, the situation is particularly difficult for immigrant children accused of a crime in San Francisco. “Anyone charged with a crime is being deported,” she said. “It’s a huge humanitarian crisis.” Perez spoke at an interfaith conference on immigration. See a report on the conference in this issue of Catholic San Francisco. IMAGES Cloistered nun’s 75th jubilee See Jose Aguirre’s photos of the 75th jubilee of service by Sister Maria de San Pedro de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe with the Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Sister Maria, who arrived from Mexico when she was 24, turns 100 in September.

WASHINGTON (CNS) – With tens of millions of postcards already distributed to Catholic parishes and schools, other religious faiths and civic organizations, the campaign to convince Congress not to reverse current pro-life policies or make abortion a right is more important than ever, according to an official with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “To guard against the erosion of current pro-life measures – and to keep abortion from becoming a federal entitlement – our voice is needed now more than ever,” said Deirdre A. McQuade, assistant director for policy and communications in the USCCB Office of ProLife Activities. “The massive campaign under way shows clearly that, regardless of how they voted, Catholics want to send a strong message to Congress to protect existing pro-life policies and to oppose the radical promotion of abortion,” she added. “As the cards start flooding in, the new Congress will see that they should not divide our nation with policies that offend the pro-life values of the majority of Americans.” The national postcard campaign, launched three weeks ago and expected to continue until mid-February, asks members of Congress to oppose any measures similar to the Freedom of Choice Act, which “would overturn many existing widely supported policies, including laws protecting parental involvement and conscience rights and those preventing partial-birth abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion.” Through its partner organization, the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment, the USCCB has been sponsoring national postcard campaigns related to various pro-life causes since 1993. “While FOCA would accomplish the abortion promotion agenda all at once, other bills could realize the same agenda in a piecemeal fashion,” McQuade said.

“For example, widely supported pro-life measures in appropriations bills are already at risk, including the long-standing Hyde amendment, which has prohibited the use of taxpayer funds for most abortions, and the Hyde/Weldon amendment preventing government discrimination against health care providers who do not perform or refer for abortions,” she added. Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the USCCB Committee on ProLife Activities, expressed similar concerns in a recent letter urging members of Congress to retain pro-life provisions in the appropriations bills they must approve to keep the government funded past March 5. “While an extreme proposal like FOCA would overturn hundreds of pro-life laws at once, we are equally concerned that such laws may be overturned one at a time during Congress’ appropriations process,” he wrote. Among the specific provisions he cited were: – The Hyde amendment to the bill funding the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, as well as parallel provisions barring taxpayer funding of abortions in military hospitals, federal employees’ health benefits, foreign assistance and other circumstances. – The Dickey/Wicker amendment to the Labor/HHS appropriations bill, which bars federal funding of research involving the creation or destruction of human embryos or harm to them. – The Hyde/Weldon amendment guaranteeing the conscience rights of physicians and nurses who choose not to participate in abortions and hospitals that do not offer them. – The Kemp/Kasten amendment to the State/Foreign Operations appropriations bill, which prohibits U.S. funding of organizations that promote coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization overseas.

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Catholic San Francisco

February 13, 2009

USCCB president calls bishopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Holocaust remarks â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;offensive,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;falseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; WASHINGTON (CNS) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, labeled as â&#x20AC;&#x153;deeply offensive and utterly falseâ&#x20AC;? remarks denying the Holocaust made by a formerly schismatic bishop whose excommunication was lifted in January by Pope Benedict XVI. â&#x20AC;&#x153;No Catholic, whether layperson, priest or bishop, can ever negate the memory of the Shoah, just as no Catholic should ever tolerate expressions of anti-Semitism and religious bigotry,â&#x20AC;? Cardinal George said in a statement. British-born Bishop Richard Williamson, one of four bishops whose illicit ordination in 1988 by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebrve prompted their automatic excommunication, provoked Jewish protests worldwide with assertions that the Holocaust was exaggerated and that no Jews died in Nazi gas chambers. The assertions were made in a television interview recorded

in November and aired the day the pope lifted the excommunications of all four bishops. In calling the remarks â&#x20AC;&#x153;deeply offensive and utterly false,â&#x20AC;? Cardinal George said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bishop Williamson has denied historical facts about the Shoah, in which 6 million Jews were cruelly annihilated, innocent victims of blind racial and religious hatred. These comments have evoked understandable outrage from within the Jewish community and also from among our own Catholic people.â&#x20AC;? Pope Benedict condemned the Holocaust denials in remarks Tour 90404 issued Jan. 30, but did not directly address Bishop Williamsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role in the controversy. On Feb. 3 a Vatican spokesman said the pope, in past and recent statements, had clearly distanced himself from comments by the bishop. A Vatican statement Feb. 4 said Pope Benedict did not know

about the controversial statements by Bishop Williamson when he lifted the excommunication. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The positions of Bishop Williamson on the Holocaust are absolutely unacceptable and are strongly rejected by the Holy Father,â&#x20AC;? the statement said. In order to function as a bishop, Bishop Williamson must distance himself from his previous statements in â&#x20AC;&#x153;an absolutely unequivocal and public manner,â&#x20AC;? the Vatican said. Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York emphasized that the Vatican â&#x20AC;&#x153;condemned in the clearest terms a statement made by an illicitly consecrated bishop by the name of Richard Williamson in which the evil of the Shoah was questioned or at least minimized.â&#x20AC;? The cardinal said he wished to add his voice to that of the Vatican and the USCCB in â&#x20AC;&#x153;rejecting (Bishop) Williamsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s words as hurtful, baseless and outrageous.â&#x20AC;?

Pope and Chancellor . . .

has been removed as the rector of the In the meantime, Father Davide Pagliarani, seminary. superior of the societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Italian district, issued April 29-May In an e-mail to the newspaper, Father10,a 2009 statement saying that another Holocaust â&#x2013; Continued from cover Christian Bouchacourt, the societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s South denier, Father Floriano Abrahamowicz, had Tour 90502 Bishop Williamson e-mailed Der Spiegel American district director, said Bishop been expelled from the Society of St. Pius X. from Argentina where he had been the head Williamson had been removed from his As the controversy surrounding Bishop of the seminary of the Society of St. Pius X duties, and he repeated the societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s position Williamson grew in late January and early in La Reja for the past five years. that â&#x20AC;&#x153;the affirmations of Bishop Williamson February, Father Abrahamowicz gave sevThe Argentine newspaper La Nacion do not reflect in any way the position of our eral interviews in which he, too, denied the reported last week that Bishop Williamson congregation.â&#x20AC;? Holocaust and in which he claimed that the Nazi gas chambers were used to disinfect inmates upon arrival at Nazi concentration camps. The Society of St. Pius X was founded in 1969 by Archbishop Lefebvre. It does not accept the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council and its concepts of religious freedom and ecumenism. The papal decree lifting the excommunication was made public Jan. 24 and Jewish groups â&#x20AC;&#x201C; especially in Germany, the U.S. and Israel â&#x20AC;&#x201C;expressed shock that the Vatican would lift the excommunication against Bishop Williamson even after his comments Departs San Francisco had been televised. 12-Day Pilgrimage German Cardinal Walter Kasper, who $ coordinates the Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dialogue with the only ($4,349 after Jan. 19, 2009) Jews, said the controversy was fueled in part by a lack of communication within the Vatican Fr. Ron Williams, Spiritual Director and by â&#x20AC;&#x153;management errors in the Curia.â&#x20AC;? Includes outside cabin and shore excursions Cardinal Kasper said he has been followVisit: Athens, Istanbul, Mykonos, Patmos, Kusadas, ing the unfolding controversy â&#x20AC;&#x153;with great Athens Rhodes, Heraklion, Santorini, Piraeus, Corinth concern.â&#x20AC;?

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Pope Benedict was scheduled to meet Feb. 12 with more than 60 U.S. Jewish leaders, members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. A Vatican official told Catholic News Service that the group had requested the papal audience before the Bishop Williamson controversy erupted, but that obviously the German-born pope would use the occasion to reaffirm his respect for the Jews and his position that the Holocaust was real and that it was a horrific proof of the existence of evil. Top officers of the World Jewish Congress met at the Vatican Feb. 9 with Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews. Ronald S. Lauder, president of the congress, said in a statement that he and the other officers told Cardinal Kasper that the Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s insistence that Bishop Williamson recant â&#x20AC;&#x153;was a welcome first step,â&#x20AC;? but that concrete actions must be taken to emphasize that the Catholic Church itself will not tolerate â&#x20AC;&#x153;accommodating anti-Semites.â&#x20AC;? Lauder said he hoped the pope would be able to make his planned May visit to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are looking forward to the popeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s visit to the Holy Land,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This will be an opportunity to reaffirm the Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment to dialogue with Jews.â&#x20AC;?

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February 13, 2009

Catholic San Francisco

Online maps showing political donor information battled in courts By Rick DelVecchio Are online maps showing personal information on donors in a bitterly fought political battle a new medium for public harassment? Proponents of Proposition 8 say yes. They are in court fighting disclosure of new reports of financial contributions to the marriage initiative, which won at the polls last Nov. 4 and reestablished the definition of marriage in California as a union of one man and one woman. The election victory was answered the next day with a salvo of lawsuits calling the measure unconstitutional and branding its supporters zealots who would sacrifice equal rights to religious principles. The ProtectMarriage.com – Yes on 8 committee lost a round Jan. 29. Their claim that their supporters have experienced “extensive acts of harassment, including death threats” and that immediate action was needed blocking further disclosure was turned back by U.S. District Court Judge Morrison C. England, Jr. in Sacramento. England denied the bid for a preliminary injunction to protect the identities of those donors who have contributed $100 to $999 since Oct. 18, 2008. “We are disappointed that we did not receive the preliminary injunction,” said Frank Schubert, Yes on 8 campaign manager. “But this fight is really about how donors to a future campaign will be treated. We are committed to ensuring that supporters of traditional marriage can do so without fear of intimidation and harassment.” James Bopp Jr., the attorney handling the case for Yes on 8, told Catholic San Francisco that he will bring the case to a conclusion at the district court level and appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He said his firm has been contacted by “more than two dozen” donors who reported they have been harassed since last week’s court action against blocking disclosure of new donor reports. “We’ve seen phone calls, we’ve seen vandalism, we’ve seen boycotts,” he said. Yes on 8 committee plans to present new information about alleged harassment to the appellate court, Schubert told Catholic San Francisco. “Some people have received death threats, others have been forced to give up their

employment,” he said. A restaurant manager in Los Angeles who donated $100 was forced to resign after the restaurant was picketed, he said. Supporters of Prop 8 gave $39.3 million in monetary contributions, against $41.1 million for the campaign to defeat the initiative, according to the California Secretary of State’s office. Nearly 3,000 donors – including retirees, doctors, homemakers and engineers, almost all from California – gave $50. In their move to block further release of financial data, the Yes on 8 committee maintained that these small donors are vulnerable to intimidation. “There has been a systematic effort to intimidate and harass donors to the Prop 8 campaign,” said Ron Prentice, chairman of ProtectMarriage.com. “The latest example of this is the publication by our opponents of Google Maps showing the home or office location of Yes on 8 contributors. We are asking the federal court to stop this harassment and enjoin the state from forcing further disclosure of our contributors until the court can assess the constitutionality of California’s campaign disclosure rules as applied to our committee.” The maps are easily made downloading

donor data from the Secretary of State’s office and linking it to Google Maps software. A user can scroll over a city, neighborhood or street map with a mouse and survey names, occupations, employers and dollar amounts. The website eightmaps.com features overlays of San Francisco, Orange County and Salt Lake City. Another site, californiansagainsthate.com, displays donor data in a “Dishonor Roll” leading with the Knights of Columbus, the largest donor to Prop 8, and listing organizations and individuals who gave as little as $4,950. The suit notes that groups such as Californians Against Hate exist for the primary purpose of identifying and taking action against supporters of Prop 8. The suit cited numerous examples of threatening and harassing emails, phone calls and postcards suffered by supporters of Prop 8, including death threats. “The U.S. Supreme Court has held that when there is a reasonable probability that

disclosure of contributor information will result in harassment of contributors to a political organization, the organization can be exempted from further disclosure of contributor information,” Prentice said. The suit alleges that California’s Political Reform Act is unconstitutional on numerous grounds, including the right of contributors to exercise their First Amendment rights free from threats, harassment and reprisals. The suit also challenges the act’s requirements that committees report all contributors of $100 or more as unconstitutionally over-broad in violation of the First Amendment because it is not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. The $100 threshold has not been increased for nearly 30 years. Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate, said The court did the right thing by upholding California’s 35-year-old Political Reform Act, which requires all contributors of $100 and above to state campaigns be reported and available to the public. Karger said, “It is truly unfortunate that in the heat of a campaign donors are subjected to any undue attention. This has sadly been the case on both sides of last November’s highly emotional Proposition 8 campaign. But the law passed by the voters in 1974 has served our state well all these years and must remain in place.” He said ProtectMarriage.com had sent a letter to many major donors to No on 8 - Equality California threatening to expose them and take action against their companies unless they gave to the Yes on 8 campaign. Karger said, “Gay and lesbian donors fighting several anti gay initiatives in California beginning with the 1978 Briggs Initiative (Prop 6) have contributed to these campaigns in fear of job loss and being outed to their families. No exemption from the law was ever requested.” However, observers note that past campaigns have not featured the kind of online donor information being made available by the No on 8 supporters.

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Catholic San Francisco

February 13, 2009

Obama orders faith-based office be reworked, its scope expanded begin to crowd out the destructive forces of zealotry and make room for the healing power of understanding.” WASHINGTON (CNS) – President Chavez told Catholic News Service that Barack Obama has created by executive his background in community organizing order a White House Office of Faith-Based before he joined the Mexican American and Neighborhood Partnerships, which Cultural Center was a factor in his invitation will expand upon and rework the Bush to join the advisory committee. administration’s Office of Faith-Based and Chavez said the council priority closest Community Initiatives. to his heart would be helping poor youths The office’s top priority, according to the and young adults. White House release, will be “making com“We need to reach young people with munity groups an integral part of our ecomeaningful access to education and jobs,” nomic recovery and poverty a burden fewer he said. Even assistance as basic as helphave to bear when recovery is complete.” ing parents more effectively maneuver the It also will focus on reducing demand educational system can make a dramatic for abortions, encouraging fathers to stand difference in communities like those where by their families and working with the he worked as an organizer, he said. National Security Council to “foster interFather Snyder told CNS that the manfaith dialogue with leaders and scholars date for the faith-based office is to work around the world.” with the National Security Council to In the same order, Obama created a new foster interfaith dialogue. He said it is an President’s Advisory Council on Faithacknowledgment that better understanding Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, of the religious motivations of the players comprised of 25 leaders of religious in global problems “can only increase our and community organizations, including national security.” Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic He said in meeting with the first 15 peoCharities USA, and Arturo Chavez, presiple named to the council, Obama laid out his dent of the Mexican American Catholic philosophies about the faith community’s College in San Antonio, formerly known as role in the work of government. the Mexican American Cultural Center. Father Snyder said that in the Bush The council will advise the White House administration’s approach to faith-based and federal agencies on a range of topics, programs “what we had was an ally, an from hiring policies for private agencies that advocate” in easing the path for organizaaccept federal funds to how national security tions such as Catholic Charities to work issues are affected by religious beliefs. with the federal government. The president also named as head of the Regarding Obama’s approach, he said office Joshua Dubois, who ran Obama’s that “by establishing this council it seems to religious outreach efforts during the cambring it to the next level,” where advice and paign; he served on Obama’s Senate staff guidance from people with expertise in workin a similar capacity. Dubois, 26, is a graduate of Boston Joshua Dubois, center, introduces members of the new President’s Advisory Council ing with the poor, for example, are being on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to President Barack Obama in the actively sought by the administration. University and Princeton University’s Oval Office Feb. 5. To head the office the president named Dubois, who ran The new council’s structure and ways it Woodrow Wilson School of Public and Obama’s religious outreach efforts during the campaign. He also will function were still being worked out, said International Affairs who at 18 began servFather Snyder. The executive order calls for it ing as an associate pastor at a Pentecostal had served on Obama’s Senate staff in a similar capacity. to have a total of 25 members who will serve church in Cambridge, Mass. one-year terms, which can be renewed. At the National Prayer Breakfast Feb 5, Father Snyder said the one-year term is because Obama Obama said the goal of the office “will not be to favor one ties, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wants to keep fresh voices on the council. Members were told religious group over another – or even religious groups over wisely drew between church and state.” He said such work is important because “few are closer to expect the first meeting to take place in about three months secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communi- to what’s happening on our streets and in our neighborhoods and that they would meet about four times a year, he said. than these organizations. People trust them. Communities The first 15 members represent a wide range of religions rely on them. And we will help them.” and political philosophies. Independent Living | Assisted Living The president said the advisory council would be used to Besides Chavez and Father Snyder, they include: Judith Memory Care | Skilled Nursing help “foster a more productive and peaceful dialogue on faith. N. Vredenburgh, president and CEO, Big Brothers/Big I don’t expect divisions to disappear overnight, nor do I believe Sisters of America, Philadelphia; Rabbi David N. Saperstein, that long-held views and conflicts will suddenly vanish. director and counsel, Religious Action Center of Reform “But I do believe that if we can talk to one another Judaism, Washington; Frank S. Page, president emeritus, openly and honestly, then perhaps old rifts will start to Southern Baptist Convention, Taylor, S.C.; the Rev. Otis mend and new partnerships will begin to emerge,” he said. Moss Jr., pastor emeritus, Olivet Institutional Baptist “In a world that grows smaller by the day, perhaps we can Church, Cleveland; Eboo S. Patel, founder and executive director, Interfaith Youth Corps of Chicago; and Fred Davie, president, New York-based Public/Private Ventures, a secular organization that works on policies and programs to help low-income communities. Gospel for February 15, 2009 The 15 also include: William J. Shaw, president, National Mark 1:40-45 Baptist Convention, USA, Philadelphia; Melissa Rogers, director, Wake Forest School of Divinity Center for Religion Following is a word search based on the Gospel reading for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle and Public Affairs, Winston-Salem, N.C.; the Rev. Joel C. B: the cleansing of a leper, and its effects. The words Hunter, senior pastor, Northland community, Lakeland, Fla.; can be found in all directions in the puzzle. the Rev. Jim Wallis, president and executive director of Sojourners, Washington; Bishop Vashti M. 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Not only do we provide food for the starving, but we also build small houses for the destitute, dig water wells for parched villagers, provide medicine and medical equipment for the sick and elderly, support orphanages and education for children, and much more. The people of Haiti have suﬀered greatly this last year. They are hungry, weary and afraid that the world will forget them. Today, you can honor and serve Christ by helping to feed our brothers and sisters in need. By partnering with Food For The Poor, you can provide lifesaving food for hungry children and their families. Your gift of $45 will feed 15 children for a month. A gift of $81 will feed 27 young ones, and $150 will feed 50 children for a month. Any gift you give will be truly appreciated.

“Feed My sheep.” income were washed away. Now they have nothing.

Please, be as generous as you possibly can and help Food For The Poor feed precious children. Please use the postage-paid envelope in the brochure located in this publication to send your gift today.

Despite the family’s tragic losses, their faith remains. Elanie says, “I was praying. I’m always praying. Now I pray for food from God. I thank God for protecting us and keeping my children safe. We don’t have much, but we still thank God.”

“Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of Mine, you did for Me.” (Matthew 25:40b)

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ust as Jesus commanded His disciples to care for others, today we are asked to do the same. Christ’s words take on an extra sense of urgency as global food shortages and an economic crisis threaten the survival of countless people worldwide. In Haiti, the poorest country in our hemisphere, food shortages have reached epic proportions. Four major storms battered Haiti last fall, taking lives, destroying homes and ruining crops. Rebuilding and replanting will take time, but the need for food is immediate. Hungry Haitian families desperately need your help. Elanie Losange, a mother of two boys, ages 4 and 2, describes the ﬂood that washed away her home and all of their meager belongings: “The water was waist-high, so I grabbed the two boys and ran up the mountain,” she says. Elanie, her husband and their children escaped with their lives, but they returned to ﬁnd total devastation. Their house was gone. The crops and fruit trees they relied on for food and

Elanie and her husband, Vedzu, have replanted their crops, but they estimate it will take at least a year before they can harvest. The fruit trees will take longer to bear fruit. Elanie is expecting her third child, and she is terriﬁed that she won’t be able to feed her baby. This family is just one example of the many people in Haiti who are struggling to survive. Father Duken Augustin, a local priest, works tirelessly to help needy families like Elanie’s. He relies on Food For The Poor for help, and we, in turn, rely on people like you for support.

ather Duken

Augustin has dedicated his life to serving the poorest of the poor in northern Haiti. After the storms passed last fall, Father Duken said, “We work hard to help people have a better life. It takes a lot of faith. The situation [here] was hard before, but now people are discouraged. Some of the children are in a very bad condition.” Food For The Poor works directly with clergy throughout the Caribbean and Latin America to help them serve impoverished communities.

Founded in 1982, Food For The Poor is an interdenominational ministry working to end the suﬀering of the poor in the Caribbean and Latin America.

A gift that will save lives Food shortages and rising prices are devastating for the poorest of the poor in Haiti. The price of rice and beans has more than doubled in the past year; yet many in this poverty-stricken country earn less than $2 a day. The struggle for survival has become increasingly diﬃcult, and lives are at stake.

Today you have the chance to save a life. Please use the Food For The Poor brochure enclosed in this publication to send your gift today. God bless you. Dept. 67411 • 6401 Lyons Road • Coconut Creek, FL 33073 (954) 427-2222 • www.foodforthepoor.org

Catholic San Francisco

February 13, 2009

“The looks on the faces of the sick are just like the looks on the faces of the sick in Lourdes”

■ Continued from cover O’Brien, a Dame of Malta and a member of St. Cecilia Parish, served as event chair. The Mass is “next best thing to Lourdes” for the sick and “Lourdes without jetlag,” O’Brien said. “Nothing can replace a trip to Lourdes,” she said. “However, most people will never have the opportunity to travel to Lourdes.” The Mass, she said, is hoped “to lighten the burden of illness” and “acknowledge the special role of the caregivers.” Regan, in comments in anticipation of the day, said the Order of Malta for the last 900 years has devoted itself to serving the poor and the sick. “Last year in the West our 763 members provided more than 50,000 hours of hands-on service to the poor and sick,” he said.

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the rest of their lives when their innocence has been violated “by despicable people.” “We cannot forget the countless numbers of young people who die because of thirst, hunger, and lack of medical care,” he said, adding that children of refugees and others whose families are on the move searching for a better way of life are especially vulnerable. “A silent cry of pain emerges from all these children that calls out to the conscience of men and women and people of faith,” he said. “The Christian community, which cannot remain indifferent before such dramatic situations, recognizes the pressing duty to intervene,” the pope said. And, he said, “given the changed situation of health care today, closer collaboration is needed between health care professionals working in different health care institutions and the ecclesial community present on the ground.” Pope Benedict praised and encouraged international and national organizations for generously helping the world’s sick children especially in poorer countries. Yet, he made a “heartfelt appeal” to world leaders to do more and to strengthen laws and programs that support sick children and their families. The family of a sick child often experiences serious difficulties and challenges and the Catholic community must do all it can to come to their aid with concrete help, said the pope. By welcoming these families and sharing in their suffering, people can help them create “an atmosphere of serenity and hope and make them feel part of a larger family of brothers and sisters in Christ,” he said. People’s selfless and generous love toward these families in need is “a reflection and sign of the merciful love of God who never abandons his children during times of trial, but always replenishes them with wonderful resources” so they can better face life’s difficulties, he said. Those who dedicate their lives to helping sick children “give eloquent witness to the love for human life, particularly for the life of someone who is weak and utterly dependant on others,” he said.

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■ Continued from cover

In the spirit of the liturgy and the day, Archbishop Niederauer stressed in his homily humanity’s responsibility to help one another and to not mistreat one another. “Jesus heals and strengthens us through the prayerful, caring and loving ministry of one another, especially our families and friends,” the Archbishop exhorted, noting that as we persecute others, we must remember that we persecute Christ. Archbishop Niederauer also encouraged taking ownership of the “Magnificat,” saying it is a “dreadful mistake for us to merely label this as `Mary’s Prayer.’” “Mary’s prayer is also our prayer – your prayer and mine. Indeed, the Catholic Church puts this prayer on our lips, at evening time every day of the year. Our souls proclaim the greatness of the Lord, our spirits rejoice in God our Savior.” Read Archbishop Niederauer’s homily on the Archbishop’s page in the Commentary section of Catholic San Francisco Online.

WOMEN

Support for children. . .

(PHOTOS BY JOSE AGUIRRE)

World Day of the Sick. . .

Catholic San Francisco

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Catholic San Francisco

February 13, 2009

Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Guest Commentary FOCA and beyond By Vickie Evans Unless you have been out of the country for the past month, and off the Internet, you have heard about the “Fight FOCA Campaign” which U.S. Bishops have spearheaded to raise awareness in the public square and among politicians about the dangers inherent in the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act. In its current form, FOCA was introduced in Congress as a reaction to former President Bush signing the Ban on Partial-Birth Abortion. The proposed bill declares, “it is the policy of the U.S. that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child; terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability; or terminate a pregnancy after viability when necessary to protect her life or her health.” It “prohibits a federal, state or local governmental entity from denying or interfering with a woman’s right to exercise such choices; or discriminating against the exercise of those rights in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services or information.” In other words, FOCA makes abortion a positive right with the corresponding obligation of government to provide unfettered access to that “right”. Not only does FOCA codify Roe v. Wade into law, but it goes far beyond Roe in not only allowing but promoting abortion on demand. If we prevent the passage of FOCA, have we won the abortion battle in this country? No. Have we sent a strong message to Congress and the new Administration that Americans do not support abortion as a fundamental right? Yes. Thirty million postcards asking Congressional leaders to “oppose FOCA or any similar measure” promoting abortion tend to make a statement. While FOCA is perhaps the most comprehensive vehicle for sending this message, a more immediate threat though narrower in scope, is the Prevention First Act reintroduced into the Senate last month. The bill prohibits health insurance plans from excluding coverage for birth control drugs and devices; requires that all hospitals receiving federal funds dispense the morning-after pill; and directs hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to the abortion industry. Also of great importance is the maintenance of the Hyde-Weldon Conscience Protection Amendment, a rider attached to the annual federal appropriations bill. This key measure prevents discrimination against health care providers that do not perform or refer for abortions. Without conscience protection, Catholic hospitals, along with doctors and nurses whose consciences are violated by participating in abortions, will be forced to perform abortions or leave the medical field. This is not good for medicine nor is it good for expanded access to heath care. The importance of strong conscience clauses, now referred to as “refusal clauses” by opponents, cannot be overstated. Those who say the Church should stay out of politics have lost sight of the fact that politics must be shaped by morality. We each have a moral responsibility to advocate for just laws. Making something legal does not make it acceptable. History has been a harsh judge of those who ignored ethics and went along with popular laws later condemned by society. Does failure to actively oppose laws facilitating the slaughter of 50 million unborn children translate into approval of laws so favorable to abortion that they make it a right? I wonder how a country that “kills its young,” in the words of Mother Teresa, will be judged by history – and more importantly, how will we be judged by God? Vicki Evans is Respect Life Coordinator for the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

A change of our own Dan Morris-Young ended a two-year term as editor of Catholic San Francisco early this month. He submitted his resignation late last year, and we observed his wishes for a quiet departure. A native of the Northwest, Dan plans to return to his home and family there. We are grateful to him for the contributions he has made to Catholic San Francisco, both in his recent service and in his original term as editor from 1999 to 2000. He has best wishes for the future.

Praise Catholic Schools Given that Catholic School’s Week is an opportunity for the entire Church to honor and give thanks for the gift of Catholic education to the life of the Church, I was disappointed in the placement of your article documenting St. Elizabeth School’s current challenges on the front page of the Catholic School’s Week issue (Jan. 23). I was also disappointed by the omission of any reference to the support that has been given to St. Elizabeth through its membership in the Alliance of Mission District Catholic Schools. The story, had it been positioned adjacent to Superintendent Maureen Huntington’s article on the recent Catholic School Study, would have offered an opportunity for the Catholic San Francisco readership to understand, more positively and effectively, the challenges facing many Catholic schools today. It could have, by juxtaposition, illustrated one school (namely St. Elizabeth’s) looking at their school’s data in the CSS report and then choosing to pro-actively move on the recommended steps for the future viability of the school. While Catholic San Francisco has indeed covered the Alliance of Mission District Catholic Schools (AMDCS) in previous editions, reference in your St. Elizabeth article to AMDCS support for one of its members, through tuition assistance, financial support for teacher salaries, purchase of textbooks, and professional development, would have demonstrated additional action steps supporting the viability of our inner city schools. It would have created a stronger and more complete picture of Archdiocesan support for the challenges St. Elizabeth School is addressing. Sr. Maureen Hilliard, SNDdeN Executive Director Alliance of Mission District Catholic Schools

People will come

L E T T E R S

Contemplative Outreach of San Francisco wishes to express appreciation for the wonderful article on the coming visit of Franciscan author Richard Rohr Feb 22 at St. Ignatius Church on the campus of USF. We have received numerous requests for tickets and more information thanks to your article. Mary Wyman, Coordinator Contemplative Outreach San Francisco

Continuing dialogue Vicki Evans is correct that we need to be clear about when the life of a new human being begins. Unfortunately it may not be as clear as presented in Dignitas Personae and its predecessor documents from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. At conception (which takes at least a day) a new genetically distinct individual organism is formed. If in the course of its travel into the uterus it is among the minority of zygotes that implant, a trajectory of human development is under way. If it does

Letters welcome Catholic San Francisco welcomes letters from its readers. Please: ➣ Include your name, address and daytime phone number. ➣ Sign your letter. ➣ Limit submissions to 250 words. ➣ Note that the newspaper reserves the right to edit for clarity and length. Send your letters to: Catholic San Francisco One Peter Yorke Way San Francisco, CA 94109 Fax: (415) 614-5641 E-mail: healym@sfarchdiocese.org

not implant, no further development takes place and the zygote disintegrates. There is a theological debate about the nature of these lost zygotes. One of the leading twentieth century theologians, Jesuit father Karl Rahner wrote: “Will [today’s moral theologians] be able to accept that 50+ percent of all ‘human beings’ – real human beings with immortal souls and an eternal destiny – will never get beyond this first stage of human existence?” The noted Redemptorist theologian Bernard Haring and Richard A. McCormick SJ have expressed similar doubts. Bioethecists Thomas A. Shannon and Allan B. Wolter OFM wrote, “Such vast embryonic loss intuitively argues against the creation of a principle of immaterial individuality at conception.” There is legitimate doubt about the personhood of a zygote. Much more troubling is Ms. Evan’s statement that authentic Catholic teaching is “unchanging and unchangeable.” History shows that Catholic teaching has changed with regard to usury, slavery and religious freedom to name a few. One could argue that authentic Catholic teaching changed dramatically in the last third of the previous century in and after Vatican II. The beauty of authentic Catholic teaching is that it is evolutionary. While core teachings are immutable, some others have already changed and some, like mandated celibacy for diocesan priests, are eminently changeable. Robert M. Rowden MD San Rafael Ed. Note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of existence, the human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life” (CCC, 2270), and, “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to moral law.” (CCC, 2271).

Long way for Life My wife and I were privileged to attend the recent Walk for Life West Coast in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. What an inspiration! Bishop Justice represented the Church exceedingly well. The only thing that tinged the joy of being with so many advocates for life was the fact we were in Speaker Pelosi’s congressional district. It is truly embarrassing that she continues to be more outrageous in her strident pro-abortion rhetoric. Our fervent prayer is that the Archbishop soon put an end to this scandal. Bob and Ruth Runkle Phoenix, AZ

Marriage commitments? Catholic San Francisco’s Jan. 30 issue included a column by Sr. Eloise Rosenblatt, a Sister of Mercy and attorney in private practice. Sr. Rosenblatt is pretty wellknown: she gave a workshop at the 2005 West Coast Call to Action conference, and was a featured speaker at the 2008 Northern California Lay Convocation held at the University of San Francisco, which was organized by a Call to Action regional contact person. What jumped out at me from her column of last week was this sentence: “Authentic Christian teaching reverences the body, supports marriage commitments, and promotes attentive, mutual love of spouses for each other.” Christian teaching does not support “marriage commitments,” it supports marriage. Now, why would anyone swap the ambiguous term “marriage commitments” for the word marriage? That deliberate change of “marriage” to “marriage commitments” has only one effect – it undermines Church teaching by degrading marriage to the level of other commitments. Given LETTERS, page 19

February 13, 2009

Catholic San Francisco

The Catholic Difference

‘Afflicted’ with fertility? What’s the biggest threat to the world’s prosperity and stability over the medium haul – say, between 2020 and 2050? The proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction? A continuing economic recession? Jihadism running amok? The Detroit Lions ushering in the Apocalypse by winning an NFL championship? (Just kidding on the last...) Guess again. According to Neil Howe and Richard Jackson, two researchers at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, the primary destabilizer of world affairs in the mid-decades of the 21st century will be demographics – meaning, primarily, too few people throughout too much of the developed and developing world. Some numbers-crunching helps make the case: • In the 1980s, the median age was 34 in Western Europe and 35 in Japan. Absent an unanticipated and dramatic change in birth rates, the median age in Western Europe in 2020 will be 47, and in Japan, 52. • In the 2020s, half the adult populations of Italy, Spain, and Japan will be above the official retirement age. • By 2030, thanks to several generations of cratering birth rates and the resulting demand for immigrant labor to fill low-wage jobs, the number of Muslims will double in France and triple in Germany. Amsterdam, Birmingham, Cologne, and Marseilles will likely be majority-Muslim cities, 20 years from now. • China, the fair-haired boy of establishment international affairs analysts, is heading for serious trouble, thanks to its draconian one-child policy and communism’s destruction of traditional

Chinese culture. By 2030, China will be an older country than the U.S. As Howe and Jackson write, “Imagine [Chinese] workforce growth slowing to zero while tens of millions of elders sink into indigence without pensions, without health care, and without children to support them. China could careen toward social collapse – or, in reaction, toward an authoritarian clampdown.” • Vladimir Putin’s plans for a new Russian imperium may run aground, because Russia will almost certainly be in demographic free fall by 2050, if not sooner. With what demographers call “lowest-low” birth-rates, and confronting colossal public health problems related to alcohol abuse and environmental degradation, Russia is a mess. Today, the average Russian man’s life expectancy is 59, which is 16 years less than his American counterpart (and somewhat less than the life-expectancy of those in his grandfather’s generation who survived Stalin and Hitler). Forty years out, Russia will have fallen in the world population tables from fourth place (in 1950) to 20th place. • And while all this is going on, Western Europe will be in continuing social, economic, and political crisis, thanks to too few tax-paying workers trying to support the wombto-tomb Euro-welfare state – which has already displaced private-sector health care and pension options while suppressing the habits necessary to sustain them. Ever since the 1968 publication of Paul Ehrlich’s intellectually fraudulent bestseller, The Population Bomb, enlightened opinion has held that “overpopulation” is the problem. It isn’t, and it never was. Now, thanks in part to the triumph of a contraceptive mentality in societies that have lost any religious sense of obligation toward the future,

the grim truth is revealing itself: the problem is too few people. Of course, there was always something instinctively counterintuitive about the anti-natalist cast of mind, which thinks of a newborn George Weigel calf as a “resource” or an “asset” and a newborn child as a “burden” or “problem.” Now that implausibility turns out to have, not only the gravest moral consequences, but the most severe economic, social, and political results. Yet the mythology of overpopulation is so deeply embedded in American elite opinion that even realistic observers like Howe and Jackson, after looking into the demographic abyss, can still write that contemporary subSaharan Africa is “afflicted” with “the world’s highest fertility rates.” No, sub-Saharan Africa is “afflicted” with vast governmental corruption and ineptitude, ethnic and tribal madnesses, jihadism, and diseases ancient and modern. But it is not “afflicted” with people. Ideas have consequences, for good or ill. The false idea of “overpopulation” has helped make it very likely that our children and grandchildren will live in a far less stable world than ours – which has not exactly been placid. George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

Of Grace and Sippy Cups

The Ritual I’ll Never Outgrow One thing I’ve learned as a parent is the power of ritual. Take my two-year-old son Matthew. Every night at bedtime, we read a story, then he’s tucked in with his binky and blankie. My husband and I each tell him one thing we love about him (“I love how hard you worked on your puzzle,” “I love how nice you are to your baby brother.”) We sing, share hugs and high-fives, and he goes off to sleep to the music of his windup bear. We do this night after night, predictably, without fail. Matthew loves the consistency. It’s easy to see why. After all, when you are two, the world is a pretty scary place. Nearly everything is bigger than you are. You have no power against the adults who scoop you up and take you wherever they want to go. No wonder that bedtime routine is so comforting to Matthew. It provides predictability in the midst of apparent randomness. It helps him rest in the knowledge that he is safe and loved. Honestly, I think the world is pretty frightening for us big people, too. Governments are in turmoil, the economy

nose-dives each day, the polar ice caps keep shrinking. On a more personal level, friends fall ill, bills pile up, anxiety reigns. There are days when I wander around feeling what Holly Golightly called “the mean reds” – I’m scared, but I don’t know exactly what I am scared of. So I take deep breaths, pray fumbling prayers, and live a faith that sometimes feels like a valiant flailing in the dark. And in the face of life’s fears, I’m all the more grateful that the rituals of my Church are there to shore me up. I’m especially thankful for the Mass. This is a relatively new feeling for me: in college, I found the Mass utterly boring in its sameness. I wanted something flashy, a weekly dose of variety, not a ritual I knew by heart. But with more life experience under my belt, I see that sameness in a new light. It’s comforting that no matter how many uncertainties I face, Sunday Mass is always something I know. Whatever has changed in the world from one week to the next, I know exactly what to expect when I walk into a church. Within the Mass, my favorite ritual is filing up the aisle to receive Communion. No matter how distracted I may have

been throughout the service itself (and I’m the mother of two pint-sized masters of distraction), I can’t dream my way through the feel of the host in my mouth. It’s a ritual that is so concrete, so participatory. Tasting Ginny God is also such an intiKubitz Moyer mate action; it jolts me awake, into a feeling of familiar comfort. No, I don’t need flashy variety to help me face the stress, the fear, and the mean reds. All I need is the weekly routine that I know by heart, that experience of Christ with me and in me, the one ritual that I’ll never outgrow. Ginny Kubitz Moyer is the author of “Mary and Me”: Catholic Women Reflect on the Mother of God.” Contact Moyer via her blog at www.maryandme.org.

Spirituality for Life

The Healing Embrace of the Eucharist There are different kinds of loneliness and different kinds of intimacy. We ache in many places. When I was a young priest, newly ordained and barely beyond the loneliness of adolescence, certain words at the Eucharist touched me deeply. I was a young and lonely and words about being drawn together inside one body and one spirit would incite feelings in me to do with my own loneliness. To become one body in Christ triggered, in me, an image of an embrace that would put an end to my personal loneliness, my endless aching, and my sexual separateness. Unity in Christ, as I fantasized it then, meant overcoming my own loneliness. And that is a valid understanding. The Eucharist is an embrace meant to take away personal loneliness, but, as we get older, a deeper kind of loneliness can and should begin to obsess us. This deeper loneliness makes us aware how torn and divided is our world and everything and everyone in it. There is a global loneliness that dwarfs private pain. How separate and divided is our world! We look around us, watch the world news, watch the local news, look at our places of work, our social circles, and even our churches, and we see tension and division everywhere. We are far from being one body and one spirit. So many things, it seems, work to divide us: history, circumstance, background, tem-

perament, ideology, geography, creed, color, and gender. And then there are our personal wounds, jealousies, self-interest, and sin. The world, like a lonely adolescent, aches too in its separateness. We live in a world deeply, deeply divided. And the older I get, the more I despair that there can be a simple solution, or perhaps even a human solution at all, to our divisions. Life slowly teaches us that it is naive to believe that all we need is simple optimism, goodwill, and an unfailing belief that love will conquer. Love can and will conquer, but it doesn’t happen like in a Hollywood picture, where two people who really have no business ever being together fall in love and despite having nothing in common, despite being deeply wounded, despite being immature and selfish, and despite having no shared faith or values, are able to rise above all their differences to sustained embrace and ecstasy, simply because love conquers all. At a certain point, we know that real life doesn’t work like that, unless we die in that initial embrace as did Romeo and Juliet. Our differences eventually have their say, both inside of our personal relationships and inside the relationships between countries, cultures, ethnic groups, and religions. At a certain point our differences, like a cancer that cannot be stopped, begin to make themselves felt and we feel helpless to overcome that.

But this isn’t despair. It’s health. As anyone who has ever fought an addiction knows, the beginning of a return to health lies in the admission of helplessness. It’s only when we admit that we can’t Father help ourselves that we Ron Rolheiser can be helped. We see in the gospels where so many times, immediately after finally grasping a teaching of Jesus, the apostles react with the words: “If that’s true, then it’s impossible for us, then there’s nothing we can do!” Jesus welcomes that response (because in that admission we open ourselves to help) and replies: “It is impossible for you, but nothing is impossible for God!” Our prayers for unity and intimacy become effective precisely when they issue from this feeling of helplessness, when we ask God to do something for us that we have despaired of doing for ourselves. ROLHEISER, page 19

Catholic San Francisco

A READING FROM THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS LV 13:1-2, 44-46 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “If someone has on his skin a scab or pustule or blotch which appears to be the sore of leprosy, he shall be brought to Aaron, the priest, or to one of the priests among his descendants. If the man is leprous and unclean, the priest shall declare him unclean by reason of the sore on his head. The one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ As long as the sore is on him he shall declare himself unclean, since he is in fact unclean. He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.” RESPONSORIAL PSALM PS 32:1-2, 5, 11 R. I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation. Blessed is he whose fault is taken away, whose sin is covered. Blessed the man to whom the Lord imputes not guilt, in whose spirit there is no guile. R. I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, If you’ve heard one story about Jesus curing a leper, be it one or ten, you’ve pretty much heard them all, right down to Jesus’ instruction to the leper to show himself to the priest (in accordance with the law spelled out in Leviticus 14:2-32). Yet how often do we note the details of the story, particularly the aftermath? In the Gospel of Mark (1:40-45) the healing of a leper is one of the first of Jesus’ miracles. It begins a pattern wherein Jesus instructs the miracle’s recipient to keep the event to himself. This story, however, does not end on a positive note. In the Book of Leviticus, the law dictates that a leper is to dwell outside the community, in deserted places, announcing him or herself to be unclean. When Jesus cures the leper in Mark’s Gospel, however, it is Jesus who ends up in that position; as the Gospel tells us: “it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places…” (Mk 1:45). This constitutes a complete reversal of roles between Jesus, who is socially alienated, and the cured-leper, now returning to society. Why is this the case? What has caused this to happen? The Gospel story gives us the answer. Jesus “warn[ed] him sternly…‘see that you tell no one anything, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed’” (Mk 1:44). The cured-leper, however, disregards this reasonably simple command. On the contrary, “the man went away and began to publicize the whole matter” (Mk 1:45). It is the cured-leper’s public declaration of his cure (with no mention of him actually fulfilling his obligations under the Mosaic Law) that leads to Jesus’ isolation to desert places, unable to enter the town freely. Consequently, while we are moved by the

February 13, 2009

Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46; Psalm 32:1-2, 5, 11; I Corinthians 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45 my guilt I covered not. I said, “I confess my faults to the Lord,” and you took away the guilt of my sin. R. I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you just; exult, all you upright of heart. R. I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation. A READING FROM THE FIRST LETTER OF PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS 1 COR 10:31-11:1 Brothers and sisters, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Avoid giving offense, whether to the Jews

or Greeks or the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit but that of the many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. A READING FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK MK 1:40-45 A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.” The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean. Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once. He said to him, “See that you tell no one

Scripture reflection FATHER BILL NICHOLAS

‘Thy Kingdom Come’ . . . . ‘My Will Be Done’ leper’s faith – “If you wish, you can make me clean” (Mk 1:40) – we are not impressed with his flagrant disobedience of a very straightforward command – “tell no one anything.” One can certainly understand the cured leper’s excitement, and his desire to proclaim from the rooftops what Jesus had done. We must also note, however, the simple fact that both Jesus’ desire and command were apparently lesser considerations. In the end, the cured-leper’s disobedience of Christ’s command proved to be a hindrance to Christ’s work, leading to Christ’s isolation from the town. Our first instinct is to come to the defense of the cured leper. I can imagine that if I had been a victim of a dreaded disease that isolated me from society, and then experienced a miraculous cure at the hands of Jesus Himself, I would cer-

tainly be tempted to proclaim it for all to hear! Many of us would feel the same way. Many of us would come from the spiritual disposition that “I want to proclaim Christ’s goodness to me!” Yet how many of us would even consider Christ’s order to the contrary? How many of us would counter with: “Jesus just has to understand!” or put more accurately – “I know better than Jesus what I must do!” When all is said and done, such rationalization is the root of all sin and temptation. “I know better than God!” – “God has to understand!” – “God’s command is secondary to what I decide I want to do!” All acts of disobedience to God emerge from this fundamental spiritual attitude, from the most basic instructions in practicing one’s faith (like attending Mass on Sunday and receiving the sacraments on a regular basis) to the

anything, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.” The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere. most challenging commands of God’s law that call us to live by certain values and standards; even those that fly in the face popular culture, “modern” thinking and political correctness. We experience God’s goodness. We endeavor to follow Christ as members of His Church. Nonetheless, we disobey, because in the end “God has to understand,” that “we know better.” Like the leper, we discount the precepts of our faith, and disregard the command of the very God whose goodness we are so feverishly eager to receive. The result: Christ’s continuing work among us is not helped, but hindered. Jesus continues to be marginalized to deserted places and is unable to “enter the town.” As people of faith, raised in a post-modern culture in which matters of faith are often secondary to “educated” and “enlightened” minds, where our own social, cultural and intellectual acumen may lead to the temptation that “I know better,” let us be renewed in the basic call of all followers of Christ to be obedient to His commands and to the teachings and direction of the Church. Let us resolve, in humility and trust, to recognize God’s goodness to us, and manifest it by our proclamation of His Good News by first living in obedience to His Son’s Gospel. In this way, we as members of His Church will not be obstructions to His ongoing work, but rather assets, in more ways than we know, by our obedience to even what may seem to be the most insignificant of His commands. Father Bill Nicholas is parochial vicar at Our Lady of Loretto Parish in Novato and author of “I Saw the World End: An Introduction to the Bible’s Apocalyptic Literature.”

Guest Commentary

How the Holy Spirit ministers How can you recognize the Holy Spirit acting in your life? It’s amazingly simple to discern this mysterious presence. Consider the times when you went against your own personal preferences and did something difficult in order to help others. You probably do that many times a day. St. Paul said, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). The inner promptings of conscience are very often the voice of the Holy Spirit within you. The Holy Spirit is always there helping you to go beyond yourself in order to fulfill the law of love. You probably can remember many times when the Spirit emboldened you to act out of faith rather than self-interest, times when you went against your natural inclinations in order to accomplish some greater good. Visiting the sick for instance, or feeding the hungry, which includes putting food on the table for your children when you have a splitting headache, listening to the endless complaints of someone you feel sorry for, getting up in the middle of the night to check on a sick family member: These are all little acts of holiness involving the love of the Holy Spirit acting within you. The Holy Spirit is the force behind all the love and joy

in the world! Great events recorded in the Bible give us an insight into the fact that God works in mysterious ways. For example, when Abraham was told to sacrifice his son Isaac to God, the act was totally against his will, incomprehensible. The Holy Spirit nevertheless prompted him to trust the Lord no matter what! When Abraham was about to obey, God released him from that abhorrent duty, and Isaac was saved. Abraham had been tested and found worthy. We speak of this event as prefiguring Jesus, who had the same natural abhorrence at the thought of his own crucifixion. The Spirit empowered him to say, “Not my will but yours be done” (Lk 22:42). Jesus surrendered in trust to the Father. We are told it was in reparation for the sin of pride found in Satan who said, “I will not serve.” After Jesus was crucified, the apostles feared for their lives and gathered like frightened children in that upper room. They wanted to run. But the Holy Spirit came upon them and emboldened them to go forth and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The church was born. I remember feeling drawn to the priesthood but at the same

time bristling at the very thought of it. I wanted a normal life, marriage and children. I didn’t want to be a priest because I was afraid of the demands it would make. But the power of the Holy Spirit lifted me above my fears. Father John Catoir I submitted. That was half a century ago, and I’m still doing my best to answer that call. Looking back, I see more clearly the many times in my life when I was led by the Holy Spirit. How about you? When was the last time you made a decision grand or small that involved the influence of the Holy Spirit? I’ll bet it was not long ago. Father John Catoir, former head of The Christophers, writes for Catholic News Service.

February 13, 2009

Catholic San Francisco

The Lord remains forever with those who have faith Archbishop George H. Niederauer delivered the following homily at a Mass for the World Day of Prayer for the Sick, Feb. 7, at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco. We disciples of Jesus Christ believe that we are saved forever by His life, His death on the Cross, and His resurrection. On that first Easter Sunday evening, the risen Jesus appeared among his first followers, and the following week invited the doubtful Thomas to put his hand into Jesus’ side, and to note the mark of the nails. On this Day of Prayer for the Sick, at this Mass in honor of Mary, Health of the Sick, we hear the prophet Isaiah, in our first reading, describing the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, in a passage that the worshiping Church applies to the suffering and death of Christ, especially on Good Friday. Isaiah describes this Servant of God as a “man of suffering,” held in no esteem, so unattractive in his agony that people turn away from him. He suffers without complaint, “like a lamb led to slaughter.” The prophet stresses that he suffers for the people, for us: he was “pierced for our offenses” and “crushed for our sins.” So powerful is the effect of his suffering that Isaiah says it has “made us whole,” indeed, “by his wounds we are healed.” After his death, Isaiah tells us, the Suffering Servant was given a “grave among the wicked,” and the prophet asks the question, “Who would have thought any more of his destiny?” However, our Catholic faith tells us a different ending. It is true that the Son of God did not remain, does not remain, outside our human suffering and death, but takes it all on himself, to share it with us. Nevertheless, that is not the end. The Good News is, “Jesus is risen!” His tomb is empty, and because of His resurrection, we shall rise, our tombs will be empty too. St. Paul the Apostle, whom we are celebrating in a special way this year, is our great teacher about the power of the suffering, death and rising of Jesus. However, in his letter to the Colossians, Paul says a strange, yet wonderful thing: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church . . . .” (Col. 1:24) Is Paul saying that the suffering of Jesus on the Cross was

inadequate, not enough to save us? Not at all! Paul is saying that Jesus our Redeemer wants so much to be one with us, now and forever, that he makes sure that he shares in our joys and sufferings and that we share in his. Remember, St. Paul knew this truth from personal experience. Earlier in his life, as Saul of Tarsus, the future apostle had actually persecuted the new church, and when Jesus spoke to him at the moment of conversion, he identified himself with these words: “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.” Saul had never met Jesus during his lifetime on earth, but if he was persecuting the followers of Jesus, he was persecuting the Jesus who grew up in Nazareth. That is how intimate is the union of each of us with Jesus the Lord, and with one another in Him. Our sufferings are united with his sufferings on the Cross, and they help to extend the redeeming power of his sacrifice. Everything we experience, everything we do, has value and power in union with the healing and redeeming sacrifice of Christ. Just as the resurrection joy of Easter follows on the suffering of Good Friday, so the joy of our Gospel reading follows on Isaiah’s prophecy. We hear from Luke’s Gospel the story of the Visitation, in which Mary, expecting the birth of the Savior, visits her cousin Elizabeth, expecting the birth of John the Baptist. We see this moment pictured so beautifully in the bronze at the front of the aisle on the western wall of this Cathedral. After the greeting of Elizabeth, St. Luke gives us the prayer of Mary, the Magnificat, so beautifully expressing humble joy at being drawn by God into his plan of salvation for all. It is a dreadful mistake for us merely to label this as “Mary’s Prayer,” so that we sit passively by while she prays about her special role in God’s saving plan. Mary’s prayer is also our prayer, your prayer and mine. Indeed, the Catholic Church puts this prayer on our lips, at evening time, every day of the year. Our souls proclaim the greatness of the Lord, our spirits rejoice in God our Savior. The Lord has looked on each of us in our lowliness, and because he has looked on us in love, from now on all ages will call us blessed. That is just as sure and true as the fact that the Lord and his Mother looked with love on St. Bernadette Soubirous, over 150 years ago, and now all ages call her blessed.

The Mighty One has done great things for us, and holy is his name! Jesus heals the whole of our human nature, through our faith in him, through the teaching and unity of our Catholic Church, through the prayer and worship of the Church, especially in the Eucharist and the other sacraments, especially the holy Anointing of the Sick which we Archbishop will celebrate in a George H. few moments. Jesus Niederauer heals and strengthens us through the prayerful, caring and loving ministry of one another, especially our families and friends. After Communion we will celebrate this powerful channel of God’s love through the blessing of the hands of caregivers. Mary, whom we pray to as Health of the Sick, shared in the sufferings of her Son and offered herself with him. Mary, who did not shed her blood, nevertheless is Queen of Martyrs, because she stood at the foot of the Cross while her son was tortured and died. Still, Mary’s prayer looks forward in hope to resurrection joy, as she concludes by praising the Lord’s mercy, that works from age to age in the lives of those who trust in him, and who do not try to life as sufficient solely within themselves, because of their pride or their possessions. The Lord will keep faith forever with those who have faith in Him. As we continue our celebration of this Eucharist, let us pray, through the intercession of Mary, Health of the Sick, that the graces of this Mass and Anointing will deepen our faith in God’s healing presence in our lives, strengthen our hope in his saving plan of salvation, and urge to ever more generous, loving service to those most in need of meeting Christ in us.

Guest Commentary

Abortion in the Obama Presidency There is understandable unease and concern among Catholics and many others regarding President Obama’s attitudes about the sanctity of embryonic and fetal life. This apprehension pivots mainly on two points: First, at a 2007 meeting of the Planned Parenthood Fund, candidate Obama said, “the first thing I’d do as president is sign The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).” This legislation has languished in Congress since 1989. Its current version establishes abortion as a “fundamental right” throughout nine months of pregnancy. Its scope is far-reaching. For example it would erase informed consent laws, override parental involvement laws, end health and safety regulations on abortion clinics, eliminate laws prohibiting the abortion procedure called partial birth abortion, and end all conscienceprotection laws. FOCA legislation represents a comprehensive disrespect for human life in the womb. In a clear and unambiguous condemnation of FOCA, Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, last November wrote to President Obama, Vice-President Biden and every member of Congress, stating, “We [the Bishops] will oppose legislative and other measures to expand abortion. We will work to retain essential, widely supported policies which show respect for unborn life, protect the conscience rights of health care providers and other Americans, and prevent funding and promotion of abortion.” It is not likely that FOCA will be brought to a vote in the current Congress as many Democrats and Republicans are emphasizing the priorities of the economy and the Iraq war. Nonetheless, FOCA remains on the horizon and must be carefully monitored. Second, Obama promised in the campaign to rescind the so-called Mexico City policy. In his November letter to President Obama, Cardinal George asserted, “Efforts to force Americans to fund abortions with their tax dollars would pose a serious moral challenge and jeopardize the passage of essential health care reform.” Sadly, President Obama signed an executive order three

days after his inauguration that allows movement of millions of U.S. foreign aid dollars to flow into family planning organizations abroad, which advocate or provide abortion services. On Jan. 22, one day before this executive order, Obama issued a statement reiterating his commitment “to protect a woman’s right to choose” and added that we must all work “to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make.” It is difficult to reconcile this commitment to “reduce the need for abortion” and permitting non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receiving American foreign aid to sponsor and provide abortion services. How might we reduce abortions in America? Studies consistently show that three out of four women who have had an abortion do so because they believe they cannot afford a child. They do not see any other option than abortion. A critical step toward supporting pregnant women is to help them overcome poverty. We need to strongly endorse “The Pregnant Women Support Act,” which is a common sense solution that will help women from being pressured into abortion. The Act will support women by providing child care to low income and student parents, by ensuring that pregnant women are not denied health care by insurance companies, by increasing funding for the Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program, and by providing new mothers with free home visits by registered nurses. This bill will empower pregnant women to make healthy choices for themselves and for their children, born and unborn. This Act is a viable initiative to reduce the number of abortions in this country. Catholic teaching on abortion is clear. In his 1995 encyclical “The Gospel of Life,” John Paul II unambiguously affirmed, “I declare that direct abortion, that is abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder… This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God” (no. 62). The Catechism of the Catholic Church adds that “Since the first century the Church has

affirmed the moral evil of procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion … is gravely contrary to the moral law” (no. 2271). This teaching is repeated Gerald D. in the 2008 instruction Coleman, S.S. from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitatis personae (no. 4). These authoritative statements make clear that from the moment of conception a human being is present and is to be treated as a person. This teaching has been consistently held, and is a doctrinal teaching. An obstinate denial of this teaching represents a serious breach between a Catholic and the teaching office of the Church. Teachers in the Church bear a critical responsibility to make this teaching understandable. Too many Catholics, as recent polls indicate, have not grasped the significance of the church’s teaching on abortion. In Catholic moral theology, abortion is considered an intrinsic evil. For more than three decades in the U.S., the regime of legalized abortion as a “fundamental right” has taken the lives of well over 1.3 million unborn children a year. The term “intrinsic evil” helps evoke why abortion deserves prime consideration. Abortion happens in a woman’s womb, inside what should be the safest haven of all. Abortion happens in our society when we dehumanize prenatal life. By naming abortion evil, the church is not so much being analytical as evocative. The term is prophetic and aims at jump-starting awareness and acceptance of the sanctity of unborn life. Sulpician Father Gerald D. Coleman is vice president for ethics for the Daughters of Charity Health System.

Catholic San Francisco

February 13, 2009

Diocesan priest-reservist serves troops as chaplain in Afghanistan By John Lasker COLUMBUS, Ohio (CNS) – Just a few months ago, Father Joseph Porpiglia was running a parish in the Diocese of Buffalo, N.Y., but he currently is in Afghanistan serving as a Navy chaplain. The priest, who holds the rank of lieutenant commander, finds himself traveling via helicopter across a rugged countryside that was once ruled – and is still contested – by the Taliban regime. He had expected to be returning home in March but his tour has been extended until after Easter. It is the priest’s second tour of duty in the region. In 2003, he served in Iraq with Surgical Company A of the 4th Medical Battalion. In Afghanistan, he celebrates Mass and ministers to soldiers at a number of forward operating bases in southern and eastern areas of the country. Father Porpiglia, pastor of St. Benedict’s Parish in Amherst, N.Y., has been a reservist with the U.S. Coast Guard for 17 years. He was called up for active duty last summer when the U.S. military designated him an “individual augmentee,” someone assigned to a unit for the purpose

of filling in for, or augmenting, members of that unit. Father Porpiglia is one of about 300 Catholic priests who are currently military chaplains. In the Archdiocese of San Francisco, a small number of priests serve as reservists in various branches of the military, including Father Michael Padazinski, who was on active duty in Greenland in December and was recently promoted to full Colonel in the U.S. Air Force. A priest must get the permission of his bishop to serve in the military. As chaplains in the armed forces, priests are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, based in Washington and headed by Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, who was installed in January 2008. The archdiocese is in charge of the spiritual, pastoral and sacramental care of the 375,000 Catholic active-duty U.S. military personnel and their 800,000 family members; 200,000 Catholics in the Reserves and National Guard; 30,000 Catholic patients in 172 Veterans Affairs hospitals; and 66,000 Catholics in government service overseas in 134 countries. According to the archdiocese, there are 12 Catholic chaplains currently in Iraq and one or two in Afghanistan.

The need for priests to be military chaplains has been well documented. More than 25 percent of people in the military are Catholic, yet only 7 percent of the chaplains are Catholic priests. Father James P. Steffes, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, acknowledged there is a shortage of priests in all branches of the military in general, “and not just in a war zone.” The good news, he said, is there is an increase around the country in the number of men who want to be priests, but he reiterated it is up to a local bishop to let one of his priests serve in the military. “They have a responsibility to serve their local flock first. If they have a shortage (of priests), they have a need for their own diocese,” said Father Steffes. “The focus is first on their local need.” Ed. Note: Below is a photo presentation of men currently in seminary training to become priests of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. For more information, contact Father Thomas Daly, Office of Vocations, One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco, 94109.

John 15:16 “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you…”

Rogelio Castaneda Pre Theology I

Juan Alejo Theology II

Wade Bjerke Theology III

John Chung Pastoral Year St. Hilary Tiburon

St. Anthony - Menlo Park

Cameron Faller College III Our Lady of Loretto Novato

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Mill Valley

Armando Gutierrez Theology II St. Charles San Francisco

St. Stephen San Francisco

St. Francis of Assisi

East Palo Alto

Dat Nguyen Pastoral Year Jerome M. Murphy Pastoral Year Thomas V. Martin Theology I Felix Lim Theology II

Manolito Jaldon Jr. College III

Epiphany San Francisco

Rev. Mr. Joseph Previtali Theology IV St. Isabella - San Rafael

St. Raymond Menlo Park

Rev. Mr. Michael F. Quinn Theology IV St. Anthony - Novato

St. Sebastian Kentﬁeld

David Schunk Pastoral Year St. Anthony - Novato

Andrew Spyrow Pre Theology II

St. Francis of Assisi E.ast Palo Alto

St. Thomas the Apostle San Francisco

Hansel Tomaneng Pastoral Year Rev. Mr. William Thornton Theology IV St. Dunstan - Millbrae

St. Augustine South San Francisco

Tony Vallecillo College IV Holy Name of Jesus San Francisco

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Archdiocese of San Francisco Fr. Thomas A. Daly Ofﬁce of Vocations 1 Peter Yorke Way San Francisco, CA 94109 415.614.5683

Please pray for our seminarians.... and for an increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

Catholic San Francisco

February 13, 2009

Rolheiser . . .

Actor records Way of the Cross

■ Continued from page 15

DENVER (CNS) – Actor Liam Neeson has narrated a version of the Way of the Cross, written by St. Alphonsus Liguori, and the CD is scheduled to be available Ash Wednesday, Feb. 25. Available at www.littlelambmusic.com, the CD is a project of the Denver province of the Redemptorists, the religious order founded by St. Alphonsus. Proceeds from sales will help the Redemptorists’ missions in Brazil and Nigeria. It’s the third Redemptorist recording project in as many years. In 2007 and 2008, respectively, the Redemptorists produced “Praying the Rosary With St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori” and “Praying the Seven Sorrows of Mary With St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori.” “I had heard about the Redemptorists and their missionary work in the Amazon rain forest of Brazil and in the slums of Lagos and Ibadan, Nigeria,” Neeson said in a statement. “I was moved to help because the Redemptorists are living the Gospel message in some of the poorest parts of the world, offering hope to families who have been forgotten or abandoned.” Neeson reads the introduction written by St. Alphonsus as well as all 14 Stations of the Cross. “Praying the Way of the Cross” CDs are available for $16.95 each plus shipping and handling. Information on ordering them is available online at: www.littlelambmusic.com, or by calling (800) 231-1207.

Letters . . . ■ Continued from page 14 the current battle the Church is fighting in defense of natural marriage, such a change in definition is what we would expect from our enemies. It is also what we would expect from a person who has spoken at Call to Action conferences. Gibbons J. Cooney San Francisco

Against angry attacks I would like to thank George Weigel for his commentary “In praise of George W. Bush.” It saddens me to see the anger

We see an example of this within Quaker communities when people gather and simply sit with each other in silence, asking God to do for them what they cannot do for themselves, namely, give themselves harmony and unity. The silence is an admission of helplessness, of having given up on the naïve notion that we, as human beings, will ever finally find the right words and the right actions to bring about a unity that has forever evaded us. The Eucharist is such a prayer of helplessness, a prayer for God to give us a unity we cannot give to ourselves. It is not incidental that Jesus instituted it in the hour of his most intense loneliness, when he real-

that comes across in the letters attacking Mr. Weigel, or to put it in other words the lack of faith. As I read these letters to the editor, I realize how much we need to reevangelize our world. Christians in name only will not get us to heaven. Our good deeds will not shine without grace from our Lord. Our anger should be directed to sins (like abortion, mercy killing, etc) not to the individuals that are struggling to make this world a better place in spite of their shortcoming. We all have our defects. It’s too easy to criticize and express our anger, sometimes without having all the facts to make critical judgments. Anna Valdez San Francisco

Moral objections The United States shares a common vision of a wonderful future as illustrated in the overwhelming victory of President Obama, but the steps necessary to advance that vision need to be inclusive. This country will become what it enacts on the road towards the fulfillment of its vision. The aggressive trampling on moral objections to certain articles of this proposed legislation, and the callous attack on human life itself in increasing the applicability of partialbirth abortion, proposed by the Freedom of Choice Act, can only result in further dehumanizing and brutalizing of society. I implore President Obama to reach across the aisles of conscience and to

ized that all the words he had spoken hadn’t been enough and that he had no more words to give. When he felt most helpless, he gave us the prayer of helplessness, the Eucharist. Our generation, like every generation before it, senses its helplessness and intuits its need for a messiah from beyond. We cannot heal ourselves and we cannot find the key to overcome our wounds and divisions all on our own. So we must turn our helplessness into a Quaker-silence, a Eucharistic prayer, that asks God to come and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, namely, create community. And we must go to Eucharist for this same reason. Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher, and award-winning author, is president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX. acknowledge the anguish of his brothers and sisters to whom abortion is morally repugnant; and rather than trampling on their convictions, to enlist their support where there is shortfall in service, and neglect of potential in many human lives. Mr. President, FOCA may ‘free’ our daughters to have sex without consequences; what is the vision for our sons – how will FOCA promote the development of male responsibility and the respect and reverence needed to enter into a committed relationship with a woman? How may the task of educating boys to be caring, gentle, loving, and respectful partners be undertaken in a society where the mother’s right to kill appears to be held sacrosanct? Maureen Lundy San Francisco

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Catholic San Francisco

February 13, 2009

Music TV

Books RADIO Film stage

Animated feature “Coraline” marvelously fanciful By John Mulderig NEW YORK (CNS) – Since its publication in 2002, Neil Gaiman’s best-selling novel “Coraline” (Focus) – which won the American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults prize – has been adapted as a short film, a graphic novel, a Swedish play and even a puppet show. Writer-director Henry Selick’s vibrantly colorful 3-D animated feature-length version of this cautionary tale, though eerie, proves entrancing as it chronicles its titular character’s (voice of Dakota Fanning) moral development. With her unnamed mother (voice of Teri Hatcher) and father (voice of John Hodgman) hard at work collaborating on a garden catalog, only child Coraline feels neglected and bored. So she sets out to explore her family’s portion of the large Victorian-style Oregon house to which they’ve just moved, and discovers a child-size doorway that initially opens on nothing more than a brick wall, but that later leads into a mysterious passageway. At the other end lies an alternate world inhabited by versions of Mom and Dad that Coraline finds more accommodating – and so more to her taste – than the real ones. But these doubles, whose only physical difference from the originals is that, unsettlingly, they have buttons instead of eyes, soon reveal sinister plans for their new charge, placing her in peril. As she learns the truth of the old admonition about making wishes carefully, Coraline overcomes selfishness, learns to appreciate her blessings and draws closer to family and friends. The latter include a trio of eccentric neighbors, two elderly British actresses, Miss Spink (voice of Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Forcible (voice of Dawn French), and Russian gymnast Mr. Bobinsky (whimsically voiced by Ian McShane). Coraline also learns to be more accepting of another neighbor, a young boy named Wybie Lovat (Robert Bailey Jr.), whom she at first dismisses as a pest but eventually comes to appreciate. This extravaganza – which uses the animation technique of stop-motion – is marvelously fanciful; at one point, a character recites Shakespeare while swinging on a trapeze.

Other Mother, voiced by Teri Hatcher, and Coraline, voiced by Dakota Fanning, are seen in the animated movie “Coraline.”

And the details with which Selick (“The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “James and the Giant Peach”) adorns the outwardly alluring realm of “Other Mother” and “Other Father” – along with set pieces like the one featuring a vast circus of performing mice – are a visual treat. But, though the moral arc is upward, the elements listed below, together with an edgy atmosphere throughout, preclude recommendation for young children. The film contains brief partial nudity, frightening images and a few mildly bawdy lyrics. The USCCB Office for Film

& Broadcasting classification is A-II – adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG – parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children. Mulderig is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.

Three books detail Mother Teresa’s ‘thirst,’ teachings and impact “MOTHER TERESA’S SECRET FIRE: THE ENCOUNTER THAT CHANGED HER LIFE, AND HOW IT CAN TRANSFORM YOUR OWN” by Father Joseph Langford, MC. Our Sunday Visitor (Huntington, Ind., 2008). 312 pp., $19.95. “FINDING CALCUTTA: WHAT MOTHER TERESA TAUGHT ME ABOUT MEANINGFUL WORK AND SERVICE” by Mary Poplin. InterVarsity Press (Downers Grove, Ill., 2008). 223 pp., $15. “I LOVED JESUS IN THE NIGHT: TERESA OF CALCUTTA – A SECRET REVEALED” by Paul Murray. Paraclete Press (Brewster, Mass., 2008). 125 pp., $18.95.

Reviewed by Allan Wright (CNS) – Much has been written in the past months concerning the interior darkness and long periods of spiritual dryness in the life of Blessed Mother Teresa, revealed through her private correspondence in the book “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light,” by Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, a Missionaries of Charity priest who is the postulator of her sainthood cause. Both the secular press and scholars alike have delved into the meaning of her letters and the long periods in her life when she no longer felt the presence of Jesus. In “Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire,” Father Joseph Langford, a Missionaries of Charity priest and companion of Mother Teresa since the early 1970s, shares his personal encounters with Mother Teresa and sheds light on two words which can sum up her life: I thirst. It is the thirst of Jesus on the cross that became Mother Teresa’s own thirst and she spent the last 50 or so years of her life trying to satiate this thirst through her service to the poorest of the poor. It is this thirst that is at the heart of Father Langford’s book. Mother Teresa never spoke publicly about her experience on Sept. 10, 1946, when she had a personal and profound experience with Jesus. “Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire” reveals the conversations that Father Langford had with Mother Teresa regarding that experience and sheds light on the intense periods of spiritual darkness which followed. “What had forged Mother Teresa’s soul and fueled her work had been an intimate encounter with the divine thirst – for her, for the poor, and for us all,” he writes. Father Langford illuminates the heart of Mother Teresa’s

call and in doing so further communicates the beauty of Jesus, Mother Teresa, her sisters and the poor. “I Loved Jesus in the Night” by Dominican Father Paul Murray recounts in 24 short chapters his experiences and lessons learned from time spent with Mother Teresa. Since his first encounter with her in a university classroom, Father Murray was struck to the core by her “radiant joy” and the simplicity and candor that permeated his heart and mind. This book is an easy read and gives the reader insights into the spiritual life and relationship with Jesus that drove this carrier of God’s love to serve the poorest of the poor. On two separate occasions Mother Teresa took Father Murray’s hand in hers and spelled out the Gospel passage that summed up for her the entire mystery of our lives: “You did it to me.” This is an excellent meditative book that can be used for personal reflection. The title of “Finding Calcutta,” by Mary Poplin, is taken from one of Mother Teresa’s most popular exhortations that “you can find Calcutta all over the world if you have eyes to see.” Poplin, a professor of education at the University of Texas, shares her two-month experience serving with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, during the summer of 1996.

Poplin reveals not only her encounters with Mother Teresa and her sisters but also her own spiritual journey in which she discloses her life without God. The chaos and confusion which followed led to her conversion to Christianity. She aptly narrates the conflict that arose in the secular academic community which flatly rejects any notion of God and discounts Christianity outright and her newfound belief in Jesus. The person who is unfamiliar with the work of Mother Teresa will gain valuable insights into her life and labor with the poor through this book as well as insights into the journey of a woman in the world of academia trying to find her way as a woman of faith. Each of these books sheds light on a different aspect of Mother Teresa and reveals the visible work that people see and the inner thirst that continues to drive the Missionaries of Charity. Wright is the author of “Jesus in the House: Gospel Reflections on Christ’s Presence in the Home” and instructs members of the contemplative branch of the Missionaries of Charity in Plainfield, N.J.

February 13, 2009

Lenten OpportunitiesAsh Wednesday Feb. 25 Employment Support Group meets Mondays 9 a.m. – 11 a.m. at St. Matthias Church, 1685 Cordilleras Rd. in Redwood City “to share emotional, spiritual, and networking support and hear job search advice from guest speakers.” There is no cost to attend. Call (650) 366-9544 for more information. Feb. 17: The Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Thought at University of San Francisco announces its Spring Events beginning Feb. 17 with John T. Noonan Jr. in conversation with visiting social justice chair, Msgr. Robert W. McElroy, 4 p.m. in the Berman Room of the school’s Fromm Hall. Topics include “A Church that Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching. For full schedule, directions and more information, call (415) 422- 5200 or visit www.usfca.edu/lanecenter. Feb. 21, 10:30 a.m.: Bishop William Justice presides at Mass for secular and lay orders of the Archdiocese of San Francisco at St. Thomas More Church, Brotherhood Way at Junipero Serra Blvd. in San Francisco. Reception follows. Call Mary Munden at (408) 730-5385 or Linda Silverio at (415) 239-4200 for more information. Feb. 21, 9:30a.m. – 3 p.m.: “Walking With Jesus,” a Lenten retreat with Father Tom Moran at St. Bartholomew Media Center, 600 Columbia Dr. in San Mateo. Father Moran is a former pastor of St. Charles Parish in San Carlos and currently serves in retirement at Our Lady of the Wayside Church in Portola Valley. Fee of $20 includes box lunch. Please respond by Feb. 17 to (650) 347-0701, ext. 19 or e-mail barby@barts.org Feb. 21, 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.: The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) will host an informal “Come and See” gathering at the Jesuit School of Theology, 2621 Ridge Road, Berkeley. Single men, ages 18 to 45, interested in learning more about the Jesuits and/or exploring a vocation to religious life are invited to attend this event. Includes Mass, prayer period, vocation stories, panel discussion, and Q&A session. No cost; lunch is provided. To RSVP, contact Radmar Jao, S.J. at (510) 225-6137 or rjao@calprov.org. General info: contact Br. Jim Siwicki, S.J., Vocation Director, at (408) 884-1613 or jsiwicki@calprov.org. Feb. 22, 1:30 p.m.: Franciscan Father Richard Rohr, well known spiritual teacher and author, speaks about “Contemplation and Action in the 21st Century” at St. Ignatius Church, campus of USF, corner of Parker and Fulton in San Francisco. Tickets are $25 in advance or $35 at door. To pre-register, make check payable to Contemplative Outreach and send to Mary Wyman, Event Coordinator at 202 Roosevelt Way, San Francisco, 94114. University and high school students admitted free with school ID. Feb. 25 through April 5, 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.: Members of San Mateo Pro-life will be praying for an end to abortion during this “40 Days for Life.” The “peaceful prayer vigil” will take place in front of Planned Parenthood, 2211 Palm Ave. in San Mateo all days during the assigned hours. “All are welcome,” said Jessica Munn, an officer of the pro-life group. Visit www.40daysforlife.com/sanmateo or e-mail fortydaysforlife@yahoo.com or call (650) 572-1468. A “prayerful presence” will also take place at Planned Parenthood, 815 Eddy Street (between Van Ness and Franklin) in San Francisco from 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. Interested persons may register and volunteer at www.40daysforlife.com/sanfrancisco Feb. 26, 7 – 8:30 p.m.: A presentation and discussion of the religion and religious impact of Charles Darwin, around the occasion of his 200th Birthday (Feb. 12) at St. Agnes Spiritual Life Center in San Francisco. Many people found it difficult to reconcile evolution and religion. How did Darwin himself view it? How did Catholics react? How should Catholics react today to the theory of evolution, while still believing in God? No knowledge of science is needed to enjoy this presentation by Jesuit evolutionary biologist and seminary student at the Jesuit School of Theology and Berkeley, John Braverman. Please bring your ideas and questions. For more information contact Rosemary Robinson at (415) 487-8560, ext. 228 or rosemary@saintagnessf.com Feb. 27, 7:30 p.m.: “The Gospel of Mark” performed by Michael Reardon and directed by Patrick Lane at

Catholic San Francisco

To be held at Corpus Christi Church, San Francisco. Please pre-register at (415) 614-5505 or buchsiebm@ sfarchdiocese.org. Mar. 14 and Mar. 21 (Session I & II): Training for New Lectors. Offered by the Office of Worship. $20.00 fee. Session I: Mar. 14, 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., Session II: Mar. 21, 10 a.m. - noon, at Corpus Christi Church, San Francisco. Please pre-register at (415) 614-5505 or buchsiebm@sfarchdiocese.org

Datebook

Food and Fun

Third grade students from St. Vincent de Paul Elementary School visited St. Anne’s Home in San Francisco Dec. 17. “I have been going to St. Anne’s annually for eight years with my third graders,” said teacher, Renata Ahlers.” ”We sang Christmas carols, visited and talked with residents and passed out Christmas cards and ornaments that the students made in class.” Barbara Harvey is principal. Father John K. Ring is pastor. Notre Dame des Victoires Church, 566 Bush St. in San Francisco. Reardon and Lane have performed the spellbinding proclamation of Scripture more than 1,000 times around the world. A meet-the-artists reception follows the play. Admission to the two-hour event is free though free-will offerings will be accepted. Call (415) 397-0113 for more information. Visit www.gospels.org for more about the group. March 7, 3:30 p.m.: Young Men’s Institute Annual Red and White Mass, at All Souls Church, 315 Walnut Ave. in South San Francisco. Afternoon begins with spiritual reflection led by Msgr. Michael Harriman, pastor, St. Cecilia Parish in San Francisco, on “Married Life, Family Enrichment, Parish Ministry and Lay Leadership.” Mass and dinner follow at 5:15 p.m. in parish school cafeteria. Tickets for dinner are $15 per person. Call Bob Bartoli at (650) 871-7878. Sponsored by YMI Council 32. Please reserve by Feb. 24. March 11 through April 30: Adult Scripture Study focusing on St. Paul at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, St. Michael’s Hall, Alameda de las Pulgas at Ralston in Belmont. $25 fee includes materials. Sessions held Wednesday evenings at 7:30 p.m. and Thursday mornings at 9:30 a.m. Contact Marie Felix at (650) 593-6157, ext. 27 or e-mail mfelix@ihmbelmont.org March 14, 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.: Day of Recollection sponsored by San Francisco Catholic Medical Guild at Most Holy Rosary Chapel, One St. Vincent’s Dr. in Marinwood. Day includes liturgy, rosary, procession to Our Lady of Lourdes grotto and talk on Lourdes by Father Andrew Johnson, a Knight of Malta. Lunch included. Tickets are $35. Call (415) 305-2408 or e-mail gemaloof2003@yahoo.com. March 18, 7:30 – 9 p.m.: Bioethics seminar at 2580 McAllister St. in San Francisco on “The Dying Experience” Sponsored by San Francisco Catholic Medical Guild. USF Professor Raymond Dennehy is among presenters. Refreshments provided. Call (415) 305-2408 or e-mail gemaloof2003@yahoo.com. Fee is $15. Additional sessions take place April 15 and May 20.

Taize Prayer 1st Friday at 8 p.m.: Mercy Center, 2300 Adeline Dr., Burlingame with Mercy Sister Suzanne Toolan. Call (650) 340-7452; young adults are invited to attend a social at 6 p.m. prior to Taize prayer at 8 p.m. The social provides

light refreshments and networking with other young adults. Convenient parking is available. For information contact mercyyoungadults@sbcglobal.net. Tuesdays at 6 p.m.: Notre Dame Des Victoires Church, 566 Bush at Stockton, San Francisco with Rob Grant. Call (415) 397-0113. 3rd Friday, 8 p.m.: Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose, Motherhouse Chapel, 43326 Mission Blvd in Fremont. Contact Maria Shao at (408) 839-2068 or maria49830@aol.com or Dominican Sister Beth Quire at (510) 449-7554 or beth@msjdominicans.

Special Liturgies Feb. 15, 9 a.m.: Sacro Costato Missionary Sisters celebrate the 100th anniversary of their founding at St. Catherine of Siena Church, 1310 Bayswater, Burlingame Feb. 15 at 9 a.m. Salt Lake City Bishop John C. Wester, a former priest and auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, will preside. A reception follows the Mass. The Sacro Costato Sisters have taught in St. Catherine Elementary School for 35 years guided by the exhortation, “From the heart of Christ to the heart of the world.” Call (650) 344-6884. Feb. 15, 10:30 a.m.: Archbishop George Niederauer presides at a Gospel Mass commemorating the Feast of St. Paul at St. Paul of the Shipwreck Church, 3rd St. at Jamestown in San Francisco. Concelebrants include pastor, Conventual Franciscan father John Gawlowski, Father Charles Onubogu with Deacon Larry Chatmon assisting. The parish Gospel Choir will lead song. “Archbishop Niederauer’s presence brings added graces to our year-long celebration of the Jubilee Year of St. Paul and blesses our annual observance of Black History Month,” the parish said in a statement. Call (415) 468-3434 for more information.

Trainings/Lectures/Respect Life Mar. 14, 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.: Training for New Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. Offered by the Office of Worship. $15.00 fee at Corpus Christi Church, San Francisco. Please pre-register at (415) 614-5505 or buchsiebm@sfarchdiocese.org. Mar. 21, 10 a.m. - noon: Training for Communion to the Sick and Homebound. Offered by the Office of Worship. $5.00 fee; waived for previous attendees.

Feb. 21, 3 p.m.: Crab Fest benefiting St. Mary’s Chinese Schools and Center in auditorium of Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, 660 California St. in San Francisco. Bingo starts the event at 3 p.m. with dinner at 5:30 p.m. with ongoing silent auction. Tickets are $30 and $18 with children’s meal available at $5. Contact Cassandra Yu at Cassandra.yu@aig.com Feb. 28, 6:30 p.m.: Annual “All You Can Eat” Crab Feed sponsored by Serra Club of San Francisco at St. Anne Parish’s Moriarty Hall, Judah at Funston in San Francisco. Tickets are $45 per person. No-host bar. Call Joan Higgins at (415) 333-2422 or e-mail at jhigg2390@aol.com. Feb. 28, 5:30 p.m.: Cioppino Dinner and Silent Auction benefiting St. Thomas More School in the new gym, St. Thomas More Way and Brotherhood Way in San Francisco. Tickets are $40 per person including appetizers, complete dinner and wine. Visit www. stthomasmoreschool.org Tending the stoves and looking quite official in their chef’s coats and toques are Mike Giusti, left, Tom Restani, Jose Ruiz, Don Brenes, Bob Archer and Dave Rehn. March 1, 5:30 p.m.: Columban Fathers Annual Dinner and Raffle at United Irish Cultural Center, 45th Ave. at Sloat Blvd. in San Francisco. Guests of honor are Nora Mullane and Terry and Dan Kelleher. Tickets at $40 per person include pot roast or chicken pomadora dinner. Call Pam Naughton at (415) 566-1936 or Anne Quilter at (415) 586-8017. March 14, 6:30 p.m.: St. Luke Crab Feed at Parish Center, 1111 Beach Park Blvd., Foster City. All-you-caneat crab (or chicken), including antipasto, salad, pasta, dessert and drink are included. Dancing and raffle follow. Ticket is $40. Call (650) 345-6660. March 17, 11 a.m.: Hibernian-Newman Club’s annual St. Patrick’s Day luncheon benefiting Catholic College Campus Ministry programs for the Archdiocese of San Francisco at Hilton San Francisco Hotel, 333 O’Farrell St. Maureen McLaughlin will be honored as Hibernian of the Year. Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown is guest speaker. No-host refreshments. Menu is corned beef and cabbage. Enjoy traditional Irish music and entertainment. Tickets are $80 per person. Call (415) 386-3434.

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, or e-mail burket@sfarchdiocese.org.

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Catholic San Francisco

February 13, 2009

By Jackie Taylor WASHINGTON (CNS) – Contemporary artist Maria Tarruella hopes her first U.S. exhibit can open the hearts of people around her to the love of God. “He knows who he has to communicate to. I hope I’m humble enough and open enough to hear his voice and listen to where he wants to take me,” she said. “In my work, I ask the Lord to come bless me and use me. The art comes from a conversation between us,” Tarruella said in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service from Philadelphia. Her exhibition, titled “Hope,” contains 13 layered-collage pieces depicting images of God’s presence in our daily lives. The exhibition will debut Feb. 27 at White Stone Gallery in Philadelphia. St. Teresa of Avila, a 16th-century mystic, served as an inspiration for Tarruella’s art. She said she admired the saint’s ability to combine mysticism and a businesslike attitude in her life. “We always have our daily fights and it’s about seeing how we can give our day-to-day lives to the Lord and let him come into our minute, little paths in life,” said Tarruella. Living in the U.S. for a little more than a year, Tarruella said she noticed a different attitude toward religion in the States. “People in Europe are much more reserved

about their faith. Speaking about religion is quite personal and private. People are taken aback if you speak openly about God,” she said. Tarruella admires the fact that Americans speak much more candidly about faith in God. Born in the predominantly Catholic country of Spain, Tarruella rarely practiced her faith growing up. She experienced a renewal of her faith during a 1989 encounter with the late Pope John Paul II in Santiago, Chile. Hearing the pope’s words, Tarruella felt an intense heat in her heart and recognized the sensation as a sign to communicate God’s message to others. For the “Hope” exhibit, Tarruella created layered pieces, using wax, acrylic paint, metallic paint, tissue paper, iron powder and ashes on raw linen canvas. Each material is symbolic of Tarruella’s faith. “Our daily life is filled with information, junk mail, bills, papers and notes. I would get a pile of coupons from the cashier at the grocery store and just crumple them up and throw them away. Then I thought that cashier had cared enough and taken time to give those coupons to me. I should not be throwing them away,” said Tarruella. So, instead, she used the newspaper clippings, receipts and coupons in her art. Tarruella placed the papers on a canvas, praying for everyone that made it possible for those things to reach her hands, she said. Tarruella created her own paint to cover the

(CNS PHOTO/COURTESY WHITE STONE GALLERY)

Spanish artist hopes her art opens people’s hearts to God’s love

This painting, titled “John 19:34,” by Spanish-born contemporary artist Maria Tarruella will be in her exhibition, “Hope,” which contains 13 layered-collage pieces depicting images of God’s presence in our daily lives. The exhibition will debut Feb. 27 at the White Stone Gallery in Philadelphia.

collage. She “applied the Holy Spirit” to her work, she said, by gently placing tissue paper over the paint, which gave a “sense of peace” to the art.

Applied over the tissue paper, wax acts as a symbol of God’s action in our lives, she said. “Like God’s love, the wax is burning, but it is also tender.”

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February 13, 2009

Catholic San Francisco

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OFFICE SPACE AVAILABLE Approximately 2,000 to 3,500 square feet of space (additional space available if needed) at One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco (between Gough & Franklin), is being offered for lease — preferably to a non-profit entity. Space available includes four enclosed offices, open work area with seven cubicles, large work room, and storage rooms on the bottom level of the Archdiocese of San Francisco Chancery/Pastoral Center. We also have mail and copy services available, as well as meeting rooms (based on availability). Space has access to kitchen area and restroom facilities. Parking spaces negotiable. Ready for immediate occupancy with competitive terms. For more information, contact Katie Haley (415) 614-5556; email to haleyk@sfarchdiocese.org.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS SOUGHT The Department of Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of San Francisco is seeking elementary principals for the 2009-2010 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 (preferred), and five years of successful teaching experience at the elementary level.

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EDITOR – CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco is seeking a highly qualified and motivated individual to serve as editor of Catholic San Francisco – the official newspaper of the San Francisco Archdiocese. Catholic San Francisco Editor plans newspaper content including news and feature stories; organizes and directs editorial staff, freelancers, photographers; writes and assigns stories; edits copy; selects wire service material; works collaboratively with advertising director and production manager, leads the production of each issue of the newspaper, and manages/oversees the content of the Catholic San Francisco Online website. Position reports to associate publisher/ executive editor. This full-time position is located at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center, One Peter Yorke Way, in San Francisco. Desirable candidates for the editor position will have a degree in journalism and 14 or more years of newspaper experience, including 7 or more years experience as editor or assistant editor. Candidates should be faithful Catholics with a commitment to Church doctrine and teaching. They also should have a working knowledge of the U.S Catholic Church and an understanding of the universal Church. Prior diocesan newspaper experience is helpful, but not required. Catholic San Francisco is published weekly most of the year and twice a month in June, July and August.

Please send cover letter, resume, and samples of work to schmidtp@sfarchdiocese.org. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco

Catholic San Francisco

February 13, 2009

In Remembrance of the Faithful Departed Interred In Our Catholic Cemeteries During the Month of January HOLY CROSS COLMA Michael George Abeid Elly D. Acevedo LaWana M. Addiego Shirley J. Aguerre William D. Aires Lue Amann Gloria C. Anderson Dolores M. Arrahoo Evelyn L. Bankhead Francisco M. Barabad Gloria V. Beck George Robert Bell Frederick N. Benetti Thomas J. Bennett Ziara N. (Dolly) Bohanan Emma H. Bradley Geraldine L. Braun Dolores C. Bravo Mary Buhagiar Leslie Camilleri Eva O. Caprini Stella Maria Carberry John R. Casaleggio Duong Quang Cat Albert John Cavallero Ernest M. Ciaburro Mary Jeanne Clark Lois Collins Frances Pagano Corey Christina P. Cornejo Henry J. Cummins Bruna J. Dal Porto Antonia D’Ascoli Crisologo De Aquino Christian Mapa DeCastro Jose Amacio Dioso Mary E. Faber Xavier Fernandez, Jr. Louis R. Ferrari Michelle N. Franchisteguy

Claire E. Gaddini Nora Gambino Juliette A. Garaudel Gloria I. Garcia Rose Marie Goolo Marco Guastavino Theresa Guenley Maude Guillory John J. Hallahan Dora Emma Harrison Dorothy Hendricksen Eumelia Herrera Loretta F. Hirons Mary S. Howe Leonard M. Huddleston Francesca Q. Hughes Edna L. Toledo Ibarra Rosalina Israel Edward G. Johansen Celeste M. Johnson Ruperto J. Juntado Joseph Kozuch James J. Kramer Florence P. Lang Emily Lasirona Lusia Lee Mario D. Lim, MD Anna Lippi Yvonne Elizabeth Locke-Soto Anita Long Leonora A. Lucas Mary Luhman Joseph B. Magliano Marcella C. Mahoney Salomon Martinez Edward J. McGanney Aurora Menconi Frances M. Miller Maria Natalia Miranda Alfred J. Moretti Lorraine Louise Moura Erica J. Murray

Tootsie Musumeci Ramon O. Navarrete Mildred Elizabeth Nelson Albion E. Nixon Carmen Ortel Michael J. Page Flora B. Parangan Cecilia C. Parenti Brazelina M. Pastor Alfred N. Prado Joanne M. Quinn Laurette C. Rames Arlene Blair Raymond Edward M. Roberts Claire Roddy Marilyn Catherine Rossi Jerry C. Rye Guadalupe Sanchez Ana Maria Sanchez Maria N. Santos Julian Baca Sarracino Kathleen Sheila Savage Maria A. Schlarmann Leslye Diane Scott William V. Scott, Jr. Richard Luis Simon Vernon E. Smith Frances M. Sotter Doris M. Spiteri Natalie C. Suetta Sandra Sutter Ida E. Syme Walter I. Syme Marshall Andrew Tornay Samir W. Totah Martha Tureaud Dolores Ratto Vaughn Nolen Gabriel Villavieja Velasco Theresa A. Vitali Berta R. Whitcomb Lynn D. Wilson Benjamin Young

HOLY CROSS MENLO PARK Paul R. Albar Jean Berhan Dorothy F Mueller Alfonso M. Palomar Jose P. Romero Alejandro “Alex” Sanchez Olga M. Tartcher

MT. OLIVET SAN RAFAEL Mary Borzini Mario Capovilla Roselle White Cramer Kathleen A. Doyle Hope A. Durham Paula T. Lee William F. Lee, Jr. Isabel B Lydon George F. Muller Edith L. “Tootsie” Perolini Angelina I. Posey Rosemary Ring Sr. Evelyn Robello, D.C. Ramona A. Silvestri Brenda L. Soldavini Louis Torresan

Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, Colma First Saturday Mass Saturday, March 7, 2009 11:00 All Saints Mausoleum Chapel Msgr. Maurice McCormick, Celebrant

The Catholic Cemeteries Archdiocese of San Francisco www.holycrosscemeteries.com Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery 1500 Mission Road, Colma, CA 94014 650-756-2060

Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery Intersection of Santa Cruz Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025 650-323-6375

Mt. Olivet Catholic Cemetery 270 Los Ranchitos Road, San Rafael, CA 94903 415-479-9020

A Tradition of Faith Throughout Our Lives.