February 26, 2010

Pope urges Lenten prayer, penitence, deep conversion in weeks leading to Easter VATICAN CITY – Before beginning his annual Lenten retreat, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged Catholics around the world to practice prayer and penitence in the weeks leading up to Easter.

The entire period of Lent should be like “a long `retreat’ during which people can return inside themselves and listen to the voice of God, in order to overcome the temptations of the Evil One,” the pope said at his noon blessing Feb. 21.

He described Lent as a time of spiritual training, undertaken not with an attitude of pride, but in an effort to live more closely with Jesus through prayerful reflection and penitential practices.

The importance of spiritual fortification in order to resist temptation was illustrated by the Gospel account of Christ’s own temptations by Satan in the desert, the pope said.

“Christ came into the world to free us from sin and from the ambiguous fascination of designing our lives without God. He did so not with high-sounding proclamations, but by fighting personally against the tempter, right up to the cross,” he said.

“This example is valid for everyone: the world is made better beginning with oneself, by changing, with the grace of God, whatever is wrong in one’s own life,” he said.

During his weekly general audience Feb. 17, Ash Wednesday, Pope Benedict said the Lenten season calls Christians to strip themselves of evil, superficiality and lukewarm morality and to turn themselves fully over to Jesus Christ.

“Conversion means to change the direction in life’s journey, not by making tiny adjustments, but by an authentic and real about-face,” the pope said. “The call for conversion strips bare and denounces the easy superficiality that very often characterizes our way of life.”

“Conversion is to go against the current POPE’S LENTEN PRAYER, page 3

(CNS PHOTO/PAUL HARING)

By John Thavis, Carol Glatz and Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

Catholic san Francisco

Pope Benedict XVI places ashes on a member of a religious community during Ash Wednesday Mass at the Basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome Feb. 17.

Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

(PHOTO BY ARNE FOLKEDAL/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

St. Dunstan baptism

Holy Ghost Father Joseph Glynn greets Derek Nathaniel Pasco, 13 months, before baptizing Derek in a ceremony at St. Dunstan Parish in Millbrae.

Derek’s mother, Nazarene Gines, holds the baby as his father, Don Pasco, looks on. Derek was one of two children baptized in a double ceremony at the parish Feb. 7.

Additional photos on page 6.

Catholics of all ages see U.S. moral values on decline in results of new survey

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien

Catholic Millennials

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Although Some religious attitudes of Catholics age 18-29 they are more likely to describe themselves as liberal, the youngest American Catholic adults believe almost as THOSE WHO SAY… strongly as other generations that the nation’s moral values are headed in the religion is important or somewhat important in their lives 80% wrong direction.

The millennial generation of abortion is morally wrong 66% Catholics, ages 18-29, also are more likely than those of Generation X (ages 65% they are interested in learning more about their faith 30-44) or the baby-boom generation (ages 45-64) to say that commitment 61% it is ok for a Catholic to practice more than one religion to marriage is not valued enough in this country.

55% religious values should influence business decisions Eighty-two percent of Catholic millennials said marital commitment is not 33% top priority in life is getting married valued enough, exceeded only by the 89 percent of the “greatest generation,” Source: Knights of Columbus/Marist Poll ©2010 CNS those over 65, who said so. Seventynine percent of Generation X Catholics and 77 percent for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. – included a of baby boomers agreed. number of values-related questions along with others Those were among the results of a survey commisabout ideology, religious practices and beliefs, life goals, sioned by the Knights of Columbus released earlier this business ethics and feelings about the nation’s future. month.

Asked whether “moral values in this country are headed The survey – conducted by the Marist College Institute NEW SURVEY RESULTS, page 6

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION News in brief. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Skater becomes nun . . . . . . . 5 Pope on Priesthood. . . . . . . . 6 Vietnam repression . . . . 12-13 Commentary & letters . 14-15

Chinese Ministry Dinner ~ Page 3 ~ February 26, 2010

Scripture & reflection. . 16-17

Wedding Guide ~ Pages 7-11 ~

Catholic author’s life ~ Page 18 ~

ONE DOLLAR

Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

www.catholic-sf.org VOLUME 12

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No. 7

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Catholic San Francisco

February 26, 2010

On The Where You Live

By Tom Burke Making her debut as a singer and dancer is Jackie Markt-Maloney, a sophomore at Carlmont High School and a cast member in the school’s upcoming production of Beauty and the Beast. Look for Jackie in the roles of female villager, Plate and Wolf. The young thespian has studied dance including ballet and tap and also plays the alto saxophone. Mighty proud are her folks, Marianne Markt and Derek Maloney. “This is her first time singing and dancing in a musical,” her mom told me. “She is so excited.” The family belongs to Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Belmont. For information about the show, visit www.carlmontperformingarts.com and http:// beautyandthebeast-carlmont.blogspot.com/ … Shelby Getsla, a senior at Mercy High School, San Francisco, took first place among 850 orators from throughout the state in Voice of Democracy speech competitions sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Shelby will represent California at a national meet in Washington, DC in March. Top prize is a $30,000 scholarship. The topic of her talk is “Does America Still Have Heroes?”… You’ve probably heard this already but I understand that as much got done in Washington, DC when government workers stayed home due to recent snow storms as does when they are all present…. Happy 66 years married Feb. 6 to Gloria and Eugene Maffei, longtime parishioners of St. Elizabeth Parish and active there in the 50-Plus Club and the Italian Catholic Federation. “They attend Mass regularly and mom says the rosary daily,” son, Gene, “the second of four boys,” told me…. DeMarillac Academy recently welcomed California State Assembly Leader Alberto Torrico to its San Francisco campus for a tour and chat with students about “government and leadership,” said Steve Seyfert, school development direcGloria and Eugene Maffei tor, in a note to this

LIVING TRUSTS WILLS

DeMarillac Academy President Michael Daniels, sixth grader, Anthony Horn, and Assemblyman Alberto Torrico.

column…. Archbishop Riordan High School honored Rick Riley with its Blessed William Joseph Chaminade Award at a school Mass Jan. 22. Rick has been a member of Riordan’s Board of Trustees since 2002. “Rick’s volunteer work has been invaluable and we are so grateful for his contributions and example of the Marianist spirit,” said Marianist Father Tom French, school president. Rick and his wife, Anne, are the parents of Nicholas, a 2003 graduate of Riordan and, Allison, a 2004 graduate of Mercy High School, San Francisco…. Good hearts continue to beat loudly for Haiti. St. Dunstan Elementary School in Millbrae raised more than $3,000 for the cause. Bruce Colville, principal, said students are staying up to date with reports from Catholic Relief Services….San Francisco’s St. Monica Elementary School held two fundraisers for Haiti relief.

More than $700 was raised from a Dress Down Day – students chip in a small sum to wear non-regulation clothes – and a bake sale. In addition, a firm associated with the school matched the bake sale money taking the donation to almost $1,000. Thanks Kevin Asbra, principal, Archbishop Riordan High School, Anne and to school mom, Sharyl Ponce, for Rick Riley, Riordan President, Marianist Father Tom French. the good news…. Notre Dame

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Elementary School in Belmont raised $1,700 for causes including Sisters of Notre Dame missions in Haiti and Brazil.

All was done in honor of Notre Dame Sister Dorothy Stang, a hard worker for the poor, who died tragically in the rainforests of Brazil….Moonstar Restaurant in Daly City opened its doors and buffet for Haiti relief raising almost $20,000 for the effort.

Jackie Markt-Maloney Many folks from the Pastoral Center took of the feast. Special thanks, too, to Monica Landeros and Patricia Ribeiro of the Office of Public Policy and Social Concerns, and Mike O’Leary director of the Office of Development, who helped coordinate the event. Another source for up-to-date news on Haiti is www.sflifeandjustice.org. “We’ve been updating our website at least weekly since the earthquake occurred,” Monica said….Stuart Hall and Convent of the Sacred Heart high schools raised more than $1,200 for an orphanage in Haiti and the Red Cross. A clothes drive for the people of Haiti continues at Stuart Hall and Convent of the Sacred Heart elementary schools….This is an empty space without you. E-mail items and electronic pictures – jpegs at no less than 300 dpi – to burket@sfarchdiocese.org or mail them to Street, One Peter Yorke Way, SF 94109. Thank you. My phone number is (415) 614-5634.

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February 26, 2010

Catholic San Francisco

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Annual dinner benefits Chinese ministry

The 19th Annual Chinese Dinner was served to a full house at San Francisco’s New Asia Restaurant Feb. 5. Guests enjoyed a full-course feast accompanied by entertainment of song, dance and prizes. Proceeds from the dinner benefit the Chinese ministry in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, said Canossian Sister Maria Hsu, director of Ethnic Ministries for the Archdiocese. Special guests included San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer and retired San Francisco Auxiliary Bishop Ignatius Wang. Nearly three-dozen, parishes, organizations and sponsors provided support for the annual fundraiser. Entertainment included the Chinese Folk Dance Association (above left). Pictured at the banquet (above) are from left, John and Joanne Norris; Marshall and Rita Wayland; Bishop Ignatius Wang, Msgr. Harry Schlitt, Archbishop George Niederauer, Canossian Sister Maria Hsu, and Father Tom Daly.

Pope’s Lenten prayer . . . n Continued from cover

where the current is a lifestyle that is superficial, inconsistent, disillusioned, and which often tramples us, reigns over us and makes us slaves to evil or, in any case, prisoners of mediocre morals,” he said.

Beginning his Ash Wednesday observance with the general audience, the pope told an estimated 6,500 visitors that Lent, in the words of St. Paul, reminds people “not to accept the grace of God in vain,” but to recognize that God is calling everyone to penance and spiritual renewal every day.

When life seems exhausting and fraught with difficulties and failure, and when one is tempted to abandon the faith, it is a call to

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“open ourselves up to God’s love in Christ and to live according to his logic of justice and love,” he said.

When people receive ashes, the priest tells them either “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel” or “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” he said.

To turn away from sin and believe in the Gospel are not two different things, he said; they express the need to completely turn over one’s life to the Gospel by “freely answering to Christ who offers humanity the way, the truth and the life.” Only through Jesus can a person be saved and free, he said.

The words “you are dust and to dust you shall return” remind people of their human fragility and mortality, especially in cultures that tend to censor the human experience of death, he said.

In the evening, Pope Benedict led the traditional Ash Wednesday procession on Rome’s Aventine Hill from the Church of St. Anselm to the Church of Santa Sabina, where he celebrated Mass and received ashes on the top of his head from Cardinal Jozef Tomko, retired prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

In his homily, the pope said accepting ashes “is essentially a gesture of humility, which means that I recognize myself for what I am: a fragile creature made of earth and destined to return to the earth, but also made in the image of God and destined to return to him.”

Human beings can recognize and respond

to God’s voice, but they also can disobey God, the pope said.

“The origin of every material and social injustice is that which the Bible calls ‘iniquity’ or sin, which basically consists in disobeying God” and not responding to his love, he said.

The first step to restoring justice in the world is to repent of one’s personal sins and sincerely seek to live according to God’s will, the pope said.

The reward for repentance and good works, the pope said, “is not the admiration of others, but friendship with God and the grace that comes with it, a grace that gives peace and the strength to do good, to love even those who don’t deserve it and to forgive those who have offended us.”

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Catholic San Francisco

NEWS

February 26, 2010

in brief

(CNS PHOTO/JOSE LUIS AGUIRRE, EL HERALDO CATOLICO)

4

Catholic leaders differ on health care reform WASHINGTON – As the head of the Catholic Health Association expressed hope that President Barack Obama’s health care summit would “move health care reform closer to completion,” the leaders of a group of Catholic physicians called on Congress to scrap the current legislative proposals and start over. “The American people are tired of partisan bickering and want lawmakers to find common ground toward creating a stronger, more equitable health care system,” said Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity who is CHA president and CEO. “The current window of opportunity is small, which is why we encourage summit participants and other key leaders to move from argument and misinformation to consensus and collaboration – now,” she added in a Feb. 23 statement. But the president and executive director of the Catholic Medical Association said in an open letter to Obama and members of Congress Feb. 23 that “the most responsible course of action” at this time would be “to pause, reflect and then begin the legislative process anew, working in a more deliberate and bipartisan manner.” “It is more important that health care reform be done right than to finish the legislative process by a date certain,” said Dr. Leonard P. Rybak, president, and John F. Brehany, executive director of the association of U.S. Catholic physicians. A Feb. 25 summit convened by Obama was to bring together key members of Congress from both parties and government officials to discuss proposals.

Agency ends foster, adoption services in District of Columbia WASHINGTON – Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington closed its 80-year-old foster care and public adoption program in the District of Columbia so the agency would not have to violate church teaching by licensing same-sex couples as foster or adoptive parents. The program – which covered 43 children and their biological families, 35 foster families and seven staff members – was transferred to the National Center for Children and Families Feb. 1. Under a new law allowing same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia, Catholic Charities would have been required to place children with same-sex parents for foster care and adoption, which would violate church teaching that marriage is a permanent union between one man and one woman. “Catholic Charities has been providing foster care

Catholic san Francisco Newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco

Most Reverend George H. Niederauer, publisher Maurice E. Healy, associate publisher & executive editor: healym@sfarchdiocese.org Editorial Staff: Rick DelVecchio, assistant editor: delvecchior@sfarchdiocese.org; Tom Burke, “On the Street”/Datebook: burket@sfarchdiocese.org;

in one form or another for decades. ... To transition this to another agency certainly was a real loss for us,” said Edward Orzechowski, president and CEO of Catholic Charities. The National Center for Children and Families “shares our commitment to permanency for children, and our perspective that foster parents are real partners with us in serving these children,” he said. The law is currently under congressional review, but the district is scheduled to begin issuing marriage licenses for same-sex couples in March. Two members of Congress have introduced legislation that would require the district to hold a referendum on the same-sex marriage issue before licenses could be issued.

Catholic Alexander Haig dies at 85 BALTIMORE – Alexander M. Haig Jr., former U.S. secretary of state and retired four-star general who served as a top adviser to three presidents, died Feb. 20 of complications from an infection. He was 85. Haig, who was Catholic, died at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, surrounded by family members. Although funeral and burial arrangements had not been announced, Haig’s brother, Jesuit Father Francis Haig, a retired physics professor at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, reported that the Army was coordinating a Mass at Fort Myer military base in Arlington, Va., and interment at Arlington National Cemetery. The priest, a former president of LeMoyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., and Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, said the services for his brother would likely be delayed for about two weeks. A veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, Haig served as secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan and White House chief of staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

San Francisco Auxiliary Bishop William Justice addresses an interfaith gathering at Mission Dolores Basilica Feb. 18 in San Francisco. More than 20 local religious leaders gathered with more than 800 members of their churches and congregations to urge Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein to take up the reform of U.S. immigration law.

Caribbean nation. At the same time the disaster offers Catholic leaders the opportunity to identify new leaders to carry the church into the future, Archbishop Bernardito Auza told Catholic News Service during a pair of interviews in early February. “In the process of renewal, in the process of getting ourselves better, there have been lots of observations about the weaknesses in the local church,” the 50-year-old Philippineborn archbishop said. “That will be looked into as we reconstruct. I think we will discover weaknesses and strengths.

I think we will discover people who have good leadership capacities,” he said. Three Port-au-Prince archdiocesan leaders – Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, Msgr. Charles Benoit, vicar general, and Father Arnoux Chery, chancellor – were killed in the quake. The Vatican has appointed Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Lafontant of Port-au-Prince as apostolic administrator of the archdiocese. Archbishop Auza confirmed Feb. 9 that seven priests, 31 seminarians and 31 men and women religious died in the archdiocese. In addition, 60 parishes were destroyed. In the neighboring Jacmel Diocese, southwest of the capital, the archbishop said, the diocesan administrator reported that the cathedral is “very seriously damaged,” 10 parishes have been destroyed or seriously damaged and 30 chapels and mission stations must be rebuilt. The number of people buried in mass graves after the quake topped 170,000, according to a Feb. 10 statement from Haiti President Rene Preval. As the church struggles to remain a viable entity in the lives of its members remaining in the earthquake zone, it also faces the prospect of having to find parishioners who have been forced to relocate to tent camps or who have fled the city for outlying areas.

Church statistics show increase Catholics, priests, seminarians Collaboration the key as Haitian inVATICAN CITY – The latest Vatican statistics show a church begins to rebuild: Nuncio slight increase in Catholics as a percentage of the world’s PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The loss of key leadership and the destruction of up to 70 parishes during the Jan. 12 earthquake exposed weaknesses in the structure of the Catholic Church in Haiti, said the papal nuncio to the beleaguered

population, and a slow but steady rise in the number of priests and seminarians worldwide. The statistics, from the NEWS IN BRIEF, page 5

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February 26, 2010

Catholic San Francisco

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Olympic prodigy trades skates for sandals of Franciscan sister LONDON (CNS) – In the silence of St Joseph’s Convent in Leeds each morning, Sister Catherine dresses herself in a gray habit.

She fixes a black veil on her head and fastens to her waist a cord tied into three knots – representing the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience – and she slips her feet into the sandals of a Franciscan nun.

Twelve years ago, when she was Kirstin Holum, she was reaching for her skates instead.

In 1998 she competed for the United States at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. After placing sixth in the 3,000-meter and seventh in the 5,000-meter speedskating races, the 17-year-old was recognized as a prodigy racing against older women in their prime.

Instead of continuing her speedskating career, she joined the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal, an order founded in New York in 1988. In September she arrived in England to work with the poor, with youth and to evangelize. She is a member of a community of four nuns – three American and one English – based in a house that, until last year, was owned and occupied by the Sisters of Mercy.

“I could have gone on” with speedskating, Sister Catherine told Catholic News Service in a Feb. 22 telephone interview. “I was thinking this (Vancouver, British Columbia) could have

News in brief. . . n Continued from page 4

end of 2008, were presented along with the new Vatican yearbook Feb. 20. The Vatican said the number of Catholics reached 1.166 billion, an increase of 19 million, or 1.7 percent, from the end of 2007. During the same period, Catholics as a percentage of the global population grew from 17.33 percent to 17.4 percent, it said. The number of priests stood at 409,166, an increase of 1,142 from the end of 2007. Since the year 2000, the Vatican said, the number of priests has increased by nearly 4,000, or about

(PHOTOS BY MIKE POWELL)

By Simon Caldwell

Kirstin Holum at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

been my fourth Olympics, but I am so grateful the Lord led me to where I am now.”

When speaking to youth groups Sister Catherine makes no secret of her past as an Olympic speedskater because it opens up the possibility of a religious vocation to young people who would never have thought about it.

“Usually you get a shocked look,” she told CNS. “It is hard for children sometimes to picture you as anything else than a nun. It is definitely a starting point for evangelization, for bringing them closer to Christ, because they can see there is a real person standing in front of them and not just a nun.”

1 percent. Looking at the way priests are distributed around the world, it said: 47.1 percent were in Europe, 30 percent in the Americas, 13.2 percent in Asia, 8.7 percent in Africa and 1.2 percent in Oceania. The number of seminarians around the world rose from 115,919 at the end of 2007 to 117,024 at the end of 2008, an increase of more than 1 percent, it said. The increase in seminarians varied geographically: Africa showed an increase of 3.6 percent, Asia an increase of 4.4 percent, and Oceania an increase of 6.5 percent, while Europe had a decrease of 4.3 percent and the Americas remained about the same.

– Catholic News Service

Kirstin Holum grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee. Her mother, Dianne Holum, was a speedskater who won an Olympic gold medal in 1972 and became a successful coach. She also was a fervent Catholic who conveyed to her daughter the importance of her faith; in 1996 she paid for her daughter to make a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine in Fatima, Portugal.

There, Holum, at the age of 16, felt a powerful sense of vocation and, she said, the “powerful experience of realizing Jesus’ presence in the Blessed Sacrament.”

She said she prayed to Mary for guidance about her future as a speedskater and, after she had competed in Japan, decided to give it up.

“I was not feeling in my heart that I would be skating the rest of my life; I knew there was more to life than sports,” she said. “I never regretted that decision. I think it was just a grace from God to bring me to something else.”

“I saw people making sports into the most important thing, and I didn’t desire that,” she said.

After retiring in 1998 Holum enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, specializing in photography. When she graduated she joined

her mother in Denver and later spent three months on the Crossroads pro-life walk across the U.S., in which she developed the habits of daily Mass, praying the rosary, Eucharistic adoration and “offering up sacrifices for the pro-life cause.”

On returning home she recovered a sense of vocation and began to pray for direction.

The answer came in 2002 when she walked from Denver to Toronto – approximately 1,500 miles by road – and, at World Youth Day, encountered the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal for the first time. A year later she joined them at their headquarters in New York, taking her religious name after St. Catherine of Siena, whose writings she found inspirational.

“I have never regretted a single day,” said Sister Catherine. “I am preparing to make my final profession of vows in June. I am seeing the Lord bring me to where he created me to be. I am preparing to say ‘yes’ to him for the rest of my life. ... I will belong to him forever.”

“There is a lot of joy that comes from doing God’s will and a lot of peace, and belonging totally to him as his spouse is the most fulfilling thing I know,” she said. “I have been very, very happy since I entered the community.”

Sister Catherine has spent most of the last six-and-half years in New York, working with young people and helping in such community projects as soup kitchens. She is now helping the sisters settle in Leeds, in northern England, where they are still in the process of discerning their mission.

Committed to simplicity of life, the nuns have denied themselves a television and a video. This means that Sister Catherine cannot follow the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, though, she confesses, “I love reading about it.”

“It brings back a lot of good memories and it is nice to share with the sisters, too, all the memories I have,” she said.

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Catholic San Francisco

February 26, 2010

(PHOTO BY ARNE FOLKEDAL/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

Double baptism at St. Dunstan

Father Joseph Glynn, associate pastor at St. Dunstan in Millbrae, addresses family members and supporters as he prepares to baptize infant Derek Nathaniel Pasco, seen in front of Father Glynn, and 2-year-old Levio Stagnaro, seen at the priest’s right. In the second image, Le Xu, who is Levio’s mother and is a Catechumen in the RCIA program at the parish, holds her child as Father Glynn touches his hand. In the third image, Father Glynn pours baptismal water over Derek, who is held by his parents, Nazarene Gines and Don Pasco.

Priesthood is a life marked by compassion, pope tells Rome clergy

By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Priesthood isn’t a job that one fulfills a few hours a day, but it is a way of life focused on serving as a bridge between God and suffering humanity, Pope Benedict XVI told priests of the Diocese of Rome.

Priests are called to live not just “in blessed contemplation,” but “to enter like Christ into human misery and take it up, going to the people who are suffering” and sharing their pain, the pope said Feb. 18 as he led the clergy in “lectio divina,” a prayerful reading and meditation on selections from the Letter to the Hebrews on the mystery of priesthood.

Priests are called to be “real mediators between humanity and God,” he said, and in order to do so they must be totally dedicated to God, yet fully human and deeply compassionate in the face of the concerns, anxieties, joys and sorrows of others.

The pope, speaking without a prepared text, reflected at length on the New Testament letter. He explained the

New survey results . . . n Continued from cover

in the right direction or the wrong direction,” 67 percent of Americans said it was headed down the wrong path.

The percentage of those who felt that way increased with age; 72 percent of those 65 and older and 60 percent of the millennial generation saw a decline in moral values.

The Generation X and baby-boomer respondents were at 65 percent and 69 percent, respectively.

The survey also asked whether respondents considered themselves liberal. One-third of the millennials said they were, as compared to 28 percent of Generation X, 29 percent of baby boomers and 18 percent of the greatest generation.

Respondents also were asked whether each of 12 “social virtues” were “generally valued or not valued enough.”

The only virtue that at least 77 percent of every generation said was undervalued was commitment to marriage.

Three-quarters of Catholic millennials said respect for a person’s hard work and honesty and integrity were not valued enough.

possible meanings of some of the words in their original Greek and referred to other Scripture passages, liturgical texts, the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Socrates, the seventh-century St. Maximus of Constantinople, St. John of God, the German Scripture scholar Adolf von Harnack and Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, a specialist on the Letter to the Hebrews.

The pope said the letter’s description of Christ as the high priest makes it clear that Christ offered God the perfect sacrifice by willingly giving his life for the sins of Among Generation X Catholics, 80 percent said respect for other people was not valued enough, while 74 percent said honesty and integrity were undervalued.

Seventy-five percent of Catholic baby boomers said they thought personal responsibility and respect for other people were not valued enough in American society, while 75 percent of the oldest Catholics said respect for the law was not valued enough.

The social virtue seen as undervalued by the smallest percentage of each generation of Catholics was religious observance. Only 43 percent of millennials, 47 percent of Generation X, 51 percent of baby boomers and 52 percent of the greatest generation said religious observance was not valued enough.

Although the percentages were slightly lower in most cases, the same patterns emerged among the total population of each generation, with commitment to marriage and

humanity, but he also offered God his tears for the sorrows of the world.

As humanity cried out, “God, help us, hear us,” Jesus carried the cry of humanity to God and “in this way realized his priesthood, the function of mediator, transporting and taking on the suffering of the world,” he said.

“Our priesthood, too, is not limited to the act of worship of the holy Mass in which everything is consigned into the hands of Christ; offering all of our compassion, the sufferings of this world so far from God, is a priestly act,” the pope said.

“Priesthood is not something that involves a few hours, but is realized through our whole pastoral life with its sufferings, weaknesses, sadness and also joy, naturally,” he said.

The pope ended his meditation by praying that God would help him and all priests continually deepen their understanding of the mystery of priesthood, “to live this mystery better and better and, in that way, help the world open up to God so the world would be redeemed.” personal responsibility seen as undervalued social virtues by the largest percentages of each group.

Marist conducted the survey Dec. 23-Jan. 4 among 2,243 Americans, including an oversample of 1,006 millennials.

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Catholic San Francisco

February 26, 2010

7

Wedding Guide

By Mary T. Carty WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. (CNS) – In vintage romantic movies, there is often the final image of the groom carrying the bride over the threshold into their new home to live “happily ever after” and the audience never gets a chance to see what their life will be like on a normal day after they move in together.

Today’s modern couple is more likely to cross the threshold exhausted from the honeymoon carrying their own luggage and asking: “What’s for dinner?”

This simple question opens up a whole series of responding questions such as: “Is there any food? Who is cooking, setting the table, serving the meal or doing the dishes?

What time should dinner be served?”

These seemingly small and insignificant decisions concerning the couple’s first meal in their new home illustrates the number of never-ending details that require choices and actions that will define the marriage.

Most Catholic couples are required to go through marriage preparation classes where they will discuss some real-life marriage situations aimed to help prepare them for the first 24 hours of marriage when they will be forced to face issues related to household space, food, rest, intimacy, chores and possibly even money.

Although it is impossible to be prepared for all of the potential situations in any marriage, it may be helpful for engaged couples to take a look at the following questions before the wedding and begin to work together to decide who is doing what.

– Who is doing the cooking, grocery list, and menu for the week?

– How and when will the laundry get done?

– What time will the alarm be set for weekdays?

– What parish to belong to and which Mass will be attended?

– How and who will pay the bills?

– Will there be specific times for meals and will thanks be given?

– How can love be kept alive and is there room for fun in marriage?

– How will household space for personal things like books and DVD’s be determined?

– Will there be a special time set aside each week to talk about schedules, dreams, goals and responsibilities?

The list seems a bit overwhelming, but there will be a lot of time after the wedding to cooperatively find answers. Here are some general suggestions that might help couples begin to navigate through some of these daily trials and tribulations: – Household issues: First write a list of household tasks that need to be taken care of and then decide who does what for the first few weeks and then revisit the list.

Having a written list is both a reference and a reminder.

– Finance: Estimate monthly expenses, discuss how and when bills will be paid, and decide how money will be budgeted.

The challenge is to pay the bills and set aside a bit of money for fun and entertainment.

– Food: Enjoying delicious food is cause to celebrate and there are many opportunities from romantic dinners to picnics to holiday feasts. Keeping an ongoing grocery list and meal plan for the week and deciding when to eat, what to eat, where to eat, and

T

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Before saying ‘I do,’ couples should consider who will do what

Cooking is one of the things couples should consider doing together before getting married.

who will cook may be a helpful tools to deal with the daily food/meal tasks.

– Friends and family: Spending time with new and old friends and two families is important and enriching. The challenge is how to balance both spouses’ schedules. A calendar is a helpful tool to keep track of and plan for upcoming events and holidays.

– Intimacy: Intimacy is a new way of showing and sharing love and it may take time and patience for both partners to feel comfortable talking about their physical relationship. Since this is new territory, it may be helpful for each of the individuals to read about intimacy in marriage and then compare notes.

– Communication guidelines: Last, but not least, setting up some guidelines concerning discussions sets a positive tone

from the beginning of the marriage. A few basic communication considerations are: Treat the other person with respect. Keep an open mind. Clearly state thoughts and listen, really listen. Use a pleasant tone of voice. Remember the terms collaboration, cooperation and an occasional compromise.

Discussing these details might seem like a lot of work but ultimately couples are laying the groundwork for their future years together. A smooth transition to the “happily ever after” phase shouldn’t get bogged down with arguments about why a spouse didn’t make the coffee or put away the dishes.

Mary T. Carty is a freelance writer and author of the 2009 book “PMAT: The Perfect Marriage Aptitude Test.”

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February 26, 2010

Wedding Guide Organization is key in planning a church wedding chaplain and director of liturgy at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Although U.S. dioCouples also can decide if they want to repeat ceses require most couples to give at least a sixthe wedding vows after the priest or deacon or to month notice before planning a wedding, the time memorize them. Father Rick Hilgartner, associate frame is not meant to simply give couples more director of the Secretariat of Divine Worship for time to work out all the necessary details. the U.S. bishops, suggests that couples memorize Instead, it is meant to give couples sufficient their vows “to experience the exchange of consent preparation time to form strong, lasting marriages. in a more powerful way.”

Before couples get too caught up in the details He also said that when couples spend time memoabout guests, wedding attire, food, music and phorizing the vows they have the chance to ponder their tographers, they should take the time to carefully meaning and “hopefully remember the words for years plan the focus of the day – the wedding liturgy. The to come, as the words take on more and more meaning Web site, www.foryourmarriage.org, sponsored by in their day-to-day love and care for each other.” the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, In an article on the bishops’ marriage Web site, Family Life and Youth, can steer couples through the Father Hilgartner also pointed out how the wedding specific requirements for a Catholic wedding. entrance procession should be. He said it should not For starters, couples need to talk with the parish just be the bride walking down the aisle escorted by priest and reserve a wedding date on the parish her father, but the bride and groom following the calendar. They also need to find out what the parliturgical ministers and escorted by their parents.

A deacon presides at a wedding at a New York church. ish allows and expects in the wedding celebration.

“The bride and the groom enter freely and Planners say organization is the key to a successful wedding.

Many parishes offer specific help and resources for equally into marriage, and the entrance procession couples and even have wedding coordinators. symbolizes that, as the couple approaches the altar Early on in the wedding planning process couples will need The bride and groom can choose optional prayers in the to stand before the Lord,” he said. to attend a marriage preparation program. These programs liturgy and also pick the Scripture readings from a selection Father Hilgartner also stressed that above all, the wedare set up in a variety of formats such as intensive weekend of Old Testament and New Testament options. Couples also ding liturgy is an act of worship. “As such, it is a time to programs, weekly meetings and “in home” mentor couple can compose petitions for the prayer of the faithful and select offer praise and thanks to God for his gifts, and to seek his programs. Couples can find what programs are available near people to do the readings. continued blessings and help.” them by contacting their diocesan family life office.

As far as the wedding music, the parish organist or music As couples complete plans for the wedding liturgy and Couples do not have to start from scratch when it comes director can offer choices for the sung and instrumental the reception, they are also advised to take time for personal to making plans for their wedding liturgy. Most parishes have music. prayer. been doing weddings for a long time and they know all the “Music that does not speak of God’s role in your mar“A Catholic Bride’s Wedding Planner” written by Tracy ins and outs of the process. Couples usually meet with a riage is best reserved for the wedding reception,” said Paul Becker in 2009 urges couples to start a wedding novena priest or parish representative who will walk them through Covino, editor of “Celebrating Marriage: Preparing the nine days before the wedding and receive the sacrament of what they need to plan.

Roman Catholic Wedding Liturgy.” He also is associate reconciliation the day before the big date.

(CNS PHOTO/GREGORY A. SHEMITZ, LONG ISLAND CATHOLIC)

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Catholic San Francisco

9

Wedding Guide Pastoral Letter: ‘Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan’ The following is an abridged version of a pastoral letter by the Catholic Bishops of the United States, approved in November, 2009.

Marriage is a natural institution established by God the Creator. It is a permanent, faithful, fruitful partnership between one man and one woman, established by their free mutual consent. It has two purposes: the good of the spouses, called the unitive purpose, and the procreation and education of children.

Marriage is not merely a private institution. It is the foundation of the family, where children learn values and virtues that make them good Christians as well as good citizens. Marriage is important for the upbringing of the next generation, and therefore it is important for society.

Men and women are equal as persons. As male and female, they are two different ways of being human.

These differences relate them to each other in a total and complementary way. They make possible a unique communion of persons in which spouses give themselves and receive each other in love. This communion of persons has the potential to bring forth human life and thus to produce the family. No other relationship symbolizes life and love as marriage does.

The two purposes of marriage are inseparable; they are two aspects of the same self-giving. The unitive purpose of marriage means that husband and wife participate in God’s own self-giving love. The two become one flesh, giving mutual help and service to each other through their intimate union.

The procreative purpose recognizes that married love is by its nature life-giving. The children who result from this union are the supreme gift of marriage. Some couples experience the tragedy of infertility and may be tempted to think that their union is not complete; however, it remains a distinctive communion of persons.

Although marriage remains a blessing from God, Original Sin has had grave consequences for married life.

As a break with God, it ruptured the original communion between man and woman.

Jesus healed this rupture when he raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament. In marriage a man and woman become one flesh. They love each other as they love themselves and cherish each other’s bodies as their own.

This union is an image of Christ’s love for his Church.

Spouses are called to give themselves to each other as fully as Christ gave himself to his Church.

When the baptized spouses exchange their promises of loving and permanent fidelity before the Church, their marriage covenant becomes a participation in the

unbreakable covenant between Christ and the Church.

The Holy Spirit binds the spouses together and enables them to perform acts of self-giving love to the benefit of themselves, their families, and the whole Church. In this way their marriage does more than symbolize Christ’s love; it makes that love present in the world.

In order to imitate Christ’s love for his Church, the relationship between man and woman needs healing.

Their relationship is not a one-sided subjection of the wife to the husband, but a mutual subjection of husband and wife, following St. Paul’s charge to “be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21).

The Christian married couple, with their children, form an image of the Trinitarian God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Marriage and family life images the Trinity in two ways. First, like the Trinity, marriage is a communion of love between co-equal persons, beginning with husband and wife and extending to all the members of the

family. Second, just as the Trinity’s love is life-giving, a married couple’s love conceives and cares for children.

In addition to reflecting the Trinity, the family is a microcosm of the Church. The ancient expression “domestic church” accurately describes the family because it is a small communion of persons that draws its sustenance from the larger Church and reflects its life in unique ways. Within this domestic church, parents have a special responsibility to teach children the faith and help them to grow in virtue. The family matures as a domestic church by participating in the life and worship of the larger Church, especially Sunday Eucharist. In the Eucharist, members of the family are most fully united to Christ, to one another, and to their brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Christian spouses in a mixed marriage (between a Catholic and a baptized person who is not Catholic) witness to the universality of God’s love, even without sharing the Eucharist. They can make an important contribution towards Christian unity. Sometimes, Catholics marry non-Christians. These marriages are not sacramental, although the parties do commit to fidelity, permanence, and openness to children. Both types of unions face particular challenges, especially the religious upbringing of children. The Catholic party needs to take seriously the promise to maintain his or her Catholic faith and to do all in his or her power to have the children baptized and raised Catholic.

Marriage is a vocation, or divine call, as necessary and valuable to the Church as other vocations. Discernment of and preparation for marriage is a process that begins early in life and continues through the engagement period. Because marriage is for the good of the Church and the entire community, the Church and the state have an obligation to help support and sustain marriage.

With God’s grace, couples are called to grow in holiness. A holy marriage is made up of many virtues.

PASTORAL LETTER, page 10

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February 26, 2010

Wedding Guide Marriage preparation programs for couples marrying in the Archdiocese of San Francisco Engaged Encounter: A one-weekend program.

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Catholic Family Movement: A one-day class, 8:45 a.m. – 6 p.m. at St. Vincent’s School for Boys in Marin County. Cost is $325 per couple and includes materials, lunch, snacks and beverages. Chris Lyford leads the day. Visit www.sfcatholic.com/prep or call (707) 552-3394.

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Pastoral letter . . .

■ Continued from page 9 Fundamentally, the couple lives out the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. Love is the heart of the vocation of marriage. It calls spouses to imitate Jesus by their willingness to sacrifice themselves in everyday situations for each other and their children. Couples must also grow in the moral virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

Two virtues that are sometimes overlooked are chastity and gratitude. Marital chastity means that the couple’s love is total, faithful, exclusive and open to life. It protects a great good: the communion of persons and the procreative purpose of marriage.

Marriage is a school of gratitude, in which husband and wife are thankful for the gift of each other. They express their joyous gratitude in giving themselves completely to each other. Their gratitude leads them to be open to children and to be generous towards others.

Growth in virtue is a lifelong journey, in which the spouses become more like Christ so that they can more perfectly love each other as Christ loves his Church.

In the Eucharist Catholic couples meet Christ, the source of their marriage. This encounter moves them to reach out in love to the broader Church and to the world.

The Eucharist nourishes the virtue of marital hospitality and helps the couple to recognize God’s image in others. This hospitality builds up the Church and makes it a stronger witness to Christ’s love in the world.

A marriage that is truly in Christ is a sign of the Kingdom that is coming. At the end of time, at the celebration of the heavenly wedding banquet, the love to which the spouses have been called will find its completion when the entire Church is assumed into the glory of the risen Christ.

Editor’s note: For the full text of the pastoral letter see www.usccb.org. For information on “For Your Marriage,” an initiative of the U.S. Bishops, visit www.foryourmarriage.org.

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Catholic San Francisco

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Wedding Guide Traditional weddings can benefit from an eco-friendly approach WASHINGTON (CNS) – The tradition for brides to wear “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” for good luck may now include the stipulation that these things also be environmentally sustainable – or green.

As more couples seek to have eco-friendly wedding ceremonies and receptions, a whole industry of stores and Web sites has sprouted up with advice and products.

A green wedding can involve slight changes to traditional wedding fare or more complex plans to make sure the invitations, bridal attire, menus, favors, rings, gifts, flowers and even honeymoon travel are all environmentally sustainable.

Even Brides magazine is on board with the trend with a special planning guide for a green wedding called eco-chic weddings.

According to Millie Martini Bratten, editor-in-chief of Bride’s magazine, you do not have to sacrifice style or taste to go green with your wedding plans. “If anything, it makes the wedding even more meaningful,” she said.

Catholic couples in particular may want to consider eco-friendly weddings since the Catholic Church has long advocated the need to show proper stewardship of God’s creation and many of the saints spoke about doing this long before it was trendy.

Eco-friendly wedding planning can start on the right foot with invitations that are either handmade, e-mailed or printed on recycled paper.

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purchases. If a bride really wants to buy her own dress, she could purchase a simple dress that could be worn again or consider donating the wedding gown to a charitable organization such as Brides Against Breast Cancer or the I Do Foundation.

Bridesmaids could also donate their dresses to the Glass Slipper Project, a program that distributes formal dresses to high-school students unable to afford prom attire.

For wedding flowers, couples should consider what is locally grown or grown at organic farms. They could also use potted plants for centerpieces that guests could take home.

The old tradition of throwing rice at couples after the wedding is a green no-no as rice can be dangerous to birds.

Throwing birdseed, as some couples have opted, has similarly been blacklisted as birdseed may contain non-native or invasive plant seeds. If guests must do something, blowing bubbles seems to fit the bill without causing any environmental harm.

With food and drink: think local and organic and include options for vegetarian guests. Some green wedding Web sites also suggest that outdoor receptions use biodegradable dishes and flatware or rented silverware and flatware instead of using disposable materials.

Wedding favors needn’t be gift bags of chocolates but could be seeds, plants, fruit or something made by a local artisan.

Couples, especially those marrying later in life who have many of the household items they need, might want to consider creating an online gift registry for charity. Couples that sign up with www.justgive.org can ask their wedding guests to donate in the couple’s name to one of more than 1 million charities including Catholic Charities USA, Catholic Relief Services and dozens local Catholic organizations.

Paul Covino, editor of “Celebrating Marriage: Preparing the Roman Catholic Wedding Liturgy” and associate chaplain and director of liturgy at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., noted that couples can take part in these charity registries or make a donation, from the money they receive as gifts, to the parish’s social outreach committee or food pantry.

He also suggested that couples include a request for wedding guests to bring nonperishable food items to the wedding which can be brought to a parish food pantry or a local food bank.

Covino’s suggestion was not merely to be eco-friendly but as a way to “express the care for the needy that a Christian couple is called to reflect in marriage.”

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12

Catholic San Francisco

February 26, 2010

February 26, 2010

A cross destroyed, a parish under siege: is anti-Catholic repression on the rise in Vietnam?

Tensions over land use have been escalating as both the Church and the communist regime assert their economic rights.

Last May, parishioners at rural Dong Chiem Parish in In 2008, Hanoi city officials announced that they would turn Vietnam raised a tall, concrete cross on a nearby hilltop long the site of the former Papal Nuncio’s residence into a city park. In revered as a cemetery.

2009, a monastery in An Giang Province and a convent in Vinh The local civil authorities weren’t pleased. On Jan. 6, at Long were torn down. Today, a Catholic community at seaside three in the morning, they moved in with explosives and blew Da Nang is in the way of a possible resort development. the crucifix to rubble.

The Church and Vietnam’s communist regime share a comParishioners who tried to stop the destruction were beaten plicated relationship. Catholics and members of other religious back and hit with tear gas as they prayed on their knees for an organizations enjoy freedom of worship, although they must end to the violence. But the worst was yet to come. concede the government’s prominent role in overseeing their As grieving parishioners poured out to defend the property activities. rights of their parish and their right to worship on church U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom ground held for more than 100 years, hundreds of security men Report 2009 presented a generally improving picture of relisurrounded Dong Chiem and sealed it off from the outside. gious freedom in Vietnam. The report said the government has A Redemptorist brother who arrived to support the demsupported the growth of Catholic seminaries and the training onstration was beaten unconscious, a novice from Vinh was of priests abroad and is encouraging diplomatic relations with chased down and attacked, a priest was threatened, a journalist the Vatican and the ordaining of new bishops. attempting to reach the hill was assaulted, the parish staff was But in a statement in January, the U.S. Commission on interrogated and the authorities harassed the demonstrators International Religious Freedom expressed alarm about a rise through loudspeakers. of repression in Vietnam. The commission asked President Images sent abroad by amateur photographers who defeated Obama to review its policy toward Vietnam in light of deteriothe cordon showed the bloodied face of the Redemptorist and rating human-rights conditions by a government that has taken the faces of church women weeping with grief. active steps to repress free speech, democracy and religious The defenders, aided by youth from nearby Hanoi, were freedom, the commission wrote. routed Jan. 24 when they were forced to removed bamboo crosses “The (Communist) Party shows this two-faced approach to the they had sown on the hill to replace the demolished crucifix.

Catholic Church,” Scott Flipse, the commission’s director of East Among Catholics in Vietnam and Vietnamese Catholics Asian and Pacific programs, said in an interview. “Freedom of worabroad, the Dong Chiem incident was not a merely local event. ship has expanded and Catholics are flourishing as a religious comThey fear that the incident signals a growing threat to four munity, but there’s this continued disconnect over long-standing centuries of freedom of worship. privileges of property and the ability to train seminarians.”

Father Te Van Nguyen: “If people don’t raise their voice, the situation will get worse.”

Dong Chiem followed similar, though less severe, clashes A Catholic priest, Father Phan Khac Tu, showed the two in Loan Ly, Thai Ha and sides in an interview posted Bau Sen parishes. The preon the Vietnam Foreign Press vious incidents centered on Center’s website Jan. 15. the parishes defending their The priest is deputy chairproperty rights against govman and general secretary of ernment claims. the Vietnam Committee for Dong Chiem also followed Catholic Solidarity. last November’s surprise res“Religious practices in ignation request of Hanoi’s Vietnam have increasingly 57-year-old Archbishop Ngo enjoyed respect and Catholics Quang Kiet, who had been have been given convenient the target of government conditions to conduct their accusations of instigating religious activities,” he said. land law violations. The prelAt the end of the article ate remains in place today, Father Tu was asked to comand the Vatican has not conment on the view that some firmed the request, said Emily outside political forces are takNguyen, assistant to Father ing unfair advantage of religion John Nghi Tran, who directs to sabotage national unity.

Wearing funereal headbands, parishioners react after the hilltop cross they built the Southern California-based “Anyone found commitVietCatholic News Agency. ting wrongdoings in the name In Dong Chiem Parish, a poor farmer’s was destroyed. An old man grieves. Hanoi youth put up a bamboo cross on the site “It’s a step up of violence of religion must be strictly house with the Vatican flag flying. of the destroyed cross; the cross was later removed under coercion. against Christianity,”Nguyen punished,” he said. said. “The Dong Chiem inciThe growing confidence dent is different from the rest. of Vietnam’s 6 million to 8 It involves violence against million Catholics is a chalthe symbol of Christianity.” lenge to a regime that is copChurch leaders in Poland, ing with intra-party tensions France, Australia, Canada and the United States, as well as the as well as it approaches the 11th National Party Congress next Redemptorist Superior General in Rome, have responded to year. Although Catholics represent less than 10 percent of the Dong Chiem with moral and sometimes financial support for Vietnamese population, Catholicism has revived in many areas, Vietnamese Catholics. with newly rebuilt or renovated churches in recent years and Vietnamese Catholics face “a brutal and dramatic persecugrowing numbers of people who want to be religious workers, tion brought by the Vietnamese government,” Father Paul Van according to the U.S. State Department.

Chi Chu of the Federation of Vietnamese Catholic Mass Media Catholics are “more confident, connected, wordly,” Flipse said. wrote Feb. 1 in a letter to Church leaders in Poland.

“The population under 35 is 66 percent of the population. They’re The Archbishop of Toronto, Thomas Collins, in a Jan. 28 looking at a world where their relatives are in California.” letter to Vietnam’s ambassador to Canada, said he was deeply Flipse said that when he asked Vietnamese officials about concerned about the increasing persecution of Catholics. He Dong Chiem, he was told it was a zoning issue: The cross was called the attacks on peaceful citizens at Dong Chiem “very removed to keep the rule of law in construction regulations. sad, and so unnecessary.”

“The question is, why does it take a division of police?

In San Francisco, the Vietnamese Catholic community that worAnd why was there violence when people protested?” Flipse ships weekly at Holy Name Parish held a prayer vigil for peace and asked. justice in Vietnam and took up a second collection that raised $500 Cam Nguyen, a native of North Vietnam and a member for the Vietnamese Catholic Federation in Washington, D.C. of the Vietnamese Catholic community in San Francisco, has “If people don’t raise their voice about freedom of religion, some possible answers. the situation will get worse,” said Father Te Van Nguyen, a “What they are afraid of is Catholics throughout the nation Vietnam-born priest who is a parochial vicar at St. Brendan have banded together for more than a year, demanding human Parish in San Francisco and the archdiocesan liaison to the rights, demanding the anti-corruption activities of the governVietnamese Catholic community. ment, demanding socioeconomic opportunities,” he said.

The Church in Vietnam is 400 years old and owns many valuable Catholics are more in touch within Vietnam, and internaproperties, Father Nguyen said. He said some of these properties are tionally, than ever before. attractive to the government for expanding business and tourism.

“People are getting more connected, can afford more freedom “One by one, step by step, they will slowly limit whatever and are bumping up against government restrictions,” Nguyen Church property they want to take away from the Church and said, predicting more demonstrations such as Dong Chiem. the government will take over the property and they will build And the stand at the parish that built a hilltop cross is not something to make money,” said Father Nguyen, adding that over, he said. the repression at Dong Chiem was the worst the country has “There have been quite a few young people saying, ‘We are seen in 20 years. going to make this hill the hill of crosses,”’ Nguyen said.

Cam Nguyen: Vietnamese are “bumping up against government restrictions.”

(PHOTOS BY RICK DELVECCHIO/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

(PHOTOS BY VIETCATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY)

(PHOTOS BY RICK DELVECCHIO/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

By Rick DelVecchio

Catholic San Francisco

13

Vietnam News Agency says Catholics were not suppressed The following commentary was posted Jan. 20 on the website of the Vietnam Foreign Press Center. The Vietnam News Agency is the official news agency of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

A number of web pages have run slanderous stories referring to the recent removal of a cross illegally planted on Nui Che Mount in Dong Chiem Village.

These stories were later broadcast on Radio Vaticana and Radio Maria, leading to misunderstandings and concern in the international community.

The Vietnam News Agency has been authorized to reject these wrongful and ill-intentioned reports that aimed to undermine the great national unity, and reaffirm that Dong Chiem parishioners were not suppressed by local authorities.

On March 3-4, 2009, Dong Chiem Parish Priest Nguyen Van Huu incited a number of parishioners to illegally plant a cross on Nui Che Mount which is public land under An Phu Commune’s management.

The planting of the religious symbol violated Viet Nam’s Dong Chiem Land Law, Law on Construction and the Ordinance of Beliefs and Religions, as it was carried out without proper licenses.

Representatives of Dong Chiem Parish admitted to local authorities in a written note dated March 11, 2009, that the spontaneous erection of the cross by the Dong Chiem Parish and parishioners was illegal and violated the Land Law. From March to December 2009, local authorities had patiently persuaded and encouraged Priest Huu and other parishioners to voluntarily remove the cross, but they deliberately defied the authorities’ words.

On Jan. 6, Dong Chiem Village’s authorities carried out the work themselves in accordance with procedures and rulings stipulated by Vietnam’s legal system.

While handling the case, the Dong Chiem authorities warned Priest Huu over his incitement of local parishioners to violate the law, luring Catholic followers from other places to Dong Chiem for illegal religious activities and failing to cooperate with the local government to stabilize the situation.

The Vietnam News Agency reiterates Vietnam’s consistent policy of respecting the religious beliefs of Vietnamese citizens and being determined to insure the law is properly enforced.

The robust development of religions, the rich religious life and practices of the people, particularly ongoing activities marking the Christian Year 2010, constitute vivid evidence of freedom of religions and beliefs in Vietnam.

–––––Emily Nguyen, assistant to Father John Nghi Tran, director of the independent VietCatholic News Agency, e-mailed this response to Catholic San Francisco: The whole thing was deeply rooted in hatred for something people are more committed and loyal to than the power of the tyrannical government.

Remember, Dong Chiem is so poor and has nothing to do with the controversial land dispute.

The only thing they’ve got to become the target is the crucifix standing on top of Mount Tho (Che), and Dong Chiem is a farming village with only one way in (and out). And last but not least, Archbishop Ngo Quang Kiet is Dong Chiem’s shepherd whom the government would love to hate. There is no secret they have been calling out for his removal, though unsuccessfully, and many death threats were issued against him.

Yes, the government’s reason for the demolition was because the crucifix had been erected without permission, but did you know on the day the project started government officials were invited to celebrate and everybody had a good time? Earlier than March 2009, they even had no objection or warning when Dong Chiem’s pastor informed them about the plan for the crucifix which would be standing on the property owned by the parish for more than a hundred years, long before the formation of the Communist Party in Vietnam.

✝

V

Vietnam: “eldest daughter of the Asian Church” The Good News of Jesus has been preached in Vietnam at least since 1533, when a royal decree banned Christian activity and singled out a European missionary who worked near the present Nam Dinh.

In the very early stage of the Vietnamese Church, missionaries traveled all over the country. They came from different European countries via neighboring countries such as the Philippines and Japan. They were accompanied by European merchants and belonged to a variety of congregations, including the Jesuits, the Dominicans and the Franciscans.

The seed of the Gospel was sowed in Vietnam with new waves of European commercial ventures. In the beginning there was acceptance and tranquility, and sometimes curiosity about Western culture and religion. But frightening storms arose because of a misunderstanding that those who followed Western religion would deny traditional customs and not be loyal to the royal court.

There began persecutions and innumerable arrests, imprisonments and killings that have clouded the sky of the Church throughout four centuries, under three dynasties: 130,000 Vietnamese Catholics have shed their blood to defend their faith, braving all kinds of tortures and sufferings such as cruel

execution, exile, property confiscation, refuge in the jungle, local discrimination, hostility from the authorities and misunderstanding from their compatriots, even their relatives.

But “the blood of the martyrs is the seeds of Christians,” as Tertullian reminded us in the first century of Christianity, proved to be true in Vietnam.

The Church of Vietnam was born and grew up in persecution and in the blood of the holy Vietnamese martyrs. Even today, many Catholics are still suffering trials and persecution under the atheist Vietnamese Communist regime.

More than 130,000 heroic ancestors of ours courageously sacrificed their lives to defend their strong faith to Jesus Christ.

On Sunday, June 19, 1998, Pope John Paul II solemnly canonized 117 Vietnamese Blessed Martyrs: eight bishops, 50 priests, 16 catechists, one seminarian, 41 laymen and one laywoman.

Their feast day is celebrated on Nov. 24.

With all those accomplishments and efforts in evangelization, the Catholic Church of Vietnam deserves to be called “the eldest daughter” of the Church of Asia.

This is an excerpt from an article by Father John Nghi Tran, director of the VietCatholic News Agency. It was distributed at the 2004 Religious Education Congress in Anaheim.

Vietnamese archdiocese to rebuild Marian shrine HUE, Vietnam, (CNS) – The Archdiocese of Hue has launched an ambitious $25 million plan to rebuild a national Marian shrine on confiscated land that the Vietnamese government has returned to the Catholic Church.

As part of a growing thaw in relations between the Vietnamese government and the Church, authorities have returned 32 acres of the 37-acre site confiscated in 1975.

Father Hien said the Church and the government had agreed

to plant trees on the five acres being held by authorities.

Archdiocesan leaders hope to launch the project for the Shrine of Our Lady of La Vang in January 2011, when they conclude celebrations of the church’s Jubilee Year 2010, the Asian church news agency UCA News reported.

The special year marks the 350th anniversary of the establishment of Vietnam’s first two apostolic vicariates as well as the 50th anniversary of establishing the Church hierarchy in the country.

14

Catholic San Francisco

February 26, 2010

Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Guest Commentary The complexity of health care reform

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh, RSM The United States can handle complexity. However, this health care crisis offers a challenge on many levels. When, for example, in the land of the free, can government make someone purchase health insurance? When is it safer to provide preventive care to all to avoid the spread of communicable diseases to some?

Politics adds to the complexity, if some seek to treat the health care debate as a tool to strengthen their political party and weaken another’s.

Size shuts us down if we fear the problem is so big as to overwhelm us.

We need to get tens of millions more people into the health care system, but where are the doctors to treat them and the medical schools to produce these doctors?

Yet not complex is the fact that for the common good we need health care for all. It is a matter of morality.

That Americans can look beyond themselves has shown dramatically in recent days, as citizens donated tens of millions of dollars to an earthquakeravaged Haiti. People reach out when they see others in need.

Americans watching the news are proud as they view the floating hospital USNS Comfort treat the wounded and deliver babies off the coast of Haiti.

That same spirit of caring can surely be tapped within our borders, where the moral problem of tens of millions of uninsured people faces us. Time and again people respond to others in need, even if it involves personal sacrifice.

Leaders need to inspire the rest of us to take the long view, beyond the next election, to what is good for the nation overall.

The U.S. bishops point out that health care reform must be guided by a basic principle: to protect and enhance life for as many people as possible. The bishops list four criteria toward this end: Provide quality, affordable health care for all; respect life from conception to natural death; guarantee protection of conscience; and promote fair treatment for immigrants.

Current health care proposals in Congress have taken some good and some not so good steps in this regard.

It is not good to leave between 18 and 23 million people uninsured, as current bills do. If only five percent of them get seriously sick and/or have communicable diseases, we’re talking about 900,000 to 1.15 million people exposed to serious illness or death by their inability to access basic health care when they need it. Given that we’re our neighbors’ keepers, assuring that everyone has access to health care is a moral necessity.

What’s not good is using health care to expand abortion and undermine rights of conscience. The Hyde Amendment and similar provisions governing all current federal health programs including the federal employees’ health benefits program, bans putting federal dollars into elective abortions or health plans that cover them. Only the House version of the health reform legislation continues this ban. Under the Senate plan, someone opposed to abortion could be forced to write a check to support abortions for others, even in a federally subsidized health plan. Neither the House nor Senate bill would protect a religious institution from being forced to provide or fund services anathema to its beliefs or being penalized for its moral stand.

What’s not good is telling taxpaying residents on the way to U.S. citizenship that they have to be in the country five years before they can benefit from the programs which they help support, while they await their swearing-in as citizens.

What is good is the proposal to help pregnant women have healthy babies.

What’s good is a ban on policies that keep people with pre-existing conditions out of the insurance pool.

What’s good is getting everyone into the insurance pool, including the young professionals who think they can’t ever have a medical emergency, such as a broken bone or cancer. They can be educated to see they need health insurance, just as they need auto insurance.

Americans have handled complexity before, be it the invasion of Normandy in the 40s, the virtual wiping out of polio in the 50s, the landing of a man on the moon in the 60s. Surely the same American ingenuity, self-sacrifice, and good will make it possible to work through the current health care crisis.

Mercy Sister Mary Ann Walsh is director of Media Relations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

A different perspective After reading Archbishop Dolan’s article about the priesthood (Guest Commentary, CSF Feb. 5), I had the distinct impression that the Archbishop felt that the laity was way out of line and unfair. First he states that he is always getting complaints that priests are either too liberal or too conservative. Instead of criticizing the congregations for this, perhaps the Archbishop could take some time to learn about his priests and the parishes they serve, and then better match the assignments so both priests and lay are finding Christ together.

Then the Archbishop says that the innocent priests have been unfairly damaged by the sex abuse crisis. He implies that the laity is at fault, but it was the cover-up by the bishops that caused this lack of trust, not anything the laity did. Indeed, the Pope saved Cardinal Law of Boston from criminal prosecution and then promoted him to a high ranking position in the Vatican which includes recommending which priests should become Bishops. This does not foster trust.

Finally, he is critical of the feeling of “congregationalism” he hears from laity.

Perhaps he should look at what has been happening and wonder if God might not be leading us back to our beginnings, when local communities worked together and became true Christians in sharing the tasks.

The Church is at a crisis point, and the more that a sense of community is developed, the more Christian we will become. The Church played a major role in educating the Catholics of the past few generations. Now it is time to benefit from that education and tap the skills and talents of “the Church.”

The Archbishop tells a story about St. John Vianney, but perhaps he would be better served by remembering the good saint’s prayer for priests which ends with the exhortation to seek “…nothing but your greater glory and the salvation of souls.” That is the only purpose of the priesthood. That is the only purpose of the Church.

Denis Nolan Daly City

on KGO which had a good overhead shot that showed the long line of people marching along the Embarcadero. The text went only four lines.

I don’t feel the last fact should be held against KGO. After all, TV and radio are, as we used to say in the news game, media that “brings you news from around the world, around the nation – all in around five lines.” KPIX was really bad. There were few abortion backers yet the report gave them an equal amount of quotes and signage. Despite tens of thousands of pro-life walkers and a couple of hundred pro-abortion protestors, the anchor said “both sides” held “dueling rallies.” I sent an email to the station’s comment line but I never received an answer.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s coverage was much better than last year’s when columnist C.W. Nevius urged readers to ignore the march.

James O. Clifford, Sr. Redwood City

L E T T E R S

Media coverage of March Thanks for publishing the guest commentary on the lack of media coverage of the giant pro-life march in Washington, D.C. (“The True Story,” CSF, Feb. 12). The coverage of our local march (“Walk for Life West Coast”), which saw tens of thousands parade on the San Francisco waterfront, wasn’t very good either.

The best television coverage I saw was

Letters welcome Catholic San Francisco welcomes letters from its readers.

Please send your letters to: Catholic San Francisco One Peter Yorke Way San Francisco, CA 94109 Fax: (415) 614-5641 E-mail: healym@sfarchdiocese.org or visit our website at www.catholic-sf.org, Contact Us

Pre-Vatican Church

Like George Grandemange (CSF Letters, Feb. 12), I remember the preVatican II Church, but I remember it rather more fondly than he. The parochial schools were full – not closing; seminaries were full – not closing; and if you didn’t get to Mass on time you’d probably have to stand. The Church welcomed large number of converts, because the world knew the Catholic Church actually stood for something.

The writer also seems to have a problem with the Latin Mass. I can’t imagine why. My Sunday Missal had the Latin on one page and the English on the facing page, so I became as familiar with the one as with the other. Furthermore, when I was fortunate enough to travel the world, I knew the language of the Mass would be the same, wherever I was.

Malcolm Post San Francisco

Various causes of ‘blues’ Therese J. Borchard’s column in the Jan. 15 issue of Catholic San Francisco would be helped by some clarification. There are many different types of depression. Some, such as bipolar depression are easily and successfully treated with drugs. Another is depression with cause. Something very serious and personal happens, and the result is depression.

Both my parents succumbed to this third type of depression, before I was 10 years old.

The general cause was related to World War II. The difference, when there is a cause, is that the support of others is important, and often key to a recovery. Unfortunately I could not support my parents. But when I recognized the same depression in my two brothers at various times, I got deeply involved and fortunately was able to help.

Like Ms. Borchard, I too, have written a book. “To Our Credit,” Trafford Publishing, 2009, is an autobiography in which depression (not mine) is a strong theme. Support usually must be given without the depressed person asking. Need for help is rarely recognized.

Alex M. Saunders, MD San Carlos

February 26, 2010

Catholic San Francisco

15

This Catholic’s View

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs In his encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI writes that economics should be guided not simply by profits but by “an ethics which is people-centered.” This is why he places such an emphasis on employment. “The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require,” he says, “that we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone” (italics in original).

Since this is an election year, Washington has come to the same conclusion for different reasons. The rush is on to put together a jobs bill that will give at least the appearance that incumbents are doing something about unemployment, which will remain at nine to 10 percent for the rest of the year. Alas, employment, as economists say, is a lagging indicator. It recovers from a recession a long time after the stock market.

Washington has not in fact ignored the issue of unemployment. The first stimulus bill, passed last year, had more than simple tax cuts to stimulate the economy. There were also programs that would employ people in education, conservation and other areas. Some objected that the entire stimulus was not immediately effective and that some of the programs would not create jobs for a year or two. We can now be grateful for this since unemployment is still with us.

But with unemployment at around 10 percent, it is obvious that more needs to be done. The problem, however, is that huge federal deficits make it difficult for the government to do anything significant. Partisan politics also makes it difficult to enact a jobs bill quickly. Harry Reid, Democratic

majority leader in the Senate, has therefore proposed a very modest jobs bill in the hopes that it could pass quickly.

Granted that there is not much to spend on a jobs bill, it is more important than ever that we get as much bang for the buck as possible. Alas, Congress and the White House appear willing to reach for the same broken tools that have not worked in the past. For example, the long-discredited tax credit for new hires.

The proposal sounds good: give a tax credit to companies that hire new employees. Democrats like the tax credit because it supposedly creates jobs; Republicans like it because they can defend it as a tax cut.

The problem is that in the past companies have laid off workers and then hired new workers in order to qualify for the tax credit. The credit is also inefficient since it goes to many companies that would have hired new workers anyway without the credit. This is especially true of businesses that are seasonal.

Supporters of the tax credit claim that they will have language in the bill to stop such abuses, but all that means is the program will be more difficult for employers to understand and for the government to administer. The fact remains; the tax code is a very blunt instrument for creating jobs.

The other discredited jobs idea is highway spending. A case can be made for rebuilding our public infrastructure, including highways, but let’s not kid ourselves that spending on highways creates lots of jobs. Highways are not built by thousands of unskilled men with shovels as in the past. They

are built by fewer, welltrained workers operating very expensive equipment.

Highway infrastructure repairs require long-term planning, steady execution and funding through increased gasoline taxes not quick fixes as part of Father Thomas a jobs program.

J. Reese, S.J. What is needed during a recession is a real jobs program that actually employs anyone who wants to work at minimum wage. The government as the employer of last resort is considered socialist by its critics, but it is a much more efficient jobs program than many of the programs being pushed on Capitol Hill. As the economy improves, these jobs can be phased out.

When the snow finally stopped falling in Washington, people with shovels fanned out over the city and offered to work clearing sidewalks and driveways. This was true shovel-ready work. People want jobs and we should make sure that every penny in a job bills is not wasted. The economy should be by “an ethics which is people-centered.”

I remember the first time I ever saw Matthew’s face. Scott and I stared at the ultrasound photo, perplexed; at first it was nothing but random white shapes on a gray background.

The technician deciphered it for us, pointing out his splayed fingers, his adorable little nose, his tiny mouth. Suddenly, we could see him: Yes, indeed, that’s our baby. And now when Matthew lies in his toddler bed, blankie and stuffed animals in his hands, his mouth slightly open in sleep, my big three-year-old boy is suddenly an infant again. And I feel my love for him like a stab in the heart.

And in my boys’ quiet hushed rooms, it’s a place where the past, present, and future meet. As I look at them, I see the infants they once were. I kiss their soft sweet heads and I watch them move reflexively in their sleep, a little hand batting at the place where my lips touched right above their ears. I tell them that I love them, and that I always will.

They’re one and three now. Soon they’ll be five and seven, fourteen and sixteen, twenty-one and twentythree. It’s hard to imagine them as men, taller than me, with muscles and deep voices, having to shave. One day, though, it will happen. And those days will bring their

own joys, their own challenges, their own beauties.

But no matter how big they get, I’ll always have the memories of them as babies, so tiny and fresh from God. And I’m sure that every Ginny now and then, I’ll look Kubitz Moyer at them and catch, in an unguarded moment, a glimpse of the little ones they used to be. And then, as now, I’ll feel that wave of love and gratitude, two feelings so closely mixed that they are impossible to tease apart.

Yes, indeed. Those are my babies.

Father Thomas J. Reese, S.J., is a Senior Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University.

Of Grace and Sippy Cups

Evening prayer My most powerful evening prayer is a wordless one. It happens every night, after my boys are off in dreamland.

I tiptoe softly into their rooms, holding my breath as the floorboards creak. I kiss their heads and pat their sharp little shoulder blades through their fleecy sleepers. I stay for a few moments, drinking in their sleepy peacefulness, before I leave, suffused with love and gratitude.

Believe me, this would have sounded plenty creepy to me once upon a time. Staring at your kids while they sleep?

That sounds a little psycho, I would have joked.

And now? Now, it’s anything but.

I feel bad saying that it’s so easy to love my kids when they’re asleep. Trust me: I love my boys always, even when they are very much awake. I love them even when they are throwing food onto the floor, or vomiting, or even when Lukey went through his [blessedly brief] phase of biting me.

But there’s something about those sleeping faces, those curled-up bodies, that grabs me right here. As a friend of mine said, when they sleep, you can see again the way they looked as babies. And she’s absolutely right.

Ginny Kubitz Moyer is the author of “Mary and Me: Catholic Women Reflect on the Mother of God.” Contact Moyer at www.blog.maryandme.org.

The Catholic Difference

The Vatican and the Russians In late 2009, the Holy See and the Russian Federation agreed to full diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level, bringing the total of such exchanges to 178—a remarkable achievement, considering that, in 1978, the Holy See had full diplomatic relations with only 84 states. Less than a hundred years after the Entente powers banned the Holy See from the post-World War I peace conference by a secret clause in the Treaty of London that brought Italy into the war on the side of Great Britain and France, the Holy See—the juridical embodiment of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome as universal pastor of the Catholic Church—is fully engaged in the complex worldswithin-worlds of international diplomacy.

Those complexities just became, well, more complex, thanks to some distinctive features of contemporary Russian history and one long-standing feature of Russian culture. The latter is the close relationship between the Russian Orthodox patriarchate of Moscow and the Kremlin, which has endured through czars, commissars, and now presidents and prime ministers; the former involves the strange post-Cold War situation of Russia.

To say that Russia has never comes to grips with the legacy of 74 years of communism is to understate the problem. Lenin’s mummy—the ghastly relic of one of the 20th century’s greatest mass murderers—remains on display for the veneration of the obtuse and the confused in Red Square. Parades celebrating the birthday of Stalin, whose homicidal record topped Lenin’s, are not uncommon. Documentary film-makers who dare to tell the truth about communism’s depredations are burned in

effigy. History is re-written in order to mask, even deny, the horrors of the GULAG system (which, as Anne Applebaum demonstrated in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, was not an accidental feature of Stalinism but an essential component of Stalinist “economics”).

Vladimir Putin, the true center of power in Russia despite having been compelled to trade the presidency for the office of prime minister, has made it clear that he is not satisfied with a Russia shrunk to the country’s size at the time of Peter the Great. Yet neither Putin nor his successor as president, Dmitry Medvedev, seems much interested in dealing with Russia’s colossal demographic and public health problems, which include a rapidly shriveling native population (thanks to catastrophically low birth rates and declining life expectancy, both exacerbated by environmental degradation and rampant alcoholism). Meanwhile, Russia’s “market” economy resembles a Mafia operation rather more than the “free economy” of which John Paul II wrote in Centesimus Annus.

The flashpoints in Putin’s efforts to reconstitute the old Soviet “near abroad” as de facto or de jure parts of a Greater Russia are clear: the Caucasus, central Asia, and Ukraine. Ukraine is the strategic key to all the rest; without Ukraine, Russia cannot be a superpower. One of the chief repositories of Ukrainian national consciousness is the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Byzantine in its liturgical life and polity but in full communion with Rome. Declared illegal under communism (in a brutal 1946 maneuver aided and abetted by the Russian Orthodox Church),

the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine was the world’s largest underground religious community for four and a half decades. Its flourishing after communism, and its dedication to building a Ukraine that models George Weigel the free and virtuous society proposed by Catholic social doctrine, is one of the most heartening stories unfolding in the former Soviet Union.

Vatican diplomats and ecumenists have had their difficulties with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic cause—in part because of Ukrainian passions and indiscretions, but also because of a tendency to bend over backwards towards the Russian Orthodox patriarchate of Moscow for ecumenical reasons. But now comes the diplomatic rub. There is little reason to think that the patriarchate of Moscow will be anything but a willing, indeed enthusiastic, partner in any effort by the Russian state to reconstitute Greater Russia. If, at some point, Putin & Co. try to ingest a large chunk of eastern Ukraine, the Holy See’s diplomats are going to face an enormous challenge, with grave implications for internal Catholic unity, ecumenism and international relations.

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

16

Catholic San Francisco

A READING FROM THE BOOK OF GENESIS GN 15:5-12, 17-18 The Lord God took Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.” Abram put his faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness. He then said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession.”

“O Lord God,” he asked, “how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

He answered him, “Bring me a threeyear-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Abram brought him all these, split them in two, and placed each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not cut up. Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram stayed with them. As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him. When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, which passed between those pieces. It was on that occasion that the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the Euphrates.”

February 26, 2010

Second Sunday of Lent Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18; Psalm 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:28b-36 RESPONSORIAL PSALM PS 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14 R. The Lord is my light and my salvation.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?

The Lord is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid?

R. The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Hear, O Lord, the sound of my call; have pity on me, and answer me.

Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks.

R. The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Your presence, O Lord, I seek.

Hide not your face from me; do not in anger repel your servant.

You are my helper: cast me not off.

R. The Lord is my light and my salvation.

I believe that I shall see the bounty of

the Lord in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord with courage; be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord.

A READING FROM THE LETTER OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS PHIL 3:17-4:1 Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters, and observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us. For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction.

Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior,

C

ommonweal magazine’s blog had a selfrevelatory post, “The Metanoia Blues” on Feb. 14 by one of its contributors called “Unagidon.” He narrates a profound conversion experience; his break-out from what he confesses had been a superficial practice of Catholicism. His thirst for a more meaningful life had involved an agreement, at his wife’s urging, to teach a religious education class at his parish. He also was making forays into various theological and spiritual books in his quest for a more conscious life with God. But there came that one day when he tumbled into an all-engulfing sense of the sinfulness and worthlessness of his life, simultaneously with the outbreak of a longing for holiness and closeness with God. He felt as though he was both grasped by and released from a force that was swallowing him in its deaththreatening grip. When he was let go, he felt nothing but enormous relief.

He compared this to a swimmer grabbed in a shark’s jaws, pulled down, drowning. All of a sudden he sees his dismembered leg in the shark’s teeth, ecstatic that he can escape to the surface, breathing and alive. The “metanoia” of Unagidon was his sudden waking up to God’s love for him, and the possibility that a life of open-heartedness lay before him. This awareness inspired him to love God and love others as they were loved by God. In the midst of this upheaval, he spoke to a Franciscan priest, or rather babbled and cried his way through an attempt to express what was happening to him. He went around in a daze of blissful realization for three weeks until it subsided.

The patriarch Abraham had several intense encounters with God which may be described as both terrifying confrontations, and confirmations that the Lord’s promises to him were credible. What is conversion, a turning toward God? Some foundational

Scripture reflection SISTER ELOISE ROSENBLATT

Conversion requires a shift of consciousness, a trust in God themes of Christian spirituality appear in Abram’s curious sacrifice: The sense that God is summoning you to a holy and meaningful destiny. Putting your faith in God even when the destiny God promises you is unseen and not yet complete. Trusting your memory, where you let God remind you of what inspired and comforted you earlier in your life. Not expecting yourself to fully understand what may feel like an overwhelming, strange spiritual experience.

Admitting your confusion, fear, sense of fragmentation, and your struggle to make sense of what has happened to you.

Fulfilling God’s command to assemble three-year old animals required Abram’s time, ingenuity and financial loss. The scene dramatizes a kinesthetic swirl – a sacrificial cleaving, swooping birds of prey, and the terrifying darkness. It is nightmarish, vertiginous, and shamanistic. Abram enters the force-field where humans, animal life and cosmic energy intersect. Practitioners of

Native American religion may have insightful comments on this passage. The mystical Ezechiel, with his vision of animals at the wheels of a whirling chariot, seems to have been caught up in a similar shift of consciousness. It is at this break-point between the terrifying darkness and the smoky, flaming torch light that Abram hears the Lord’s renewed promise, and this assuages his uncertainty. He goes forward.

Paul speaks to his beloved Philippian community with a less imaginative voice than the teller of the Abram legend. Paul is not looking to paranormal visions as the standard for Christian holiness. Rather, he urges his followers to see in Paul himself a model for how to relate to others. Proving their holiness by living an ethical life, they are to set an example of self-control. In the midst of a hedonistic society, they resist self-indulgence and remember their ultimate destiny as “citizenship in heaven.” When Paul criticized non-believers by saying “their

the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, in this way stand firm in the Lord.

A READING FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE LK 9:28B-36 Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.

Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.

As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen.

God is their stomach,” I am not concluding that he would condemn devotees of the Food Channel or “America’s Test Kitchen.” Maybe Paul’s work as a tent-maker is analogous to a good cook’s work with her hands to produce a nutritious meal.

Luke’s version of the Transfiguration includes many details associated with a theophany, or divine self-manifestation. Peter, James and John relate to Jesus in ordinary time as their teacher and companion. On the mountain, they see him differently. His charisma dazzles them. He assumes a majestic air of authority as a conversant with Moses and Elijah. But the disciples’ breakthrough is spiritually tumultuous. Are they in darkness or light, in deep sleep or fully conscious? Has their eyesight been clouded by foggy shadows or can they see clearly what is in front of them? Are they in control of their senses, or have their senses left them? Can they express themselves in babbling speech or is their vision of Jesus unutterable? Are they hearing things, or do they indeed hear God’s voice? Can expressions of God’s love be trusted? Are the words of Jesus credible? Should they be afraid or should they feel confidence? The tumult seems to quiet down when “Jesus was found to be alone.” They are left consoled, memories imprinted with what they’ve seen, but they are still shaking with self-doubt and confusion.

The revelation involves a decision about the meaning they will make of it.

Conversion necessitates a shift of consciousness. Believers in crisis or in ordinary time pray confidently with the psalmist: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? The Lord is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid?”

Sister Eloise Rosenblatt, R.S.M., Ph.D., is a theologian and an attorney in private practice in San Jose.

Spirituality for Life

Lenten fasting and praying in secret The philosopher, David Hume, once made a distinction between something he called as genuine virtues and something he termed monkish virtues. Genuine virtues, he said, were those qualities inside us that are useful to others and ourselves. Monkish virtues, on the other hand, are qualities that don’t enhance human life, either for society or for the particular person practicing them.

As monkish virtues he lists, celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, and solitude.

These, he attests, contribute nothing to society and even detract from human welfare. For this reason, he affirms, they are rejected by “men of sense”. For a religious person, this isn’t easy to hear.

But what follows is even harsher. Those practicing

monkish virtues pay a stiff price, he says, they are excluded from health and human community: The gloomy, harebrained enthusiast, after death, may have a place in a calendar, but will scarcely be admitted, when alive, into intimacy and society, except by those who are as delirious and dismal as himself.

As brutal as this may sound, it contains a healthy warning, one with a discernible echo to what Jesus said when he warned us to fast in secret, to do our private prayer in secret, to not put on gloomy faces when we are practicing asceticism, and to make sure our piety is not too evident in public. If Jesus is clear about anything, he’s clear about this.

Why? Why should we avoid all public display of

our fasting, ascetical practices, and private prayer?

Partly Jesus’ warning is against hypocrisy and insincerity, but it is more. There is also the question of what we are radiating and of how Father we are being perceived.

Ron Rolheiser When we display asceticism and piety in public, even if we are sincere, SPIRITUALITY FOR LIFE, page 17

Catholic San Francisco

February 26, 2010

Spirituality for Life . . .

peace, and calm. And we can’t do this by radiating a disdain for life or for the way in which ordinary people are seeking happiness n Continued from page 16 in this life.

And that’s a tricky challenge, especially what we want to radiate and what is read by others (and not just by the David Humes of today. In a culture like ours, it is easy to pamour world) are often two different things. We per ourselves, to lack any real deep sense of may want to be radiating our faith in God sacrifice, to be so immersed in our lives and and our commitment to things beyond this ourselves so as to lose all sense of prayer, life, but what others easily read from our and to live without any real asceticism, espeattitude and actions is lack of health, lack cially emotional asceticism. Among other of joy, depression, disdain for the ordinary, things, we see this today in our pathologiand a not-so-disguised compensation for cal busyness, our inability to sustain lives of private prayer, our growing incapacity missing out on life. to be faithful in our And this is precommitments, and cisely the opposite in our struggles with of what we should We radiate faith in God addictions of all be radiating. All kinds: food, drink, monkish virtues (and and health by radiating sex, entertainment, they are real virtues) information technolare intended to open love, peace, and calm. ogy. Internet porus to a deeper intinography is already macy with God and the single biggest so, if our prayer and asceticism are healthy, what we should be addiction in the whole world. Prayer and radiating is precisely health, joy, love for fasting (at least of the emotional kind) are in this world, and sense of how the ordinary short supply. The monkish virtues are more needed today than ever. pleasures of life are sacramental.

But we must practice them without But this isn’t easy to do. We don’t radiate faith in God and health by uncritically public exhibitionism, without disdaining accepting or cheerleading the world’s every the good that is God-given in the things effort to be happy, nor by flashing a false of this world, without hinting that our own smile while deep down we are barely man- private sanctity is more important to us and aging to keep depression at bay. We radiate to God than is the common good of this faith in God and health by radiating love, planet, and without suggesting that God

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Our asceticism and prayer must be real, but they must radiate health, and not be a compensation for not having it.

And that, a health that witnesses to God’s goodness, is exactly what I see in those who practice the monkish virtues in a healthy way. Prayer and fasting, done correctly, radiate health to the world, not disdain. Had David Hume witnessed Jesus’ health and love inside his prayer and asceticism, he would, I suspect, have written differently of monkish virtue.

So we need to take more seriously Jesus’

^

17

Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher, and awardwinning author, is president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX. Website: www.ronrolheiser.com

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February 26, 2010

Music TV

Books RADIO Film

stage

New book uncovers insights into Flannery O’Connor’s Catholic life “THE ABBESS OF ANDALUSIA: FLANNERY O’CONNOR’S SPIRITUAL JOURNEY” by Lorraine V. Murray. St. Benedict Press (Charlotte, N.C., 2009). 233pp., $16.95.

Reviewed by David Gibson Catholic News Service In her new book, “The Abbess of Andalusia,” Lorraine Murray aims to “uncover the self-portrait Flannery (O’Connor) created in the daily stream of letters that poured out of Andalusia,” the Georgia farm where the writer lived for 13 years until her death in 1964, when she was only 39.

That this Southern Catholic novelist – perhaps remembered even better for her short stories – was a prolific letter writer is well known. Nonetheless, the selfportrait that emerges here is refreshing.

In it O’Connor is viewed as a woman of robust humor, a dedicated friend to many, a hardworking, disciplined composer of fiction and someone who experienced suffering firsthand, diagnosed with lupus when she was 25.

“I have never been anywhere but sick,” O’Connor said. Apparently, though, if poor health found ways to consume her physically, it never consumed her spiritually.

For Murray, the spirituality plainly manifested in O’Connor’s self-portrait is paramount. O’Connor’s letters reveal “an extraordinary spiritual life beneath

the deceptively ordinary surface,” Murray writes. It has been said, she notes, that O’Connor “recognized the sacramental element in all of life.”

Along with O’Connor’s spirituality, Murray wants to bring to the fore the Catholic dimension of O’Connor’s life not only as a writer, but as a person for whom the Eucharist was “the center of existence.” This book asks what kind of Catholic O’Connor was.

Is this a question people still ask?

It is, I have found. Many take pride in O’Connor as a leading 20th-century American Catholic writer. However, participants in a discussion group I was part of a few years back found her Catholicism difficult to comprehend. Was she liberal?

Conservative? Progressive? Reactionary?

To comprehend what kind of Catholic O’Connor was, I expressed my view to the group that she needs to be anchored firmly in the Catholicism of the 1950s, for example, but not of the 1980s or a later period; the temptation to fit O’Connor into the familiar molds and movements of our own times is a temptation to resist. I felt that Murray was struggling with this very temptation at several points in her book.

So, will readers discover in the book what kind of Catholic O’Connor was? Yes, I think that for the most part they will.

Murray did her homework and allows readers to view O’Connor’s somewhat complex self-portrait for themselves.

Thus, O’Connor comes forward as profoundly Catholic, yet not reluctant to

take to task what she considered superficiality or to criticize what she termed “pious pap.”

O’Connor criticized priests who offered “oversimple solutions to complex problems,” Murray notes. Yet, other times O’Connor was “quick to defend the clergy against ... unfair attacks,” expressing an understanding of the burdens placed on priests’ shoulders.

Murray says that “overly emotional prayers annoyed” O’Connor, but the prayers in a short breviary for religious and laity “suited her just fine.”

O’Connor “abhorred stories about

saints that made them seem sickeningly sai sweet,” Murray writes. She also describes sw O’Connor as “fiercely Catholic,” a woman O’ convinced that “all human life is precious” con and an that “love always triumphs over suffering.” fer Chapter 6 in Murray’s book examines O’Connor the writer. I recommend this O’ chapter to all aspiring writers, particularly ch writers of fiction, who may find the way wr she crafted stories astonishing.

Not surprisingly, writing “was indeed difficult” for O’Connor, Murray says. dif But Bu O’Connor took her vocation “very seriously”; even when very ill “her chief ser concern was completing her stories.” con Of course, how O’Connor’s Catholicism factored into her writing continues as a fac topic top of interest for many. Murray recalls O’Connor writing of her sense “that being O’ a Catholic has saved me a couple thousand C years ye in learning to write.”

I welcomed Murray’s inclusion of a comment made just days after O’Connor’s death in August 1964 by Atlanta’s Archbishop Paul Hallinan, who praised her in an archdiocesan newspaper column.

Archbishop Hallinan described O’Connor as a writer who served “the cause of the supernatural by a working knowledge of the secular.” He said, “Our South and our Church are poorer because of the death of this fine young writer.”

David Gibson was the founding editor of “Origins,” Catholic News Service’s documentary service.

This basket of new books offers a wealth of spiritual reading options for Lent WASHINGTON (CNS) – Here is a selection of recent releases recommended for spiritual reading during Lent: – “Following Christ: A Lenten Reader to Stretch Your Soul” by Carmen Acevedo Butcher. Paraclete Pres

(Brewster, Mass., 2010). 210 pp., $16.99.

– “Lent and Easter Wisdom from St. Ignatius of Loyola” by James L. Connor, SJ. Liguori Publications (Liguori, Mo., 2009). 113 pp., $10.99.

"Taken, Blessed, Broken, Given"

An Executive's Journey of Faith

Tom Loarie Thomas Loarie is the Chairman and former CEO of Mercator MedSystems, a pioneering medical technology company located in San Leandro. He is also program chair of Catholics@Work in the Diocese of Oakland.

Please join the Catholic Professional and Business Club to hear Tom tell his personal faith journey, with reflections on Henri Nouwen's “Taken, Blessed, Broken, Given”

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– “U Got 2 Love” by Father Stan Fortuna, CFR. Our Sunday Visitor (Huntington, Ind., 2010). 254 pp., $13.95.

– “The Spirituality of Fasting: Rediscovering a Christian Practice” by Charles M. Murphy. Ave Maria Press (Notre Dame, Ind., 2010). 114 pp., $12.95.

– “Faith at the Edge: A Book for Doubters” by Robert N. Wennberg. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing (Grand Rapids, Mich., 2009). 182 pp., $14.

– “The Book of the Shepherd: The Story of One Simple Prayer and How It Changed the World” by Joann Davis.

HarperStudio (New York, Gospel for February 28, 2010 2009). 183 pp., $19.99.

Luke 9:28-36 – “The Mystery of Faith: Meditations on Following is a word search based on the Gospel the Eucharist” by Father reading for the Second Sunday of Lent, Cycle C: the mountain top glimpse of Jesus’ glory. The words can Tadeusz Pajczer. Paraclete be found in all directions in the puzzle.

Press (Brewster, Mass., 2010). 111 pp., $17.99.

EIGHT DAYS MOUNTAIN PRAYING – “Get Out of the Boat: DAZZLING WHITE BEHOLD TWO MEN MOSES ELIJAH Discover the Meaning of APPEARED ACCOMPLISH PETER Your Life” by Thomas J. SLEEP MASTER LET US MAKE Winninger. Liguori Press THREE A CLOUD A VOICE CHOSEN SPOKEN ALONG (Liguori, Mo., 2010). 97 pp., $14.99.

– “Faith-Based WITH GLORY Reflections on American D E R A E P P A J O C D Life” by William J. Byron, L P M A S T E R W Z H A SJ. Paulist Press (Mahwah, N.J., 2010). 192 pp., O E L I J A H A H S O Z $14.95.

H E T H R E E C I O S Z – “Beatitudes: Eight E L L U J K W L T N E L Steps to Happiness” by B S A O S M P O E I N I Raniero Cantalamessa, R E T E P M R U F A A N OFM Cap. Translated by M E C I O V A D J T N G Marsha Daigle-Williamson.

O J O C K P Y K F N A Z Servant Books (Cincinnati, S P C M E D I G E U M P 2009). 146 pp., $13.99.

E A L O N G N E M O W T – “The World as It S h o u l d B e : L iv i n g S Y A D T H G I E M V F Authentically in the Here© 2009 Tri-C-A Publications www.tri-c-a-publications.com and-Now Kingdom of God” Sponsored by DUGGAN’S SERRA MORTUARY

by Gregory F.A. Pierce.

500 Westlake Avenue, Daly City Loyola Press (Chicago, 650-756-4500 ● www.duggansserra.com 2010). 144 pp., $14.95.

– “Come Meet Jesus: An Invitation from Pope Benedict XVI” by Amy Welborn.

Word Among Us Press (Ann Arbor, Mich., 2010). 160 pp., $11.95.

– “The Spiritual Legacy of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen” by the Rev. Charles P. Connor. Alba House (Staten Island, N.Y., 2010). 241 pp., $19.95.

– “Faith and the Media: Reflections

by Christian Communicators,” edited by Dennis D. Cali. Paulist Press (Mahwah, N.J., 2010). 98 pp., $9.95.

SCRIPTURE SEARCH

February 26, 2010

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April 20 – 30, 2010

May 17 - 26, 2010

Departs San Francisco 11-Day Pilgrimage

with Oberammergau’s Passsion Play 10 Days • 15 Meals: 8 Breakfasts • 1 lunch • 6 Dinners

Highlights…Engelberg • Bern • Bear Pit • Lucerne • Innsbruck • Austrian Alps • Salzburg Mirabell Gardens • St. Peter’s Restaurant • Bavaria • Oberammergau • Passion Play

Double $4,699 (100% inclusive, air, taxes, gratuities)

19

TRAVEL GUIDE

Grounds • Justice Palace • Oberammergau • Passion Play

Double $3,899 (100% inclusive, air, taxes, gratuities)

Catholic San Francisco

2,599 per person

only $

($2,699 after January 10, 2010)

Visit: Milan, Turin, Florence, Assisi, Norcia, Rome (papal Audience)

Shroud of Turin

OBERAMMERGAU plus Munich, Salzburg, Vienna & Budapest Sept. 28 – Oct. 8, 2010 Departs San Francisco 11-Day Pilgrimage

3,999

only $

Mexico’s Colonial Jewels

featuring Mexico City, Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende, Zacatecas, Tequila & Morelia

Feb. 20th, April 17th, May 29th, 2010

($4,099 after June 20, 2010)

Fr. Dennis Duvelius, Spiritual Director

Schöenbrunn Palace

Visit: Munich, Neuschwanstein, Oberammergau, Salzburg, Danube River Cruise, Vienna, Budapest

12 Days • 17 Meals: 11 Breakfasts • 6 Dinners

Highlights…Our Lady of Guadalupe • Pyramids of Teotihuacan • National Folkloric Ballet Performance • San Miguel de Allende • Granaditas Museum • Rafael Coronel Museum • El Eden Silver Mine • Hospicio Cabanas • Tequila Agave Fields • Patzcuàro • Morelia - National Museum of Anthropology

Double $2,189 (100% inclusive) All tours depart from SFO

THE HOLY LAND November 11 – 21, 2010 Departs San Francisco 11-Day Pilgrimage

2,999

only $

($3,099 after Aug. 3, 2010)

Fr. Tony Stevenson, Spiritual Director Visit: Tel Aviv, Netanya, Caesarea, Nazareth, Mt. Carmel, Jerusalem, Masada, Jericho

DOOR TO DOOR Airport Transportation ( 100% included for all tours)

For a free brochure or information contact

BJ Travel @ (800) 897-5170

California Sellers of Travel #1003860-40

Nazareth

For a FREE brochure on these pilgrimages contact: Catholic San Francisco (415) 614-5640

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

20

Catholic San Francisco

February 26, 2010

Lenten Opportunities Feb. 28, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.: Shadows of Light, a miniretreat for youth in grades 8 – 12. “Through youth-led Scripture, song, drama and ritual, the teens will be invited to reflect on God’s healing and reconciliation as reflected in the Woman at the Well, the Man Born Blind, and Lazarus,” said Vivian Clausing, Office of Religious Education and Youth Ministry. The Scripture stories will be presented by youth and youth ministers with San Francisco Auxiliary Bishop William Justice, who helped plan the afternoon, offering reflections between the presentations. Takes place at St. Cecilia Parish, 17th and Vicente St. in San Francisco. Admission is free.

No registration is necessary but if you can contact your local youth or campus minister, please do. Anyone attending is asked to bring snacks to share.

March 6, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. A Food Fast for youth 8th grade and up at St. Peter Parish in Pacifica. The Office of Religious Education and Youth Ministry has partnered with Catholic Relief Services to promote awareness of hunger and Catholic social teaching.

“Youth will gather to fast in solidarity with those who are hungry, to pray and to engage in hands-on activities that encourage reflection and discussion,” said Vivian Clausing of the Office of Religious Education and Youth Ministry. Thomas Awaipo of CRS will share his stories of poverty and hope. Youth will end the day by breaking the fast together and celebrating Mass.

To register, contact the OREYM at (415) 614-5650 or e-mail clausingv@sfarchdiocese.org by March 1.

March 4, 9, 7:30 p.m.: Lenten Scripture talks from Franciscan Father Michael Guinan, professor at Berkeley’s Franciscan School of Theology at St. Emydius Church, Ashton Ave. at De Montfort Ave. in San Francisco. Topics include Unity and Diversity and Polarities and Tensions in Christian Spirituality. Call (415) 587-7066. Suggested donation is $10.

March 5: Monthly meeting of Catholic Marin Breakfast Club at St. Sylvester Church, Bon Air at Sir Francis Drake Blvd. in Kentfield.

Mass at 7 a.m. with breakfast and talk after. Salt Lake City Bishop John C. Wester, a former priest and auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and former president of Marin Catholic High School, will preside at Mass and speak at the breakfast. E-mail sugaremy@aol.com to register and for other details.

First Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m.: Lectio Divina– Pray with Sacred Scripture and share your Faith with others. 7:30 - 8:30 pm at Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose, Motherhouse Chapel, 43326 Mission Blvd. (off Mission Tierra), Fremont. Call Sister Beth Quire, at (510) 449-7554 or visit our website at www. msjdominicans.org for more information.

Wednesdays through March 24, noon – 1 p.m.: The St. Thomas More Society offers study sessions of Parables found in the Gospels. The talks take place at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, Room 6, across from Hecker Hall. Jesus often instructed his disciples by parables - stories. In their original form the parables of Jesus are generally believed to be historically accurate. Being instructed by these parables is like sitting before Jesus and listening to him. Don Carroll, a former President of the St. Thomas More Society will lead the discussion. All are invited. Membership in the St. Thomas More Society is not necessary.

Admission is free. Visit www.stthomasmore-sf.org Wednesdays in Lent, 7:30 p.m.: Christian Meditation, as taught by Benedictine Father John Main at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church, 2390 Bush St. (Siena Room).

More information at: www.christianmeditation.us Tuesdays in Lent, soup super at 6:15 p.m. and talks at 7 p.m.: St. Rita Parish Lenten Lecture Series in the parish hall, 100 Marinda Dr. at Sir Francis Drake Blvd. in Fairfax. Call (415) 456-4815 for details. March 16, Stockton Bishop Stephen Blaire will speak on “Magisterium as the Servant of God’s Word.”

Fridays of Lent, 6 p.m.: Soup Supper followed

by Stations of the Cross at Mater Dolorosa Church, Willow Ave. off Grand in South San Francisco. This is a family event with children’s reflections included for each station. Call (650) 583-4131.

Daily through March 28, 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.: “40 Days for Life,” a campaign of fasting and prayer to end abortion at Planned Parenthood, 815 Eddy St., San Francisco. (between Van Ness & Franklin). A peaceful prayerful presence will be there every day. Call (415) 668-9800 or visit www.40daysforlife.com/sanfrancisco Daily through March 28, 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.: A “40 Days

P UT

EWTN Catholic Television: Comcast Channel 229, AT&T Channel 562, Astound Channel 80, San Bruno Cable Channel 143, DISH Satellite Channel 261, Direct TV Channel 370. For programming details, visit www.ewtn.com

Datebook

Vocations March 14: The Sisters of Nazareth invite young women seriously considering religious life to a Discerners Retreat at Nazareth House, 245 Albion Way in San Rafael. Contact Sister Fintan at vocations@nazarethhousela.org or call (310) 216-8170.

Holy Cross Cemetery 1500 Old Mission Rd. in Colma, (650) 756-2060 March 6, 11 a.m.: First Saturday Mass in All Saints Mausoleum.

Food & Fun

San Francisco’s Star of the Sea Elementary School held a Centennial Basketball Tournament Jan. 30 as celebrations of the school’s 100th anniversary continue.

Competing teams, all from Catholic schools at least 100 years old including Mission Dolores, St. Peter, St. James, St. Charles, St. Anthony – Immaculate Conception, and Star, played 12 games in 12 hours. Among those enjoying the day were, from left, Ken Muller, athletic director; Brenda Kittredge, alumna; Dennis Ruggiero, principal, St. Anthony-Immaculate Conception Elementary School; Maureen Huntington, Superintendent of Catholic Schools, Archdiocese of San Francisco; Msgr. Floro Arcamo, pastor, Star of the Sea; Terry Hanley, principal, Star of the Sea; Christine Sellai, alumna; Anne Gisslow, athletic director. for Life” prayer vigil will be at Planned Parenthood, 2211 Palm Ave, San Mateo. Sign up at www.40daysforlife. com/sanmateo or by calling (650) 572-1468.

Lenten Soup and Substance, various dates and locations through April 1: Experience and Reflect on the Good Works of Catholic Charities CYO at a series of open houses during the Lenten Season. See the actual work of CCCYO. Each visit includes a simple meal and tour as well as reflection with program staff and, when appropriate, the people served. There is no charge to attend the series, but a response is requested for planning purposes. For specific dates and locations, contact CCCYO Parish Partnerships Director Jane Ferguson at (415) 972-1227 or e-mail jferguson@cccyo.org. You may also visit www.cccyo. org/soupandsubstance. Locations to be visited in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties include Homelessness Prevention Programs, Assisted Housing and Health Programs, Refugee and Immigrant Services; Canal Family Support Program; San Mateo Counseling Services; Family and Youth Programs; Derek Silva Community, Housing and Support for people with disabling HIV/AIDS.

St. Mary’s Cathedral Gough and Geary Blvd. in San Francisco. Call (415) 567-2020 Stations of the Cross, Fridays at 12:40 p.m. in the Cathedral, following the 12:10 Mass.

Lecture Series, “Penitence: The Call for Us to Change, The Call for Us to be Transformed by Christ,” 10:15 – 10:45am in the Msgr. Bowe Room.

Feb. 28: Penitence in the Beginning: God Calling to us in the Garden of Eden March 7: Our Restless Souls Find Rest in Thee: Penitence in the Writings of St. Augustine March 14: True and Perfect Joy: Penitence in the Wrings of St. Francis of Assisi

March 21: Surprised by Love: Penitence in the Poetry of Dante Alighieri March 7, 7:30 p.m.: The University of Notre Dame Glee Club presents a cappella concert at St. Mary’s Cathedral. The program features a broad range of music from Medieval to contemporary times.

The school’s glee club spans 88 years and has in recent times performed in 20 U.S. states as well as abroad. The evening also features the Golden Gate Boys Choir and Bellringers. A suggested donation of $10 will be collected at the door. Visit http:// gleeclub.nd.edu

TV/Radio Fridays at 9 a.m.: The Archbishop’s Hour on Immaculate Heart Radio, KSFB - 1260 AM, San Francisco. Enjoy news, conversation and in-depth look at local and larger Church. Program is rerun Fridays and Mondays at 9 p.m. and Sundays at 11 a.m. - e-mail info@sfarchdiocese.org with comments and questions about faith. 1260 AM also offers daily Mass, rosary and talk on the faith. Visit www.ihradio.org Sunday, 6 a.m., KOFY Channel 20/Cable 13 and KTSF Channel 26/Cable 8: TV Mass with Msgr.

Harry Schlitt presiding.

Sunday, 7 a.m.: TV Mass on Filipino Channel (TFC) Channel 241 on Comcast and Channel 2060 on Direct TV. Saturday, 4 p.m.: Religious programming in Cantonese over KVTO 1400 AM, co-sponsored by the Chinese Ministry and Chinese Young Adults of the Archdiocese.

1st Sunday, 5 a.m., CBS Channel 5: “Mosaic,” featuring conversations on current Catholic issues.

3rd Sunday, 5:30 a.m., KRON Channel 4: “For Heaven’s Sake,” featuring conversations about Catholic spirituality.

March 5, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.; March 6, 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.: Annual Rummage Sale at Church of the Visitacion Parish Hall, 701 Sunnydale Ave. at Rutland in San Francisco. Choose among clothes, furniture, books, jewelry and w New Items Booth. Call (415) 494-5517 for more information. Muni buses 8, 9, 56, as well as the T line will get you there.

March 6, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. and March 7, 9 a.m.

– 3:30 p.m.: Flea Market at St. Elizabeth Church, Goettingen and Wayland St. several blocks off Silver in San Francisco. Household items, collectibles, china, crystal, jewelry and more to choose from.

Call (415) 344-0506.

March 6, 6:30 p.m.: St. Patrick’s Corn Beef and Cabbage Dinner at St. Philip Parish Hall, Diamond at Elizabeth St. in San Francisco. Tickets are $25 per person/10 years and under $10 for chicken nuggets and hot dogs. Proceeds benefit the parish, this year celebrating its 100th anniversary. Call Margaret McAuliffe at (415) 334-7212 or the parish at (415) 282-0141.

March 13: “South Seas Sunset,” Mercy High School, Burlingame’s Annual Auction and Dinner, an enchanting evening featuring fabulous food, exotic entertainment and an alluring auction at Kohl Mansion. Guest emcee is Channel 2 news reporter Sal Castaneda. Tickets are $70 per person. Contact the Mercy Advancement Department for ticket/ auction information at (650) 762-1190 or visit www. mercyhsb.com. Proceeds help fund Mercy scholarships, athletics and general operations.

March 13, 6 p.m.: St Matthews School - St Paddy’s Dinner - One Notre Dame AveSan Mateo.

Tickets are $15 and include corned beef and cabbage or chicken dinner. Beer and wine available for purchase. Contact Charlie Jadallah for reservations at (650) 628-6948 or email charliejad@yahoo.com March 13, 9 a.m.: St. Patrick’s Day Mass preceding St. Patrick’s Day Parade at St. Patrick Church, 5th and Mission St in San Francisco. San Francisco Auxiliary Bishop William J. Justice will preside.

Events sponsored by the United Irish Societies of San Francisco on days leading up to the Mass can be seen at www.stpatricksdayparade.com March 17, 11 a.m.: Annual Luncheon benefiting St. Vincent de Paul Society Desk in San Rafael and the work of the SVDP Conference at St. Anthony Parish in Novato at Marin Country Club, 500 Country Club Dr. in Novato. Tickets are $40 per person.

Afternoon includes bridge, dominoes and raffle.

No-host cocktails and silent auction begin at 11 a.m. For reservations and information, contact Gwen Johnson at (415) 883-3055.

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, e-mail burket@sfarchdiocese.org, or visit www.catholic-sf.org, Contact Us.

YOUR BUSINESS CARD IN THE HANDS

Attach Card Here Deadline for April 2nd Issue is March 22nd

210,000 R EADERS

OF

Deadline for May 7th Issue is April 26th Please do not write on your card.

C ATHOLIC S AN F RANCISCO

FOR

ONLY $112.00 PER MONTH IN OUR BUSINESS CARD SECTION NOW APPEARING THE FIRST FRIDAY OF EACH MONTH. THIS NEW SECTION IS CERTAINLY LESS EXPENSIVE THAN THE $65,000 IT WOULD COST TO PRINT AND MAIL YOUR BUSINESS CARDS TO ALL OUR READERS. ONLY $96.00 PER MONTH ON A *12-MONTH CONTRACT.

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AD HEADING NAME ADDRESS CITY ZIP

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MAIL TO: CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO, BUSINESS CARD ONE PETER YORKE WAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109

FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION

SERVICE DIRECTORY In Home Care

• Companionship, Socializing, Outing • Light Housekeeping • Special Needs • Affordable Rates

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When Life Hurts It Helps To Talk • Family • Work • Relationships • Depression • Anxiety • Addictions

Dr. Daniel J. Kugler Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Over 30 years experience • Reasonable Fees

Confidential • Compassionate • Practical (415) 921-1619 • Insurance Accepted 1537 Franklin Street • San Francisco, CA 94109

Construction

Kathy Faenzi, MA, Clinical Gerontologist Office: 650.401.6350 Web: www.faenziassociates.com

415-573-5141 or 650-993-8036 *Irish owned & operated *Serving from San Francisco to North San Mateo

Home Healthcare Agency

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lic. 343633

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NOTICE TO READERS

Licensed contractors are required by law to list their license numbers in advertisments. The law also state that contractors performing work totaling $500 or more must be state-licensed.

Advertisments appearing in this newspaper without a license number indicate that the contractor is not licensed.

For more info, contact: Contractors State License Board

Maintenance, Repairs, Construction Reliable, Quality Service.

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painting and remodeling

Call: 415.533.2265

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Painting, roof repair, fence (repair/ build) demolition, carpenter, gutter (clean/ repair), kitchen/bathroom remodel, decks, welding, landscaping, gardening, hauling, moving, janitorial.

Call (650) 757-1946 Cell (415) 517-5977 NOT A LICENSED CONTRACTOR

Plumbing

S anti

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Plumbing • Fire Protection • Certified Backflow

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Lic. # 907564

BILL HEFFERON All Jobs Large and Small

10% Discount: Seniors, Parishioners

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Electrical

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Accounting

Certified Signing Agent

Timothy P. Breen Notary Public

PHONE: 415-846-1922 FAX: 415-702-9272

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Marianne Markt, CPA Your flexible Resource for

Quickbooks & Bookkeeping mariannemarkt@comcast.net (650) 240-6251

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Painting Painting S.O.S. PAINTING CO.

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Your #1 Choice! For all your electrical needs!

Free counter top appliance w/completed proposal Free food processor with kitchen

Contractor inspection reports and pre-purchase consulting

Carpet Cleaning PAINTING INTERIOR, EXTERIOR Safe Non-Toxic, No Shampoo, Dry in Hours not Days

• Residential kitchen and bath remodeling • Additions • Free estimates • Safe clean secure worksites

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Specializing in home health aides, attendants and companions.

Serving San Francisco, Marin & the Peninsula.

General Contractor

Specializing In Wood Fences

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Matthew W. Johnson

MORROW CONTRUCTION

Family Consultation –Bereavement Support

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Healthcare Agency

REMODELS, ADDITIONS, FOUNDATIONS, RETAINING Walls BILL: 650.591.6191 RAY: 415.420.6850

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Counseling Investment Construction

IN YOUR HOME CARE FOR SENIORS

• Non-Medical Companion • Personal Hygiene • Medication Reminder • Other Medical Assistance • Errands – Doctor’s App’t • Meal Preparation

21

Catholic San Francisco

February 26, 2010

◆

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22

Catholic San Francisco

February 26, 2010

Catholic San Francisco

classifieds FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION visit us at www.catholic-sf.org or Call: 415-614-5642

Fax: 415-614-5641 Email: penaj@sfarchdiocese.org

We are looking for full or part time

Help wanted

RNs, LVNs, CNAs, Caregivers In-home care in San Francisco, Marin County, peninsula Nursing care for children in San Francisco schools If you are generous, honest, compassionate, respectful, and want to make a difference, send us your resume:

PLEASE RECYCLE THIS PAPER!

Jeannie McCullough Stiles, RN Fax: 415-435-0421 Email: info@sncsllc.com Voice: 415-435-1262

C ATHOLIC S AN F RANCISCO POSITION: Executive Director for St. Anthony Foundation (“SAF”) (www.stanthonysf.org www.stanthonysf.org)) a faith-based organization in San Francisco, CA. This position will focus on four key areas of responsibilities: 1) 2) 3) 4)

oversee fundraising activities including capital campaign; expand needs of its stakeholders and of the people is serves; active communication with the Board of Directors on finances, organizational issues and planning; oversee strategic and organizational planning.

EXPERIENCE: Minimum of 8 years of progressively responsible management of direct service programs, in a nonprofit environment supported by diverse funding sources.

ATTRIBUTES: This individual is a person of vision and idealism with a deep respect for Catholic Social Teachings and understanding and concern for the programmatic realities of a social service agency serving the poorest of the poor in the community. S/he will thrive on the mission of the institution and demonstrate dedication to all the members of the institution and the volunteer community whom SAF serves. S/he leads through the establishment of relationships, and is willing to be present and inspire people.

Please send resume to heidi@terrasearchpartners.com

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS SOUGHT The Department of Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of San Francisco is seeking elementary principals for the 2010-2011 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.

Please send resume and a letter of interest by March 19th, 2010 to: Bret E. Allen Associate Superintendent for Educational & Professional Leadership One Peter Yorke Way San Francisco, California 94109 Fax (415) 614-5664 E-mail: allenb@sfarchdiocese.org

Visit us at: www.catholic-sf.org

Help Wanted Our Lady of Loretto School Novato’s neighborhood Catholic School for over 50 years

ELEMENTARY PRINCIPAL SEARCH

Our Lady of Loretto School in Novato, California, is seeking an experienced dedicated Catholic leader to serve as Principal, beginning August 1, 2010.

Our Lady of Loretto offers a solid academic and religious foundation to its students. It prides itself in its interconnectedness with the parish and its community atmosphere. For qualifications, go to “sfarchdiocese.org” and search “Principal Job”. Interested applicants should apply by March 8th and address their applications: Attention Bret Allen, fax (415) 614-5664 or email allenb@sfarchdiocese.org

The Department of Catholic Schools, Archdiocese of San Francisco, is seeking a qualified President for Archbishop Riordan High School, San Francisco, CA. This President is responsible to the Archbishop of San Francisco through the Archdiocesan Superintendent of Catholic Schools, and to the Board of Trustees of Archbishop Riordan High School (ARHS).

Archbishop Riordan High School, an Archdiocesan Catholic High School in the Marianist tradition, prepares young men of the Bay Area for leadership through its inclusive college preparatory curriculum, its emphasis on formation in faith, and its dedication to community service and justice. In a diverse family environment, Archbishop Riordan fosters development in faith, character, academics, athletics and the arts. ARHS – is WASC Accredited: ARSH has received the maximum six-year re-accreditation (through 2014) RESPONSIBILITIES include: MANAGEMENT • Maintain the Catholicity and Marianist Charism of ARHS (See http://www.riordanhs.org/about/marianists.php ) • Maintain cordial relationships with Archdiocesan officials, the Board of Trustees and the Society of Mary (Marianists) • Assist the Board of Trustees in strategic planning, its organization, its implementation, and its integration into the various programs at ARHS • Assist in the development of a Master Plan for school improvements and growth • Maintain communications with Pastors, Principals of Catholic, Private and Public feeder schools

DEVELOPMENT • Supervises the work of the Development Office to insure smooth function and that it reflects the mission of the school.

• Serves as chief spokesperson for Archbishop Riordan High School.

• Communicates with various publics through properly prepared materials and literature.

• Approves all programs and campaigns of the Development Office.

• Monitors long-range planning and development goals.

• Insures the creation and implementation of a comprehensive development plan for the school.

• Along with the Director of Finance establishes and guides the development of the annual budget.

SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS • Fostering the Marianist “Curriculum of the Heart” within the school community • Chairs the Administrative Council • Coordinating the Teaching As Ministry program within the school community by preparing teachers and staff in concepts of the Marianist charism • Promotes the formation of Lay Marianist leadership at ARHS MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: • A practicing Catholic in good standing with the church • A master’s degree • Five years of successful school administration at the secondary level including mission driven school advancement and Board development For additional details about this Position and its responsibilities see the full description at: http://www.sfcatholicschools.org/ For more detailed information about ARHS, see the school’s web site: http://www.riordanhs.org/ Tentative Application Deadline: Resumes and cover letters must be submitted by March 1st, 2010. Interviews for finalists are tentatively planned for early March.

Mail or Email Resume and Cover Letter to: Patrick Schmidt, Associate Director of Human Resources 1 Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco, Ca 94109

schmidtp@sfarchdiocese.org

February 26, 2010

Catholic

San

Catholic San Francisco

Francisco

classifieds FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION VISIT US AT WWW.CATHOLIC-SF.ORG or Call: 415-614-5642 Fax: 415-614-5641 Email: penaj@sfarchdiocese.org

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Please return form with check or money order for $26 Payable to: Catholic San Francisco Advertising Dept., Catholic San Francisco 1 Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco, CA 94109

NOVENA TO ST. MARTHA O St. Martha I resort to thee and to thy faith and Petition and faith. I offer up to thee this lighted candle which I shall burn every Tuesday for nine Tuesdays.

Comfort me in all my difficulties through the great favor thou didst enjoy when our Savior lodged in thy house. I beseech thee to have definite pity in regard to the favor I ask (mention favor) I intercede for my family that we may always be provided for in all our necessities. I ask thee St. Martha to overcome the dragon which thou has cast at thy feet. One Our Father, three Hail Mary’s and a lighted candle every Tuesday for nine Tuesdays and the above prayer made known with the intention of spreading devotion to St. Martha. This miraculous Saint grants everything before Tuesdays are ended no matter how difficult. KM

Prayer to the Blessed Virgin never known to fail.

Most beautiful flower of Mt. Carmel Blessed Mother of the Son of God, assistme in my need. Help me and show me you are my mother.

Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth. I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to help me in this need.

Oh Mary, conceived without sin. Pray for us (3X).

Holy Mary, I place this cause in your hands (3X).

Say prayers 3 days. E.A.G.

Prayer to the Blessed Virgin never known to fail.

Most beautiful flower of Mt. Carmel Blessed Mother of the Son of God, assistme in my need. Help me and show me you are my mother. Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth. I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to help me in this need.

Oh Mary, conceived without sin. Pray for us (3X).

Holy Mary, I place this cause in your hands (3X).

Say prayers 3 days.

R.B.C.F.

Prayer to the Holy Spirit Holy Spirit, you who make me see everything and who shows me the way to reach my ideal.

You who give me the divine gift of forgive and forget the wrong that is done to me. I, in this short dialogue, want to thank you for everything and confirm once more that I never want to be separated from you no matter how great the material desires may be. I want to be with you and my loved ones in your perpetual glory. Amen. You may publish this as soon as your favor is granted.

M.M.

St. Jude Novena May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, glorified, loved & preserved throughout the world now & forever. Sacred Heart of Jesus pray for us.

St. Jude helper of the hopeless pray for us.

Say prayer 9 times a day for 9 days.

Thank You St. Jude.

Never known to fail.

You may publish.

F.S.

Prayer to the Blessed Virgin never known to fail.

Most beautiful flower of Mt. Carmel Blessed Mother of the Son of God, assistme in my need. Help me and show me you are my mother.

Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth. I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to help me in this need.

Oh Mary, conceived without sin. Pray for us (3X).

Holy Mary, I place this cause in your hands (3X).

Say prayers 3 days.

J.C.

Prayer to the Blessed Virgin never known to fail.

Most beautiful flower of Mt. Carmel Blessed Mother of the Son of God, assistme in my need. Help me and show me you are my mother. Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth. I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to help me in this need.

Oh Mary, conceived without sin. Pray for us (3X).

Holy Mary, I place this cause in your hands (3X).

Say prayers 3 days.

M.A.B.

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Room for Rent Russian Hill, SF, large room for rent for retired gentleman.

Good location, close to public transportation.

Please call (415) 474-1216, before 7pm

Certified Geriatric Aide CERTIFIED GERIATRIC HOME AIDE, native San Franciscan, 19 yrs. exp. seeks employment with elderly woman exc. ref.

Will work overnight shifts 415-252-8312

Live-In Companion Seeking mature, healthy, sincere, honest, single woman for a live-in companion. Free room and private bath.

For more information, please call (415) 921-8337

Pilgramages Help Wanted GLORY TOURS invites you to join us on pilgrimages.

We are a wholesale pilgrimage tour company serving group leaders, organizations, churches leaders and travel agents on wholesale basis.

We are dedicated to serving pilgrims, giving the best experience possible on their journeys.

Once you taste our loving service, you’ll never think of going on pilgrimages without Glory Tours. So come and join us, with your family, friends and relatives.

GLORY TOURS runs and operates the tour and offer one free travel for every ten paying pilgrims.

We will meet or beat every legitimate offer in the market.

Please feel free to contact by phone 1-866-352-5952 or e-mail: ruby@glory-tours.com or check www.glory-tours.com Glory Tours will be happy to serve you For individuals you may join the ff. public tours:

OBERAMMERGAU PASSION PLAY Germany with Rome, Assisi, Florence, Shroud of Turin, Switzerland May 6-17, 2010 (12 days) • Estimated cost of tour: $3,390 land only, Air cost: $850+air taxes TBD

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OBERAMMERGAU PASSION PLAY GERMANY w/ CZECH REPUBLIC, SWITZERLAND

Berlin, Prague, Munich, Oberammergau, Vaduz, Lucerne, Zurich June 15-26, 2010 (12 days) • Estimated cost of tour: $3,390 Land only, Air cost: $850+air taxes TBD *****************************************************************************

OBERAMMERGAU PASSION PLAY GERMANY W/ AUSTRIA, CZECH REPUBLIC, POLAND

Salzburg, Prague, Krakow, Divine Mercy-Wadowice, Czestochowa-Warsaw May 28-June 8, 2010 (12 days) • Estimated cost of tour: $3,390 land portion only, Air cost $850+taxes TBD *****************************************************************************

FOLLOW THE FOOTSTEPS OF ST.PAUL JOIN US ON A PILGRAMAGE TOUR TO GREECE & TURKEY

Spiritual Directors: Rev. Fr. Hieu & Fr. Zibi Fraszezak, Pastor, St. Joachim Catholic Church

GREECE, GREEK ISLANDS CRUISE & TURKEY, NOVEMBER 13, 2010 TOUR PRICE $2,990, PORT CHARGES $95 PLUS AIRLINE TAXESES $350

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For your local & international Catholic news, Datebook, Digital Paper, website listings, advertising information, “Place Classified Ad” Form and much more

Associate Superintendent for Curriculum/School Improvement

ARCHDIOCESE OF SAN FRANCISCO, DEPARTMENT OF CATHOLIC SCHOOLS REPORTS TO: Superintendent of Schools, located in the heart of San Francisco at Geary and Gough.

STATUS: Regular Full Time, Exempt, Start Date 7/1/2010 PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF POSITION: To provide direction, consultation, and in service in secular curricular areas for administrators and faculties in the K-12 Archdiocesan School System. To provide leadership in the WCEA/WASC/CAIS Accreditation Process.

The Department of Catholic Schools of the Archdiocese of San Francisco is dedicated to the teaching mission of the Catholic Church. For our elementary and secondary schools we strive to provide quality leadership, to develop programs of educational excellence, and to prepare students for a truly Christian life.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES: 1). Develops, implements, and evaluates elementary in-service programs and promotes secondary in-service programs in order to assist K-12 educators in teaching secular subjects: 2). Chairs and moderates the Archdiocesan Staff Development Committee 3). Responsible for the Standardized Testing Program

QUALIFICATIONS: Must be a believing and practicing Catholic in good standing with the Church, and have a strong commitment to the philosophy and teaching of the mission of the Catholic Church. Must have 8 to 10 years of successful Classroom and Administration experience with a minimum of 2 to 3 years as Principal or Administrator. Masters Degree in Education is required. Must have proven experience in curriculum theory and practice. Proven track record in sensitivity to cultural and racial diversity as well as varied learning and teaching methods. Must understand and be able to clearly communicate testing theories and practices.

For additional details about this Position and its responsibilities see the full description at: http://www.sfcatholicschools.org/ Mail or Email Resume and Cover Letter to: Patrick Schmidt, Associate Director of Human Resources 1 Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco, Ca 94109

schmidtp@sfarchdiocese.org

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Catholic San Francisco

February 26, 2010

A Life Remembered P r i vat e F a m i l y R o o m s

Beautifully designed, the classic simplicity of All Saints Mausoleum utilizes ageless materials.

Elegant marbles and granites, thoughtfully selected for their traditional beauty and durability, are the principle materials adorning all interior spaces. If offers individuals and families a rich variety of space and locations for single or multiple interments. In addition, for some families, stately individual private rooms are available.

What is a Private Family Room?

A private family room is designed to reflect the personal taste and faith of their owners including beautiful stained glass windows and tapestries. Ornamental iron gates grace each entrance. The soft-colored marbles adorning the walls and floors provide for peaceful contemplation. There are a variety of options allowing for six to twelve entombments.

A private family room is an inspirational place for tender memories and quiet reflection for many generations to come.

Please call the cemetery for an appointment to see All Saints Mausoleum and the Private Family Rooms.