April 24, 2009

Francis of Assisi Pope Benedict sees life of St. Francis as lesson of conversion for our times VATICAN CITY (CNS) – At first glance, the scholarly Pope Benedict XVI – sometimes dubbed “the pope of reason” – might seem an unlikely devotee of St. Francis of Assisi, the mystic friar of simple faith.

Yet the German pope has found in St. Francis something that goes beyond the saint’s popular image as the patron of peace, the environment and animals.

For him, St. Francis offers a model of radical conversion to Christ.

An earlier pontiff, Pope Innocent III, approved the founding of St. Francis’ religious order 800 years ago, and in mid-April Franciscans from all over the world converged on the Italian hill town of Assisi to celebrate the anniversary.

Assisi has gained a reputation as a place for spiritual seekers of every stripe, and its interreligious gatherings in recent years have drawn criticism from some conservative quarters of the church.

Pope Benedict, however, has lauded the “spirit of Assisi” and its emphasis on dialogue and interfaith bridge-building.

At the same time, he has encouraged Franciscans to highlight the fact that St. Francis’ spiritual path began with a life-changing encounter with Christ. Today’s pilgrims need to understand that connection, he said.

“It’s not enough that they admire Francis: Through him they should be able to encounter Christ,” the pope said during a visit to Assisi in 2007.

It’s instructive to see how Pope Benedict views the life of St. Francis. During the same visit, the pope described the young Francis as a “king of partying” who grew disillusioned with the clothes, music and relatively easy life afforded him by his economic status in the 13th century.

In his first 25 years, the pope said, Francis was mainly out for fun and entertainment in life. He was vain and placed a lot of emphasis on image.

The pope’s portrait of the young Francis was not a flattering one: a self-absorbed man who wandered the FRANCIS OF ASSISI, page 8

(CNS PHOTO/OCTAVIO DURAN)

John Thavis

A fresco by Giotto in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, depicts Pope Innocent III giving approval to the first Franciscan rule and blessing St. Francis and his followers.

Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Lobby Day 2009: Catholics to push social justice, life issues in Sacramento

By Michael Vick Representatives from each of the 12 California Catholic dioceses will converge on Sacramento April 28 for the 11th annual Catholic Lobby Day. They will advocate for food aid for the poor, limits on prison time for juvenile offenders sentenced to life without parole and an expansion of infant surrender laws to prevent harm to babies up to a month old.

Organizers expect as many as 700 Catholics to participate in the day’s events, which include a Mass celebrated

by Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton at Sacramento’s Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, a march to the Capitol and meetings with legislators.

The day is a chance for Catholics to have a “mobilized, focused voice” in

Ned Dolejsi heads the California Catholic Conference

Sacramento, said Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference.

“We need to be a voice for those who have no voice in the state,” said Dolejsi, whose group is the lobbying arm of the California Catholic bishops and the sponsor of Catholic Lobby Day. “We expect the deficit to grow again, and one of the solutions (lawmakers are considering) is cutting more people off needed social services. The safety net is not just being frayed. There are gaping holes in it.”

Dolejsi said he plans to push legislators on budget priorities, looking to halt any plans to cut social services the CCC says are essential for the poor and marginalized. Dolejsi also said the budget crunch presents an opportunity to discuss life issues, with lobbyists

pushing to defund state support for groups like Planned Parenthood.

George Wesolek, director of the San Francisco Archdiocese’s Office of Public Policy and Social Concerns, said the day is a chance for ordinary Catholics to make a difference in the legislative process.

“It’s an opportunity for Catholics to be in an environment with each other with a unity of purpose and power,” Wesolek said, adding that the day can forge connections with legislators that aids in further contact. “We don’t want it to be just one day a year.

It will hopefully open up opportunities to do more throughout the year.”

Voters sojourning from their districts are not as easy to ignore as the lobbyists who are part of the system in Sacramento, said Steve Pehanich, CCC’s senior director for advocacy and education.

“It’s important for legislators to know voters are backing what you say,” Pehanich said. “When people from their home districts come all the way LOBBY DAY, page 18

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION News in brief. . . . . . . . . . . 4-5 Draft stem-cell guidelines . . . 6 Pope’s condom comments. . 10 Letters & commentary . 14-15 Scripture & reflection. . . . . 16

Vatican criticizes Iranian president ~ Page 3 ~ April 24, 2009

Annual blessing of holy oils ~ Page 12-13 ~

“Sin Nombre” immigrants’ struggle ~ Page 20 ~

SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS

Last in dynasty passes . . . . 18 Datebook of events . . . . . . . 21

www.catholic-sf.org VOLUME 11

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No. 15

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Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

On The

Volunteers at Immaculate Heart Radio pledge drive in March included, clockwise from left, Blanca Salguero, Queen of All Saints Parish in Concord; Lucille Lopez, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Daly City, and Susan Ang, St. Augustine Parish in South San Francisco.

More than 60 people staffed the phones over three days at Mater Dolorosa Parish.

Where You Live

By Tom Burke Mater Dolorosa Parish in South San Francisco was the site of an Immaculate Heart Radio pledge drive in March. While the three-day effort fell about $50,000 short of its $425,000 goal, “in every other way, the pledge drive was recordbreaking,” said Lori Brown, the network’s general manager.

The new heights included 813 calls on day one; a new high of 866 calls on day two; and day three’s almost new record of 853 calls. “When you consider the state of the economy and the daily ‘doom and gloom’ from the news media, those numbers are even more impressive,” Lori told me. “We’re and phone number is (916) 535-0500. Next pledge drive is June 17, 18 and 19, Lori said…. Here at home happy to have Immaculate Heart Radio here,” base, we are proud of Tom Hoffman, Benefits said Father Brian Costello, Mater Dolorosa Manager for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, pastor. “They are very good people and do a on his election to the Board of Directors of the lot of good work.” With a laugh and speaking National Association of Church Personnel “just like a pastor” he added, “They leave the Administrators. “The NACPA was established place better than when they arrive and they in 1972 with a mission of promoting justice turn off the lights.” On-air guests in addition to in the workplace,” Tom, who has served with Father Costello included our own Archbishop archdiocesan HR for four-and-a-half years, George Niederauer, Father Tom Daly, told me. “Our role, as I see it, is to help ensure director of vocations and president of Marin that the social justice the Church preaches to Catholic High School, and Father Andrew the outside world is actually practiced in its Johnson who played a large role in IH Radio’s Tom Hoffman own house,” he said. Tom, his wife, Jen, and acquiring its San Francisco outlet. IH Radio is available on KSFB-1260 AM. Its web site is www.ihradio.org their son, Toby, make their home in Richmond….Busy, busy, Congratulations to students from San Domenico schools in San Anselmo who took home prizes from the annual poster contest sponsored by Marin County Fair Housing. Theme students used to shape their exhortations was “Your Family and Mine.” San Domenico faculty member, Carol Mosely, attended the awards ceremony. “The children really seem to understand the issue of fair housing in Marin,” she said. Iron Man was on hand to pose with the winners: Noelle Mosby, left, Kate Carlson, Lyda Hanson, Nicole Stock, and Layla Waters.

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busy might be best word to describe Young Men’s Institute goings-on state-wide and locally. More than 120 members from 38 councils gathered March 7 to celebrate the group’s 126 years of “supporting the Catholic faith and the country,” Mike Amato, YMI Grand Secretary and president of Council #613, told this column. The event was hosted by Mike’s South San Francisco branch at All Souls Church. Bob Bartoli chaired the get-together with much help from Tom Fourie, Mike said. More recently, Council #613 presented awards totaling $12,000 to 41 winners in its annual essay contest. The competition is open to students from sixth grade through college with topics including global warming, good driving, and how President Barack Obama should proceed with the country’s most important issues. The awards banquet took place at St. Peter and Paul Parish in San Francisco. Among the winners were Nicole Wilson, Hannah Collins, Francesca Puccinelli, Victoria Vallecorse, Laura Dimech, Rachel Amato, Lisa Dimech, Brendan Dimech, Chris Amato and Greg Wilson.

Participants included students from St. Veronica, St. Peter and Paul, and St. Brigid elementary schools, and high schools including Sacred Heart Cathedral, Archbishop Riordan; Mercy, San Francisco and Mercy, Burlingame…. Thanks at St. Peter Parish in Pacifica to Eleanor and Bob Schulze who have served as “marquee managers” for the last 10 months. The job is just as it sounds with those accepting the duty keeping the outside signage announcing Mass times, events, and the occasional quip or two, up to date. I’d venture to say it’s one of those jobs we sometimes think gets done on its own. That said, I raise a subtle – as is often the presence of those doing the unsung chores – salute to all who get them done. Of course, different from the theater marquee, we all know there is but one name that goes above the title….This is an empty space without you. Send items via e-mail to burket@sfarchdiocese.org and by ground to “Street,” One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco 94109. Electronic photos should be jpegs at 300 dpi. No zip files, please. Hard copy photos are also welcome sent to the Peter Yorke Way address.

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April 24, 2009

Catholic San Francisco

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Vatican criticizes Iranian president’s remarks calling Israel ‘racist’ VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Vatican has criticized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remarks about Israel at a U.N. conference on racism as “extremist and unacceptable” and said the comments promote an atmosphere of conflict.

At the same time, Vatican officials, including Pope Benedict XVI, emphasized the importance of participation in the conference, which was being boycotted by the United States and several other Western countries.

Ahmadinejad told conference participants in Geneva April 20 that Israel had “resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering” and had established a “totally racist government in the occupied Palestine.” His comments prompted a temporary walkout by dozens of diplomats in attendance.

The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, told Vatican Radio April 20 that “statements like those of the Iranian president do not go in the right direction, because even if he did not deny the Holocaust or the right of Israel to exist, he expressed extremist and unacceptable positions.”

“For this reason it is important to continue to affirm with clarity the respect for human dignity against every form of racism or intolerance. We hope the conference can still serve this purpose,” Father Lombardi said.

The following day, the Vatican spokesman issued a broader statement, saying that “the Holy See deplores the use of this United Nations forum for the adoption of political positions of an extremist and offensive nature against any state. This does not contribute to dialogue and it provokes an unacceptable atmosphere of conflict,” it said.

Father Lombardi said the conference was an important opportunity to take new steps toward “effectively combating the racism and intolerance that still today affect children, women, those of African descent, migrants and indigenous peoples ... in every part of the world.”

(CNS PHOTO/DENIS BALIBOUSE, REUTERS)

By John Thavis

Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, left, takes part in a demonstration after Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed a conference on racism at the U.N. European headquarters in Geneva April 20.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the chief Vatican representative to U.N. agencies in Geneva, told Catholic News Service by telephone April 20 that, although the Vatican objected to the Iranian president’s remarks about Israel, Vatican delegation members did not think walking out was the right response.

Archbishop Tomasi said it was important for people not to be distracted by the remarks of the Iranian president. Much more significant than Ahmadinejad’s speech, he said, were the real advances made in the draft conference document, which recognizes the Holocaust as something not to be forgotten and condemns anti-Semitism as well as intolerance against other religions.

The archbishop said it was also essential for the international community to give attention to the new forms of racism and discrimination that

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are emerging, especially against immigrants, the indigenous and the economically marginalized.

On April 19, Pope Benedict underlined the importance of the international conference and urged participants to take concrete steps to combat discrimination and intolerance around the world.

The pope, speaking at a noon blessing at his villa outside Rome, said the conference was important because, despite the lessons of history, racist attitudes and actions are still present in contemporary society.

He encouraged participants to take “firm and concrete action, at the national and international levels, to prevent and eliminate every form of racism and intolerance.” Above all, he said, a vast educational effort is needed so that human dignity and fundamental human

rights are better understood and respected.

“For its part, the church teaches that only recognition of the dignity of man, created in the image and likeness of God, is able to constitute a sure reference point in this commitment,” he said.

“I sincerely encourage all delegates present at the Geneva conference to work together in a spirit of mutual dialogue and acceptance in order to put an end to every form of racism, discrimination and intolerance,” he said.

The Geneva conference was convened to examine a statement adopted in 2001 at the U.N.’s first conference on racism held in Durban, South Africa. The United States and Israel left the 2001 conference when some Arab representatives argued that Zionism was equivalent to racism.

The conference in Geneva was being boycotted by the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several European governments because of fears that it would again provide a platform to critics of Israel. U.N. officials have pointed out that the text under consideration in Geneva has been revised in recent months, and the latest draft does not include references to Israel or Zionism.

Father Lombardi said the draft document being examined was “acceptable, since the main elements that prompted objections have been removed.”

But in a statement released April 18, the U.S. State Department said the draft text still “singles out one particular conflict and prejudges key issues that can only be resolved in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.”

The statement said the United States also has serious concerns with relatively new additions to the text regarding “incitement” to religious hatred that run counter to the U.S. commitment to unfettered free speech. Unfortunately, the U.S. statement said, it appeared that those concerns would not be addressed at the Geneva conference.

Some Muslim countries have pressed for a ban on language considered insulting to Islam.

4

Catholic San Francisco

NEWS

April 24, 2009

in brief

Opposing same-sex marriage NEW YORK – Opposing any change in the legal definition of marriage, the Catholic bishops of New York State called for the defeat of legislation proposed by Gov. David A. Paterson to permit same-sex marriages. “The most elementary study of history, sociology, biology or theology points to the certain truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, which the state should not and must not attempt to alter,” the bishops said in a statement released April 16 to coincide with Paterson’s announcement of the legislation. The conference, public policy arm of the state’s eight Catholic dioceses, calls on the Legislature to defeat this proposal, “for which there is no compelling state interest and which will weaken rather than strengthen the institution of marriage, which is so important to a stable society,” it said In Connecticut, Catholic bishops urged parishioners to fight proposed legislation that they said attacks religious freedom.

Pulpit announcements read in churches statewide April 18 and 19 called on Catholics to help defeat a Senate bill that seeks to codify the Connecticut Supreme Court’s ruling last October legalizing same-sex marriage but that “fails to protect the First Amendment rights of individuals, religious organizations and related societies.” In a letter to parishioners, Archbishop Henry J. Mansell of Hartford said the measure “does not guarantee the First Amendment rights of clergy, religious and laity to practice their faith and operate their programs and services in accordance with their sincerely held religious beliefs.” The archbishop warned that “individuals and religious groups, particularly those that provide social and educational services, would be subject to civil harassment in the form of lawsuits.” He added, “The state of Connecticut could try to coerce religious groups by giving grants, contracts and licenses only to organizations that recognize and support same-sex marriage.” The proposed bill in Connecticut would repeal a provision in the current law that “protects our children from government indoctrination in sexual lifestyles ... that are contrary to our beliefs,” the archbishop wrote.

Father Gerald M. Horan, the superintendent of schools of the Orange Diocese, the host of the event. Archbishop Wuerl is known nationally for his catechetical and teaching ministry and for his efforts on behalf of Catholic education. He is chairman of the NCEA board and the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis. “We are a mighty force for good in our world. We carry a grand story of people who travel far to teach about Jesus,” Karen M. Ristau, NCEA president, told an audience of more than 3,000 educators gathered at the Anaheim Convention Center’s arena. The 106th NCEA convention, April 14-17, was being held concurrently with the National Association of Parish Catechetical Directors’ annual convocation and the Catholic Library Association’s annual meeting.

Archbishop Dolan installed NEW YORK – St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York overflowed with people, music, incense and good will for the April 15 installation of Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan as the 10th archbishop of New York. More than 2,000 guests in the cathedral listened to two church choirs and a brass ensemble and watched on television monitors as Archbishop Dolan, waiting outside on 50th Street, waved, pointed, grinned and called out to many of the 1,000 robed clergy and laity who moved into place ahead of him in the 45-minute opening procession. His entrance through the main doors of the cathedral on Fifth Avenue was greeted with echoing applause. The Mass of installation was attended by 12 cardinals, including Cardinal William J. Levada, and more than 115 archbishops and bishops. Some 800 priests in white chasubles participated from a sea of folding chairs arrayed on three sides of the high altar. The Gospel, read by a deacon, was Luke’s description of Jesus meeting the disciples on the road to Emmaus. In his homily, Archbishop Dolan said contemporary Christians should turn to Jesus and “recognize him again in his word, in the ‘breaking of the bread’ and in his church. Let him ‘turn us around’ as he did those two disciples, turned them around because, simply put, they were going the wrong way.”

Vatican sets ‘doctrinal assessment’ of group representing US nuns WASHINGTON (CNS) – The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has ordered a “doctrinal assessment” of the “activities and initiatives” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Maryland-based association whose members represent about 95 percent of the 67,000 women religious in the United States. Sister Annmarie Sanders, a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary who is LCWR director of communications, confirmed the investigation in a brief statement released to Catholic News Service April 15.

“At this time, LCWR knows neither the process nor timeline for completion of this assessment,” the statement said. “As more information is made available to LCWR, the conference will take the appropriate steps for its participation in the assessment.”

Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo, Ohio, a member of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, is to conduct the assessment at the direction of Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the doctrinal congregation. The assessment by Bishop Blair is separate from an apostolic visitation of U.S. institutes of women religious that will look into the quality of life in the communities and why their membership has decreased during the past 40 years.

Cardinal speaks on Notre Dame CHICAGO – Although the University of Notre Dame is not controlled by the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, “in Catholicism, no person or institution is totally independent,” Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago said. “Any institution that calls itself Catholic needs to anticipate in some fashion the impact their decisions make on others who are part of the church,” the cardinal said in a statement posted in mid-April on the Web site of his archdiocesan newspaper, The Catholic New World. The statement expanded earlier remarks by Cardinal George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, on Notre Dame’s decision to invite President NEWS IN BRIEF, page 4

Catholic educators meet ANAHEIM – Speakers addressing educators April 14 at the National Catholic Educational Association’s annual convention encouraged them to follow the example of Jesus Christ in his teaching ministry. “I send my best wishes and gratitude for the great work you do in Catholic education, for the great role in evangelization, for delivering the Gospel message to those under your pastoral care,” said Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington in a letter read to the audience by Servite

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Easter Vigil at San Quentin Auxiliary Bishop William Justice celebrated Easter Vigil April 11 with about 100 inmates at Our Lady of the Rosary, the prison’s Catholic chapel. It is a tradition in the archdiocese for the auxiliary bishop to celebrate Easter Vigil with the inmates and welcome new Catholics into the Church from the prison population. This year three men who had completed the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults were confirmed, received first Communion and brought fully into the Church.

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(CNS PHOTO/MAX ROSSI, REUTERS)

A fireman kisses the head of a marble statue of Mary after removing it from the top of a church in Paganica, near L’Aquila, Italy, April 13. Some 40,000 people lost their homes in the 6.3 magnitude quake, which hit the Abruzzo region in the early hours of April 6.

L’Aquila, a medieval city of 68,000, bore the brunt of the disaster and many of its buildings and centuries-old churches crumbled to the ground.

(CNS PHOTO/LUCY NICHOLSON, REUTERS)

A woman walking by St. Monica’s Church in Santa Monica, Calif., April 14 passes the church’s statue of Mary that was beheaded on Easter. Local media reported the Santa Monica Police were investigating the alleged hate crime after church officials discovered the damage to the 55-yearold marble statue shortly before Easter services.

News in brief . . . n Continued from page 4

Barack Obama to address its commencement May 17 and to confer an honorary degree on him.

The cardinal said the invitation “has embarrassed some of those who were also invited to be part of the commencement ceremonies,” including Bishop John M. D’Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., who has said he will not attend. The university, run by the Congregation of Holy Cross, has drawn strong criticism for its decision, primarily because Obama’s stands on abortion and embryonic stem-cell research conflict with Catholic teaching.

“Mixed status” immigrant families WASHINGTON – The number of U.S. citizen children with at least one undocumented parent increased from 2.7 million to 4 million between 2003 and 2008, according to a new statistical snapshot of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants. The Pew Hispanic Center’s “Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants” found that 8.8 million people live in mixed-status families, consisting of 3.8 million undocumented immigrant adults and a half-million children in the country without documents.

The balance, 4.5 million, is composed of U.S. citizens or legal immigrants. The growth in population of unauthorized immigrants has leveled off at just under 12 million in the last three years after rapid growth from 1990 to 2006. At the same time the unauthorized immigrant population has become more widely

dispersed geographically, the report found.

Undocumented immigrants have more intact families and stay-at-home moms, higher rates of poverty and lower percentages of people with health insurance than the population in general, the report found. While undocumented immigrants make up about 5 percent of the U.S. population, about 6.8 percent of the country’s schoolchildren have at least one parent who is undocumented, according to the report. At least 10 percent of students in grades K-12 were in that category in five states – California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Nevada.

USF ends graduate theology SAN FRANCISCO – The University of San Francisco is ending its masters program in theology to focus its resources on undergraduate theology and religious studies. This semester, there was demand for only three courses, with an average of six students in each, USF spokesman Gary McDonald said. The Jesuit-run university will continue classes for all current students in the Master’s program in theology but will not accept any new students. USF is working with both Santa Clara University and the Jesuit School of Theology to help accommodate any student who may be interested in pursuing an advanced degree in theology. USF will continue to offer theology and religious studies programs for undergraduates, including a major and minor, a required class for all undergraduates, an interdisciplinary minor in Catholic Studies and Social Thought and the St. Ignatius Institute Great Books program grounded in the tradition of Christian humanism.

Catholic San Francisco

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On catholic-sf.org MULTIMEDIA: Passion plays Catholic San Francisco photographers captured two San Francisco parish-produced Passion plays this Easter season. See Arne Folkedal’s work from St. Dominic and Jose Luis Aguirre’s from the outdoor production at St. Anthony.

STATE: Bringing Catholic values to the Capitol Sacramento lawmakers’ partisan squabbling is as interminable as it is embarrassing, says California Catholic Conference Executive Director Steve Pehanich.

“Anger is not in short supply - it’s courage that is lacking. Where will it come from?” Pehanich asks. Go the homepage to read his answer. Also, on Page 1 of this issue, see Catholic San Francisco reporter Michael Vick’s story on Catholic Lobby Day and Catholic legislative priorities for 2009.

WORLD: In Central America, Church leaders seek a middle ground Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador, Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera in Guatemala – they are among the best-known victims of Central American regimes that brutalized people of conscience during and in the aftermath of the region’s civil wars. But now, Ezra Fieser of Catholic News Service reports, the Church in Central America is following a more moderate path in its political dealings, seeking to influence without being confrontational.

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Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

Embryonic research Cardinal calls for respect for human life and ethical foundations in NIH draft

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien WASHINGTON (CNS) – By proposing to allow the use of federal funds for stem-cell research on embryos created for reproductive purposes at in vitro fertilization clinics and later discarded, the National Institutes of Health opens “a new chapter in divorcing biomedical research from its necessary ethical foundation,” said Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia April 21.

“Without unconditional respect for the life of each and every member of the human race, research involving human subjects does not represent true progress,” said the cardinal, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities. “It becomes another way for some human beings to use and mistreat others for their own goals.”

Cardinal Rigali was commenting on draft guidelines for embryonic stem-cell research issued April 17 by acting NIH director Dr. Raynard S. Kington during a news briefing.

Although Kington said he believed the draft guidelines reflect “broad support in the public and in the scientific community,” he said he expected much of the public comment on them to focus on ethical concerns. A 30-day period of public comment was to begin with publication of the draft guidelines in the Federal Register, which had not occurred by April 21.

The guidelines drew support from a group of evangelical Christian and Catholic leaders and scholars as “a commonground approach that respects life at every stage,” but were

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opposed by a Catholic congressman who co-chairs the House Pro-Life Caucus and by the National Right to Life Committee.

Cardinal Rigali said it was “noteworthy that, despite calls for an even broader policy by some in Congress and the research community, the draft guidelines do not allow federally funded stem-cell research using embryos specially created for research purposes by in vitro fertilization or cloning.”

“We can hope that NIH and Congress will continue to respect this ethical norm, and will realize that the alleged ‘need’ for violating it is more implausible than ever due to advances in reprogramming adult cells to act like embryonic stem cells,” he said.

But he warned that some might “pursue a more extreme policy” and urged “other concerned citizens” to join with the bishops in writing to Congress and the Obama administration “about the need to restore and maintain barriers against the mistreatment of human life in the name of science.”

The draft guidelines specifically ban funding “for research using embryonic stem cells derived from other sources, including somatic cell nuclear transfer, parthenogenesis and/ or IVF embryos created for research purposes.”

Also prohibited is funding of research in which stem cells “are introduced into nonhuman primate blastocysts” or research “involving the breeding of animals where the introduction of human embryonic stem cells or humaninduced pluripotent stem cells may have contributed to the germ line.”

Kington said research on adult stem cells and induced pluripotent cells – which do not require the destruction of human embryos – will continue to receive NIH funding.

SCRIPTURE SEARCH Gospel for April 26, 2009 Luke 24:35-48 Following is a word search based on the Gospel reading for the Third Sunday of Easter, Cycle B: the Risen Christ meets his disciples after he is raised. The words can be found in all directions in the puzzle.

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“We have a substantial investment in that area and we have been excited about the developments in recent years,” he said.

Catholics praising the draft guidelines included Jesuit Father Thomas J. Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University; Stephen Schneck, director of the Life Cycle Institute at The Catholic University of America; Douglas Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University and a Catholic News Service columnist; and Charles C. Camosy, assistant professor of Christian ethics at Fordham University.

Schneck said aspects of the NIH plan are “clearly a major step toward the common ground most Americans are now demanding.”

Kmiec called it “a very positive sign that President (Barack) Obama has been listening – as he promised – to the heightened claims of conscience posed by Catholics in the modern medical environment.”

But Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., a leading pro-life member of Congress and a Catholic, said the new federal funding “will likely detract from the noncontroversial treatments that are already changing lives” through research involving adult stem cells and cord blood.

“Assertions that leftover embryos are better off dead so that their stem cells can be derived is dehumanizing and cheapens human life,” Smith said. “There is no such thing as leftover human life.”

Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, warned in an April 17 statement that the draft guidelines might be “part of an incremental strategy intended to desensitize the public to the concept of killing human embryos for research purposes.”

“We believe that today’s action may be part of a ‘baitand-switch’ strategy, under which Democratic leaders in Congress will suddenly bring up new legislation that they will claim codifies today’s NIH action, but which will in fact authorize further expansions involving the deliberate creation of humanGALA embryos for use in EVENTS research, by human AUCTION cloning and other methods,” Johnson added.

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Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

Francis of Assisi . . .

Franciscan friars participate in a penitential procession from the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels to the tomb of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, April 17. Some 1,800 Friars Minor, Conventual Franciscans, Capuchins and Third Order Regular Franciscans attended an April 15-18 gathering celebrating the 800th anniversary of papal approval of the Franciscan rule.

n Continued from cover

(CNS PHOTO/CAROL GLATZ)

towns of central Italy looking for material pleasure. Then a change came, as tradition recounts, triggered by small encounters with the poor and the sick.

The pope compared Francis’ conversion to that of St. Paul. Although Francis’ journey was more gradual, he said, it was just as intense as St. Paul being knocked off his horse and blinded by the light of Christ.

Francis began to have visions and to withdraw in prayerful solitude. He told friends he was about to be married – to a bride called “Lady Poverty.” He encountered a leper on the road and, after first drawing away in disgust, went toward him and embraced him. He came to Rome, prayed at the tomb of St. Peter and gave away all his money.

His conversion is sometimes pinpointed to the moment when, praying before a crucifix, he heard God’s voice telling him to “repair my house.” He then wandered the hills trying to rebuild churches, but this was far from an idyllic lifestyle: Francis was mocked as a madman, pelted with stones, locked up at times by his angry father and often went hungry and cold.

It was in 1208 that Francis clearly understood his vocation, while listening to the Gospel account of Christ’s instructions to his disciples: to renounce all material

things and to roam the land, calling people to penance and peace. He experienced these words of Scripture as a personal calling.

By now, ridicule among the local people was turning to

respect, and Francis began to attract followers. He wrote the first “rule,” a collection of Gospel principles on which his order would be founded; the exact form of that text is unknown today, but it was approved orally by Pope Innocent III in 1209 – despite reported resistance by the Roman Curia to such a radical mode of religious life.

This year’s commemoration in Assisi marks the approval of the first rule of St. Francis, and it will no doubt be followed by others in a kind of “rolling anniversary” of Franciscan milestones, including Francis’ death in 1226.

He was canonized only two years after he died, and has become the patron saint of Italy, of the Italian lay movement Catholic Action and many other groups, as well as of animals and the environment.

For Pope Benedict, St. Francis is relevant today not only because of his eco-friendly image. The key to his vocation was the figure of Christ, the pope said, and if seen strictly through the lens of social activism the saint suffers a “type of mutilation.”

That St. Francis suffered the stigmata – the wounds of Christ – was an eloquent sign of this, he said.

“He fell in love with Christ. The wounds of the crucified one wounded his heart before leaving their marks on his body on Mount La Verna. He could truly say with Paul: ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,’” the pope said.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see the figure of St. Francis appear in Pope Benedict’s upcoming social encyclical, which is expected to treat the questions of charity and the Christian response to economic injustice. As the pope has said, St. Francis’s radical rejection of material comfort was part of his “quest for Christ in the faces of the poor.”

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Catholic San Francisco

9

Annual Loaves and Fishes awards dinner raises funds for needy Catholic Charities CYO’s 12th annual Loaves and Fishes Leadership Fund and Awards Dinner April 3 raised more than $1.2 million, which will help support the social service agency’s 30 programs, officials said.

Since the fundraising event was started 12 years ago, it has raised over $10 million.

“The 2009 Loaves and Fishes Leadership Fund & Dinner raised over $1.2 million to help those most in need in the Bay Area,” said CCCYO board member, Maureen O’Brien Sullivan who, along with her husband Craig Sullivan, co-chaired the dinner. CCCYO Executive Director Jeffrey V. Bialik, who was hosting his first Loaves & Fishes Awards Dinner, said, “We are gratified by the ongoing support of our loyal leadership donors, especially given the challenging economic times we are facing. We thank them for making us a philanthropic priority.”

Loaves and Fishes Awards honor individuals and organizations in the Bay Area for charitable and community work. San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer, Chairman of Catholic Charities CYO, presented 2009 awards to Auxiliary Bishop Ignatius C. Wang, Joan and Richard Madden,

Lois Pavlow, founder of Children of Shelters, and executive directors of the Family Eviction Prevention Collaborative.

Bishop Wang was honored for outreach to ethnic communities as part of his pastoral ministry. Children of Shelters was recognized for alleviating suffering by children housed in the San Francisco shelter system.

Joan and Dick Madden, longtime supporters of Catholic Charities CYO, were recognized for their service to abused and neglected children and to the sick. The Family Eviction Prevention Collaborative, comprised of CCCYO’s Homelessness Prevention Programs, Hamilton Family Center, Compass Community Services and the Homeless Prenatal Program, represented coordinated joint efforts to keep people from being evicted.

More than 375 guests attended, including Bishop William Justice, United States Senator Dianne Feinstein, Supervisor Sean Elsbernd and former honorees Richard Dunn, Larry Nibbi, Bob Nibbi, Robert Morey, Jeanne and E. Mack Miller, Richard Blum, Jay Cahill, and representing the Carl Gellert & Celia Berta Gellert Foundation, Jack Fitzpatrick.

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Archbishop George H. Niederauer, CCCYO Board President Cecilia Herbert, Bishop Ignatius Wang, CCCYO Executive Director Jeff Bialik.

Local author sounds call for organ donation Belia Marina, whose memoir “A Gift Not Wasted” recounts her goddaughter’s ultimately fatal struggle with kidney failure and her experiences as one of two family members who donated kidneys to keep their loved one alive, will hold a book signing at Books Inc. in Palo Alto April 30 at 7 p.m.

Marina, a member of St. Veronica Parish in South San Francisco, said her goal is to raise public awareness of organ donation. With increasing rates of diabetes in the United States, the need for donated organs, especially kidneys, is growing she said.

“Yet I’m living proof that we can donate a kidney without detriment to one’s health,” she said. “I believe if more people knew this, the numbers on the waiting lists would shrink significantly.”

The author’s goddaughter, Sylvia Marina Zertuche, died on June 2, 1995, 19 days before her 31st birthday.

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Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

Popeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comment on condoms misunderstood, criticized, defended by the Africans and true friends of Africa, as well as by some members of the scientific VATICAN CITY (CNS) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; More than five community,â&#x20AC;? the statement said. weeks after Pope Benedict XVI answered In the midst of the debate about the popeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a reporterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s question about condoms, his comments on condoms, Vatican officials and response continues to be misunderstood the Vatican newspaper cited several studies and criticized, while his view also has been by researchers and by international agencies, defended by scientists and experts. including the World Health Organization, showA week ago, the Vatican issued a stateing that the most effective anti-AIDS campaigns ment deploring a Belgian parliamentary in Africa have been based on efforts to promote resolution that criticized Pope Benedict XVI abstinence and fidelity in sexual relations. for his remarks about condoms and AIDS Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS prevention.

Prevention Research Project at the Harvard In an April 17 statement, the Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Center for Population and Development Secretariat of State said it â&#x20AC;&#x153;deplores the fact Studies, told National Review Online March that a parliamentary assembly should have 25 that â&#x20AC;&#x153;the best evidence we have supports thought it appropriate to criticize the Holy the popeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comments.â&#x20AC;?

Father on the basis of an isolated extract from Dr. Green said when an individual uses an interview, separated from its context and a condom thinking it will reduce the risk of used by some groups with a clear intent to exposure to HIV that person may also take part intimidate.â&#x20AC;? in riskier behavior and take greater chances The statement said it appeared that those than one would take without condoms, for groups were hoping â&#x20AC;&#x153;to dissuade the pope example, by having multiple and concurrent from expressing himself on certain themes of sexual partners.

A nurse, right, checks in on an HIV patient, center, in Kampala, Uganda. obvious moral relevance and from teaching the In an interview with Catholic News Agency, churchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s doctrine.â&#x20AC;?

Dr. Green said the accepted wisdom in the sciThe Belgian parliament voted overwhelmingly three weeks said: â&#x20AC;&#x153;One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of entific community is that condoms lower the HIV infection rate, ago to have the government relay to the Vatican the parliamentar- condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.â&#x20AC;? but after numerous studies, researchers have found the opposite The pope went on to explain that true prevention requires a to be true. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We just cannot find an association between more iansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; disapproval of Pope Benedictâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s statement March 17 that change in sexual behavior and a real effort to befriend and care condom use and lower HIV reduction ratesâ&#x20AC;? in Africa. distributing condoms was not the key to preventing AIDS. The Belgian ambassador to the Holy See, Frank E. de for those living with AIDS. Dr. Green also noted that there is an ideology called â&#x20AC;&#x153;harm In its statement April 17, the Secretariat of State said the pope reductionâ&#x20AC;? that is being pushed by many organizations trying Coninck, met April 15 at the Vatican with Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for relations with states, to formally inform â&#x20AC;&#x153;also emphasized the commitment of the church in both these to prevent AIDS. The ideology believes that â&#x20AC;&#x153;you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t change areas. Without this moral and educational dimension, the battle the underlying behavior, that you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get people to be faithful, the Vatican of the resolution.

The Secretariat of State said that it â&#x20AC;&#x153;notes with regret this against AIDS will not be won.â&#x20AC;? especially Africans,â&#x20AC;? the HIV specialist explained. â&#x20AC;&#x153;While in some European countries an unprecedented media action, unusual in the context of the diplomatic relations existing One country, Uganda, recognized these issues and said, campaign was unleashed concerning the predominant, not to say â&#x20AC;&#x153;Listen, if you have multiple sex partners, you are going to between the Holy See and the kingdom of Belgium.â&#x20AC;?

The pope was asked about condoms in AIDS prevention by exclusive, value of prophylactics in the fight against AIDS, it get AIDS.â&#x20AC;? What worked in Uganda, a country that has seen a reporters aboard his flight to Cameroon in mid-March. After is consoling to note that the moral considerations articulated by decline by as much as two-thirds in AIDS infections, was that highlighting the churchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s efforts to help AIDS victims, the pope the Holy Father were understood and appreciated, in particular officials realized that even aside from religious and cultural reasons, â&#x20AC;&#x153;no one likes condoms.â&#x20AC;? Instead of waiting for â&#x20AC;&#x153;American and European advisors to arrive,â&#x20AC;? Ugandan officials reacted and developed a program that fit their culture; their main message being â&#x20AC;&#x153;stick to one partner or love faithfully.â&#x20AC;?

(CNS PHOTO/RICK Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ELIA)

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Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

Catholic San Francisco celebrates volunteer efforts of high school students

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Lucy Zhu of Sacred Heart Prep helps with mascot mural at Willow Oaks School. Volunteering was a group event at Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton when almost 700 students and faculty assisted in service learning projects benefiting eight schools in the nearby Ravenswood School District. More than 30 projects involving painting, landscaping and construction were completed.

Catholic San Francisco asked archdiocesan high schools for examples of exceptional performance by students in volunteering in their schools and communities. Here is a sample of the responses.

Andrea Frias, a junior at San Domenico Upper School in San Anselmo, has turned celebrations of her 17th birthday into a fundraiser for Huckleberry Youth Programs. “I really like the scope of services offered to teens,” she said. “It’s nice to know there are services for young adults who might be struggling at home.” Andrea returned to Nepal over Spring Break to continue her volunteer efforts with the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation.

Monica Cruz, a junior at Convent of the Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco, spent time last summer at St. John’s Educational Center in San Francisco’s Mission District as a second grade teacher’s assistant. She enjoyed working with children, many of whom shared her Hispanic/Latino background, and came away thinking of a career in education or non-profit advocacy work.

Caitlin Tom, a senior at Mercy High School in San Francisco, has completed 150 hours volunteering with Cameron House Youth Ministries including time in New Orleans helping victims of Hurricane Katrina.

John Blickenstaff, a senior at Junipero Serra High School, has devoted almost 400 hours to “Don’t Throw It Away, Let Them Play,” a campaign he devised which puts used sports equipment to good use in the hands of programs not able to afford new gloves, bats and such.

Ricardo Wassmer, a senior at St. Ignatius College Preparatory, volunteered more than 200 hours during the past two summers as an aide helping students with grammar and essay writing. Afternoons found him leading them in baseball and ultimate Frisbee competitions.

Chelsea Mandell, a junior at Mercy High School in Burlingame, spent some of last summer volunteering in Israel. She helped build a new bicycle path for villagers, assisted in an elder care facility, and volunteered in a pre-school for children of Ethiopians newly arrived in Israel.

Katlyn Roobian, a senior at Immaculate Conception Academy, has more than 500 hours of community service to her credit many of them at Camp Ida, a Girl Scouts of America facility where she engineered a campaign that gathered 350 backpacks full of school supplies for needy students.

Jessica Oseguera, a senior at Notre dame High School in Belmont, has completed more than 1,000 hours of community service since freshman year including time at St. Matthias Preschool in Redwood City where she feels what she does makes a difference in students’ lives.

summer fun at Andrew Quanci and Eugene Ma help patients at mealtime.

Eugene Ma and Andrew Quanci, seniors at Stuart Hall High School, both lend their time to the Alzheimer’s Residency Unit at California Presbyterian Medical Center.

Both are convinced a generous spirit can have positive results in the lives of others.

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Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

April 24, 2009

Catholic San Francisco

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Mass of the Chrism: Blessing the holy oils rchbishop George H. Niederauer and 200 priests of the Archdiocese of San Francisco concelebrated the annual Mass of the Chrism April 7 at St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cathedral. The archbishop blessed Sacred Chrism, oil of the sick and oil of the catechumens â&#x20AC;&#x201C; oils for sacramental use throughout the archdiocese in the coming year. Chrism, perfumed with balsam, has symbolized fullness of grace, and spiritual strength and the sweetness of Christ since the early Church. It is used in the administration of the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and holy orders.

The archbishop adds balsam to the olive oil in the chrism ampulla and consecrates the mixture.

Parishioners filling oil stocks.

Three silver ampullae bear Sacred Chrism, oil of the sick and oil of the catechumens.

A new set of oils is carried back to the parish.

Each parish of the archdiocese brought a case with vials, known as oil stocks, to be filled with each of the newly blessed oils.

(PHOTOS BY ARNE FOLKEDAL/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

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Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Guest Commentary The pope and condoms

By Matthew Hanley On March 17, a reporter asked Pope Benedict XVI, while en route to Cameroon, to defend the Church’s promotion of monogamy and opposition to condoms in the fight against AIDS, especially since such positions are “frequently considered unrealistic and ineffective.” He responded in part by saying that “the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem.” This prompted a fresh, if predictable, round of scorn from the western press. France went so far as to say his statements represent a threat to public health. Yet it might surprise the casual observer to learn that empirical record supports the Pope’s assertions.

First, every instance in which HIV rates have fallen in Africa is most attributable to fundamental changes in sexual behavior, most importantly an increase in faithfulness. In contrast, HIV transmission rates have remained high and even grown in other African countries where widespread behavior change has not occurred, despite considerable increases in condom use. An influential article in Science last year lamented that international HIV prevention priorities had not yet shifted to reflect this epidemiological profile.

In recent years, researchers have paid greater attention to the specific issue Benedict raised: the possibility that condom promotion even risks “worsening the problem.” The theory that people may take greater risks in exposing themselves to harm because they feel a new technology grants them a measure of protection in doing so, goes by the names of “risk compensation” or “behavioral disinhibition” in public health circles. A series of recently published articles (including in the Lancet) have concluded that this phenomenon – that condom promotion can lead to greater risk taking – is quite real indeed.

Finally, the track record for condoms – by far the most emphasized approach over the years – has been rather poor in Africa. An exhaustive review of the impact of condom promotion on actual HIV transmission in the developing world concluded that condoms have not been responsible for turning around any of the severe African epidemics. This rigorous study was originally commissioned by UNAIDS, and conducted by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco. Instead of welcoming the findings, and adapting HIV prevention strategies accordingly, UNAIDS first tried to alter the findings, and ultimately refused to publish them. The findings were so threatening to UNAIDS that the researchers were finally forced to publish them on their own in another, peer-reviewed journal.

This episode provides a disturbing glimpse into the priorities of the lead United Nations’ AIDS agency. Though normally quick to insist on the right to “accurate information” about condoms, in this case they placed their own ideological convictions above the welfare of those they are charged with protecting. Still, the New York Times claims, mere hours after the Pope’s remarks, that he “deserves no credence when he distorts scientific findings about the value of condoms in slowing the spread of the AIDS virus.” The informed observer might well conclude that the outrage aimed at the Pope over the fight against AIDS is poorly directed.

Matthew Hanley is an experienced HIV/AIDS researcher for Catholic Relief Services. The National Catholic Bioethics Center will publish Matthew Hanley’s book, with Jokin de Irala, M.D., “Avoiding AIDS, Affirming Love: What the West Can Learn from Africa,” in the summer of 2009.

What does Weigel know?

With regard to George Weigel’s article, “On a Different Mountain Top” (CSF, April 3), I would like to say that I, for one, (and there may be other Sisters who agree) am not “in psychological schism with the Church.” I may be skeptical about the apostolic visitation, but that is a long, long way from being schismatic.

Recently I participated in a retreat on the spirit of the foundress of my religious community, Blessed Mother Marie Rose Durocher (d.1849), and it was utterly clear, magnificently apparent, how deeply committed to Jesus Christ, the Church, and the charism of our community, our sisters are. To this I add the living testimony of nuns’ wholeheartedly involved in non-stop Catholic education, pastoral ministry, nursing, and a host of other ministries serving the poor; frequently these ministries are done long beyond the usual age of retirement.

How well does George Weigel really know Sisters?

Dolores Barling, SNJM Daly City

Caution on ‘directives’

‘Green’ earth question As I read the story, “Irish Columban

Catholic San Francisco welcomes letters from its readers. Please: ➣ Include your name, address and daytime phone number. ➣ Sign your letter. ➣ Limit submissions to 250 words. ➣ Note that the newspaper reserves the right to edit for clarity and length.

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

Speaking for many It wasn’t many years ago that I read in these pages a letter to the editor saying that raising the minimum wage was going to wreck the U.S. economy. According to the submitter of the letter, one meant well to support an increase, but was unschooled and naive in such matters.

Well, now we know it isn’t raising the minimum wage that wrecks the economy, but greedy realtors, mortgage brokers, bankers and the Wall Street types. I do not support capital punishment, but at times hanging these folks doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

Hennie Wisniewski San Francisco

L E T T E R S

Regarding a guest commentary (CSF March 27), I applaud Robert Issai’s drive on Healthcare Decisions Day, April 16, to complete advance directives. He is correct that the teaching of the church promotes the right of individuals to make their own decisions in regard to health care (ERD #59). However that autonomous decision making is not unlimited.

We do have an obligation to preserve our own life and to use those means which will be beneficial; this includes nutrition and hydration (ERD #56 &58). In the face of terminal illness treatments may be refused or withdrawn if the treatments themselves are too burdensome or no longer beneficial, not if life is too burdensome.

However, I object to Mr. Issai’s use of the Schiavo case as a reason for completing advance directives. He does her a grave disservice in so doing. The mandate to offer advance directive information was established in 1992 when Ms. Schiavo was 29, after her anoxic episode. For her to have completed an advance directive would have been quite unusual then, especially for one so young. Moreover, Ms. Schiavo was not terminally ill. She had suffered an anoxic brain injury rendering her incapable of many normal activities. She required basic nursing care and nutrition/hydration via a feeding tube. These are everyday activities carried on in the homes of many disabled people around the country.

Advance directives may be useful, but they should be approached with great care and caution. They should be used not just for what we don’t want at the end of our lives, but also for the care that we do want. Catholics need more education in authentic teaching and reflection on the meaning of life, death, and our eternal destiny.

Mary Ann Haeuser MS, RN, FNP San Rafael

Letters welcome

priest devotes life to greening the earth,” (CSF, April 19), I couldn’t help but wonder if he has ever made any connection between the high levels of population growth in some of the countries he ministers to and the consumption and devastation of natural resources he sees in these countries. If we are to believe all people want to raise their standard of living and in so doing this incurs use of natural resources and, perhaps, some level of pollution, is there any connection made between the numbers of people and greening the earth issues? Is there any conflict between his valid goals and the Church’s stated ban on scientific methods of limiting population growth especially in impoverished nations where environmental considerations are less of a concern than in nations with more stable populations?

John F. Quilter Brisbane

Talking truth to power I feel a surge of encouragement every time the world explodes in an eruption of rage, furor, and tumult because of something Pope Benedict has said, written, or done. Jesus tells us that the world hates Him, and hates those who follow Him as Savior and Lord. (St. John, Ch. 15.) The world is furiously against Benedict because he is doing what Christ, the Head of the Church, has called him to do and inspires him to do.

Roland T. Thorwaldsen San Francisco

Advice for the Vatican To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: Here the Vatican goes again! I refer, of course, to the unfortunate statement by the pope that the use of condoms does not inhibit the spread of HIV/AIDS but rather contributes to the spread of this horrendous disease in Africa.

In the face of almost universal rebuttal by the scientific community, the Vatican reaffirmed the validity of the pope’s conclusion in an article in L’Osservatore Romano.

The scientific evidence of the effectiveness of condoms is beyond serious dispute.

See, for example, the comprehensive study by the World Health Organization which concluded: “The male latex condom is the single most efficient available technology to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.”

It is perfectly appropriate for the Vatican to challenge the use of condoms on moral grounds. That could lead to a helpful discussion of “the greater good” involved in use of an otherwise prohibited artificial birth control device to prevent spread of a terrible epidemic. However, while the Church is entitled to its moral viewpoint, it is not entitled to make up its own facts.

Haven’t we learned anything from our Galileo experience?

Jim Hargarten San Francisco

Chronicle misses again What a great choice the San Francisco Chronicle made for a Holy Week feature story in the “96 Hours” section, namely, an exhibition marking the 30th anniversary of the horrid “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.”

And just so readers would be sure to notice, the feature became a “Top of the News” item on the front page.

LETTERS, page 19

April 24, 2009

Catholic San Francisco

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The Catholic Difference

Religious freedom and American security Thomas F. Farr, author of “World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty Is Vital to American Security” (Oxford University Press), is my friend. Friendship notwithstanding, Dr. Farr has written a very important book. A 21-year veteran of the Foreign Service, Tom Farr was the first director of the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom. In that capacity, he traveled the world, trying to persuade persecuting governments to cease and desist. That was hard enough. Farr’s hardest work, however, was inside his own department in Washington.

The Department of State, like the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, is institutionally allergic to the idea that religious conviction has something to do with how the 21st century world works – and why the 21st century world explodes. That allergy reflects the bias of foreign policy realists, according to whom military and economic power are the only units-of-account in world politics; the biases of secularization theory, according to which a modernizing world is becoming ever more secular; and the personal biases of Foreign Service officers, many of whom were educated at elite universities where religion equals mythology.

You might think that 9/11 would have drawn these intelligent people’s attention to the fact that religious conviction is – to put it gently – a dynamic factor in today’s international environment.

But you would be wrong. To this day, the chief foreign policy and national security agencies of the U.S. government live in a state of denial about contemporary history’s falsification of the notion

that a modernizing world is getting ever more un-religious. By any empirical measure, the world is getting more religious, not less; that basic fact of life has yet to take hold at State, Defense, and CIA. Thus the task that Tom Farr sets himself in “World of Faith and Freedom” is both essential and difficult: to change the corporate mind of the American foreign policy establishment on the relationship between religious conviction and world affairs, and on the role that promoting religious freedom ought to play in U.S. foreign policy. His tone is measured; his analyses are fair and balanced. He understands that policy-formation is a complex business in which competing goods must be weighed and tradeoffs inevitably occur.

“World of Faith and Freedom” also offers an intriguing look at the difficult legislative birth of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act and the even more difficult labors involved in giving the State Department’s new Office of International Religious Freedom some bureaucratic traction. The late Wayne Hays (D-Ohio) used to say that the two things people shouldn’t see being made are sausages and laws – to which Farr would likely add, “new offices at State that State doesn’t want.” The story is a fascinating, if sobering, look at what crawls out when you lift up the bureaucratic rocks.

Tom Farr’s tests his own proposals for re-conceiving the role of religious freedom in U.S. foreign policy by applying them to two tough cases: religious freedom in Islamic states, and religious freedom in China (which Secretary of State Clinton unfortunately

deemed less urgent than working with China against global warming). I’d argue with some of Farr’s specific proposals; he senses possibilities in the Muslim Brotherhood becoming a long-term force for decency George Weigel in the Islamic world that I can’t quite see, for example.

But with his general proposition – that religious freedom, successfully secured, advances American security because states that guarantee everyone’s religious freedom are less likely breeding grounds for terrorism or aggression – I am in complete agreement.

The liberals of the Obama administration seem oddly enamored of a “new realism” in foreign affairs. They will soon learn, as others learned before them, that there is nothing “realistic” about supporting tyrants on the ground that only nasties can keep the lid on in nasty places like the Middle East. It doesn’t work. U.S. policy that helps channel religious energies into building civil society where freedom is imperiled is far more realistic. Tom Farr’s learned, lively, and important book shows why, and how.

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

Coming of Age

Violence is never OK in a real, loving relationship I’ll say it in the most direct way possible: Violence is never, ever, ever OK in a real, loving relationship.

Earlier this year, the 21-year-old pop singer Rihanna – born Robyn Rihanna Fenty – was allegedly beaten by her boyfriend, hip-hop singer Chris Brown, 19. Pictures leaked onto the Internet a few days later show the Barbadian singer, model and former beauty queen with a bruised face, a blackened eye and a bloodied lip.

A survey by the Boston Public Health Commission found that 49 percent of the 200 Boston teens surveyed said that Rihanna herself was responsible for the beating, and that she’d done something to deserve it.

Nobody deserves to be treated like that – and somehow, teens just aren’t getting that message. But the commercial industry did.

Many of Brown’s ads were suspended, his music was withdrawn from multiple radio stations, and he faced criminal charges.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three high school students will be involved in an abusive relationship, and 40 percent of girls aged 14 to 17 say they know someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend. Many mistakenly consider this part of what happens in a normal relationship.

Abuse in relationships centers on power and control.

But in a true, loving relationship, partners will share power, making decisions that are reflective of honesty,

responsibility, trust and support.

In an abusive relationship, though, the abuser will be focused on blame, possessiveness, jealousy and domination.

The first sign of abuse – before that slap across the face – is often extreme jealousy, something that might seem “romantic” at first but soon proves dangerous.

Abusers control the ground rules of the relationship, not letting the other partner have any say. They might get angry when a partner sees or keeps friends outside of the relationship.

The abuser often talks down to or puts down a partner before the hitting starts.

Abusers’ victims often think they can do nothing to change the situation. But they can! They should speak to a trusted adult, a helpline or a counselor instead of remaining silent.

In a media-saturated world that seems focused on sex and passive, Bella Swan-esque “love at first sight,” the most important thing teens can learn about a good relationship is from 1 Corinthians: “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous ... it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury.”

Real love is selfless and focuses on compassion.

If what you’re experiencing has any symptoms of severe jealousy or abuse, it isn’t love and it isn’t romantic – even if it feels like it, even if the butterflies are fluttering in your stomach,

and even if your boyfriend or girlfriend swears an offense will never be committed again. Statistics say it will.

When it was reported that Rihanna accepted Brown’s apology, abuse experts became worried because abusers rarely stop Karen Osborne the abuse simply because they’ve apologized. In fact, most apologies from abusers – through words, flowers, begging or assurances – are just power plays to get their victim under their control once more.

I fear for Rihanna and the thousands of girls out there who are just like her.

Don’t be part of the 49 percent who think violence is just part of the deal.

It’s not.

Stand up for your friends; stand up for real love.

Karen Osborne writes about youth issues.

Share this column with a teenager you know.

Guest Commentary

A matter of survival The late notable American theologian Cardinal Avery Dulles, S J., accuses the American Church of engaging in “accommodationalism.” It is a charge we should take seriously.

He means that American Catholics have been more busy becoming American than Catholic. We have tended to “give away” some of our Catholic identity and therefore, presumably, some of our Catholic patrimony and values in order to fit into the American mainstream.

And while the “American vision” has given much to the modern Church, especially a sense of openness, fair play and democracy, can the Catholic Church survive in America when its people don’t remember what it stands for?

As we become less informed about the tenets of our religion, as our children become more American in their value system and less Catholic, we will gradually sink into the great melting pot of America. We will diminish in numbers at first through gradual erosion of our young people, but later it will go faster and faster, until a remnant of “the elderly” will remain. Abandoned churches will not need priests—thus solving our vocations crisis. Just look at some of the mainline Protestant Churches to get a glimpse of where we are headed. Actually, like some of our Protestant brethren, we would already be at this point if it were not for the millions of Latinos and other immigrants who now fill our churches.

There are some who argue that American Catholic education is a major part of the answer to this deathly attrition. I agree with

them. We desperately need centers of our own culture, places of learning and prayer on all levels so that the core of the faith can be passed on, not just as ideas but also as cultural values.

Many also argue that Catholic education is failing in its mandate to train specifically “Catholic” young people. We have done a passable job of teaching them to share and to love—although some would deny this emphatically—but that we have failed to teach them the basics of what it is to be truly Catholic. How many of our children really understand the Eucharist to be the Body and Blood of the Lord and not just a “symbol?” What about the Triune nature of the One God? The nature of Good and Evil?

The reality of the Resurrection? The place of the Magisterium?

On social issues, how many Catholics are grounded in our position on abortion, family life and service to the poor instead of on materialism and a “me-first” attitude?

The lack of such basics in our Catholic population is a time bomb for the future. It already shows in the numbers of young people who fail to attend church or who choose another church when they finally are ready to go back to one.

Sound Catholic education is necessary for survival. This means education from the elementary level through the university, and it must be extended in some way to public school children as well. In the present moral and cultural vacuum in our country, we have a marvelous opportunity to offer a strong focus of human and transcendent values.

But instead we have been too eager to unburden ourselves

of the “problems” surrounding Catholic schools, and in our haste to rid ourselves of them we have taken another step toward diffusing and dismantling Catholicism. Particularly ominous is the “privatization” of so many of our George Wesolek parochial schools. Instead of being parish schools serving all members of the parish community (this would, of course, include the many recently arrived immigrants,) our schools have become private schools for the middle and upper classes. The present wave of immigrant children is the first group of immigrants in American Catholic history not to have the benefit of a parochial education.

The key for us is to understand that this is a matter of survival of beliefs and cultural values that we hold dear. When we understand this, we will sacrifice over and over again, like our parents, grandparents and great grandparents, to keep our schools and Catholic education at all levels alive and healthy.

George Wesolek is director of the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s Office of Public Policy and Social Concerns.

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Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

Scripture reflection

Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; Psalm 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9; I John 2:2-5a; Luke 24:35-48

RESPONSORIAL PSALM PS 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9 R. Lord, let your face shine on us.

When I call, answer me, O my just God, you who relieve me when I am in distress; have pity on me, and hear my prayer!

R. Lord, let your face shine on us.

Know that the Lord does wonders for his faithful one; the Lord will hear me when I call upon him.

R. Lord, let your face shine on us.

O Lord, let the light of your countenance shine upon us!

You put gladness into my heart.

R. Lord, let your face shine on us.

As soon as I lie down, I fall peacefully asleep, for you alone, O Lord, bring security to my dwelling.

R. Lord, let your face shine on us.

A READING FROM THE FIRST LETTER OF JOHN 1 JN 2:1-5A My children, I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world. The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments.

Those who say, “I know him,” but do not keep his commandments are liars, and the truth is

(CNS PHOTO COURTESY OF HE QI)

A READING FROM THE BOOK OF ACTS ACTS 3:13-15, 17-19 Peter said to the people: “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and denied in Pilate’s presence when he had decided to release him. You denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.

Now I know, brothers, that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did; but God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer.

Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.”

DEACON BILL TURRENTINE

The risen Christ walks with two of his disciples in “The Road to Emmaus,” a painting by contemporary Chinese Christian artist He Qi.

not in them. But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.

A READING FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE LK 24:35-48 The two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way, and how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of bread.

While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them.

He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.”

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

From death into life: the Joy of Easter Death swallows individuals, families and nations. This destroyer appeared when our first parents turned away from God, the source of life, to seize control of their own destiny. We human beings have ever since trembled at the prospect of death, the ultimate loss of control.

More ominously, many human beings have exulted at opportunities to exercise the power of death over others, a power which creates a sense of invulnerability and god-like control over life. Much of society, for example, now accepts the killing of embryonic human beings as a legitimate source of the power to enhance and extend life.

The disciples in today’s reading also are deeply confused about death and life. Despite all that Jesus taught, and despite the testimony of the disciples who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus, they are startled and terrified when the crucified one appears. They know that he had been swallowed by death and they fear that association with him could lead them into the great maw of death as well. But just as the giant fish was unable to digest the prophet Jonah and coughed him up onto dry land, so death itself was unable to digest Jesus and coughed him up again on the third day. Jesus comes forth not as a ghost but as the true Master of life and death. For those who place their trust in him, Jesus has transformed death into an instrument of self-giving love.

In the original Greek, Jesus identifies himself to the frightened Apostles as “ego eimi,” which is “I Am,” the divine name revealed to Moses in the burning bush. Jesus shows himself to be God not by a display of power but by the testimony of his wounded hands and feet. His wounds come from the Cross.

They reveal a love which has set aside power in order to become vulnerable, so that we who are wounded by sin might be healed. In union with him, we too are called to put aside fear and make our-

selves vulnerable for the love of others.

Jesus urges the disciples to touch him and to see that, unlike a spirit, he has flesh and bones. In Jesus, God has truly become flesh, and, through the flesh, he remains in touch with us, especially in the Eucharist and in the person of those who suffer, with whom he identifies himself. By touching him in these ways, we also become his flesh and bones, doing his work on earth.

The disciples, we are told, “were still incredulous for joy…” In swinging rapidly from fear to joy, they may have exceeded correct belief by assuming that all problems were now over and death was annihilated. Jesus, however, has not eliminated but transformed death. To share in his resurrection, we still must do his work of love and share in his death.

We must die not just once but also in countless instances of vulnerability and self-sacrifice in obedience to him and for the sake of others.

Jesus offers an image of death in the service of love in the richly symbolic act of eating the fish the disciples give him.

There is a parallel here with his self-gift in the Eucharist. Jesus gives himself to us to eat in the Eucharist. We disciples, in turn, give him the baked fish to eat, which represents our gift of self to him.

Jesus, by eating, symbolically incorporates us into his body, which is the Church. As Jesus gave himself for us in death, and continues to give himself in the Eucharist, so we must give ourselves to him, and to each other. Our death in union with Jesus leads not to destruction but to an abundant life in community with the risen Christ and with each other. Jesus the Master has tamed death and made it a re-birth into the fullness of life for those who trust in him.

Deacon Bill Turrentine serves at St. Rita Parish in Fairfax, Marin County.

Spirituality for Life

Easter as opening the doors of hell Some years ago a young woman I knew, a university student, fell into a severe depression and attempted suicide. Her family, startled by what had happened, rallied around her. They brought her home and for the next few months tried to provide her with all the best that medicine, psychiatry, the Church, and human love could offer. They tried everything, but they couldn’t penetrate the dark hole into which she had descended.

Four months later she killed herself. She had descended into a private hell into which nothing on this side of eternity could any longer enter. She was powerless to open up her own soul for help. I suspect that many of the reasons for her depression were not her fault. She didn’t will herself into that paralysis, circumstance, wound, and bad health put her there. All of us know similar stories.

What’s to be said about this? Does our faith have any answers?

There is a particular line in the Apostles’ Creed which is deeply rooted in the Gospels that does throw light, major light, on this issue. It’s the phrase: He descended to the dead. Or, in some versions: He descended into hell. What is contained in that phrase is, no doubt, the most consoling doctrine in all of religion, Christian or otherwise. What it tells us is that the way

Jesus died and rose opened up the gates of death and of hell itself. What does that mean?

This is not a simple teaching. There are different layers of meaning inside of it. At one level, it expresses a Christian belief (which itself needs much explanation) that from the time of the fall of Adam and Eve until Jesus’ death, nobody, no matter how virtuous his or her life might have been, could enter heaven. The gates of heaven were shut and could be opened only by Jesus through his death. There is an ancient Christian homily (now part of the Office of Readings for Holy Saturday) which paints a picture of this as you might see depicted on an icon. It describes both why nobody could go to heaven before Jesus’ descent into the underworld and how Jesus, once there, wakes up Adam and Eve, and leads them through a now open door to heaven. But that’s an icon, not a literal picture.

The Gospels insert this into a wider concept. In the Gospel of Mark, for instance, we see that is important that Jesus goes into every dark, taboo place on this planet and take God’s light and healing there. Thus Jesus goes into morally taboo places, the singles bars of his time. But he also goes into all other dark, taboo places, particularly into sickness and death. And, for firstcentury Judaism, there was no place more taboo than death itself.

The belief was that human beings were created to enjoy God’s presence in this life and not to die.

Death was seen as an evil, the consequence of sin, an alienation from God, a place separated from heaven, with no door in Father between. Hence to say Ron Rolheiser that Jesus “descended to the dead” was the same as saying he “descended into hell.” All of the dead were considered as separated from God. One of our major beliefs about Jesus is that, by entering death, he precisely entered this underworld, this Sheol, this place of separation and alienation, this “hell”, and, once there, breathed out God’s light and healing in the same way as, in John’s Gospel, he went through doors that were locked by fear and breathed out peace and forgiveness. By going through locked doors and breathing out peace, he both descends into hell and opens up ROLHEISER, page 19 the gates of heaven.

April 24, 2009

Catholic San Francisco

17

St. Raphael parishioner, 53, called to a rare vocation: Consecrated Virgin Transformed by the Eucharistic mystery, librarian to become a new bride of Christ

Professing perfect chastity The consecration will be celebrated withCatherine Wright at Mission San Rafael in the context of Mass and includes calling Arcangel with St. Raphael Church Catherine forward, a homily by Archbishop Pastor Father Paul Rossi, and fellow Niederauer, examinations of Catherine by RCIA group members Brian and Kelly Archbishop Niederauer asking her of her Hillesheim and Sydney Reyff. Father resolve to this new life, the Litany of the Rossi and her RCIA community have Saints, Catherine’s profession to live a life of perfect chastity, the Prayer of Consecration, been supportive of her spiritual quest.

Catherine Wright at work at the reference desk of the San Rafael Public Library. prayed aloud by Archbishop Niederauer with his hands extended over Catherine, the presentation to Catherine of the insignia of since I was ‘mainstreamed’ and moved from overcome. “I knew God was calling me to Entering the church consecration, including a ring, according to a special school for disabled children to public this vocation and no other,” she said. Both with friends at her side the archdiocesan Office of Worship. school at age eight,” she said. her spiritual director at the monastery and Wright will enter the church flanked by Upon her consecration Wright will Judith Stegman and Gwen Priolo. Stegman is The cerebral palsy did, however, limit Father Rossi affirmed her choice. become one of only about 200 Consecrated Wright’s choices of how she might live out her With regard to marriage, Wright said president of the United States Association of Virgins living in the United States. There are new-found vocation. “I quickly realized that she has “fallen in love” but “never had a Consecrated Virgins and was Wright’s mentor more than 3,500 worldwide. with my physical limitations, I could never relationship that had real potential to lead to as she prepared for the Rite of Consecration.

Wright is 53 years old with a graduate fulfill the demands of apostolic religious life,” marriage.” She said that “several years before Wright and Priolo, who sponsored Wright when degree in Library Science from UC Berkeley she said. Wright then began to consider contem- I realized I was meant to become a Catholic, she entered the Church in 2003, worked at the and a career spanning 25 years with the San plative life and in the spring of 2004 took a sab- I began to sense that my being single might San Rafael Library for 18 years until Priolo’s Rafael Public Library. “My main ministry batical from her job to spend several months as represent a call to celibacy” that is “someone retirement. “Our relationship is such that I think for St. Raphael parish is acting as contact a live-in volunteer with a monastic community who makes themselves available to God in a of her as my godmother,” Wright said. person for, and leader of, RCIA,” Wright of women religious in Washington State. manner that would rule out having an exclu“I am delighted to celebrate with Catherine said. “I have been steadily involved with as she gives herself entirely and eternally to “This time was a profound gift on many sive relationship with another person.”

RCIA as a volunteer since November 2005. levels,” Wright recalled. “I came to see, Christ as his bride,” Stegman told Catholic San RCIA is truly a labor of love for me. I am although I loved being with the Sisters on a Meeting with the archbishop Francisco. “I have been working with Catherine also a member of our parish Adult Faith temporary basis, I could never live as a permaWright’s steps to the consecration for a number of years in this preparation and am Formation Committee.” nent member of a religious community. Yet, rite included talks with the United States very glad to see this come to be. I am looking Wright entered the Catholic Church at the my sense of being called to a deep intimacy Association of Consecrated Virgins (www. forward to seeing what the fruit of the grace will Easter Vigil in 2003 after what she called “a with Christ only strengthened. I wanted noth- consecratedvirgins.org) to learn as much as be in her life.” long journey through numerous Protestant ing so much as to give myself totally to God she could about the vocation. “Everything About the USACV, Stegman said one of its denominations.” confirmed my sense that Consecrated goals is to provide ways for Consecrated Virgins in a public way.”

“I had come to Virginity was indeed to interact with one another. The group publishes a believe that Christ was my call,” Wright said. newsletter, holds a summer gathering and currenttruly present in the “Take care always to radiate the dignity of being It would also be neces- ly is improving its website to assist in that effort.

Eucharist and I wanted sary for Wright to write “Many personal relationships are built among to attend Mass on a a bride of Christ, expressing the newness of a letter to Archbishop Consecrated Virgins in the country through these daily basis,” Catherine George H. Niederauer various means,” Stegman said. The group’s “very said. “I had recognized Christian existence and the serene expectation of explaining her reasons active e-mail prayer request chain” is another way the Catholic Church for wanting to take this the women stay in touch, she noted. as the home that I had path and asking for a Wright said she knows of two other always been seeking. future life. Thus with your own upright life you meeting with him to Consecrated Virgins in the Archdiocese of San Throughout that year discuss it further.

Francisco but has not contacted them. “I am of waiting to formally will be stars to guide the world on its journey….”

Wright s a i d the first woman from California to get involved join the Church, I Archbishop Niederauer with the USACV which signals to me that these Pope Benedict XVI, in an address to answered her letter local Consecrated Virgins prefer to pursue their attended daily Mass faithfully hungering quickly and after a vocations quietly and I don’t want to intrude for the Eucharist that I Consecrated Virgins, May 2008 meeting, that included upon them,” Wright said. was not yet permitted Father Paul Rossi, “I can’t fully anticipate what taking this to receive.” approved Wright’s path will mean for my life,” Wright said. “Such It was her spiritual director at the mon- decision. “It was Father Paul’s support of my understanding comes only with time. But I Called to give her life to God astery who asked Wright if she had ever consecration that was a most important piece know that becoming a Consecrated Virgin is Wright said she felt a vocation tugging at considered Consecrated virginity. Wright in this process, I’m sure,” Wright said. right because I’ve never felt more authentic or her even before becoming Catholic, “a very had some sense of the vocation having read Father Rossi will concelebrate the consecra- freer than I do now. Being a Consecrated Virgin insistent call” to give her life to God. At about about it a few months before. Wright said tion Mass April 29. “Catherine attends daily provides a structure, a ‘container’ if you will, that same time, Wright began taking spiritual she tried to dismiss the idea but looked for Mass and prays for the parish daily,” Father for me to grow in love. My deepest hope in direction with Father Paul Rossi, pastor of St. information about it on the internet. She Rossi said, noting Wright’s good work with the becoming a Consecrated Virgin is that I might Raphael. In time, Wright revealed to Father said that in reading the description of what parish’s English speaking RCIA. “This is truly be a sign of the intimacy that Christ seeks with Rossi that she “might have a vocation as a a Consecrated Virgin’s life includes she rec- a vocation she is entering. Catherine is a good each individual person.” nun.” The priest was receptive, she recalled, ognized the pattern of her own days.

“What I wish for anyone, men as well as steward of God’s gifts and I see her service at and puzzled. “He had two good reasons to women, is the joy I’ve found in discovering what “Like a Consecrated Virgin, my deep St. Raphael’s as a sign of that.” question this notion of mine,” Wright said. “I love for the Eucharist meant that I attended Wright said she has invited more than a God wants for my life,” Wright said. “If I were was already 47 years old but more important Mass daily,” she said. “The only thing a hundred people to attend the consecration lit- to offer advice to those exploring the question is the fact that I was born with mild cerebral Consecrated Virgin is canonically obliged urgy including her parents, Louise and Thomas of where God is calling them, the first thing I palsy.” to do is to say the Liturgy of the Hours and Wright who will “bring the insignia of consecra- would say is to examine the places where they As is indicated by Wright’s education I had been doing that for years even before tion into the church.” Her mom will carry the feel themselves most strongly saying ‘no’ to and place in the professional community, I was officially Catholic.” Wright said she ring and her dad will carry his daughter’s copy God and to look at the things that make them the disability has not prevented her leading a had also realized in herself a call to pray of the Liturgy of the Hours. Also attending are most afraid. It is through going into the places full, independent life. “God had been moving for priests which is a key part of the role of siblings, Tom, John, and Jim with his wife, that we don’t want to go that we create the most me ever more completely out into the world a Consecrated virgin. Any misgivings were Janet, and other family members and friends. room for God to do his work.”

(PHOTO BY TODD H. CHARLES)

San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer will preside April 29 at Catherine Wright’s commitment to life as a Consecrated Virgin at St. Raphael Church in San Rafael.

“The rite will constitute Catherine to be a sacred person,” said Patrick Vallez-Kelly, director of worship for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, noting its ancient roots in the Church. “The symbolism of Catherine as a new bride of Christ is strong throughout the rite.”

“Catherine and Archbishop Niederauer have chosen a most appropriate date to celebrate her consecration – April 29, the memorial of St. Catherine of Siena, who is recognized as one of the great Virgins in Church history and who is also a doctor of the Church,” he pointed out.

(PHOTO BY MIGUEL GARZA)

By Tom Burke

18

Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

Lobby Day . . .

obituary

n Continued from cover

Sacred Heart Sister Helen Donohoe’s life of giving remembered A funeral Mass for Sacred Heart Sister Helen Dorothy Donohoe was celebrated April 18 at the congregation’s Oakwood Chapel in Atherton. Sister Helen, who entered religious life in 1940, was 91 years old.

Sister Helen was the youngest in a family of 10 children that included the now late, Stockton Bishop Hugh Donohoe, Jesuit Fathers Patrick and Joseph Donohoe, Notre Dame Sisters Joan Marie and Marie Patrice Donohoe, Elizabeth Donohoe Connaghan, Aileen Donohoe Breen, and Thomas and Mel Donohoe.

James Donohoe, son of Mel and a nephew of the late religious, said, “Mother Helen was a very nice, upstanding person. She had a heck of a life and is the last of 10 great kids, six of whom had religious vocations.

That’s pretty amazing. We called her ‘Mother Helen.’ She was of good Irish stock, was scary smart and very kind and very nice.”

The Sacred Heart Sisters said, “Those who knew Helen best describe her as gentle, loving, deeply loyal and full of life,” in an announcement of her death.

Sacred Heart Sister Be Mardel said, “One of her great gifts was hospitality in a variety

of roles. People felt loved and cared for when Helen was around. She was steadfast. One could always count on her. She was always ready to help, to support, to listen, and always ready to laugh at herself.”

Sister Helen, admittedly torn between the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, whom she met at San Francisco’s Notre Dame High School, and the Religious of the Sacred Heart, whom she studied under at San Francisco College for Women, Lone Mountain, entered the Sacred Heart Sisters’ formation program in Albany, New York in August of 1940.

Sister Helen served at Lone Mountain for more than 20 years as professor of economics and theology. She also served as superior and as member of the Western Province Provincial Team. In later years she became director of Oakwood, the congregation’s retirement facility in Atherton where she died, and also served in pastoral ministry, hospital chaplaincy, and hospitality at Sacred Heart Sisters’ properties in St. Louis and Atherton.

Remembrances may be sent to the Religious of the Sacred Heart, 140 Valparaiso Ave., Atherton 92027.

to Sacramento to visit, they know it’s important.”

The gathering focuses each year on a handful of policy issues important to Catholic social teaching. This year, participants will engage lawmakers on four issues: improvements to the state’s food stamp program; sentencing and parole guidelines for minors; safe surrender of infants and state budget priorities.

Food aid – A lack of awareness and cumbersome paperwork contribute to low participation in California’s food stamp program for eligible residents, according to the CCC. AB 1057, a bill sponsored by Democratic Assemblyman Jim Beall of San Jose, would reduce the number of required reports from four to two a year.

Sentencing reform – Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat, is sponsoring SB 399, a bill which would, after 10 years of incarceration, allow for the review and resentencing of youth who were sentenced as minors to life without parole. The CCC backs the bill as a move toward restorative justice, an ethic that focuses on repair, reconciliation and the rebuilding of relationships between offenders and victims.

In its support of the bill the CCC cites a 2000 U.S. bishops’ statement on restorative justice, which concludes: “We are all sinners, and our response to sin and failure should not be abandonment and despair, but rather justice, contrition, reparation, and return or reintegration of all into the community.”

Protection for older infants – Under

California law, an infant child may be surrendered anonymously without legal penalty until the child is one week old. Democratic Assemblyman Alberto Torrico of Fremont has sponsored a series of bills to extend the coverage to children up to one month old. These bills though passed by both the Assembly and the Senate, have been vetoed by the governor on the grounds that relatively few infants are abandoned after one week, according to a study from the Department of Social Services. The latest bill, not yet passed, is AB 1048.

Proponents of the extension, including the CCC, argue the statistics are misleading, and that several factors, including post-partum depression, geographic isolation and a lack of awareness of safe surrender laws present obstacles to mothers seeking to surrender their baby. Safe surrender laws in 22 states allow for up to one month, while North Dakota and Missouri give parents up to one year.

State budget – The CCC’s work is focusing on protecting social safety net programs as the legislature heads for another intense, partisan budget battle. “Just as this is a time for serious evaluation of our personal budgets, it is also the time for government officials to focus on what are our most important budget priorities and expenditures,” the CCC states.

“Among those priorities must be the basic need for sustaining life, income, food, shelter and education—remembering that those who are poorest and most vulnerable in our communities have the greatest moral claim on our attention and resources.”

For more information about Catholic Lobby Day, visit www.cacatholic.org. To register locally, contact Patricia Ribeiro at (415) 614-5572 or ribeirop@sfarchdiocese.org.

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Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

Letters . . .

n Continued from page 14 The Chronicle sees the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as a celebration of â&#x20AC;&#x153;creativity.â&#x20AC;?

Actually itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been three decades of vicious mockery of the wonderful dedicated nuns who have served in Catholic schools and hospitals for centuries. It all goes to show that antiCatholicism is the last acceptable prejudice.

James Quinn Burlingame

Rethink â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;rethinkingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Regarding comments by Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, that the Church should rethink her beliefs on homosexuality: It is sad that some people like Blair want to measure the truth of the faith by modern societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s standards.

They mistakenly believe that divine Revelation must adapt itself to the current mentality in order to be credible, instead of the current mentality converting in the light that comes to us from on high. The result is a stripping of the Redeemer of his radical uniqueness, and classifying him as someone who can be managed and domesticated.

The Bible clearly and unequivocally condemns homosexual acts (Gen 1:27-28; Gen 2:24; Matt 19: 4-6; Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10 etc.). Homosexual acts are contrary to natural law; closed to the sexual act of the gift of life;

and do not proceed from sexual complementarity. St. Paul tells us that the â&#x20AC;&#x153;aberrationâ&#x20AC;? of homosexuality is both the proof and the result of the exclusion of God from collective attention and social life. The Christian approach to modern-day homosexuality must distinguish between the respect and compassion due to persons and the necessary repudiation of any exalted ideology of homosexuality.

Paul Kokoski Hamilton, Ontario

For appearancesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; sake Regarding the covering up of the Christogram at Georgetown University prior to an appearance by President Obama, the president has set in motion a â&#x20AC;&#x153;dissing,â&#x20AC;? not of Catholics, not of a certain religious contingent, but of the Lord of Life Himself. In its unprecedented concession, Georgetown University is equally culpable.

Were I to invite the president to my home, and he to accept with the condition exacted from Georgetown, should I then cover up everything reminding us of Jesusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; primacy in all our lives? â&#x20AC;&#x153;But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven.â&#x20AC;? (Matt 10:33) Dangerous doings, indeed.

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In that ancient homily describing Jesusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; descent into hell, as Jesus wakes up Adam he says to him: I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. ... Arise, let us leave this place!

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October 9 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 19, 2009 Departs San Francisco 11-Day Pilgrimage

2,999

only $

($3,099 after September 1, 2009)

Fr. Glenn Kohrman, Spiritual Director

Fr. Damien

Jeanne Jugan

Visit: Rome, Assisi, Florence, Genoa, Turin, Milan, Venice

HOLY LAND

and bonus 1/2 day in Paris

December 10 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 21, 2009 Departs San Francisco 12-Day Pilgrimage

2,699

only $

($2,799 after September 1, 2009)

Fr. Don Hying, Spiritual Director Visit: Tel Aviv, Netany, Caesarea, Mt. Carmel, Tiberias, Jerusalem, Masada, Paris

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

April 24, 2009

Music TV

Books RADIO Film

stage

Disney’s ‘Earth’ a stunning portrait and gripping adventure story NEW YORK (CNS) – At once a stunning portrait of the natural world and a subtle plea for environmental responsibility, “Earth,” the first feature from Walt Disney Studios’ new label, Disneynature, is also a gripping animal adventure story suitable for all but the very youngest family members.

In this big-screen adaptation of their multiple Emmy Award-winning television series, “Planet Earth,” which first aired on the BBC in 2006, co-directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield make the most of high-definition technology to chronicle a year in the lives of a variety of wild animals. Actor James Earl Jones provides his usual resonant narration, while the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra performs composer George Fenton’s stirring score.

The primary focus is on three epic struggles for survival, as a polar bear battles the glacier-shrinking effects of global warming to feed her newborns; an elephant guides her fragile calf across the Kalahari Desert in search of fresh water; and a humpbacked whale and her cub undertake a 4,000-mile migration from the tropics to Antarctica.

Though presented on a majestic scale – with filming locations as far-flung as Norway, Botswana and New Guinea – “Earth” engages viewers’ sympathy for these individual animal families, especially in scenes where a pride of lions

attacks the elephant herd and the polar bear’s starving mate makes a desperate foray against a gathering of seals. While the filmmakers are careful to cut away from any fatal results, the suspense and violence might still prove too frightening for small children.

Dramatic airborne shots of a flock of demoiselle cranes fighting huge wind currents to cross the Himalayas and a slowmotion sequence in which a shark closes in on its prey vary with more light-hearted fare, such as the eccentric mating dance of a bird of paradise in the depths of an equatorial rain forest.

While eschewing any outright political message, simply by its portrayal of the beauty and delicacy of creation “Earth” highlights the need for a renewed sense of careful human stewardship over nature, something the Vatican has been calling for with increasing urgency in recent years.

This moving documentary also provides virtually unobjectionable entertainment, with nothing more troublesome than a few effectively bleeped exclamations during a series of outtakes shown with the closing credits.

The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-I – general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is G – general audiences. All ages admitted.

Mulderig is with the USCCB’s Office for Film & Broadcasting. See more reviews at www.usccb.org/movies.

(CNS PHOTO/DISNEY)

By John Mulderig

Polar bears in animal adventure film “Earth.”

Immigrants’ painful struggle in shadows illuminated in ‘Sin Nombre’

By Father Basil De Pinto The long, bitter tale of Central Americans trying to enter the United States has been told before, notably by Gregory Nava in his landmark 1983 film, “El Norte.” That picture was a testament to the director’s cinematic expertise, which joined grace and sensitivity with a committed political viewpoint and placed the bar of achievement for such work very high.

First-time director Cary Fukunaga now joins the list with his powerful “Sin Nombre.” If this picture lacks the sure touch of its predecessor it has its

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Enrico (Rico) Hernandez, a native San Franciscan, currently serves as the Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. He has previously served as the Director of Finance and Business Services at Notre Dame High School, Belmont, Finance This presentation willConception provide anAcademy, overview Dr. John yearsatofMercy ground breaking Manager at Immaculate Sanof Francisco andGottman’s Mathematics35 Teacher High School, San Francisco Archbishop Mitty High School,works San Jose.

His Catholic education wascover formulated attending research withand over 3500 couples on what in relationships.

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“Masters of Marriage” are doing to increase intimacy, romance, and emotional connection.

As a Visiting Adjunct at themake Schoola of Education of theover University Rico Adding a few easyProfessor steps can big difference timeofinSan ourFrancisco, relationships. teaches the Catholic school finance class in the Catholic Education Leadership program.

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by Robert Navarra, Robert is a Licensed Rico also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees and FinanceMarriage Committee& at Family Notre Dame High School, Belmont, a member of the Finance Mercy High Therapist in private practice in the Committee Bay Areaatfor over 27School, years.and Hea member is a of the Board of Regents and Finance Committee at Bishop O’Dowd High School, Oakland. He is also a Certified Gottman Therapist and Couples Workshop Leader trained Drs. member of the Board of Directors for the Mother Pia Backes Retirement Fund of theby Dominican John Sisters&of Julie MissionGottman.

San Jose. Additionally, Robert has worked as an adjunct faculty at Santa Clara University, Notre Dame de Namur University, and St. Patrick’s Rico serves where has served a consultant to not-for-profit organizations, Catholic schools, and religious communities.

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For more info: www.robertnavarra.net Rico holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Stanford University, a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Arts in Catholic Educational Leadership from the University of San Francisco.

April13, 8, 2009: May 2009: 5:30-7:30pm 5:30-7:30pm Caesar’s Italian Restaurant, 2299 Powell Street at Bay Street Format: Registration begins at 5:30pm followed by networking. Program begins at 6pm, ending by 7:30pm.

Includes Caesar’s antipasti appetizers served throughout the evening. No host beverages.

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ADSF” to: CPBC, Attn: Mary Jansen, One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco, CA 94109

Paulina Gaitan and Edgar Flores in “Sin Nombre”.

own kind of dramatic intensity, adding a measure of harsh reality that is disconcerting where it is not downright brutal.

Pay attention to the R-rating: this is not a movie for children or the faint-hearted.

The film is essentially a road drama, telling of a group of Honduran immigrants journeying through Guatemala and Mexico to the U.S. Border. In large numbers they hop freight trains, exposed to weather, hunger and bandits who mount the train and rob them of all their possessions. In their company is a young man, Willy (Edgar Flores), on the run after killing a gang leader, Lil’ Mago (Tenoch Huerta). He meets Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), traveling with her family; Willy bonds with her, romantically from her side but not from his. Touched by her somewhat naïve devotion he lets her join him despite the peril he is in as gang members pursue him seeking revenge.

The lead-up to the train journey is a harrowing depiction of gang life, with its initiation rites and squalid living conditions. Two characters stand out here: the grotesquely tattooed leader, played with ferocious intensity by Huerta, and even

more significant, the twelve-year-old Smiley (Kristian Ferrer). The child is all too easily transformed from innocent voyeur into gullible go-along, and eventually a killer himself.

The central concern of the plot is Willy’s inner life. From the start he is shown as a reluctant participant in gang activity; the flaw here is that we are never told why he holds back from the brutality which he is forced to witness and take part in. But it is clear that he wants to escape from the net in which he is caught. As events unfold it becomes clear that that can never be.

Fukunaga’s strong point is his concentration on character portrayal, so that each of the main players is credible in the moment; development is missing, and that is a loss. But for a fledgling director, his work is outstanding. And that brings into focus the title of the film.

“Sin nombre” means nameless which turns our attention from the actual players to their condition: great crowds of people are trying to escape the poverty and oppression of their lives – and they are nameless, unknown and unwelcome to the world they are seeking to enter.

Willy and Sayra stand for all those who are just like them and who are tagged with the callous title “immigrant” or worse, “illegal”. The film is suggesting that those who are nameless to us are indeed people with names and histories. They deserve to be known by name and we ought to learn those names.

Some might object to the graphic violence of the R-rated film, but it never seems gratuitous; it simply exposes the truth of an ugly side of life. The actors respond to skilled direction with extraordinary talent and conviction. The film is not for the squeamish but its genuine moral core offers a vision from which we all too often turn our gaze.

Father Basil De Pinto is a frequent contributor on the arts.

April 24, 2009

St. Mary’s Cathedral Gough and Geary Blvd. in San Francisco in (415) 567-2020. Ample parking is available free of charge in the Cathedral lot for most events.

Third Tuesdays through September, 7:15 p.m.: The Year of St. Paul Lecture Series features Professor Stephen C. Córdova of the St. Anthony of Padua Institute, and Conventual Franciscan Father Francisco Nahoe of the Franciscan Spirit and Life Institute. Talks are free of charge.

Information and lecture dates are available online at www.stanthonypaduainstitute.org/stpaul.pdf Sundays, 3:30 p.m.: Concerts featuring local and musical artists from around the world. Open to the public. Free will offering helps support Cathedral’s music ministry. Call (415) 567-2020, ext. 231.

Employment Support Groups Economy Information Employment Support Group meets Mondays 9 a.m. – 11 a.m. at St. Matthias Church, 1685 Cordilleras Rd. in Redwood City “to share emotional, spiritual, and networking support and hear job search advice from guest speakers.”

There is no cost to attend. Call (650) 366-9544 for more information.

Good Health May 16th, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.: The Empowered Healthcare Conference at UCSF Mission Bay Campus. Attendees will learn how to make their voice heard in health care, how to advocate effectively for themselves and their loved ones and how to protect themselves from medical errors and hospital infections. Expert speakers include Dr. Dean Ornish and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Stephen Schneider. The cost of the non-profit educational event is $80.00 and includes light breakfast, a full lunch and certificates of attendance. For more details and registration please visit www.EmpoweredHealthCon. com or call (415) 681-1011. A limited number of scholarships are available. Those interested in a scholarship should send an e-mail to empoweredhealthcon@gmail.com.

Trainings/Lectures/Respect Life First Saturdays: San Mateo Pro-Life prays the rosary at Planned Parenthood, 2211 Palm Ave. in San Mateo at 9 a.m. and invites others to join them at the site. The group is also open to new membership. Meetings are held the second Thursday of the month except August and December at St. Gregory Parish’s Worner Center, 138 28th Ave. in San Mateo at 7:30 p.m. For more information, call Jessica at (650) 572-1468.

Reunions Class of 1980, St. John Ursuline High School, San Francisco, is Planning its 30 year reunion! We need to hear from you! Send us your current contact info to Ana Cianci at missana_c@yahoo.com or visit www.stjohnursuline.alumz.com Class of 59, Holy Angels Elementary School, Colma, is having a reunion in September. Call Mary Anne Woods at (707) 632-5270 or e-mail Maureen Marconi at mgmarconi@cox.net for information.

Class of 1959, Presentation High School, San Francisco is planning its 50th reunion.

Contact Joanne Camozzi Alkazin at (415) 4547550 or jalkazin@aol.com.

Class of ’59 from San Francisco’s Star of the Sea Academy is planning its 50th reunion.

Contact Maria Elena Keizer at (415) 924-9756 or Keizerm@sutterhealth.org April 26, 11:30 a.m.: The St. Gabriel Alumni Association is hosting a Golden Diploma Reunion for the Class of 1959 beginning with Mass followed by a reception. Alumni from the class of ‘59 should contact Sue Phelps at (415) 566-0314 or sphelps@stgabrielsf.com.

May 17: Class of ’79 from Notre Dame Elementary School at the school 1200 Notre Dame Ave. in Belmont. For more information, e-mail jpenner@nde.org Sept. 20 with Mass at noon: Our Lady of Mercy Elementary School, class of ’68. Contact Jean Anderson at (650) 756-3395 or jeananders@ aol.com.

Sept. 26, 27: St. Elizabeth School in San Francisco marks its 60th anniversary. Graduates, former students, staff and friends of St. Elizabeth Elementary School please mark their calendars for a weekend celebration and e-mail your contact information to stelizabethalumni@yahoo. com to receive detailed information regarding the weekend’s events.

Vallombrosa Retreat Center 250 Oak Grove Ave. in Menlo Park. Call (650) 325-5614 or visit www.vallombrosa.org May 1 – 3: Widowed, Divorced, Separated Weekend. Contact LaVerne at (650) 355-3978 or Helen at (415) 388-9651 or e-mail SJBeginExp@ aol.com Weekend is designed as time of closure on past and hope for the future. Those attending should be beyond initial feelings of anger and despair and want a new beginning.

May 1 – 3: “A Time to Mourn,” weekend grief retreat for anyone suffering a loss. If you have experienced a loss—of a loved one, a relationship, a job, a friend—this retreat will allow you some gentle time and space to be supported in your grieving and will offer some skills to help you learn how to move forward in your life. Carol

Datebook

Catholic San Francisco

21

Bay Road at Glen Way, East Palo Alto. Mass is followed by the Litany of the Sacred Heart and Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament until midnight. Confessions are heard before Mass.

Low Mass in Latin is also offered every Friday evening at 6 p.m. For further information, call (650) 322-2152.

Consolation Ministry May, 6, 13, 20, 7 – 9 p.m.: “Keeping the Faith During the Downturn,” a series of evening sessions exploring ways to God even in the midst of the economic downturn. Patrick O’Halloran, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist will facilitate. Pre-registration is recommended but walk-ins are welcome. Suggested donation is $15 per evening. Dominican Father Patrick LaBelle is director of Vallombrosa Retreat Center, where the talks will take place. “It is our intent to focus on essentials,” Father LaBelle said, noting Vallombrosa is also in discussions with the Deaneries of the Archdiocese to determine how its programs might assist in areas of parish life impacted by budget cuts.

Vallombrosa, which has 40 double and 20 single rooms for overnight stays, has also made itself more Patrick O’Halloran, Ph.D., “teen-ready” for student retreats from area Catholic high schools, according to Father LaBelle. “We’ve added some recreation facilities for younger people and our food has always been popular with appetites of all ages,” he said. Vallombrosa Retreat Center is at 250 Oak Grove Ave. in Menlo Park. Call (650) 325-5614 or visit www.vallombrosa.org for information about programs or contacting Vallombrosa about holding or bringing events to the site.

Kaplan, MFT, will facilitate this retreat. Some limited partial scholarships available.

May 29 – June 1: “Praying the Mystics Teresa, John and Ignatius” Great Christian saints and mystics - Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and Ignatius of Loyola - were teachers of prayer whose practical wisdom can help us draw closer to God no matter where we are on the spiritual journey. On these retreat days, learn about their lives, spirituality, teachings on prayer and their “maps” of the journey toward union with God. Carmen de la Vega Neafsey, MA and James Neafsey, D.Min., who have studied the lives and works of these Spanish mystics for over 30 years, will lead the weekend.

Food & Fun St. Dunstan Parish and School, 1133 Broadway in Millbrae will hold an International Food Festival April 25 from 5 – 9 p.m. The evening’s fare features main course and dessert choices from Italy, Ireland, Latin America, Asia, the Middle-East and the United States.

Entertainment, children’s activities, auction and raffle round out the event. “Enjoy a tour around the world in a single evening,” planners said.

Tickets are $35 for adults, $20 for seniors and $15 for children ages 5 to 14. For tickets and more information, call (650) 697-8119. Proceeds benefit the school.

April 30, 11:30 a.m.: Springtime in Paris Luncheon and Fashion Show at Lake Merced Golf Club, 2300 Junipero Serra Blvd. in Daly City, featuring Fashions by L’Vian of Burlingame.

Proceeds benefit work of the Good Shepherd Guild including Gracenter, a residential addiction treatment facility for young women owned and operated by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

Call Patricia Kirby at (415) 334-7843 for ticket information April 30, 11:30 a.m.: Megan Furth Academy is hosting its 8th Annual Benefit Luncheon, this year honoring Angela and Christopher Cohan of the Golden State Warriors and Warriors Foundation with the Golden Apple Award. Kate Kelly of KPIX CBS 5 serves as emcee. “Invest in our community’s future,” the school said in information promoting the event. “Now more than ever we need your help sponsoring our children in need in San Francisco.” Proceeds benefit students and their families in the Western Addition. Takes place at the Fairmont Hotel, Venetian Room, 950 Mason St. in San Francisco.

Tickets are $125. For tickets, more information or to donate, please call (415) 346-0143 or visit meganfurthacademy.org May 1, 7 a.m.: The Catholic Marin Breakfast Club meets at St. Sebastian Church, Sir Francis Drake Blvd. and Bon Air Rd. in Greenbrae for Mass.

Breakfast and talk follow. Guest speaker is Anne O’Dea, director of marketing for Immaculate Conception Academy in San Francisco.

O’Dea will explain the Cristo Rey model of Anne O’Dea education which ICA will incorporate into its operations in the next school year. Students in Cristo Rey schools

spend one day a week working and earnings from the job are used to help pay student tuition costs with experience from the workplace benefiting them now and later. O’Dea, a graduate of Indiana University, sees her work with Cristo Rey as an opportunity to “profoundly change the lives of kids.” ICA is currently seeking job sponsors for the Corporate Work Study Program. Information is available from O’Dea at (415) 824-2052, ext.

32 or anneodea@icacademy.org. Members breakfast $7/visitors $10. Call (415) 461-0704 weekdays or email sugaremy@aol.com May, 7, 6:30 p.m.: Discarded to Divine fashion show and auction unites fashion with compassion at Live!@888 Brannan (formerly the San Francisco Gift Center Pavilion) in San Francisco The event unites Bay Area fashion students and professional designers by transforming discarded clothing and fabric into fashionable couture items. All items will be auctioned at Discarded to Divine to raise money for the St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco. Visit www.discardedtodivine.org for sponsorship and ticketing information.

Arts & Entertainment April 25, 7:30 p.m.: Slavyanka, the leading a cappella Slavic men’s chorus -- active in the Bay Area and throughout California -- holds its 30th anniversary and alumni concert at St. Ignatius Church. Conducting will be Gregory Smirnov and Paul Andrews. Tickets are $20 general and $15 seniors and students. Visit www.slavyanka. org to order tickets or for more information.

“Slavyanka” is the name the original setters gave to what is now known as the Russian River.

May 1, 7:30 p.m.: “Virgin Mary: Queen of the May,” a musical serenade under the direction of Tony Eiras at Holy Name of Jesus Church, 39th at Lawton in San Francisco. The 90-minute program will feature music from homelands of many. Voices include the Holy Name Liturgical Choir, Singing Priests of San Francisco, Thanh Tam Choir, Mercy High School Dolce Choir, and soloists including Narciso Yusi and Amy Tan. Proceeds benefit Holy Name School and the parish shrine to Our Lady. Tickets are $15.

Premier and preferred seating available at $100 and $50. Call (415) 664-8590, ext. 106 or visit www.holynamesf.com/music May 1, 8 p.m.: Concert by Dominican Winifred Baker Chorale under trhe direction of Craig Singleton at St. Raphael Church, 1105 Fifth Ave. in San Rafael. Works to be performed include a requiem by Johannes Brahms. Tickets are $10 and $5 for students and seniors. Under 12 admitted free. Call (415) 485-3236 or visit www. duwbc.org

Special Liturgies May 2, 11 a.m.: First Saturday Mass at Holy Cross Cemetery, Colma, All Saints Mausoleum Chapel. Call (650) 756-2060 or visit www.holycrosscemeteries.com.

May 4, 7:30 p.m.: 28th Annual May Crowning and Living Rosary in All Hallows Chapel, Newhall and Palou in San Francisco. Sponsored by All Hallows #182 Young Ladies Institute. Call Sue Evander at (415) 467-8872.

The Tridentine Mass is celebrated Sundays at 12:15 p.m.: Holy Rosary Chapel at St. Vincent School for Boys. For more information, call St. Isabella Parish at (415) 479-1560, and First Friday: Latin High Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at St. Francis of Assisi Church, 1425

Grief support groups meet at the following parishes.

San Mateo County: St. Catherine of Sienna, Burlingame; call Debbie Simmons at (650) 5581015. St. Dunstan, Millbrae; call Barbara Cappel at (650) 692-7543. Good Shepherd, Pacifica; call Sister Carol Fleitz at (650) 355-2593. Our Lady of Mercy, Daly City; call Barbara Cantwell at (650) 755-0478. Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Redwood City; call parish at (650) 366-3802. St. Robert, San Bruno; call Sister Patricia at (650) 589-2800.

Marin County: St. Anselm, San Anselmo; call Brenda MacLean at (415) 454-7650. St. Isabella, San Rafael; call Pat Sack at (415) 472-5732. Our Lady of Loretto, Novato; call Sister Jeanette at (415) 897-2171.

San Francisco: St. Dominic; call Deacon Chuck McNeil at (415) 567-7824; St. Finn Barr (bilingual); call Carmen Solis at (415) 584-0823. St. Gabriel; call Monica Williams at (415) 350-9464.

Young Widow/Widower Group: St. Gregory, San Mateo; call Barbara Elordi at (415) 6145506.

Ministry to Parents: Our Lady of Angels, Burlingame; call Ina Potter at (650) 347-6971 or Barbara Arena at (650) 344-3579.

Children’s Grief Group: St. Catherine, Burlingame; call Debbie Simmons at (650) 5581015.

Information regarding grief ministry in general: call Barbara Elordi at (415) 614-5506.

Single, Divorced, Separated Information about Bay Area single, divorced and separated programs is available from Jesuit Father Al Grosskopf at grosskopf@ usfca.edu (415) 422-6698.

May 1 – 3: Widowed, Divorced, Separated Weekend at Vallombrosa Retreat Center, in Menlo Park. Contact LaVerne at (650) 355-3978 or Helen at (415) 388-9651 or e-mail SJBeginExp@ aol.com Weekend is designed as time of closure on past and hope for the future. Those attending should be beyond initial feelings of anger and despair and want a new beginning.

Ongoing support groups for the separated and divorced take place at St. Bartholomew Parish, 300 Columbia Drive at Alameda de las Pulgas, in San Mateo, first and third Tuesdays of the month at 7 p.m. in the Spiritual Center and first and third Wednesdays of the month at St. Stephen parish hall, Eucalyptus and 23rd Ave. in San Francisco next to Stonestown Mall at 7:30 p.m. Call Gail at (650) 591-8452 or Joanne at (650) 347-0701.

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

Taize/Chanted Prayer 1st Friday at 8 p.m.: Mercy Center, 2300 Adeline Dr., Burlingame with Mercy Sister Suzanne Toolan.

Call (650) 340-7452; young adults are invited each first Friday of the month to attend a social at 6 p.m. prior to Taize prayer at 8 p.m. The social provides light refreshments and networking with other young adults. Convenient parking is available. For information contact mercyyoungadults@sbcglobal.net.

Tuesdays at 6 p.m.: Notre Dame Des Victoires Church, 566 Bush at Stockton, San Francisco with Rob Grant. Call (415) 397-0113.

3rd Friday, 8 p.m.: Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose, Motherhouse Chapel, 43326 Mission Blvd in Fremont. Contact Maria Shao at (408) 839-2068 or maria49830@aol.com or Dominican Sister Beth Quire at (510) 449-7554 or beth@msjdominicans.

TV/Radio Sunday, 6 a.m., KOFY Channel 20/Cable 13 and KTSF Channel 26/Cable 8: TV Mass with Msgr.

Harry Schlitt presiding.

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.

KSFB Catholic Radio 1260 AM offers daily Mass, rosary and talk on the faith – visit www. ihradio.org

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.

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Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

TV program notes for the week of April 26 NEW YORK (CNS) – Here are television program notes for the week of April 26 with TV ratings if available.

Sunday, April 26, (check local listings) (CBS) “Poverty: A Time for Sharing.” This interfaith special, produced in cooperation with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, looks at the anti-poverty activities of Catholic Relief Services, the Missionaries of Charity, the American Jewish World Service, the Mennonite Central Committee, Islamic Relief and other religious groups, as well as the United Nations’ “Nothing But Nets” campaign to combat malaria.

Sunday, April 26, 10-11 p.m. (EWTN) “The Triumphant Hour.” A vintage portrayal of the triumphant “hour” of Jesus’ resurrection, using many well-known Hollywood stars.

Monday, April 27, 10-11 p.m. (Discovery) “Doing da Vinci.” A team of builders and engineers try to create an updated version of Leonardo da Vinci’s bladed chariot.

Tuesday, April 28, 9-10 p.m. (PBS) “The

Released.” This “Frontline” presentation examines what happens to the mentally ill when they leave prison and why they return at such alarming rates.

Wednesday, April 29, 9-100 p.m. (PBS) “Cry for Help.” This documentary tackles the pressing issue of teen depression and suicide from the perspective of adolescents themselves (TV-14/ LV – parents strongly cautioned;

Marin fundraiser plays bocce ball St. Raphael and St. Isabella Parishes will host the fifth annual “Bocce Ball-BBQ Fundraiser” May 3, at Albert Park in San Rafael to benefit the parishes’ St. Vincent de Paul Conferences. Gates open at 8:30 a.m., games begin at 9:30 a.m. Championship rounds and award presentations end the day. Continental breakfast, barbecue lunch will be served with drinks and refreshments throughout the day. Two divisions – novice and experienced – will face off in the tournament with teams playing a minimum of three rounds. Teams consist of 4 to 6 players. Cost per team is $270. Picnickers and spectators are welcome at $25 each.

For more information or to register, contact Joe Martino at (415) 785-1459.

A soldier mans an anti-aircraft gun during World War II in this undated photo. “Legacy of War” documentary airs April 29 on PBS.

Tax Services TA XMAN CORTES TAX SERVICE Income Tax ● Notary Public Alan J. Cortes Ph: (415) 641-4292 3750 Mission St. (415) 641-4295 San Francisco, CA 94110 Fax: (415) 839-8501

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Painting & Remodeling •Interiors •Exteriors •Kitchens •Baths Contractor inspection reports and pre-purchase consulting

Painting

S.O.S. PAINTING CO. Interior-Exterior wallpaper hanging & removal Lic # 526818 Senior Discount

415-269-0446 650-738-9295

Member of Better Business Bureau

FREE ESTIMATES

Bonded, Insured – LIC. #819191

Auto Service

Carpet Cleaning Safe Non-Toxic, No Shampoo, Dry in Hours not Days Commercial & Residential Serving SF & San Mateo Co. St. Charles Parishioner

(650) 593-5959

Handy Man 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

Maintenance Services GARIBALDI MAINTENANCE CO. Complete Janitorial – Window Cleaning Quality Service Since 1946

“Large Enough to Matter, Small Enough to Care”

FREE ESTIMATES (415) 441-2454 www.garibaldimaintenance.com

Fully Insured

Garage Door Repair Discount

HABELT’S AUTO SERVICE

Garage Door

Lic. # 872560

Complete Auto Repair

➤ Drain-Sewer Cleaning Service ➤ Water Heaters ➤ Gas Pipes ➤ Toilets ➤ Faucets ➤ Garbage Disposals ➤ Copper Repiping ➤ Sewer Replacement ➤ Video Camera & Line locate PROMPT AND UNPARALLELED SERVICE

3865 Irving St. at 40th Ave. – Since 1964 –

Repair

BEST PLUMBING, INC. Your Payless Plumbing

(650) 557-1263

EMAIL: bestplumbinginc@comcast.net Member: Better Business Bureau

Plumbing • Fire Protection • Certified Backflow

Phone: 415.468.1877 Fax: 415.468.1875 100 North Hill Drive, Unit 18 • Brisbane, CA 94005

Do you want to be more fulfilled in love and work – but find things keep getting in the way?

Unhealed wounds can hold you back - even if they are not the “logical” cause of your problems today. You can be the person God intended.

John Holtz

www.sospainting.net

John Bianchi

Counseling

painting and remodeling

Call BILL 415.731.8065 • Cell: 415.710.0584

Plumbing The Irish Rose

strong coarse language, intense violence).

Wednesday, April 29, 10-11 p.m. (PBS) “Legacy of War.” Sixty years after he covered the aftermath of World War II, Walter Cronkite returns to key European locations in this special, tracing the complex and changing relationship between the United States and England and exploring the dramatic shifts of the Cold War, from the end of the World War to the present.

Lic. No. 390254

Lic #376353

415-664-1735

Construction CAHALAN CONST. Foundations, Earthquake Dryrot, Termite, Siding, Stucco Additions. Remodels

Broken Spring/Cable?

Operator Problems?

Lifetime Warranty All New Doors/Motors

One Price 24 /7

415-931-1540 0% Financing Available

Roofing

lic# 582766

415.279.1266

HOLLAND

Plumbing Works San Francisco

ALL PLUMBING WORK PAT HOLLAND

CA LIC #817607

BONDED & INSURED

415-205-1235

S anti

Plumbing and Heating 415-661-3707 Michael T. Santi Since 1972 Ca License # 663641 24 Hour Emergency Service

Contractor

David G Vidulich GENERAL CONTRACTOR Remodels • Additions • Kitchens • Baths Dry Rot • Windows • Doors • Earthquake

650.992.1837

Free Estimates

Lic.#318166

Celtic Home Care Caring for the Elderly

415.637.3405 415.425.8609

(415) 786-0121 • (415) 586-6748

Serving SF & Bay Area

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

800-321-2752

Senior Care IN HOME CARE FOR SENIORS LIC.# 39702

We provide excellent services to fit your needs. Our caregivers are caring individuals who have many years experience assisting elderly patients in diverse cases. Our rates are reasonable and competitive.

35 Years in San Mateo County 25 Years Experience Caring for Elderly We provide Live-In; Live-Out; Daily; Weekly; Long-Term; Short-Term

vm: 650-286-7547 • bus: 650-367-7327 cell: 650-834-7227 • e-mail: ebw8bion@yahoo.com

Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

Catholic San Francisco

classifieds Visit www.catholic-sf.org

For website listings, advertising information & Place Classified Ad Form OR Call 415.614.5642, Fax 415.614.5641, Email penaj@sfarchdiocese.org

PUBLISH A NOVENA Pre-payment required Mastercard or Visa accepted

Cost $26

If you wish to publish a Novena in the Catholic San Francisco You may use the form below or call 415-614-5640 Your prayer will be published in our newspaper

Name Adress Phone MC/VISA # Exp.

HELP WANTED

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

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

Prayer to the Blessed Virgin never known to fail.

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.P.L.

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.L.R.

Prayer to the Blessed Virgin never known to fail.

St. Jude Novena

Most beautiful flower of Mt. Carmel Blessed Mother of the Son of God, assist me 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. T. & L.B.

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.

M.P.L.

PRIVATE PARTY 4 lines for 12.00 Each additional line $2.00 26 spaces per line

PER COLUMN INCH 25 1 time 2 time 20 15 3 time minimum 1 inch $

$

$ $

Add .50¢ per column inch for website listing

Leave a space between words and/or phone numbers

CALL 415-614-5642 FAX 415-614-5641 EMAIL penaj@sfarchdiocese.org

CALL 415-614-5640 FAX 415-614-5641 EMAIL penaj@sfarchdiocese.org Tell ouradvertisers you saw their ad in

LAKE TAHOE RENTAL Vacation Rental Condo in South Lake Tahoe.

Select One Prayer: ❑ St. Jude Novena to SH ❑ Prayer to St. Jude

CLASSIFIED RATES

Sleeps 8, near Heavenly Valley and Casinos.

Call 925-933-1095 See it at RentMyCondo.com#657

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

415-252-8312

For Rent Brand new building, upper flat, $2500mo., 3br/2ba, 1 car in garage, yard, new appliances, on London near Russia. References req’d. (415) 468-8178, or (415) 519-2210.

Room for Rent $650/mo., nicely furnished, sunny, MB in house w/stairs, for one quiet adult, shared bath & kitchen. Household: mature, quiet, working, student. Near Ocean K line. Please call 415-584-5307 before 10 pm.

Basement Apt.

for Rent 2 rooms w/bath, kitchen.

Sunny, light, basement apartment, free parking for one car. $1,250/mo. Household: mature, quiet, working, student.

Please call 415-584-5307 before 10 pm.

ELDERLY CARE Personal care companion.

Help with daily activities; driving, shopping, appointments. 28 years Alzheimer’s experience, references, bonded.

(415) 713-1366

Caregiver Available NEEDED WEEKEND CAREGIVER-HOUSEHOLD MANAGER, Sat 7:00 am thru Sun 7:00 am. Must have sense of humor, common sense, be able to speak English, cook, do 4 hours of housecleaning, and help with daily living needs of social couple, devout pro-lifers in their 80’s.

Must be honest and have experience.

Send resume to: rivercat7@hotmail.com, or mail to P.O. Box 591823, SF, CA, 94159

Rummage Sale

RUMMAGE SALE Friday and Saturday, April 24th & 25th 9:00 am - 3:00 pm Little Sisters of the Poor St. Anne’s Home 300 Lake Street at 4th Avenue San Francisco Wide diversity of merchandise, furniture, art collection, fine & costume jewelry, books, vintage & fine clothing, house hold furnishings, craft, shoes, food!

LOW, LOW PRICES!!

Catholic San Francisco

Maid Services MAID CLEANING SERVICES I clean houses, apts & offices.

LOW PRICES – 20 yr. experience reliable

510.706.4426

23

OFFICE SPACE AVAILABLE Approximately 2,000 to 3,500 square feet of space (additional space available if needed) at One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco (between Gough & Franklin), is being offered for lease to a non-profit entity. Space available includes 4 enclosed offices, open work area awith seven cubicles, large work room, and storage rooms on the bottom level of the Archdiocese of San Francisco Chancery/Pastoral Center. We also have mail and copy services available, as well as meeting rooms (based on availability).

Space has access to kitchen area and restroom facilities. Parking spaces negotiable. Ready for immediate occupancy with competitive terms.

For more information, contact Katie Haley, (415) 614-5556; email haleyk@sfarchdiocese.org.

Help Wanted We are looking for full or part time

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

Director of Religious Education St. Dominic’s Parish is seeking a full time Director of Religious Education (DRE) to lead our religious education program for children, youth and their families under the guidance of the Pastor and with the assistance of the Faith Formation Commission of the Parish. The DRE will lead the Youth Faith Formation Committee and its volunteers. Our program is an intergenerational formation program that educates our children, deepens the understanding and commitment of youth and assists parents in forming families of dynamic faith. The DRE will have a background in religious education, will select, guide, and supervise the teachers, and make use of the programs provided by the Archdiocese for their training. The Director will assist parents in their role as the “first teachers of their children in the ways of faith” (Rite of Baptism), and as much as possible encourage and integrate them into the program. We seek a person with organizational skills in building a team that places the education of children within the context of forming families of faith within the family of the parish. The Director of Religious Education is responsible to the Pastor, works with the Director of Adult Faith Formation and is a member of the Faith Formation Commission of the Parish.

Purpose: To provide professional leadership for an integrated religious education program for children and youth that involves the parents and strengthens their connection to the parish.

Experience, Knowledge, Skills: • Degree or Certificate in Theology, Religious Education or related fields • Minimum of three years of supervised catechetical/teaching experience in a religious education program or Catholic school and 1 year management experience • Initiative and the ability to work effectively in a highly-coordinated, team environment

Please send resume to: DRE Search Committee, St. Dominic’s Church, 2390 Bush Street, San Francisco, CA, 94115 Send E-mail submissions to: DRE@stdominics.org

24

Catholic San Francisco

April 24, 2009

In Remembrance of the Faithful Departed Interred In Our Catholic Cemeteries During the Month of March HOLY CROSS COLMA Joseph Michael Abruzzo Filemon M. Adelantar Julie Anne Albrecht Maria Gomez Alizaga Mimi Zabala Amanse Wesley R. Anderson Gertrude Sands Antonelli Sr. M. Margarite Apostolo Maureen T. Arcangel Romulo Arriola Nancy M. Artal Betsey L. Auren William C. Bachnick Eleanor P. Barbieri Wilna M. Bordachar Brendan Francis Boyd Laura T. Bozzini Benjamin B. Briones, Sr. Paul R. Broussard Jeane C. Bulotti Patricia Burke Lorraine T. Butler Ronald Anthony Calavano Aida R. Calonico Eleanor Scramaglia Campi Frank Caravaca Julia M. Castillo Ethel P. Castillo Bessie Castro Lena Maria Caturegli Anna Cavagnaro Roberto Ciletti Laverne Ann Heredia Clark Vivian D. Comolli James E. Cook James M. Coreris Olga Cortopassi Pura Cabuco De La Cruz Mario De La Paz Manuela Debono Charles K. Denman Hilda L. Doherty Norma Cecilia Elliott

Mary A. Fama Agnes T. Farrell Madeleine Finch Edith M. Fregosi John J. Fugina, Jr. Margaret “Peggy” Galahan Marie E. Gamba Mary J. Giannini Elise M. Giraud Baby Naheli Cabrera Gomez Jose J. Gonzalez Jose L. Gonzalez Clifford H. Green Tony H. Guerrero Denis J. Guiney Eleanor F. Harrington Corazon Harris Dominique Hauscarriague Lawrence F. Healy Valerie M. Herbert Alexander Hili Carmel R. Holmes Manuel M. Jacinto Viona V. Jackson Beatrice I. Kelly Michael J. Kerns Alex Kirsacko Frank J. Knez Eric Todd Kushman George E. Labrash Sean Langan Louis Kwai Hoi Lee Mary A. Lee Elizabeth H. Leone Jeremiah Linehan Dale Everette Lister Arthur D. Llaguno Miguel A. Madrigal Patricia Maffei Maria L. Mays Rose L. McElhiney Teresa M. McLean Daniel James McVanner Michiel C. Michielsen Anita R. Miller

Sandra Malespin Mills Winifred J. Minucciani Gustavo Jorge Molina Elizabeth “Liz” Montague Consuelo M. Monterola John Thomas Moran, Sr. Mary C. Motzer Claudia E. Murcia Nestor C. Naval Potenciana O. Navarrete Salvador D. Navarro Stephen M. Norris Earl Lee Norwood Theresa E. Nuti Margaret “Peggy” O’Connor Jacquelyn N. O’Shea Barbara F. O’Shea John C. O’Sullivan Alberto Olivares Mary A. Parisi Maria Angela Pera Yvonne A. Petrucci Sally N. Prado Melvin Francis Prescott Barbara H. Raffetto Demetria Risano Santiago Robleto, Sr. Carlos M. Rodriguez Charles F. Rodriguez Fernanda Rossi, FMA Natividad Q. Salinas Alicia G. Sanchez Fred J. Santana Fay Elizabeth Santinelli Boris Sarapinian Albert J. Schmadeke, Sr. Timothy P. Shannon Bobbi Shaw Lucille M. Sheahan David Solorzano Nella (Panelli-Cara) Sordelli Nancy Speier Rodney C. Tinling Emily C. Torres Jose Maria Torres, Sr.

Joan R. Ulrich Constance K. Uriarte Francisco M. Valenzuela Carl J. Vallero Alexander Volz Harold Bernard Ward Catherine C. Welte Ernestine May Williams George S. Williams Frank Michael Wing Pauline Wong Dorothy F. Zaro Lorine Zeno

HOLY CROSS MENLO PARK Marie Ferguson Margaret L. Garlock Edna E. Morey Frances M. Quilici John W. Siri Faustyna Tuipulotu Henrietta Westberg

MT. OLIVET SAN RAFAEL Geoffrey J. Bywater John Estes, Sr. Mary Gallegos Albin J. Gruhn June Cook Hyde Florence (Connie) Klein Delphine K. Maggiolo Fred A. McCallister Patsy R. Parton

Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, Colma First Saturday Mass

Memorial Day Mass

Saturday, May 2, 2009 All Saints Mausoleum Chapel – 11:00 am Rev. Raymond Allender, SJ – Celebrant

Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, Colma Monday, May 25, 2009 Holy Cross Mausoleum Chapel – 11:00 am Most Rev. George H. Niederauer, Archbishop of San Francisco – Celebrant

The Catholic Cemeteries Archdiocese of San Francisco www.holycrosscemeteries.com Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery 1500 Mission Road, Colma, CA 9401 650-756-2060

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

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

A Tradition of Faith Throughout Our Lives.