May 5, 2006 by Catholic San Francisco

Catholics Lobby for human dignity in Sacramento

Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

By Jack Smith

Nearly 700 Catholics gathered to bring the ‘Good News’ of ‘Human Dignity for All - Dignidad Humana Para Todos’ to state legislators at the Eighth Annual Catholic Lobby Day in Sacramento April 25.

May 1 immigration rallies, marches draw crowds across the country By Patricia Zapor WASHINGTON (CNS) — Calls for a work, school and shopping boycott — combined with broader calls to rallies, prayer services and other events — drew crowds across the country May 1 as supporters of immigration reform staged their second day of major activities in less than a month. Many U.S. cities, including San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland, had large turnouts of people marching peacefully in the cause of comprehensive immigration reform. San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer led an interfaith prayer service April 23 at

Mission Dolores for just and humane treatment for immigrants (Catholic San Francisco, 28). Los Angeles was the scene of two major demonstrations May 1. Police estimated that a morning march to City Hall drew 250,000 people. A second march along Wilshire Boulevard drew an estimated 400,000 people. At a sunrise prayer service at Dolores Mission Church in Los Angeles, Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala and others announced their commitment to continuing praying and fasting for immigration reform until June 4, the feast of Pentecost.

Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George joined religious leaders at an interfaith prayer service during a rally at Grant Park. He told a crowd, which police estimated was 400,000, that they were gathered in pursuit of respect for human dignity and united families. “Respect means that people who have been part of this country’s social and economic fabric for years should not now be treated as if they do not count, as if their contribution can be simply dismissed and they, sent away,” he said. In Colorado, the Archdiocese of Denver declared the month of May

as a time for prayer for justice for immigrants. In Philadelphia, Cardinal Justin Rigali celebrated a Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, in which he emphasized the U.S. history of welcoming immigrants. The May 1 events followed April 10’s rallies and marches, which also drew hundreds of thousands of people in cities and towns large and small. The events, organized by local groups, have the central focus of calling on Congress to adopt legislation that helps some of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country to legalize their IMMIGRATION, page 5

Catholics from around the state joined in Sacramento last week to make their concerns known on wide ranging issues of human dignity under consideration by state lawmakers. About 700 people, including 60 from the Archdiocese of San Francisco, met April 25 at Sacramento’s newly renovated Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament to begin the Eighth Annual Catholic Lobby Day with an educational program, Mass, and rally. Sacramento Bishop William Weigand celebrated Mass with Sacramento Auxiliary Bishop James Garcia and Diocese of Orange Auxiliary Bishop Jaime Soto who gave the homily. Bishop Soto said the job for Lobby Day participants who would later visit their legislators was to be prophetic, not partisan. “We come to announce Good News that brings hope and joy to California,” he said. “Too often,” he said, “we can allow ourselves and the Gospel we proclaim to be defined by what we are against.” Bishop Soto instead suggested the proclamation of a positive message, “a hymn to a new creation of a society in California that promotes the culture of life, the ways of wisdom, the habits of harmony, and the dance of dignity.” This year’s Lobby Day theme was “Human Dignity for All.” Bishop Soto explained, “It is our affirmation of the dignity of each human person that defines our opposition to anything that would threaten the most vulnerable among us.” After Mass, participants gathered on the steps of the State Capitol for a rally and to hear speakers who addressed major items of concern before LOBBY, page 8

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION Darfur protests. . . . . . . . . . 3 News-in-brief . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Summer camps/schools . 8-11 Editorial and letters . . . . . 14 Scripture and reflection . . . 16

Vocations

Archbishop Niederauer on ‘The Da Vinci Code’

‘United 93’ review

Classified ads. . . . . . . . 22-23

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www.catholic-sf.org

May 5, 2006

‘Hoot’ reviewed . . . . . . . . . 20

SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS

VOLUME 8

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No. 15

Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

On The Where You Live by Tom Burke Welcome aboard to this column’s newest correspondent, Katie Blankenberg, a 6th grader at St. Raymond Elementary School and already a contributor to the Almanac, a local chronicle of goin’s on in Menlo Park. Katie aspires to a career in medicine and said she likes reporting because “writing has always been one of my hobbies and there are so many interesting people in my community.” Her proud folks are Francis and Lela of Portola Valley. Siblings Katie Blankenberg are Sabina, age 7 who is also a student at St. Raymond’s, Patrick, age 2 and Scott, age 9 who attends Oak Knoll Elementary. Medicine is a longstanding career path in the Blankenberg family, the future doctor said. “My father, grandfather, aunt, uncles and cousins are all physicians and writers who have been published in several medical journals,” Katie said. “My aunt, Deborah Blankenberg, is a copy editor for the Stockton Record.”… Fifty, after all, is only half-a-hundred and for Jerry Phillips, the right number of academ-

Students at St. Cecilia Elementary School learned a little bit more about each other at a recent Multi-Cultural Day that included information and cuisine from countries and areas including France, Japan, the Philippines, Ireland, Germany, Greece, Asia, the South Pacific and other parts of the world. More than 30 students modeled local attire including Michaela Vo, left, representing Viet Nam; Sophia Del Carlo, Nicaragua; Breena Grogan, Ireland; Julie Ira, Pakistan; Adrielo Bongalon, Philippines.

ic seasons to make a career. The longtime educator – a fair term considering his breadth of courses taught has included Spanish, English, algebra, geometry, computers, history, math and, of course, drivers’ ed – will retire from Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory following graduation ceremonies May 27th. During his five decades at the school he has been joined on the faculty by 25 of his former students including current principal, Ken Hogarty, George Cosmos and Rich Sansoe. Not to be overlooked, are Jerry’s famous seasons as basketball coach at the school. With seven championships and more than 500 victories he has been among the most successful coaches in California history. Jerry admits he will not miss his daily wake-up call at 4:45 a.m. or his lengthy

A Double-Dribble kudo to the 6th Grade Cardinals from St. Raymond Elementary School who won the NorthSouth Peninsula Parochial School League basketball championship in March. Hats off to the whole bunch including Coach Robert McNamara, left, Luke Quinton, Willie DeWitt, Chase Schaaf, Ryan DeGregorio and Coach Les DeWitt, with Eric White, front left, Matthew McNamara and Patrick Bruni.

The smiles of co-chairs, Margaret O’Driscoll, left, and Celine O’Driscoll, plus principal, Sharon McCarthy Allen, and Women’s Guild prez, Julie Keith, speak for the more than 400 folks who whooped it up at the recent Cougars Go Celtic fundraiser for St. Stephen Elementary School. “A good time was had by all,” school press person, Maggie Granero, said .

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commute from the East Bay to SHCP each day saying he looks forward to spending more time with his wife, Jan, their four children, and grandchildren. “I will miss the students, the faculty, and the many people who have become friends,” Jerry said. “Thank you, Mr. Phillips and congratulations on your retirement!” SHCP said in a release announcing the milestone stepping-down…. No CSF next week…Remember this is an empty space without ya’!! The email address for Street is burket@sfarchdiocese.org. Mailed items should be sent to “Street,” One Peter Yorke Way, SF 94109. Pix should be hard copy or electronic jpeg at 300 dpi. Don’t forget to include a follow-up phone number. You can reach me at (415) 614-5634.

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May 5, 2006

U.S. cannot remain silent on Darfur, bishops say By Jerry Filteau WASHINGTON (CNS) — As thousands of Americans gathered at “Save Darfur” rallies across the country April 30, the nation’s Catholic bishops joined with other religious and political leaders in calling for greater U.S. efforts to end the genocidal campaign against the non-Arab population of Sudan’s Darfur region. “Sunday’s ‘Save Darfur’ rally should remind our leaders that our nation cannot remain silent in the face of killings, rape and wanton destruction,” said Bishop Thomas G. Wenski of Orlando, Fla., chairman of the bishops’ Committee on International Policy. “Our country can and must do more, much more, to defend and protect innocent civilians in Darfur. Anything less would be unworthy of us as a people committed to human life and dignity,” he added.

At the chief “Save Darfur” rally, held on the National Mall in the nation’s capital, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington reminded an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 participants that people of the world are all brothers and sisters. “What happens to the people of Darfur happens to us,” he said. “It’s time now to say, ‘No more,’” he said. In Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, the government offered to accept a mediated agreement that could end three years of strife in the region, but two of Darfur’s three main rebel groups rejected it. As the April 30 midnight deadline for negotiations passed, the mediation group agreed to extend the deadline another 48 hours. In his statement Bishop Wenski briefly reviewed the history of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. “Three years ago the proxy militias known as the Janjaweed began a ruthless campaign of

Benedict XVI made an urgent appeal to the international community to protect the rights of the people of Darfur. Bishop Wenski said the nation’s bishops support recent Bush administration efforts “to strengthen the mission of the poorly funded, ill-equipped and undermanned peacekeepers from the African Union.” He said the bishops had repeatedly urged passage of the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act and welcomed its adoption by Congress late last year. Along with the political and religious leaders who addressed the Washington rally were several celebrities, including actor George Clooney, whose recent visit to Darfur with his father sparked wide media interest, raising U.S. popular awareness of events there and helping to spark the “Save Darfur” rallies across the country. “This is the first genocide of the 21st century, but there is hope,” Clooney said.

death and destruction against the non-Arab population of Darfur, with the support and acquiescence of the Sudanese government in Khartoum,” he said. He said a brief respite in violence last year coupled with peace talks sponsored by the African Union led to hopes for a change, but “subsequent events have shattered those hopes.” He said the international community faces a “daunting challenge” of delivering humanitarian aid to 2.5 million people who have fled their homes and another million still in their homes who risk starvation. Two years ago Bishop John H. Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla., then head of the bishops’ Committee on International Policy, warned that Darfur was “rapidly becoming the newest symbol of human depravity and ethnic cleansing.” An estimated 400,000 people have died in the conflict since 2003. Last November Pope

Archbishop speaks out at Darfur rally By Evelyn Zappia “We need to do whatever we can to save the people of Darfur now,” San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer told an estimated 4,000 people participating in a “Save Darfur” rally at the Presidio’s Crissy Field April 30. The “feeble gestures” of the administration and Congress to stem the horrific violence in the Sudanese region “are not enough,” he said. He also added, “We are not doing a good job as religious leaders and faith communities if, in the face of this horrific and tragic suffering, we do not make our voices heard to change this situation.” He said, “We believe that our God is a God of Power, and that this power is love. To believe in this God means that we have

strike, the Janjaweed torture, murder, and rape the village men, women and children. The militia also targets food and water supplies, ensuring those still alive will have little chance of survival. The Archbishop urged immediate action. “We have to cry out in a prophetic voice, deeply embedded in our faith traditions: ‘Save Darfur Now.’” The “Save Darfur Now” rally was organized by a coalition of religious and human rights organizations, including the Office of Public Policy and Social Concerns of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and St. Hilary Church in Tiburon. Prior to the rally a prayer vigil was held on the Golden Gate Bridge where approximately 5,000 people formed a human chain from one end of the Bridge to the other.

to show forth his power, or we are spiritual phonies – for the very essence of our being as religious believers is to love as God loved.” Archbishop Niederauer said the 20-year conflict in Sudan has claimed two million lives and created five million refugees. The conflict “can be described as Rwanda in slow motion,” he said. He called on U.S. and international forces to consider establishing a no-fly zone over Darfur, so “those helicopters of death cannot make their calls on all those villages.” Helicopters of death, refers to the Sudanese Government backed helicopters that strike the Darfur villages to assist the Janjaweed militia systematically eliminate entire communities. After the helicopters

Archbishop Niederauer addresses the “Save Darfur” Rally at Crissy Field.

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people, including than 130 countries delegations from more n April 24. and from dozens of other denominatio Catholic ns. Pope Benedict XVI begins ministry as san Francisco By Cindy Wooden head of Church

Newspaper

c Newspaper nia’s Weekly Catholi Norther n Califor

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In Then, with some 150 cardinals, formally began his ministry a liturgy rich with symbols and promises, Pope he processed into a sun-bathed Benedict XVI the Mass as head of the universal and receive the main symbols St. Peter’s Square to begin Catholics from around the church, and of his office: the fisherman world pledged their love ’s ring and the pallium. and obedience to him. The morning of April 24, “At this moment, weak See Pope’s homily Pope Benedict, elected servant of God that I am, down to the tomb of the April 19, walked this enormous task, which I must assume martyred St. Peter in the PAGE 15 truly exceeds all human Vatican basilica to pay homage to the first Benedict said in his homily. capacity,” Pope bishop of Rome. The 78-year-old pope said he would rely on Catholics and the grace the prayers of all of God.

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By Jack Smith

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lf at the blessed himse ishop Niederauer then walked through Wester, Archb and baptismal font bly. ese Cathedral’sdral blessing the entire assemassem bly includof the Archdioc the Cathe a welcomed the entaw the people h as the Archbishop Levad ves, clergy, interfaith repres By Jack Smit is to get to kno was officially installed entati ority ls, Mayor repres “pri l officia fire er first parish edra ing and H. Niederau 15 at St. Mary’s Cath eclaring his general, police San Francisco Board of tives, consuls cisco,” George of us members of the ls. “Toda of San Fran op of San Francisco Feb. 2,500 people. Tomy allBurke’ Gavin Newsom, other civic officia a declared as hes column bish than and e Arch visors th mor Levad Super Eigh crowd of ishop joy,” Archbishop priests from pray for Archb are filled with ~ Page 2 ~ r and religious ding room only from assembly to ing both secula before a stan . dozens of clergy implored the of clergy, includ r the Francisco and the archdiocese representing the forme San for from of ed and and ocese stretch s native Niederauer the Archdi elsewhere ldo Girelli, April 29, 2005 the old Los Angele Archbishop would Los Angeles and plaza, and down the steps Monsignor Leopo the United States, read The 69-year Salt Lake City, his style as rauer. io to ral, through the Lake City said the needs of all.” Apostolic Nunc appointing Archbishop Niedecathenave of the cathed Bishop of Salt ns, ence center. ission “to serve was Archbishop deaco Confer the comm ral ’s to Letter and priests escorted Apostolic to the Cathed model Christ procession of the installation J. Levada, now rauer was then and forprocessed Following the Presiding at ishop Levada Archbishop Niede of other faiths William . ’s chair, by Archb representatives ne of the San Francisco John R. Quinn ishop dra, or bishop ministers and Emeritus of n for the Doctri around ishop egatio Archb closed isco Congr . as Archb ed on the and laity from mer San Franc to their places Prefect of the n applauded rauer knock and page 6 bishops, priests ent to the The congregatio INSTALLATION MASS, Archbishop Niede dral and was admitted C. Faith. The many took part were a testam John of the Cathe who and Bishop ishop is held. bronze doors the country the new archb ishop Levada by Bishop Installation greeted by Archb ncing a crucifix held esteem with which s concelebrated at the revere Philadelphia Nearly fifty bishop Wester. After Justin Rigali of ..3 drew Cardinal procession dy . . . . . . . trage Mass, which also Mahony of Los Angeles. The slide Mud ...4 and Cardinal Roger .........

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It was standing room only at a celebratory Mass April 24 marking Anniversary of the founding the 125th of San Francisco’s historic Noe Valley. The parish pulled out all stops to fashion and storied St. Paul Parish in a grand San Francisco Police Mounted Division watched and memorable liturgy. guard over the entrance See More on St. Paul’s procession which gathered on the steps of St. Paul’s prior to the Mass. The PAGES 10-11 procession included children of the parish waiving colorful flags, members of dozens identifying banners, the of parish groups with resident Missionaries of Charity, as well as current mer priests affiliated with and forSt. Paul parish. Music for the liturgy was performed by three choirs Children’s and Adult – – the Missionaries of Charity, with musical accompan iment. Under Music Director Flaviani, the ensemble performed traditional and modern song including Laura refrain written by Flaviani. a psalm

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITIO N Scripture and reflection

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ST. PAUL MASS, page

........3 Anglican leader speaks .....5 Sexuality lecture . . ........6 European reconciliation ....7 Columnists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Classified ads . . . . . . . . 18-19

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Catholic High Schools ~ See Special Supplement ~

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By Jack Smith West Annual Walk for Life articipation in the Second bring year’s inaugural effort to Coast nearly doubled last Than “Women Deserve Better the the peaceful message About 15,000 people from Abortion” to San Francisco. at Justin joined Jan. 21 Sto California around and rm-ravaged City, Bay Area, the two New Orlean and prayer before making cked Herman Plaza for talks s symbolizes the scenic and tourist-pa destruction and one-half mile trek through Marina Green. the to Wharf ’s brought to (CNS PHOTO FROM REUTE Embarcadero and Fisherman Police Gulf Coast RS) the San Francisco States by Hur Walk organizers and were several hundred officers, ricane Kat Department, which numbered anarchist rina. an as rotest counter-p prepared for a disruptive for Our Reproductive Coalition Area Bay the group and the Walk. threatened to “shut down” Rights (BACORR) had however without serious incident The entire day proceeded that last year, significantly smallerBy Cath olic News as the counter-protest was active Service out in part due to the when large numbers turned rs. INGTO WASH and Board of Superviso N Mary’s Cathedral tions across encouragement of the Mayor andthea — Catholic parishes and of the Walk for Life organizaConference Cente country and partic ter site Dolores Meehan, co-chair said, r sippi and Francisco in SanMissis Texas are respon ularly in Louisiana, coope for 300 people. Services available as a shel- would Parish Dominic Saint long-t will be provid nt. ding to emerg be providing parishioner at erm needs Departme ed by ency and Army, rative effort involving the case for Hurricane San Francisco Police viding Katrina refuge Red Cross, Salvat a seniors and children. management and servic 3 “I was so thankful to the page shelte es by pro- Depar Catholic Charities es for ion WALK FOR LIFE WEST, rs, food, medicine and CYO, San Father John tment of Huma Virtually all schooling. Francisco dioces n Servic es nationwide Cathedral Confe Talesfore said planned events collections the planned parish Office of Emergency Mana es, and the San Francisco rence Center at the first gement/Hom would have to uled. He said, diate assistance weekends of September Bisho eland p John C. Weste be “At and r, apostolic admin Security. the Cathedral a time like this, we open reschedagencies, St. Vincenis coming from Catholic imme- the Archdiocese the doors of and istrato of Chari we San r open for have been ties the exam Francisco, said, Catholic hospit t de Paul societies, Catho displaced by the our hearts to those who ple of Christ, “In lic als, parishes, we have a willin following devast ating retreat center schools, others, and we lies. The Katrina hurricane.” gness to help s and famireach out to welco temporary shelte refugees are expected to remai love and comp The Archdiocese assion. This is me those in need with r at St. Mary’ n of San Francisco, s Cathedral for in the to 60 days. who we are as nity, as a churc the Red Cross at the request about 30 a commuh, as the body and San Franc of of Christ.” isco city officia Bishop Wester Brian Cahill ls, made St. said the welcom said Catholic Katrina serves people Charities/CYO, ing of Hurric in need regard which sion victims to St. Mary’s Cathedral ane less of their faith that involves all is an act of compa affiliation, of the faithfu the Archdiocese. l in all of the parish sHURRICAN es of E REFU

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INAUGURAL MASS, page 9

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.......4 News-in-brief . . . . nce . . . 5 Catechetical confere ......6 Editorial and letters on . . . 9 Scripture and reflecti . . . . . . 12 Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Holocaust hero . . . w . . . . . . 15 Classified ads . . . . Archbishop Levada intervie

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January 27, 2006

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NEWS

May 5, 2006

in brief

(CNS PHOTO/DANIELE COLARIETI, CATHOLIC PRESS PHOTO)

Differing views on death penalty stem from beliefs, panelists say WASHINGTON — Dale Recinella, a lay Catholic chaplain for prisoners on Florida’s death row and in long-term solitary confinement, knows how religious beliefs influence the way people think about the death penalty. Prior to working in the ministry he began eight years ago, Recinella said, he “hadn’t realized how many people felt the death penalty was God’s word.” Now he frequently hears Christians back up their support of capital punishment by citing passages such as “an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.” When he explains spiritual reasons against the death penalty to people of faith, the reaction he often gets is one of relief “that they are not bound by their faith to support something that is against their instincts,” he said during an April 27 panel discussion on “Religions and the Culture of Life.” It was part of the April 26-27 International Prayer for Peace interfaith conference at Georgetown University in Washington, co-sponsored by the Rome-based Sant’Egidio Community, the Archdiocese of Washington, Georgetown University and The Catholic University of America.

No easy answer to end-of-life care questions, speakers agree NEW YORK (CNS) — Two Catholic ethicists with differing views on end-of-life issues found at least one point on which to agree at an April 27 conference at Fordham University. Father Michael D. Place, vice president for ministry development at Resurrection Health Care in Chicago, and John M. Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, agreed that questions about Catholic teachings on end-of-life decisions and their specific application in the case of Terri Schiavo last year will not be easily resolved. “While it is easy to agree that all life is sacred, it is not as easy to describe the moral responsibilities and obligations that follow,” said Father Place, who was president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association from 1998 to 2005. “The resolution of a moral conundrum at the end of life is not easily resolved by simply applying an abstract principle,” said PACIFIC I’NTL TRAVEL AGENCY

Pope Benedict XVI waves to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square after his “Regina Coeli” prayer at the Vatican April 30. The pope warned against trying to negate or minimize Christ’s resurrection, saying it was the central event of Christianity.

Haas. “There are countless variables which have to be worked into the equation in each separate, individual case.” The two were among the speakers at a daylong interdisciplinary conference titled “Reflections on the End of Life: Schiavo Plus One,” co-sponsored by the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture and the Fordham Center for Ethics Education.

Poll: Americans more pro-life, but still don’t grasp how far Roe goes WASHINGTON — Thirty-three years after Roe v. Wade, most Americans still do not understand the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in nearly all circumstances, according to poll results released April 25 in Washington. Although 65 percent of respondents to a recent survey said they were very familiar or somewhat familiar with Roe v. Wade, only 29 percent were able to select the most accurate description of the decision from among four options, said Karen Smith of the polling company at a Washington press conference. Most respondents — a total of 50 percent — chose an incorrect description, saying Roe made abortion legal only in the first trimester (18 percent), only in limited circumstances (17 percent) or only in the first and second trimester (15 percent). Another 15 percent said they did not know. The national poll was conducted by telephone April 13-14 among 1,000 adult Americans.

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Providing Services to the Italian Community since 1916 Casa Fugazi ● 678 Green Street ● San Francisco 94133

PACIFICTRAVEL.COM CST # 1010514

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman says he depends on God daily WASHINGTON (CNS) — Marine Gen. Peter Pace, who was sworn in last September as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Catholic group in Washington April 21 that there are times every day when he thinks about his dependence on God. “My belief that there is a God and that he has a plan for me is a major, calming influence in my life,” Pace, a Catholic, told members of the John Carroll Society, a lay Catholic organization based in Washington. Pace received the group’s John Carroll Medal at an annual dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington. “I stand before you as someone who is appreciative ... who truly does believe this award is in anticipation of future conduct,” Pace said. The medals are presented annually to Catholics in recognition of their public service and commitment to their faith.

Cardinal supports constitutional amendment to protect marriage WASHINGTON — A constitutional amendment is the “only practical way” in the U.S. to preserve marriage as the NEWS-IN-BRIEF, page 11

LEARN ROSARY MAKING Call for catolog & introductory offer or vist

www.rosaryparts.com LEWIS & COMPANY P.O. Box 268-K Troy, NY 12181 • 1-800-342-2400

Tel: 415-362-6423 www.italiancommunityservices.org

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Special Needs Companion Services The Choice of Discriminating Families for Assisted Living at Home ● ● ● ●

Personalized and compassionate Caregivers are carefully selected, trained and employed by us Locally owned and operated by Jeannie McCullough Stiles, R.N. Services include: meal preparation, light housekeeping, daily exercise, medication reminders, shopping, and assistance with bathing

Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Official newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco

Most Reverend George H. Niederauer, publisher Maurice E. Healy, associate publisher & executive editor Editorial Staff: Jack Smith, editor; Evelyn Zappia, feature editor; Tom Burke, “On the Street” and Datebook

Danville, California

4 Stewardship Processes

7 Steps to Success 4 Stewardship in a

Multicultural World

4 Reflections on the

Pastoral Letter

INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL

(415) 435-1262

Catholic san Francisco

Summer Session

. Learn:

For a brochure and registration information log on to our website or contact the ICSC office:

Call us for a needs assessment E-Mail: info@specialneedscompanionservices.com www.specialneedscompanionservices.com

The institute the only one of its kind provides a comprehensive introduction to and continuing education in the basic principles and techniques of diocesan and parish stewardship July 17 – 21, 2006 San Damiano Center and development.

Special Needs Companion Services

1275 K Street, NW, Suite 880 Washington, DC 20005-4083 Telephone: (202) 289-1093 Fax: (202) 682-9018 E-mail: register@catholicstewardship.org www.catholicstewardship.org

Advertising: Joseph Pena, director; Mary Podesta, account representative Sandy Dahl, advertising and promotion services Production: Karessa McCartney, manager Business Office: Marta Rebagliati, assistant business manager; Judy Morris, circulation and subscriber services Advisory Board: Jeffrey Burns, Ph.D., James Clifford, Fr. Thomas Daly, Joan Frawley Desmond, James Kelly, Deacon William Mitchell, Kevin Starr, Ph.D.

Catholic San Francisco editorial offices are located at One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco, CA 94109. Tel: (415) 614-5640;Circulation: 1-800-563-0008 or (415) 614-5638; News fax: (415) 614-5633; Advertising: (415) 614-5642; Advertising fax: (415) 614-5641; Advertising E-mail: penaj@sfarchdiocese.org Catholic San Francisco (ISSN 15255298) is published weekly (four times per month) September through May, except in the week following Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, and twice a month in June, July and August by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, 1500 Mission Rd., P.O. Box 1577, Colma, CA 94014. Periodical postage paid at South San Francisco, CA. Annual subscription price: $27 within California, $36 outside the state. Postmaster: Send address changes to Catholic San Francisco, 1500 Mission Rd., P.O. Box 1577, Colma, CA 94014 If there is an error in the mailing label affixed to this newspaper, call 1-800-563-0008. It is helpful to refer to the current mailing label.

May 5, 2006 The students of San Franciscoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s St. Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Elementary School marched around their school block May 1 praying the Rosary so all immigrants will be treated with respect. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are just bringing our concerns to heaven,â&#x20AC;? said Ms. Vicki Butler, principal. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are taking our prayers directly to Jesus, asking that all immigrants be treated with holiness and justice.â&#x20AC;? The walk ended with a prayer service inside St. Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Church where Pastor Fabio Medina was waiting for the children. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Share your love of God wherever you go today,â&#x20AC;? he told the children. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And share it with all the people who gather today for we gather in compassion for these people.â&#x20AC;? The student body at St. Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s School, located on Alabama Street in San Franciscoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mission District, is 98 percent Hispanic.

Catholic San Francisco

Immigration . . . â&#x2013; Continued from cover status and clear up the complex, backlogged system for legal immigration. Legislation has been stalled in the Senate. The House passed a bill in December that, among other things, would dramatically expand immigration enforcement and would criminalize the act of being in the country illegally. It currently is only a violation of civil law. Opposition to that bill has been a rallying cry for many people. Calls to boycott work and school by some activists were opposed by some of the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most prominent Catholic leaders, including Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who has been among the most outspoken church leaders advocating for comprehensive immigration reform. He encouraged people to stay at work and school May 1 and to join activities scheduled for later in the day.

2006 - 19th Annual Nor-Cal Catholic Charismatic Convention May 26 - 28 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Behold, I make all things newâ&#x20AC;?

Santa Clara Convention Center (Next to Great America) 5001 Great America Parkway â&#x20AC;˘ Santa Clara, California Hyatt Regency 1-800-233-1234 (adjacent to Santa Clara Convention Ctr.)

Rev. 21:5

AN INVITATION TO THE STATIONS OF THE RESURRECTION It is not to late to join us!!! St. Luke Church offers a gift to all of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Stations of the Resurrectionâ&#x20AC;? every Thursday evening at 7 p.m. from April 20th to June 1st during Adoration and ending with Benediction. Easter is not a one day event but a â&#x20AC;&#x153;seasonâ&#x20AC;? of rejoicing lasting 50 days. These Meditations are a mixture of Scripture, Reflections and Prayer and offer a profound and transforming joy in our Risen Lord encountered. SAINT LUKE CATHOLIC CHURCH â&#x153;ą 1111 BEACH PARK BLVD. â&#x153;ą FOSTER CITY, CA FOR INFO (650) 378-5865

The weekend will include a Hispanic Program. Information 1-510-769-0321 or LamisiondeJesus@aol.com

â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘

Speakers Father Jim Tarantino â&#x20AC;˘ Father Michael Barry SSCC Father Robert Faricy, SJ â&#x20AC;˘ Deacon Bill Brennan Bob Canton â&#x20AC;˘ Deacon Bill Warren Linda Schubert

This will be a time of Praise & Worship, Reconciliation & Teaching with Miracles & Healing â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Come expecting the fullness of Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s POWER. Evening Events & Closing Mass are open to friends and relatives of registered participants.

Friday Eve Registration opens 6:30 PM â&#x20AC;˘ Worship Service 8:00 PM - 10:30 PM Saturday Registration opens 8:00 AM â&#x20AC;˘ Workshops â&#x20AC;˘ Conference Events 8:30 AM - 10:30 PM â&#x20AC;˘ Charismatic Mass & Healing Service 8:00 PM - 10:30 PM Sunday Registration opens 8:00 AM â&#x20AC;˘ Conference Events 8:30 AM - 6:00 PM â&#x20AC;˘ Closing Charismatic Mass 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM Registration Fees - (per person) Adult $40.00, on site registration $45 Child (to 18) $10.00 (max. $20.00 per family)

For information & brochure call: 1-925-551-5827 or 1-707-643-2238 Or come and register at the door. or go to our website www.ncrcspirit.com Sponsored by the Northern California Renewal Coalition

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Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) — One does not have to be perfect to be called to a vocation in the priesthood or religious life, but one must recognize that God calls each person to repentance and holiness, Pope Benedict XVI said. “Human frailties and limits do not represent an obstacle” to having a vocation, “as long as they contribute to making us more aware of the fact that we need the redeeming grace of Christ,” the pope said in his message for the 2006 World Day of Prayer for Vocations. The day dedicated to praying for vocations to the priesthood and religious life will be celebrated May 7 in most countries. From Jesus’ time, Pope Benedict said, God has called individuals to dedicate their lives totally to serving God and their brothers and sisters.

God’s call is not addressed to the perfect, but to those open to God’s love, which changes human hearts and makes them capable of communicating the love of God to others, the pope said. “The church is holy even if its members need to be purified so that holiness, a gift of God, can shine through them in all its brightness,” he said. Pope Benedict asked for special prayers for vocations to the priesthood, a ministry that is essential for the celebration of the sacraments and, therefore, for the ongoing life of the church. Christ, Pope Benedict said, “calls to the ministerial priesthood men who are to exercise a fatherly role, whose source is the very fatherhood of God. The mission of the priest in the Church cannot be substituted.” “It is not surprising that where people pray with fervor vocations flourish,” he said.

heaven can’t wait Serra for Priestly Vocations

(CNS PHOTO/TONY GENTILE, REUTERS)

Pope says people do not need to be perfect to be called to a vocation

Pope Benedict XVI greets Italian university students during a meeting with some 40,000 young people in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican April 6. The pope fielded questions from young people on topics such as science and faith, sexuality and marriage, and the development of his own vocation.

✝ VOCATIONS

Please call Archdiocese of San Francisco Fr. Tom Daly (415) 614-5683

We have been called to praise…to bless… to preach the Gospel. Walk with us and listen to God’s call.

In living your life, have only one desire, to be and become the person God wills... JEAN PIERRE MEDAILLE, SJ

What is God’s desire for you?

Fr. Mark Padrez, OP Western Dominican Province padrezop@yahoo.com Sr. Beth Quire, OP Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose SBQ@hotmail.com Sr. Pat Farrell, OP Dominican Sisters of San Rafael pfarrellop@sanrafaelop.org

SALESIANS BRING JESUS CHRIST

TALK WITH A SISTER OF ST. JOSEPH OF ORANGE 480 S. Batavia Street, Orange, CA 92868 vocationcsj@csjorange.org (714) 633-8121 ext. 7108 www.sistersofstjosephorange.org

SERRA CLUB A Catholic Lay Organization

FOSTERING VOCATIONS PRIESTHOOD RELIGIOUS LIFE

to the AND

San Mateo 650.560.9599

San Francisco_ 415.243.8280

TO YOUNG PEOPLE St. John Bosco began his ministry to youth in 1841. Today the Salesians continue that ministry for young people in schools, parishes and youth centers throughout the world. To talk to a vocation director or for information Salesians of Don Bosco: Brothers and Priests Phone: 636-260-3574 Email: vocation@salesianym.org WEB: www.salesianym.org

Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (Salesian Sisters) Phone: 562-866-0675 Email: fmasuovoc@aol.com WEB: www.salesiansisterswest.org

Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

✝ VOCATIONS

Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Explore possibilities for Ministry, Spirituality, and Community as a Sister, Associate, Volunteer. Life Fully Lived ~~ Love Fully Shared Rosemary Everett, SNJM everettsnjm@earthlink.net www.snjm.org

Serving the Archdiocese of San Francisco Since 1854

North America • Brazil Peru • Lesotho • Central America

For information, please contact:

Sister Gloria Loya, PBVM E-mail: gloya@pbvmsf.org 281 Masonic Ave. San Francisco, CA 94118 415.422.5001

Come and See Opportunities...

Volunteer Experience... Discernment Retreats... Vocation Discernment… Short-Term Live-In Experiences…

For Advertising Information Please Call 415-614-5642

You haven’t chosen me. I have chosen you.” “Tu no me has elegido. Yo te he elegido a ti.” John 15:16

The Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul

Sister Trang Truong, D.C. 26000 Altamont Road Los Altos Hills, CA 94022

SrTrangTruong@dochs.org 650-949-8890 www.ChristUrgesUs.org

Sister Marianne Olives, D.C. 650 West 23rd Street Los Angeles, CA 90007

SrMarianneDC @comcast.net 213-500-0115 www.daughtersofcharity.com

Serving Christ in our brothers and sisters who are poor throughout the world since 1633.

Education •SocialServices•Parish Ministry • Health Care

More than a Career…

God, our Father, In Your love and providence, You call each of us to a more holy and abundant life. We pray for our young people in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Open their hearts and minds to know the vocation You have planned for them from all eternity. If they are being invited to follow You as a priest, Brother, or Sister, give them a generous heart to respond to Your challenging call and the strength to follow wherever You lead them. May families desire to please You by encouraging and supporting vocations within their homes. We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd. Amen

Please Pray Daily Sisters of the Holy Family • Community Life

If you have any questions, please contact

• Prayer & Spirituality

Fr. Thomas Daly

• Compassionate Service • Shared Vision • Diverse Ministries

Do you feel God may be calling you to diocesan priesthood? “¿Te sientes atraído a servir como sacerdote diocesano?”

To seek out and advocate for the poor and needy, especially families, for the Kingdom of God.

Sr. Kathy Littrell, Vocation Director Sisters of the Holy Family P.O. Box 3248, Fremont, CA 94539 • 510-624-4511 shfmem@aol.com • holyfamilysisters.org

Office of Vocations

415-614-5683 Office of Vocations • One Peter Yorke Way • San Francisco, CA 94109 E-mail: dalyt@sfarchdiocese.org

Catholic San Francisco

Lobby . . . ■ Continued from cover the legislature. Each year, the California Conference of Catholic Bishops, in cooperation with local dioceses and Catholic activists, chooses several high priority bills to focus the energies of Lobby Day participants and provide a united front. The bills are chosen for their relevance to Catholic social teaching and their viability amongst the barrage of legislation filed at the Capitol each year. Priority bills this year concern assisted suicide, immigration, the death penalty and the minimum wage. Participants received “backgrounders” in English and Spanish on each of the four bills they would later lobby lawmakers on. AB 651 by Assemblywoman Patty Berg (D-Eureka) would create an assisted suicide law in California similar to Oregon’s “Death with Dignity” law, which passed in 1997. The law would authorize doctors to prescribe lethal medication to those suffering from a terminal disease. California legislators have rejected assisted suicide bills twice and the voters defeated an assisted suicide ballot proposition in 1992. This bill is a holdover from 2005 and it awaits action in the State Senate. The CCC opposes the bill based on Catholic teaching regarding human dignity, as well as a number of practical concerns which are shared by the California Medical Association, the Alliance for Catholic Healthcare, disability rights activists, advocates for the poor and Latino civil rights organizations. The coalition opposing the bill argues it will increase pressure on the poor and disabled to make the “choice” for assisted suicide;

May 5, 2006 distract resources from providing quality care and comfort for the dying; and encourage suicides by people depressed by recent diagnoses. CCC argues “’assisted suicide’ offers a phony form of ‘freedom’ for those without adequate health insurance.” AB 1835 by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (D-Mountain View) would raise the minimum wage from $6.75 to $7.75 per hour. CCC supports this bill, which would increase pay for “1.4 million workers who earn at or near the state’s minimum wage.” The current annualized minimum wage of $14,040 is below the federal poverty level for a family of three. CCC argues from Catholic social teaching that work “is a reflection of our human dignity,” and that “wages must be adequate for workers and their families to live in dignity.” Even this modest increase, they argue, is well below the $12.44 per hour which a 2005 report by the California Budget Project said a single adult needs to meet basic needs in California. The bill awaits action in the Assembly. AB 2266, also by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, would place an initiative before the voters to consider a moratorium on executions in California until certain conditions are met. If passed by the legislature and the voters, AB 2266 would direct the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice to “study and review the administration of justice in California to determine the extent to which that process has failed in the past, resulting in wrongful executions or the wrongful conviction of innocent persons.” CCC supports the bill citing Catholic teaching and concern that 119 people on death rows across the U.S., including 6 in California, have been wrongfully convicted since the 1970s. The wave of exonera-

EDUCATION notre dame high school, belmont

Our Alumnae Say It Best!

Archbishop Riordan High School students Vicente Patino, Andrew Osborne, Sigfrido Gomez, Connor Ahlbach and Andres Monasterio with their teacher Mr. John Ahlbach at Catholic Lobby Day.

tions has come in large part due to technological advances, such as DNA testing, which has revealed that many innocent people have been sentenced to death. “The real possibility,” CCC argues, “given

the recent errors discovered – of executing even one innocent person is morally unacceptable.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church LOBBY, page 9

Saint Anselm’s 1st Annual

Festival of Fun Saturday, May 13, 9am-10pm

Pancake Breakfast • Live Bands • Game Booths • Kiddy Rides

Notre Dame High School Belmont

6th & 7th Grade Students’ Day May 12, 2006 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Doors Open 1:15 p.m.

❝ I think the most important lesson that my daughters and I brought from Notre Dame was that dreams just aren’t enough. Our foundation at Notre Dame has given each of us the confidence to follow our dreams and pursue our varied careers with determination and gusto!❞ Laura Regan ’68, Self-Employed Artist Elyse Regan ’98,Amy Kozlowski ’01,Andrea Kozlowski ’97 (left to right)

Developing responsible young women of active faith, strong intellect, and Christian leadership

Join us for a fun-filled afternoon. Meet and talk with NDB students. Welcome Assembly • Campus Tour Entertainment • Refreshments

Reservations Required For more information contact Lynn Stieren, Director of Admissions at 650.595.1913 ext. 315 or 320 or admissions@ndhsb.org

Accepting applications for Class of 2010 and transfer students. Financial aid available. Lynn Stieren, Director of Admissions (650) 595-1913

“Preparing Young Women For Life” since 1851

www.ndhsb.org Notre Dame High School • 1540 Ralston Ave. • Belmont, CA 94002

1540 Ralston Avenue, Belmont 94002 650.595.1913 • www.ndhsb.org

May 5, 2006

Carole Migden (D-San Francisco). George Wesolek, director of Public Policy and Social Concerns for the archdiocese said the quality of the legislative visits has improved since Lobby Day began. “There is a relationship that is built up after going back so many years,” he said, “There is a better reception, that is noticeable.” John Ahlbach from Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco takes students to Lobby Day each year. “It is a tiring day, but so is working for justice,” he said, “I want my students to see the fight for justice as a long road, but one along which there are many small victories that must be celebrated.” Ahlbach took his students also to the California Vietnam War Memorial this year, but the highlight of the day according to some of his students was the beautiful liturgy in the restored Cathedral. “I never knew Mass could be like this,” one student told him.

Lobby . . . ■ Continued from page 8 also teaches “if bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor . . . public authority should limit itself to such means.” The bill has passed one Assembly committee and awaits further Assembly action. AB 2060 by Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (DLos Angeles) would require, if funded, the Department of Community Services and Development to allocate funds to community-based organizations (CBOs) for the provision of free naturalization services. CCC supports the bill citing a great unmet need for such services and the cost efficiency of CBOs such as Catholic Charities in providing these services versus other venues. California has provided assistance to over 93,000 legal immigrants through the Naturalization Services Program since 1999. Even so, California’s naturalization rate is among the lowest in the nation. There are 2.7 million immigrants eligible for naturalization in California, CCC argues, but “not enough services to assist them through a process that can be difficult and expensive.” Up to a third of Californians who file applications for citizenship fail due to problems with the application process. Allowing CBOs, such as Catholic Charities, to assist in the complex paperwork and document gathering will encourage completion of the naturalization process according to CCC. CBOs average a cost of less than $200

Catholic San Francisco

Diocese of Orange Auxiliary Bishop Jaime Soto addresses participants at Lobby Day on the Capitol steps.

per client versus $2,000 per client in other settings. The bill awaits action in the Assembly. San Francisco area participants were able to meet with and share their concerns on these and other bills in visits with the offices of each local legislator except Senator

415.435.4355 415.435.4355 www.btrecreation.org www.btrecreation.org

SUMMER SCHOOLS

Cool Camps ~ Endless Summer 2006 June 19 – August 25 Campus Kids (Ages 3.5-5) Paradise Park (Ages 5-7) Campus Connection – Sports, Art, Science (Ages 5-11) Angel Island Camps (Ages 7-12) Skate & Aquatic Adventures Camps (Ages 11-14) Belvedere Sports Club (Ages 4-6) Ballet Camp (Ages 3 & up) Marin Scholastic Chess Camp (Grades K-8) Brochures Available Now, Call Today To Register!

CAMPS

Become a MENTOR for a homeless youth. Local nonprofit seeks volunteers to mentor homeless/formerly homeless youth. Make a difference, become a mentor. Call 415-561-4621 mentor@homeaway.org I did it so can you! Sponsored by: John Clifford McGuire Real Estate jclifford@mcguire.com

Summer 2006 • Summer 2006 Notre Dame High School • Belmont •

Middle School Enrichment Open to Girls and Boys entering 6th, 7th, or 8th grade

June 19 - July 21 8:10 a.m. - 11:50 a.m.

After School Recreational Program 12:00 Noon - 4:00 p.m.

Girls’ Sports and Training Camps Advanced Sports Camps run by NDB Varsity Coaches

Basketball • Cheerleading • Cross Country • Soccer Softball • Tennis • Volleyball Check online at www.ndhsb.org for schedules and times Call for Information/Brochure 1540 Ralston Avenue, Belmont 94002 650.595.1913 x315• www.ndhsb.org

Summer 2006 • Summer 2006

Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

Vatican officials, experts examine challenges modern children face By John Thavis VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A four-day Vatican conference examined a long list of challenges, from child labor to gender selection of fetuses, that modern children face. After hearing continent-by-continent reports, organizers said they were especially worried that older generations are no longer viewing children as the hope of the future — as evidenced by the declining birthrate in developed and developing countries. The vulnerability of children should make this topic a priority for Catholic social teaching, said Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Glendon spoke May 2 at a Vatican press meeting at the end of the conference, which for the first time included young participants from several continents. Detailed papers presented at the meeting analyzed such themes as the impact of globalization and child labor law on young people in Asia or the efforts by China and India to stem the widespread practice of aborting female fetuses. “Many of the world’s children live under dark shadows of oppression and exploitation. Many do not live to see the light of day or are abandoned to die in the first days of life,” Glendon

said. “This is particularly true for girls, as the male-female imbalance is now pronounced in populous parts of the world.” In China, one of the academy’s experts said, there are now 25 percent more males born than females. The government, realizing that this is creating a potentially huge problem for the future, has begun to take steps to discourage gender selection. French professor Gerard-Francois Dumont, rector of the University of Paris-Sorbonne, told the conference that, while the world is familiar with the one-child policy of China, one-child families now dominate Europe — without government coercion. Dumont also said single-parent households were increasing in Latin America. Speakers illustrated that threats to children can come in many forms: — Paulus Zulu, a professor at the University of KwaZuluNatal in Durban, South Africa, said millions of children are excluded from society or made “invisible” by armed conflicts, poverty, infant mortality and lack of health care, child labor, child marriage and poor education. The AIDS epidemic solely has created more than 1 million orphans in South Africa alone, he said. Zulu said he knows this form of suffering firsthand: the father of six children of his own, he is now raising six more nieces and nephews

orphaned by AIDS — and expects more to arrive in the future. — Kevin Ryan, a professor at Boston University, said the traditional U.S. family configuration has changed drastically in recent decades: Families are smaller, move more frequently and are much more likely to be single-parent families. The number of working mothers has skyrocketed. “The space previously filled by the family is being filled by schools, the media and the street,” Ryan said. He said the time spent on media and electronic entertainment now averages close to 40 hours a week among the young. Those media, he said, tend to promote a highly sexualized culture, with a message of sexual freedom that drowns out young people’s awareness of responsibilities. — Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, spoke of a “syndrome of endless adolescence” that encourages young people to avoid responsibility and permanent commitments, making it almost impossible for them to assume the kind of sacrifices required by marriage and raising a family. — East European participants warned that the region’s young people have experienced widespread disappointment and disillusionment in the transition to a free-market economy, helping to create a spiritual emptiness.

Summer Soccer Camps

E L I OT S M I T H ’ S

T I G E R B A S K E T B A L L CA M P

Join the best kids’ soccer program in the city! Director Deejae Johnson has been teaching soccer camps for 23 years and combines his many years as a professional player along with his knowledge of sports psychology to provide a fun summer.

www.sfgokids.com Lick-Wilmerding High School 755 Ocean Ave., San Francisco (415) 333-4051 x 259 email: esmith@lwhs.org

Director Deejae Johnson

Eliot Smith’s Tiger Basketball Camp is back for boys & girls ages 6 - 15 years old. Eliot Smith has won numerous coaching awards and is in his 25th year of coaching. Join us from June 12 – August 25 for the best basketball camp in San Francisco.

Boys and Girls ages 6 - 13 June 12 - 16 • June 19 - 23 • Aug. 21 - 25 For more information see www.soccerinsight.net email: soccerinsight@comcast.net phone: 415.595.3760

SUMMER SCHOOLS CAMPS S u m m e r 2006 a t S a i n t I g n a t i u s C o l l e g e P r e p a r a t o r y Check out the summer programs at one of San Francisco’s finest high schools!

St. Phillip PreSchool & Pre-K NOW OPEN St. Phillip PreSchool offers 4 unique preschool programs. All programs offer developmental, social, emotional, spiritual & academic needs of young children. Each tailored to student’s ages 3 to 5.9 years of age. ●

● ● ●

Go to www.siprep.org/summer today for details and to download a registration form Summer Academic Program For current 7th and 8th graders: June 19 - July 21. 9 a.m. to 12 noon. All students take English, math & one elective. Get to know the campus while enriching your skills! Cost: $630.

Specialized Sports Camps For youth 10-14 years old: Dates vary. Baseball, basketball, cross country, field hockey, football, soccer, strength & conditioning, track, tennis, and volleyball. Cost: $90 - $170 depending on week and sport.

Intro to Sports Camp For kids 6-10 years old: June 19 - July 21. 9 a.m. to 12 noon. Cost: $96 - $160. All five weeks: $700

SI School & Sports Pack For current 7th and 8th graders: Academic Program & five weeks of sports camps at a discounted price.

Matisse Masters – 4 Full afternoons, our enriched Pre K - ‘Another year to grow’ Program - 4 to 5.9 years of age. Petite Picassos – 2 Mornings per week for just 3’s 8 – Noon Mini Monets – 3 Mornings a week for 3 & 4 year olds 8 – Noon Whirling Van Goghs – 5 Full days for 3 & 4 year olds – Weekly Summer Programs Available – Our NEW Preschool is a large open facility with spacious adjoining outdoor play yard. Inside, our preschool has numerous enriched learning centers that encourage exploration and discovery through structured amd independent activities. Come meet our warm staff and tour our school

To learn more about our school & schedule a tour: Contact Mrs.Hope Peterson, Preschool Director (415) 282-0141 725 Diamond Street, SF, CA 94114

May 5, 2006

News-in-brief . . . ■ Continued from page 4 union between one woman and one man, said Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia. “The institution of marriage is suffering. We cannot sit idly by,” the cardinal said April 25. The cardinal and several other U.S. religious leaders spoke during a teleconference to promote support for a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as the union between one man and one woman. The Senate is scheduled to discuss such an amendment in June. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops already has expressed its support for an amendment, he said. Now it is the responsibility of each bishop to make this position known to the people in his diocese, the cardinal said. The cardinal said that by drawing attention to the importance of preserving the traditional definition of marriage religious leaders hope that widespread popular support will spur national and state legislators to speed along what is a multistage approval process for a constitutional amendment.

Ordination class of 2006 better educated, older, survey finds WASHINGTON — Although the number of new priests remains steady, the ordination class of 2006 in the United States is better educated, older and more likely to be foreign-born than their colleagues of years past. Data gathered by the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Vocations and Priestly Formation was analyzed by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the

s 9e g A

Catholic research organization based at Georgetown University in Washington, and made public May 1, as part of an annual report. Based by survey responses from 233 seminarians from 98 of the 195 U.S. dioceses and 24 of the more than 200 religious orders of men, CARA found that nearly 80 percent of the men scheduled for ordination in 2006 had a bachelor’s degree before entering the seminary and 30 percent had earned a graduate degree. The average age of the class of 2006 is 37, with 22 percent under 40 and 4 percent over 60. Almost a third of the men were born outside the United States.

Catholic San Francisco

S UMMER C AMPS 17th ANNUAL

Bush visits New Orleans home, praises Catholic Charities volunteers NEW ORLEANS — President George W. Bush praised the work of Catholic Charities volunteers in helping to rebuild New Orleans during an April 27 visit to a Ninth Ward home ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and the floods that followed. He also called for another 2,500 volunteers “to come down to New Orleans to help people get back on their feet” through Operation Helping Hands, the Catholic Charities volunteer project that has already gutted 311 damaged homes to prepare them for rebuilding. Another 776 homes remain on the project’s waiting list. At the home of Ethel Williams, a 72-year-old widow, the president said, “The amazing thing that’s happened in her home is that there are people across the country who are helping to rebuild it.” “Catholic Charities, in this case, has provided the volunteers to help Ms. Williams reclaim her life,” Bush said. The 15member team that worked on Williams’ home came from Alabama, Michigan, North Carolina, Vermont and Washington, D.C.

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Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

Catholic San Francisco

How dark the con of Dan: Some responses to the Da Vinci Code (The novel and soon the film) By Archbishop George H. Niederauer

“A lie is half way round the world while the truth is still putting its boots on.” - Mark Twain

y first reaction to Dan Brown’s novel, “The Da Vinci Code,” was: “It’s a work of fiction, a thriller, a page-turner. Everybody knows that.” I was wrong. A young friend of mine met a classmate from Catholic high school who told him that she was seriously thinking of giving up her faith after reading “The Da Vinci Code.” My friend said, “You’d give up your faith because of a novel?” She answered, “Oh, but it’s all true!” Oh, but it’s not! Soon the movie version of “The Da Vinci Code” will open around the country. Carl Olson, coauthor with medievalist Sandra Miesel of “The Da Vinci Hoax,” has shown us that this bestseller works on several levels: mystery novel, romance, thriller, conspiracy theory and spiritual manifesto. There’s a good chance that the movie will work in many of those same ways. As Amy Welborn, author of “De-Coding Da Vinci,” points out, “The Da Vinci Code” is fiction but the author makes assertions about history and presents them as widely accepted facts, introduced by such phrases as “historians say” and “scholars understand.” Olson lists several claims made by Brown: Jesus was a mere man, and the earliest Christians didn’t believe he was divine; Christianity is a despicable sham; all claims to objective religious truth are to be avoided. These assertions demand a non-fiction response from Christian believers. Now some readers might say that the faithful are merely reacting out of fear and anger toward a book that challenges their faith. That’s why it is helpful to listen to critics writing from a literary perspective, without a religious slant. One such critic is Laura Miller, in The New York Times Book Review (“The Da Vinci Con,” February 22, 2004, p. 23): “ . . . what seems increasingly clear is that ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ like ‘Holy Blood, Holy Grail,’ is based on a notorious hoax.” Miller says that much of the material about Mary Magdalen and the Priory of Sion depends on fabricated documents planted in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris by one Pierre Plantard, “an inveterate rascal with a criminal record for fraud and affiliation with wartime antiSemitic and right-wing groups.” Miller concludes: “The only thing more powerful than a worldwide conspiracy, it seems, is our desire to believe in one.” Here are some of the most important falsehoods in “The Da Vinci Code,” and alongside are the matching truths that, as Twain said, are now “putting their boots on.” DVC: “ . . . almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false!” TRUTH: Ditto for everything Dan Brown “teaches” about Christ! Brown contends that, until the Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.), “Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet . . . a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. Not the Son of God.” According to Brown, the emperor Constantine made Jesus divine in the fourth century. However, in St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (c. 55 A.D.) Jesus is portrayed as God’s Son and worshipped as Lord. In St. John’s Gospel, written almost two hundred years before Constantine was born, Thomas the Apostle sees the risen Jesus Christ and exclaims, “My Lord and my God!” Brown conveniently does not mention Docetism, a heresy circulating in the first century that claimed Jesus Christ was only God, and not human as well. DVC: “Jesus as a married man makes infinitely more sense than our standard Biblical view of Jesus as a bachelor.” [Here’s why] “Because Jesus was a Jew, and the social decorum during that time virtually forbid a Jewish man to be unmarried.” “ . . . according to Jewish custom celibacy was condemned.” “If Jesus was not married at least one of the Bible’s gospels would have mentioned it and offered some explanation for his unnatural state of bachelorhood.” TRUTH: Jesus was unmarried, as were the prophet Jeremiah, John the Baptist, the Apostle Paul, and members of the Essene community. The words of Jesus from the Cross, entrusting his mother to the care of John the Apostle, suggest the truth of this assertion. Brown stresses the importance of the social decorum at that time. If “social decorum” had been a high priority for Jesus he wouldn’t have healed people on the Sabbath, talked to the Samaritan woman at the well, knocked over the moneychangers’ tables in the Temple, or socialized often with public sinners.

As for a gospel explanation for Jesus’s “unnatural state,” here is Jesus’s teaching on celibacy, from Matthew’s Gospel: “Some are incapable of marriage because they are born so; some, because they were made so by others; some because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.” (Mt. 19:12) DVC: “The Bible as we know it today was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.” TRUTH: By 150 A.D. (175 years before Constantine) Christian writers were listing the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and Paul’s letters as the most reliable sources of information about the life of Jesus and the faith of the apostles. Also, as Laura Miller observes in the New York Times, Brown tries to have it both ways in “The Da Vinci Code”: “Sources - such as the New Testament - are qualified as ‘questionable’ and derivative when they contradict the conspiracy theory, then microscopically scrutinized for inconsistencies that might support it.” DVC: According to Brown “Peter’s party” among the early Christians slandered and demonized Mary Magdalen and, through her, all women. TRUTH: From the beginning, the Church has honored Magdalen for her faithfulness at the foot of the Cross and at the tomb. Christian writers described her as “the apostle to the apostles” because she brought them the good news of Christ’s resurrection. The Catholic Church celebrates the feast of St. Mary Magdalen on July 22nd each year, and many churches are dedicated to her as their patron. In the Diocese of Salt Lake City the Cathedral is named for St. Mary Magdalen, and she is the heavenly patron of the entire diocese. That’s a strange sort of demonizing. DVC: “ . . . every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith - acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove.” TRUTH: That’s an unbeliever’s definition of faith. How does a believer define faith? Perhaps as “a human response to God,” or, “a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed.” A fair-minded person would let a socialist give his definition of capitalism, but he or she would let the capitalist give his definition as well. Believers and unbelievers should be treated the same way. DVC: “Virtually all the elements of Catholic ritual - the miter, the altar, the doxology and communion, the act of ‘God-eating,’ were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions.” TRUTH: Oh, dear. It’s such a long-established fact that the roots of Catholic ritual are in Jewish worship, which is not surprising, inasmuch as all the first Christians were Jews, not former pagans. The Temple in Jerusalem had altars; the doxology is rooted in Psalms 8, 66 and 150; communion had its roots in the Jewish Passover, celebrated by Jesus and twelve other Jews at the Last Supper. DVC: “Originally Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantine [4th century] shifted it to coincide with the pagan’s veneration day of the sun. To this day most churchgoers attend services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are there on account of the pagan sun god’s weekly tribute - Sunday.” TRUTH: Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week, a Sunday, so the weekly Eucharist was celebrated from the beginning on “the Lord’s Day,” a Sunday. Here is St. Justin Martyr, writing before 165 A.D.: “We hold our common assembly on the first day of the week, the day on which God put darkness and chaos to flight and created the world, and because on that same day our savior Jesus Christ rose from the dead.” The names for the days of the week do come from the names of pagan gods such as Woden, Thor, Freia and Saturn. However, someone who goes to Thursday evening Bible study in 2006 is not therefore honoring the god Thor. Incidentally, the only thing Constantine did about this matter, in 321 A.D., was to declare Sunday a day of rest. DVC: “The Church launched a smear campaign against the pagan gods and goddesses, recasting their divine symbols as evil.” TRUTH: Well, that’s what monotheistic religions do - they oppose the worship of dozens or hundreds of greater and lesser gods. For example, Jews maligned Moloch, and discouraged the people from sacrificing newborn infants by tossing them into the fiery stove in the belly of the god. It’s hard to cast that divine symbol as anything but evil. Islam also replaced the worship of minor deities in the lands to which it spread. DVC: “The Church burned at the stake over five million women [as witches].” TRUTH: Genuine scholars agree that most people executed as witches (20% were men) were put to death between 1500 and 1800 A.D. These historians estimate the total at 40,000, with an upward limit of 50,000. Most of those were poor, ordinary and unpopular citizens, not strong, independent-minded women as described by Brown. Their accusers were usually their fellow citizens, not clergymen. More than half of those accused were acquitted. Some witches were executed by Catholics, some by Protestants, most by governments. Salem, Massachusetts in the seventeenth century, for example, could hardly be described as Catholic-dominated. Several popes condemned the practice of executing witch-

es. Still, it doesn’t seems uncharacteristic of Brown to multiply the total number of victims by 100, and then blame them all on the Catholic Church. WHY ARE THESE LIES SO EASILY BELIEVED? Why then are so many people so easily misled? Amy Welborn suggests that most people know very little about the historical origins of Christianity, so they are “easy targets for a cleverly packaged, sensationalized set of lies.” Carl Olson suggests several traits of postmodern culture that make a book like “The Da Vinci Code” attractive: a relativistic attitude toward truth and religion; a dislike for religious authority; a fondness for conspiracy-based claims; a belief that reality is malleable and can be customized to each person’s wishes. Adam Gopnik, writing in The New Yorker, takes a more ironic view: “A cultural anthropologist, a hundred years from now, will doubtless find, in the unprecedented success of ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ during the time of a supposed religious revival, that, in the Elvis mode, what a lot of Americans mean by spirituality is simply an immense openness to occult superstitions of all kinds.” IS ‘THE DA VINCI CODE’ ANTI-CATHOLIC? “I have been educated to enmity toward everything that is Catholic, and sometimes, in consequence of this, I find it much easier to discover Catholic faults than Catholic virtues.” - Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad Let’s begin by admitting that anti-Catholicism is as American as, well, Mark Twain. Of course Twain was more honest about himself and everything else than most of us are. The Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., remarked to the American Catholic historian, John Tracy Ellis, “I regard the prejudice against your church as the deepest bias in the history of the American people.” The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, used to describe the anti-Catholicism of a few decades ago as the last socially acceptable form of bigotry in the United States. Such witnesses can’t easily be waved aside. Catholics in this country have even had a Dan Brown-style experience before this present one. In 1836 “The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk” was first published. It was a sensational success, and stayed in print for many years. One mob even burned down a convent school, partly because of that book. It took the dedicated investigative work of a Protestant newspaper editor, Colonel William Stone, to debunk the book’s lurid portrayal of the decadent goings-on between priests and nuns, and the murder of their infant children. The Colonel did his work very well, but generations of readers continued to buy the book and believe it. Is “The Da Vinci Code” anti-Catholic? Well, sure it is. The book is at least as anti-

DA VINCI CODE RESOURCES Following is a selection of resources available to those wishing to find out more about the inaccuracies and falsehoods in Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”: UNITED STATES CONFERENCE

CATHOLIC BISHOPS

The USCCB’s Catholic Communication Campaign has produced a website (www.jesusdecoded.com) with pages discussing several topics raised by “The Da Vinci Code” including, the celibacy and divinity of Christ, Mary Magdalen, early Church Councils, the art of Leonardo Da Vinci, Gnostic texts, women in the Church and much more. A documentary helping to separate “Christian belief from modern fiction” has also been produced and will be running on NBC affiliates across the country. Called “Jesus Decoded,” the documentary is not yet scheduled on any local affiliates, but it is available for purchase on DVD. Check website www.jesusdecoded.com for updated broadcast times and purchase information. OPUS DEI “The Da Vinci Code” makes numerous accusations and contains significant misinformation about the personal prelature of Opus Dei. The organization founded by Saint Josemaria Escriva is for “people who have a vocation to live their Christian faith in the middle of secular society.” It is composed of lay people and diocesan priests and has no monks – much less albino assassin monks.

Catholic as it is anti-Christian. For instance, it’s not only 1.1 billion Catholics who believe Jesus is divine, recite the Nicene Creed and accept the books of the New Testament while rejecting the Gnostic gospels; Protestants - numbering 800 million worldwide - and Orthodox Christians - in excess of 200 million - are mostly guilty of that same Christian behavior, though they get no mention in “The Da Vinci Code.” Instead, it is “the Church” that does those terrible things. Nevertheless, when we Catholics complain about anti-Catholicism, especially in the entertainment media, it is easy to hear us as whiners and special pleaders. Hence an outside opinion is helpful and enlightening. Slightly over a year ago David Denby, a film critic for The New Yorker, wrote a review of a film titled, of all things, “Constantine.” Denby described the movie as a “religio-satanic horror spectacle,” starring Keanu Reeves. At the showing Denby attended, it was being watched “by rapt adults as well as teenagers.” After dealing with that particular film, the critic moved on to the difficult, more general topic of how Hollywood deals with matters Catholic. Denby wrote: “Which raises a touchy point. ‘Constantine’ turns Catholic doctrine, ritual and iconography into schlock. God’s warrior wins, but is that enough to justify the tawdry, promiscuous borrowing? Will the trashy exploitation of Catholicism in movies ever end?” Could any Catholic have asked those questions better? Denby went on to conjure up Jewish and Hindu variations of the frequent Catholic exploitation films: “Imagine a Jewish version of the spectacle - ‘Angel,’ starring Vin Diesel, in which God’s messenger stays Abraham’s hand in mid-sacrifice and then earns His approval by lowering himself into cursed pharaonic tombs with tied together prayer shawls. In a Hindu version - ‘Vishnu,’ with Nicolas Cage - Shiva unleashes his snakes on the outskirts of Poughkeepsie and starts a war between truck drivers and apple pickers.” Denby knew that the strategy of satire is often to take things over the top to show how ridiculous the situation has become, and he did that very well. In conclusion, however, he made a thoughtful and provocative remark: “Somehow I think these projects might be shelved. Yet terrible movies like . . . .‘Constantine’ get made and become enormously popular. I will leave the issue of blasphemy to experts. But maybe some of the audience should wonder if they aren’t doing the Devil’s work by sitting so quietly through movies that turn wonders into garbage.” “The Da Vinci Code” - the book and probably the film - presents Catholics with one set of problems, and those are best dealt with by knowing the facts of our Church’s faith and its history. A broader challenge is an entertainment establishment that doesn’t know very much about Catholicism, doesn’t like what it thinks it knows, doesn’t want to learn any more, and can’t leave Catholic faith, practice and imagery alone.

Website www.opusdei.us includes general information on the much misunderstood organization and its founder, as well as a page responding to inaccuracies and falsehoods in “The Da Vinci Code.” Father John Wauck, an American priest of Opus Dei living in Rome, has also established a weblog (davincicode-opusdei.com) devoted to “The Da Vinci Code.” BOOKS Popular Catholic apologist Carl Olson and medieval historian Sandra Miesel have joined to co-author “The Da Vinci Hoax,” which Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George calls “the definitive debunking” of “The Da Vinci Code.” It is available from Amazon or directly from Ignatius Press (www.ignatius.com). Olson and Miesel have also joined with Jesuit biblical scholar Father Mitch Pacwa to produce a DVD by the same name which includes graphics, artworks and additional information – also available from Ignatius Press. Journalist, Catholic book author and popular Catholic blogger Amy Welborn has produced two books touching on the Da Vinci controversy. “De-Coding Da Vinci” from Our Sunday Visitor Press addresses numerous mischaracterizations of history, religion and art found in “The Da Vinci Code.” For those looking for more information on the real Saint Mary Magdalene, Welborn has written a paperback, “De-Coding Mary Magdalene,” also from Our Sunday Visitor. Welborn’s weblog (amywelborn.typepad.com) has a link to purchase the books which are also available from Amazon.

Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Death by Ethics Committee By Wesley J. Smith The bioethics committee at St. Luke’s Hospital in Houston, Texas has decreed that Andrea Clarke should die. Indeed, after a closed-door hearing, it ordered all further medical efforts to sustain her life while at St. Luke’s to cease. As a consequence, Clarke’s life support, required because of a heart condition and bleeding on the brain, is to be removed unilaterally even though she is not unconscious and her family wants treatment to continue. Andrea Clarke may become an early victim of one of the biggest agendas in bioethics: Futile-care theory, a.k.a., medical futility. The idea behind futilecare theory goes something like this: In order to honor personal autonomy, if a patient refuses life-sustaining treatment, that wish is sacrosanct. But if a patient signed an advance medical directive instructing care to continue — indeed, even if the patient can communicate that he or she wants life-sustaining treatment — it can be withheld anyway if the doctors and/or the ethics committee believes that the quality of the patient’s life renders it not worth living, Contrary to how it sounds, medical futility is not a matter of refusing treatment that will not provide the medical benefit the patient seeks. Refusals of requests for such “physiologically futile care” would be proper and professional. For example, if a patient demanded that a doctor provide chemotherapy for an ulcer, the doctor should refuse, since chemo will do nothing to treat the ulcer. But Clarke’s case involves value judgments rather than medical determinations. In such “qualitative futility” cases, treatment is stopped in spite of a patient’s or family’s objections — the intervention is necessary not because the treatment doesn’t work, but because it does. In essence then, it is the patient’s life that is deemed futile and, hence, not worthy of being preserved. We should also note that the Clarke controversy isn’t anything like the Terri Schiavo case. Schiavo’s tube-supplied food and fluids were ordered withdrawn (supposedly) to carry out her wishes. But Clarke apparently wants to live and her family all agree that she should continue to be sustained. In other words, it is as if Michael Schiavo and Terri’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, agreed to maintain Terri’s feeding tube but a hospital ethics committee overruled their decisions and doctors removed the tube anyway. Hospitals around the country — nobody knows how many — have been quietly promulgating internal rules to permit patients like Andrea Clarke to be denied wanted treatment to maintain their lives. But the legality of internal ethics committees acting as quasi courts to order unilateral treatment refusal remains uncertain in most states. Texas, however, has become ground zero for futile-care theory thanks to a draconian state law passed in 1999 — of dubious constitutionality, some believe — that explicitly permits a hospital ethics committee to refuse wanted life-sustaining care. Under the Texas Health and Safety Code, if the physician disagrees with a patient’s decision to receive treatment, he or she can take it to the hospital ethics committee. A committee hearing is then scheduled, all interested parties explain their positions, and the members deliberate in private. If the committee decides to refuse treatment, the patient and family receive a written notice. At that point, the patient/family has a mere ten days to find another hospital willing to provide the care, after which, according to the statute, “the physician and health care facility are not obligated to provide life-sustaining treatment.” Since the patients threatened with death by ethics committee are often the most expensive to care for, it will often be difficult for families to find other institutions willing to accept a transfer. But the futility deck may be especially stacked against Houston patients. Many city hospitals participate in the “Houston City-Wide Guidelines on Medical Futility,” raising the suspicion that participating hospitals will not contradict each other’s futility decrees. If so, this would mean that patients seeking refuge from forced treatment termination will have to be transported to distant cities, as has already occurred in a few futile-care cases, perhaps even out of state. Cases like Andrea Clarke’s could not be more important. If the principle is ever established that doctors, hospitals, and faceless ethics committees can dictate who can live and who must die, the already weakening faith of the American people in their health-care system will be seriously undermined and the door will be thrown wide-open to medical decision-making based on discriminatory hierarchies of human worth. As German physician Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland wrote presciently in 1806, “It is not up to [the doctor] whether . . . life is happy or unhappy, worthwhile or not, and should he incorporate these perspectives into his trade . . . the doctor could well become the most dangerous person in the state.” Ed. Note – Since this editorial was written St. Luke’s Hospital has dropped its “medical futility” claim and agreed to continue treatment of Andrea Clarke under the direction of a different doctor. The editorial maintains relevance as the practice of relegating life and death decisions to ethics committees continues to grow. Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. This article originally appeared in National Review Online.

We need Prop D Many thanks for the support of our parishes who gathered many thousands of signatures to put Prop D - the Laguna Honda Special Use District Ballot Initiative - on the June ballot. Prop D sends a message to City Hall that San Franciscans care about our frail elderly and physically disabled neighbors who can no longer care for themselves. We respond to many needs in San Francisco, but we cannot forget our elders. San Franciscans want accountability. In 1999, 73 percent of voters passed a $300 million Bond Measure to rebuild Laguna Honda to provide safe long-term care for our seniors and physically disabled. In February 2004, the admission policy of serving our San Francisco seniors and physically handicap was put aside by the Director of Public Health to accommodate San Francisco General Hospital patients who were younger, able-bodied and sometimes dangerous. This change displaced our seniors; put our LHH doctors and staff, patients and surrounding neighborhoods at risk; and resulted in patient abuses, increased assaults and an arson fire. Fines and citations by OSHA and State licensing for illegally admitting the dangerous patients followed. This resulting violence and disorder created a public uproar and the old admissions policy was to be put back. But problems have continued. Sadly, Laguna Honda failed its February 2006 State and Federal Certification survey. Once again, patient violence was cited along with inadequate safety measures to prevent violence and abuse. Citations were issued to many departments and “sub-standard care” was identified. As a penalty, Laguna Honda will lose millions in State and Federal payments if it continues on this path. City taxpayers will be tapped to make up the difference. Prop D opponents make the hysterical claim that it will cost $27 million a year since 300 Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and dementia patients will be ousted from Laguna Honda Hospital. This is absolutely false. Objective experts, including the Alzheimer’s Association of Northern California and the UCSF Aging and Memory Center, agree that Alzheimer’s and other dementia patients are not dangerous and would continue to receive care at Laguna Honda as always. Prop D was modeled on 1992’s successful Prop K, which established the HMO Special Use District for Kaiser Hospital. The Health department will retain responsibility for day to day operations of LHH, but Prop D will place clinical decision making back in the hands of experienced Laguna Honda doctors and prevent City administrators from making admission and discharge decisions based on short-term cost savings without regard to the safety and health of LHH residents or SFGH patients. Prop D establishes a Laguna Honda Special Use District which assures that: – Laguna Honda will be kept safe for the frail, elderly and disabled who call it home - and for our surrounding communities. – Laguna Honda will give priority to frail,

elderly and disabled San Francisco residents. – Rehabilitation, Hospice, AIDS and Respite Care will continue to provide services to all San Franciscans who need them. – Persons admitted to Laguna Honda will continue to have a primary medical rather than psychiatric condition that qualifies them for care. – No new taxes or monies will be needed. Visit website www.SF4LagunaHonda.org for more information. Sister Miriam Walsh Pastoral Care Director, Laguna Honda Hospital San Francisco

Episcopal leadership As President-Rector of St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, I am writing for two reasons. First I want to congratulate and thank Archbishop Niederaurer for his inspiring and timely leadership concerning the need for immigration reform and to express our appreciation for the enlightened reporting of the Catholic San Francisco on this extremely relevant and pressing contemporary issue. Secondly, I want to let you know that our seminarians, faculty, staff, and resident sisters are deeply committed to the principles spelled out by our Archbishop for promoting comprehensive immigration reform that respects and appreciates the dignity and gifts of men and women from other lands. Indeed, a richly international community ourselves, many of us are actively engaged in public and private prayer for just practices and in peaceful actions that witness to the wider public our commitment to much-needed reform. For example, as recommended by the Archbishop and other local Bishops, many of us attended rallies and marches on May 1, the Feast of St. Joseph, to witness our prayerful support for immigrant rights. Again, we thank you and promise you our prayers. Rev. Gerald L. Brown, S.S. President-Rector, St. Patrick’s Seminary and University Menlo Park

L E T T E R S

Letters welcome Catholic San Francisco welcomes letters from its readers. Please:

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

Do amnesties ever end? Archbishop Niederauer called for a “just and humane” immigration reform legislation that would give undocumented workers and their families legal permanent residency and citizenship, and reunite families separated by immigration (CSF – Apr. 28). This is amnesty and it did not work before. It will only make the problem worse and will have a dire effect on the U.S. economy and society. The Simpson-Mazzoli Act passed in the early 1980s provided amnesty to several million illegal immigrants in the hope this would solve the problem. The opposite happened. Instead of diminishing, the number of illegal immigrants increased to twelve million today. They were encouraged to come for the jobs and in the hope of another amnesty. Some 40 million more immigrants must be added to the twelve million illegal immigrants once they are granted permanent residency and are then allowed to bring in their families. Can the United States provide them with jobs, shelter, education, health and other services? Illegal immigrants also shut out American workers from the job market by taking jobs for less pay. Granting undocumented workers legal permanent residency is unfair to those who came and are working here legally, and those waiting in their home countries for the time they can come here legally. One cannot be humane without being just. Is it just where American citizens follow the law, while those who come and work here illegally are rewarded for breaking the law by giving them legal permanent residency and eventually American citizenship? Ernesto Macatuno South San Francisco

May 5, 2006

Catholic San Francisco

The Catholic Difference A pall will hang over commencement at the University of Notre Dame this year – the pall of a great opportunity missed. Temporarily, one must hope. Notre Dame’s new president, Father John Jenkins, C.S.C., got off to a brilliant start this past fall, with an inaugural address that located Notre Dame solidly within the ancient tradition of Catholic higher learning. Father Jenkins then led a pilgrimage to Rome, an act that embodied a key plank in the reformist platform announced in his inaugural address: to “think with the Church” means both to think and to think “with the Church.” Then, in April, things changed, dramatically and for the worse. After a campus wide debate, Father Jenkins announced that “the creative contextualization of a play like ‘The Vagina Monologues’ can bring certain perspectives on important issues into a constructive and fruitful dialogue with the Catholic tradition.” Therefore, Father Jenkins decreed, the V-Monologues could continue to be produced on campus. It was difficult, bordering on impossible, not to read Father Jenkins’ decision as a surrender to the most corrosive forces eating away at the vitals of Catholic higher education. That view is shared by numerous Notre Dame faculty, among whom Father Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C., stands tall, literally, intellectually, and spiritually. In a public letter to his brother Holy Cross priest, Father Miscamble told Father Jenkins that “your decision is being portrayed as involving your ‘backing down,’” in part because of an untoward deference to “the convictions of certain senior Arts and Letters faculty that

any restriction on this play would damage our academic ‘reputation’ – and especially among those ‘preferred peer schools’ whose regard we crave.” “Indeed,” Miscamble continued, “it is hard to understand [your decision] in any other terms.” Then Father Miscamble got down to cases: “In your recent...statement you reveal a level of naivete about the process of a Catholic university engaging the broad culture that is striking and deeply harmful to our purpose as a Catholic university. We live at a time, as Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter pointed out some years ago, when the elite culture is programmed to trivialize religion. Further more, much of popular culture is deeply antithetical to religious conviction and practice. It offers a worldview completely at odds with any Catholic vision. It is a worldview from which none of us can be sequestered and, indeed, many of our students arrive here far more influenced by the reigning culture than by faith convictions. “Amidst this larger context you are to permit the continued production and promotion of a play which, as our colleague Paolo Carozza rightly puts it, ‘seems to reduce the meaning and value of women’s lives to their sexual experiences and organs, reinforcing a perspective on the human person that is itself fundamentally a form of violence.’ Dialogue with this point of view is ridiculous. It should be contested and resisted at Notre Dame but never promoted. Notre Dame must hold to a higher view of the dignity of women and men. Might I ask that if this play does not meet your criteria of an ‘expres-

sion that is overt and insistent in its contempt for the values and sensibilities of the University,’ then what would?” Father Miscamble ends by asking his brother priest to “go back to George Weigel your best self and to your original instincts and position on this matter. Don’t embarrass those of us who want to work with you to build a great Catholic university. Lead us.” Anyone who cares about the flagship university of Catholic higher education in America must pray that Father Miscamble’s plea is heard by Father Jenkins, a man who has shown courage in the past. The V-Monologues is trashy, pornographic nonsense, like a lot of other stuff available in the movies and on cable-TV. A great university can’t monitor what its students watch on TV or in theaters. But it can teach them about stupidity. The V-Monologues are stupid, and one of the things a great Catholic university ought to teach its students is to avoid the stupid. It can’t do that by the “creative contextualization” of stupidity. George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

Family Life

God and man at table For my husband Paul’s fortieth birthday, I had his favorite religious image handsomely matted and framed to hang in our home. The picture is a copy of Christ In Majesty, an enormous mosaic on the ceiling of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. What Paul loves about this image, in addition to its overwhelming enormity (3,600 square feet at the Shrine!), is the intense look on Christ’s face. Of course we know God is a loving God, but here, in this image, He is also very clearly a God who will kick butt and take names. This is not an image of Jesus meek and mild, but of intense justice and mercy — and intense love. I asked Paul specifically what it was about the image that affected him so deeply. “It’s just so powerful,” he said of the mosaic. “There’s nothing gentle about it. He looks like He’s on a mission.” I always love these little moments in marriage when the difference between a man and a woman is so obvious. Paul is moved by the image of God as Warrior. I prefer the one where He cuddles the babies. Yesterday, four-year-old Augie wanted to spend some time

drawing. I set him up at the dining room table with some paper and a pen. A few minutes later, he came to me in the study. “I’m Saint Francis,” he said, holding up his hands. And there, in each palm, was a large black dot. He had given himself the stigmata. My initial reaction was to coil back, until I quickly realized... of course! The stigmata! To a boy, what’s not to love about gigantic, bleeding holes in a person’s hands and feet? This Lent, our family attended Stations of the Cross on Friday’s at our parish. And this year, the Stations were extremely appealing to each of the boys. They were amazed by the violence, the blood, the extreme heartache and anguish and misery that Jesus went through. For us. And that last part is important, because they get that too — that all the gore was For Us! As the mother of boys, these are the details of our faith that only make me love being Catholic that much more. We teach our boys about Jesus, the Eucharist, Mass — and I sometimes worry because a boy’s nature is not to sit and

gaze or be excited about going to Mass (and if your son is, then just be very, very grateful). He’ll do it, perhaps — but it’s not his nature. But then, there are moments when the true glory of God, His Rachel Balducci power, His sacrifice, the bloody truth of our salvation — when it becomes crystal clear. And the reality of all that God has done, and all that God Is, comes down to earth and meets each one of us where we are. It’s our heritage — bloody, and powerful. And beautiful. Rachel Balducci is a freelance writer from Augusta, Georgia, where she lives with her husband and four boys.

Spirituality

A mellow heart in a bitter time In her novel, A Good House, Bonnie Burnard tells the story of a relatively happy family. But even happy families have unhappy moments where bitterness chills an otherwise warm house. She describes one such incident: A young couple, solid and trusting in their relationship, are having a rather intimate talk one afternoon when the woman’s instincts tell her that her husband is hiding something from her, not necessarily at the level of infidelity, but something that he, for whatever reason, will not share with her. Instantly a door begins to close inside of her, her warmth and trust harden, and she feels the need to protect herself, assert some independence from her husband, and let him know that there are aspects of her life that he doesn’t necessarily know about either. Their intimacy, so warm and trusting just minutes before, dissolves for a while into a certain coolness and distance. What’s happened here? What’s happened is what happens to all of us, spontaneously and daily, in virtually all of our relationships, particularly with those with whom we are most intimate. Such is our emotional metaphysics, the way our hearts try to protect themselves: We tend spontaneously to replicate the energy we feel around us and feed it back in the same way as we feel it. It’s not easy not to do this. More than anything else, our hearts crave the warmth and trust of intimacy, but, precisely because these make us vulnerable, are hearts also tend to close doors rather quickly at the first signs of betrayal, distrust, or dishonesty. Fear, especially, tends to do this to us. Most of our fears and anxieties arise out of a lack of confidence, from a poor self-

image. Then, because we are insecure, we to try to assert ourselves, to prove that we are loveable, attractive, talented, and worthwhile. When we are afraid, we can’t risk vulnerability, instead we try to do things to show that we aren’t weak or needy. But, to do this, we have to harden ourselves precisely against the type of vulnerability that invites others into our lives. Jealousy, especially of a person we love but whose love we can’t have, also creates that same hardness in us. That’s why we can be caught up in that strange anomaly where we are cold, distant, and perhaps even hostile, to a person whose love we badly want. Our coldness and feigned indifference towards that person is simply the heart’s attempt to protect itself, to cope with an intimacy it can’t have and the loss of self-esteem that comes with that. The heart has its reasons, even for turning cold. Given the truth of this, what makes for a truly big heart is the strength to resist this emotional metaphysics and remain mellow, warm, trusting, and present to others in the face of bitterness, coldness, distrust, jealousy, and withdrawal. More than anything else, this is what defines a great lover. This is perhaps the greatest moral challenge Jesus left us: We all do pretty well in love when the persons we are loving are warm and gracious, but can we be gracious and mellow in the face of bitterness, jealousy, hatred, withdrawal? That’s the litmus test of love. It’s also one of the deeper invitations towards maturity. Everywhere in our world - in our most intimate relationships, in our families, in our workplaces, in our churches, and in society as a whole - we forever find ourselves in situations where we meet suspicion, jealousy, coldness, distrust, bitterness, and withdrawal. Our world is often a hard, rather than

an intimate place. The challenge is to offer a heart that creates a space for warmth, transparency, mellowness, vulnerability, and trust inside of hard places. The challenge is to Father offer our hearts as a Ron Rolheiser space within which people can be honest, where nobody has to assert herself, where no games of pretence need be played, and where intimacy isn’t held hostage to the momentary fears, jealousies, hurts, and emotional acting out that forever assail us. And, the more bitter and the more emotionally trying the situation, the more this is needed. When times are bitter, angry, cold, full of disrespect, and fraught with jealousy, when it seems everyone is withdrawing into his or her own world, when most everything seems a lie, and when we are feeling most hurt, taken for granted, slighted, and marginalized, what’s called for is not less, but more, attention to the quality of graciousness and warmth within our response. Bitter times call for, precisely, a deeper response of warmth, mellowness, transparency, truth, and compassion. What’s needed most in a bitter time is a mellow heart. Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author.

JOHN EARLE PHOTO

A Golden Dome opportunity missed

Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 4:8-12; Psalm 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28 29; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18 A READING FROM THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ACTS 4:8-12) Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said: “Leaders of the people and elders: If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a cripple, namely, by what means he was saved, then all of you and all the people of Israel should know that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead; in his name this man stands before you healed. He is the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.” RESPONSORIAL PSALM (PS 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28, 29) R. The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone. or: R. Alleluia. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. R. The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone. or: R. Alleluia. I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me and have been my savior. The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. By the Lord has this been done; it is wonderful in our eyes. R. The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone. or: R. Alleluia. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord;

we bless you from the house of the Lord. I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me and have been my savior. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his kindness endures forever. R. The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone. or: R. Alleluia. A READING FROM THE FIRST LETTER OF SAINT JOHN (1 JN 3:1-2) Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. A READING FROM THE HOLY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN (JN 10:11-18) Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father.”

Scripture FATHER MICHAEL DEMKOVICH, O.P.

Listen for your call The early Church depicted Christ as a young shepherd lovingly caring for his sheep. In today’s Gospel of John we find this image once more. Christ, the Good Shepherd, is the one who lays down his life for his sheep. This is in contrast to the hireling who abandons the sheep, leaving them prey to the dangers at hand. On this Fourth Sunday of Easter we are reminded that it is Christ, who knows each one of us, and that knowing gives us new life. He knows us and he knows the Father whose love He shares with us. This echoes the great command to love God and love our neighbor. But here the knowing of which Christ speaks is one that binds us together. All those who hear his voice are drawn in unity to that one flock that knows the one true Shepherd. Our knowing Christ makes us one. We are no hirelings. The first reading, from Acts, similarly presents this theme of knowing. Knowing the power of Christ’s name at work in our world is what Peter preaches, knowing that Jesus Christ is the keystone. But there is a twist. Peter wants us to know the danger, that of rejecting Jesus Christ in our lives. As Christ knows us and loves us, we for our part, can ignore and refuse to acknowledge Christ in our lives. Most of us would be horrified to think of ourselves as rejecting Christ, of abandoning our faith. But there are other lesser ways in which we reject Christ as the keystone of our life. The truth is we do grow dim in our knowing the light of Christ. In our busy life we forget all too often. We neglect to set time aside in prayer, or attend a class or a retreat, or read a book or article on the Christian life. These are all ways to grow in our knowledge of Christ that we take for granted. Other people too help us to know Christ in our life. Who are the women and men in your life that show you the face of Christ? Do we recognize how Christ is present to us even now? It may be a parent or grand-parent that showed you the love of Christ. For many of us our list will include a priest, or a sister, or a brother.

They have all been women and men who heard the voice of the Good Shepherd and shared that voice with us in our lives. Their vocations help us to grow in knowing Christ. That is why this Sunday, Good Shepherd Sunday, is in many diocese, a day designated as ‘Vocations Sunday’, God’s calling in our lives. Clearly each of us, as a Christian, has a calling that was born from the font of our baptism. Sadly, we may take this vocation as a Christian for granted. If so, we need once again to hear the Shepherd’s voice calling to us amid our daily concerns and the loud drone of all our activities. The vocation to marriage, with its unique call to parenthood, takes on its richest meaning when we, as spouse or as family, together hear God’s word in our lives. When we make time together in worship at Mass, or at prayer in our homes we hear the Shepherd’s call in our hearts. However, today when the clamour of this world rejects Christ, how do people hear God’s call, that unique sense of who I am in God’s heart? If you hear God speaking to your heart don’t ignore such gentle voices. I don’t believe that God suddenly stopped calling people to a religious vocation. Rather, today we so easily put God on hold. You might be into the start of your career and still a voice speaks to you. God calls us, but we for our part, must hear his voice. Don’t reject the cornerstone of your life, don’t refuse Christ’s calling for you. Explore and discover if a religious vocation is part of you. At the end of the day, listening to this call is not wasted time. For the early Church the image of the youthful Christ shepherding his flock was an image of hope, let that same hope be yours. Hear the Shepherd’s voice speaking to your heart. Father Michael Demkovich is the Founding Director of the Dominican Ecclesial Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He also teaches spirituality and world religions at Blackfriars, Oxford.

Pope Benedict’s Prayer for Vocations The following prayer was written by Pope Benedict XVI for the 43rd World Day of Prayer for Vocations observed this Sunday, May 7.

Saint John the Evangelist at Patmos (detail) – Hieronymus Bosch, 1504-1505.

O Father, raise up among Christians numerous and holy vocations to the priesthood, to keep the faith alive and guard the gracious memory of your Son Jesus through the preaching of his word and the administration of the Sacraments, with which you continually renew your faithful. Give us holy ministers of your altar, who are careful and fervent guardians of the Eucharist, the sacrament of the supreme gift of Christ for the redemption of the world. Call ministers of your mercy, who, through the sacrament of Reconciliation, spread the joy of your forgiveness. Grant, O Father, that the Church may welcome with joy numerous inspirations of the Spirit of your Son and, docile to His teachings, may she care for vocations to the ministerial priesthood and to the consecrated life. Sustain the Bishops, priests and deacons, consecrated men and women, and all the baptized in Christ, so that they may faithfully fulfil their mission at the service of the Gospel. This we pray You through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

Archeologists discover unusal network of burial chambers in Rome

obituaries

Sister M. Charles McCarthy, SHF Sister M. Charles McCarthy, a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family for 73 years, died at the age of 95 at the Motherhouse in Fremont April 24. Sister Charles was born Sept. 12, 1910 in San Francisco to Charles and Jane McCarthy. Sister Charles entered the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family July 1, 1933. She received a Master of Science Degree in Social Work in 1945 from Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. In her ministries as a Religious Education Teacher and Coordinator, she served at parishes throughout California and Nevada. She also served at Holy Family Day Home in San

Francisco and St. Elizabeth’s Day Home in San Jose. Additionally, Sister Charles served as Assistant Chaplain at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco for a number of years. A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated April 27 at the Motherhouse Chapel of the Sisters of the Holy Family in Fremont, with internment at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma. The Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family was founded in San Francisco, and established the first day care center in the City. Contributions may be made to the works of the Sisters of the Holy Family, P.O. Box 3248, Fremont, CA 94539.

Margaret Roach, NCCW official WAUKEGAN, Ill. (CNS) — A funeral Mass was celebrated April 25 at Holy Family Church in Waukegan for Margaret C. “Peggy” Roach, a former official of the National Council of Catholic Women whose work in civil rights led President Lyndon B. Johnson to give her one of the pens he used to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When President Richard M. Nixon replaced Holy Cross Father Theodore Hesburgh, president of the University of Notre Dame, as chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights because of his criticism of the Nixon administration’s civil rights record, Roach gave the pen to Father Hesburgh.

Roach, 78, died of cancer April 20 at the Waukegan home she shared with her sisters, Helen and Jane Roach. A memorial Mass for Roach was celebrated April 28 at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago. In addition to her work as social action secretary of the Catholic women’s organization from 1962 to 1966, Roach worked as executive secretary of the Chicago Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women and assistant director of the Chicago Catholic Interracial Council. She also had been executive director of the Catholic Committee on Urban Ministry in Notre Dame, Ind.; director of the religious leaders program at the Center for Pastoral and

By John Thavis ROME (CNS) — Archaeologists repairing a Roman catacomb have discovered an unusual network of underground burial chambers containing the elegantly dressed corpses of more than 1,000 people, a Rome official said. The rooms appear to date back to the second century and are thought to be a place of early Christian burial. Because of the large number of bodies deposited over a relatively short period, experts believe a natural disaster or epidemic may have occurred at the time. The corpses, dressed in fine clothes embroidered with gold thread, were carefully wrapped in sheets and covered in lime. Balsamic fragrances were also applied, according to Raffaella Giuliani, chief inspector of the Roman catacombs, who spoke with Vatican Radio May 1. The discovery will be officially presented in June by the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology, which excavated the site in collaboration with Rome’s Ecole Francaise and the University of Bordeaux in France. Social Ministry at Notre Dame; administrative assistant to Msgr. John J. Egan, director of human relations and ecumenism for the Chicago Archdiocese; and assistant to the president of DePaul University. “Peggy was the epitome of the velvet

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Giuliani said the burial chambers were found accidentally in 2003, when experts were repairing a cave-in located in the Catacomb of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, one of Rome’s lesser-known catacombs that is closed to the public. The archaeologists discovered a large room behind one of the painted walls of the catacombs, then a series of similar rooms. “These were not galleries or cubicles, but big rooms completely full of skeletons. We had to work very carefully to excavate them without destroying them,” Giuliani said. “We were amazed at the high number of individual corpses found in these rooms,” she said. The rooms appear to predate the catacombs, which were built in the third century. Giuliani said the experts believe they were Christian burial places, in part because Christians of that time dedicated great care to burial. Early Christians buried rich and poor with great dignity, in expectation of the resurrection of the dead — a fact that helps explain the presence in Rome of more than 50 miles of underground catacombs. glove, a force for social justice cloaked in the mantle of the gentlest of women,” Fran Casey, director of community affairs at DePaul and a longtime friend of Roach, said in a statement. “She had the gift of being able to connect with everyone she met ... no matter the age, the background or the position.”

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Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

‘United 93’ honors the passengers who fought back Reviewed by Peter T. Chattaway It is all too easy to imagine the ways in which the first major film about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 could have gone wrong. On the one hand, it could have served as wartime propaganda, using the horrific events of that day to paint a mythic portrait of incipient heroism, full of stirring music and bold close-ups on the passengers as they rise to their feet with a cry of “Let’s roll!” On the other hand, it could have bent over backward to give the story nuance, putting words in the terrorists’ mouths designed to keep their hostages forever in doubt about the rightness of their decision to fight back, a la Steven Spielberg’s Munich. But thankfully, United 93—which chronicles the hijacked flight that ultimately crashed into a Pennsylvania field, instead of its intended target in Washington, D.C.—avoids both of these approaches. Instead of anything so nakedly artificial, writer-director Paul Greengrass presents the events of that morning with a straightforward, matter-of-fact naturalism, as though he simply happened to have cameras in all the right places when the hijackings took place, catching the events as they unfolded. As with his earlier film Bloody Sunday, which concerned a Northern Irish civil-rights march that was attacked by British troops in 1972, he relies on hand-

held cinematography and a cast made up mostly of unknowns to make his reconstruction of an historical event as realistic and documentary-like as possible. The effect is to let the viewer draw his or her own conclusion from these events. But this is not to say that the film never steers our emotions, or our sympathies. Even though we know how the story will end, we do not know quite how it will get there, and Greengrass builds a fair bit of tension through careful edits and an ominous score, the latter courtesy of John Powell. As passengers and crew prepare for their flight, we see someone refuel the plane, and the word “flammable” is briefly, prominently displayed in the frame; normally, this might be an innocent detail, but in this story, we know exactly what it portends. The film also creates tension by introducing new “facts” that might not have occurred to us before. In one scene, the air traffic controllers can only watch helplessly as one of the hijacked planes, having deviated from its original course, seems to be on a unintentional collision course with another plane. And when the passengers aboard Flight 93 band together to fight back against the terrorists, they check first to see if any of them have the experience necessary to land the plane safely once they have taken it back; we know that they will never get the chance to do so, but for a moment, we hope that they might.

Perhaps most significantly, and daringly, the film creates tension by putting the terrorists at the center of the movie and allowing us to identify with them, sort of. They, after all, are the only ones who know what’s coming, just as we who watch the movie know what’s coming. As Flight 93 takes off from Newark, New Jersey, the terrorists look out the window at the World Trade Center towers in the distance, and unlike every other passenger on that plane, they know exactly what is going to happen to those buildings within the next half-hour—two other hijacked

airliners will crash into the buildings, ultimately leveling them both and killing some 3,000 people. The terrorists also seem to share our apprehension. One of the reasons the hijackers aboard Flight 93 failed to reach Washington, D.C. may be that they waited too long before taking over the plane, resulting in a much longer flight back east—and Greengrass speculates that the leader may have hesitated to go ahead with the plan, until his frustrated comrades pushed him. Early on, the film even goes so UNITED 93, page 19

Help Us Build a New Church to Honor Blessed Father Damien DeVeuster, Hero of Molokai — Hero of Humanity Aloha from the Hawaiian Island of Molokai! In the 19th century a Belgian Sacred Heart priest, Father Damien DeVeuster, selflessly served the Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patients who had been exiled to Kalaupapa, a remote peninsula of Molokai, Hawaii. For 16 years, Father Damien lived with the patients, bandaging their wounds, building houses and coffins, burying the dead, and bringing the faith to the unchurched. Ultimately, Father Damien became one with the patients, succumbing to Hansen’s disease at age 49 and passing away during Holy Week 1889. Blessed Mother Teresa considered Father Damien her role model in her work with the sick and abandoned patients of Calcutta. In 1995, Pope John Paul II declared Father Damien, Blessed Damien. We, the Molokai Catholic Community, are entrusted with telling the Blessed Damien story and legacy of love. On Sundays, at St. Sophia Church in Kaunakakai, the main town of Molokai, our parishioners and visitors stand outside the doors and sit on folding chairs in the church carport. Time, weather, and termite infestation have taken a toll on St. Sophia Church, a modest wooden structure built in 1946. Our dream is simple-to build a new church to replace St. Sophia in the name of Blessed Damien-Hero of Molokai, Hero of Humanity. Join the Molokai Catholic Community in celebrating Blessed Damien Day on May 10. Help us honor Blessed Damien by making a gift in his memory or in the memory of a loved one to the Blessed Damien Church of Molokai Building Fund. Any gift that you make to the Blessed Damien Building Fund will be humbly appreciated. We look forward to the day when Blessed Damien will be added to the canon of saints. We dedicate this building effort to him, and we commit to continuing the mission that he began here over 150 years ago. Please join us.

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United 93 . . . ■ Continued from page 18 far as to show the leader placing a call to someone and saying “I love you,” just as his victims will do. Is Greengrass humanizing the enemy? Of course. But none of the other hijackers is shown doing this—and the film may be suggesting that it was the leader’s very humanity that held him back, for a while. The other passengers are treated as a group, more than as individuals; Greengrass is more interested in the social dynamics aboard that plane than he is in any single person, and besides, until the plane is hijacked, the passengers are almost all strangers to one another anyway. It’s not even clear which of the passengers is Todd Beamer; when the phrase “Let’s roll”—spoken by Beamer, a Christian—is finally uttered, the camera is not looking at anyone in particular, but down the aisle that the passengers are about to rush. Nevertheless, individual persons do stand out. A flight attendant tries in vain to sound reassuring even when things are going very wrong; a doctor tries to attend to a wounded passenger but is forced back into her seat; and an appeaser insists right to the end that they should not fight back because the terrorists will merely hold them for ransom and then let them go. (This passenger speaks with a German accent, so he may or may not represent European opposition to the “war on terror.”)

Likewise, the situation on the ground. Greengrass captures the shock and confusion among the military officers and air traffic controllers (several of whom play themselves) as the hijackings multiply, the buildings are destroyed, and the various federal bodies fail utterly to communicate with each other. And while a few faces stand out, it is the broader changes in mood that matter here. Some of the authorities take the first hijacking in their stride, chuckling that hijackings are so costly and old-fashioned; but then things get very serious, and they slowly realize that they are witnessing nothing less than an act of war. The film does not shy away from the religious dimensions of that fateful day. From the very first scene to the very last, the terrorists pray; and if the passengers don’t have much reason to pray until the last section of the movie, the film does hint at the religiosity of the culture from which they come, and foreshadow their own prayers, by noting a “God bless America” sign by the side of the road as the terrorists make their way to the airport. The film is very intense, and it may be too much for some people, especially if they see it in a crowded theatre, and especially if they see it in certain cities. Some people have asked if anybody needs to see this movie. To that, the simple answer is: As with all movies, some do, and some don’t. The more important question, and it’s a rather different one, is whether this movie needed to be made.

Reverse Mortgage Seminar Date: Thursday, May 18, 2006 Time: 9:30 am Taraval Community Room (S.F.) – FREE Breakfast Miren R. Alvarez, Reverse Mortgage Specialist

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Catholic San Francisco

(CNS PHOTO/UNIVERSAL)

May 5, 2006

Lewis Alsamari, left, and Jamie Harding star in a scene from the movie “United 93.”

And the short answer to that is: Absolutely, yes, it did. For better or worse, things and people often seem more real to us when they become the subject of a movie, and films are one of the primary means by which we collectively process the world around us. So it would be strange indeed if filmmakers continued to ignore the most pivotal moment in recent history. A portion of this film’s revenues will be donated to the

Flight 93 memorial fund, and in a way, the film—produced with the support of the victims’ families—is itself a memorial of sorts. It honors the passengers who fought back by visualizing their experience and imprinting it on our screens for years to come. This review originally appeared in Christianity Today. Used with permission.

Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

Reviewer calls ‘Hoot’ refreshing NEW YORK (CNS) — In a relatively short time, Walden Media has established itself as a family-friendly powerhouse by producing high-grade screen adaptations of children’s book classics, including delightful films like “Because of Winn-Dixie,” “Holes” and last year’s hugely successful “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” Walden’s newest offering, “Hoot” (New Line), based on Carl Hiaasen’s 2003 Newbery recipient and directed by Wil Shriner, fits the wholesome mold of those films, but the end result is less satisfying. Set in the fictional Floridian hamlet of Coconut Grove, the story centers on perennial “new kid” Roy Eberhardt (Logan Lerman), an eighth-grader adjusting to his family’s sixth move in eight years. While he resents the constant uprooting, Roy has a loving relationship with his mom (Kiersten Warren) and dad (Neil Flynn), whose job with the Justice Department accounts for their map-hopping. During a painful “welcome” at the hands of a schoolyard bully, Roy spies a fleet-footed wild boy (Cody Linley) outrunning the school bus. Intrigued, his curiosity leads him to befriend tough-girl Beatrice (Brie Larson), who guardedly reveals that the enigmatic sprinter — known only as “Mullet Fingers” — is her stepbrother. The secretive siblings enlist Roy in their crusade to save a colony of burrowing owls, whose habitat is threatened by a real-estate developer who hopes to bulldoze the endangered birds’ nesting zone to make way for a flapjack franchise. These positive elements are handicapped somewhat by a weak script and a slow-starting plot, and the saucer-eyed critters get very little screen time.

(CNS PHOTO/NEW LINE)

By David DiCerto

San Damiano Retreat MAY 12-14

2006 THEME:

Logan Lerman, left, and Brie Larson star in a scene from the movie “Hoot.”

But with quality family entertainment an endangered species, it’s worth giving a “hoot” to movies that buck the trend. The film contains some schoolyard bullying and a few mildly crass expressions. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

EWTN TV to examine ‘Da Vinci Code’ Shortly before its film debut, EWTN will examine the “Da Vinci Code” and its numerous errors. Father Benedict Groeschel’s May 14 Sunday Night Live program is title “The Da Vinci Code Revisited: Getting Ready for the Nonsense.” It airs live at 4 p.m. and encores May 14 at 11 p.m., May 15 at 6 a.m. and May 20 at 2 p.m. In a one hour special program, Father Mitch Pacwa will interview Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel, coauthors of “The Da Vinci Hoax,” a popular book debunking “The Code.” The program focuses on a number of topics found in the book, including the Gnostic Gospels, Emperor Constantine, the Council of Nicaea, Mary Magdalene, and Da Vinci himself. It airs May 17 at 7 p.m. and encores May 19 at 7 a.m. EWTN is carried on Comcast Digital Channel 229; RCN Channel 80; DISH Satellite Channel 261; and Direct TV Channel 422. Comcast Airs EWTN on Channel 70 in Half Moon Bay and on Channel 74 in southern San Mateo County.

DiCerto is on the staff of the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting.

Longing For Communion

5-Day Silent MAY 19 Contemplative 6 CEU’s Retreat

Fr. Rusty Shaughnessy, MAY 31 OFM Teach Us to Pray

FOLLOWING OUR NIGHT DREAMS TO DEEPER AWARENESS Dr. Jeremy Taylor

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CALIFORNIA

Film director guests on Mosaic On the TV program Mosaic Sunday, May 7, host Tom Burke will interview Leonardo Defilippis, the director of the movie ‘Story of St. Therese de Lisieux.’ Mosaic airs on the first Sunday of the month at 5 a.m. on KPIX Channel 5.

GRIEF RETREAT Carol Kaplan, MFT MAGNIFICAT OF MARY Fr. Evan Howard, OFM

JUNE 2-4

San Damiano retreat

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JULY 23-26 MAY 26-28

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ST. CLARE’S RETREAT Santa Cruz

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Reservations for weekends must be made by mail and accompanied by a $10 non-refundable deposit per person.

25 RUSSIA AVENUE SAN FRANCISCO Since 1937

May 19-21

Legion of Mary Retreat for Men and Women Fr. Antoninus Wall, O.P. “The Sacraments: Living in Christ”

Lunch & Dinner Wednesday, Thursday & Friday

May 26-29

Chinese Cursillo

June 14-21

Sisters’ Intercommunity Retreat Fr. Antoninus Wall, O.P. “Journey to God”

June 26-30

Conventual Franciscans

July 7-9

Silent Retreat for Women (Chartered bus from San Francisco) Fr. Serge Propst, O.P. “Deepening Prayer into Contemplation”

Banquet Facilities Available (including our elegant “Columbus Room”)

Great Food • Reasonable Prices

415-585-8059 Parking lot across from club Manager: Rich Guaraldi, a YMI member

(Catholics at Work)

The Catholic Professional and Business Club invites you to it’s monthly meeting WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 2006 7:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

RETREATS MEETINGS

SELL VALLOMBROSA CENTER your house,

LEFTY O’DOULS 333 Geary Boulevard, San Francisco

Angela Alioto, Esq.

car,

About the Catholic and Professional Business Club (CP&BC) (also known as “Catholics at Work”) You are invited to become a member of the CP&BC of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The Club meets for breakfast on the second Wednesday of the month. Catholic people come together to share our common faith, to network, to hear speakers on pertinent topics, and to discuss ways to incorporate our Catholic spirituality and ethics in the workplace. To become a member, or to make a reservation for the upcoming meeting, please visit our website at www.cpbc.-sf.org, or fill out the form below and send it along with your payment.

Questions? Call (415) 614-5579 Enclosed is my check made payable to “CPBC_ADSF” for: ___ Annual Membership (s) at $45.00 each $ __________ ___ Breakfast (s) on May 10, 2006 at $20 per member, $27 per non-member $ __________ TOTAL: $ __________ NAME: ____________________________________________ Pleae send form and ADDRESS: ________________________________________ payment to: __________________________________________________ CITY, STATE, ZIP ___________________________________ CPBC, Attn: John Norris One Peter Yorke Way PHONE: ___________________________________________ E-Mail: ___________________________________________ San Francisco, CA 94109

Conferences and Meetings Retreats and Spirituality Programs JUNE 9 – 11, 2006 “The Sophia Tradition: Rediscovering the feminine manifestation of God” Father Kevin Kennedy

JOIN US FOR BREAKFAST – WITH THE LEADER OF SAN FRANCISCO’S ACCLAIMED HOMELESS PROGRAMS Angela Alioto, former Supervisor and candidate for mayor, will talk about the approach to homelessness that has gotten positive attention around the United States. Angela is an energetic politician, but she is also a passionate Catholic and will share with us how she is able to live out her Catholic values in the secular world of politics. Come and be prepared to get excited!

(831) 423-8093 • Fax: (831) 423-1541

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Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

Taize Prayer 3rd Wed. at 7:30 p.m.: Sisters of Notre Dame Province Center, 1520 Ralston Ave, Belmont. Call (650) 593-2045 ext. 277 or visit www.SistersofNotreDameCa.org. 1st Fri. at 8 p.m.: Mercy Center, 2300 Adeline Dr., Burlingame with Mercy Sister Suzanne Toolan. Call (650) 340-7452; Church of the Nativity, 210 Oak Grove Ave., Menlo Park at 7:30 p.m. Call Deacon Dominic Peloso at (650) 322-3013. 2nd Fri. at 8 p.m.: Our Lady of the Pillar, 400 Church St., Half Moon Bay. Call (650) 726-4674.

Datebook

Returning Catholics Programs for Catholics interested in returning to the Church, have been established at the following parishes: Marin County: St. Hilary, Tiburon, Mary Musalo, (415) 435-2775; St. Anselm, Ross, call (415) 4532342; St. Sebastian, Greenbrae, Jean Mariani at (415) 461-7060; Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Mill Valley, Rick Dullea at (415) 388-4190; St. Mary Star of the Sea, Sausalito, Lloyd Dulbecco at (415) 331-7949. San Francisco: Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, SF, Michael Adams at (415) 695-2707; St. Philip the Apostle, 725 Diamond St. at Elizabeth/24th, SF. Call (415) 282-0141; St. Dominic, SF, Lee Gallery at (415) 221-1288; Holy Name of Jesus, SF, (415) 664-8590. San Mateo County: St. Bartholomew, San Mateo, Dan Stensen at (650) 344-5665; St. Catherine of Siena, Burlingame, Silvia Chiesa at (650) 685-8336; Our Lady of Angels, Burlingame, Holy Names Sister Pat Hunter at (650) 375-8023; St. Dunstan, Millbrae, Dianne Johnston at (650) 697-0952; Our Lady of the Pillar, Half Moon Bay, Meghan at (650) 726-4337; St. Peter, Pacifica, Sylvia Miles at (650) 355-6650, Jerry Trecroci at (650) 355-1799, Frank Erbacher at (650) 355-4355; St. Matthew, San Mateo. Jim Shea at (650) 344-7622.

Food & Fun May 6: Hawaiian Luau and Spring BBQ benefiting Immaculate Conception Academy, 24th and Guerrero St. in San Francisco from 4 p.m. “Great fun and food with entertainment from ICA students,” the school said. Tickets are $15 adults/$8 children under 10. Call (415) 824-2052. May 13: Moriarty Hall Gala, 6 p.m. – midnight at St. Anne of the Sunset, 850 Judah St. at Funston. Archbishop George Niederauer is scheduled to formally bless the new building as a prelude to the event. Atirre is semi-formal. Tickets are $100 per person. Call (415) 665-1600, ext. 21. May 13: St. Sebastian’s hosts11TH Annual “Whale of a Sale”, 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. Spaces are $35 early bird, $50 after April 15th. Sell your crafts or household items and keep all proceeds. Benefits the Saint Vincent DePaul Conference. Take a space and raise money for your group or club. For information or reservations contact Kathie Meier, 461-4133 or email, whaleofasale@comcast.net or visit http://www.sswhaleofasale.com. May 20: Internaional Food Festival at St. Dunstan Parish 1133 Broadway, Millbrae from 5 – 9 p.m. featuring cuisine from around the world. Also enjoy entertainment, children’s activities, plus silent and live auctions. Proceeds benefit St. Dunstan school. Tickets are $35 adults, $20 seniors (65+), and $15 for children between the ages of 5 and 14. Age 4 and under are free. Proceeds will benefit St. Dunstan’s Parish School. Call (650) 697-8119. June 9, 10, 11: Church of the Nativity’s 26th Annual Carnival with thrilling rides, live entertainment, Kiddie Land, auctions, dinners and more. Fri.: 5 – 11 p.m.; Sat.: noon – 11 p.m.; Sun.: noon – 7 p.m. Free admission and parking. Call (650) 323-7914.

1st Sun, 5 a.m., CBS Channel 5: Mosaic, featuring conversations on current Catholic issues. 3rd Sun, 5:30 a.m., KRON Channel 4: For Heaven’s Sake, featuring conversations about Catholic spirituality.

Shows/Entertainment

Reunions

May, 6, 7: Easter Play at Mission Dolores Auditorium on May 6 at 6 p.m. and May 7 at 3 p.m. Call 415 621 3279 1st and 3rd Tues.: Noontime Concerts – 12:30 p.m. - at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, 660 California St. at Grant, SF. $5 donation requested. Call (415) 2883800. Sundays: Concerts at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Gough and Geary St., SF at 3:30 p.m. Call (415) 567-2020 ext. 213. Open to the public. Admission free.

June 10: Presentation High School, class of ’51 at Basque Cultiral Center in South San Francisco at 11:30 a.m. Contact Yvonne Irick at (650) 941-1294 or Audrey Trees at (650) 592-0273. July 8: Class of ’56 from Notre Dame des Victoires High School. Call Marilyn Donnelly at (650) 365-5192. Aug. 26: The Class of ‘ 60 Turns, a reunion of said grads from St. Cecilia Elementary School at El Rancho Inn in Millbrae. Contact Joanne Hicks McGlothlin at (650) 952-3673. Oct. 15: Star of the Sea Academy, class of ’56 at El Rancho Inn in Millbrae. Contact Natalie Nalducci Sandell at (415) 453-3687 or Diane Donohoe Mulligan at (415) 664-7977. San Mateo’s St. Matthew Elementary School will soon mark its 75th year. Graduates and former students should contact Nancy Desler Carroll ’83 at (650) 372-9536 or nancy.carroll@rcn.com. More too at school Web site, www.stmatthewcath.org/alumni.

TV/Radio Sunday 6 a.m., WB Channel 20/Cable 13 and KTSF Channel 26/Cable 8: TV Mass with Msgr. Harry Schlitt presiding. May 6: Members of the public are invited to undergo free skin cancer screenings at a UCSF community event that is part of a national effort to set a new Guinness world record. The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion, 1701 Divisadero Street, 3rd Floor in San Francisco. No appointment is necessary. The event is part of a nationwide goal to screen one million Americans for skin cancer in a single day and set the new record. Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer. Up to one half of fair-skinned Americans will develop some form of skin cancer, and one of every 65 Americans will develop melanoma. Nearly 90 percent of skin cancers are preventable, and through early detection, most are highly curable. In addition to receiving a free skin cancer screening, participants also will be educated about sun protection and self skin examinations. For more information about the event, visit www.aad.org or call (415) 353-7800.

Meetings 2nd Wed.: Men’s Evening of Reflection: Being Catholic in the Modern World at the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, 610 Vallejo St. at Columbus, SF beginning at 7 p.m. Call (415) 983-0405. Courage is a Catholic support group for persons with same-sex attraction. They meet in San Francisco Thursdays at 7:45 PM. Call Father Emmerich Vogt at 415-567-7824 or Father Lawrence Goode at 650-322-2152.

Volunteer Opportunities

Fifth graders from St. Elizabeth Elementary School took an educational field trip aboard the Hawaiian Chieftain. The trip let the boys and girls carry out duties similar to those of early explorers said teacher, Michael Carey.

Prayer/Lectures/Trainings May 6: 1st Saturday Mass at Holy Cross Cemetery, Colma in All Saints Mausoleum at 11 a.m. Call (650) 756-2060. May 13: Morning of Prayer: “Cultivating Hope” - 9:30 11:30 a.m. Notre Dame Province Center, 1520 Ralston Ave., Belmont. www.SistersofNotreDameCA.org or (650) 593-2045 x277 The series, “To Live in Hope in Today’s World,” continues with a time of prayer and reflection on cultivating hope in our lives and offering hope to our world. May 15: The Art of Dying Well, a Bio-ethics Seminar by the SF Guild of the Catholic Medical Association at Heart of Mary Center, 2580 McAllister St. in San Francisco at 7:30 p.m. Thomas Cavanaugh, Ph.D. and Dr. Stephen

McPhee will facilitate the evening. Donation $15. Call (415) 219-8719. May 24: Parish Rosary Hour at St. Peter and Paul Church, 666 Filbert St. on Washington Square at 7:30 p.m. Sponsored by parish Holy Name Society. Parking lot open. Refreshments follow. Saturdays: Prayer meeting at St. Hilary Church, 761 Hilary Dr. Tiburon, at 9:30 a.m. Father James Tarantino, presiding. Hospitality follows. All are welcome. Call Moriah at (415) 756-5505 Saturdays: Bible Study at St. Hilary Church, 761 Hilary Dr. Tiburon, 12:30 - 2:00 p.m. All are welcome. Call Moriah (415) 756-5505.

Consolation Ministry Grief Groups meet at the following parishes. Please call numbers shown for more information. 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 Sr. 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 Sr. 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 Sr. Jeanette at 415-897-2171. San Francisco: St. Dominic. Call Sr. Anne at 415567-7824; St. Finn Barr(Bilingual). Call Carmen Solis at 415-584-0823; St. Gabriel. Call Elaine Khalaf at 415-564-7882. Young Widow/Widower Group: St. Gregory, San Mateo. Call Barbara Elordi at 415-614-5506. 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 650-558-1015. Information regarding grief ministry in general call Barbara Elordi at 415-614-5506.

Friendship, Family & Faith

Do you have a few hours each week to spare? St. Anthony Foundation can use your help. For more than 55 years, St. Anthony Foundation has worked to provide for the physical and emotional needs of the poor and homeless. A staple of its12 programs is the support of more than 500 volunteers. If you are interested in sharing the gift of time with St. Anthony Foundation in its free Dining Room or other programs, please call (415) 241- 2600 for more information. Weekday volunteers are especially needed - www.stanthonysf.org. St. Anthony Padua Dining Room in Menlo Park needs volunteers Wed., Thurs, and Sat. from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. to help prepare and serve noon meals. More than 500 people daily are helped by the program. Call (650) 365-9664. St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco needs your help at its Help Desk. Service includes sorting donations and helping clients. If anyone would like to volunteer - also small groups of volunteers one Saturday a month - they should call (415) 202-9955.” St. Vincent de Paul of San Mateo County needs Spanish/English-speaking volunteers to answer phones in 2 – 3 hour shifts between 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. at their offices, 50 No. B St., San Mateo. Volunteers do intake of clients’ requests, log the call and enter into Access-based computer data system. Call (650) 373-0620. Pathways Home Health & Hospice urgently needs volunteers. Trainings begin on February 25 in Redwood City and April 1 in South San Francisco. For more information or to enroll in a training call Vivian Wan at (650) 808-4604 or vwan@pathwayshealth.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.

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Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

Catholic

HELPLINES FOR CLERGY/CHURCH SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIMS

For Information Call: 415-614-5642 Fax: 415-614-5641 Email: penaj@sfarchdiocese.org

Tell our advertisers you saw their ad in

415-614-550 If you wish to speak to a non-archdiocesan employee please call this nunmber. This is also a secured line and is answered only by a victim survivor.

Catholic San Francisco

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For Advertising Information Call 415-614-5642 E-mail: penaj@sfarchdiocese.org

Help Wanted COORDINATOR OF YOUTH MINISTRY

Several full-time parish positions in the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon. Competitive salaries and benefits.Training and continuing education opportunities. Opening in western Oregon include metroplitan, suburban, small town, rural, coastal and southern parishes. Strong emphasis on coordinating the implementation of Renewing the Vision.

SEND COVER LETTER AND RESUME TO: CYM Openings, Youth & Young Adult Ministry Office, 2838 East Burnside Street, Portland, OR 97214

PLUMBING

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PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER DIOCESE OF PHOENIX This position develops and implements programs, procedures and processes relating to public communications and media relations. Min. Qualifications: Bachelor’s in Communications, Public Relations, or Journalism; 5 yrs working experience in a related position, preferably in a broadcast/media setting; & an active practicing Roman Catholic in full communion with the Church. Must have good working knowledge of the Catholic Church in order to give accurate information to the media; ability to speak and represent the Diocese on camera; ability to take on tough issues and remain calm under fire by the media; ability to demonstrate a high level of professionalism; ability to maintain confidentiality; proficiency in verbal and written communication skills; ability to achieve the professional confidence of others; proven ability to develop media contacts; must have a basic working knowledge of advertising; and must be computer literate and have a working knowledge of Microsoft software applications. Bilingual in English/Spanish preferred. Competitive benefits package, salary, DOE.

Email resume with cover letter to: applicants@diocesephoenix.org, send to HR, Diocese of Phoenix, 400 E. Monroe, Phoenix, AZ 85004, or fax to (602) 354-2428.

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Classifieds

415-614-5506 This number is answered by Barbara Elordi, Archdiocesan Pastoral Outreach Coordinator.This is a secured line and is answered only by Barbara Elordi.

SERVICE DIRECTORY

San

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SPIRITUAL HEALING

PROMPT AND UNPARALLELED SERVICE

Painting, roof repair, fence (repair/ build) demolition, carpenter, gutter (clean/ repair), skylight repairs, landscaping, gardening, hauling, moving, janitorial. All purpose.

Call Cell

(650) 557-1263 CELL (415) 205-2801 PAGER (415) 313-0195 EMAIL: bestplumbinginc@sbcglobal.net

(650) 757-1946 (650) 517-5977

ALL PLUMBING WORK PAT HOLLAND CA LIC #817607

NOT A LICENSED CONTRACTOR

FINE SERVICE, BETTER EVENTS.

BONDED & INSURED

415-205-1235

Handyman Carpentry, Cabinetry, Painting,Refinishing Floors and Furniture, Door & Window Instal.,Cement Work. Se habla Español & Tagalog. Serving also the East Bay, Contra Costa,&Marin Counties

415-239-8491 not a licensed contractor

Painting & Remodeling John Holtz Ca. Lic 391053 General Contractor Since 1980

(650) 355-4926

Painting & Remodeling •Interiors •Exteriors •Kitchens •Baths

Expert Plumbing Repairs ●

General Repairs Clean Drains & Sewers Water Heaters ●

●

SANTI PLUMBING & HEATING

FAMILY OWNED

415-661-3707

Catholic San Francisco GENERAL CONTRACTOR

Gydesen Const., Inc. General Contractor ● ●

Featuring Pressure Washing ● Repairs ● Safety Grab Bars ●

MICHAEL A. GYDESEN Lic. # 778332

(650) 355-8858

GARAGE DOOR REPAIR

Discount

Garage Door

NOTICE TO READERS

Contractors State License Board 800-321-2752

Lic. # 663641

24 HR

Tell our advertisers you saw their ad in

Contractor inspection reports and pre-purchase consulting

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 statelicensed. Advertisments appearing in this newspaper without a license number indicate that the contractor is not licensed. For more information, contact:

PARTY RENTALS

HOLLAND Plumbing Works San Francisco

Repair Lic #376353

Broken Spring/Cable? Operator Problems? Lifetime Warranty All New Doors/Motors

One Price 24 /7

COUNSELING TABLES SEATING LINENS SETTINGS SERVEWARE STAGING

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. Inner Child Healing Offers a deep spiritual and psychological approach to counseling: ❖ 30 years experience with individuals, couples and groups ❖ Directed, effective and results-oriented ❖ Compassionate and Intuitive ❖ Supports 12-step ❖ Enneagram Personality Transformation

ABBEY party rents sf

1- 800-717-PARTY 411 ALLAN STREET DALY CITY, CA 94014 FAX 415-715-6914 TEL 415-715-6900

WWW.ABBEYRENTSSF.COM

PHOTO RESTORATION

Lila Caffery, MA, CCHT San Francisco: 415.337.9474 Belmont: 650.888.2873 Complimentary phone consultation www.InnerChildHealing.com

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

• Relationships • Addictions

Dr. Daniel J. Kugler Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Over 25 years experience

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

AUTO SALES

REAL ESTATE SPECIALIZING IN SAN MATEO COUNTY REAL ESTATE If I can be of service to you, or if you know of anyone who is interested in buying or selling a home, please do not hesitate to call me . . .

Wally Mooney Auto Broker

650-244-9255 Spells Wally 650-740-7505 Cell Phone

415-931-1540

All Mfg. Warranty: Rebates and Special Dealer Finacing goes to Registered Owner/s

0% Financing Available

St. Robert’s Parish San Bruno

P.O. Box 214 San Bruno, CA 94066

* Parishioner of St. Gregory’s Church, San Mateo

Today

MIKE TEIJEIRO Realtor (650) 523-5815 m.teijeiro@remax.net

May 5, 2006

Catholic San Francisco

For Advertising Information

Classifieds

Call: 415-614-5642

DENTAL DIRECTORY SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY

SUNNY ONE-BEDROOM GARDEN APT., $800 per mo., utilities included. Inner Sunset near Judah. Catholic woman preferred.

SAN MATEO COUNTY

WILLIAM L. FAMILY DENTISTRY Specializing in Cosmetic GALLAGHER, Procedures including Invisalign Invisible D.D.S. Braces, and Zoom! FAMILY DENTISTRY

2 Teeth Whitening.

2345 Noriega Street

DOUGLAS D. BOUCHER, D.D.S. 825 OAK GROVE AVE., MENLO PARK (650) 325-8030

(415) 731-0816

DR. ERICH K. HABELT Family, Cosmetics, Implant Dentistry 2033 TARAVAL STREET

(415) 665-8397

cfrankie68@hotmail.com

Piano Lessons

By a Conservatory Graduate

Adult Beginners Yearly Recitals At Clarion Hotel $50 mo. once a week lesson

650-583-4796

Spain & Portugal

tour

THE BEST OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL OCT 6 – 21, 2006 A CULTURAL, HISTORICAL, AND SPIRITUAL TOUR Barcelona, Madrid, Avila, Toledo, Seville, Granada, Lisbon Featuring the Marian Shrines of Montserrat, Pilar and Fatima Roundtrip from San Francisco, First Class Hotels, Deluxe Coach, Festive Dinners 3,995.00 per person plus tax Sponsored by St. Apollinaris Parish, Napa $

For information and brochure conact Susan at (707) 257-1804 or spk@napanet.net

Books & Gifts SPECIAL FIRST COMMUNION GIFTS

FOR THAT SPECIAL BOY OR GIRL!

Rosaries, Medals, Statues, Children Missals, Books, Bibles, Picture Frames, Communion Gift Sets. We have Confirmation Gifts too!

off

Please confirm your event before contracting music!

PIANO LESSONS BY

CAROL FERRANDO. Conservatory training, masters degree, all levels of students. CALL (415) 921-8337.

SF native seeking caregiver work for elderly woman. Excellent refs, over 15 yrs. experience, part- or full-time, with car.

Caregiver/domestic help available, 5 years experience, excellent local references.

(415) 252-8312

Please leave a message.

(415) 368-6317.

Children of all levels

3500 Callan Blvd. South San Francisco, CA First Floor space available

Call Charley Haggarty (650) 344-3044

Worship Services, Catholic Experience Marie DuMabeiller 415-441-3069, Page: 823-3664 VISA, MASTERCARD Accepted

Piano Lessons

Piano Caregiver Caregiver Lessons Available Available

DENTAL OFFICE SPACE FOR LEASE

20%

Email: jpena@catholic-sf.org

ORGANIST WEDDINGS • FUNERALS

Any one item With this ad

Non-sales price items in stock

Biggest selection in the North Bay! www.interfaithbooks.com 531 College Ave., Santa Rosa, CA 95404 TOLL FREE: (800) 951-9531 Phone: (707) 525-8221 Take 101 North, exit College Ave., go East 6 blocks Serving the North Bay and the Bay Area

Help Wanted TEACHING POSITIONS St. Dunstan Catholic School [K-8th grade] in Millbrae, CA, is seeking a full time teacher for 6th grade and a part-time computer teacher for the 2006-07 school year. Qualified candidates are asked to submit resumes and two letters of recommendation to: Dr. Bruce Colville, Principal Saint Dunstan Catholic School 1150 Magnolia Ave., Millbrae, CA 94030 Email contact: principal@st-dunstan.org School website: www.St.Dunstan.org Phone: (650) 697-8119 Fax: (650) 697-9252

CAMPUS MINISTER University of the Pacific Stockton, CA Exciting opportunity to serve as on-campus leader to Catholic students on a beautiful university campus with a well-established campus ministry presence. 10-month/year position. Position organizes faith formation and liturgical/worship opportunities; coordinates pastoral plan for evangelization; develops Catholic educational programs, including lectures and retreats. Qualifications include: MA in Theology or equiv.; competence in nurturing a catholic faith community; successful work experience with young adults; commitment to ecumenical relationships. Qualified layperson or priest encouraged to apply. Compensation includes benefits, housing, and utilities for 12 months, salary for 10 months. Send resume to John Hale at Diocese of Stockton, 1105 North Lincoln St., Stockton, CA 95203 or e-mail jhale@stocktondiocese.org

BECOME A FARMERS INSURANCE & FINANCIAL AGENT

Philippine Properties

Fax: 415-614-5641

For Rent Organist

Catholic San Francisco

CANYON RANCH

Most Astounding Private Residential Community in the Philippines

3, 4 Bedroom Homes and Condominiums Available

LERMA LEYCO (632) 6700-7680 local 7853 email: lermaleyco@yahoo.com www.idealhomesph.com

Help Wanted ADVERTISING SALES For The Largest Publisher of Catholic Church Bulletins

This is a Career Opportunity! • Generous Commissions • Minimal Travel • Excellent Benefit Package • Stong Office Support • Work in Your Community. E.O.E.

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

CHILDREN’S CHOIR DIRECTOR NEEDED IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY PARISH BELMONT, CALIFORNIA beginning August 1, 2006 to continue leadership of an active and successful Children’s Music Ministry Program that has a 15 year history. The program consists of 2 Choirs. Part-time position. Salary negotiable. Send resume to Fr. Stephen Howell 1040 Alameda de las Pulgas Belmont, CA 94002 For more information call (650) 593-6157

Music Director/Coordinator Needed IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY PARISH BELMONT, CALIFORNIA beginning July 1, 2006 to continue leadership of an active and successful Music Program. Piano (organ) competency and Choral Directing skills required. Ability to train music ministers and rehearse/direct Contemporary Adult Choir. May include funerals and/or weddings. Part-time position. Salary negotiable.

Send resume to Fr. Stephen Howell 1040 Alameda de las Pulgas Belmont, CA 94002 For more information call (650) 593-6157

Special Needs Companion Services We are looking for you.

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

Work Full or Part-time in San Francisco – Marin County • Provide non medical elder care in the home • Generous benefit package Fax your resume to: Jeannie McCullough Stiles, RN 415-435-0421

Free Info Packet: 650-931-8608

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

We will train!

Catholic San Francisco

Classifieds

Catholic San Francisco

May 5, 2006

My Will I have a will. Two months ago I couldn’t say that. It took the death of a close friend to wake me up. Now I’m wondering why I procrastinated so long. Let me tell you about my will. My will reflects my wishes. Instead of the courts appointing an executor (personal representative), my son will handle this, and without bond. My will makes provision for family members in a way state laws would not do. My will lets me give money to my children and grandchildren in an orderly manner after I pass on. My will identifies my parish and the Archdiocese to receive special bequests. In short, my will allocates my assets according to my desires.

I can change or amend my will. It is not set in concrete. I can change it easily, whether adding a codicil or by simply having it redrafted. The important thing is that I have a workable will in place-right now. My will is safely stored. I have a copy of my will in my files at home, but I keep the original in a safety deposit box. I don’t want to lose this important document through fire or theft. I also made sure my personal representative, my son, knows how to find my will.

My will is legally valid. I went to an attorney who specializes in estate planning. She knew the right questions to ask and the best way to accomplish my goals. I was tempted to take a short cut and use one of those will documents I saw at the stationary store. I even thought of just sitting down and writing out my will on a piece of paper, a sort of do-it-yourself project. I’m sure glad I didn’t fall into that trap. After all, why do a will and then spend the rest of your life or the last moments of life wondering whether it is truly valid?

My will provides peace of mind. For years, I lived with a nagging apprehension about what would happen if I died without a will. Those feelings are gone. I now have a sense of peace about these matters. It took a little time and effort and it cost a few dollars, but it was well worth it all.

My will is up-to-date. This is because I only

If you do not have a current, valid will or comprehensive living trust, we at the Archdiocese of San Francisco urge you to care for this very important matter. Not only will such planning benefit your loved ones, we believe that you will want to remember the Archdiocese as well.

recently created it and it reflects my current situation. But life never stays the same. Within a few years, new laws may arise. Family members may have different needs. My estate may change. As my attorney says, “An out-of-date will could be as harmful as having no will at all.”

Michael O’Leary, our associate director of development, can assist you by providing information about wills and charitable bequests. Feel free to call him at (415) 614-5582, email olearym@sfarchdiocese.org, or use the handy response coupon below.

Dear Mr. O’Leary, ____________ Please send me free literature about making a will. ____________ I have already provided a bequest for the Archiocese of San Francisco in my will. ____________ Please invite me to the next Planned Giving Seminar. Name: Address: City:

State:

Zip:

Phone:

Mail this form to: Archdiocese of San Francisco, Office of Development One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco, CA 94109 Phone (415) 614-5582 ● Fax (415) 614-5584 ● Email: olearym@sfarchdiocese.org