May 21, 2010

Floridians who make living from sea worried by effects of gulf oil spill

Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

By Karen Osborne

Catholic churches, schools become safe havens from Thai violence

A young girl carries a medical kit handed out to anti-government “red shirt” supporters encamped in an upscale shopping district in Bangkok, Thailand, May 17.

By Catholic News Service BANGKOK – Several Catholic churches and schools have become safe havens for people trapped by violence between anti-government protesters and the Thai army.

The move came after protesters and army officials prevented a Catholic-run charity and other nongovern-

mental organizations from rescuing women and children trapped within the zone where clashes between the two sides have escalated in the past week, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News.

Four families, including women, children and elderly, moved into Holy Redeemer School, said Father Sirichai Laukobkul of the adjacent Holy Redeemer THAI VIOLENCE, page 6 Church in Bangkok.

(CNS PHOTO/JACQUE BRUND, THE FLORIDA CATHOLIC)

(CNS PHOTO/JERRY LAMPEN, REUTERS)

ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) – Sal Versaggi is no stranger to battling disaster.

As one of the owners of Versaggi Shrimp Co. out of Tampa, his shrimp boats have worked up and down the west coast of Florida – including areas in the Diocese of Venice – through hurricane after hurricane.

“God has a special affinity for fishermen,” he said.

He has to, when they’re “at the mercy of nature and what the winds and climate and current does.”

A worker unloads fish to be cleaned, cut and placed for sale at a market in Winter Park, Fla., May 18.

Damage from the recent gulf oil spill threatens habitats and fishing industries.

But even Versaggi doesn’t know what’s going to come next.

As with many disasters both natural and man-made, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has Catholics in Florida’s fishing industry praying and scrambling to survive.

Looking at Louisiana – whose oyster beds have been closed west of the Mississippi thanks to the spill, and whose fishing industry has been severely crippled – and the hundreds of dead fish washing ashore in Dauphin Island, Ala., the spill worries men and women who work on boats, in warehouses, in restaurants and in retail in a way that no hurricane has for years.

“The people are looking at a business that has taken them 25 years to build – losing it in one fell swoop,” Bob Jones, executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries GULF OIL SPILL, page 6

Archbishop Niederauer, Bishop Justice call for action on immigration reform

By Valerie Schmalz Archbishop George H. Niederauer said that the time is now for comprehensive immigration reform to address the estimated 11 million undocumented residents of the United States. At a May 14 press conference held in front of Mission Dolores in San Francisco, the San Francisco Archbishop said the failure of the federal government to address immigration reform may cause more states to pass laws similar to Arizona’s.

“This should not be an ‘amnesty.’ Nor are we asking for ‘open borders,’ said Archbishop Niederauer, standing with a woman, Rosa, a married mother of four, who is fighting deportation on an expired visa.

“Yes, to undocumented people – you belong in the

‘Archbishop’s Hour’ On 1260 AM Radio “The Archbishop’s Hour” with San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer airs each Friday morning at 9 a.m. on Immaculate Heart Radio – 1260 AM in the Bay Area.

Repeat broadcasts air Friday evening at 9 p.m., Sunday at 11 a.m., and Monday at 9 p.m.

May 21, 2010

Archbishop Niederauer spoke to reporters May 14 in front of Mission Dolores.

line for citizenship but because you just joined the line you belong at the end of the line,” Archbishop Niederauer said.

Speaking to reporters, the archbishop said Congress needs to act and if it doesn’t more states will follow Arizona’s example. “They did it for healthcare; I would like to see them do it for immigration,” Archbishop Niederauer said.

The U.S. bishops have long called for a series of measures that would allow undocumented people to come “out of the shadows,” create a work permit system for foreign nationals, and increase the number of family and employment visas. While both President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush support the reform, it has stalled in Congress.

IMMIGRATION REFORM, page 10

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION The pill at 50. . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Vatican responds to suits . . . 4 Seminarian answers call . . . . 7 ‘Women in Medicine’ . . . . . . 9 Mercy Sister to Sudan. . . . . 11

Young people greet Pope at St. Peter’s Square ~ Page 5 ~

‘Letters to Juliet’ film review ~ Page 16 ~

ONE DOLLAR

Commentary & Letters .12-13 More than a symbol . . . . . . 14

www.catholic-sf.org VOLUME 12

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No. 18

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Catholic San Francisco

May 21, 2010

On The

Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus Ignatius Wang, Auxiliary Bishop William J. Justice, the Serra Club of San Francisco’s Connie Mertes, and Father Arnold Zamora, administrator, Holy Name of Jesus Parish, San Francisco, at the Serra Club’s Priest Appreciation Dinner April 22.

Where You Live

By Tom Burke The Serra Club of San Francisco honored priests at its annual Priests Appreciation Dinner April 22. “It was a lot of fun and more than 100 priests attended,” said dinner chair, Connie Mertes. Highlights included Magic by Heather – “Bishop Wang said it was better than speeches,” Connie told me – and Father Arnold Zamora, Cofield of IHM took first and second prize in their age administrator of Holy Name of Jesus Parish, sang groups at the San Mateo County Fair. Winners in grade six and seven at the “Priestly Hands, school level also Priestly Voices,” included Matthew a song he wrote McPartlan, Sofia h i m s e l f . Yo u Reyes, Adrien can hear Father Beaulieu, Zamora sing it at D o m i n i c k the Holy Name Dugandzic, website www.

Darlene Nguyen, holyname-sf.org and Lindsey Just scroll down Misfud….Happy to the bottom of 67 years marthe Home Page ried May 3 to and click onto the Father Jack O’Neill Father Paul Perry Father Jim MacDonald Jeanne and Irvin song title. Thanks Mitchell who told for the directions to Colleen Durkin, parish secretary at Holy Name, me, “We were married at Epiphany Church in 1943.” and Jackie Alcaraz, parish manager. Msgr. Edward Jeanne said the celebration will probably include dinner McTaggart, retired pastor of St. Brendan Parish, is the with their children. Irvin is suffering from lung cancer.

Serra Club’s moderator …. “We have a real hero in St. Sebastian’s Parish,” said Paul D. Smith in a note to this column. Paul was speaking of Father Paul Perry who was honored as a “Marin Hero” in ceremonies April 21. Father Perry, a chaplain at Marin General Hospital and San Quentin, was acknowledged for pastoral care he brings to people in many parts of Marin County. Father Perry celebrates his 43rd year as a priest June 3. Happy 43rd anniversary, too, on that day to Father Jim MacDonald, pastor, St. Pius Parish in Redwood City, and Father Jack O’Neill, pastor, Sacred Heart Parish in Olema….

Test tubes were boiling over at Immaculate Heart of Mary Elementary School in Belmont and St. Matthew Elementary School in San Mateo at the schools’ recent Science Fairs. Emma Sheedy, Caroline Ho, Ryan Simmons and Gino Vellandi of St. Matt’s won first and second place trophies at the San Mateo County Fair Science contests with Caroline continuing to first place in seventh grade biology in a subsequent Bay Area Science Science Fair winner Liam Young with IHM principal, Fair, and Emma moving on to the State Science Fair Sandra Larragoiti this month in Los Angeles. Liam Young and Marshall

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“Please pray for my husband,” Jeanne said. “He is 88 years old and I am 82.”… Mercy High School, San Francisco leads an “all hats off” for faculty member Tom Sever who died May 4. He was 56 years old. The teacher was “a favorite” who “made math fun,” said Teresa Lucchese, of the school’s Community Relations team.

Though only with the school for eight years, he “made a difference in the lives of Mercy girls, faculty, and staff,” Teresa said. Tom is a former member of the faculty at schools including Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton and several area colleges. Tom is a graduate of South San Francisco’s All Souls Elementary School, Archbishop Riordan High School, and Stanford University. A memorial Mass was celebrated for the late educator May 13 at Mercy….This is an empty space without you.

E-mail items and electronic pictures – jpegs at no less than 300 dpi – to burket@sfarchdiocese.org or mail them to Street, One Peter Yorke Way, SF 94109. Don’t forget to add a follow-up phone number. Thank you. My phone number is (415) 614-5634.

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Catholic San Francisco

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As the pill marks its 50th year, promises remain unfulfilled

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien WASHINGTON (CNS) – Fifty years ago this month, the Food and Drug Administration gave its approval for the use of a combination of the hormones progesterone and estrogen that the pharmaceutical company Searle said would prevent pregnancy 99.7 percent of the time. yKnown simply as “the pill,” it was a development that was heralded as the liberation of women from male domination that would lead to fewer divorces and a steep decline in the number of unwanted pregnancies and in the number of abortions. But statistics show just the opposite.

“It’s very easy to find summaries from that time of everything that was promised,” said Helen Alvare, an associate professor of law at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Va. “There would be greater equality for women; they would no longer be essentially slaves to their biology,” she added. “(The pill) was supposed to reduce unwanted births and the number of people looking for abortions and to increase the well-being of children, because only wanted children would be born.”

But it didn’t turn out that way.

In a talk called “Contraception: Why Not?” that has been reprinted or downloaded more than a million times since it was first delivered in 1994, moral theologian Janet Smith said “it was not a stupid expectation” in the 1960s “that contraceptives would make for better marriages, fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer abortions.”

“But I think the cultural evidence today shows absolutely the contrary,” added Smith, now a professor of moral theology who holds the Father Michael J. McGivney chair in life ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.

There are plenty of statistics that prove her point: – As the use of the pill became more widespread, the divorce rate doubled from 25 percent of all U.S. marriages in 1965 to 50 percent in 1975. Only when the United States had reached the point that all women who wanted access to the pill had gotten it did the divorce rate level off, Smith contends.

– Although the percentage of pregnancies that were “unintended” in 1960 is hard to pinpoint, 6 percent of white children and 22 percent of black children were born out of wedlock that year, Smith says. By the mid-2000s, one-third of white births, 70 percent of black births and half of Hispanic births were to unwed mothers. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy says more than 3 million of the 6.4 million pregnancies in the United States annually are unplanned; about 1.2 million of those result in abortions each year.

– Although abortion did not become legal throughout the United States until 12 years after the advent of the pill, the availability of birth control has not reduced abortions, which totaled more than 45 million between 1973 and 2005. The number of abortions slightly decreased each year in the 2000s, but few credit the pill for the decline. The Guttmacher Institute says about 54 percent of women who have abortions used a method of contraception during the month they became pregnant.

– The well-being of children has declined by a variety of measures, from depression to diet to the number living in poverty and the number experiencing child abuse or neglect, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics.

The belief persists, however, that the pill has had a positive influence on the lives of children, families and especially women.

Fifty-six percent of respondents to a CBS News poll in early May said they thought the pill had improved women’s lives, although men (59 percent) thought so more than women (54 percent) did.

Half of the respondents also thought the birth control pill had improved American family life, but opinions

differed widely depending on the respondents’ religion.

Only 38 percent of Catholics and 41 percent of white evangelicals thought the pill had improved family life, but 52 percent of mainline Protestants thought so.

The margin of error for the CBS News poll was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Alvare, who served for many years as the U.S. bishops’ chief pro-life spokeswoman, believes that the achievements women have made toward obtaining equal treatment with men have “nothing to do with the chemicals they’ve swallowed.”

Even though women today might have “access to places and positions that once belonged to men,” that “isn’t a full measure of women’s equality and dignity,” she added. “They are now in all the places where men were, but they have never been seen more as sex objects than they are now.”

The major disconnect caused by the arrival of the pill has been a loss of “the idea that men and women make babies,” Alvare said. “In any literature today about sex, it seems that unprotected sex makes babies” or even

that technology can make babies apart from any human connection.

“That whole package of love, the intimate sharing of life was broken apart by the pill,” she said. And as technological advances in artificial reproduction are made, “the idea that God plays a role in procreation” is lost in favor of the idea that “technology does or the failure to use it does,” she added.

The Catholic Church’s teaching that artificial birth control is morally wrong was reaffirmed by Pope Paul VI in 1968 in the encyclical “Humane Vitae” (“Of Human Life”).

Writing recently in a blog for the Ontario-based National Post, Canadian writer Barbara Kay said the pill “coincided with, and arguably caused, the greatest paradigm shift in relations between the sexes in all of human history.”

In the 50 years since its arrival, Kay said, “we have hardly even begun to take an honest cultural measure of what has been gained and what has been lost in the transition.”

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Catholic San Francisco

NEWS

May 21, 2010

in brief

offender. A 16-year-old and a 75-year-old each sentenced to life without parole receive the same punishment in name only.” Society is entitled to retribution for crimes committed by juveniles, but the punishment must take into account not only the severity of the crime but also the psychological state of the offender, Kennedy reasoned. He said immature juveniles are less likely to consider the consequences of their actions and can learn from their mistakes.

New website promotes vocations Life in prison unconstitutional for teens convicted of crimes other than homicide WASHINGTON – Life in prison for minors convicted of crimes others than homicide is cruel and unusual punishment, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 May 17. The ruling has potentially broad impact in California, where the state’s Catholic bishops have been fighting for more humane sentencing policies for juvenile offenders. The California Catholic Conference called the decision the high court’s “most important Eighth Amendment ruling in non-capital cases in recent times.” Under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “the state must respect the human attributes even of those who have committed serious crimes,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the court’s majority opinion.

“Life without parole is an especially harsh punishment for a juvenile,” Kennedy wrote in the case of Florida man, Terrance Graham, 22, who was sent to prison for life in connection with armed robberies when he was 16 and 17. “Under this sentence a juvenile offender will on average serve more years and a greater percentage of his life in prison than an adult

WASHINGTON – The Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington has launched a new website to promote vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life. The site, www.ForYourVocation.org, is meant to help people who are discerning a possible vocation and educate Catholics about the need to encourage others to consider a vocation.

The site includes discernment resources for men and women, ideas for promoting a vocation culture within the home, and a range of tools for educators, youth leaders and vocation directors, including prayers, videos, best practices, lesson plans and vocation-awareness programs. It also includes videos of priests and religious men and women talking about their vocations and testimonies from family members. The site has links to a Facebook fan page and a YouTube vocation channel. A Spanish-language site will be available in the fall at www.PorTuVocacion.org.

US economic picture improving, but employment remains weak WASHNGTON (CNS) – The economic picture in the United States looks stronger, but the jobs outlook remains bleak. More jobs have been created than have been shed for five

of the past six months, but the unemployment rate has stayed stubbornly high. In April, for example, more than 200,000 new jobs were created, but the unemployment rate also rose, from 9.7 percent to 9.9 percent, because there were more Americans looking for work. There is talk in some circles that the United States might experience a “jobless recovery” once the economy pulls out of its doldrums. Others would contend that if there are no jobs to be had, it’s not really a recovery.

Congress has four approaches before it as to how to deal with the situation. The U.S. bishops have been advocating two of them. One of the bishops’ points is unemployment insurance.

Currently, a contentious Congress has been extending unemployment benefits on a month-by-month basis. The bishops want benefits extended through the end of the year. Even so, those benefits reach only about 40 percent of those who are eligible for them, according to Thomas Shellabarger, a policy adviser for the U.S. bishops’ Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development. The bishops’ other policy priority is tax credits. Under existing law, the tax credits that are most likely to help the poor are slated to expire at year’s end.

Arizona leaders push Congress, White House on immigration WASHINGTON – A delegation of Arizona religious leaders made the rounds in Washington May 13, encouraging members of Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform and discussing possible legal challenges to the state’s new immigration law with staff at the Justice Department and the White House. At a news conference outside the offices of Sen. John McCain, Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas and United Methodist Bishop Minerva Carcano said their meeting with the Arizona Republican was cordial but that he was adamant about NEWS IN BRIEF, page 5

Vatican attorney in US challenges lawsuits brought in federal court

By Valerie Schmalz The Vatican never barred bishops or other clergy from notifying civil authorities if they learned a priest was sexually abusing a minor, the attorney for the Holy See said in a motion to dismiss filed Monday in federal court. The closely watched case could determine whether the Holy See, and not just individual dioceses, could be held liable for the sexual abuse of minors by priests.

Next week, Holy See attorney Jeff Lena will be opposing plaintiffs’ wide-ranging discovery requests, including an attempt to take the Pope’s deposition.

“The questions before the judge in this case are unique in the history of American jurisprudence, and so it may be some time before the judge reaches a decision,” Lena told Catholic San Francisco.

Attorneys for the victims of clerical sexual abuse claim that a 1962 Vatican document dictated that bishops should not report sexual abuse crimes by priests to law

enforcement. The document, “Crimen Sollicitationis,” explained how bishops should canonically handle certain cases of abuse of children by priests, cases where sex is solicited in the confessional, and cases of homosexuality and bestiality.

In papers filed May 17 in U.S. District Court in Louisville, Kentucky, Lena cited canon law expert Edward Peters, whose declaration submitted in support of the Holy See noted the 1962 Vatican document never barred clergy from reporting other priests to law enforcement for crimes against minors. Lena also argued that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over the Vatican because diocesan bishops are neither “employees” nor “officials” of the Holy See. The Pope does not exercise any day to day control, pay salaries, or taxes or exercise control over major decisions made by bishops, Lena noted. Being an “employee” or “official” are two prerequisites for the U.S. Courts to further consider the case, Lena wrote.

Lena also said there is no evidence the “Crimen” docu-

ment was ever used by the Louisville archbishop in handling the sexual abuse of minors by the three priests in the lawsuit, and said that the plaintiffs’ attorney had known that all along, but filed the lawsuit based on “Crimen” anyway.

Lena also cited the Church’s dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium, noting that many, including members of the Church, might not realize that “diocesan bishops are neither the vicars nor agents of the Pope.”

While Lena maintained canon law supports his view on employment, he urged the court to avoid wading into Catholic Church law because the First Amendment prohibits state interference in matters of religion. “Plaintiffs’ attempt to use broad characterizations of the Catholic Church’s religious doctrine, structure of governance and polity to prove that the Holy See employs bishops would not only embroil the Court in a religious and theological dispute of historic proportions; it would also violate the rule that civil liability cannot be based upon religious doctrine,” the Vatican filing states.

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May 21, 2010

News in brief . . .

■ Continued from page 4 not wanting comprehensive immigration legislation to move in Congress until “the border is secure.” McCain previously co-sponsored legislation that dealt with border security packaged together with law changes that provide a way for undocumented immigrants to legalize their status and that would fundamentally change the system for legal immigration for family reunification and temporary work. As the Republican nominee for president in 2008, he advocated for legislation similar to that being encouraged by the religious delegation.

Bishop Kicanas told reporters that McCain said circumstances have changed and that he now believes enforcement has to happen separately and first. Bishop Kicanas said legislation should include “an earned pathway to citizenship, not amnesty but an earned path,” as well as ways to keep families together by making it easier for people to bring their relatives into the country legally, because “the family is the nucleus of society and any breakdown of family life causes problems.”

Nun excommunicated, loses post over abortion decision PHOENIX – A nun who concurred in an ethics committee’s decision to abort the child of a gravely ill woman at a Phoenix hospital was “automatically excommunicated by that action,” according to Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix. Mercy Sister Margaret Mary McBride also was reassigned from her position as vice president of mission integration at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix after news surfaced about the abortion that took place late last year. The patient, who has not been identified, was 11 weeks pregnant and suffering from pulmonary hypertension, a condition that the hospital said carried a near-certain risk of death for the S ET T K 5 C TI TAR T $2 S S JU AT

mother if the pregnancy continued. “If there had been a way to save the pregnancy and still prevent the death of the mother, we would have done it. We are convinced there was not,” said a May 17 letter to Bishop Olmsted from top officials at Catholic Healthcare West, the San Francisco-based health system to which St. Joseph’s belongs. But the bishop said in a May 14 statement that “the direct killing of an unborn child is always immoral, no matter the circumstances, and it cannot be permitted in any institution that claims to be authentically Catholic. We always must remember that when a difficult medical situation involves a pregnant woman, there are two patients in need of treatment and care, not merely one,” Bishop Olmsted said. “The unborn child’s life is just as sacred as the mother’s life, and neither life can be preferred over the other.”

Inquisition and Index: Vatican records shed light on dark legend VATICAN CITY – The Roman Inquisition and the Index of Forbidden Books obviously do not represent the brightest chapters in Catholic history, but newly published documents from Vatican archives should help scholars distinguish between the truth and the dark legends.

Hundreds of documents detailing the church’s investigations of individuals and of written works during the Roman Inquisition have been published – most of them for the first time – in a new series released by the Vatican. Reproducing records from the Inquisition’s activities – records held in the formerly secret archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the series hopes to shed light on how the Roman Inquisition really worked and to dispel age-old biases. A lack of access to the archives, which were opened to the public only in 1998, meant some scholars and historians made “sweeping generalizations without sufficient foundation” about the Church’s aims during the Inquisition, a former papal theologian wrote in the volume’s preface. Cardinal Georges Cottier, theologian of

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Huge crowd gathers to show support for Pope Benedict VATICAN CITY – An estimated 120,000 people converged on St. Peter’s Square to express support for Pope Benedict XVI in dealing with the clerical sexual abuse scandal. A lay leader said participants wanted to pray for the victims of sexual abuse, and “to recall all the good that many priests do, which does not make the news.” Thanking the crowd for their presence and affection May 16, Pope Benedict said, “The true enemy to fear is sin, the spiritual evil that unfortunately sometimes infects even members of the church. We Christians are not afraid of the world, even if we have to be careful of its seductions. Rather we must fear sin and, for that reason, be strongly rooted in God and solid in goodness, love and service,” he said at his weekly Sunday blessing. With trust in the Lord and a renewed commitment to following him, he said, the church can become holier by going through “the trials” it is facing. the papal household under Pope John Paul II, wrote that by focusing only on cases in which the Church acted extremely harshly – such as the condemnation of Galileo Galilei and the burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno, some historians concluded the Church was engaged in a vicious war against science. It is “mislead-

ing to see the activity ... as a struggle against science undertaken in the name of faith” when the Roman Inquisition actually was concerned more with preventing Protestant ideas from spreading, he wrote.

– Catholic News Service and Catholic San Francisco

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Catholic San Francisco

May 21, 2010

Catholic funeral said for groundbreaking singer-actress Lena Horne NEW YORK (CNS) – Lena Horne, the groundbreaking African-American singer-actress received a Catholic funeral May 14 at a church on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. She died May 9 at age 92 in New York from heart failure.

The funeral, at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Avenue, drew hundreds of mourners and many in the entertainment industry, including singers Leontyne Price, Dionne Warwick, Jessye Norman, Chita Rivera and actresses Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Lauren Bacall, Audra McDonald and Vanessa L. Williams. McDonald sang “Amazing Grace” and “This Little Light of Mine” at the funeral.

“She came here regularly earlier,” Jesuit Father George Witt, pastor of St. Ignatius Loyola, said of Horne, who had receded from public view for the past 10 years.

“Her daughter (best-selling author Gail Lumet Buckley) is a registered parishioner here and a daily communicant. There was a very strong family connection here over many years,” Father Witt told Catholic News Service in a May18 telephone interview, adding the funeral “really was a family event here for all of us.”

During World War II, when the mere act of whites and blacks performing together onstage generated controversy, Horne sang with saxophonist Charlie Barnet’s big band.

When entertaining the troops for the USO, she refused to perform for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of African-American servicemen. Because the Army refused to allow integrated audiences, she wound up putting on a show for a mixed audience of black U.S. soldiers and white German POWs. Horne was at an NAACP rally with Medgar Evers in Jackson, Miss., the weekend before Evers was assassinated.

She also met President John F. Kennedy at the White House two days before he was assassinated. She was at the March on Washington in 1963, when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Jesuit Father Walter Modrys, the retired pastor of St.

Ignatius Loyola, celebrated the funeral Mass.

In his eulogy, according to an Associated Press story, he recounted a time when, upon first meeting Horne, she admitted to “feelings of shyness. She referred to her ‘persona’ that she shared with others. It was her performance mode, she said.”

Born in Brooklyn, Horne got her start in show business in 1933 when she joined the Cotton Club revue. After a decade of radio, recording and nightclub work, she made her way to Hollywood, featured in such movies as “Stormy Weather,” the title tune serving as her theme song.

She appeared in the movie “Cabin in the Sky,” but studio executives had one musical number cut because they thought her singing a song while she was in a bubble bath was too risque. Her film career was further stymied because movie exhibitors, mainly in the South, would cut scenes with black actors in otherwise white-dominated movies.

Thai violence. . .

protesters – who have been holed up for more than a month in a central commercial district – reignited May 13 when security forces tried to end the occupation.

The renewed violence, which left at least 37 people dead and more than 300 injured, prompted Thai Catholic leaders to issue a plea for calm and a return to negotiations.

The president of the bishops’ conference said he feared “the country is at the beginning of a civil war.”

Archbishop Louis Chamniern Santisukniran of Thare and Nonseng called for negotiations to begin anew, saying that “an intervention of religious leaders might help to explore new avenues of dialogue and mediation and provide a peace-

ful solution to the crisis,” Fides, the Vatican’s missionary news agency, reported May 15.

A May 17 appeal from the protesters for a cease-fire and U.N.-mediated talks was rejected by authorities.

The recent violence has been the worst since April 10, when 25 people were killed and more than 800 were injured.

In mid-May, women and children took refuge in a Buddhist temple inside a cordoned-off downtown area as the government threatened to launch an assault.

The violence forced nearly all Catholics to stay away from Mass May 16 at parishes near the protest zone.

Those who made it to Mass prayed for the dead and injured as well as for peace in the country.

According to Jones, the fishing industry from the Gulf to the Keys is small and interdependent, and Florida is already feeling negative effects from the spill.

A good portion of the oysters, shrimp and crabs consumed in Florida come from Gulf waters around Louisiana, he said, and the oil spill – which made landfall at New Harbor, La., May 6 and continues to roll ashore on the Louisiana coast – might cripple the oyster industry there for years.

“When they shut down and can’t send over here, it has a domino effect,” Jones said.

The oil spill will have more than an economic effect on Florida’s fishermen and seafood workers, Jones continued. “The mental anguish is beyond the pale,” said Jones. “All the people who are fishermen, as well as the people in the charter boat business, everybody else, they know that if in fact the oil well isn’t stopped, plugged up, and if the amount of oil potentially comes to our bays and estuaries, our corals, our grasses, then Florida as we know it will be totally changed,” Jones said.

The estuaries serve as an incubator for young fish and shrimp, said Jones, and while they grow, they’re often “totally vulnerable.” Without the estuary, Jones explained, entire generations of grouper, crabs and shrimp could be wiped out, and entire fishing businesses with it.

Some ideas for capping the flow worry seafood workers more than the oil itself. For example, John Carpenter, a Catholic, was concerned that some of the solvents discussed as options to disperse the oil in Gulf waters might be even more toxic to fish and wildlife than the oil itself.

“Some of the dispersal agents (being considered) are four times more toxic than the oil itself, and nobody really knows what’s going to happen. We’re all worried,” he said.

Consumers are already concerned about the safety of seafood, despite assurances by Florida officials that what is currently being harvested has not been affected by the spill. Restaurants and retail seafood outlets have begun looking to suppliers elsewhere in the country, even as far away as Washington state.

Across the board, Catholics who work in the seafood industry were advising their customers and clients to pray, and also to pitch in, if they can, with cleanup efforts.

The fishermen “wanna fish, they wanna be on the water, and they’re the ones who are going to be hurt first and hurt the most,” Jones said.

“I think for the people who are blessed to believe in a higher power,” he said, “the faith is always there, and they can take solace in times of disaster, in happiness and grief and they can feel comfort just talking to God.”

■ Continued from cover “They feel unsafe,” he said. “The violence, smoke from burning tires, the cutting off of electricity and water supplies and jamming of mobile-phone signals in some areas have forced people to flee.”

Pairin Chotsakulrat, a Catholic and leader of the Peace Witness Volunteer group, said her organization asked Catholic churches and schools to aid those fleeing violence.

Fighting between the army and thousands of “red-shirt”

Gulf oil spill . . .

■ Continued from cover Association, told The Florida Catholic, newspaper of the Orlando Diocese and other Florida dioceses.

“Everybody is preparing, getting ready in case it does come, finding out ways they can get help,” said Dominican Sister Jeanne Drey of St. Patrick Parish in Apalachicola. Hers is one of the many fishing communities on the panhandle that faces ruin if the oil washes ashore in Florida.

Versaggi, a member of Sacred Heart Parish in Tampa, knows fishermen must often trust that natural and man-made disasters are part and parcel of life and God’s plan, and said that his business always has a disaster plan of its own.

“Most people of faith talk to God in moments like this, asking for protection and help – no matter if you’re Catholic, Protestant or Jew,” he said.

Across Florida, seafood workers are hoping the spill could be contained before it enters the Gulf Stream currents, which would take the oil down the west coast of Florida, through the Florida Keys and up the East Coast, according to Versaggi.

Much of the company’s shrimping income this year is from the Keys, where boats from the company are currently working.

“If it gets in the current, it’s pretty powerful – it moves around 6 knots,” said Versaggi. “If something gets in there, it’ll get swept right down to the south, and the Keys have potential for damage.”

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Catholic San Francisco

7

Seminarian gave up Hollywood success to answer Christ’s call

By Rick DelVecchio The call, when it came, was unmistakable.

Transitional Deacon Wade Bjerke had to leave Hollywood to follow Christ.

Today, about a decade later, Bjerke, at age 54, is about to become one of the newest priests of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The San Francisco native is looking forward to serving people in need in a vocation that seems far more concrete, more real, to him than his plush old occupation as a Hollywood studio financial analyst ever did.

Bjerke’s ordination June 26 will culminate a journey that began in childhood with his mother as his model.

Sheltered in a convent during the Nazis’ World War II blitz of her hometown of Manchester, England, she passed on to her son a strong and traditional, yet comforting and nurturing, Catholic faith.

Young Bjerke had positive impressions of the faith. “It was something that made internal sense to me,” he said. “That was the way the life was supposed to be.”

Growing up, Bjerke (pronounced Bee- yur' –key) never felt called to a vocation. The call came, ironically, after he achieved worldly success.

After graduating from UCLA with a political science degree, he went to work as a computer database expert for a television network’s entertainment division. He kept track of stars’ pay and other financial data.

Good pay, nice cars, fancy restaurants and parties were his, yet Bjerke found himself unhappy with the lifestyle. The more he saw of it, the more insubstantial it looked. One almost surreal episode sticks in his mind: a celebrity event where a decked-out Burt Reynolds and Loni

Wade Bjerke, seen here at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University as he was finishing his studies for the priesthood, will be ordained June 26.

Anderson stepped around a corner into the flash from what seemed like hundreds of cameras. “‘What have they done to warrant this?’” Bjerke remembers thinking. “All they’ve done is be wealthy and famous.

That’s about as phony as it gets, and it has no bearing whatsoever on Burt Reynolds or Loni Anderson.”

Bjerke was more at home going to daily Mass and praying before the Blessed Sacrament at St. Victor Church near his office.

As he sat with the Blessed Sacrament, his Hollywood career “became more of the path not to take,” Bjerke, said during a recent interview at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University, where he was one final exam from finishing seven years of studies.

“There was nothing in it for me,” he said. “I finally came to see this is what God was calling me to. The verse from Scripture, ‘The harvest is great, the

laborers are few,’ kept going through my mind.’”

Bjerke politely declined Christ’s invitation at first, but that strategy didn’t work. “He never takes no for an answer when it’s something he wants,” he said.

He described the call as “very much a voice in your head, saying, ‘This isn’t real, this isn’t what life is about.’”

The call grew more insistent until Bjerke decided to train for the priesthood, rejecting his employer’s enticements to stay. He chose St. Patrick’s because it brought him back home: He was born in San Francisco and grew up in Marin County.

“I thought, if I’m going to be somewhere for the rest of my life, I was going to come back home,” he said.

“Cardinal (then-San Francisco Archbishop William) Levada was kind enough to take me in. Here I am.”

Bjerke’s mother was ecstatic about her son’s decision. His dad wasn’t sure.

“My dad thought, why would you want to give all that up to become a priest?”

Bjerke said. “My dad lived through the Depression, picking fruit to send money back home. To give up a job like that was ridiculous.

“My sister was pretty neutral,” he said. “She says she refuses to call me father. My family is pretty enthused about it generally. My dad has come around – he thinks it’s a pretty good idea.”

During his priestly formation, Bjerke developed a strong sense of his pastoral strengths. He enjoyed detention and hospital ministries.

“I take a lot of guidance from the parable of the sheep and the goats, Matthew 25,” he said. “We should be feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the imprisoned and sheltering the homeless. Too often, Catholicism gets hit with a bum rap, that it’s just another worldly religion. Yes, it is another worldly religion, but what else would you want? Atheism is not going to offer anything even remotely better. But we still need to take care of the people here. There are a lot of people who just have trouble getting by, for whatever reason; it’s not really ours to ask. It’s just to help them in whatever way we can. And so as long as I can continue to do that, it doesn’t really matter what parish I’m in.

“You’re serving God’s people,” Bjerke said, “that’s the bottom line. That’s the only thing that’s important.”

Editor’s note: Transitional Deacons Wade Bjerke and David Schunk will be ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of San Francisco on June 26 at St. Mary’s Cathedral. This story is the first of a two-part series. Next week, Catholic San Francisco will profile David Schunk.

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Students to graduate from Women in Medicine program

By Valerie Schmalz Chika Chuku knew she wanted to be a pediatrician before she started high school, so Mercy San Franciscoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Women in Medicineâ&#x20AC;? program was a perfect fit for her.

Chika is one of 13 young women who are the first class of graduates from â&#x20AC;&#x153;Women in Medicineâ&#x20AC;? at Mercy SF, a partnership between Mercy High and St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Medical Center, a hospital founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1857. When the students graduate May 29, they will wear a plum-colored stole recognizing their participation. The partnership between Mercy High School and St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Medical Center was a brain wave of Mercy Principal Dorothy McCrea, and is designed to give students who are interested in a medical career exposure to medical professionals and a hospital setting prior to college. The four-year program includes visits to the hospital, presentations at the high school, and a junior year volunteering at St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The program has been a wonderful addition to Mercy High School. It has provided Mercy students with an advanced academic curriculum and exposed them to various aspects of the health care profession which will be a great foundation as they enter higher education,â&#x20AC;? said McCrea. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a wonderful collaboration,â&#x20AC;? said Mercy Sister Mary Kilgariff, St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Liaison for Community Health.

The students are issued their own lab coats and name tags, and take coffee breaks on every visit to the hospital, Sister Mary said. Some students even got an opportunity, just by chance, to play survivors in a disaster drill that coincided with their visit. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was a great experience. They loved it,â&#x20AC;? Sister Mary said.

The students said they appreciated the warmth and courtesy of St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, and it helped them decide if

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medicine was for them as well as teaching them about different opportunities.

Not all the students opted to pursue medicine. Chika, 17, plans to study biochemistry at UCLA before applying for medical school. But, Yvette Borja, 18, of Pacifica, is going to Yale University, with a full scholarship, as an English major.

Others changed gears, but maintained an interest in the medical field.

Rachelle Hidalgo thought she might want to become a medical investigator like the stars of her favorite show, â&#x20AC;&#x153;CSIâ&#x20AC;?, so at her fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urging, she signed up for the advanced academic program and four years of interaction with St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Medical Center. Then, several members of her family became sick, and as she and her mom cared for them, Rachelle, 17, realized nursing was her real interest. Rachelle will begin attending the nursing program at the University of San Francisco in the fall. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s already organized a blood drive at Mercy.

Jacqueline Lee, 17, plans to study bioengineering at UC Berkeley with an eye toward stem cell research.

Tiffany Hang, 17, is going to Seattle University to pursue an interest in forensic psychology after a senior project sparked her interest in psychology. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to help in surgery but I can help them heal mentally,â&#x20AC;? Tiffany said.

Monica Tabora has been accepted to the University of Hawaii and plans to major in psychiatry and Hawaiian studies. Other students have been accepted at University of Nevada-Reno and UC-Davis.

The experience of a Catholic hospital was positive, the students said, and Tiffany noted that St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also helps poor and disadvantaged patients. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I really liked that St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just a hospital, it was a community,â&#x20AC;? and it took care of people who came to it from the community, Tiffany said.

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10

Catholic San Francisco

May 21, 2010

Menlo Park sisters learn and live their faith through sign language Fridays are the happiest days for Jazmín and Nancy López, two sisters from Mexico ages 12 and 9 respectively, who live in Menlo Park.

Not only because it’s the beginning of the weekend but because they can reunite once again with their parents after having spent five days and nights at school and are able to watch with their family a program called La Virgen de Guadalupe on a Latino channel at 10 p.m.

Both Jazmín and Nancy suffer from Usher’s syndrome, a hereditary disorder that affects hearing and vision. Both girls were born with severe deafness and though they can see, it is unknown whether the disease could advance and leave them blind.

“I noticed that Jazmín was deaf when she was 7 months old, I cried and I could not believe what was happening to me, I did not want to accept it,” said Francisco Javier López, the father of both girls. Three years later, while the López family was living in the town of Jalisco, Mexico, they were going through the same situation with Nancy, their second daughter.

“My parents helped us a lot to accept this situation and now I am very proud of my girls because they are outstanding persons,” Francisco said.

Rocío, the mother of the little girls, remembers that in Mexico they did not have access to specialized schools for the Deaf nor did they have any resources to offer. “They used audio equipment that had been donated by others but it was useless and not adequate for their needs,” she said.

After putting up with the scoffing, humiliation and the mistreatment that Jazmín endured at the hands of her schoolmates in a traditional school in México, Francisco decided to immigrate to the United States in 2003 in search of a better life for his family. A year later, his wife and two daughters arrived in the Bay Area.

“The transition has not been easy,” Francisco said.

“When we lived in Mexico, I taught them sign language based on what I thought the meaning of a word could be like eating or going to the bathroom, since there was no school for them.”

Years later the little ones learned sign language in Spanish, quite different than the one taught by their father;

Resources for Deaf Catholics American Sign Language Masses • Archdiocese of San Francisco St. Benedict Parish at St. Francis Xavier Church 1801 Octavia St., San Francisco Sundays, 10:30 a.m.

• Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, St. Patrick Seminary and University 320 Middlefield Rd., Menlo Park Second Saturday of the month, 10:00 a.m.

• Chapel of Marin Catholic High School 675 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Kentfield Fourth Sunday of the month, 4:00 p.m.

Ministry for the Deaf Father Zirimenya can be reached at St. Benedict Parish or by videophone at (866) 720-0102 or (866) 896-0968.

You can also call (TDD) (415) 567-9855 or visit their web page at www.SFDeafCatholics.org

Immigration reform . . .

■ Continued from cover Two polls published in May indicate a majority of Americans support the stringent measures embodied in the Arizona law, a law opposed by all of Arizona’s bishops.

“SB 1070 (the Arizona law) gives law enforcement officials powers to detain and arrest individuals based on a very low legal standard, possibly leading to the profiling of individuals based upon their appearance, manner of speaking, or ethnicity,” said George Wesolek, director of the archdiocesan Office of Public Policy and Social Concerns, which organized Friday’s press conference.

“Reform legislation is long overdue and there can be no better time than now to change our immigration laws,” said Archbishop Niederauer, who was accompanied by Auxiliary Bishop William Justice, who spoke with reporters in Spanish. Archbishop Niederauer and Bishop Justice issued a joint statement reiterating their support, and the U.S. bishops’ longstanding support, for immigration reform. They referred to recent statements by Salt Lake City Bishop John Wester, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, and former auxiliary bishop of San Francisco.

(PHOTO BY JOSE LUIS AGUIRRE)

By José Luis Aguirre Catholic San Francisco

Jazmín and Nancy López live with Usher’s disease, a hereditary disorder that affects their hearing and vision.

Shown with their parents, Rocio and Francisco, they are learning the Catholic faith at St. Francis of Assisi Church with the help of Father Paul Zirimenya, chaplain for the Deaf community in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

and when they were practicing it they arrived in the United States, where American Sign Language is used.

For Rocío and Francisco it has also been a challenge since their English is very limited.

“Sometimes they spell a word for me, but I don’t know how to write it or what it means,” Francisco said. “Every day I learn signs with the girls and if I don’t understand I ask them to give me an example or to make a drawing or a dramatization so that we can learn the word.”

Moreover, on Thursdays he learns sign language for one and one-half hours at the California School for the Deaf in Fremont where the girls also study.

A year ago the girls underwent a surgical cochlear implant during which an electronic device is placed in the internal ear that can detect sounds from the environment.

Nowadays, the girls are capable of hearing loud noises like sirens from fire trucks, the police, the doorbell at home, but are unable to identify sounds correctly.

One of the requirements for this surgical procedure was that the girls attend the Fremont school where they are in sixth and second grade and where they sleep during the week.

“It is better here than in Mexico because my teachers are deaf and also my schoolmates, so life is a lot easier,” Jazmín said through her father. “In Mexico it was very difficult and the signs were so different from the ones here, besides only a few people use them,” quips the younger one, who enjoys communicating with her friends by videophone during her free time.

Also using her father as an interpreter, Nancy said that what she likes most is to read and that she is happy at school because they teach her how to add, to read and more hand signs, but also adds that she does not like to stay overnight at the school because she misses her parents. “Over there I am alone and I would like to be with my family,” she said.

The one in charge of teaching them about the faith is

Francisco, who is Catholic and has been taking them to St. Francis of Assisi Church in East Palo Alto where they met Father Paul Zirimenya. Father Zirimenya is chaplain for the community of Deaf in the Archdiocese of San Francisco made up of over 3,000 families.

“Father comes to church and teaches them prayers, the Bible and talks about God and the Virgin. They taught them the Our Father, respect for others and the importance of Mass,” Francisco said.

During a recent written interview with Catholic San Francisco, Father Zirimenya stated that one of the challenges facing his ministry is the lack of interpreters for the Catholic Deaf. Moreover, he said, parents don’t even know sign language and they cannot teach them the faith.

In Francisco’s case, he learns Catholic sign language with his daughters.

“When they attend church reunions they tell us what they have learned because we as parents don’t have any interpreters to help us understand; there isn’t anyone else to teach us the signs of the Church,” he said.

According to Father Zirimenya, Deaf Catholics continue to be the “lost sheep” of the Catholic Church who due to lack of support go to Protestant churches where they find interpreters and access to services; the priest urges all lay persons who know sign language to get involved in the ministry.

“I’d like to see more of a commitment on the part of the Church and the services for the Deaf; more commitment to train priests in the use of sign language,” Father Zirimenya wrote.

For the time being, the Lopez family will continue with their weekly Friday rendezvous with La Virgen de Guadalupe program, which Francisco interprets for his daughters.

“They believe greatly in the Virgin and before going to bed they pray that they would be cured of their illness,” he said.

Rosa said she, her husband and 22-year-old daughter are fighting deportation on expired visas. Three younger children, ages 19, 8 and 5, were born in this country. She is waiting for her 19-year-old son to turn 21 so he can apply for residency for the rest of his family.

In the meantime, a 6 a.m. raid and threat of deportation, after more than 10 years of legal attempts to stay, has the family living on edge. “The American dream is becoming an American nightmare,” said Rosa, who said she came to the U.S. from Mexico in 1989. She reports to the Immigration and Naturalization Service each month, via a deal worked out by a new attorney.

The family had worked with another attorney from 1997 until the deportation raid earlier this year, she said. Rosa said she employs 28 people in a business.

“Since we have come to this country we have worked hard, paid taxes.”

The U.S. bishops support rewriting the immigration system “to bring the 11 million undocumented out of the shadows, register them with the government, require them to pay a fine and any taxes owed, and require them to learn English and work as they wait in the back of the line for a chance for citizenship,“ Bishop Wester said in a recent interview with Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly, which was cited in the San Francisco bishops’ written statement.

The U.S. bishops also support an increase in familybased and employment-based visas so that immigrant families could migrate to the United States in a safe, legal and controlled manner, and not be subject to the abuse of human smugglers or to death in the desert, the bishops said.

The U.S. bishops believe that the “broken U.S. immigration system contributes to the exploitation of migrant workers in the workplace; their abuse by ruthless smugglers; and their deaths in the desert as they seek to find work to support their families,” said Bishop Wester.

“They come illegally because there are insufficient visas under the current system to come legally. Our system contains only 5,000 permanent visas for unskilled laborers to come to the United States, but the demand for their work is much higher, since as many as 300,000 undocumented people each year are absorbed into the U.S. workforce,“ Bishop Wester said.

“We know and respect these good people because they pray in our churches with us and they send their children to our schools,” Archbishop Niederauer and Bishop Justice said in their statement May 14. “Many of them are undocumented. Many have been here for decades, raised families, started businesses. It is our belief as their pastors that they should be given a chance to right the wrong of their undocumented status.”

May 21, 2010

Catholic San Francisco

11

Mercy Sister returns to Sudan to help local women improve child, maternal health

Seen right, Mercy Sister Kathleen Connolly teaching women during a recent visit to Sudan. She recruited two local women, Christine Aswerwa and Anna Mijji, left and center in the photo, with a porter, to teach in the tribal communities of Nacipo and Loolim.

Her next assignment, working with refugee children for Catholic Charities of San Jose, brought her in contact with foster children from Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Somalia.

Interested in seeing for herself what life is like in the refugee camps for herself, she went to Sudan to celebrate her golden jubilee in 2008. She fell in love with the country, although she was frank to paint a realistic picture of living conditions even in the diocesan compound at Narus.

“There’s a bed with mosquito netting – it’s essential – and three meals a day of beans, corn, millet and cassava greens.

You lose weight.” she said. “And then there’s the heat which together with the humidity makes it 115 degrees.”

filtering the water could eliminate the parasite guinea worm which Mercy Sister Kathleen Connolly took her difficulties causes painful, fiery blisters on in stride during her 2009 sojourn in southern Sudan, and their legs and feet. River water difficulties they were: the almost inescapable malaria, in Sudan is notorious for guinea the scorpion that invaded her suitcase. worm, and its control, possible But what Sister Kathleen could not accept was the through methods the Toposa reality that children routinely endure and often die women’s project teaches, has from such diseases as tapeworm and dysentery. The been impeded by the disruptragedy is that these diseases are preventable with basic tions of war. hygiene.

They fed the women cooked In June, Sister Kathleen is returning to Sudan. Her greens, which grow plentifully mission: to help the Sudanese children have a chance around the villages and could be at a healthy life. an important nutritional addition Under the auspices of the non-profit Mercy Beyond to their starchy diets. The vitamins Borders, and fully funded by a grant from Mercy Action in greens prevent nutritional deficiency Fund, Sister Kathleen traveled last year to the Diocese diseases such as kwashiorkor, which of Torit in Sudan. Her intention was to teach girls at St. affects children’s growth and can be fatal.

Bakhita School in Narus for six months.

But the women are skeptical, as they Mercy Beyond Borders, based in Santa Clara, was think of greens as food suitable only for founded with practical goals: In a country battered by goats, reported Sister Kathleen. war and drought, it focuses on lifting up women and This basic education project girls through education. It provides scholarships for holds great hope for these women girls to attend St. Bakhita and to go on to and their children. “Mercy Beyond secondary schools in Sudan and Kenya.

Borders is changing the position of It also funds the women to start small in Sudan,” said Sister Kathleen.

“I have to let go of wanting Africans to be more like women businesses, like roadside cafes.

“Education is more important even than But promoting maternal and child hygiene. You need to educate people and Americans.”

– Mercy Sister Kathleen Connolly the culture will eventually change, but it health was the goal that Sister Kathleen came to embrace. She found that, instead will be a long time.” of teaching school, she was drawn to creShe found much to admire in the ating a new project to improve the lives of the women When she went last year, she and Sister Marilyn saw women. Mothers do most of the work, she said. “The and children of the area. that a simple program could be put in place to save lives, elderly women are so joyful. They smiled even without During her stay, she ended up teaching local Toposa especially the lives of children who live with nearly teeth and with cataracts that come from living in an equawomen nutrition, health and hygiene for almost a year, constant hunger in this region devastated by 22 years torial country. The kids play around them.” with great success. She also spread the word about con- of war.

“I had to let go of some ideas,” Sister Kathleen said. ditions in Sudan through her blog, Mercy in Sudan.

Kathleen recruited two local women, Anna Mijji and “I had to let go of cleanliness in some things. They can’t According to Sister Marilyn Lacey, MBB founder Christine Aserwa, to be the teachers for the women in wash always as I would like them to. I have to let go of and director, Sister Kathleen made quick friends with the area of. Nacipo and Loolim, two tribal clusters of wanting Africans to be more like Americans.” the Sudanese women despite the necessity for transla- settlements. The women cook outside their tukuls, or huts On her return in June, Sister Kathleen will check on tion from English to Arabic to Toposa. with mud walls, using the millet, sorghum and maize that the project and set up secure lines of funding – a difficult Sister Kathleen was born in Oakland and is a cousin they grow. They walk hours to get precious water from task in a country with few banks. She knows Anna and of Bishop John Cummins and Father Ben Cummins. deep bore holes or streams which often contain debris and Christine will continue the work of spreading life-saving She has two priest uncles, Matt and Nick Connolly, and living creatures along with the water. Using water for the information to the women. several cousins who were missionary priests and nuns in luxury of washing hands is rare, but as the women learned, The project extends the spirit of Mercy to the Sudanese Africa. She attended Mercy High School Burlingame. it can make the difference between life and death. women. “When our founder Catherine McAuley saw a Sister Kathleen, a lanky, down-to-earth sister, has The first step was to meet with the chiefs whose wives need,” Sister Marilyn said, “she jumped at ways to meet a history of seeing poverty up close. Professed in they would be teaching, offering gifts of tobacco rolls. the need. People like Kathleen are going to the Sudan to 1961, she taught for 22 years in San Francisco, Los As Sister Kathleen, Anna and Christine sat with them, meet these needs, but the Sisters and other Westerners Angeles and Bakersfield and then was part of the Mercy the chiefs came to see that this project could enhance the can’t be the workers. We connect the women with the Federation’s New Foundations project in Pocahontas, lives of their people. resources so they can do the work themselves.”

Va., where she was a social worker for the Lutheran Visit Sister Kathleen’s blog at www.mercyinsudan.

When women gathered for classes with their young Family Services and for Children’s Protective Services. children on their laps, Sister Kathleen taught them the blogspot.com/.

Later she worked as a social worker for Shasta County, basics of hand washing before eating to prevent worm Visit Mercy Beyond Borders website at www.mercyCalif., and for a foster family agency in Redding. eggs which cause dysentery. They showed them that beyondborders.org/.

By Liz Dossa

SUDAN

12

Catholic San Francisco

May 21, 2010

Archbishop’s Journal Drawing us more deeply into the life of Jesus, our Savior Archbishop George Niederauer delivered the following homily Ascension Sunday, May 16, at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco. The Mass included the rite of Confirmation.

May is a season of graduations: from one grade in school to another, from elementary or high school, from college, from graduate school. People move from one phase of life to another.

In the popular imagination the Church’s celebration of the Ascension of the Lord can have a vague meaning, somewhat like a “graduation” for Jesus: a nice bit of closure for him, now that his work as Savior is finished, but without much effect on us. Not so. The Ascension of the Lord is not a personal achievement for Jesus, but a gift, a saving event, for us. Notice that the disciples are filled with joy, as we hear in Luke’s Gospel. Why joy? It is not parting, separation or loss for them, but a cause for rejoicing. They praised God, as we should, that Jesus has taken his place at the Father’s right hand. They are beginning to understand the events in the life of Christ, and Pentecost Sunday will complete their enlightenment.

What does the Ascension of the Lord mean? It is an ending – an ending to the time Jesus walked the earth in Israel, visible, touchable, audible. More importantly the Ascension is a beginning. Now nothing can separate the disciples from Jesus: their powerful, invulnerable friend in heaven also remains powerfully with them on earth. Only days later, at Pentecost, Jesus will send upon the Church the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the life and love that he shares with the Father. The same Jesus who healed and taught during his earthly life will lead and teach and heal through the power of the Spirit, in order to bring his disciples home to himself in heaven.

What unites us on earth so strongly with Jesus in heaven? Listen to the ending of our second reading: the Father has made Jesus head of the Church that is his body. In the Spirit, we are as closely united with Christ as the different parts of a body are united in one whole.

Jesus tells his followers at the Last Supper: “The one who hears you, hears me; the one who hears me, hears him who sent me.”

The same is true of Confirmation: this Sacrament is not a graduation but the beginning of a new phase of life together in the Church, as you begin to take your place as young adult Catholics.

God gives all his spiritual gifts to you for a purpose, so that you can be what you were not before, or do what you could not do before. In Baptism you began your life in Christ as a child of God the Father and a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. After your First Communion you could approach the altar with others to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Now in Confirmation you will be given the Holy Spirit to guide and defend and comfort you in your striving to follow Jesus Christ as a faithful disciple.

In this country though we sometimes have a problem with the word “spirit.” It can sound rather vague and

abstract. For instance, let’s say that next weekend you and your family are moving to a new house, so you ask your best friend to help with the move. Your friend tells you that he has something else he wants to do, but that he will be “with you in spirit.”

When you look a little closer at the word “spirit,” you find it is a very strong word, with a powerful meaning.

Think of your own spirit or soul: no matter how well you take care of your body, your spirit or soul means more to you. Here’s why: your soul is the very core of you as a person, because soul or spirit enables you to think, to remember, to imagine, to choose freely, to feel and express your emotions. In this Sacrament of Confirmation God the Father and God the Son send the gift of the Holy Spirit of their life and love into your spirit or soul, so that God’s Spirit will guide you and strengthen you in your efforts to follow Christ, his teaching and way, in your lives.

At the Last Supper when Jesus promised to send all his followers the gift of the Holy Spirit, he said a strange thing.

The Savior said that we who believe in him and love him can recognize the Spirit, but the world around us cannot.

How could that be so? Here’s a comparison: right now this church is filled with all sorts of sounds – rock music, classical music, country and western, hip hop, weather reports, news programs – but we can’t hear those sounds. However, if we had a radio, and if it were turned on, tuned in, and the volume were adjusted, we could hear those sounds.

In a spiritual, not a mechanical, way, the gift of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation is like that. God gives you the Holy Spirit, but a response is expected from you. You need to tune into” the Spirit in your life. How do you do that?

You tune into the Holy Spirit in all sorts of ways: by coming to Mass and Communion and hearing the Scriptures and the teaching of the Church; by taking part in parish life; by spending some time in prayer with God each day; by letting your faith in Christ affect the way you treat people and talk about them; by seeking forgiveness for your sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation; by following the example of others you know who give good example by the way they live their lives the way Jesus taught.

So the Church exists to draw us ever more deeply into the life of Jesus Christ, our Savior. But some people may ask: Where does the Church get off saying what we should do, and how we should live? Look at how much sinfulness there is in the Church. Just look at the scandals of these past three years in this country!

It’s true that the Church is a Church of sinners.

It always has been. There’s much that is perfect about the Church, and that is everything it has from God: the Sacraments, the Creed, the Scriptures, the very gift of Jesus as Savior. But then there’s also us, the sinners who belong to the Church.

The worst thing about sinful Christians is that we give others an excuse not to believe. But it’s a fake excuse, not a real reason. Because someone does a good thing badly (like being a Catholic), that does not excuse you from trying to do it well. This objection to sinners in the Church

Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper

Nation of laws Regarding the Guest Commentary, “Arizona Mythbusting,” by Linda Chavez (CSF May 7): Of the new Arizona law regarding the questioning of individuals about their immigration status in the course of normal police work, she asks, “Why now?”

The answer: the American people have had it! They’re sick of being invaded by illegal

Letters welcome Catholic San Francisco welcomes letters from its readers.

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

aliens, sick of providing health care, welfare and education to foreigners. Do Mexican children deserve an education? Of course they do; but it should be provided by the Mexican government, not the American tax payer. The same holds true for health care.

As far as crime is concerned: Did Chavez bother to ask the citizens of Arizona who live along the border just how safe they feel? Another police officer was murdered since this article was written. Clearly, Ms. Chavez does not live in Arizona.

She believes this law to be “poorly drafted and arguably unconstitutional.” She cannot be more wrong. This is basically the same Federal law that the Feds refuse to enforce. Racial profiling is denied on four separate occasions in this law. She further states: “the syntax and grammar are so convoluted it’s difficult to parse the meaning.”

Sorry, no one who has a grasp of English has any difficulty parsing the meaning.

As far as aliens being required to produce documents proving they are legally in this country, this is part of the Federal

has been a problem from the beginning of Christianity. What did the Pharisees most object to about Jesus Christ? His awful taste in people! Their exact words were, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Archbishop Twenty centuries later Jesus Christ is still George H. welcoming sinners and Niederauer eating with them, right here this evening, and aren’t we glad he is?

I want to remind you, on this afternoon of your Confirmation, that the heart and center of your life as a Catholic is Sunday Mass and Holy Communion. Eucharist provides the heartbeat of our Catholic life of faith. We Catholics are not people who believe that Jesus Christ, at the Last Supper on the night before he died, turned to his first followers and said, to them and to us, “Go play golf in memory of me,” or, “Crawl the mall in memory of me.”

No, we Catholics believe that Jesus, at the Last Supper, took bread and wine, said “This is my Body” and “This is my Blood,” and then said, “Do this in memory of me.”

So each Sunday – the Lord’s Day – we do this in memory of Jesus our Savior. And we believe that Eucharist gives meaning and value to everything else in our lives, even including golf and the mall.

Some people criticize the Christian religion; they say that our faith is all commandments – all “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not.” When you come to think of it, we Christians are fortunate; we have only Ten Commandments to obey. And that’s hard enough! The world around you shoves hundreds of commandments at you all the time. You hear those commandments everywhere: commandments like, “Thou shalt be popular at all costs” or “Thou shalt have whiter than white teeth.” People my age and your grandparents’ age hear this commandment: “Thou shalt always look young if thou wouldst matter to anyone.” Your parents and people their age hear this commandment: “No matter how old thou livest to be, thou shalt never look older than thirty five.” We Americans spend billions and billions of dollars every year trying to keep that commandment.

Soon you’ll hear this commandment: “Thou shalt drive the most expensive sports car thou cannot afford.” You can go broke trying to keep that commandment.

You’re in school now, so probably you’ve already heard a version of this commandment there: “Thou shalt not think or look or act different from all the others, if thou knowest what is good for thee.”

You can tune out the world’s commandments, and its bad advice, by tuning into the Holy Spirit of God’s life and love that is given you today in Confirmation. May the Spirit always guide you in your following of Christ the Lord.

Immigration Act of 1940. That is a federal law which has been in effect for 70 years!

There’s nothing new here except that the existing laws will no longer be ignored.

This law will most definitely pass constitutional muster and, whether Ms. Chavez agrees or not, most legal Hispanics are in full support of it. Politicians who decide to fight it are the ones who are in for a bumpy ride.

Faith Schneider Novato

Buck stops here

Reconciliation, formerly called Penance, has been too often abused by priests who make their confessions to each other or to their bishops, under the cover of the “seal of confession,” and consider themselves absolved not only of their sins but also of any other blame or personal responsibility for the sins (including crimes of a high order such as the sexual abuse of minors).

This “double standard” of reconciliation, which is different for priests and laity, should be addressed now, as time is running out on it.

Rosemary Ring Kentfield

L E T T E R S

President Harry Truman, the history books now tell us, ordered the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, though he had only been informed of the top-secret Manhattan Project that produced them barely two weeks before his momentous decision.

He did this despite strenuous objections from General Dwight D. Eisenhower and other top-ranking commanders of our military and naval forces. It also is told that he had a sign prominently displayed in his office that read, “The Buck Stops Here.”

The three orders of good nuns who taught me during my 17 years in Catholic schools and college during the 1940s and 1950s inculcated the idea that a person is responsible for his or her own actions and the harm bad choices can do. Perhaps the real problem is that the Sacrament of

Grateful for priests

In answer to question about priests raised in a recent letter, we just have to say that there are many, many priests – Archdiocesan, religious order, and missionary priests – who are trying their best to do God’s will. They get up early in the morning to offer Mass. They sit in a tiny cubicle to hear confessions. They are called on to give the Sacrament of the Sick to a dying person. They are asked to preside at wakes. They are called upon to help a family with an adolescent or a teenager. They are called upon for marriage counseling. The list could go on.

In other words, they serve the local Church community. How grateful we should be!

Roy & Betty Dy San Francisco

May 21, 2010

Catholic San Francisco

13

Spirituality for Today

Our courageous priests Every year priests all over the world gather to celebrate the anniversary of their ordination. This is my 50th, and I appreciate my brother priests more than ever. We pray for those who are no longer with us.

In the past year, there have been devastating earthquakes, disrupting volcanoes, ferocious hurricanes and destructive floods, all causing terrible suffering.

The United States has been severely shaken by domestic and worldwide economic disasters resulting in financial ruin.

Priests are not immune from the woes of the laity. They experience family worries like everyone else. Even so, they try to maintain a calm spirit as they help carry the burdens of those in greatest need.

People are worried about the future. Priests do not claim special knowledge of the future. What they offer is more important. They offer wisdom. They stand as witnesses to truths that transcend human imagination. The priest offers a living presence of God. The late Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard wrote that a priest’s mission “does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.”

A priest’s spirituality is grounded in Christ’s wisdom.

Through the centuries, priests have maintained their dignity and their mission in the face of hardship and persecution. By being faithful to the mystery of the divine presence within, they bring the power of healing and forgiveness.

Priests believe in Jesus Christ, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen! This creed is part of the collective wisdom of the entire church, priest and laity alike.

Practicing the presence of Christ is not so much what the priest does as it is what he is. Just as Jesus was the one who was sent by the Father, the priest is sent by Jesus to bring encouragement to those flagging in faith.

St. Paul, writing in the Letter to the Hebrews (3:1), said: “Therefore, holy ‘brothers,’ sharing in a heavenly calling, reflect on Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to the one who appointed him.”

The priest aspires to present the face of Christ to his people; not that he is always calm in a storm, but he is wise in the knowledge of God’s love.

In presenting the face of Christ to others, he discovers in himself the emergence of a new personality. This transformation in Christ begins at ordination and transcends feelings.

Whether the priest is by nature worthy or not, joyful or not, wise or not, he can be made worthy, joyful and wise. When he

turns to Jesus living in him, the Lord will do for him what the priest is unable to do for himself.

When St. Paul said, “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4:4), he was teaching us joy is possible! Joy is Father both a gift and a choice.

To experience joy each John Catoir person must claim it as his or her calling. We are all meant to be messengers of joy, priest and laity alike.

Fear is useless, Jesus said. What we need is trust.

Jesus thanks priests for their trust and their years of service, struggle and suffering endured for the sake of the kingdom.

He thanks them for being his hands, his voice and his heart in helping to carry the burdens of his brothers and sisters on their journey home.

Priests carry on because of the courage of Christ within them.

Father John Catoir, founder of The Christophers, writes a column for Catholic News Service.

The Bottom Line

Are immigrants not our brothers and sisters?

I celebrate my father’s birthday in June. I sometimes feel closer than ever to my father as I approach the age he was when the Lord took him home. Everything he taught me was about how to “be good to people” and to love America.

Yes, my father was an immigrant. He managed to come to America as a teenager in 1917. I cannot count the times throughout his 82 years that he said, “Antoinette, this is the best country in the world.”

When I hear of the anger so many feel about immigration today, erupting so cruelly in Arizona this spring, I say a prayer to my dad in heaven, asking him to please ask the Lord to soften hardened hearts. Then I say a prayer of thanks to God for our Catholic bishops, so Christ-like on this issue.

I know that some, even Catholics, will say that the immigration issue was different so many decades ago.

But it wasn’t, not really.

I well remember how the Italians and Polish were segregated in their towns and cities when I was young. But they were workers needed on the farms and the railroads, and as such were tolerated.

Still, for most, the life they left was worth their coming to America. They believed their children would make America the greatest nation in the world, and that would forever be their contribution.

My father did not tell me why he left Italy until I pressed

him when he was getting old. He said he was only 13 years old when he left his home in southern Italy, his tearful parents approving, to go off into the world to make a living.

This was 1915, with a world war going on, and here he was, a child, heading north through Italy and France, trying to survive with no money, no skills and a language barrier, hoping to make it to America.

It took my father three years to succeed. He suffered injuries and starvation, but he finally got on a boat, paying his way by working for the captain.

When my father arrived at Ellis Island in New York Harbor, he thanked God for helping him get to this new land.

The first thing he did was learn the language so he could become a citizen.

In my many years as a journalist, every immigrant I ever met spoke of America with the reverence that my father felt.

Yes, we should always have immigration reform to meet the realities of an ever-changing world, but should it be the prejudicial action taken in Arizona?

I think we should remember what Pope John Paul II said when he visited the United States in October of 1995, addressing what he called a “meanness” toward immigrants.

In a homily at the Mass he celebrated at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., he said: “Quite close to the shores of New Jersey there rises a uni-

versally known landmark which stands as an enduring witness to the American tradition of welcoming the stranger, and which tells us something important about the kind of nation America has aspired to be. It is the Statue of Liberty, with its Antoinette celebrated poem: ‘Give me Bosco your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.’ ...

“Is present-day America becoming less sensitive, less caring toward the poor, the weak, the stranger, the needy? It must not!”

We need secure borders and laws that can help undocumented immigrants in America find a secure path to citizenship. That’s what we should work and pray for – not new laws that turn these immigrants into criminals!

Antoinette Bosco writes a column for Catholic News Service. She is the author of several books including “Mother Benedict, Foundress of Regina Laudis Abbey” (Ignatius Press).

The Catholic Difference

An immigration debate primer It’s hard to imagine a more depressing spectacle in contemporary American public life than the immigration reform “debate.”

What a friend who’s bailing out of the mainstream media recently deplored over lunch as “bumper-sticker politics” dominates the so-called “public discourse” on the question, and, truth to tell, some prominent Catholics have added more heat than light to the mix. How might Catholic social doctrine and a Catholic optic on politics turn the mutual exchange of rhetorical barrages into a real national conversation? Herewith some preliminary thoughts: * Catholic political theory places a high value on the rule of law, which it regards as morally superior to the alternative, which is the rule of willfulness imposed by brute force. * The laws we make through our elected representatives are under the scrutiny of the natural moral law we can know by reason, which means that our political judgments should be rational, not glandular. * The inalienable dignity and value of every human being from conception until natural death is the bedrock principle from which Catholic thinking about public policy begins. The dignity does not confer an absolute right on anyone to live wherever he or she chooses. A proper Catholic understanding of limited and constitutional government grasps that the state—which in the American case means the national government—has a right to enforce its citizenship laws and a duty to conduct that enforcement in a just way. * With the exception of our Native American brethren, every

Catholic in the United States today is the descendant of immigrants (in my case, from Germany in the early- and mid-19th century). This demographic fact, which reflects the national tradition of hospitality to the stranger, should create a predisposition to be pro-immigrant within the Catholic community in America.

That the vast majority of Catholics in the United States today are law-abiding citizens whose economic and social well-being is made possible by living within a law-governed political community should incline us to live that pro-immigrant predisposition through the mediation of the rule of law. * It is absurd to suggest that the United States has become xenophobic, racist, or anti-immigrant. Last year, as my colleague Robert Royal pointed out in a recent article, the United States naturalized 1 million new citizens, most of them from Mexico, and over the past decade we have naturalized another 10 million people who have worked their way through the system legally.

Millions more are in the legal immigration pipeline or are working in the United States with legal permits. If these are the marks of a racist or xenophobic nation, it’s a nation that displays its racism and xenophobia in very odd ways. * The canons of justice dictate that people should not be rewarded for law-breaking, and that is what illegal immigrants do: they break the law. Realism dictates that we cannot send some 10 to 20 million illegal immigrants home. The present situation— border porousness, which is exploited by criminals as well as by those looking for work; a large population of illegals; millions of

people seeking U.S. citizenship while playing by the rules—is intolerable. Any morally acceptable solution to immigration reform will address all three facets of the present mess. * Responsible citizens George Weigel who wish to be generous and uphold the rule of law and create a solution to the problem of illegals that doesn’t divide families or otherwise treat unjustly those who have, as Bob Royal put it, “taken advantage of a situation we Americans have allowed to exist for too long” should demand that politicians stop playing the demagogue on this issue. Responsible citizens, while understanding the angers of fellow-citizens along the southern border of the United States who are appalled at the situation they face on a daily basis and while demanding that the government fulfill its duty to protect the border, will also appeal to the common sense of their neighbors who imagine that deportation is a real-world solution.

Within these principles and facts, I suggest, lies an acceptable, if not perfect, solution to immigration reform.

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

Catholic San Francisco

A READING FROM THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES ACTS 2:1-11 When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.

And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.

Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language.

They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, “Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear them in his native language? We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.” RESPONSORIAL PSALM PS 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34 R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

O Lord, my God, you are great indeed!

How manifold are your works, O Lord! the earth is full of your creatures;

May 21, 2010

Solemnity of Pentecost Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34; I Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23 R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.

May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord be glad in his works!

Pleasing to him be my theme; I will be glad in the Lord.

R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.

If you take away their breath, they perish and return to their dust.

When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.

R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.

A READING FROM THE FIRST LETTER OF PAUL TO THE CORRINTHIANS 1 COR 12:3B-7, 12-13 Brothers and sisters: No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same

God who produces all of them in everyone.

To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.

As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.

A READING FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN JN 20:19-23 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

I

f asked to name a symbol of the Holy Spirit, most people will say the white dove, a common symbol of biblical illustrations, such as the Annunciation, in which the Spirit is present. Others, remembering the story of Pentecost, state the tongues of fire, which settled upon the heads of the Apostles and the Blessed Mother. This fiery symbol corresponds to the liturgical color, red, worn on feasts and celebrations of the Holy Spirit like Pentecost and the Sacrament of Confirmation.

These two symbols, however, are only in two occasions in the Holy Scriptures.

Despite the frequent use of the dove to illustrate the Holy Spirit, the Spirit takes the form of a dove only at Christ’s Baptism, a story told in all four Gospels. Likewise, the image of the flame is only at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, at Pentecost when the Spirit filled the Apostles, and the Church was formally launched on a redeemed, but unsuspecting world.

Jesus, Himself, speaks of the Holy Spirit using metaphors. In John 7:37-39, he refers to “Rivers of living water...flow[ing] from within him who believes...” The author of the Gospel then notes that Jesus is speaking of the Spirit that was to come once Jesus was glorified.

In the third chapter of John, Christ speaks of yet another symbol of the Holy Spirit during his clandestine conversation with the Pharisee, Nicodemus. That symbol is the wind (John 3:8). This metaphor corresponds to certain events in the Old Testament where the action of God is described. At the moment of Creation, prior to God’s great command, “let there be light,” the book of Genesis tells

Scripture reflection FATHER WILLIAM NICHOLAS

Invisible and uncontrollable power us, “a mighty wind swept over the waters [of the abyss]” (Gen 1:2). As the Hebrews departed Egypt across the Red Sea, it is written in Exodus, “the Lord swept the sea with a strong east wind” (Exod 14:21). The wind also indicates God’s movement on that first Christian Pentecost. Before the appearance of the tongues of fire, there was the sound of a strong driving wind (Acts 2:2).

It is a clever metaphor for the nature and action of the Holy Spirit, but an unusual one when placed beside the symbols of water, fire and the dove. Unlike these symbols, one can neither see, nor illustrate the wind.

No one can describe what it looks like. It is invisible, having no shape or size, color or form. Unless it is in motion, it does not exist,

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

14

and the only evidence of its existence is in the observance of its effects.

When illustrated, only a few twirled lines depict, not the wind itself, but its motion.

We see the fog rolling in, relentlessly, as it moves with the wind. We observe the trees swaying, the leaves tossed around. We even feel the wind as it blows past us. We speak of a pleasant “cool breeze” or an intense “windchill factor.” We cannot capture it, control it or harness it. It is completely out of our control. When it blows, there is no stopping it. We can only feel it, and observe the effect of its movement and its power.

If one visits Los Angeles in the late summer or early autumn, one would experience the great Santa Ana winds, more often than

A scene from Pentecost is depicted in a stained-glass window at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Greenlawn, N.Y. The feast marks the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles 50 days after Christ’ s resurrection. Pentecost is Greek for the 50th day. It is also referred to as the birthday of the church because, from that point on, the apostles carried Christ’s message to the world.

not, fanning the flames of great fires. If one were to live in the mid-west or the Gulf Coast, one would know the power of great hurricanes, and the unpredictability of tornados. Yet the power of the wind can also have a more subtle effect. If one were to drive up and down the coast of San Francisco, one would observe the trees; large, sturdy, immovable – yet bent inward, toward the land; years of being battered and formed by the invisible wind having caused them to take shape, leaning away from the ocean.

So it is with the Spirit, the driving force of the Church. Try as we might to predict its movement, it is an impossible task. Yet who can deny the powerful, and subtle effects it has had on a world, sanctified by the ongoing presence of the Church, to whom the Spirit is given as an Advocate? Who can deny the effects it has had on the Church itself, through thick and thin, grace and vice, virtue and scandal, as it continues its work as one of the oldest living institutions in history. Who can deny its movement in the consistency of our apostolic leadership, and the faith of the millions who follow Christ? Yet who can stop the ongoing movement of this invisible force that is the Holy Spirit, out of our control, blowing where it wills, yet relentlessly continuing to form and shape the Church, into the Body of Christ that God intends it to be.

The “Wind” is blowing, and nothing can stop it.

Fr. William Nicholas is Parochial Vicar at Our Lady of Loretto Parish in Novato. Visit his website at www.frwcnicholas.com.

The obligation to discern the Holy Spirit’s action

By Father John Catoir Long before the Holy Spirit was fully understood or defined as an article of the Creed, the Spirit was a “living force” in the primitive church’s experience. This same Spirit continues to act in the life of the Church to this very day.

The late Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens wrote a trilogy on the Holy Spirit titled “The Holy Spirit – Life-Breath of the Church” (Fiat Association, Belgium, 2001). Here are a few excerpts: “Easter and Pentecost make up a single reality. In the light of their mutual interpenetration, we should look upon Pentecost as the culmination of the paschal mystery and open ourselves to the action of the Holy Spirit. ... Indeed, renewal means an awareness of the ever active presence of God among us. The Holy Spirit enables us to experience the

immediacy of God in the heart of everyone. The Church in all its dimensions obeys one and the same Spirit.

“As a visible reality of this world, the church must have its laws and mechanisms. It cannot dispense with a code of law or with legislation, but it must carefully steer clear of legalism and a mechanical view of its own life. Canon law must always face up to the Holy Spirit and be obedient to his direction. ... The Gospel is, in the highest sense, the supreme law of the Church.

The word of God and the Spirit of Jesus are the ultimate authority in the church, and all of the hierarchy is at their service.”

Down through the ages many churchmen have paid lip service to the Holy Spirit’s active presence in the Church.

Many became legalists, placing protocol above truth. They neglected their duty to the Holy Spirit, becoming strict observers of bureaucratic niceties, fearing ecclesiastical disapproval more than the Holy Spirit.

The Church is a living entity precisely because the Holy Spirit constantly is active in it. It is the duty of all the bishops to discern the Spirit’s presence in the rumble-tumble of everyday life, and allow the Spirit to act in and through them. Granted, this isn’t easy.

Spiritual directors have the same duty in trying to discern how the person before them is being called to holiness.

Discernment is key. All of us must pray for the grace to discern the Holy Spirit’s active presence.

St. Paul said, “To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for a good purpose” (1 Cor 12:7). No one is excluded from receiving the gifts of the Spirit. All are called to holiness, even the greatest sinners among us.

Father John Catoir writes a column for Catholic News Service.

Catholic San Francisco

May 21, 2010

15

Spirituality for Life

A meta-narrative of consolation

By Father Ron Rolheiser Several years ago, I was at a symposium at which we were discussing the struggle that many young people have today with their faith. One of the participants, a young French Canadian Oblate, offered this perspective: “I work with university students as a chaplain. They have a zest for life and an energy and color that I can only envy. But inside of all this zest and energy, I notice that they lack hope because they don’t have a meta-narrative. They don’t have a big story, a big vision, that can give them perspective beyond the ups and downs of their everyday lives. When their health, relationships, and lives are going well, they feel happy and full of hope; but the reverse is also true. When things aren’t going well the bottom falls out of their world. They don’t have anything to give them a vision beyond the present moment.”

In essence, what he is describing might be called “the peace that this world can give us.” In his farewell discourse, Jesus contrasts two kinds of peace: a peace that he leaves us and a peace that the world can give us. What is the difference?

The peace that the world can give to us is not a negative or a bad peace. It is real and it is good, but it is fragile and inadequate.

It is fragile because it can easily be taken away from us. Peace, as we experience it ordinarily in our lives, is generally predicated on feeling healthy, loved, and secure. But all of these are fragile. They can change radically with one visit to the doctor, with an unexpected dizzy spell, with sudden chest pains,

with the loss of a job, with the rupture of a relationship, with the suicide of a loved one, or with multiple kinds of betrayal that can blindside us. We try mightily to take measures to guarantee health, security, and the trustworthiness of our relationships, but we live with a lot of anxiety, knowing these are always fragile.

We live inside an anxious peace.

As well, the peace we experience in our ordinary lives never comes to us without a shadow. As Henri Nouwen puts it, there is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our life so that even in our most happy moments there is something missing. In every satisfaction there is an awareness of limitation. In every success there is fear of jealousy. In every friendship there is distance. In every embrace there is loneliness. In this life there is not such a thing as a clear-cut, pure joy. Every bit of life is touched by a bit of death. The world can give us peace, except it never does this perfectly.

What Jesus offers is a peace that is not fragile, that is already beyond fear and anxiety, that does not depend upon feeling healthy, secure, and loved in this world. What is this peace?

At the last supper and as he was dying, Jesus offered us his gift of peace. And what is this? It is the absolute assurance the we are connected to the source of life in such a way that nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever sever – not bad health, not betrayal by someone, indeed, not even our own sin. We are unconditionally loved and held by the source of life itself and nothing can change that. Nothing can change God’s unconditional love for us.

That’s the meta-narrative we need in order to keep perspec-

tive during the ups and downs of our lives. We are like actors in a play. The ending of the story has already been written and it is a happy one. We know that we will triumph in the end, just as we know that we will have some rocky scenes before that ending. If we keep that in mind, we can more patiently bear the seeming death-dealing tragedies that befall us. We are being held unconditionally by the source of life itself, God. If that is true, and it is, then we have an assurance of life, wholeness, and happiness beyond the loss of youth, the loss of health, the loss of reputation, the betrayal of friends, the suicide of a loved one, and even beyond our own sin and betrayals. In the end, as Julian of Norwich says, all will be well, and all will be well, and every manner of being will be well.

And we need this assurance. We live with constant anxiety because we sense that our health, security, and relationships are fragile, that our peace can easily disappear. We live too with regrets about our own sins and betrayals. And we live with more than a little uneasiness about broken relationships and loved ones broken by bitterness or suicide. Our peace is fragile and anxious.

We need to more deeply appropriate Jesus’ farewell gift to us: I leave you a peace that no one can take from you: Know that you are loved and held unconditionally.

Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher, and author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX. Contact him at www.ronrolheiser.com.

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Catholic San Francisco

May 21, 2010

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‘Letters to Juliet’ film adroitly explores love, family, loss and destiny

By Joseph McAleer

(CNS PHOTO/SUMMIT)

NEW YORK (CNS) – “Letters to Juliet” (Summit) is a good-humored, oldfashioned, multigenerational romantic comedy – set against the backdrop of a picturesque Italian travelogue – that will have daughters, mothers, and grandmothers pondering the same question: “Does true love have an expiration date?”

Our heroine is Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), a fact-checker for The New Yorker magazine and an aspiring writer who travels to Italy with her fiance, Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal), a chef who is opening a new restaurant. They land in Verona, the “City of Lovers,” where the spirit of Shakespeare’s tragedy “Romeo and Juliet” – which takes place there – still looms large.

When food-obsessed Victor sets off in search of the perfect truffle, Sophie is left to explore the town on her own. She visits the house traditionally identified as Juliet Capulet’s, complete with the famous balcony, and discovers a kind of Wailing Wall for the amorous, where lovesick women leave letters seeking relationship advice. These missives are answered by the ladies of the “Club di

The picture-perfect views of the Italian countryside and of magnificent cities such as Siena are a major bonus of “Letters to Juliet” and fit the ultra-romantic tone of the film.

Will Claire be reunited with her Lorenzo?

Will Sophie’s fiance find her more interesting than Italian cuisine? Is there a romantic heart beating inside Charlie’s cold exterior? Put it this way: “Letters to Juliet” ends a lot more happily than Shakespeare’s play, and in a manner worthy of a Harlequin romance novel.

Directed by Gary Winick (“Bride Wars,” “Charlotte’s Web”), “Letters to Juliet” is one of those rare contemporary Hollywood films that explore – in a respectful and sincere way – time-honored themes of love, family, loss and destiny. Apart from the elements mentioned below, moreover, this is a generally wholesome film that can be enjoyed by most family members.

The film contains an implied premarital relationship. Catholic News Service classification is A-II – adults and adolescents. The MPAA rating is PG – parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.

Gael Garcia Bernal and Amanda Seyfried appear in a scene from the movie “Letters to Juliet.”

Giulietta,” who take Sophie under their wing.

Sophie finds a 50-year-old letter hidden in the wall by an Englishwoman named Claire, and decides to answer it.

Only days later, Claire – all grown up into the luminous Vanessa Redgrave – returns to Verona, determined to find

Lorenzo, her one true love of a half-century ago. She bonds with Sophie, much to the chagrin of her skeptical grandson, Charlie (Christopher Egan), and the unlikely trio sets off on their mission, determined to succeed despite the dozens of phony Lorenzos who cross their path.

True story of priest’s murder includes cultural context of the Ku Klux Klan “RISING ROAD” by Sharon Davies.

Oxford University Press (New York, 2010). 326 pp., $27.95.

Reviewed by Graham Yearley (CNS) – “Rising Road” by Sharon Davies is the true story of a murder on Aug. 11, 1921, in Birmingham, Ala. But it is a murder story without a mystery. The alleged murderer was caught within minutes of the crime, and there were several witnesses to the crime.

What makes this so extraordinary is that the murderer, the Rev. Edwin Stephenson, was a Methodist minister and his victim was a Catholic priest, Father James Coyle. At his trial two months later, Rev. Stephenson was represented by a four-man legal team led by

Hugo Black, who would become a senator from Alabama and later an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The bills for this defense team, which were well beyond the means of a minister who made his living marrying couples at the Birmingham courthouse, were paid secretly by the Ku Klux Klan, to which both Rev. Stephenson and Black then belonged.

In the early 1920s, both anti-Catholicism and racial hatred, which had always been part of the dark underbelly of American history, flourished again with new and alarming intensity. The KKK’s membership burgeoned to its highest level since its creation in the post-Civil War years. The anti-Catholic newspaper, The New Menace, had a subscription of more than one million readers.

The New Feminism: Returning Women to Dignity

Father Coyle was the pastor of St. Paul’s Church, the largest and most prominent Catholic parish in northern Alabama. He lived in the rectory next door with his devoted sister. When Father er Coyle came from Mobile too Birmingham, he arrived in a city that seemed to exist onn hate. The white Protestant majority hated and feared African-Americans, Catholics, Jews, Hispanics and people of mixed blood. Blatant attacks on Catholics were published regularly in the local newspapers of Birmingham.

Answering every attack with letters to the editor, Father Coyle was admired by the Catholic minority and loathed by the Protestant majority for his vigorous defense of the church. It was also well known

that the priest liked to end his busy days sitting on the front porch of the rectory, which was where Rev. Stephenson w found him and shot him f at a point-blank range.

A l t h o u g h R e v.

Stephenson quickly claimed St he had shot Father Coyle in self-defense, his motives for sel coming armed to the rectory com porch were not immediately por clear. But in short order, clea the press learned that Ruth Stephenson, his only child, Step had bbecome a Catholic a few weeks before the shooting and, week on the day of the murder, had married by Father Coyle been m Pedro Gussman, a Puerto to Ped Rican iimmigrant. To most white Protestants in 1921 Birmingham, Protesta that double provocation was more than sufficient justification for killing Father Coyle.

SCRIPTURE SEARCH Gospel for May 23, 2010 John 20:19-23 Following is a word search based on the Gospel reading for the feast of the Holy Spirit: Pentecost, the 50th day. The words can be found in all directions in the puzzle.

Feminism offered “the radical notion that women are people.” Long before radical feminists co-opted the concept in a fierce battle for masculinity, Christianity proclaimed the dignity and value of women. New Feminism renews the vision of the feminine as unique, joyful and worthy.

Our speaker Marjorie Campbell reverted to her Catholic faith after wandering years in barren pursuits of radical feminism. Restored to faith, health and humor, Campbell borrows ordinary moments of the day to illustrate the power and passion of God’s loving design of the feminine genius. Like her heroine Erma Bombeck, Campbell reflects on feminine humanity with a well-humored concern for understanding and empathy.

Campbell lives in San Francisco, and is a wife, mother of three, a former litigator, and published author and columnist.

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EVENING WERE LOCKED STOOD REJOICED THE FATHER ON THEM SINS

FIRST DAY FEAR PEACE THEY SAW HAS SENT ME RECEIVE FORGIVEN

DOORS JESUS CAME HE SHOWED LORD I SEND SPIRIT RETAIN

RECEIVE THE SPIRIT B

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© 2010 Tri-C-A Publications www.tri-c-a-publications.com

Sponsored by DUGGAN’S SERRA MORTUARY 500 Westlake Avenue, Daly City 650-756-4500 ● www.duggansserra.com

OVER 1MILLION USED BOOKS, DVD’S, GAMES, CD’S AND VHS TAPES AVAILABLE FOR SALE! Why pay full retail price when you can buy quality used (and new) products at bargain prices.

Shop at:

www.shopcitybooks.com Benicia, CA other locations in Oregon, Indiana & Texas

For CSF Advertising Information Please Call (415) 614-5642

May 21, 2010

National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi LA PORZIUNCOLA NUOVA Columbus at Vallejo in San Francisco’s North Beach The Porziuncola and the Francesco Rocks Gift Shop are open every day except Monday from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Visit www.knightsofsaintfrancis.com June 3, 7:30 p.m.: A Spanish Requiem Mass featuring the voices of the Notre Dame des Victoires Choir in the Porziuncola chapel. Admission is free.

Event is sponsored by the Confraternity of the Knights of St. Francis of Assisi.

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

S u n d a y, 7 a . m . : T V M a s s o n T h e Filipino Channel (TFC) (Channel 241 on Comcast and Channel 2060 on Direct TV. Saturday, 4 p.m.: Religious programming in Cantonese over KVTO 1400 AM, co-sponsored by the Chinese Ministry and Chinese Young Adults of the Archdiocese.

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

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

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

St. Mary’s Cathedral Gough and Geary Blvd. in San Francisco.

Call (415) 567-2020 Strength for the Journey, a ministry of support for people diagnosed with life-threatening illness and the families, friends and caregivers, is in its inaugural stage at the cathedral. Deacon Christoph Sandoval is director. Cal (415) 567-2020, ext. 203, or e-mail Rcs7777@comcast.net.

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

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

For more information, e-mail mercyyoungadults@ sbcglobal.net.

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

3rd Friday, 8 p.m.: Dominican Sisters of Mission

June 6, 1:30 p.m.: The 16th Annual Eucharistic Procession and Public Grand Rosary Rally will start in front of St Patrick’s Church at 1:30p, Sunday, June 6. Join the Legion of Mary and St Patrick’s parish for the Eucharist Procession through the streets of downtown San Francisco in commemoration of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. St Patrick’s Church is located at 756 Mission St. between 3rd & 4th in San Francisco.

Visit www.sfsenatus.com or call St Patrick’s Church, (415) 421-3730.

P UT

1500 Old Mission Rd. in Colma, (650) 756-2060 June 5, 11 a.m.: First Saturday Mass in All Saints Mausoleum.

Special Liturgies

Catholic school Development Directors met recently at Daly City’s Our Lady of Mercy Elementary School. Development or fundraising is a vital element of today’s Catholic school with funds generated supporting scholarship opportunities as well as school programs and operations. Seated from left are Alice Lawrie, St. Gabriel; Marie Driscoll, St. Anthony-Immaculate Conception and St. James, Virginia Simon Holy Angels. Standing from left: Marie Ferdon, St. Vincent de Paul, Jean Anderson, OLM, Suzanne McCarthy, St. Brendan, Margaret Purcell-Brisken, Immaculate Heart of Mary, Ed Mahoney Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Lily Angelopolis, St. Cecilia. Unavailable for the photo were Patty Cavagnaro and Elizabeth Garvin, Immaculate Conception Academy, Alicia Carley and Marietta Dalton, Good Shepherd, Pacifica; Michelle Conci, Our Lady of Mr. Carmel, Mercy Sister Marian Rose Power, St. Peter, Rosemary Steubing, St. Timothy, Dan Kelly, Our Lady of Loretto. For information on becoming a school patron or making a donation to the general welfare of Catholic schools, contact Annette Brown, Department of Catholic Schools, at (415) 614-5500 or browna@sfarchdiocese.org.

St. Thomas More Society May 27, noon: Lunch at the Family Club, corner of Bush and Powell Streets, San Francisco. Guest speaker is Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone who will speak about his experience at the Vatican’s highest court, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

Tickets are $45 for those with over 10 years in practice, $38 for those with 10 years or less in practice, and $20 for Bishop Salvatore law students and clergy.

For reservation, contact Cordileone Bob Zaletel at (415) 2886343 or e-mail rzaletel@litller.com or visit www. stthomasmore-sf.org

Support Resources Relevant to the Economy Tuesdays, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.: Stress Management Group - Benefit from relaxation techniques, mind and body awareness practices, group support.

Takes place at Catholic Charities CYO, 36 West 37th Avenue, San Mateo. Cost is $15 per sessionEnroll by calling Catholic Charities CYO at (650) 295-2160, ex.199. Pamela Eaken, MFTI, and Natasha Wiegand, MFTI, facilitate the sessions. The program is supervised by David Ross, Ph.D.

Trainings/Lectures/Respect Life May 22, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.: The Life and Dignity of the Human Person with Father Andrew Amritharaj, Ph. D. at St. Matthias Church, 1685 Cordilleras Rd.

17

Holy Cross Cemetery

Datebook

San Jose, Motherhouse Chapel, 43326 Mission Blvd. (off Mission Tierra), Fremont. For further information, please contact Dominican Sister Beth Quire at (510) 449-7554 or visit our website at www.msjdominicans.org for more information.

May 21, 7 p.m.: Mercy Center, 2300 Adeline Dr. in Burlingame sponsored by Ministers of Light, a survivor-driven work focused on domestic violence prevention, crisis intervention and healing. Visit www. ministersoflight.org

Catholic San Francisco

just of Edgewood near Alameda de las Pulgas in Redwood City. Topics include end-of-life issues in light of Catholic Church teachings. The presented is a professor of moral theology and spirituality at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park. Admission free. Lunch provided. To register, call Evie Dwyer at (650) 368-9372 or e-mail evie@ federales.com Saturdays: San Mateo Pro-Life prays the rosary at Planned Parenthood, 2211 Palm Ave. in San Mateo at 8 a.m. and invites others to join them at the site. The prayer continues as a peaceful vigil until 1 p.m. The group is also open to new membership. Meetings are held the second Thursday of the month except August and December at St. Gregory Parish’s Worner Center, 138 28th Ave. in San Mateo at 7:30 p.m. For more information, call Jessica at (650) 572-1468 or visit www.sanmateoprolife.com Saturdays, 9 a.m. – 10 a.m.: Rosary for Life 815 Eddy St. – Planned Parenthood – in San Francisco.

Reunions June 26: Class of ’60, Star of the Sea Academy.

E-mail erhunt@mail.com or noniloretta@att.net October 22: Class of ’60, St. Cecilia Elementary School Wine and Cheese Party in the parish Collins Center. Event includes tour of the school and the opportunity to participate in the annual Parish Festival.

Contact Bob O’Donnell at rjodfc@yahoo.com or Nancy Sarlatte Murphy at nancymurphy1248@comcast.net October 23: Class of ’60, St. Cecilia Elementary School Reunion Dinner at the Irish Cultural Center.

Contact Bob O’Donnell at rjodfc@yahoo.com or Nancy Sarlatte Murphy at nancymurphy1248@comcast.net Class of ’60 from Holy Angels Elementary School in Colma. Contact Linda Brewer at brewer@sbcglobal. net or visit www.holyangelscolma.com or call (650) 755-0220.

Class of ’60 from Notre Dame High School in Belmont is planning its 50th reunion. Contact Bettina Igoa McCall at Mcbett@comcast.net or (510) 851-2344.

St. Paul High School, San Francisco, class of ’80 planning a reunion sometime in June 2010 to coincide with graduation day of May 31 1980. E-mail Maria Rinaldi Vincent at vncntmtvincent@aol.com or call (650) 349-1642.

Third Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m.: Manifest Mysteries Rosary Prayer – Examine how the mysteries of the rosary are manifested in daily life using short film and the Dominican Rosary prayer. 7:30 - 8:30 pm at Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose, Motherhouse Chapel, 43326 Mission Blvd. (off Mission Tierra), Fremont. Call Sister Beth Quire, at (510) 449-7554 or visit our website at www.msjdominicans.org for more information.

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

Fourth Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m.: Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament –Silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. 7:30 - 8:30 pm at Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose, Motherhouse Chapel, 43326 Mission Blvd. (off Mission Tierra), Fremont. Call Sister Beth Quire, at (510) 449-7554 or visit our website at www.msjdominicans.org for more information.

The Tridentine Mass is celebrated Sundays at 12:15 p.m. at Holy Rosary Chapel at St. Vincent School for Boys. For more information, call St. Isabella Parish at (415) 479-1560. First Fridays: Latin High Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at 6 p.m. at St. Francis of Assisi Church, 1425 Bay Road at Glen Way, East Palo Alto. Mass is followed by the Litany of the Sacred Heart and Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament until midnight. Confessions are heard before Mass. Low Mass in Latin is offered every Friday evening at 6 p.m. For further information, call (650) 322-2152. First Sundays at 6:30 p.m. at Mater Dolorosa Parish, 307 Willow at Miller in South San Francisco. For more information, call Ando Perlas at (650) 892-5728

Serra Clubs June 10, noon: Serra Club of San Francisco luncheon at Italian American Social Club, 25 Russia Avenue off Russia Street in San Francisco. Speaker: Freddi D’Alessio will talk about the Archdiocesan Gabriel Project to support pregnant mothers and their unborn children.Cost: $16 for lunch. Non members welcome. Contact Paul Crudo (415) 566-8224 or e-mail pecrudodds@aol.com

Food & Fun June 4, 7 a.m.: Monthly Mass and meeting of Catholic Marin Breakfast Club at St. Sebastian Church, Sir Francis Drake Blvd. at Bon Air Rd. in Greenbrae. Marin County Sheriff Bob Doyle is breakfast speaker. Members’ breakfast is $7 and non-members’ $10. E-mail sugaremy@aol.com to register and for other details.

May 22, 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.: Whale of a Sale at St. Sebastian Church, Sir Francis Drake Blvd. and Bon Air Rd. in Greenbrae. Spaces available for items you might want to sell at $35 if reserved before May 13 and $50 per space after that date. Vendor supplies their own tables and chairs. Spaces accommodate eight foot table or two card tables. Call (415) 4610704 or visit www.sebastian94904.com

Datebook is a free listing for parishes, schools and non-profit groups. Please include event name, time, date, place, address and an information phone number.

Listing must reach Catholic San Francisco at least two weeks before the Friday publication date desired. Mail your notice to: Datebook, Catholic San Francisco, One Peter Yorke Way, S.F. 94109, or fax it to (415) 614-5633, e-mail burket@sfarchdiocese.org, or visit www.catholic-sf.org, Contact Us.

YOUR BUSINESS CARD IN THE HANDS

Attach Card Here Deadline for June 11th Issue is May 28th

210,000 R EADERS

OF

Deadline for July 16th Issue is July 2nd Please do not write on your card.

C ATHOLIC S AN F RANCISCO

FOR

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

* FREE LISTING IN OUR BUSINESS DIRECTORY ON OUR WEBSITE*

AD HEADING NAME ADDRESS CITY ZIP

STATE PHONE

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

18

Catholic San Francisco

May 21, 2010

SERVICE FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION In Home Care DIRECTORY IN YOUR HOME CARE FOR SENIORS Handy Man painting and Carpet Cleaning Visit our website: www.catholic-sf.org Call 415-614-5642 Fax: 415-614-5641 E-mail: penaj@sfarchdiocese.org

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

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

Roofing

remodeling

John Holtz

Ca. Lic 391053 General Contractor Since 1980

(650) 355-4926

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

Safe Non-Toxic, No Shampoo, Dry in Hours not Days

24 hours, 7 days a week

Commercial & Residential Serving SF & San Mateo Co. St. Charles Parishioner

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

(650) 593-5959

Electrical

DEWITT ELECTRIC Your #1 Choice! For all your electrical needs!

Ph. 415.515.2043 Ph. 650.508.1348

Caring compassionate and committed to our client’s well-being and safety.

Specialize in Dementia, Alzheimer, Cancer patients, Hospice and wheelchair cound.

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

Emily Bion Wagman License #39702

650-834-7227 Cell ebw8bion@yahoo.com

Home Care Painting (415) 786-0121 • (415) 586-6748 S.O.S. PAINTING CO. Construction Lic. # 907564

Painting

BILL HEFFERON

PAINTING INTERIOR, EXTERIOR All Jobs Large and Small

Lic # 526818 Senior Discount

415-269-0446 650-738-9295

www.sospainting.net FREE ESTIMATES

10% Discount: Seniors, Parishioners

Call BILL 415.731.8065 • Cell: 415.710.0584 bheffpainting@sbcglobal.net Member of Better Business Bureau Bonded, Insured – LIC. #819191

Trusted in San Francisco and The Bay Area Since 1994 Ayrton B. Sobral Ph. # (415) 281- 0999

www.primarypaintingsf.com License #698355

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

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

For more info, contact: Contractors State License Board

Matthew W. Johnson General Contractor

650.591.7243 www.mwjqc.com Serving San Mateo County

• Residential kitchen and bath remodeling • Additions • Free estimates • Safe clean secure worksites Free counter top appliance w/completed proposal Free food processor with kitchen

KEANE CONSTRUCTION ➮ Exterior / Interior Additions ➮ Baths ➮ Foundations, Stairs, Dry Rot ➮ Architect Available ➮ Senior Discount

Call: 415.533.2265

Lic. 407271

* Attendants * Companions * Hospice * Respite Care Competitive Rates • Screened • Insured • Bonded

Full Payroll Service www.irishhelpathome.com

Tel: 415 759 0520

Homecare for Seniors

by Accredited Caregiver Specialists

SF Bay Area

$17/hr

Free in-home assessment www.accreditedcaregivers.com 650-307-3890

SUPPLE SENIOR CARE

Limousine

“The most compassionate care in town”

Airport Special

N. San Mateo County - SFO…$30* San Francisco - SFO………….$40* *plus airport fee Any other charter with reasonable price. Good Service.

QUALITY HOME CARE SERVING THE BAY AREA SINCE 1996

Senior Care

(TCP 10581P)

Interior-Exterior wallpaper hanging & removal

Lic. C-10 (631209) 09

1655 Old Mission Road #3 Colma, SSF, CA 94080 415-573-5141 or 650-993-8036

Plumbing *Irish owned & operated 800.321.2752 anti S Plumbing and Heating Investment Counseling Healthcare Agency A-A Limousine Service • 415.308.2028 email: Augustshi@sbcglobal.net

415-661-3707

When Life Hurts It Helps To Talk

Michael T. Santi

Since 1972 Ca License # 663641 24 Hour Emergency Service

• Family • Work • Relationships • Depression • Anxiety • Addictions

Dr. Daniel J. Kugler

HOLLAND Plumbing Works San Francisco

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Over 30 years experience • Reasonable Fees

Confidential • Compassionate • Practical (415) 921-1619 • Insurance Accepted

ALL PLUMBING WORK PAT HOLLAND CA LIC #817607

ADÁN PLUMBING, HEATING, A/C ◆

Serving all your plumbing needs.

Complete bathroom renovations ◆ Senior, parishioner discounts

◆

Serving the entire S.F. Bay Area www.adanplumbing.com 650.270.7766 Lic# 841835

BEST PLUMBING, INC. Your Payless Plumbing

Lic. # 872560

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

(650) 557-1263

Construction CAHALAN CONST. Foundations, Earthquake Dryrot, Termite, Siding, Stucco Additions. Remodels lic# 582766

415.279.1266

MORROW CONTRUCTION Specializing In Wood Fences

(650) 994-6892 lic. 343633

Member: Better Business Bureau

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

“Large Enough to Matter, Small Enough to Care”

FREE ESTIMATES (415) 441-2454 Fully Insured

Marriage and Relationship Counseling David Nellis M.A. M.F.T.

(415) 242-3355 www.counselingforchristians.com

PLEASE RECYCLE THIS PAPER! CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

The Irish Rose

Home Healthcare Agency Specializing in home health aides, attendants and companions.

Serving San Francisco, Marin & the Peninsula.

Contact: 415.447.8463

Clinical Gerontologist Care Management for the Older Adult Family Consultation –Bereavement Support

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:

EMAIL: bestplumbinginc@comcast.net

Maintenance Services www.garibaldimaintenance.com

1537 Franklin Street • San Francisco, CA 94109

BONDED & INSURED

415-205-1235

*Serving from San Francisco to North San Mateo

❖ 30 years experience with individuals, couples and groups ❖ Directed, effective and results-oriented ❖ Compassionate and Intuitive ❖ Supports 12-step ❖ Enneagram Personality Transformation ❖ Free Counseling for Iraqi/Afghanistani Vets

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

Kathy Faenzi, MA, Clinical Gerontologist Office: 650.401.6350 Web: www.faenziassociates.com Striving to Achieve Optimum Health & Wellbeing

Notary Breens’ Mobile Notary Services

Certified Signing Agent

Timothy P. Breen Notary Public

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

* Member National Notary Association *

Visit us at catholic-sf.org

Catholic San Francisco

May 21, 2010

19

Catholic San Francisco

classifieds Visit www.catholic-sf.org For website listings, advertising info & Place Classified Ad Form

OR Call 415.614.5642, Fax 415.614.5641, Email penaj@sfarchdiocese.org

Help Wanted

Live In Companion Needed

We are looking for full or part time

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

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

RNs, LVNs, CNAs, Caregivers In-home care in San Francisco, Marin County, peninsula Nursing care for children in San Francisco schools

Catholic San Francisco is now on

If you are generous, honest, compassionate, respectful, and want to make a difference, send us your resume: Jeannie McCullough Stiles, RN Fax: 415-435-0421 Email: info@sncsllc.com Voice: 415-435-1262

SHARE OFFICE SPACE IN VAN NESS CORRIDOR An ideal space for a single professional, bright modern office space with use of large conference room, telephone system, computer networks. Share 1/3 of the office expense.

Office space for rent

Contact Jack at (415) 474-9765, ext. 101

Marketing Or Design Work Wanted

Looking for a position where I can apply my analytical and/or creative skills in Marketing, Advertisement, or Design.

Please contact Peter Truong at :

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

Will work overnight shifts 415-947-9858

Room for Rent Richmond district in SF, $575/month. Room for rent for working person, nonsmoker, no pets, references required. Leave message at (415) 504-1207 or (415) 387-7226.

510.909.6365 PLEASE RECYCLE

or THIS PAPER! petertruong105@gmail.com CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

OFFICE SPACE AVAILABLE

Thank You

Approximately 2,000 to 10,000 square feet first floor office space available (additional space available if needed) at One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco (between Gough & Franklin), is being offered for lease to a non-profit entity. Space available includes enclosed offices, open work area with several cubicles, large work room, and storage rooms on the lower level of the Archdiocese of San Francisco Chancery / Pastoral Center. We also have mail and copy services available, as well as meeting rooms (based on availability). Reception services available.

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

Come view the space.

Project RIDE thanks the San Francisco city agencies and community-based organizations that supported our Tobacco-Free Sponsorship policy and pledges not to take money from Big Tobacco, helping to provide uncompromised commitment to the health and well-being of our community.

PUBLISH A NOVENA Pre-payment required Mastercard or Visa accepted

Cost $26

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

Name Adress Phone MC/VISA # Exp. Select One Prayer: â?&#x2018; St. Jude Novena to SH â?&#x2018; Prayer to St. Jude

â?&#x2018; Prayer to the Blessed Virgin â?&#x2018; Prayer to the Holy Spirit

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

Prayer to the Blessed Virgin never known to fail.

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

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

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

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

Say prayers 3 days.

F.S.

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

St. Jude helper of the hopeless pray for us.

Say prayer 9 times a day for 9 days.

Thank You St. Jude.

Never known to fail.

You may publish.

D.C.

Clothing Needed St. Anthony Foundation Free Clothing Program Is your closet getting too full? Then donate to St. Anthonyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Free Clothing Program and help provide dignity to low-income families and individuals by providing them with essentials they could not normally afford.

Offering free clothing in a store-like environment helps those in need move towards self-sufficiency. Donate at 1179 Mission Street between 8am and 4:15pm Monday through Friday or call 415.241.2600.

Automotive

Hilltop Buick Pontiac GMC Truck I P L B A ! â&#x20AC;˘ Extensive inventory means selection â&#x20AC;˘ Competitive pricing â&#x20AC;˘ Give us your bid â&#x20AC;˘ We can offer YOU SAVINGS! â&#x20AC;˘ Exceptional customer service

For more information, contact

Katie Haley, (415) 614-5556 email haleyk@sfarchdiocese.org.

â&#x20AC;˘ Easy access off I-80 at Hilltop Richmond

J

N â&#x20AC;˘ 510.222.4141 3230 Auto Plaza, Richmond 94806

.

.

20

Catholic San Francisco

May 21, 2010

MONDAY, MAY 31, 2010 11:00 A.M.

Shuttle available at main gate from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.

Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery Menlo Park Memorial Day Mass ~ Outdoors – 11:00 am Rev. William Myers, Pastor, St. Raymond Church, Celebrant Our Lady of the Pillar Cemetery, Half Moon Bay Memorial Day Mass ~ Outdoors – 9:30 am Rev. Domingo Orimaco, Pastor, Our Lady of the Pillar Church, Celebrant Mt. Olivet Catholic Cemetery, San Rafael Memorial Day Mass ~ Outdoors – 11:00 am Rev. Paul E. Perry, St. Sebastian Church