BREAKFAST CLUB:
WOMEN OF THE YEAR:
‘PRISONER OF CHRIST’:
Decades-long ritual at St. Veronica
Daughters of Charity honored
Parishioner knew Shanghai Bishop Fan
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CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO Newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco
SERVING SAN FRANCISCO, MARIN & SAN MATEO COUNTIES
www.catholic-sf.org
MARCH 28, 2014
$1.00 | VOL. 16 NO. 9
Survivor: Panel must achieve real change SARAH MACDONALD CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
DUBLIN – The lone clerical abuse survivor nominated by Pope Francis to sit on the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said the commission needs to achieve concrete change in order to “show other survivors that the church is going to get it right.” Marie Collins, who was abused by a chaplain as a sick 13-year-old at Crumlin hospital in Dublin in the 1960s, told Catholic News SerMarie Collins vice that many survivors will be watching the new Vatican commission “with interest, but many will have written it off as merely a PR exercise.” “Survivors will not be satisfied with more words or promises, they need to see real change,” she said. Collins, who campaigns on behalf of abuse victims, said her priority is “a strong worldwide child protection policy which would include sanctions for any member of the church in a position of authority who ignored these rules.” She added that too many bishops who have protected abusive priests have been allowed to remain in place undisciplined. “I would like to see the way survivors and their families have been treated change. The concentration on often-abusive legalistic responses instead of caring for those hurt needs to end,” she said. The cultural attitude within the church and laws that “categorized child abuse as a moral lapse rather SEE SURVIVOR, PAGE 17
(PHOTO COURTESY ANN MCGRATH)
Cub Scout and St. Anselm School student Mac McGrath, son of Order of Malta members Matthew and Ann McGrath, served guests at the Handicapables Mass and luncheon March 22 at Marin Catholic HIgh School.
‘Out of the shadows and into the light’ CHRISTINA GRAY CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO
About 30 developmentally and physically disabled adults from Marin County enjoyed fellowship, food and fun with their families, caretakers and each other at Marin County’s Handicapables Mass at Marin Catholic High School March 22. The quarterly Handcapables Mass is sponsored by the Marin members of the Order of Malta, a 900-yearold lay religious order whose charism is helping the poor and the sick.
As Mass started, a high-spirited woman named Lisa from Cedars of Marin, a group home for adults with developmental disabilities in San Rafael, ran over to the resident of another local group home, David. He flashed a grin as she hugged his neck. Recognizing a handicapped person’s need for friendship is the whole idea behind Handicapables, a charity founded nearly 50 years ago by Nadine Calliguri, a young San Francisco woman born with cerebral palsy. She knew from her own experience SEE INTO THE LIGHT, PAGE 17
Author: Christian persecution a ‘global pandemic’ ALBERT C. PACCIORINI
The persecution of Christians and other people of faith is a “global pandemic” that is largely unnoticed by most media because of a bias that views Christianity as a Western oppressor, a Boston Globe expert on Catholicism told an audience at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland. “This is no laughing matter. It is the transcendent human rights story of our time,” said Boston Globe associate editor and former Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter John Allen Jr.
“In effect, our era is witnessing the rise of a new generation of martyrs,” with 150,000 Christians dying for their faith every year, Allen writes in his book “The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of AntiChristian Persecution” (Random House, 2013). John Allen Eighty percent of violations of religious freedom in the world today are directed against Christians, according
to the secular International Society for Human Rights. Underlying the global war on Christians is the demographic reality that more than two-thirds of the world’s 2.3 billion Christians live outside the West, often as a beleaguered minority up against a hostile majority – whether it’s Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia, Hindu radicalism in India, or state-imposed atheism in China and North Korea, Allen said. SEE PERSECUTION, PAGE 17
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INDEX On the Street . . . . . . . . .4 National . . . . . . . . . . . .10 World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Opinion. . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . .22