MARRIAGE:
‘LET’S GO!’: Pope takes spin in
GUIDEBOOK:
St. Thomas More Parish couples take vows
priest’s donated Renault (186k miles)
Journalist offers ‘one-stop shopping guide to Catholicism’
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CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO Newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco
www.catholic-sf.org
SERVING SAN FRANCISCO, MARIN & SAN MATEO COUNTIES
SEPTEMBER 20, 2013
$1.00 | VOL. 15 NO. 25
Project Rachel: More than 200 mourners grieve lives cut short CHRISTINA M. GRAY CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO
More than 200 mourners sought the warmth of their faith and each other as they huddled together on a windy knoll at Holy Cross Cemetery on Saturday, Sept. 14, remembering children who lost their lives before, at or after birth. A Mass and healing liturgy are sponsored every two years by the archdiocesan Project Rachel ministry and cemeteries. The event welcomes anyone mourning a life interrupted by abortion, miscarriage or stillbirth as well other tragedies such as accidents, disease or crib death. San Francisco Auxiliary Bishop SEE PROJECT RACHEL, PAGE 18
‘Sanctity stronger than scandals,’ pope assures Rome clergy FRANCIS X. ROCCA CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
ROME – Acting in his capacity as bishop of Rome, Pope Francis offered words of encouragement to his diocesan priests, assuring them that recent and current scandals cannot overcome the church’s holiness and urging them to keep their vocations alive through love of God. The pope made his remarks Sept. 16 at a meeting with diocesan clergy in SEE POPE, PAGE 18
(PHOTO BY CHRISTINA M. GRAY/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)
Mourners bury leaves symbolizing children who lost their lives before, at or after birth at the Project Rachel shrine at Holy Cross Cemetery, Colma, on Sept. 14. Auxiliary Bishop William J. Justice presided at a bilingual Mass and later at a healing liturgy on the cemetery grounds.
Under Pope Francis, liberation theology comes of age FRANCIS X. ROCCA CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis’ Sept. 11 meeting with Dominican Father Gustavo Gutierrez was an informal one, held in the pope’s residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae, and not listed on his official schedule. Yet the news that Pope Francis had received the 85-year old Peruvian priest, who is widely considered the father of liberation theology, has excited interest far beyond the Vatican’s walls. During the 1990s, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith conducted a lengthy critical review of Father Gutierrez’s work, and required him to write and rewrite articles clarifying some of his theological and pastoral points.
But within a single week in early September 2013, the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published an interview with Father Gutierrez, an article by the theologian himself, and two articles praising his work – one of them by the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Father Gustavo the Faith, ArchGutierrez bishop Gerhard L. Muller. Following years of Vatican criticism of liberation theology under Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, these events might seem to indicate a reversal of policy under
Pope Francis. It would be more accurate to say they represent the fruit of a long and painful process, through which the church has clarified the nature of its commitment to the world’s poor today. Liberation theology emerged in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. It finds in Scripture the principles and inspiration for working to free people from unjust social patterns and structures. Its starting point often is the concrete situation of Latin America’s predominantly poor people and how they understand the Scriptures as relating to them in their struggles for freedom from sin and from unjust social structures. SEE LIBERATION, PAGE 18
BISHOP THOMAS DALY: Named interim rector and president of St. Patrick’s Seminary PAGE 6
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INDEX On the Street . . . . . . . . .4 Wedding Guide. . . . 8-11 National, World . . 12-13 Opinion. . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Community . . . . . . . . 20