(CNS PHOTO/REUTERS)
Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper
Nun collects stones for convent wall A nun and children collect stones to build a wall around their convent near the site of the Myitsone Dam project in Myitkyina, Myanmar’s northern Kachin state, Feb. 26. Myitsone is the site of the confluence of two rivers that form the Irrawaddy River, Myanmar’s lifeblood waterway. In September, President Thein Sein suspended a highly controversial hydropower project that would have flooded the area, including the convent.
Like St. Paul in Athens, itinerant priest ministers in marketplace By Ed Langlois PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) – Amid a thrum of commercialism, an amiable priest spent most of the month of January waiting patiently. His hope was to talk about faith and life with anyone who took an interest. Dominican Father Antoninus Wall, former president of a school of theology, has made the Lloyd Center Mall in Portland his mission the past two years. His routine includes five hours at the mall on weekdays and seven hours on Saturdays listening to people and discussing joy, family life, evil, sin, the role of the laity, sickness, death, humor, morality and scores of other topics.
“When St. Paul went to Athens, where was the first place he went?” asked the priest, an 86-year-old scholar. “The Agora,” he said, referring to the ancient city’s marketplace and civic center. The Portland mall is within the bounds of Holy Rosary Parish, staffed by the Dominicans, the order of preachers founded in the 13th century to spread the Gospel in newly flourishing European cities and universities. “St. Dominic would be in the marketplace,” Father Wall said, framed by wandering shoppers and the smell of Cinnabon. “A parish is not just a place where people come, it’s a basis of evangelization,”
said Father Wall, who led the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley from 1980 until 1986. At the mall, John De Guzman of Portland came to Lloyd Center one weekday morning and sat down with the priest for a chat. De Guzman felt curious about Jews and Arabs and got a sensible, respectful treatise from the well-read cleric. As he listened to those who spoke with him, Father Wall’s blue eyes looked at them intently and steadily, despite the chaos of the mall. “This is remarkable,” said De Guzman, a member of Holy Rosary Parish. “I think this is something the church should be doing everywhere.”
Others came to discuss personal problems, such as marriage struggles. Father Wall is as comfortable talking about relationships as he is about Thomas Aquinas. “Millions of people have never talked to a priest in their whole life,” he told the Catholic Sentinel, archdiocesan newspaper of Portland. “They’ve never had the chance.” The priest is not allowed to approach shoppers or hold signs. So he just waited for people to come to him. “The Catholic faith just makes sense when you sit down and talk about it,” said the octogenarian priest with a pleasant, round, Irish face. He was born in San Francisco to parents MARKETPLACE, page 18
By Valerie Schmalz As Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Christina Heltsley opened the patio gate to the St. Francis Center of Redwood City, she stopped to chat in Spanish with a smiling mother holding a baby girl in her arms. Christina Joy, she explained later, was her namesake – and she was suffering from a cold. In 2000, Sister Christina was hired as the center’s executive director, making a midlife shift from teaching, often in inner-
city schools, and school administration. “Everyone has their thing,” said Sister Christina, 56. “I missed working with the economically poor.” Sister Christina succeeded founder Franciscan Sister Monica Asman, now 92, a geneticist at UC Berkeley who started the food and clothing pantry in a double-wide trailer in her retirement. During Sister Monica’s tenure, the 24-unit low-income St. Clare Apartments opened in 1996, converting an existing apartment complex. CHRISTINA, page 17
(PHOTO BY JOSE LUIS AGUIRRE/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)
Dominican sister living vocation to be with ‘the economically poor’ Dominican Sister Christina Heltsley’s work in North Fair Oaks, a San Mateo County district whose many young families contend with poverty and gangs, “is so powerful for the community,” said a San Mateo County deputy sheriff.
INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION On the Street . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 News in brief. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Local news . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 ‘Donut Masses’ . . . . . . . 12-13 Lenten inspiration . . . . . . . 15
What we’re giving up for Lent ~ Page 3 ~ March 2, 2012
Priest remembered as advocate for poor ~ Page 9 ~
Archbishop: Mandate diminishes liberty ~ Page 14 ~
ONE DOLLAR
Occupy and faith. . . . . . . . . 17 Queen Mary book . . . . . . . . 22
www.catholic-sf.org VOLUME 14
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