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Diocese of Fall River, Mass.

F riday , January 16, 2015

Diocesan faithful, students heading to annual March for Life

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

Pope Francis is “so Franciscan,” said Father Thomas Washburn, quoting St. Francis: “Preach the Gospel at all times, when necessary use words.” This is exactly what this pope is doing so well” he said. “Just mention any of these images, whether it’s washing the feet of prisoners, embracing the boy with cerebral palsy on his first Easter, kissing the head of the man covered with lesions — we’ve all seen these images and these images have spoken powerfully to everyone.”

Ministering in the age of Francis

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

BOSTON — His papacy began on March 13, 2013; he is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, the first from the southern hemisphere, and the first non-European pope in more than 1,200 years.

Pope Francis has only worn the Holy Father mantle for less than two years and yet, “it’s now hard to remember a time when there wasn’t a Pope Francis; he’s had such a huge impact,” said Father Thomas Washburn, O.F.M. A native of New Bedford,

Father Washburn now works in Boston as the executive director of the Franciscan Provincial Ministers Conference for the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Malta and Lithuania. During the 2013 conclave, and having worked with Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM, Cap., Father Washburn entertained the idea of seeing Cardinal O’Malley become pope, speculating about that in his blog (www.afriarslife.blogspot.com) which was picked up by America magazine.

In that post, along with his

speculation, Father Washburn touched on how the incoming pope should bring a very St. Francis-like approach towards the papacy: “How much this moment in our history as a Church was really calling forth for someone like St. Francis; someone who was connected to the people,” said Father Washburn, who became a Franciscan friar in 1991 and ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 2000. “Being a native New Englander, most of us have had some experience with Cardinal Sean and his very-

pay for prescriptions.

Titled, “Voices Raised for Healthcare,” the CD contains 10 recordings by the choir and made its debut shortly before Christmas at the East Freetown church.

“This project has been nearly a year in the making,” Johnston told The Anchor. “This has always been a very good choir.

Before me, Dan Davey and George Campeau put together and maintained a choir with very talented people in this parish, and it continues today.”

Johnston said the idea for the CD and its purpose came about at a choir meeting. “We were talking about healthcare and the costs and how some

simply cannot afford it,” said Johnston. “It’s a great burden for some and we felt as Christians we should be caring and helping those with such a basic need.

“The choir members are people of great faith and want to put that faith into action.

As musicians we wanted to do something more than just sound good. We wanted to keep our ministry about doing God’s will, and the idea of raising funds to help elderly patients was born.”

“Our choir is such a thoughtful and dedicated group,” Father Mathias told The Anchor. “They wanted to do something to

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FALL RIVER — Excitement is building and anticipation is growing among the large contingency of diocesan faithful who will once again be traveling to our nation’s capital next week for the annual March for Life.

“Our faith teaches us that we need to stand in the public square and defend everyone’s right to life, especially the most vulnerable,” said Marian Desrosiers, director of the Pro-Life Apostolate for the Fall River Diocese.

Although she’s been with

the Pro-Life office for 22 years, Desrosiers has actually attended the annual march in Washington, D.C. for more than 30 years now, and the event continues to inspire her.

“Many see it as an opportunity to be a witness to life in our nation’s capital,” she recently told The Anchor. “Others want to gather with young people of the same mind from all across this nation who are ready and willing to rebuild a Culture of Life.”

Msgr. Gerard P. O’Connor, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet, will be joining Turn to page 14

Dynamic Catholic Institute offers world-class resources to parishes

By Linda Andrade Rodrigues Anchor Correspondent

FALL RIVER — The most successful New Evangelization initiative in the United States today, the Dynamic Catholic Parish Book Program, is quietly sweeping the country. During the past five years, more than 4,000 parishes and five million Catholics have benefitted from the program.

Launched by the Dynamic Catholic Institute, its mission is to re-energize the Catholic Church in America by developing world-class resources that

inspire people to rediscover the genius of Catholicism.

“I recommend the Dynamic Catholic Parish Book Program as an effective tool in the efforts of the New Evangelization, and I would encourage you to bring the program to your parish,” advised Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, on the Institute’s website DynamicCatholic. com.

Locally, in the Diocese of Fall River, parishes are taking advantage of this tremendous resource.

Father Jay T. Maddock, pastor Turn to page 14

Parish choir members raise voices, funds for elderly in need

By Dave Jolivet Anchor Editor

EAST FREETOWN — It’s a widely believed concept that music can help soothe and heal — from babies within the womb to elderly patients struggling with Alzheimer’s disease.

At St. John Neumann Parish in East Freetown, the greatly talented choir has taken music’s helping powers a step further.

The choir, under the direction of Linda Johnston, and with the blessings and support of pastor Father Gregory A. Mathias, recently released a CD of uplifting and inspiring music of praise, with the profits benefiting elderly patients who cannot meet insurance co-payments or

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News From the Vatican

January 16, 2015

World without mothers would be inhumane, lacking tenderness, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Mothers are indispensable to society and the Church, showing the world what it means to generously give oneself for others, to respect life and to display tenderness and moral strength even in times of trouble, Pope Francis said.

Speaking to some 4,000 people gathered indoors for a recent general audience, the pope continued his series of talks about the family, but also gave a second talk about beauty and harmony when he thanked a group of circus performers at the end of the audience.

Tying the theme of the family to the Church’s celebration of the feast of Mary, Mother of God, January 1, and the Epiphany January 6, the pope looked specifically at Mary’s role in the Gospel accounts of Christmas.

“She gives us Jesus, she shows us Jesus, she lets us see Jesus,” the pope said.

Even though mothers are often “exalted” with praise and poetry, he said, they often get very little concrete help and appreciation. In fact, he said, “the willingness of mothers to sacrifice themselves for their children is often taken advantage of in order to ‘save’ on social spending.”

“One should better understand their daily struggle to be efficient at work and attentive and loving in their family; it is necessary to better understand what they are striving for in order to express the best and most authentic fruits of their liberation,” he said.

Pope Francis recalled his own upbringing as one of five children, and spoke of how much work and how many problems, but also how much happiness, come with motherhood.

“Mothers are the strongest antidote to the spread of selfish individualism,” he said.

A world without mothers would be “inhumane,” he said, “because mothers always know how to give witness — even in the worst of times — to tenderness, dedication and moral strength.”

“Being a mother does not mean just bringing a child into the world, but it is also a life choice. What does a mother choose?” he asked. “It is the choice to give life and this is great, this is beautiful.”

If societies do not do justice to the contributions and sacrifices of mothers, the Church is not always better, he said. “Perhaps mothers, who are ready to make many sacrifices for their children and often also for others” should

find greater reception and attention in the Church, he said.

It is often the mother who passes on “the deepest sense of religious practice” as she plants and cultivates the seed of faith in a child by sharing prayers and devotional practices, he said.

“Without mothers, not only would there be no new people of faith, but the faith would lose a good portion of its simple and profound warmth.”

Mothers are the biggest enemies of war, “which kills their children,” he said, admitting he has thought many times of those women who receive the dreaded letter notifying them of the loss A child embraces Pope Francis during a recent general audience in of their children in their defense photo/Paul Haring) of the nation. “Poor women.

How much a mother suffers,” he said solemnly.

Mothers are martyrs, the pope said quoting a homily by SalvaVATICAN CITY (CNS) — all those over the age of 80 — doran Archbishop Oscar Rome- — A pope’s impact on the Col- would be locked out of the Sisro, who was shot and killed in lege of Cardinals is naturally dis- tine Chapel where the conclaves 1980 as he celebrated Mass. cussed after his death when his are held.

Presiding over the funeral nominees and those of his predeMuch of the reaction to Pope Mass of a priest who had been as- cessors enter the Sistine Chapel Francis’ recent announcement sassinated by the country’s death to elect a new pope. of the identities of the new carsquads, the late archbishop had Voting in a conclave is the dinals focused on how they give said that giving one’s life does heaviest and most visible respon- representation in the college to not just mean being killed for the sibility that comes with a red hat, Catholics in some of the most faith, it is also offering oneself “in but those under the age of 80 remote parts of the world — the that silence of daily life,” bit by — the cardinal’s retirement age “peripheries” the pope is always bit, “like a mother, who, without — also influence the work of the talking about. With the addifear and with the simplicity of offices of the Roman Curia and tion of electors from Ethiopia, maternal martyrdom, conceives a serve as special papal advisers.

New Zealand, Vietnam, Myanchild in her womb, brings it into Along with a red biretta and mar, Thailand, Uruguay, Panama, the world, nurses it, raises it and the assignment of a “titular” Cape Verde and Tonga, the numlovingly cares” for the child. church in Rome, new cardi- ber of countries with electors will At the end of his audience nals are appointed members of rise from 48 to 57. talk, the pope was treated to a Vatican congregations, councils, Among the electors, the pershort circus show as acrobats and commissions and secretariats; centage of Europeans will drop jugglers performed in front of they are not simply advisers to to 46.4 percent from its current him on stage while a jazz band those offices, but full members 48 percent. While not a huge played “All of Me.” whose vote is needed for the change, it is a sign of continuThe pope thanked the men, most important decisions and ing progress in making the colwomen and children taking part documents issued by each office. lege more representative of the in an international festival in The statistical impact of Pope Church as a whole; in 1960, there Rome for circus performers and Francis’ choices for new mem- were 79 members of the college praised them for being “creators bers of the College of Cardinals and they came from only 27 of harmony, creators of beauty, will be small, but significant. countries. About 70 percent of who teach the high road of beauThe expanded group of cardi- the college at the time was made ty,” which is “good for the soul.” nals eligible to elect a pope — all up of Europeans.

But while people today are those under the age of 80 — will Borrowing a category from the well-practiced in “the language include a lower percentage of world of politics and economics of the mind, thinking” and “the Europeans, a slightly lower per- — the Group of Eight countries language of the hands, doing,” centage of Italians, a lower per- with the most advanced econothey need to remember to use centage from the United States mies — even after the consistory “the language of the heart, lov- and a higher percentage of car- the world’s most powerful nations ing,” he said. dinals who head dioceses rather still will have a majority among “These three languages come than offices of the Roman Curia. cardinal electors. But instead of together to make up the harmoAfter the new cardinals are representing 61 percent of the ny of the person; and there is the created February 14, the college electors, the G-8 countries’ share beauty,” he said. will have 125 members under the will drop to 57.5 percent.

God is not only truth, good- age of 80 and, therefore, eligible With the Argentina-born ness and the Master of Creation, to vote in a future conclave. The pope’s latest picks, the percentage He is also beauty and “so many total number of cardinals will of Latin Americans will rise to times we forget about beauty,” rise to 228 — a record-breaking 16 percent from its current 15.4 the pope said. “Humanity thinks, number. If a papal election were percent. Pope Francis named no hears, does, but today it is in such held the next day, more than 45 new members from the United need of beauty.” percent of the world’s cardinals States or Canada, so that part of

Paul VI hall at the Vatican. (CNS

Cardinal counts: Nominees nudge numbers toward greater representation

the world’s percentage will fall to 12 percent from its current 13.6 percent.

After the new cardinals receive their red hats, the percentage of Africans will rise to 12 percent from 11.8 percent. The percentage from Asia will rise to 11.2 percent from its current 10 percent. And, the OceaniaSouth Pacific region, which had only one voting-age cardinal, will have three; that brings the region’s percentage up to 2.4 percent from its current 0.9 percent.

Bringing new members into the college rejuvenates the body, although in the past several decades the average age of cardinal electors has decreased only slightly with each new intake.

Two of Pope Francis’ picks — Cardinals-designate Soane Mafi of Tonga and Daniel Sturla Berhouet of Montevideo, Uruguay — are still in their 50s. However, after the consistory, the average age of the whole block of cardinal electors will decline only by five months, dropping to 71 years, one month.

As far as the age of the new cardinals goes, Pope Francis is well within the norm for the past several decades when the average age of incoming electors has been between 65 and 68.

The last time the average age of a batch of new cardinals was less than 60 years old was the 1977 consistory in which Pope Paul VI created four new cardinals, including then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger. The average age of that group was 57.2 years, according to catholic-hierarchy. org, the leading website for statistical information and brief biographical data of all the world’s bishops and cardinals.

The International Church Religious extremism or fruit of nihilism?

Vatican newspaper questions terrorism

January 16, 2015

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — Following the attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, the Vatican’s newspaper has commented that behind these “inhuman acts” is an undeclared nihilism, which can be glimpsed through the exaltation of suicide and the evident drive to death.

“The totalitarian collectivism aim at the destruction of humanity and to its self-annihilation. A dark soul beats from the deep of this ideological hell, and there lies a sense of what we may think without a scope. We are still in front to nihilism, that some of philosophers have declared overcome and obsolete,” L’Osservatore Romano published in a recent edition.

Dario Fertilio, the author of the article, stressed that “terroristic violence” may be described as inhuman, since “every totalitarian ideology hides a human inclination to dominate the other and to instrumentally use terror and violence for its own purpose.”

The author compares jihadism with Bolshevik communism or National Socialism, aiming to find an inner sense to the carbombs in Iraq, to the beheadings perpetrated by the Islamic State, to al-Qaeda suicide attacks, and to slaughter of innocents by Boko Haram.

According to the Vatican newspaper, current explanation of the phenomenon may be reductive, or at least superficial.

Beyond the wish “to cause pain

Panel advising Vatican unanimous that Archbishop Romero is a martyr

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A panel of theologians advising the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints’ Causes voted unanimously to recognize the late Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero as a martyr, according to the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference. The panel declared January 8 that the archbishop had been killed “in hatred for the faith,” Avvenire reported.

The decision is a key step in the archbishop’s cause, following an extended debate over whether he was killed for political reasons or for his faith.

The next step in the process lies with the cardinals and bishops who sit on the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, who will vote on whether to advise the pope to issue a decree of beatification. A miracle is not needed for beatification of a martyr, though a miracle is ordinarily needed for his or her canonization as saint.

Archbishop Romero, an outspoken advocate for the poor, was shot and killed March 24, 1980, as he celebrated Mass in a hospital in San Salvador during his country’s

civil war. His sainthood cause was opened at the Vatican in 1993.

Pope Benedict XVI told reporters in 2007 that the archbishop was “certainly a great witness of the faith” who “merits beatification, I do not doubt.” But he said some groups had complicated the sainthood cause by trying to coopt the archbishop as a political figure.

In March 2013, Pope Francis reportedly told El Salvador’s ambassador to the Holy See: “’I hope that under this pontificate we can beatify (Archbishop Romero).”

Pope Francis told reporters in August 2014 that “For me, Romero is a man of God.” “But the process must go ahead, and God must give His sign. If He wants to do so, He will,” Pope Francis said.

During a recent general audience, Pope Francis quoted words that Archbishop Romero had spoken at the funeral Mass of a priest assassinated by Salvadoran death squads: “We must all be willing to die for our faith even if the Lord does not grant us this honor.”

Diocese of Fall River

OFFICIAL

His Excellency, the Most Reverend Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., D.D., Bishop of Fall River, has announced the following appointment: Rev. Robert A. Oliveira, Associate Director of the Permanent Diaconate Program.

Effective December 23, 2014

to the enemy to educate him,” or the attacks on education — “with a fury that is considered an outcome of a not well specified cultural backwardness,” the author identifies an “inflexible logic” of any totalitarian system, that “may be assimilated to the action of a virus, of ideologic kind.”

The article stress that any totalitarianism needs to keep on expanding, although it might be able to use “skilled diplomatic and communicative strategies,” since “if it quits” expanding “it means it entered in a phase of regression, and this decline may mean his end.”

Despite jihadism being seemingly far from a regression or an end, the Vatican newspaper stressed that since totalitarian ideology is unable to spread, it tends to attack itself, “targeting those that in theory” the ideology “should represent and protect.”

Hence, “the intimidation of dissidents, the doing-away of any opposition, the eruption of heterodoxies, the generalized internal terror against the ‘different’ and the ‘unfaithful,’ the denouncing of plots or betrayal and so on.”

In the end, “terrorism and acts of ruthless violence may solely be masks of their true totalitarian nature,” that “like a parasite, uses every tool at its disposal — a Sacred book, national pride, the worship of land, of blood, of social class belonging — only for instrumentalization, with the task to pursue the real hidden target of controlling power. And this control may be in turn only functional to perpetuate its system of dominating.”

These are the nihilist roots of the most recent events, according to the Vatican newspaper.

“Everybody, taken by the need to denounce the mass conformism and the modern forms of authoritarianism, have forgotten the heart of darkness, that is the totalitarian evil as the diabolical illness of power uniquely able to destroy,” L’Osservatore Romano reads.

The article concludes that, as this power goes beyond every limit, “it cannot be anything else than pure energy of overpowering, inexhaustible source of pain and death.”

“Destructive and self-destructive, in an attempt to replace God, perhaps we are now facing the nihilism” denounced by the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky and later theorized as a “vital force” by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche.

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The Church in the U.S.

January 16, 2015

Holy Cross Brother Andrews dies; he had headed Catholic Rural Life

VALATIE, N.Y. (CNS) — A funeral Mass was celebrated January 10 in Valatie for Holy Cross Brother David Andrews, who died January 5.

Brother Andrews, who served for 12 years as executive director of Catholic Rural Life, was 70. He had retired from active ministry in 2014 to attend to health issues. He was receiving kidney dialysis at the time of his death.

Brother Andrews conceived of the “Eating Is a Moral Act” campaign of Catholic Rural Life, which had been known as the National Catholic Rural Life Conference during his tenure. “I think I’ve achieved a lot of the goals I’ve set for myself in the National Catholic Rural Life Conference,” he told CNS in 2007. “The NCRLC got put back on the map, nationally as well as internationally. We have a fully professional staff. We have a good board, with four bishops on it.”

After his time with Catholic Rural Life, he served as a senior representative for Food & Water Watch, which advocates for contaminant-free waterways, food production and distribution systems, until his retirement.

Straddling those two ministries, Brother Andrews served from 2006 to 2010 as coordinator of justice and peace for the Congregation of Holy Cross.

Born March 16, 1944, in Mansfield, the fifth of 10 children, David Grant Andrews attended Msgr. James Coyle High School in Taunton, run by the Holy Cross Brothers.

By the end of his junior year, he had decided on his vocation.

Two months after graduating from Coyle, he entered the Holy Cross novitiate in Valatie.

He made his first profession of vows in 1963 and his final profession in 1969.

Brother Andrews received

a bachelor’s degree in English from Stonehill College in North Easton, in 1967. He earned master’s degrees in teaching English from Rhode Island College in 1975 and in social and systematic theology from Boston College in 1977.

He completed pre-law studies at the University of Notre Dame in 1991, and received his law degree from the University of Loyola School of Law, New Orleans, in 1995.

He taught at Catholic high schools in New York and Maryland, 1967 to 1976, before becoming administrator of the St. Joseph Spiritual Life Center at Valatie, 1977 to 1981.

In 1981, Brother Andrews was chosen executive director of the Edward Vincent O’Hara Institute for Rural Ministry.

Under his five-year leadership, the institute served as a valuable resource to Catholic Rural Life and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

A 2008 study on industrial farming practices that Brother Andrews co-wrote with Tim Kautza, then a science and environmental education specialist with Catholic Rural Life, said, “What began with a pursuit of efficiency to improve production for all farms has unintentionally resulted in a decline in economic freedom for them and an imbalance of economic power favoring dominant firms within the industry, rather than individual producers.” He added: “It is clear that industrialized animal production has adverse impacts on rural communities. The consolidation of the nation’s animal agriculture has led to a more concentrated, industrialized model, which has had dramatic and increasingly problematic impacts on rural communities and the traditional farm.”

He is survived by eight of his siblings.

University of Kansas student Kayla Burditt takes a selfie with the rest of the delegation from the state of Kansas at the recent SEEK 2015 conference in Nashville, Tenn. The conference, sponsored by FOCUS Ministries, drew more than 9,500 college students and young adults from around the country. Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., is pictured at center. (CNS photo/Andy Telli, Tennessee Register)

SEEK 2015 sends college students out to change the world

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (CNS) — The founder of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students implored nearly 10,000 young adults to put Christ first in their lives so they can help change the world.

“You were willed into existence because you were meant to be amazing. The invitation Christ is extending is to choose Him first and become the man or woman you were meant to be,” Curtis Martin said during his keynote address at the recent SEEK 2015 conference.

“If you allow Christ to be the principle and foundation of your life, you will be a world changer,” he said.

Sponsored by FOCUS and held at the Opryland Hotel and Resort in Nashville, the conference drew young people from college and university campuses across the country.

Martin told attendees, “The great truth of the Christian Gospel is not that we love God, but that God loves us. We need to respond with a full, all-in effort.”

“If you become who you are meant to be, you will set the world on fire,” he added. “Go set the world on fire.”

Attendees felt inspired to do just that.

“It moves my heart to tears to see people encountering Christ,” said Gage Shirley, one of more than 75 students from the University of Kansas in attendance.

The SEEK conference was the second for Shirley. The first, in 2013, came as he was going through a conversion in his faith and was helped along in that journey by older students he met through the FOCUS missionaries at the university.

Two years ago, Shirley said, he

“saw how big the Church is, and how many college students are pursuing Christ.”

His goal this year was to mentor younger students attending their first conference, just as he was mentored, and to discern the path his life should take after he graduates in the spring. Shirley said he is considering working as a missionary with several organizations, including FOCUS. Heather Nelson, another Kansas University student at the conference, has already made that decision: she will become a FOCUS missionary after spring graduation, working on a college campus to help students develop a relationship with Christ.

The conference has been a learning experience, a surprise for Nelson. She said she thought the conference would be geared more for people still seeking a relationship with Christ, and as a student leader at the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the university, she thought she already had that.

But by listening to the conference speakers, Nelson said she learned a lot that she plans to take to the Bible study group she leads at her sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta.

FOCUS has more than 400 missionaries serving on 100 campuses nationwide in a campaign to invite college students to build a relationship with Christ and the Catholic faith. The FOCUS model begins first with establishing genuine friendships and helping students, through smallgroup Bible study and one-onone mentorship, to develop the tools needed to maintain their faith while in school. Students also are sent to share their faith with others.

SEEK and FOCUS help students know the love of Christ and develop a true relationship with him, Nelson said. “That’s what’s lacking.”

People may know about Jesus, Nelson said, “but they don’t know Him as their best friend.”

Grayson Dubois, a sophomore at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, learned a lot from the long list of speakers at the conference about how to deepen his Spiritual life.

“There are a lot of people who know what they’re talking about,” said Dubois, who is a parishioner at St. Rose of Lima Church in Murfreesboro. “It’s good to be in an environment with these people who know what college students go through and what it means to live a good life.”

“What FOCUS is doing is on the cutting edge of the new evangelization,” said Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., who was the main celebrant and homilist at one of the conference Masses.

“The model they use, we’re trying to install that model in our parishes,” Archbishop Naumann said. “It’s the method Jesus Himself used.”

Archbishop Naumann was impressed with what he saw at the conference.

“I see a tremendous desire for the Lord, a great yearning,” he said. “It’s impressive to see this many young adults on fire with the faith.”

It is especially impressive, he said, when one considers the sobering statistics about how many young people fall away from their faith while in college. “What’s beautiful here,” he said, “is you see a lot of young adults who’ve found their faith in college.”

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January 16, 2015

Pope to Sri Lankans: Reconciliation means dialogue, ‘pursuit of truth’

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (CNS) — Arriving in Sri Lanka, a country recovering from two-and-a-half decades of ethnic and religious civil war, Pope Francis said reconciliation would require its people to explore their painful recent history and accept persistent differences within their multicultural society.

“The process of healing also needs to include the pursuit of truth, not for the sake of opening old wounds, but rather as a necessary means of promoting justice, healing and unity,” the pope said January 13 at an arrival ceremony at Colombo’s international airport.

Pope Francis addressed his words to Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, Maithripala Sirisena. During his campaign, Sirisena promised an independent investigation into war crimes allegedly committed during the 26-year struggle between government forces and rebels belonging to the country’s Tamil minority.

In his remarks to the pope, Sirisena noted that during the last papal visit, by St. John Paul II in 1995, “Sri Lanka was

embroiled in annihilating terrorism, following the mayhem caused by the terrorists in the daily lives of the people” — a reference to the Tamil Tigers, finally defeated in 2009 by the military under Sirisena’s predecessor, President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The war divided Sri Lanka along religious as well as ethnic lines, since members of the Sinhalese majority are typically Buddhist, and Tamils for the most part are Hindu. Catholics, who make up seven percent of the country’s population, include members of both ethnic groups. Rajapaksa, who sought re-election January 8, had his political base in the country’s Sinhalese-Buddhist majority.

Sirisena enjoys more support among minorities.

“Sri Lanka for many years knew the horrors of civil strife and is now seeking to consolidate peace and to heal the scars of those years,” Pope Francis said, his voice hoarse and weary-sounding after the 10-hour flight from Rome. “I am convinced that the followers of the various religious traditions have an essential role to play in the

Court protects Catholic-owned company from HHS mandate

Grand Rapids, Mich.

(CNA/EWTN News) — The federal government cannot force a Catholic-owned Michigan company to provide insurance coverage for sterilization, contraceptives, and drugs that could cause abortion, a court recently ruled.

“Coercing citizens to violate their conscientious religious beliefs makes a mockery of the very notion of religious freedom,” Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society.

He said the ruling “sets another strong precedent for the free exercise of religious faith on the part of all American citizens.”

John Kennedy, CEO of Autocam Medical, LLC, and other family members who own the company, had filed a legal challenge to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate that companies must cover drugs and procedures that violate Catholic religious and ethical principles.

Before the mandate was implemented, the company had designed an insurance plan with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan that did not violate the Kennedy family’s Catholic beliefs.

The U.S. District Court for

the Western District of Michigan revisited its three-year-old ruling against the company.

Judge Robert J. Jonker, who had previously ruled against Autocam Medical, said that according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, the government may not require the family business “to provide its employees with health coverage for contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and related patient education and counseling to which plaintiff objects on religious grounds.”

Brejcha said the decision protected the company’s rights under the First Amendment and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Ave Maria Law School professor Patrick T. Gillen served as special counsel in the case for the Thomas More Society and helped draft a petition for U.S. Supreme Court review.

Had the Supreme Court decision not issued its 2014 ruling, many business owners could have faced the prospect of paying steep fines or agreeing to a health plan that violated their religious beliefs. More than 300 plaintiffs throughout the U.S. have filed lawsuits challenging the mandate.

delicate process of reconciliation and rebuilding which is taking place in this country.”

That afternoon, the pope met with local Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and other Christian leaders, telling them that efforts at “interreligious and ecumenical relations take on a particular significance and urgency in Sri Lanka,” as sources of “healing and unity” after years of “civil strife and violence.”

Again, he sounded a note of realism, stressing that dialogue could not eliminate cultural differences but would emphasize the need for their acceptance.

“For such dialogue and encounter to be effective, it must be grounded in a full and forthright presentation of our respective convictions. Certainly, such dialogue will accentuate how varied our beliefs, traditions and practices are. But if we are honest in presenting our convictions, we will be able to see more clearly what we hold in common,” the pope said. “Men and women do not have to forsake their identity, whether ethnic or religious, in order to live in harmony.”

The pope urged followers of different religions to cooperate in social service, providing for the “material and Spiritual needs of the poor, the destitute” and thus “rebuild the moral foundations of society as a whole.”

At the interreligious meeting, held at a Colombo conference center, a Hindu leader, speaking the Tamil language,

voiced hopes for lasting peace and draped a saffron silk shawl over Pope Francis’ shoulders.

A representative of the local Muslim community condemned “terrorism, racism, extremism,” including recent killings by Islamist militants at a Paris newspaper and a military-run school in Pakistan.

A Buddhist monk, representing the faith of 70 percent of Sri Lanka’s population, noted the common dedication of great religions to the values of love, selfsacrifice and peace, as well as the common susceptibility of humanity to hatred and violence.

Pope Francis’ first day in Sri Lanka started when his plane from Rome landed at 9 a.m. He was greeted by traditional dancers and drummers, a 21-gun salute and a choir of teen-agers who sang a song of welcome in English, the same language the pope and Sirisena used for their remarks. Girls in white dresses and boys in neckties and shorts waved gold-and-white Vatican

flags. Nearby stood 40 elephants draped in colorful fabrics, a traditional gesture of honor for distinguished guests.

The pope’s entourage, led by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, wore white cassocks, keeping with the ecclesiastical custom in tropical climates. Temperatures were in the 80s in the bright sunshine.

The pope rode the 17-mile distance to the nuncio’s residence in an open-sided popemobile past crowds waving Vatican flags. A persistent breeze made it impossible for him to keep his zucchetto on for much of the ride. Because the pope made frequent stops to greet and bless individuals along the way, his ride took twice as long as expected, leading him to cancel a meeting with Sri Lanka’s bishops planned for early afternoon.

The day marked the start of Pope Francis’ second trip to Asia, following a visit to South Korea in August.

6

January 16, 2015

Anchor Editorial

Prayers for the nation and the world

These days bring us a variety of opportunities to prayer — something which the world definitely needs right now (although it, and we, need it all the time). On Saturday ( January 17), the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ask us to begin Nine Days of Prayer for Life in preparation for the sad annual remembrance of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision of the Supreme Court, which made legal abortion the law of the land. The USCCB Novena is not a complicated one (you can find it at www.9daysforlife.com); it combines prayer with corporal works of mercy, asking God to help us turn away from abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty and domestic violence.

The next day, Sunday, January 18, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins. This annual observance began in 1908 in Graymoor, N.Y. and has been prayed by Catholics, Protestants and other Christians together since 1968, leading up to the January 25 feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. This year the theme of the week is “Jesus said to her, ‘Give Me a drink’” ( Jn 4:7).

Prayer resources on the theme were developed by Protestants and Catholics working together in Brazil (you can obtain a prayer guide for the eight days at http://geii.org/week_of_prayer_for_christian_unity/prayer_worship/daily_scripture_and_prayer_guide.html).

On Monday we have the annual Martin Luther King holiday. After the tumult of the last few months in the United States (from which we may have been distracted due to the violence in Paris), it brings us a good day to pray, reflect and recommit ourselves to true justice and fraternal love in this country.

Last year, when the World Cup was about to begin in Brazil, Pope Francis sent a video message to the players and the fans. He said in it, “When we play on a team we must first think of the good of the group, and not of ourselves. In order to win, we must overcome individualism, selfishness, all forms of racism, of intolerance and of the instrumentalization of the human person.”

What he said is applicable to the three prayer foci mentioned about — if we can (with God’s grace) overcome within ourselves the negative attitudes the Holy Father listed, then we would be far along the path to racial justice, Christian unity and a much deeper respect for human life.

Last January the pope spoke to a Finnish ecumenical group which came to the Vatican to honor St. Henry, patron saint of Finland. He noted, “In our day, ecumenism and relationships between Christians are changing significantly. This is due above all to the fact that we profess our faith within a society and a culture increasingly less concerned with God and all that involves the transcendental dimension of life. We see this especially in Europe, but not only here.”

Last week’s terrorist attacks in France made us learn a lot more about that country, which had been known as the “eldest daughter of the Church.” It had that nickname due to the long history of Catholicism in that land; however, in part due to disgust at the bad example of Catholics (especially some of the clergy), from before the time of the French Revolution there has been

Dear brothers and sisters, Good morning!

Today we celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which concludes the Christmas season. The Gospel describes what happened on the shores of the Jordan. In the moment in which John the Baptist bap-

Pope Francis’ Angelus message of January 11 tizes Jesus, the Heavens opened.

“On coming up out of the water — St. Mark says — he saw the Heavens being torn open” (1,10).

The dramatic supplication of the prophet Isaiah comes to mind: “Oh, that you would rend the Heavens and come down!” (Is 63,19). This cry was heard in the OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER

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a strong anticlerical tradition in that country. During the Reign of Terror many Catholics made the ultimate sacrifice, united with Christ, as they were martyred for the faith. Since then the Church has been in decline, although with occasional revivals, thanks to the great witnesses to the faith who have lived in that country, such as St. John Vianney and St. Therese of Lisieux, as well as the Blessed Mother’s own apparitions in Lourdes (1858), La Salette (1846), and Paris (to St. Catherine Laboure in 1830). Nonetheless, the rate of Sunday Mass attendance in France is abysmally low.

Into that milieu many Moslems have immigrated into France, often coming (although not always) from former French colonies. This has led to a backlash in the country, especially amongst people on the far right (some of whom wrap themselves in the flag of the Catholicism, although often the Church’s leaders are repulsed by these politicians).

Ironically, Charlie Hebdo, the magazine which the terrorists attacked, was known for its cartoons mocking Islam, Catholicism and the right wing of French politics, making for strange bedfellows of the aggrieved by its publications (yet only extremist Moslems physically attacked the magazine, killing a moderate Moslem policeman in the process, while another moderate Moslem, a worker at the kosher supermarket, saved the lives of several Jews later in the week).

Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, the archbishop of Paris, said, “A cartoon, however distasteful, cannot be put on the same level as murder. Freedom of the press, whatever the cost, is the sign of a mature society.”

Pope Francis, the day after the attack on the magazine, condemned all forms of terrorism during his morning Mass, but also mentioned “state terrorism,” after having mentioned the type of “isolated” terrorism which had occurred the previous day. He spoke about the “cruelty” which can come out of the human heart and called upon all people to reject it.

Some secularists say that all religion is to blame for the violence last week in Paris, as well as the continuing violence in Nigeria (where many more people were killed by Boko Haram terrorists last week than were killed in Paris — a Catholic asked BBC radio, “Where is the march [in solidarity] for us?”), Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc.

However, people of various religions, working together, are part of the solution, not the problem. In a message to Christians in the Holy Land on December 21, Pope Francis said, “Your efforts to cooperate with people of other religions, with Jews and Muslims, is another sign of the Kingdom of God. The more difficult the situation, the more interreligious dialogue becomes necessary. There is no other way. Dialogue, grounded in an attitude of openness, in truth and love, is also the best antidote to the temptation to religious fundamentalism, which is a threat for followers of every religion.

At the same time, dialogue is a service to justice and a necessary condition for the peace which all so ardently desire.”

May our own prayers, works of mercy and dialogue also contribute to justice and peace in this country and around the world.

Vol. 59, No. 2

Member: Catholic Press Association, Catholic News Service Published weekly except for two weeks in the summer and the week after Christmas by the Catholic Press of the Diocese of Fall River, 887 Highland Avenue, Fall River, MA 02720, Telephone 508-675-7151 — FAX 508-675-7048, email: theanchor@anchornews.org.

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event of the Baptism of Jesus.

Thus the time of the “closed Heavens” was over, which indicated the separation between God and man, a consequence of sin. Sin alienates us from God and interrupts the link between earth and Heaven, determining our misery and failure of our lives. The opened Heavens show that God has given His grace so that the earth may bear fruit (Sal 85, 13). Thus the earth has become the dwelling place of God among mankind and each one of us has the possibility of meeting with the Son of God, experiencing all the love and infinite mercy.

We can find it truly present in the Sacraments, especially in the Eucharist. We can recognize it in the face of our brothers and sisters, particularly in the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the refugees: they are the living flesh of the suffering Christ and visible image of the invisible God.

With the Baptism of Jesus, not only are the Heavens torn open, but God speaks making His voice resound once again: “You are My beloved Son: with You I am well pleased” (Mc 1,11).

The voice of the Father proclaims the mystery that is hidden in the Man baptized by the Forerunner.

And then the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove: allows the Christ, the Consecrated of the Lord, to begin His mission, which is our Salvation. The Holy Spirit: the Great One forgotten in our prayers. We often pray to Jesus; we pray to the Father, especially in the “Our Father”; but not often to the Holy Spirit, right? He is the forgotten One. And we need to ask His help, His strength, His inspiration.

The Holy Spirit Who has entirely animated the life and ministry of Jesus, it is the same Spirit that today guides the Christian existence, the existence of a man and

a woman who say they want to be Christian. To place our Christian lives and mission under the action of the Holy Spirit, that we have all received in virtue of our Baptism, which means to find the apostolic courage to overcome easy worldly comforts.

Instead, a Christian or a community that is “deaf ” to the voice of the Holy Spirit, Who urges us to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth and society, become also a Christian or a community that is “mute” and does not speak or evangelize. But remember this: pray often to the Holy Spirit so that He may help us, give us the strength, give us the inspiration and lead us forward.

May Mary, Mother of God and of the Church, accompany the path of we who are baptized.

May She help us to grow in love towards God and in the joy of serving the Gospel, to give us full meaning to our lives.

January 16, 2015

L

ast week we began a series on a Catholic plan of life, a program of Spiritual practices designed to help us to grow in holiness.

In almost every sphere of life, someone who takes something seriously comes up with a plan. Success in any venture is normally dependent on having a solid plan and perseveringly implementing it.

The success of the Patriots over the course of the last 15 years, for example, has been largely because of Bill Belichick’s brilliance in coming up with weekly game plans and coaching the players to execute the plan. Their long-term dominance is likewise ascribable to having a plan for annual competitiveness and sticking to it even when fans and the media clamor for them to depart from it with regard to contracts, draft picks, and salary cap issues. This ability to formulate and implement sound weekly and long-term game plans is frankly what has distinguished the Patriots from most professional sports franchises.

The same lesson is seen in flourishing businesses, triumphant political campaigns, and generally achieving persons: those who prosper are generally the ones with better, more effectively ap-

Anchor Columnists The heroic moment plied strategies. ately when our alarm sounds.

There’s got to be a plan. It’s For many people the adgot to be a good plan. And jective “heroic” is not out of you have to stick to the plan. place, because getting out of The same thing goes with bed when one remains tired, the Spiritual life. There’s when one’s limbs almost feel no reason why we can’t or weighed down by concrete, shouldn’t take our Spiritual can seem almost superhugame-plan as seriously as man. But the moment when sports teams take scheming, our will is at its weakest, coaching and training, corporations take innovation and longPutting Into term programming, political organizations the Deep take voter identification and get out the

By Father vote campaigns, and Roger J. Landry dieters count calories and plan what they eat. when every cell in our body The Spiritual life is too is screaming for us to hit important for us to wing. So the snooze button, is a key much of our happiness, in battle for us to overcome this world and in the next, one of our strongest bodily depends on whether we have appetites and start the day a plan of life, whether it’s virtuously. adequate for the discipline We’re simply never going that forms disciples for holito live a disciplined life if we ness, and whether we make don’t have the self-discipline and keep the commitment to to get out of bed. follow it.

Several years ago a teenThe first part of the plan of ager was coming to see me life that we need to consider hoping to enter the semimay seem rather insignificant, nary. He sincerely desired to but it’s actually fundamental prioritize prayer and grow for growth in the Spiritual in his faith in the midst of a life. It’s temporally the first demanding high school curpart of the ascetical program riculum and many extra-curwe need to implement each ricular activities. Considering day. It’s called the “heroic his schedule, he recognized moment” and refers to our that the best plan for him to getting out of bed immedispend a half-hour in meditation would be to get up an hour, rather than 20 minutes, before he needed to leave for

Tenth annual St. Mary’s Education Fund Winter Brunch is January 25

FALMOUTH — Coming near the end of January, the St. Mary’s Education Fund annual Winter Brunch offers an opportunity for an enjoyable break in the coldest time of the year and a way to assist Catholic school students in the Fall River Diocese at the same time.

This year observing its 10th anniversary, the St. Mary’s Education Fund Winter Brunch will take place January 25, at the Coonamessett Inn in Falmouth, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Doors will open at 11:15 a.m.

The extensive brunch buffet will feature roasted meats, chicken, eggs, bacon, sausage, vegetables, salad selections, pastries and desserts. Alongside the delicious food, there will be a fun-filled family raffle including Disney World Park Passes, plus mystery prize balloon pops and special activities for children.

Co-chairmen for the 2015 Winter Brunch are Dawna Gauvin and Robyn Hardy. Fall River Bishop Emeritus George W. Coleman will serve as host for the event.

Proceeds from the Winter Brunch support the St. Mary’s Education Fund, which provides need-based scholarships to students attending Catholic schools in the Fall River Diocese including those on Cape Cod. In the current school year, the fund is helping More than 700 students with tuition aid assistance.

Tickets for the Winter Brunch are $25 for adults; $14 for youth (under 13 years); and complimentary for children under seven. Seating is limited and reservations must be made prior to the event. No tickets will be available at the door. Please contact Jane Robin at 508-7593566 for tickets and further information.

7

school. But he never could find the strength to get out of bed on time.

A young woman coming to see me was discerning religious life. She desired to make a holy hour and attend Mass each day but knew that because of the two jobs she was working to pay off college loans, the only chance she’d have would be to get up at 6:30 each morning.

Most days, however, she failed in her plan because she simply couldn’t get out of bed when her alarm clock rang.

A young, professional married woman came to see me with a great hunger to grow in faith. She, too, expressed her desire to pray for a half-hour in the morning and attend daily Mass. Her husband would leave for work about 5 a.m. and her job began at 9 a.m. All she needed to do to get her Spiritual life off to a great start each day was to stay up after seeing her husband off. But she couldn’t resist the temptation to return to bed and awaken a few hours later.

The plan of life that leads to the heroic virtue begins by living valiantly the first moment of the day.

Living the heroic moment effectively involves a few common sense elements: First, setting an appropriate wake-up time. If one

tries to get up sleep deprived earlier than one needs to, it just makes the heroic moment harder.

Second, living an analogous heroic moment at night. One needs to get to bed on time in order to awaken sufficiently rested. Watching comedy programs past midnight only makes responding to the alarm more excruciating.

Third, knowing and troubleshooting our vulnerabilities. Those who can’t resist the snooze button need to put the alarm clock on the other side of the bedroom so that they must get out of bed to shut it off. Some people also find it helpful to make the bed before silencing the alarm!

Lastly, doing it out of love for God without exaggerating the difficulties. Anyone who has ever been on Route 24 at 5 a.m. recognizes how many people get up early in the morning to drive into Boston for work. Perhaps they drug themselves with coffee, but what gets them out of bed is their love for their families who depend on their work.

Our love for God, our desire to do His work, can inspire us the same way.

Next week we’ll examine what to do once we’ve gotten the day off to this good and heroic start.

Anchor columnist Father Landry can be contacted at fatherlandry@ catholicpreaching.com.

CCC collection in parishes this weekend FALL RIVER — Parishioners throughout the Fall River Diocese will be invited to contribute to the Catholic Communication Campaign at parish Masses this weekend.

This annual national campaign is designed as a shared collection, meaning half of the proceeds stay in the local diocese and the other half is forwarded to the Catholic Communication Campaign office of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference.

The portion remaining in the Fall River Diocese is used to fund the weekly Television Mass, which airs at 11 a.m. each Sunday on WLNETV, channel 6. Annual cost for the Television Mass is $105,171 including production, airtime and closed-captioning — all of which are now handled by different entities.

Since 1963, the diocese has sponsored a televised Mass for the benefit of those who are unable to attend a parish Mass usually because of infirmity or advanced age, and over the years it has been a source of Spiritual sustenance and support for countless numbers of area Catholics.

“It’s a wonderful ministry and an important way that we as a diocesan community reach out to and serve our elderly and infirm members,” said Msgr. Stephen J. Avila, who is director of the diocesan Television Mass Apostolate.

“But it doesn’t come without cost,” he added.

In addition to proceeds from this weekend’s CCC collection, the Television Mass is also supported by the Catholic Charities Appeal.

Msgr. Avila expressed on behalf of Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., his gratitude to those who support the TV Mass through the CCC collection. He said that donations may also be sent directly to the Diocesan TV Mass at P.O. Box 7, Fall River, Mass. 02722.

At the national level, the CCC funds the development and production of a wide range of traditional and new media initiatives that are carried out by the U.S. Bishops’ Conference staff and other grantee organizations.

To learn more about the CCC and the important work it supports, please visit www.usccb. org and search Catholic Communication Campaign.

8

“F

ather, how did you hear God calling you to become a priest?” A question I am often asked. Jokingly I say I received a phone call from God and accepted my vocation. I assure you it wasn’t that easy. It took me a couple of years to realize my vocation to the priesthood. During that time I had to Spiritually wake up and know that God was calling me. Samuel’s Spiritual awaking shares with us four Spiritual lessons that will help us to wake up to God’s voice.

Origen once said that every detail of Scripture is significant. The story in the first reading begins with Samuel sleeping. Sleeping in Biblical terms symbolically means inattentiveness. Samuel is in the temple of the Lord sleeping. The first lesson we learn from this story, if we want to know God’s

January 16, 2015

Lessons on how to listen to God’s voice

will for us, is to wake not twice, but three times up! To know what God Samuel missed God’s call is calling us to, we need but God persisted. to be attentive to the Finally after the third Spiritual aspect of life. time Samuel awoke and So Samuel catching some went to Eli. Eli underZ’s is symbolic of us catching some Z’s to the SpiriHomily of the Week tual life.

Second Sunday The second in Ordinary Time lesson we learn is that God’s Word

By Father is mysterious. Just Jason Brilhante think about some of your ordinary conversations you have stood that Samuel was with friends, family being called by God. members, and coworkers.

So Eli instructed the These conversations can youth, “Go to sleep, and sometimes be puzzling, if you are called, reply, difficult to understand.

‘Speak, Lord, for your We can walk away from servant is listening’” (1 a conversation and not Sam 3:9). Samuel did as fully grasp what they reEli instructed and God ally were talking about. called Samuel. The third Similarly, the Lord calls Spiritual lesson we learn Samuel by name and is the need of Spiritual Samuel awoke and went guides to understand to Eli but it wasn’t Eli God’s call. Samuel did who called. God’s call is not understand that God mysterious and ambiguwas calling until Eli inous to Samuel. Not once, terpreted it for him. As

you are seeking to know God’s will for you, seek out a guide like Eli was a guide to Samuel. Don’t seek out God’s will on your own as you may risk misunderstanding the call.

A fourth lesson we learn is that God calls us by name. He called Samuel by name as He did many others in Scripture. For example, God called the following people by name: Abraham, Moses, Amos, Peter, James, John, Paul and many more. God calls us by name. God is calling you because He is personal and persistent with His call. God wants to communicate with you.

Expect that God is calling you and be attentive to His voice. God’s voice may be difficult to hear but you have to work at it by being attentive to it especially by increas-

ing your prayer time with God. One prayerful suggestion is to spend time with our Lord in Eucharistic Adoration.

When you know that God is calling you to be a priest, enter religious life, or do something special, be assured that God will give you the grace, the strength to do what He is calling you to do. Just like in the Gospel, Jesus called the Apostles, spent time with them, and instructed them to live as He lived. All of God’s invitations to a vocation require you and me to lead a life that strives to always do God’s will.

Let’s not be sound asleep but awake to our Spiritual life so to know what God is calling us to be. Let us be attentive to God’s voice, so wake up!

Father Jason Brilhante is parochial vicar of St. Mary’s Parish in Mansf ield.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Jan. 17, Heb 4:12-16; Ps 19:8-10,15; Mk 2:13-17. Sun. Jan. 18, Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, 1 Sm 3:3b-10,19; Ps 40:2,4,7-10; 1 Cor 6:13c-15a,17-20; Jn 1:35-42. Mon. Jan. 19, Heb 5:1-10; Ps 110:1-4; Mk 2:18-22. Tues. Jan. 20, Heb 6:10-20; Ps 111:1-2,4-5,9,10c; Mk 2:23-28. Wed. Jan. 21, Heb 7:1-3,15-17; Ps 110:1-4; Mk 3:1-6. Thurs. Jan. 22, Heb 7:25—8:6; Ps 40:7-10,17; Mk 3:712. Fri. Jan. 23, Heb 8:6-13; Ps 85:8,10-14; Mk 3:13-19.

F

ighting fire with fire is an oft-used expression, but, I believe many oft-used phrases are spoken without much thought given to them.

Yet, once contemplated they make perfect sense.

Fighting fire with fire was a phrase that some believe originated with the early settlers of this country who used to control larger brush fires with “back fires,” intentionally-set controlled burns to stop the larger fire in its tracks.

It’s a method that is still used today in large brush and forest fires.

Through the years the phrase has developed some added meanings, mostly to battle something using the same force or means.

Last Saturday, I fought fire with fire. More appropriately, I should say I fought fire with a conflagration!

The past few months have been for me, very stressful times for a number of reasons.

Fighting fire with fire Real life was replaced with For me, ever since I was the strong urge to want to a pup, sports has been my wallop Tom Brady upside release, a diversion from the the helmet after he threw an real stressers. interception at the tail end Growing up a Red Sox fan in the 60s and 70s made me strong — downright Herculean.

Any true Sox fan in that era will know exactly what I’m talking about.

That was fighting

By Dave Jolivet fire with fire.

So it’s only natural that with my recent of the first half that lead to added life stresses, I turn to a Baltimore touchdown and the playing field to squelch allowed the Ravens to regain them for a while.

Last week, it was turning to the lead after the Pats had valiantly fought back to tie the NBC Sports’ coverage of the tilt at 14-14.

Patriots-Ravens playoff game The second half was no less late Saturday afternoon. a diversion from real life than Right from the start, my the first. life stresses became a disThe Patriots again fell tant memory — thanks to behind by 14. Igor knew the stress of falling behind well enough not to stay in to the Ravens 14-0 before I the same room as me at that could even finish a handful of point. As a matter of fact Doritos.

My View From the Stands

Emilie left the room as well.

Only Denise had the courage to stay.

But the Pats again erased a two-touchdown deficit to tie the game at 28-28 after three quarters.

But the underdog Ravens again took the lead, this time by three. The conflagration was in full burn at that point.

But TB-12 rallied the troops and the Pats took their first and only lead of the game with only a fistful of minutes remaining.

They seemingly had the game in hand, yet why should they make it easy on me (or you)? The Ravens had one last chance with a free-for-all toss (I hate the phrase “Hail Mary” in football — it’s a prayer to our Blessed Mother for crying out loud).

Only when the ball fell harmlessly to the frozen faux

grass was I able to exhale (and Igor was able to come back and be with her alpha dog).

As I sat back and looked at Denise, I moaned, “I can’t take this!” But I also blurted, “This is great!”

For three-and-a-half hours, I put aside the worries of the day and got totally wrapped up in the worries on the field.

Fighting fire with fire!

I know life has its ups and downs, and the downs can be burdensome.

But I also know that come Sunday night at 6:30, Gillette Stadium will replace those anxieties with new ones. This is great!

I’d like to thank the readers who corrected me about Walter Payton in my last column.

It was Gale Sayers who stood

by Brian Piccolo in the 60s. I had been a fan of both classy men and I knew it, but blew it. As I told a few readers, “I fumbled, and you recovered.” davejolivet@anchornews.org.

January 16, 2015

16 January 2015 — Homeport: Falmouth Harbor — Second Annual Vianney Awards nd now, dear readers, it’s time once again to present the Vianneys. This year, our annual Vianney Awards are dedicated to the category of Youth Retreats: Lifetime Achievement.

Priests affiliated with ECHO over the years come to mind.

It’s reported to be the oldest continuously-operating youth retreat in the country. I see in my mind’s eye the many priests who have served as Spiritual Directors. There must be 50 of them.

Some are no longer among us, given the fact that we are considering a significant period of time, but others are alive and well (mostly) and living among us.

The task of a Spiritual Director on an ECHO weekend is ministry above and beyond the call of duty. It’s inspiring for the priest personally to see the tangible effect of the Holy Spirit stirring souls, especially those of young people. It gives us Spiritual Directors the rare opportunity to see immediately the fruits of our ministry. This strengthens one’s priestly vocation.

ECHO retreats are also demanding and exhausting.

We leave our rectories for a

A

I

n his homily on the Solemnity of Mary on the first day of this year, Anchor columnist Father Roger Landry examined the Gospel reference to Our Lady, who “kept all these things reflecting on them in her heart.”

The importance of the phrase is underscored by the fact that St. Luke used it twice: first after the shepherds appeared at the instigation of Heavenly visitors to pay homage to the Infant Jesus in Bethlehem, and subsequently as the Holy Family left Jerusalem together after three days of anxious searching for their missing Child.

Surely Jesus’ words at the moment His parents discovered Him in the temple only added to what Mary had regularly pondered over the course of her life. No doubt she allowed that memory to nestle alongside many others: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the visit by the shepherds and magi, the flight into Egypt, the return to Nazareth, and the subsequent quiet years of patiently watching the extraordinary Child participate in ordinary family life.

Anchor Columnists #300/45Y fortunate if we can find just one time (making sure that everypriest who can remain present thing is well-covered — no for the entire retreat without easy task these days) and go to having to rush off to some other the young people. We spend commitment. It’s not easy being quality time listening to their in two places at the same time, faith stories, offering Spiritual guidance, explaining the teachings of the Catholic Church, prayThe Ship’s Log ing, crying, laughing Reflections of a (some even dancParish Priest ing) and celebrating the Sacraments and

By Father Tim other worship services Goldrick with particular depth and fervor. There are many hours spent in but ECHO priests have proven the Sacrament of Penance as it’s possible. Here are some of the young people experience a the names and faces that come sudden growth-spurt in their relationship with the Lord Jesus. to mind as candidates for the For many (including priests) it’s Vianney Awards. It’s not possible to visualize them all, even a life-changing experience. with my photographic memory.

Here on Cape Cod, it all The envelope, please. begins with a series of team I remember ECHO priests meetings held months before who have now gone home to the the actual weekend. One of Father. First and foremost is the these meetings is succinctly late Father Frank Connors who called “All-Day.” It’s the longest continued to serve as Spiritual and most productive in retreat Director even after a series of team-building. If a priest must catastrophic strokes. He was an be absent from one or more of the preparatory meetings, this is inspiration to us all. Another on many ECHO weekends was the not the one to miss. late Father James Clark.

Then comes the weekend If I were to name the priests itself. Back in the day, there were who have been on the most three Spiritual Directors on ECHO weekends, I would have any given ECHO. Now we are

to acknowledge that as their life and ministry changes, Spiritual Directors tend to cycle through the ECHO program.

From the early days of ECHO on Cape Cod, the highest award would have to go to Father Jack Andrews. Father Andrews is now retired from active ministry, but he has been on at least 25 ECHO retreats. Another retired priest needs to be acknowledged as well — Father Jim McClellan, now residing in the Medeiros Residence.

In this generation of priests, the prize for the most weekends would have to go to Father Thomas Frechette. I lost track of how many ECHO’s he has been on as a priest, but I do know that he first experienced the program as a high school student before he even entered the seminary.

Another priest who was on ECHO as a young man was Father Bob Mosher. He went on to be ordained for the Columban Fathers and has been off in the missions ever since.

Among priests still active as pastors in the diocese, a tip of the hat goes to Fathers Dick

9 Roy, John Murray, Bruce Neylon, and David Frederici. Then there’s Father Bill Penderghest of the Sacred Heart Order, now ministering in Texas.

Thanks be to God, the latest crop of “rookie priests” have also recognized the evangelical potential of ECHO. Not only are they already serving as Spiritual Directors, but they are more than willing to come in and lend a helping hand hearing Confessions. This is a good thing, since us old geezers tend to fall asleep after 9 p.m. and ECHO Penance services can go much later than that.

ECHO of Cape Cod, now in its 45th year, will be celebrating No. 300 weekend in March.

Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V. plans to join us as well as many ECHO priests, past and present.

By the way, there is only one priest who has served on ECHO weekends from the beginning, through 45 years, and into the present. ECHO just can’t seem to get rid of him.

It is he whose name must not be spoken (out of humility, of course).

Anchor columnist Father Goldrick is pastor of St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth.

Tessarae — Assembling the pieces mind us of the crisis in the West Eventually she would add to it in its understanding of Marriage, the wisdom Christ offered over the course of His public ministry, our own encounters and experiences in recent years do not only and ultimately the details of His give flesh to those concerns, but Passion, death and Resurrection. also provide lamps of hope and Digging into the original stability in a darkened landscape.

Greek, Father Landry notes that the Gospel would be “more liter- While most statistics are indeed ally rendered that Mary ‘put them together’ like the pieces of a mosaic and she ‘held onto them,’ the way we would hold onto a treasure.” To that end,

By Genevieve Kineke he likened the things on which she pondered as troublesome, the witness of perthe individual pieces — tesserae sons of faith truly show what the — that together form a beautigrace of God can do to alleviate ful and coherent image of the the difficulties. marvelous plan of God. This would be an excellent If I may be so bold, I would time to answer the call specificallike to take use that image as it relates to the Ordinary Synod on ly given to women in the closing documents of the Second Vatican Marriage to be held in Rome in Council: “The hour is coming, in October of this year, and to ask fact has come, when the vocation women of faith to dig into their of women is being acknowledged own storehouse of memories to in its fullness, the hour in which discern what treasures God has entrusted to them — treasures of women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power incomparable value to the life of the Church. Although the head- never hitherto achieved. That is why, at his moment when the lines on any given day would re-

The Feminine Genius

human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women imbued with a Spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling.”

It is interesting that those words were written in exactly 50 years ago — at the same time that the feminist movement was gaining traction in the West, and when so many currents in popular culture were coalescing in ways that would undermine Marriage, the family, and the human person. Strident feminist voices agreed that the influence of women should finally be felt, but their methodology proved antithetical to the intentions of the Council Fathers. Feminists also appealed to the experiences of women — not in the light of authentic revelation or communion with men — but rather in isolation from God and neighbor, encouraging women to prioritize the self at the expense of others, promoting a myopic view of femininity that was as distorted as it was toxic to the wider community.

Considering the particular rebellion we have sown, which has reaped for us myriad trials, tears, and trauma beyond the usual inheritance of sin, women should now reflect on what a culture ought to prioritize for the good of each person. Decades of mistaken choices can be redeemed only if they are wrapped in contrition and laid on the altar; there God will enfold them in His own Passion and restore them as newfound fonts of wisdom.

As Father Landry suggests, we need to look to Mary — “emulating her contemplative heart” — in order to discover God’s plan, which depends on strong and holy Marriages. In the coming year, this column will consider the major themes that will constitute the work of the Ordinary Synod, but surely those truths are self-evident in the lives of women who know God and His great mercy. Let’s work diligently to share them with the rest of the Church, beginning with those we love.

Anchor columnist Mrs. Kineke is the author of “The Authentic Catholic Woman.”

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L

ast week we were invited to Jesus’ Baptism, how nice. The Baptism of the Lord shows up in all of the Gospels, but the evangelists must have

January 16, 2015

Renew your membership asked themselves, “Why did Jesus need to be baptized?” Matthew’s Gospel brings this to everyone’s attention with the little dialogue where John the Baptist asks Jesus,

“Shouldn’t You be baptizing me?”

Even though it occurs Liturgically after the celebration of Jesus’ infancy, it wasn’t an infant Baptism, nor was it held after a process of preparation and rituals that brought Jesus into an ecclesial community. The Baptism of Jesus closed the chapter on His private life and thrust Him into His public ministry, but not before He went into the wilderness to grapple with the evil one for 40 days. Even though the ritual of Baptism is as ancient as our Church, Jesus had something much bigger in mind for us when He brought Himself to John.

Baptism is the Sacrament that launches us into the Christian faith, or stated more clearly, to send us on the path of a Christian life. We know that Baptism is one of the Sacraments of Initiation, but what kind of initiation are we talking about? Initiation, on the one hand, is an action that makes something start, especially an important process or event.

On the other hand, it can also be a ceremony by which someone is admitted into a group, organization or religion. While some would argue that Baptism is both, given the number of people who fade away from the Church after the Sacraments, maybe it is

time that we place more emphasis on the starting of Christian life, rather than the membership in the community.

Describing the Sacraments of Initiation as the means by which we gain membership in the Church drains them of their powerful effect. Baptism, and its soul-mate, Confirmation, are

absolutely essential to our Christian identity. These Sacraments explain who we are and what we hope to become. We do not become something different on the day of our Baptism, we begin something special, unique, and demanding. If we want an understanding of what Baptism means to us, look at what it meant to Jesus. The Holy Spirit makes of us what it made of Jesus.

After a person has been baptized with water, the celebrant says, “The God of power and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has freed you from sin and brought you to a new life through water and the Holy Spirit. He

now anoints you with the chrism of Salvation, so that, united with His people, you may remain forever a member of Christ, Who is Priest, Prophet and King.” This is not easy to teach using theological concepts, but best witnessed by people who have embraced their Baptism.

The little old grandmother who blesses her children’s children and prays for their souls, exercises her baptismal priesthood.

The man who works long hours in a factory, uncomplaining as he offers the labor up to God, is priest for his family as he brings home the food for their table. The Hospice worker, whose ministry of presence heals the waning moments of life for the dying, is priest. The catechist who offers her time to share her faith in a room full of children dropped off for the hour, shares in Christ’s prophetic role. The prison minister, who brings the Word of God into the darkness of their broken lives, is prophet to those living in despair.

The activist, who confronts injustice and inequality, embraces the Kingship of Christ. The CEO who demands that the company act by the highest ethical standards, is sharing in the Kingship of Christ.

Christians are made, not born. Even though our tradition of baptizing little babies belies this point, infant Baptism may be the perfect symbol of what the Sacrament effects. “The Catechism of the Catholic Church” tells us that Baptism is a precious gift because it is conferred on those who bring nothing of their own.

It is not a self-help Sacrament, but the result of God’s intense interest in us. We were taught

by St. Thomas Aquinas that “Sacraments exist for the sake of human beings,” but what this really means is that Sacraments are “intended to better humans as humans” (Bernard Cooke).

Jesus started a revolution when He was baptized by John in the River Jordan, and our Baptism is an initiation into that revolution.

We are initiated into loving God with all that we are, to loving our neighbor, to witnessing the Good News, to uniting with other faithful Christians, and to growing in holiness and wisdom by following people of faith. If this is the club you wish to join, then it’s time to renew your membership.

Anchor columnist Claire McManus is the director of the Diocesan Office of Faith Formation.

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January 16, 2015

From left to right beginning at bottom: Members of the award-winning Dartmouth Council include: Mike Medeiros, Pedro Castanheira, Chris Pereira, Bob Ouellette, Ray Ferreira, Joe Twomey, Tom Pereira, Pat Curran, Joe Medeiros, Paul Couto, Mike Tremblay, Bill Boles, Father Roy, Mike Nunes, Marty Flinn, Mike Tremblay, John Gonsalves, Ed Viveiros, and Fernando Silva.

Dartmouth Knights council receives top international award DARTMOUTH — Knights of Columbus Council No. 14236 in Dartmouth has received the distinction of Triple Star Council, an international award and the organization’s most prestigious one.

The Knights’ headquarters, located in New Haven, Conn., made the announcement. The award recognizes overall excellence in the areas of membership recruitment (reaching 300 percent of quota, thereby making it a “triple star”) and retention, promotion of the fraternal insurance program, and sponsorship of charity service programs.

Less than one percent of all councils achieve the Triple Star Council award. The award was presented to the council by Mass.

State Council secretary, Paul O’Sullivan, at a recent ceremony.

O’Sullivan said, “I am honored to be here to present this award as a testament to the high level of service your council has achieved.”

In announcing the award, Carl A. Anderson, chief executive officer of the organization, said, “Please accept my sincere congratulations upon attaining this prestigious award. Your dedication to the Order is seen in the high standard of excellence you have achieved.”

“Receiving the Triple Star Council award is an incredible honor for us. This belongs to our members who work tirelessly in service to others. We are extremely proud of this wonderful accomplishment,” proclaimed Chris Pereira, head of the local council.

This past fraternal year, the Father Hogan council contributed to various charitable causes and assisted many families and individuals. The council was established in 2007 and serves

the local parishes of St. Julie’s in North Dartmouth, St. Mary’s in South Dartmouth, and the community as a whole. It has more than 80 members.

The Knights of Columbus is the world’s largest Catholic lay organization, providing members and their families with volunteer opportunities in service to the Catholic Church, the community, families, and young people. With more than 1.8 million members in more than 15,000 councils around the world, the Knights at all levels of the organization raised and distributed more than $170 million to charity and rendered more than 70 million hours of volunteer service last year.

A special event to celebrate the achievement is being scheduled for the spring.

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January 16, 2015

Catholic Charities USA names new president Washington D.C. (CNA and CNS) — Catholic Charities USA has named its next president: Sister Donna Markham, O.P., a trained clinical psychologist with a background in nonprofit leadership and a deep commitment to helping the poor.

“I am both honored and humbled to engage in this enormously important ministry,” Sister Markham said January 12. “There can be no greater call than to serve and advocate on behalf of persons who struggle to get by in a world where they are all-too-frequently relegated to the margins of society and where they long for dignity, hope and compassion.”

Catholic Charities USA is the national office for Catholic Charities agencies in the U.S. Together, they help more than nine million people from all backgrounds each year.

Sister Markham is an Adrian Dominican. She is a certified clinical psychologist and presently heads the Behavioral Health Institute for the Ohio-based Catholic health system Mercy Health.

For 10 years, she headed the Southdown Institute, an Ontario, Canada-based center that treats religious and clergy with addictions and mental health issues.

She is a past prioress of the Adrian Dominican Congregation. Sister Markham is also a past member of the Catholic Charities USA Board of Trustees, which she served for eight years, including two years as chairman of the board. She earned her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Detroit and is a fellow of the American Association of Clinical Psychologists. Sister Markham will take over as Catholic Charities USA president on June 1. She will be the first woman to head the 105-year-old national agency.

“I feel blessed to walk among the many dedicated Catholic Charities workers across the country who daily make the Gospel come alive through their care for their sisters and brothers in need,” Sister Markham said.

Sister Linda Yankoski, chairman of Catholic Charities USA’s Board of Trustees, said Sister Markham was chosen “based on her extensive relevant experience, her demonstrated leadership skills and her deep sense of commitment to the poor.” Sister Yankoski cited Sister Markham’s service in national and local Catholic nonprofit organizations, praising her “breadth of creativity, perspective and experience.”

Bishop David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh, the episcopal liaison to the Catholic Charities USA Board of Trustees, welcomed Sister Markham’s appointment and pledged his support for her in response to the “growing needs of the underprivileged.” He said he looked forward to working with Sister Markham to advance the “strong ties” that already exist between the charitable agency and the U.S. bishops’ conference.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. praised Sister Markham’s experience. “Catholic Charities USA will certainly benefit from this mingling of compassionate care for those in need and managerial expertise in providing such care that characterizes Sister Donna Markham and her dedication to mission.”

In a telephone interview with Catholic News Service, Sister Markham said it is “a wonderful story” that three of the United States’ leading Catholic service organizations are headed by women, listing Carolyn Woo, president of Catholic Relief Services, and Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity who is president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association. “I see myself as number three — at least,” Sister Markham said. “It’s the first time for Catholic Charities, but certainly not the first time in this country.”

Sister Keehan said that she has known Sister Markham for many years and she praised her professional accomplishments. Sister Keehan said her association, the national leadership organization for more than 1,200 Catholic health care systems, facilities and related groups, “looks forward to continuing our strong relationship” with the national Catholic Charities body.

“We, Donna’s Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Mich., are so proud but not in the least bit surprised that our Sister Donna Markham has been chosen to lead Catholic Charities USA,” said Sister Attracta Kelly, Prioress of the Adrian Dominican Congregation. “Donna’s visionary leadership, indomitable spirit, and sense of compassion will combine to make a real and lasting difference for Catholic Charities.”

Bishop Zubik praised the “outstanding leadership” of outgoing Catholic Charities USA president Father Larry Snyder, who has headed the agency since 2005.

Father Snyder will be returning to the Archdiocese of MinneapolisSt. Paul, his home diocese.

A painting of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is seen on a piece of art in Selma, Ala., recently. The town was the scene of a major civil rights confrontation in March 1965, in which police beat protesters who were marching to demand voting rights for African-Americans. (CNS photo/Jim Young, Reuters)

CNS Movie Capsules NEW YORK (CNS) — The following is a capsule review of a movie recently reviewed by Catholic News Service.

“Selma” (Paramount) A crucial battle in the long struggle for African-American equality is compellingly recreated in director Ava DuVernay fact-based drama. With the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act behind him, President Lyndon Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) is anxious to concentrate on promoting the economic measures of his Great Society program. But Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) is equally determined to secure long-overdue access to the ballot for minority voters in the South. With Alabama, under its implacably segregationist governor, George Wallace (Tim Roth), continuing to resist such reform, King agrees to lead a long protest march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery.

Screenwriter Paul Webb intersperses the inspiring rhetoric of the time with behind-the-scenes insights into heated debates over strategy among King and his associates, the constant threat of violence under which they were forced to live as well as the emotional burden placed on King’s wife Coretta (Carmen Ejogo) by her spouse’s numerous infidelities.

Given its historical value, the film is possibly acceptable for mature adolescents. Some harsh violence, an adultery theme, about a halfdozen uses of profanity, a couple of rough terms, occasional crude and crass language. The Catholic

News Service classification is AIII — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

“Taken 3” (Fox) Framed for the murder of his ex-wife (Famke Janssen), a former covert agent (Liam Neeson) goes on the lam, tracked by the detective assigned to the case (Forest Whitaker) and by Russian mobsters (led by Sam Spruell) he suspects are the real culprits. Along with vindicating his innocence, the retired operative is out to protect his daughter (Maggie Grace) from becoming the gangsters’ next target. Director Olivier Megaton’s lackluster action sequel, which also features Dougray Scott as the

rub-out victim’s second husband, fails to engage viewers sufficiently to make them care much about anyone on screen. Though the turmoil portrayed never gets bloody, Neeson’s character recklessly endangers pursuing police as well as civilian bystanders in his efforts to evade capture. Considerable action violence with minimal gore, a premarital situation resulting in pregnancy, adult dialogue including a possible reference to abortion, a half-dozen uses of profanity, at least one rough and several crude terms. The Catholic News Service classification is AIII — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, January 18, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Michael Ciryak, pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Swansea.

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January 16, 2015

Pope to diplomats: Rejecting God, people, nature leads to conflict

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Highlighting some of the most urgent conflicts facing the world, Pope Francis said such strife and injustices were rooted in a culture of rejection that refuses to recognize God, to protect nature and to respect other human beings.

In a recent wide-ranging speech to diplomats accredited to the Vatican, the pope urged the world’s governments and individuals to work “to end every form of fighting, hatred and violence, and to pursue reconciliation, peace and the defense of the transcendent dignity of the human person.”

He harshly condemned the “falsification of religion,” which seeks to justify violence in the name of God and called for “heartfelt conversion,” stressing that it was only a “sincere faith in God” that generates peace and dialogue.

The extremist terrorism in Syria and Iraq, he said, “is a consequence of the throwaway culture being applied to God.” “Religious fundamentalism, even before it eliminates human beings by perpetrating horrendous killings, eliminates God Himself, turning Him into a mere ideological pretext,” he said.

The pope appealed to the world community to take unanimous action “within the framework of international law” to not

only protect victims, but to end the conflicts and restore harmony.

People have chosen to become slaves, he said, “whether to the latest fads, or to power, money or even deviant forms of religion” because their hearts have become “corrupt,” and they are “incapable of recognizing and doing good of pursuing peace.”

The pope’s annual speech looked at signs of promise and areas of concern around the globe, including the recent slaughter of children in Pakistan, the “tragic slayings” in Paris, the “brutality” and kidnappings in Nigeria, and “the spread of fundamentalist terrorism in Syria and in Iraq.”

The world community must not remain indifferent to the expulsion of Christian minorities in the Middle East, he said, and leaders, especially Muslims, must “condemn all fundamentalist and extremist interpretations of religion which attempt to justify such acts of violence.”

Christians play “a fundamental role as artisans of peace, reconciliation and development” in their communities, and a “Middle East without Christians would be a marred and mutilated Middle East,” he said.

The past year also saw some success stories, the pope said, as he praised the recent rapprochement between the United States and Cuba, calling it “one example close to my heart of how dia-

logue can build bridges.”

He also highlighted his satisfaction that the United States was taking steps to shut down the Guantanamo detention facilities and thanked those countries that have shown a “generous willingness” to receive the detainees.

The pope’s 34-minute speech was an extension of his hallmark diagnosis of the world’s ills as being rooted in a “throwaway culture, which spares nothing and no one: nature, human beings, and God Himself. It gives rise to a humanity filled with pain and constantly torn by tensions and conflicts of every sort.”

Linked to this throwaway culture, he said, is a “mentality of rejection” and enslavement, which spurs nothing but conflict in “bits and pieces” around the world and in communities.

The Christmas season offered an added opportunity to reflect on the “attitude we all share” of rejection — seeing others not as brothers and sisters, but as rivals, unworthy of attention or objects “to be bent to our will.”

The story of Christ is filled with moments of rejection, starting immediately with His birth as He, like many today, was “cast aside, left out in the cold, forced to be born in a stable since there was no room in the inn.”

Christ, like many refugees, was forced to live in exile to escape the slaughter of countless

Father Gerard Boulanger, LaSalette superior, dies

ATTLEBORO — Father Gerard Boulanger, M.S., 70, a Missionary of Our Lady of LaSalette, Province of Mary, Mother of the Americas, died January 2 at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. He was born Mar. 20, 1944 in Holyoke, son of the late Eugene and Blanche (Godaire) Boulanger.

After attending Our Lady of Good Counsel Elementary School in Easthampton, he completed his high school studies at the LaSalette Seminary in Enfield, N.H., and began his seminary studies at the LaSalette College Seminary in East Brewster and Altamont, N.Y. He entered the LaSalette Novitiate in Bloomfield, Conn. in 1966 and made first profession of vows on July 1, 1967 and professed perpetual vows on Aug. 22, 1970 at the LaSalette Seminary in Ipswich. After completing his studies at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., he was ordained to the priesthood at the LaSalette Seminary in Ipswich on May 26, 1973.

After ordination, Father Jerry was assigned to teach at the Seminary in Cheshire, Conn., and the following year, served as Spiritual director and professor at the LaSalette Seminary in Altamont, N.Y. In 1975, he was named associate pastor at St. James Parish in Danielson, Conn. Four years later, he was assigned to the LaSalette Shrine in Ipswich, where he was appointed director of the Shrine residence. From Ipswich, he went on to serve at various parishes in Missouri, Georgia and Connecticut.

In 1997, Father Boulanger was appointed co-pastor/administrator of St. Mary Parish in Jewett City, Conn. In 2001, he was appointed pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Westfield, and in 2006 was named as director of the LaSalette Shrine in Enfield, N.H. In 2008, he was named parochial vicar of Our Lady of Prompt Succor Parish in Sulphur, La. Three years later, Father Boulanger was named superior of the LaSalette Shrine Community in Attleboro. As superior, he

was noted for his great kindness and caring for his LaSalette confreres.

In addition to being superior, he had recently been named interim co-director of the National Shrine in Attleboro. Father was greatly esteemed by his confreres and over the years was asked to represent them at various provincial meetings and on LaSalette committees.

In addition to his LaSalette brothers, Father Boulanger is survived by his sisters, Cecile Finn and Eleanor Lussier, and a sister-in-law, Thelma Boulanger, as well as many relatives and friends. Father Jerry was predeceased by a brother, Donald Boulanger.

A Mass of Christian burial was concelebrated on January 10 at the LaSalette Shrine Church in Attleboro. His burial was held in St. Stanislaus Cemetery in Easthampton.

Contributions in Father Boulanger’s memory may be made to: Missionaries of Our Lady of LaSalette Retirement Fund, 915 Maple Ave., Hartford, Conn.

06114-2330.

innocents, a tragedy repeated just a month ago in Pakistan, the pope said.

People continue to flee their homelands and many become victims to “unscrupulous and greedy thugs” who put people’s lives in danger with “cruel journeys” to supposed safety.

The pope made special mention of “the alarming fact” that many people who immigrate in “the Americas” are unaccompanied minors, who are even more at risk and are “in need of greater care, attention and protection.”

While many of these tragedies make media headlines, there are plenty of “hidden exiles” and victims who face rejection, even in one’s own home, he said, like the elderly, the sick, the disabled and the young, particularly as they face unemployment and a lack of opportunity.

The family is often seen as “disposable” in today’s individualistic and self-centered culture, he said, resulting in fragile unions and “a dramatic fall in birthrates.”

This selfish mentality affects legislation, too, he said, as it tends to benefit “various forms of cohabitation rather than adequately supporting the family for the welfare of society as a whole.”

The pope also harshly condemned the “horrendous crime, the crime of rape” as an extremely serious “offense against the dignity of women, who are not

only violated in body, but also in spirit.”

Peace is not just a gift of God, he said, it is also a personal and social duty that demands “commitment and concern” from everyone.

He recalled how from the “ashes of that immense tragedy” of World War II, a renewed desired for peace and dialogue was born in the form of the United Nations, which marks its 70th anniversary this year.

People can agree to vow to change the future and never again turn to war, he said, citing Pope Paul VI’s speech to the U.N. in 1965.

While Pope Francis said he hoped there soon would be agreement over Iran’s use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, he added that the drafting of a new climate change agreement was especially urgent this year as well as an adoption of Sustainable Development Goals.

The pope noted he was set to leave later the same day for a visit to Sri Lanka and the Philippines. He said his second trip to Asia was “a sign of my interest and pastoral concern for the people of that vast continent.”

He emphasized how the Vatican was at the disposal of all governments to contribute to the common good, especially in seeing a resumption of talks between the “sister countries” of North and South Korea.

Visit The Anchor online at http://www.anchornews.org

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January 16, 2015

Diocesan faithful, students heading to March for Life in D.C.

Dynamic Catholic Institute offers resources

his parishioners for the sixth consecutive year on the pilgrimage to D.C. “I think it just shows our brothers and sisters that this is still a very important issue in the life of Americans,” Msgr.

O’Connor said. “You know, I’m English and growing up it wasn’t an issue that was brought to the forefront either by the Church or politicians. It went on and people didn’t talk about it.

“I was always impressed with the Pro-Life movement in the United States because it really brings this issue out and makes it relevant. In many other countries the horror of abortion is just happening in the background and no one really cares, but in the U.S. it’s very much brought to discussion by the Pro-Life movement.”

Father Jay Mello, parochial administrator of St. Michael and St. Joseph parishes in Fall River, started attending the March for Life when he was still in high school in the mid-1990s and he’s attended every year since.

“The March for Life is like a reunion,” Father Mello told The Anchor. “It is always great running into friends from around the country who come back each year to be part of the Pro-Life movement. I run into friends from college and seminary who are committed to the Gospel of Life and find the annual march to be an event which recommits them to proclaim the dignity of human life and the horrors of abortion.”

While the thought of traveling 10 or more hours on a bus in the middle of winter might not seem enticing, Father Mello said the annual trips are “really a great time and very much a pilgrimage of faith.”

“Even though I hate the cold — and it always seems to be freezing in Washington D.C. every January — it is still the event I look forward to each year,” he added.

Despite finding a wide range of ages among the people who yearly gather on the National Mall, a clear majority of them are younger, school-aged participants — and this year will be no exception for the more than 10 buses that will be traveling from the Fall River Diocese.

“Quite honestly, some want to travel to D.C. to be with their friends and miss a few days of school,” Desrosiers said. “But they come home with a completely different outlook on the value of every human life, the

of Holy Name Parish in Fall River, distributed 1,000 copies of the book “Rediscover Catholicism” as a Christmas gift to those who attended Mass on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. “It is a beautiful read for people at all stages of faith,” he wrote in the parish bulletin.

Later this winter, Holy Name’s adult Faith Formation sessions will focus on discussing the aspects of the book as parishioners seek to strengthen their faith.

“Pope Francis is encouraging us to reach out to our sisters and brothers and together grow in our faith,” wrote Father Maddock.

“Pray this effort will bear much fruit in the lives of those who receive this gift.”

An anonymous donor at St. Bernard Parish in Assonet recently offered the congregation a copy of “Rediscover Catholicism” after weekend Masses. Parishioners signed a waiting list when the supply of books ran out, which the donor underwrote as well.

The Dynamic Catholic Institute offers a growing range of Catholic books, CDs and DVDs by some of the best Catholic authors and speakers of our times, including Pope Francis, Matthew Kelly, Scott Hahn, Peter Kreeft and John Michael Talbot.

Parishes can request 500 copies of any of the Institute’s paperbacks or single CDs for $2 each.

Individuals also can choose a free book or CD. Its mission is to get as many great Catholic books and CDs into as many hands as possible.

The first book offered through the program was “Rediscover Catholicism” by New York Times bestselling author Matthew Kelly.

First published in 2001 at a cover price of $17.95, the book was on the Catholic Book Publishers Association bestseller list for more than seven years in a row before the Dynamic Catholic Parish Book Program began. Today it is the best selling Catholic book in America ever.

“We have become too comfortably a part of the modern secular culture, and this comfort has resulted in a dangerous complacency toward the life-giving words of the Gospel,” cautions Kelly. “Too often, we listen to these words but do not allow them to penetrate our hearts and transform our lives. There is something ultimately attractive about men and women striving to become all that God created them to be. It is this striving that we need to rediscover as a

continued from page one

gift of our Church and the gift of faith. I know, because many of our young people journal throughout the pilgrimage and I have the honor of reading many of them after our return trip home.”

Amanda Tarantelli, director of Campus Ministry at Bishop Stang High School and an Anchor columnist, has been on eight previous pilgrimages to the March for Life and this year she will be accompanying 90 students from the North Dartmouth school.

“I think at first for them it’s the excitement of going away to D.C. for three days,” she said.

“But when they come back they always feel rejuvenated and even more passionate about the ProLife cause.”

Of the 50 people from St. Francis Xavier Parish going to this year’s march, nearly half are youth, according to Msgr.

O’Connor.

“It’s very much a youth thing, and they’re always keen to go,” he said. “They love going to the march, they love standing at the rally, and they understand the importance of it.”

In fact, Msgr. O’Connor said the thing that always impresses his parishioners the most is seeing the number of young people at the March for Life.

“The first year we went, a lot of people had never been before, and the comment I heard most was: ‘I’ve never seen so many youth,’” he said. “It was really impressive that so many young people were behind this. It’s still the largest gathering of people that come out for any issue in the United States, I think.”

The March for Life began in Washington, D.C. as a small demonstration and rapidly grew to be the largest Pro-Life event in the world. The peaceful demonstration that has followed on the somber anniversary of Roe v.

Wade every year since 1973 is a witness to the truth concerning the greatest human rights violation of our time — legalized abortion on demand.

This year’s pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. will be held January 21-23, with the actual March for Life scheduled to begin at noon on January 22. The buses from the diocese depart in the early morning hours of January 21 and arrive later in the day.

“The evening we arrive the youth will attend Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception,”

Desrosiers said. “The following morning, the day of the March for Life, we will attend the Verizon Center Mass and Youth Rally.”

Desrosiers described the events as being “inspirational beyond words.”

“To witness so many thousands of young people alive in their faith cheering for our bishops and clergy and so proud to be Catholic, and to see them singing, worshipping and so filled with joy to be celebrating life is just an incredible experience,” she said. “It inspires hope and reminds us of the greatness and goodness of humanity.”

“I think young people value being part of something and being dedicated to a cause and that awakens inside them the desire to discover what our Lord might be asking them to do with their lives,” Father Mello said.

The theme for this year’s March for Life is “Every Life is a Gift,” which Desrosiers said reflects the words of Pope Francis.

“Pope Francis stated in his Day for Life greeting: ‘Even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God’s creation, made in His Own Image, destined to live forever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect.’ Each year it becomes more and more critical that our young people encounter individuals who, by their very lives and actions, give witness to the truth that ‘Every Life is a Gift.’”

The March for Life program will begin on the National Mall at 12th Street in Washington, D.C. with a rally at 12 noon on January 22.

The march itself will step off at 1 p.m. and proceed from the National Mall, heading right on Constitution Avenue, right onto First Street NE, and ending in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Participants are then encouraged to visit their Congressmen in the House and Senate office buildings to voice their support for the Culture of Life.

Desrosiers said this is one of the key reasons for organizing the annual march.

“We need to support and give voice to this new Pro-Life generation,” she said. “We need to help them restore and protect all human rights, starting with the foundation leading to all other rights — everyone’s right to life!”

continued from page one

Church.”

He urges us to get back to basics.

“When Catholics dedicate themselves to the basics of our rich and dynamic Spirituality, extraordinary things begin to happen,” he said.

Kelly explains that those of us who call ourselves Christian do so because we believe that the life and teachings of Jesus Christ are the personification of truth, sincerity and authenticity, and, in a practical sense, simply the best way to live.

“The essence of Catholicism is dynamic transformation,” he said.

“You cannot become more like Jesus Christ and at the same time stay as you are.”

Kelly writes that if we live and love the way the Gospel invites us to, we will intrigue people.

“Respect and cherish your spouse and children, and people will be intrigued,” he said. “Work hard and pay attention to the details of your work, and you will intrigue people. Go out of your way to help those in need, people will be intrigued. When we do what is right even if it comes at a great cost to ourselves, people are intrigued. Patience, kindness, humility, gratitude, thoughtfulness, generosity, courage and forgiveness are all intriguing.”

He points out that when we live this way, we are most fully alive. We are changing and growing and exploring all that we are capable of becoming.

“God calls each of us to live a life of honesty and integrity — an authentic life,” he said. “I discovered that when we pursue what is good, true, beautiful, and noble, with honesty and integrity, we are holy, yes, but this is also when we are most fully alive and most truly ourselves.”

Kelly writes that at this moment in history life and faith are being attacked with the full force of a culture racing toward self-destruction and that these are direct attacks on the essence of the human person.

“I believe the best way to defend life is to celebrate life,” he said. “I believe the best way to celebrate life is to live our own lives to the fullest — to embrace life with arms wide open, to lay our lives enthusiastically at the service of humanity, to love deeply the people who cross our paths, and above all, to embrace our God.” For more information, visit DynamicCatholic.com; call the Dynamic Catholic Institute at 859-980-7900 or email info@ DynamicCatholic.com.

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January 16, 2015

Ministering in the age of Francis continued from page one

much-like-Francis approachable approach, very accessible, very Gospel-centered, and very humble. Obviously our good cardinal is still in Boston and we’re happy for that, but all those things I was hoping for in a pope were realized in Pope Francis.”

Father Washburn was like all of the world wondering exactly who Jorgé Bergoglio was, but upon hearing that the newly-elected pope chose the name “Francesco,” Father Washburn was “in tears” and has been “drawn to Pope Francis from the moment of his election.”

Father Washburn has read and studied much about Pope Francis, admiring how in his short time in the papacy he has defied being locked into one defining category and “seems to have melded the Jesuit and Franciscan into one. Today, in Pope Francis, for the first time in the history of the Church, we have a Jesuit pope with not only a Franciscan name but with a Franciscan heart,” he said.

Ministering during the age of Pope Francis has brought a new awareness “to be members of the flock and ministers to the flock” and Father Washburn has given many presentations on Pope Francis, helping others to appreciate some of the themes that the pope has put forth, including joy, mercy and the love of the poor — three particularly-focused themes that Father Washburn feels Pope Francis continues to return to over and over again.

“Pope Francis has reminded us that no matter what we believe, no matter who we are,

whether we are rich or poor, educated or not, no matter what doctrinal or theological positions we hold and follow — no matter what — as followers of Jesus, as ministers of His Church, we are called to be inspired by joy,” said Father Washburn.

Pope Francis wants us to see that how we are Christians is just as important as the fact that we are Christians, and joy should be a defining quality of the way that we are Christians. We know this, said Father Washburn, because the pope made joy the topic of the first publication, “Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel).

Father Washburn cited an excerpt as an example of the pope’s desire for Christians to find that joy: “There are some Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter — an evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral! Let us recover and deepen our enthusiasm.”

“This simple message of joy, coming from this loving, gentle and joyful face of the Holy Father, has taken such root because we live in a world that so often lacks joy,” explained Father Washburn. “We live in a world that is wracked by seemingly endless wars; we live in the culture of political divisiveness; there is poverty and violence ever closer to home; we have difficulties in our families, in our Marriages, among our children and our friends.

And if we are honest, we must say that we live in a Church that does not always project an image of joy.”

Pope Francis is a breath of

This week in 50 years ago — Two residents of the diocese, Philip Hemingway, K.S.G. of New Bedford, and James F. Mooney Jr. of Fall River, were installed as members of the Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in a solemn ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

25 years ago — John M. Sullivan of St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet was ordained to the transitional diaconate by Bishop Daniel A. Cronin at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River.

central to our identity, and that brings us to our third theme and it focuses on the quesfresh air to shake away the gray tion of, what are we to do? To that surrounds us, and that answer the question of what we should all appear as joyful we are to do, this pope has remessengers. Mercy then fol- turned again and again to the lows joy, and that when love theme of our love for the poor. spills out into a life full of joy; This focus on the poor in his the natural result is that we papacy was born literally in the become more merciful in the instant of his election and is ways we deal with one another, tied to his choice of the name Father Washburn continued. Francis.”

Each theme builds on the No one has the power to judge, that our job isn’t to exclude first — joy brings mercy, and one another — at that mo- with mercy comes an offer of ment, what we have before us mercy to others, especially is not only a person, they are the poor. During his papacy, our brother or sister, and we these moments of joy, mercy should always look upon them and love of the poor have been with love and treat them with shown through image and action –— Pope Francis doesn’t mercy.

Extending this mercy begins just preach the Good Word; he with realizing that we are first lives it.

“That is so Franciscan,” said recipients of the same mercy Father Washburn, quoting St. from God. The pope said, “It is Francis: “Preach the Gospel at not easy to entrust oneself to God’s mercy because it is deep all times, when necessary use beyond our comprehension,” words.”

“This is exactly what this but Father Washburn said that the pope states that “God’s pope is doing so well,” he said.

Face is the Face of a merciful “Just mention any of these Father Who is always patient” images, whether it’s washing and that His patience is “His the feet of prisoners, embracing the boy with cerebral palsy mercy.”

“God loved us first,” ex- on his first Easter, kissing the plained Father Washburn. head of the man covered with “The well of God’s mercy for lesions — we’ve all seen these us is deep beyond our imagina- images and these images have tion. But He wants us to live spoken powerfully to everyby showing that same mercy one.

“Pope Francis is remindto others. As He treats us, we ing us once again that this are to treat others. Who are love for the poor is meant to we to judge? We are no one at all. But who are we to show be at the heart of our call too. mercy? Mercy is our common He is reminding us that we are call. As ministers, mercy is our most perfectly, beautifully and mission statement, our job de- clearly Church when we are in scription. As constant recipients of mercy from God, we have plenty of that same mercy to offer to others.

“Joy and mercy are important qualities the pope is encouraging us to embrace as

Diocesan history

10 years ago — Hundreds of parishioners watched and wept as a raging fire destroyed St. Peter the Apostle Church in Provincetown on Cape Cod, one of the oldest parishes in the Fall River Diocese.

One year ago — Nearly 110 diocesan priests gathered with Bishop George W. Coleman in Newport, R.I. for the Convocation of Priests that the Diocese of Fall River holds every three years.

direct contact with these most beloved of Jesus — the poor.

That joy and our mercy finds its best and most perfect direction when we focus it towards the poor who are all around us.”

Pope Francis understands the power of symbol and imagery through these most human of responses to those around him. Bringing humility and walking the same path as his namesake, Pope Francis is “just like the person whose name he has taken,” said Father Washburn.

Having come of age under St. John Paul II, Father Washburn said he’s been so fortunate to have lived during the last 40 years, and experienced three different popes who all brought their unique perspective to the papacy — and to see a pope elected with a similar Franciscan heart as his own: “I had such a great devotion to John Paul and all that he was, the way he reached massive audiences and made our Catholic message available in such a wide scale. I had such a deep appreciation of the intellect of Pope Benedict. But the thing I say about Pope Francis is, I want to be like him.

“This is what the pope, I believe, is trying to teach us — joy, mercy and love of the poor. Imagine what our Church, our world, could look like if we all took up this simple but radical proposition — the Gospel was meant to be lived. The Gospel can be lived. Let us pledge to be

16

Youth Pages

Eighth-graders from St. James-St. John School in New Bedford recently held a Holiday Shoppe with money raised going towards graduation expenses.

January 16, 2015

St. Mary’s School in Mansfield recently hosted a Christmas Gift Card Donation Day to benefit the Abundant Hope Pregnancy Resource Center. Children were reminded that Jesus was born in a stable and many babies are born without all that they need. From left: Rebecca Sarkisian, Cade Bartlett, co-presidents of SMCS Student Council; Kate Simpson, principal; and Carrie Tino, director of Abundant Hope.

Students in the Religious Education program at St. Joseph-St. Therese’s Parish in New Bedford recently held a birthday party for the Baby Jesus, so they could relate Jesus’ birthday to their own.

Student-athletes from St. Pius X Middle School in South Yarmouth recently displayed their basketball skills at Conte Forum at Boston College. The students played during the half-time, watched the BC Eagles win another game, and even met the school mascot!

Pre-kindergarten students at Our Lady of Lourdes School in Taunton recently enjoyed a story from Miss Jessica from the Taunton Public Library.

Students at Espirito Santo School in Fall River participated in their annual Christmas Play last month. Shown are seventh- and eighth-graders who portrayed the story of the Birth of the Messiah.

Students from St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro recently went rollerskating at United Skates of America, sponsored by the eighth-graders in celebration of the school’s 60th birthday.

More than 125 students took part in the event. Shown are fourth-graders Bridget Sutula and Camdyn Asselin.

The Confirmation students at St. Mary’s Parish in Fairhaven recently volunteered to help distribute more than 750 Christmas gifts which were donated by parishioners to help those who are less fortunate. Coordinated by the parish St. Vincent de Paul organization, the gifts were given to seven different agencies in New Bedford.

Youth Pages You got owned

January 16, 2015

H

appy New Year! I was listening to the radio the other day and they asked how long after the first of January you can still say “Happy New Year”? I think you can still say it if it is the first time you talk to someone after the first, so there you have it. Happy New Year.

Last year I wrote a column about New Year’s revolutions. That was not a typo.

A commercial I watched had a man talking to children and the child mistakenly

called it New Year’s revolutions. While it was supposed to be funny, it got me thinking about my own need for a revolution.

Last year I wrote, “I am handing this year over to God. Every other year I hoped that I would do something great to make it a great year. The truth is the ability to have a great year is a matter of letting God work through every event in my life so that when this

year is done (this life I guess as well) people will see our lives and say, “God is so

Be Not Afraid

By Amanda Tarantelli

good.” So that was my New Year’s resolution: to revolt!

The year 2013 was so bad that I felt like I had been beat down, chewed up and spit out. I made the decision that I would not let 2014 leave me feeling broken. I the Rosary, The Finding of the made the decision that I Child Jesus in the Temple. would own 2014. Changing The “Try Prayer! It Works!” your attitude and mindset Contest asks entrants to use can’t keep bad things from creativity to depict their faith. happening but it can keep Children in grades K-12 en- those bad things from leavrolled in a Catholic school, ing you feeling broken.

Religious Education program, I cannot fully describe parish, home school or other what a great year it was once organization are eligible to par- I decided it was no longer ticipate. my year, but rather it was For details or to download God’s year. I feel as though an application, go to www. this was one of the better FamilyRosary.org/TryPrayer. years in my life. It was not All entries must be postmarked a perfect year nor was it a

by February 2. Call Holy Cross year without heartache and Family Ministries at 800-299struggle, but it was a year 7729 for more information. full of grace. It was some-

Deadline approaching for 2015 ‘Try Prayer! It Works!’ contest

EASTON — It’s time to submit entries for the 2015 “Try Prayer! It Works!” Contest. The deadline for this national competition encouraging children to express their faith through art, poetry and prose is February 1.

The contest is open to students in kindergarten through 12th grade. This year’s theme “Being about the work of My Father,” focuses on obedience and faithfulness. The participants will reflect on and express how they listen to God and how they do the work that God calls them to do, thereby living out the Fifth Joyful Mystery of

Canonization prompts name change to St. John Paul II High School

Hyannis — Following the April canonization of St. John Paul II, Fall River Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., announced that Pope John Paul II High School will now be called St. John Paul II High School. Bishop da Cunha made this announcement at a Mass for all Cape Cod Catholic Schools students last month on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

“As a school community, we were pleased and proud to celebrate the Church’s recognition of John Paul II’s sainthood. I thank Bishop da Cunha for advancing this name change and making it official,” stated Christopher W. Keavy, St. John Paul II High School Head of School. “St. John Paul is a role model of heroic faith for our students. He spoke compellingly to the youth of the world and his message resonates today.”

Diocesan school superintendent Michael Griffin stated, “The canonization of St. John Paul II and the witness of his

life exemplify the commitment of this outstanding school to call its students each day to their highest growth and development, academically, morally and Spiritually.”

For now, the school plans to introduce the name change gradually as circumstances dictate. For several years, the school has shortened its moniker to “JPII” imagining just such an event. The graduating class of 2015 has elected to retain the name Pope John Paul II High School for their diplomas as the final graduating class with this name.

“The school name reflects our desire for students to live their lives with role models in sight. The courage of St. Francis Xavier and the boldness of St. John Paul II provide great example for all,” Keavy said.

Hyannis’ St. John Paul II High School and St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School form one united, Catholic school serving students from grades five through 12.

thing I wished I had figured out 33 years ago.

Giving my year to God means giving everything to Him. In the midst of the anger at the end of 2013, I sat on my couch yelling at God that I had given Him everything and this is what He does to me, and in the still, silence of my heart, I heard Him loud and clear saying, “You didn’t give Me everything. You didn’t give me this pain.”

It was the truth. I held onto my pain so tightly because it was my pain. It was my claim to life being unfair.

It was my excuse to wallow in my own pity. It was right to be angry. This was exactly why I knew it was the voice of God. I didn’t want to let go of my pain.

The problem with holding on to things, is that when we do this, we leave our hands closed to receive anything.

I had closed myself up to receiving the graces God was trying to give me. So I made the decision to make that change. I figured that like all other resolutions, I’d be done by February but it was at least worth a shot. As

17 a control enthusiast, it was difficult to give up control of my life. The more I continued to give God everything the easier it became. Something bad would happen and I would remind myself it wasn’t my pain. Something good would happen and I would share my joy. I even began giving Him the indifferent. The change was evident in all aspects of my life. I was less stressed and more faithful.

So if you have not made a New Year’s resolution yet, or if you have already broken yours, let me pass along this suggestion: give Him everything. Give God the good, the bad and the ugly. If you need some words to help you on your way, pray “Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything.” I promise you, that by giving God the year you will feel like you owned it yourself !

Anchor columnist Amanda Tarantelli has been a campus minister at Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth since 2005. She is married, a die-hard sports fan, and resides in Cranston, R.I. She can be reached at atarantelli@bishopstang.org.

More than 50 Latin students from Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth recently took a trip to New York City for a project to be completed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as a day exploring New York; St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Tree, Central Park, sightseeing and more.

The Bishop Connolly High School (Fall River) Guidance Department recently hosted the second annual alumni panel discussion for seniors. Members of Connolly’s Class of 2014 spoke with the Class of 2015 about their first semester college experience.

There was time for students to ask any questions they might have about college. Back, from left: Jack Santoro, Daniel Higgins, John Goncalo, Austin Ramos, and William Medeiros. Front: Daniel Paiva, Cameron Souza, Marybeth Bishop, Nicole D’Andrea, Nicole Rigby, Yvonne Kalunga, Lauren Panchley, and Kelly Rezendes, director of Guidance.

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January 16, 2015

One family under God: Archbishop Gomez addresses immigration reform

The choir at St. John Neumann Parish in East Freetown recently released a CD of music of praise and worship titled, “Voices Raised for Healthcare,” to benefit area elderly who find it difficult to meet medical and prescription insurance co-payments.

Singers raise voices and funds for needy area elderly continued from page one

bring attention to the struggles many are having with medical expenses and, perhaps, to dedicate proceeds from CD sales to help people in this regard.”

The process was long and a learning process for the choir members. Karen Howard and others went about the arduous task of collecting the proper licensing and copyrights.

“None of us knew how to do this when we started,” Howard told The Anchor. “If we ever do it again, we’re all set. We needed permission for every song on the CD and the costs were based on the number of CDs that would be produced, in this case 500.”

“Choir member Dan Couet played a big part in selecting the music that we would record,” said Johnston. “Dan knows a great deal about praise music, and everyone was on board with the project.”

Learning as they went, the choir recorded one version of the CD, but wasn’t pleased with

the results. “We found Ron Poitras, a parishioner, and he did an incredible job with the mixing and production,” said Howard. “Ron provided us with his expertise and studio, and he did it all at no cost,” added Johnston. “He was so helpful and a wealth of knowledge. He taught us how to prepare and how to record.

“His studio wasn’t big enough for the entire 20 or so members at one time, so we recorded by voice parts: the sopranos, the altos and the baritones,” said Johnton. “I never did that before, but it came out great. We were all very pleased with the finished product.”

The choir members weren’t the only ones who were pleased with the recording. Sales at the church before and after Masses has been brisk, with many folks purchasing a copy for Christmas gifts.

Johnston provided the keyboards and “string” sounds on the CD and Brendan Troland,

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a talented young percussionist in the parish provided the beat.

“Everyone worked together so well,” said Johnston.

“And,” she added, “Father Mathias has been wonderfully supportive. He trusted us to find our way and gave us the freedom to do so. His personality helps people be creative.”

Howard told The Anchor that Arlene McNamee, director of the diocesan Catholic Social Services has also been helpful and supportive, as has Father Rodney Thibault, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in South Dartmouth. “His Social Concerns Committee did something unique in terms of social services, too,” said Howard.

She added, “We will start interviewing seniors before the month is out, probably starting with the local Freetown Council on Aging to see who might need this service, and the plan is to start small covering prescription co-pays to see what the need is and how our resources can match them.”

Howard also noted that while the choir takes their music seriously, it is a fun group of people who like being together and “care passionately not only about music, but about each other.” The blend of camaraderie, musical talent, and deep faith shine through on their CD project.

“Whatever the effective outcome of this effort, I think it demonstrates the compassion of the people who compose our choir,” said Father Mathias.

“They are a great Christian witness to us all.”

St. Augustine said a person who sings prays twice. With regards to the St. John Neumann Choir, one could say they now pray thrice.

Those interested in obtaining a copy of “Voices Raised for Healthcare” can contact the parish at 508-763-2240. Copies are also available before and following each weekend Mass at the church at 157 Middleboro Road, East Freetown.

Los Angeles, Calif.

(CNA/EWTN News) — For Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, if the Church is a family, then the faithful are all brothers and sisters.

This familial attitude is especially true when it comes to migration, Archbishop Gomez notes a recent column for Angelus News.

“We are all family. And family has to stick together and help one another. If one member of the family is suffering, we are called to help,” the archbishop stated.

Highlighting the issues of a broken immigration system, Archbishop Gomez touched on the topics of torn families, injustice, and deportation protection as part of the new year’s goal to face the unfinished business of immigration reform.

For more than 25 years, the U.S. bishops have recognized the first week of each new year as National Migration Week.

The theme for this year is “We are one family under God.” “This is the basic teaching of the Scriptures and the Catechism – that the Church is the family of God,” the archbishop noted, saying the faithful are called to live what they believe – and “God is expecting nothing less from us.”

Archbishop Gomez believes that part of the immigration problem is that America is forgetting its roots in immigration, an essential part of the beauty, genius, and cultural heritage of the country.

He believes that another part of the problem is not seeing immigrants as part of one family in Christ.

“Too many families are being torn apart by deportations, uncertainty about their ‘status’ and delays in our visa process that can take years, even decades,” he noted, saying that millions of families are being exploited within the workplace without any rights or benefits.

Although some well-intentioned efforts have tried to tackle the many facets of the current immigration system, the Archbishop believes that these measures will provide only temporary relief to a recurring problem.

Our system is broken and needs to be modernized to meet the realities of a global economy,” the archbishop pointed out, saying that a more comprehensive approach needs

to be implemented.

While immigration offers various political challenges, Archbishop Gomez pointed out that this issue also poses a special moral challenge, especially to Catholics.

“In God’s eyes, people do not cease to be our brothers and sisters just because they have an irregular immigration status,” Archbishop Gomez stated, saying “there is no excuse for indifference or for treating someone else with less respect or love.”

“We are called to love and love cannot be divided. We can’t close our hearts to any of our brothers and sisters without closing our hearts to God,” he continued, saying Catholics have a responsibility for others, even people they don’t know and will probably never see.

In facing the solution to a comprehensive immigration reform, the archbishop recommended a deeper understanding and more familial attitude towards immigrants.

“I think we need a change of heart, a deepening of our perspective – so that we can understand the urgency of our task,” Archbishop Gomez suggested, saying that if we truly believed that the people affected by immigration were members of our family, we would be more inclined to act.

Moving forward, the archbishop suggested to pray for each other and for world leaders, so that everyone may grow in love and experience a new sense of solidarity with the brothers and sisters who are suffering and vulnerable.

“And let us ask our Blessed Mother Mary to guide our leaders to walk the path of cooperation as they seek to enact the immigration reforms that our nation needs,” he concluded.

Visit the Diocese of Fall River website at fallriverdiocese.org The site includes links to parishes, diocesan offices and national sites.

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January 16, 2015

Marian Medals ceremony to air on local cable TV stations

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese Acushnet — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Evening prayer and Benediction is held Monday through Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

ATTLEBORO — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the Adoration Chapel at St. Vincent de Paul Parish, 71 Linden Street, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

ATTLEBORO — The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette holds Eucharistic Adoration in the Shrine Church every Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. through November 17.

ATTLEBORO — There is a weekly Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration Thursdays from 5:30 to 6:30 pm at St. John the Evangelist Church on N. Main St. Brewster — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the La Salette Chapel in the lower level of Our Lady of the Cape Church, 468 Stony Brook Road, on First Fridays beginning at noon until 7:45 a.m. First Saturday, concluding with Benediction and concluding with Mass at 8 a.m. buzzards Bay — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street, Monday through Saturday, from 6:30 to 8 a.m.; and every first Friday from noon to 8 a.m. on Saturday.

East Freetown — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. John Neumann Church every Monday (excluding legal holidays) 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Our Lady, Mother of All Nations Chapel. (The base of the bell tower).

EAST TAUNTON — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the chapel at Holy Family Parish Center, 438 Middleboro Avenue, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. On First Fridays, Eucharistic Adoration takes place at Holy Family Church, 370 Middleboro Avenue, from 8:30 a.m. until 7:45 p.m.

FAIRHAVEN — St. Mary’s Church, Main St., has Eucharistic Adoration every Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Chapel of Reconciliation, with Benediction at 11:30 a.m. Also, there is a First Friday Mass each month at 7 p.m., followed by a Holy Hour with Eucharistic Adoration. Refreshments follow.

Fall River — Espirito Santo Parish, 311 Alden Street, Fall River. Eucharistic Adoration on Mondays following the 8 a.m. Mass until Rosary and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.

FALL RIVER — St. Bernadette’s Church, 529 Eastern Ave., has continuous Eucharistic Adoration from 8 a.m. on Thursday until 8 a.m. on Saturday.

FALL RIVER — St. Anthony of the Desert Church, 300 North Eastern Avenue, has Eucharistic Adoration Mondays and Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

FALL RIVER — Holy Name Church, 709 Hanover Street, has Eucharistic Adoration Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Our Lady of Grace Chapel.

FALL RIVER — Good Shepherd Parish has Eucharistic Adoration every Friday following the 8 a.m. Mass and concluding with 3 p.m. Benediction in the Daily Mass Chapel. A bilingual holy hour takes place from 2 to 3 p.m. Park behind the church and enter the back door of the connector between the church and the rectory.

Falmouth — St. Patrick’s Church has Eucharistic Adoration each First Friday, following the 9 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 4:30 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.

MANSFIELD — St. Mary’s Parish, 330 Pratt Street, has Eucharistic Adoration every First Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., with Benediction at 5:45 p.m.

MASHPEE — Christ the King Parish, Route 151 and Job’s Fishing Road has 8:30 a.m. Mass every First Friday with special intentions for Respect Life, followed by 24 hours of Eucharistic Adoration in the Chapel, concluding with Benediction Saturday morning followed immediately by an 8:30 Mass.

NEW BEDFORD — Eucharistic Adoration takes place 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 233 County Street, with night prayer and Benediction at 8:45 p.m., and Confessions offered during the evening. Please use the side entrance.

NEW BEDFORD — There is a daily holy hour from 5:15-6:15 p.m. Monday through Thursday at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1359 Acushnet Avenue. It includes Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Liturgy of the Hours, recitation of the Rosary, and the opportunity for Confession.

NEW BEDFORD — St. Lawrence Martyr Parish, 565 County Street, holds Eucharistic Adoration in the side chapel from 7:30-11:45 a.m. ending with a simple Benediction NORTH DARTMOUTH — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m., ending with Benediction. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

NORTH DIGHTON — Eucharistic Adoration takes place every Wednesday following 8:00 a.m. Mass and concludes with Benediction at 5 p.m. Eucharistic Adoration also takes place every First Friday at St. Nicholas of Myra Church, 499 Spring Street following the 8 a.m. Mass, ending with Benediction at 6 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 7:30 to 8 a.m.

NORTH EASTON — A Holy Hour for Families including Eucharistic Adoration is held every Friday from 3-4 p.m. at The Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street.

OSTERVILLE — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, 76 Wianno Avenue on First Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to noon.

SEEKONK ­— Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish has perpetual Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the chapel at 984 Taunton Avenue. For information call 508-336-5549.

Taunton — Eucharistic Adoration takes place every Tuesday at St. Anthony Church, 126 School Street, following the 8 a.m. Mass with prayers including the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for vocations, concluding at 6 p.m. with Chaplet of St. Anthony and Benediction. Recitation of the Rosary for peace is prayed Monday through Saturday at 7:30 a.m. prior to the 8 a.m. Mass.

Taunton — Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament takes place every First Friday at Annunciation of the Lord, 31 First Street. Exposition begins following the 8 a.m. Mass. The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed, and Adoration will continue throughout the day. Confessions are heard from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Rosary and Benediction begin at 6:30 p.m.

WAREHAM — Eucharistic Adoration at St. Patrick’s Church begins each Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. and ends on Friday night at midnight. Adoration is held in our Adoration Chapel in the lower Parish Hall. ~ PERPETUAL EUCHARISTIC ADORATION ~ East Sandwich — The Corpus Christi Parish Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Chapel is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 324 Quaker Meeting House Road, East Sandwich. Use the Chapel entrance on the side of the church.

NEW BEDFORD — Our Lady’s Chapel, 600 Pleasant Street, offers Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day. For information call 508-996-8274.

SEEKONK ­— Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish has perpetual Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the chapel at 984 Taunton Avenue. For information call 508-336-5549.

WEST HARWICH — Our Lady of Life Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Holy Trinity Parish, 246 Main Street (Rte. 28), holds perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. We are a regional chapel serving all of the surrounding parishes. All are invited to sign up to cover open hours. For open hours, or to sign up call 508-430-4716.

FALL RIVER — A video of the Nov. 23, 2014 Marian Medals Ceremony in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River continues to air on several cable television public access channels in the Fall River diocese.

As of press time, the schedule is as follows: — Fall River, Comcast channel 95, January 17 and 24 at 3 p.m.

— Falmouth, cable channel 13, January 17 at 8 a.m. and 12:27 p.m.; January 18, 6:27 a.m. and 3 p.m.; and January 19 at 4:30 p.m.

— New Bedford, Comcast channel 95, January 22, 29 and February 5 at 1 p.m.

— North Attleboro, Comcast channel 15 or Verizon channel 24, January 16 and 30 at 12:30 and 11 a.m.; January 17 and 31 at 4 and 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.; January 18 and February 1 at 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.; January 19 and February 2 at 12 a.m. and 4 p.m.; January 20 and February 3 at 12 and 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.; January 21 and February 4 at 3 a.m. and 2 and 10 p.m.; January 22 and February 5 at 6:30 a.m. and 2:30 and 10 p.m.

— Sandwich, Comcast channel 13, January 16 at 2 and 9 p.m.; January 17 at 5 p.m.; January 18 at 9:30 a.m., and 12 and 4 p.m.

— Taunton, Comcast channel 15 or Verizon channel 22, January 17 and 24 at 1 p.m.; January 18 and 25 at 12:30 p.m.; and January 20 at 8:30 p.m.

The 2014 Marian Medal

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks Jan. 17 Rev. John F. Laughlin, Retired Pastor, Holy Ghost, Attleboro, 1967 Rev. Daniel J. McCarthy, SS.CC., Former Provincial Superior, Retired Pastor, Holy Redeemer, Chatham, 2002 Rev. Gilles M. Genest, M.S., 2012 Rev. Paul J. Duff, C.S.C., 2012 Jan. 19 Rev. Thomas E. O’Dea, Assistant, St. Lawrence, New Bedford, 1999 Jan. 20 Rev. Roland J. Masse, Assistant, Notre Dame de Lourdes, Fall River, 1952 Jan. 21 Msgr. Henri A. Hamel, USAF, Retired Chaplain, Retired Pastor, St. Joseph, New Bedford, 1983 Jan. 23 Permanent Deacon Cwiekowski, 2001

John

Ceremony DVD is also available for purchase. To obtain a video, please forward a check in the amount of $25 payable to the Diocesan Office of Communica-

tions to Office of Communications, Diocese of Fall River, P.O. Box 7, Fall River, Mass. 02722.

Shipping is included in the video cost.

Around the Diocese

St. John Neumann Parish, 157 Middleboro Road in East Freetown, will host an Ecumenical Taizé candlelight service on January 18 at 6 p.m. for Christian unity.

Taizé is a prayer form that originated in France after World War II to encourage meditation, reconciliation and Christian unity. All are welcome.

All are invited to prayer and Eucharistic adoration in the St. Jude Chapel of Christ the King Parish in Mashpee on January 22 immediately following the 8:30 a.m. Mass and Novena. The Divine Mercy Chaplet will open the hours of adoration and benediction will be at noon.

A Healing Mass will be held on January 22 at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1359 Acushnet Avenue in New Bedford. The Mass will begin at 6:30 p.m. and will include benediction and healing prayers.

At 5:15 p.m. there will be a holy hour, including the Rosary. For more information visit www.saintanthonynewbedford.com or call 508-993-1691.

Internationally-known Catholic speaker and author Jon Leonetti will be conducting a three-day parish mission entitled “Surge of the Heart” at Corpus Christi Parish in East Sandwich. The mission will be held on the evenings of January 25-27, starting each night at 7 p.m., and will focus on the themes of “Chosen,” “Redeemed” and “Delivered.” All are welcome to this faith-filled, family-oriented inspirational mission. For more information, call the Corpus Christi Parish rectory at 508-888-0209.

A Placement Exam will be held at Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River on February 7 at 8 a.m. for all prospective high school students and eighth grade LEAP students who are interested in attending Connolly next year. The fee for the exam is $20 and it will be held at Bishop Connolly High School, 373 Elsbree Street in Fall River. For more information call 508-676-1071, extension 333.

A Lenten Retreat will be held March 20-22 at St. Benedict Abbey, 252 Still River Road in Harvard, Mass., conducted by Franciscan priests. This retreat weekend would make a great Lenten gift for one of your friends. People may attend the full weekend, Friday evening through Sunday morning, or just all day Saturday and early Saturday evening. It will provide opportunities for spiritually uplifting presentations, interspersed with hearty meals prepared by the monks, time to walk the peaceful grounds or time to participate in Abbey spiritual monastic chapel activity. Enjoy the extensive library in the Retreat Guest House while enjoying the ever-ready coffee, tea, or fresh water. For more information or to make reservations, contact Marge and Ed Shivvers at vze4zppz@ verizon.net, or call 508-295-6279. Fall River area people interested in going for the full weekend can carpool with Daryl Gonyon by calling 508-672-4822. The distance one-way from Fall River to the Abbey is exactly 80 miles.

The Diocesan Marriage Preparation Program is looking for married couples who would like to enrich their Marriage while helping engaged couples prepare for their lifetime together. There is also a Re-Marriage Prep Program for couples entering their second Marriages. If you are interested in sharing the joys and challenges of married life, please contact your pastor or the Diocesan Office of Faith Formation at 508-678-2828 or email cmcmanus@ dfrcs.org.

20

January 16, 2015

Franciscan leader in Black Catholic ministry named auxiliary bishop

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Pope Francis has named Franciscan Father Fernand “Ferd” Cheri III, a New Orleans native who currently is director of campus ministry at Quincy University in Illinois as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

The appointment was announced January 12 in Washington by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Bishop-designate Cheri, who turns 63 January 28, has a back-

ground that includes extensive roles in black Catholic Liturgy, music and Spirituality, in addition to having served on the Franciscans’ provincial council and as their director of friar life.

He also is a board member of the National Black Catholic Congress and has been involved in activities including the NBCC gatherings, the U.S. bishops’ subcommittee on Black Catholic worship and the National Joint Conference of Black Religious Planning Committee.

He originally was ordained

as a priest for the Archdiocese of New Orleans May 20, 1978.

He studied at Notre Dame University and at the Institute for Black Catholic Ministry at Xavier University, both in New Orleans.

During a news conference in New Orleans after his appointment was announced, Bishopdesignate Cheri said he never truly left his hometown and was surprised but thrilled that Pope Francis had appointed him as auxiliary bishop in the city where most of his family still lives. He said he is pleased that he will be working alongside Archbishop Gregory V. Aymond.

“I’d like to say first of all thank you to Pope Francis for appointing me to this position,” he said.

“It was a total surprise, but it was a wonderful moment to just be told that I was appointed auxiliary bishop,” added Bishopdesignate Cheri. “I also want to thank Greg for accepting me in this position as well. I look forward to just working with the people of New Orleans again. I never left New Orleans. It’s always a part of me. Wherever I go, I bring New Orleans. It’s going to be great to be back in the city.”

Bishop-designate Cheri will be ordained bishop at a Mass March 23 at 2 p.m. at St. Louis Cathedral.

“He is very gifted in music and preaching and Liturgy,” Archbishop Aymond said. “This is also a very significant moment, I think, for us as New Orleans (Catholics) — another hometown boy joining us again.

But also a great gift from the African-American community to the Church and to the archdiocese.”

As a diocesan priest for four years at four parishes in New Orleans and Marrero, Louisiana, Bishop-designate Cheri was involved in ministry in the black Catholic community. It was at that time that he began discernment in becoming a Franciscan.

“A lot of my support at that time was from the religious communities that were primarily staffing parishes in the black community of New Orleans,” he said.

“I got used to that. I said, ‘Well, if I’m getting support from them, I might as well be a religious.’ Being a diocesan priest for me was very lonely.

I grew up with a family and bouncing things off of other people. I needed that support.

I received a lot of that from the religious communities of New Orleans.”

He entered the novitiate for the Order of Friars Minor,

in the Sacred Heart Province, based in St. Louis in 1992 and made his solemn profession as a Franciscan two years later. Since then he has served as a chaplain at Hales Franciscan High School in Chicago and as pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Church in Nashville, Tenn.

He also served as a choir director and guidance counselor at Althoff Catholic High in Belleville, Ill., while part of a contingent that launched St. Benedict the Black Friary in East St. Louis, an outreach to the poor, African-American community.

Prior to beginning his position at Quincy University in 2011, he was director of campus ministry at Xavier University. In addition to his post at Quincy, he is vicar of Holy Cross Friary, located on the campus.

Bishop-designate Cheri said he organized teams of students from Quincy University to provide annual cleanup and repairs in New Orleans. Last year, 50 students made the mission trip.

Prior to beginning his position at Quincy University in 2011, he was director of campus ministry at Xavier University in New Orleans. In addition to his post at Quincy, he is vicar of Holy Cross Friary, located on the campus.

According to his biography on the NBCC website, he created youth gospel choirs in several places, began the Black Saints Celebrations for the Archdiocese of New Orleans and is convener and facilitator of Go Down Moses Retreats for African-American Catholic Young Men. The New Orleans Archdiocese has had no auxiliary bishops since Bishop Shelton J. Fabre was named in 2013 to become bishop of Houma-Thibodaux.

Auxiliary Bishop Dominic Carmon retired in 2006.