01.30.09

Diocese of Fall River

The Anchor

F riday , January 30, 2009

New abortion bills on Beacon Hill endanger mothers, babies

By Gail Besse Anchor Correspondent

BOSTON — Abortion proponents have filed three bills with the Massachusetts Legislature that would further endanger the health and safety of women and young people and the lives of unborn babies.

One bill would undermine parental rights and responsibilities by letting minors get an abortion without parental consent or a judge’s order.

Another would repeal all laws restricting abortions. Although abortion is legal up to birth in the U.S., a state statute requires that later trimester ones be done in hospitals, thus protecting women

from unsafe clinics.

The third bill would mandate that every public school use the Massachusetts Comprehensive Health Curriculum Frameworks, which includes a controversial sex education program, in grades K-12.

The Health Education Bill is “a train wreck coming down the pike,” according to Linda Thayer, a director of Massachusetts Citizens for Life.

“It will mandate that public schools teach kids that abortion, premarital sex, birth control and homosexual behavior are OK,” she said. “This violates our freedom of religion and conscience; Turn to page 20

St. Paul feast Massgoers told: conversion is a turning point

By Deacon James N. Dunbar

FALL RIVER — Those attending the extraordinary celebration on Sunday of the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul at St. Mary’s Cathedral were invited by homilist Father Andrew Johnson, OCSO, to imitate Paul’s change of heart and “so change everything” in our lives.

Bishop George W. Coleman was the principal celebrant of the Mass that attracted hundreds to the diocese’s mother church on one of the rare occasions when the Congregation for Divine Worship gave permission for the celebration of the feast day and its particular readings, even though it fell on the Third Sunday in Ordinary time.

Father Johnson, a parochial vicar at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis, is director of the diocese’s observances of the worldwide June 28, 2008-June 29, 2009 Pauline Year marking the 2,000th anniversary birth of St. Paul.

“It seems St. Paul — whose martyrdom is marked June 29, “is too big for just one feast,” the homilist told the congregation.

“But why his conversion? Not his holiness or courage or labors or travels or even his preaching.

Conversion is the deepest mystery of the human soul, the turning point of every human life.

And the greatest saints have the very greatest conversions,” he said.

Turn to page 18

A CAPITOL IDEA — Students from Bishop Stang High School, North Dartmouth, express their ProLife ideas in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., after the annual March for Life. With the Stang contingent is the school’s chaplain, Father Jay Mello. (Photo by Heidi Bratton)

Pro-Lifers turn president’s call for change against him at march

By Deacon James N. Dunbar and CNS reports

WASHINGTON — Two days after millions of Americans converged on the National Mall in Washington to witness the inaugu-

ration of President Barack Obama, a crowd of Pro-Life adults and young people estimated at 100,000 chanted, sang and shouted in the same spot, loud enough, they hoped, for the nation’s new leader to hear their

pleas to outlaw abortion.

The 36th annual March for Life rally on January 22 that found Bishop George W. Coleman and clergy and religious among approximately

Education classes. So it was only natural that he might one day find God calling him to become a priest.

Peter will take the penultimate step towards the priesthood tomorrow when Bishop George W. Coleman ordains him a Peter Fournier

transitional deacon at 11 a.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

“I was brought up in a family that was always involved with the Church,” Fournier said. “When I was a junior in high school, part of me wanted to see what it was about to become a priest and part of me wanted to be a teacher. It was one of those things where I felt it was easier to try it now than try it 10 years from now. I Turn to page 18

Turn to page 11

Peter Fournier to be ordained a transitional deacon by Bishop Coleman tomorrow

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

ATTLEBORO — Peter John Fournier’s entire life has always centered around the Church.

His father Paul is a permanent deacon and his mother Florence worked as the parish secretary.

Peter himself spent his formative years as an active member of Holy Ghost Parish in Attleboro, where he was an altar server and later helped teaching Religious

Diocese to celebrate World Day for Consecrated Life February 8

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

FALL RIVER — Through the ages the numbers of those who chose to live a “consecrated life, have risen and fallen. By no means are today’s numbers at record levels, yet the commitment, zeal and

burning desire to live such a life for the Lord has never been greater.

With that in mind, the late great Pope John Paul II established World Day for Consecrated Life in 1997.

He indicated a desire for this Turn to page 15

News From the Vatican

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January 30, 2009

Pope says Christians must work, pray, convert for Christian unity

VATICAN CITY — Full Christian unity will be a gift from God, but it is something Christians themselves must work for, pray for and experience personal conversion in order to receive, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Dedicating his weekly general audience January 21 to the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the pope said God wants Christians to be one, but that can happen only through deeper unity with Christ.

The theme of the 2009 week of prayer was “That they may become one in your hand,” a quote from the Book of Ezekiel in which God tells the prophet to take two sticks, representing his divided people, and join them together.

“The hand of the prophet that puts the two sticks together becomes like the very hand of God who will gather and unite his people and, finally, all of humanity,” the pope said.

“We can apply the prophet’s words to Christians in the sense of an exhortation to pray, to work, to do everything possible so the unity of Christ’s disciples will be accomplished, so that our hands will become instruments of the unifying hand of God,” Pope Benedict said.

The divisions Ezekiel tried to heal were caused by different groups going their own way and “taking on customs foreign to divine law,” he said.

The prophet made it clear to the people that the restoration of their unity could occur only through their conversion and return to the ways of the Lord, the pope said.

“The vision of Ezekiel is eloquent for the entire ecumenical movement because it highlights the absolute necessity of an authentic, interior renewal in all the members of the people of God, a renewal only the Lord can accomplish, but to which

The Anchor

we all must be open,” the pope said, because like the ancient Israelites “we, too, have picked up customs far from the word of God.” Pope Benedict prayed that the week of prayer would “stimulate all of us toward a sincere conversion, an increasingly docile listening to the word of God and a faith that is always deeper.”

The week of prayer, he said, also is an opportunity to thank God for the progress made in ecumenical relations over the past year, particularly for the three personal meetings he had with Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and for meetings with leaders of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Pope Benedict also said, “I shared the pain of the Patriarchate of Moscow for the death of our beloved brother in Christ, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy, and I continue to remain in a communion of prayer with our brothers who are preparing to elect a new patriarch” in late January.

Looking at relations with the churches of the West, Pope Benedict said the Catholic, Anglican and Protestant churches continue to discuss how they can witness better to their unity in Christ before “a world that is increasingly divided and facing many cultural, social, economic and ethical challenges.”

The pope asked people to pray with him that the ecumenical movement would intensify and that the day would come soon when Christians would be united.

“The desire that lives in our hearts is the hastening of the day of full unity, when all the disciples of the one Lord can finally celebrate together the Eucharist, the divine sacrifice for the life and salvation of the world.”

OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER Vol. 53, No. 4

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PUBLISHER - Most Reverend George W. Coleman EXECUTIVE EDITOR Father Roger J. Landry fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.org EDITOR David B. Jolivet davejolivet@anchornews.org NEWS EDITOR Deacon James N. Dunbar jimdunbar@anchornews.org OFFICE MANAGER Mary Chase m arychase@anchornews.org ADVERTISING Wayne Powers waynepowers@anchornews.org REPORTER Michael Pare michaelpare@anchornews.org REPORTER Kenneth J. Souza k ensouza@anchornews.org Send Letters to the Editor to: fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.org POSTMASTERS send address changes to The Anchor, P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA 02722.

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LOYAL SERVANTS — Pope Benedict XVI greets a nun at the end of a recent weekly general audience in the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Tony Gentile, Reuters)

Pope lifts excommunications of four Lefebvrite bishops

By John Thavis Catholic News Service

unity in charity of the universal Church and succeed in removing the scandal of division.”

In a letter published after the Vatican announcement, Bishop Fellay said his society was eager to begin talks with the Vatican about the causes of the “unprecedented crisis” shaking the Church.

The decree removing the excommunications, issued by the

communicated is not the same as saying one shares all his ideas or statements,” Father Lombardi VATICAN CITY — Pope said.

Benedict XVI has lifted the exThe removal of the excomcommunication of four bishops munication was a key condition ordained against papal orders in of the Society of St. Pius X in its 1988 by the late French Archon-again, off-again talks with the bishop Marcel Lefebvre. The Vatican over reconciliation. In move was considered a major 2007 the pope granted another concession to the archbishop’s of the society’s requests, widtraditionalist followers. ening the possibility for use of The Vatican said the decree the Tridentine rite, the removing the excommunication, signed he Holy Father was motivated form of the Mass used January 21 and made in this decision by the hope that before the Second Vatican Council. public three days later, Archbishop Lefemarked an important complete reconciliation and full commustep toward full com- nion may be reached as soon as possible,” bvre rejected several important teachings munion with the So- a Vatican statement said. of the Second Vatican ciety of St. Pius X, Council, including founded by Archbishop Congregation for Bishops, un- those related to religious liberty, Lefebvre in 1970.

It said some questions remain derlined the hope that this step ecumenism and liturgy. The Vatiunresolved with the society, in- would be followed by full com- can statements did not mention cluding its future status and that munion and that all members of the council’s teachings, and Faof its priests, and that these is- the Society of St. Pius X would ther Lombardi had no comment sues would be the subject of fur- demonstrate “true fidelity and on whether the society was asked true acknowledgment of the to adhere to them. ther talks.

The Vatican action came the “The Holy Father was moti- magisterium and the authority of day before the 50th anniversary vated in this decision by the hope the pope.”

The move came after one of of Pope John XXIII’s announcethat complete reconciliation and full communion may be reached the illicitly ordained bishops, ment of the Second Vatican as soon as possible,” a Vatican British-born Bishop Richard Council. Father Lombardi said it Williamson, provoked Jewish would be wrong to see the liftstatement said.

The head of the Swiss-based protests with assertions that the ing of the excommunication as a society, Bishop Bernard Fellay, Holocaust was exaggerated and rejection of Vatican II. In addition to Bishops Felhad requested the removal of that no Jews died in Nazi gas the excommunication in a let- chambers. He spoke in a TV in- lay and Williamson, the decree ter December 15. Bishop Fel- terview recorded last November removed the excommunication of French Bishop Bernard Tislay wrote that he and the three but aired in mid-January.

The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit sier de Mallerais and Argentine other bishops illicitly ordained in 1988 were determined to remain Father Federico Lombardi, said Bishop Alphonso de Galarreta.

Catholic and accepted the teach- emphatically that the Vatican did The Vatican said in 1988 that ings of Pope Benedict “with filial not share Bishop Williamson’s Archbishop Lefebvre and the views, but that it was a complete- bishops he ordained had incurred spirit.”

The Vatican said the pope had ly separate issue from the lifting automatic excommunication for defying papal orders against the responded positively to the re- of the excommunication.

“Saying a person is not ex- ordination. quest in order to promote “the

“T

January 30, 2009

The International Church

STRENGTHENING HER FAMILY — A woman receives Communion during the closing Mass of the Sixth World Meeting of Families outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City recently. The international gathering, held every three years, is organized by the Pontifical Council for the Family. It was established by Pope John Paul II in 1981. (CNS photo/David Agren)

To solve social ills, strengthen the family, say meeting participants

By David Agren Catholic News Service

MEXICO CITY — Deacon Modesto Lule evangelizes to this city of 21 million people, many of whom need a safety net during tough economic times.

Victor Echague, a layman from a Paraguayan border town that is infamous for smuggling, tries to keep young people who lack parental attention away from the clutches of drug dealers and pimps.

Filomena Chow, a young mother from Macau, imparts messages against selfishness and materialism to her young children and their friends as they grow up in a society where Catholics are a small minority.

They were just three of the more than 8,000 participants from six continents attending the Sixth World Meeting of Families January 14-18 in Mexico City. Each gave differing motives for traveling to the meeting at their own expense,

MADRID, Spain (CNS) — A Spanish judge has decided to open an investigation into the case of 14 members of the Salvadoran army accused of involvement in killing six Jesuit priests and two of their employees in 1989, during El Salvador’s civil war.

High Court Judge Eloy Velasco also decided not to try former Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani, accused of concealment of the crime, because of insufficient evidence.

Last November, the Spanish Association for Human Rights and the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability filed a lawsuit against the military officers and Cristiani based on the Spanish legal principle of universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity.

In 1991 a Salvadoran court convicted two of the 14 accused army members of murder and conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism.

Both were sentenced to 30 years in prison, but were released when the parliament approved a law granting them amnesty in 1993, one year after the war ended.

Velasco’s decision was an-

nounced January 13, nearly 20 years after the Nov. 16, 1989, massacre at Central American University in San Salvador.

The Jesuit victims were Spanish Fathers Ignacio Ellacuria, rector of the university, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Segundo Montes, Juan Moreno, and Amando Lopez and Salvadoran Father Joaquin Lopez Lopez. Also killed were the Jesuits’ housekeeper, Elba Ramos, and her teen-age daughter, Celina.

Attackers targeted Father Ellacuria because of his role in promoting peace between the U.S.-supported military government and left-wing guerrilla groups and were told to leave no witnesses, according to a 1991 U.N.-sponsored report.

Six priests were assassinated in El Salvador from 1977 to 1979, and then-Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador denounced what he saw as the persecution of the Catholic Church in his country. Archbishop Romero also asked the U.S. government to cut military aid to the Salvadoran government, which he accused of human rights violations.

The archbishop was shot and killed as he celebrated Mass in 1980.

Spanish judge to investigate 1989 murder of Jesuits in El Salvador

reasons that included the chance to learn better family practices, the need to recharge their batteries and an opportunity for fellowship with other Catholics.

The three listed different challenges — such as the current economic crisis, the exploitation of young people and a lack of Christian values — for their own families and the families they interact with. Other attendees interviewed

by Catholic News Service listed oppressive governments, rampant

alcohol and substance abuse, and lax attitudes toward divorce as the principal threats to families in their home countries.

Yet all interviewed gave the same solution for the social ills they confront on a daily basis: strengthening the traditional family.

The idea of strengthening families as a means of combating social problems is hardly new for Catholics, although Father Jose Aguilar, director of radio and TV for the Archdiocese of Mexico City, said the idea really gained momentum in 1994, when Pope John Paul II convened the First World Meeting of Families.

“The pope realized that the majority of ... problems are in the family,” Father Aguilar said. The pope “said that if we don’t do something for the family, we won’t resolve these problems.”

Like many of this year’s participants, Father Aguilar noted social problems in Mexico that he said stronger families would help to resolve; he cited “narcotics trafficking, drug addiction (and) divorce.”

Echague said he sees some similar problems with lawlessness in the frontier town of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, where he works in the family ministry of his local diocese. He said he encounters many vulnerable children who are left without supervision because both parents are working “like slaves” in businesses linked with smugglers.

“It’s so easy to corrupt young people. This is our main

3 fight,” he said.

Chow spoke of the challenges of raising her children and being a good witness to others. She described Macau as a materialistic society where “Christian values are not the mainstream” and the Catholic population is small.

“It’s tough to explain to our children why we have chosen this way,” she said. “It’s like swimming against the current.”

Serafim Nogueira, who traveled 27 hours from South Africa with his wife, Ana Maria, echoed the sentiment that a lack of Christian values was harming the family in his homeland.

“People are becoming more individualistic and self-centered,” he said.

The Vatican-sponsored Mexico City meeting, he added, “lets us be united with other people and hear about their customs and talk about the Catholic faith.”

Some participants at the Mexico City meeting also blamed governments for weakening the family.

Telecommunications worker Carlos Escalona of Venezuela, where church-state relations have been icy for the past decade, accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of undermining the family by teaching government propaganda in public schools and muscling out traditional values. He also said a “lack of values” in his country led to Chavez’s election in the first place.

“People looked to a politician like him instead of to God,” Escalona said.

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The Church in the U.S.

January 30, 2009

Bishop opines ACLU suit over USCCB human trafficking grants without merit

WASHINGTON (CNS) — An American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over human trafficking grants allocated to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is without merit, according to the chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration.

Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City said in a statement, he hoped the U.S. Justice Department would “mount a vigorous defense” against the lawsuit, which charges that HHS is violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment “by permitting USCCB to impose a religiously based restriction on the use of taxpayer funds.”

The “religiously based restriction” it cited was that the USCCB requires its subcontractors providing the direct services to trafficking victims to not use the funds for contraceptives or abortion or contraception referrals.

Bishop Wester said the lawsuit threatened both “the weakest in our society” and religious liberty.

“The ‘services’ that ACLU would force taxpayers to fund would assault, rather than advance, the dignity of these neediest people in our society,” he said of the trafficking victims. “It also violates the long-standing principle of religious liberty to disqualify (USCCB Migration and Refugee Services) or any other religious provider of social services from working with the government based on the provider’s religious beliefs.”

The suit, ACLU of Massachusetts v. Leavitt, was filed January 12 in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts, based in Boston.

It asks for a permanent injunction requiring HHS to ensure that funds under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act are disbursed “without the imposition of religiously based restrictions.”

“We are asking the court to stop this misuse of taxpayer dollars and to protect the health and safety of trafficking victims,” said Sarah Wunsch, staff attorney with ACLU of Massachusetts, in a statement.

“Trafficking victims need comprehensive and compassionate care to

gain their freedom and lead safe and healthy lives.”

The trafficking grants are administered through the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is part of the Administration for Children and Families in HHS. According to the USCCB Website, the bishops’ conference, through its Migration and Refugee Services, “administers the AntiTrafficking Per Capita Services Program through a contract” with the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement “to provide services to survivors of human trafficking across the country.”

The 13-page lawsuit says that in a Feb. 23, 2006, technical proposal to the HHS office, the USCCB said, “As we are a Catholic organization, we need to ensure that our victim services funds are not used to refer or fund activities that would be contrary to our moral convictions and religious beliefs. Specifically, subcontractors could not provide or refer for abortion services or contraceptive materials.”

The HHS office then asked the USCCB, according to the lawsuit, whether “a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy (would) work regarding the exception. What if a subcontractor referred victims supported by stipend to a third-party agency for such services?”

In response, the lawsuit said, the USCCB said it “cannot be associated with an agency that performs abortions or offers contraceptives to our clients. If they sign the written agreement (the subcontract), the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ wouldn’t apply because they are giving an assurance to us that they wouldn’t refer for or provide abortion service to our client using contract funding.”

The ACLU said the USCCB received $2.5 million under the HHS contract between April 2006 and April 2007 and another $3.5 million between April 2007 and April 2008.

In fiscal year 2006, the “USCCB retained $900,192, or almost 40 percent of the congressionally appropriated funds, for administering the grant, while only $1.6 million ... was spent serving individuals who were trafficked.”

WE KNOW WHERE THEY STAND — Members of the Sisters of Life cheer at the beginning of a Pro-Life youth Mass at the Verizon Center in Washington. Young people from across the nation packed the arena for the events held in advance of the annual March for Life. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)

Obama signs order reversing Mexico City abortion aid policy

By Chaz Muth Catholic News Service

from going to international family planning groups that either offer abortions or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion.

A federal law known as the Hyde amendment prohibits U.S. funding from being used directly to provide abortions.

The Mexico City policy was established in 1984, reversed by President Bill Clinton in 1993 and re-established under President George W. Bush in 2001.

Clinton and Bush each took their actions on January 22, the

to see the Mexico City policy remain intact.

WASHINGTON — Pro-life “It says something about his activists quickly denounced style and the courtesy he extendPresident Barack Obama’s Janed to those of us participating in uary 23 signature on an executhe March for Life,” Melady told tive order reversing the Mexico Catholic News Service. “It says City policy, a move that clears he is concerned about the other the way for the federal governpoint of view, which is a good ment to provide aid to programs foundation for finding common that promote or perform aborground.” tion overseas.

Not everyone saw Obama’s The Associated Press rewaiting a day after the Pro-Life ported late in the afternoon that observance as a sign of respect.

Obama signed an executive or“If he respected the Pro-Life der reversing the ban that was cause, he wouldn’t have signed first instituted by Presthis order at all,” said ident Ronald Reagan hat a terrible way to begin a Deirdre A. McQuade, in 1984. new administration, with an assistant director for Obama signed the and communiabortion business bailout that will exploit policy order with no fancations for the U.S. fare and with no news women in developing countries for politi- Conference of Cathomedia in the room, cal ends.” lic Bishops’ Office of a marked contrast to Pro-Life Activities. signings of executive “We’re concerned orders earlier in the week. anniversary of the U.S. Supreme this can only be the tip of the “What a terrible way to begin Court’s landmark 1973 deci- iceberg for President Obama’s a new administration, with an sions of Roe v. Wade and Doe abortion policy. This should abortion business bailout that v. Bolton that recognized abor- strengthen our resolve” for the will exploit women in develop- tion as a constitutional right and Pro-Life cause, she said. ing countries for political ends,” overturned state laws against The executive order will not said Charmaine Yoest, president abortion. fund abortions directly, Mcof Americans United for Life Many people expected Quade said, but it will indirectly Action, a Washington-based Obama, like Clinton and Bush, provide financial resources to Pro-Life activist organization. to sign the executive order Janu- perform the procedures.

“We should not export the trag- ary 22, when thousands of Pro“Pro-abortion organizations edy of abortion to other nations, Life marchers were protesting like the International Planned and we certainly shouldn’t do so U.S. abortion policy, but he de- Parenthood Federation are via the hard-earned dollars of cided to wait a day. actively working to impose American taxpayers.”

“I see that as a sign of respect radically pro-abortion laws on The policy banned U.S. tax- to the Catholics and other Pro- developing nations, showing payer money, usually in the form Life activists,” said Thomas P. no regard for the will of the of funds from the U.S. Agency Melady, a former U.S. ambassa- people in these countries,” she for International Development, dor to the Vatican, who wanted said.

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January 30, 2009

The Church in the U.S.

5

Pope congratulates President Obama on Inauguration Day

WAITING ON HISTORY — People wait in the cold January 20 for the inauguration ceremony to begin for Barack Obama in Washington. He became the 44th president of the United States and the nation’s first African-American president. (CNS photo/Jessica Rinaldi, Reuters)

Historic inaugural seen as chance to recall place of religion in U.S.

By Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON — All Americans can see in the historic inauguration of President Barack Obama as the nation’s first African-American president an indication of the country’s “historic, proud, but not always realized, boast to be a land where all are equal, said” Washington’s archbishop.

In his homily during a Mass at St. Matthew Cathedral, Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl said the inauguration also was an opportunity to reflect on “our national history, our identity and ... the significant role that religious faith plays in our selfrecognition.”

He urged the congregation as “a people of hope” to pray for the new president that he might always be open to the stirrings of the spirit of God and as a people of faith that we might always respond ... in a way that our deepest convictions are expressed, heard and appreciated.”

Archbishop Wuerl said the European colonists who settled the nation’s two coasts came to this new land imbued “with a sense of call and mission,” and through its history the country has “tried to respond to God’s word.”

“We are a people of faith, we have been so from our beginnings, confident that God calls us to be a truly good and just society,” Archbishop Wuerl said.

“As we have grown and prospered we have tried to see in our lives the hand of God.” All over the country “church buildings and houses of worship and prayer ... are a testimony to our religious heritage and tan-

gible verification of its impact on our lives, individually and collectively,” he said.

“A visit to church, as we do this evening, is both an exercise in history and a religious pilgrimage of faith,” Archbishop Wuerl continued.

“Churches are a witness in our day that the same faith in God that marked our nation’s beginnings continues to thrive, to inspire, to form and to give identity to who we are today,” he said. “Since we are both members of the Church and citizens of the state we should expect that our faith should be reflected in our public life.”

Catholics look to their Church “for guidance that can only come from God,” he continued.

“We believe that the teaching of the Church represents for us an opening onto the wisdom of God and we should look to our most deeply held convictions when we address matters that effect our nation’s activities at home or abroad,” he said.

“Over centuries the voice of the Church has been the voice of conscience.”

“Well-articulated faith-based principles” have helped to form U.S. public policy with regard to human dignity and the improvement of working conditions, he said, noting that the Church has brought “the strongest moral voice” to debates even when it was not always welcome.

Most of the social legislation of the 1930s and subsequent years “finds its moral foundation and philosophical formulation in the magisterium of the

Church,” he said.

Today “our struggle” is to defend all human life from conception to natural death, he said.

“The voice of faith today, as it has been for centuries, is still the voice of conscience, the voice of God within our hearts calling us to what we ought to do,” he said.

He asked that Massgoers remember during the prayer of the faithful for the country’s new president the words of Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to the U.S. last year: “As the nation faces the increasingly complex political and ethical issues of our time, I am confident that the American people will find in their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration to pursue reasoned, responsible and respectful dialogue in the effort to build a more humane and free society.”

“We pray that this dialogue will help, above all, knit together a new respect for the dignity of the human person and the value of all human life,” the archbishop said. “It is an appreciation understood by our Founding Fathers who wrote of the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, rights so endowed to us by God, our creator.”

“Looking to the future of our great country, we should do so with hope, confidence and enthusiasm, knowing that we bring something particularly valuable to the effort to build a good and just society. We share the wisdom and love of God,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI, congratulating Barack Obama on his inauguration as U.S. president, prayed that he would remain steadfast in his dedication to promote understanding, cooperation and peace in the world.

The pope, in a January 20 telegram, told Obama that he prayed God would “grant you unfailing wisdom and strength in the exercise of your high responsibilities.”

Popes traditionally send a telegram of congratulations to new presidents of the United States on the day of their inauguration.

In his message to Obama, Pope Benedict said he prayed, under the new president’s leadership, “may the American people continue to find in their impressive religious and political heritage the spiritual values and ethical principles needed to cooperate in the building of a truly just and free society.”

The pope said he hoped the future of the United States would be “marked by respect for the dignity, equality and rights of each of its members, especially the poor, the outcast and those who have no voice.”

“At a time when so many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world yearn for liberation from the scourge of poverty, hunger and violence, I pray that you will be confirmed in your resolve to promote understanding, cooperation and peace among the nations, so that

all may share in the banquet of life which God wills to set for the whole human family,” the pope said.

Pope Benedict also asked God to bless the Obama family and all the people of the United States.

The pope had also sent a personal message of congratulations November 5 on what he called the “historic occasion” of Obama’s election, the first time a black man has been elected president of the United States.

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The Anchor

New technologies, new relationships, new areopagi

We are concluding Catholic Schools Week, which is an annual opportunity for the Church in the United States to focus on our young people and to remember that not only is the future of the Church in the hands and choices of our youth but so much of the present as well.

Last Friday, Pope Benedict reminded us of these truths, first by launching a Vatican YouTube channel and secondly by his Message for the 43rd World Day of Social Communications.

The new YouTube channel (youtube.com/vatican) allows people from across the world to see the pope, to participate virtually in his liturgies, to view his general audience catecheses or Angelus meditations and so much more. While obviously open to everyone, this is not an outreach dedicated principally to nonagenarians, but to the young, who increasingly are getting their news and culture through video posting sites. Since everything is received, as St. Thomas Aquinas used to say, “according to the mode of the receiver,” Pope Benedict wanted to catechize our young people in a way most comfortable for them. This new outreach is a treasure-trove for Catholics of all ages, however, and should be readily bookmarked and frequently viewed by Catholics who use the Web. Pope Benedict’s message for the World Day of Social Communications, entitled “New Technologies, New Relationships,” was a powerful and unprecedented appeal to young people to become the apostles of this new communications frontier. He noted that the “digital generation” is particularly at home in this new world that “often seems quite foreign to those of us who, as adults, have had to learn to understand and appreciate the opportunities it has to offer.” For that reason he said, he wanted to share with them “some ideas concerning the extraordinary potential of the new technologies,” which he calls a “true gift to humanity.” His thoughts show a deep philosophical understanding and practical familiarity with the emerging technologies and are pertinent to all of us, no matter how young we are.

The pope begins by noting that young people, in particular, have grasped the “enormous capacity” of mobile telephones, computers and the internet to “foster connectedness, communication and understanding between individuals and communities.” They use these new means to chat with friends, make new ones, keep in touch with family members across great distances, seek information and ideas, share their opinions, conduct research, collaborate on projects, and so much more. The desire for connectedness and communication is a “modern manifestation of the basic and enduring propensity of humans to reach beyond themselves and seek communion with others.” It is built into our nature by “the God of communication and communion,” in whose image we’re made.

For the new technologies to achieve the fulfillment of the desire for interpersonal communion, it is important, the pope says, to keep a few things in mind.

First, there is a need for more than mere contact with others. The quality of the interaction must be in accord with the dignity of the human person, lest it harm rather than help us. “If the new technologies are to serve the good of individuals and of society,” he writes, “all users will avoid the sharing of words and images that are degrading of human beings, that promote hatred and intolerance, that debase the goodness and intimacy of human sexuality or that exploit the weak and vulnerable.” The “gift” of these new technologies can, in other words, turn into a “curse” if it is not bound to an ethics grounded on the inviolable worth of the human person, as happens in racist or pornographic sites.

Secondly, to keep the communication at the service of the human person means more, the pope continues, than just avoiding harmful communication. It means using the new communications tools to focus on the most important questions and answers. “Dialogue must be rooted in a genuine and mutual searching for truth if it is to realize its potential…. Life is not just a succession of events or experiences: it is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this — in truth, in goodness, and in beauty — that we find happiness and joy.” Sometimes these new forms of communication can just be wastes of time, distracting us from more important matters and interactions. Even worse, they can occasionally form in us a new interior culture in which “choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.” This type of communication will not help one to become more human.

Thirdly, Benedict says we must understand, promote and guard the true meaning and purpose of friendship. Friends are much more than links on a Facebook page. “True friendship,” the pope says, “has always been seen as one of the greatest goods any human person can experience.” He particularly praises how the new technologies enable friendships and forms of cooperation with people on other continents and from other cultures. He encourages young people to form friendships that will help them “support and encourage each other in developing their gifts and talents and in putting them at the service of the human community.” At the same time, he calls them to be careful “never to trivialize the concept or the experience of friendship.” While the new means of social communication expand the opportunity for forming new friendships, Benedict adds that “it would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop on-line friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation.” Too much time on-line may in fact “function to isolate individuals from real social interaction … necessary for healthy human development.”

He finishes his message with a explicit appeal to “young Catholic believers” to be at the Church’s cutting edge in evangelizing the new cyberspatial world by leavening the new technologies with their Catholic values. “Dear brothers and sisters, I ask you to introduce into the culture of this new environment of communications and information technology the values on which you have built your lives. In the early life of the Church, the great Apostles and their disciples brought the Good News of Jesus to the Greek and Roman world. Just as, at that time, a fruitful evangelization required that careful attention be given to understanding the culture and customs of those pagan peoples so that the truth of the Gospel would touch their hearts and minds, so also today, the proclamation of Christ in the world of new technologies requires a profound knowledge of this world if the technologies are to serve our mission adequately.

“It falls, in particular, to young people, who have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication, to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent.’ Be sure to announce the Gospel to your contemporaries with enthusiasm. You know their fears and their hopes, their aspirations and their disappointments: the greatest gift you can give to them is to share with them the ‘Good News’ of a God who became man, who suffered, died and rose again to save all people. Human hearts are yearning for a world where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion. Our faith can respond to these expectations: may you become its heralds!”

There are obviously many “young Catholic believers” who will not be aware of this great hope and mission Pope Benedict and the Church place in them. There are many others who will not know about the great on-line resources, like the new Vatican YouTube channel, the Church has placed at their disposal to help form them for this task. Please help spread the word to the faithful young Catholics you know.

T

January 30, 2009

Going deep

his Sunday we will all get a chance to plan for each of us that’s better than anything focus on a true hero whose impressive we can imagine — even if that plan isn’t obviathletic exploits are eclipsed by his personal ac- ous to us at every stage. He prepared me for this complishments. Here in New England, we can over a long period of time — in lower-profile sometimes think we have the market cornered locker rooms and the grocery store and in Euon made-for-Hollywood rags-to-riches quarter- rope, through all the personal tragedies and in back stories, with Tom Brady’s rise from sixth- spite of the people who doubted me along the round-draft choice to Super Bowl and league way. Whether I’m a Super Bowl champion or a MVP and Matt Cassell’s ascent from perpetual regular guy stocking groceries at the Hy-Vee, backup to standout starter. As impressive as sharing my faith and glorifying Jesus is the centhese stories are, they’re Pop Warner in com- tral focus of my time on this earth. And the fact parison with the story of Kurt Warner, the man that I now have a podium, I believe, is no coinwho will be under center for the Arizona Car- cidence. I want to be a role model for Christ in everything that I do. Living my life for him and dinals in this year’s Super Bowl.

While Brady was a starter at the University showing people the beauty of that reality is my of Michigan and Cassell the understudy to two mission in life.”

Warner’s path to becoming a true apostle Heisman Trophy winners at USC, Kurt Warner could not even crack the starting lineup at the of the gridiron began in an unlikely way. As University of Northern Iowa until his senior a 21-year-old, he met an older divorced vetyear. While he did well at this small school in eran, Brenda Carney, the mother of two. She his one season of playing time, unsurprisingly had recently been abandoned by her husband he was undrafted by any NFL team. He walked while she was eight months pregnant, because on as a free agent to the Green Bay Packers her husband was not able to cope with having training camp in 1994, but was cut before the dropped their first child on his head, causing season began. He returned to Northern Iowa brain damage and blindness. Kurt immediately where he worked as an assistant coach during bonded with the children and with their mother.

He was still datthe day and, being Brenda cause money was when, in 1996, so tight, stocked both of her parshelves for $5.50 ents were killed at the Cedar Falls by a tornado.

Hy-Vee grocery Because she had store at night. nowhere to go Not since Larry

By Father and no help for Bird worked a the kids, Kurt garbage truck Roger J. Landry moved in with in French Lick, them.

Ind. was there God always a more inauspidraws good out of evil. The death of Brenda’s cious starting point for future sports stardom.

With no other NFL teams willing to give parents taught Kurt about the urgency of conhim a chance, he signed with the Iowa Barn- version. “That situation showed me that you stormers of the Arena Football League in 1995. don’t know what is going to happen tomorHe excelled in indoor football for two years row,” he said. “It was at that point that I realized and earned a tryout with the Chicago Bears the Lord needed to be at the center of my life. in 1997, but he was bitten by a venomous spi- I couldn’t wait until tomorrow or next year. It der on his throwing elbow shortly before the needed to be right now.”

Brenda was a born again Christian and she audition and couldn’t perform. The next year, however, he signed a contract with the St. Lou- encouraged Kurt, who had been raised a Cathois Rams, who promptly allocated him to the lic but had never really internalized his ChrisAmsterdam Admirals to see how he would do tian faith, to start to read the Bible. He did, and in the NFL’s minor leagues. He did very well, he began to notice that Brenda was a cafeteria leading NFL Europe in touchdowns and pass- Christian, following only those teachings she ing yards, and was hired as the Rams’ backup found convenient. He called her, and them, to in 1999. When starter Trent Green went down greater consistency. He told her that they needin pre-season, Warner took over and had one ed to follow the Bible faithfully, which meant, of the greatest seasons in football history, lead- among other things, no premarital sex and no ing the Rams to a Super Bowl victory and cap- excessive drinking. They began to exercise the turing the league’s MVP award. As he stood same discipline in their moral life as Kurt did in with the Lombardi Trophy in his hands, it was his diet and in his workouts. “Our story shows,” hard to imagine that five years before he was a Brenda says, “that we are not perfect, but that we are sinners and have repented and we want 22-year-old third-shift stock boy.

That is not the end of his football story, to move on to be better people for God.” Since his conversion, Kurt has sought to however. After another MVP award and Super Bowl appearance, he began to suffer various live out his life not in anticipation of Canton, injuries. He was released by the Rams and, Ohio but the eternal hall of fame. He makes it after short and moderately successful stints as a priority to bring his family — he and Brenda a starter in New York and Arizona, he was in now have seven kids — to church each Sunboth places supplanted by much touted Heis- day. He leads Bible studies with teammates. man Trophy winning rookies. Most thought his He began the First Things First Foundation days of starting — not to mention greatness — — with its motto, “Seek first the kingdom of were behind him. They were wrong. The man God and his righteousness and everything else who had so many times overcome such long will be given to you besides” (Mt 6:33) — not odds did it again. He won back his starting job merely to accompany sick kids to go to Disand, thanks to a season of sterling statistics, led ney World, but to assist them toward the New the long-shot Arizona Cardinals to Sunday’s Jerusalem.

“I always fall back on my faith and I realize Super Bowl.

Kurt Warner’s story is an inspiring tale of a that the reason I came was not to win champiman who never gave up on a dream and through onships — that was only part of the process — grit, hard work and good fortune, far exceeded but it set me up to have impact and to be put in anyone’s expectations. But as Warner is the a position to do great things, to represent Jesus first to say, that’s a small part of his story. To in a lot of different ways. … I had a perspecunderstand how he could have had the courage tive that God wanted to do something with me to overcome such challenges, he says, we first in every one of those situations. I never want need to see that his bio is not principally about to come to a realization that maybe what I accomplished in the NFL is all I’m supposed to football. It’s about faith.

“If you ever really want to do a story about accomplish.”

Kurt Warner not only throws deep, but who I am,” he once told a reporter, “God’s got to be at the center of it. Every time I hear a piece puts out into the deep on a daily basis. He’ll be or read a story that doesn’t have that, they’re worth cheering not just on Super Bowl Sunday, but beyond. missing the whole lesson of who I am.”

Father Landry is pastor of St. Anthony’s He explains the fundamental lesson of who he is as follows. “I believe that the Lord has a Parish in New Bedford.

Putting Into the Deep

J

7

The Anchor

January 30, 2009

St. Paul on baptism

esus Christ, by his death and cleansing from sin. He did this to prepare for Christ’s coming. resurrection, redeemed the Jesus himself received baptism whole world. This sentence summarizes the content of the Christian faith. To believe this means to be reLiving the deemed. To be a Christian Pauline Year it is necessary to believe precisely that in redeeming the whole world,

By Father Christ also redeems each Karl C. Bissinger and every individual person. Here, we must from John, not that he had need all stop to realize “Christ even to repent or to be purified from redeems me.” As Christians, we sin, but in order to lead us by his make a first official profession of example. Baptism is the first step this faith at baptism. At baptism, a Christian makes in a lifelong we receive redemption. journey of faith.

We read about baptism After his conversion, St. Paul throughout the New Testament. was baptized, too (cf. Acts 9:17The Gospels begin with John 19). Although we hear stories of the Baptist’s preaching a call to conversion from sin and baptizing baptisms mostly in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles, people with water as a symbol of

Paul develops and completes the doctrine of baptism that comes originally from our Lord. He does not give us a systematic presentation of this sacrament in any of his letters, but through them he gives us a lot of rich doctrine.

For Paul, baptism is never a purely external rite. Water symbolizes washing; it is a bath that cleanses us from sin (cf.

Eph 5:26), especially from the sin of Adam (cf. Rom 5:12-14). In recalling his own baptism, Paul relates the words said to him: “Now why delay? Get up and have yourself baptized and your sins washed away, calling upon [God’s] name” (cf. Acts 22:16).

Although a physical means, the water of baptism brings about a spiritual effect.

Relativism and the coercion of conscience

I

moral matters leads to permisn a homily delivered sive policy. After all, how can just before entering the we be sure when human life conclave that would elect begins, or what the ideal parenthim pope, Cardinal Ratzinger ing arrangement is? referred to a “dictatorship of Once the natural law is relativism”: “Today, having a relativized, though, it is a small clear faith based on the Creed step from tolerance to coercion. of the Church is often labeled After all, if there is no truth in as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself moral matters, rules are simply be tossed here and there, carried a matter of the powers that be about by every wind of doctrine, imposing their will (“ego and desires”) on the rest of us. I’ll seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s

By Dwight Duncan ego and desires.”

I think we can observe this dynamic at work in give a couple of recent examples various areas of the law. When involving our governor, Deval there is a consensus on moral Patrick, and the state attorney issues like there used to be on general, Martha Coakley. abortion and homosexual parIn Worcester’s Catholic Free enting, the law tends to forbid Press dated January 2, there is them. Abortion was viewed as an article about Deval Patrick’s it is, the deliberate taking of innocent human life, and a healthy administration revoking its contract with Worcester Cathorespect for human equality would rule it out. So, too, it was lic Charities to do adoptions. understood that children are best No reason was given, but the Worcester Diocese, consistent raised by a mother and a father. with Catholic teaching, had not Thus homosexual adoption was been placing children for adopnot allowed. tion by same-sex couples.

But then there is a move to The Worcester director of permit or tolerate them, spurred by people’s interests and desires. Catholic Charities, Catherine Roe v. Wade, as we remembered Loeffler, was quoted as saying, “I firmly believe that the this past week, said that freerevocation occurred because we dom entailed a woman’s right were providing our adoption serto choose abortion, and here in vices in harmony with Catholic Massachusetts the Goodridge teaching. The Commonwealth decision said that a male pair or female pair was legally the same of Massachusetts previously denied Massachusetts Catholic as a male-female couple. Abortion and gay adoption were to be Charities a religious exemption permitted, and not discriminated to carry out our work according to our religious beliefs and then against (at least by governmenrevoked our contracts.” Realtal actors). Skepticism about

Judge For Yourself

ize that the Worcester Catholic Charities was not preventing gay couples from adopting, but merely refusing to do it themselves. And so they must be coerced to violate their consciences or else shut down.

On January 15, Massachusetts, through its Attorney General Martha Coakley, joined with six other states in suing the federal government to rescind a new rule that, in the words of the New York Times article the following day, “expands protections for doctors and other health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions and other medical procedures because of religious or moral objections.”

Coakley says that the new Provider Conscience Regulations “interfere with patients’ ability to access needed health care information and services and severely compromise our ability to enforce important state laws.” Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said in issuing the rule that “Doctors and other health care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience.”

Massachusetts and six other states think otherwise: Relativism does not recognize anything as definitive, and its ultimate goal consists solely in satisfying one’s ego and desires. Upright conscience, what Newman had called “the aboriginal Vicar of Christ,” must be crushed. Sounds like dictatorship to me.

Dwight Duncan is a professor at Southern New England School of Law in North Dartmouth. He holds degrees in civil and canon law.

Paul considers baptism a washing that every person must go through in order to become a Christian. It is the ritual that makes a person a follower of Jesus. Through baptism, a believer belongs to Christ (and then can be claimed by no one else). Through baptism, a believer begins a special relationship with God. Through baptism, a believer is radically conformed to the dying and rising of Jesus and united to Christ.

In addition to washing, the water of baptism has further symbolic value. The ancient Church submerged a person’s whole body in this sacrament. This full immersion under the water means dying. When we are baptized, we die with Jesus on the cross and we are buried with him in his tomb.

We then rise again with him as we emerge from the waters (cf. Rom 6:1-11). This could also represent rebirth; rebirth through baptism, however, is an image St. John the Apostle uses, not St. Paul.

The baptismal rite in the ancient Church required a person to take off his or her clothes. This reminds us that the soldiers stripped Christ before they nailed him to the cross. It symbolizes turning away from sin and leaving one’s old life behind. Afterward, getting dressed in a new garment, usually a white one, means putting on Christ. St. Paul writes “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (cf. Gal 3:27). He also explains, “You have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self” (cf. Col 3:9-10).

As previously mentioned, baptism is the sacrament of faith that conforms us to the image of God’s Son. Therefore, through baptism, we become children of the Father. Paul writes to the Galatians, “For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26). In this way, Paul continues, we become descendants of Abraham. We no longer need the religious ritual of circumcision to become children of the Covenant.

In baptism, it is not only water at work. The reason why this physical washing can bring about a spiritual effect is that the Holy Spirit acts through it. In the water poured and the words spoken by the minister, through human faith, the power of God is put into action by the Spirit. This is what we mean when we say the sacrament gives grace (cf. Ti 3:4-7).

The gift we receive at baptism also makes us members of the Church. Paul writes, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (cf. 1Cor 12:13). We know that the one body is the Body of Christ, the Church — local and universal, visible and invisible, and Catholic, meaning throughout all time and space, transcending this world.

By our experience of Jesus’ Resurrection, with which we are indelibly sealed at baptism, we, finally, receive birth to eternal life. Indeed, we become a new creation (cf. 2Cor 5:17).

Father Bissinger is vocation director of the Diocese of Fall River and secretary to Bishop George W. Coleman.

FALL RIVER — A video of the 2008 Marian Medals Ceremony that took place on November 16 at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River continues to air on several cable television public access channels in the Fall River diocese.

The schedule is as follows: — Bourne, cable channel 13, Feb. 1 at 8 p.m.

— New Bedford, cable channel 95, Feb. 5 and 12 at 8:30 p.m.

— Somerset, cable channel 9, Jan. 30 at 1 p.m., Jan. 31 at 6 p.m. and Feb. 1 at 9 a.m.

— Westport, cable channel 17, Feb. 1 and 8 at 3 p.m., Feb. 5 at 12 noon, and Feb. 6 at 2 p.m.

Please note that public access channels in other communities

are also airing the Marian Medal Ceremony video. However, not all airings are scheduled far enough in advance to include the information in this listing. Additional airtime information for other communities will be published as the information is made available to us.

The 2008 Marian Medal Ceremony video is also available for purchase. Copies may be ordered in either VHS format ($21.95) or DVD format ($23.95). To obtain a video, forward a check payable to the Diocesan Office of Communications, Diocese of Fall River, P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA 02722. Shipping is included in the video cost.

Marian Medals Ceremony on local cable TV

8

The Anchor

E

ven saints like St. Paul can sometimes get it wrong. St. Paul’s conviction when he wrote his First Letter to the Corinthians, from which our second reading is taken, was that the parousia, Christ’s second coming, was probably imminent. He therefore encouraged people to remain in a status quo so they could focus on the Lord “without distraction.” Those who were unmarried he encouraged to remain single, unless that state was an occasion of sin for them. Many have interpreted this passage as denigrating marriage as a distraction to one’s following the Lord, as second best to celibacy for the kingdom of heaven.

Years later, when St. Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians, his point of view seems to have changed dramatically.

Realizing that the time for Christ’s second coming was probably not imminent, he

January 30, 2009

The time is now

used the relationship of husthe hour, “not even the angels band and wife as a symbol of in heaven, nor the Son, but the relationship between Christ only the Father” (Mk 13:32). and the Church. “Be subject to We all reach the end of time one another out of reverence at some time. We just don’t for Christ … The husband is know when or how. Will it be the head of his wife as Christ is in a natural disaster? Will it the head of the Church ... Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved Homily of the Week the Church and gave Fourth Sunday his life for it” (Eph in Ordinary Time 5:21-25). There can be no greater example of

By Deacon the love that Christ has Gregory Beckel for us, the Apostle said, than the relationship of a husband and wife.

There are lessons to be be in a tragic event? Will it be learned not just from St. Paul’s in a hospital bed with no one teachings on marriage, but around us? We don’t know. We from what seems to be the always have to be prepared and change in his opinion on the focus on the message of Jesus, timing of the parousia. People the things of the Lord. When have been trying to predict the we do, we will be astonished end of time for centuries, but at his teaching as the people who knows when the end is were in today’s episode in the near? Jesus said in the Gospel Gospel of Mark. that no one knows the day or Patients in a hospital face

their mortality every day, as do the chaplains who minister to them. When will I die? How will I die? Will it be horrible death or will it be a peaceful death? Will I be ready? Will I have said everything I want to say to my family, that I love them and am proud of them? Will I be at peace with the Lord? Is there a serious sin that I have not confessed?

Is there someone who I have not forgiven or someone from whom I have not asked forgiveness? In order to be prepared for the second coming, we have to live each day with the Lord at its center and live it to the fullest.

Most of us just do not know when the hour will come, so we must always be prepared.

As Jesus says, “Blessed are those servants whom I find prepared” (Lk 12:37). We cannot dwell on the past or worry

about the future.

As Henri Nouwen says in his wonderful book, “Here and Now,” “Preparing ourselves for death is the most important task in our lives. How then do we prepare ourselves for death? By living each day in the full awareness of being children of God, whose love is stronger than death. Speculations and concerns about the final days of our lives are useless. We must live each day as sons and daughters of God, whether short or long. We must live in the here and now. By claiming what we already are, we best prepare ourselves for what we shall be.”

The time is now. The end is near. We know not when. How are you prepared?

Deacon Gregory Beckel was ordained in 2002 and serves at Christ the King Parish in Mashpee. He also is a chaplain at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Jan. 31, Heb 11:1-2,8-19; (Ps) Lk 1:69-75; Mk 4:35-41. Sun. Feb. 1, Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Dt 18:15-20; Ps 95:1-2,6-9; 1Cor 7:32-35; Mk 1:21-28. Mon. Feb. 2, The Presentation of the Lord, Mal 3:1-4; Ps 24:7-10; Heb 2:14-18; Lk 2:22-40 or 2:22-32. Tues. Feb. 3, Heb 12:1-4; Ps 22:26-28,30-32; Mk 5:21-43. Wed. Feb 4, Heb 12:4-7, 11-15; Ps 103:1-2,13-14,17-18a; Mk 6:1-6. Thu. Feb. 5, Heb 12:18-19,21-24; Ps 48:2-4,9-11; Mk 6:7-13. Fri. Feb. 6, Heb 13:1-8; Ps 27:1,3,5,8-9; Mk 6:14-29.

A

lthough it was one of the signature innovations of the Second Vatican Council, the Synod of Bishops rarely receives the rapt attention of the people of the Church. Yet Synods have been the occasions for some of the most important decisions and documents of recent Catholic history.

The 1985 Extraordinary Synod, which marked Vatican II’s 20th anniversary, decisively shifted the interpretation of the Council from a template of discontinuity and virtual revolution to a template of continuity, re-

The Word and the Church

trieval, and renewal: the notion immensely influenced the “John that the Catholic Church began Paul II generation” of younger anew between 1962 and 1965 priests. The 1994 Synod on was buried at the 1985 Synod, even if some people (akin to 90-year old Japanese soldiers on remote Pacific islands) haven’t gotten the word.

The 1990 Synod on priestly formation led

By George Weigel to the 1992 apostolic exhortation “Pastores Dabo Vobis” (I Will Give You Shepherds), which religious life eventually yielded confirmed the sacral character “Vita Consecrata” (The Conof the ordained priesthood and secrated Life), the magna carta of religious communities that are growing rather than dying. The pre-Jubilee regional Synods gave us, among other things, “Ecclesia in Europa” (The Church in Europe), John Paul II’s prescient analysis of Europe’s current crisis of civilizational morale.

January 25, 2009 What of this past year’s Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina Synod on “The Word of God “Dear children! Also today I call you to prayer. May prayer be for you in the Life and Mission of the like the seed that you will put in my heart, which I will give over to my Son Church”?

Jesus for you, for the salvation of your souls. I desire, little children, for Writing in the Vatican newseach of you to fall in love with eternal life which is your future, and for all paper, L’Osservatore Romano, worldly things to be a help for you to draw you closer to God the Creator.

Father Robert Imbelli of Boston I am with you for this long because you are on the wrong path. Only with College, a Synod observer, my help, little children, you will open your eyes. There are many of those made several trenchant observawho, by living my messages, comprehend that they are on the way of holitions about key themes in the ness towards eternity.

Synod that one hopes will take “Thank you for having responded to my call.” root in the “life and mission of Spiritual Life Center of Marian Community the Church:” One Marian Way — The “Word of God” is a Medway, MA 02053 • Tel. 508-533-5377 multi-dimensional concept. It inPaid advertisement cludes holy Scripture but is not

Our Lady’s Monthly Message From Medjugorje

The Catholic Difference

confined to it. The Bible is the written witness to the fact that “the Word of God is ultimately a Person. It is Jesus Christ himself who is the full and final embodiment of God’s Word ... [which] ‘became flesh and dwelt among us’” (John 1/14).

— Thus, as important as the Bible is, Christianity is not so much the “religion of the book” as “the religion of the person: the person of Jesus Christ who calls all into personal communion with the Father through him.”

— Jesus is the key to unlocking the scriptural treasury. The Bible isn’t a random collection of books. Because the biblical witness always aims at Jesus and testifies to him, Jesus Christ is the “principle of interpretation” that should guide our reading of both testaments.

— Historical-critical approaches to biblical study are important, because the Word came into history. Still, historical criticism has its limits; it can tell us important things about the past, but the Bible is not just a book about the past. It “challenges [us] in the present, and [it] opens [us] to a future fulfillment.” Therefore, the Eucharist, where the living Christ opens the book of the Word of God for his people, is a privileged place to “hear” the Scriptures. And because the Bible speaks of now

and tomorrow, not just a distant yesterday, different methods of reading Scripture are important.

— Biblical study and dogmatic theology need each other. If biblical scholars ignore theologians and approach the sacred text as an entomologist approaches a dead bug, Scripture will cease to be the “soul of theology.” Conversely, theology without Scripture is theology that “no longer has a foundation,” as Benedict XVI put it at the Synod.

— Biblical preaching should be “mystagogic:” bishops, priests and deacons should break open the biblical texts so that they lead to “a life-giving encounter with Jesus Christ, the very Word incarnate.”

— Receiving the Word of God in its many dimensions should make the Church less self-focused and more intent on its mission. Christ, not the Church, is the light of the world.

By preaching and witnessing to the Word incarnate, the Church lives its vocation and best serves the world.

— In sum: discipleship is not just a question of our “appropriating” God’s Word, but of letting the Word of God take hold of us — and shaking us up, when and if necessary.

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

Yak tracks

New Year’s — Monday 29 me a lovely pair of yak January 4707 (Chinese Lunar tracks. According to Barbara, Calendar) — Three Mile they’re all the rage on Cape River, The Dightons — Year of Cod and should serve me well the Ox in The Dightons. “Yaktrax” “Everyone complains is one of the brand names for about the weather, but nobody does anything about it,” goes the old Reflections of a saying. This is because there are some Parish Priest things over which

By Father Tim we have no control.

Goldrick Weather is one of them. Faithful reader Barbara Hadley read about my difficulty walking those traction devices you my dog “Loco the Lurcher” slip on over your shoes. in these icy conditions. She Yaktrax aside, there are had experienced the same things in life about which we problem. Barbara shared her can do nothing but grin and solution with me. She mailed bear it. I come from a long

The Ship’s Log

M

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line of “grinners.” Grandfather Goldrick was for 33 years a police officer in New Bedford. He had such a pleasant disposition people called him “Happy” Goldrick, “Hap” for short. He was a grinner. When Officer “Hap” Goldrick died at the age of 65, I was only five years old but I remember his charism of joy.

My father, too, was a “grinner.” My mother sometimes called him “Smiley.”

In my case, the apple fell far from the tree. As a young child, I didn’t smile very often.

This was because I had a pronounced overbite. Braces were

Quelling the family feud

idway through the de- with a knife and resolve is a fearsome thing, and a band lightful chronicles of of women so armed will have Jack Aubrey’s naval exploits their way. during the Napoleonic wars, The second response, after the post-captain finds himself abusing power to make themstranded overboard with his selves heard, was to isolate doctor and dear friend Stethemselves. The only good phen Maturin. The ship, unman was an emasculated one, aware of their absence, is fast and beyond that, the ideal was disappearing on the horizon and the two float for hours, pondering their fate.

The sight of an approaching outrigger canoe the following day raises

By Genevieve Kineke their spirits, and even the shock of being rescued by a very to put him as far away as poscapable all-female crew cansible. Thus, the women connot dampen their joy — until trived to establish a society the knives come out. Piecing without men, and lashed out together the women’s deat any who drifted too close. termined use of sharpening Literally. tools, their reverence shown Needless to say (for the to an on-board wooden totem sake of the ongoing series) depicting castrated men, the men eventually extricated and the glint in their eyes, themselves, but the tale ofthe two heretofore grateful fered one more chapter in the men realize that their rescue greater saga that has been will be quickly followed unfolding since the Garden of by a ritual sacrifice of their Eden. Whether the anecdotes manhood. A dire and unique hail from oriental outposts, situation, not covered by sand-swept caravans or jungle any given manual of British enclaves, the curse of original seamanship. sin corrupts all efforts at “hapAnd yet, despite the setpily ever after.” ting, the construct wasn’t at Giving up on successful all unique. The women had collaboration may seem ineviset out on an unnamed voyage table — but it is not an option. with a monstrous chip on their The epic struggle is ongoing shoulder. Something about for the very reason that it protheir tribe was beyond endurvides the most potent obstacle ance — evidently something to knowing God himself. If having to do with men — and the potential communion betheir response was two-fold. tween man and women didn’t First of all, whatever agbear within it such powerful gression their men-folk had reverberations of God’s own shown, the women found it Trinitarian communion, it worthy of imitation. A woman

The Feminine Genius

wouldn’t be under constant attack. The perennial themes of male-female tension and subsequent misunderstandings that are so easily recognizable across cultures prove the consistency of a dark truth: to undermine the beauty of conjugal love is to subvert the culture through which we seek lasting peace.

Our culture must reflect the “city of God,” and that requires both masculinity and femininity lived in their fullness.

Strong marriages are the only reliable prelude. Each woman must find ways to collaborate with men — bringing a godly dignity to everyday intercourse, and refusing to disengage for the sake of a clever utopia. Men will be men, and women have their defects, but we cannot thrive apart from each other.

Peace is the tranquility of right order, and order begins in the home. A constant habit of forgiveness is essential to clear thinking and wise action. Finding a way to build resilient families in which to safeguard love and its fruit is worth the struggle, and an essential means to creating a language that understands the Eternal Word. God, who created us, has the vocabulary and he wants it more than we do. For he knows that without him — and each other — we are all at sea.

Mrs. Kineke is the author of “The Authentic Catholic Woman” (Servant Books).

She can be found online at www.feminine-genius.com.

cost-prohibitive to my family, so I just learned to bear it (but without grinning.)

My day of reckoning came when I was a college seminarian. The dean of men informed me that if I did not have corrective dental work, I was no longer welcome to study for the priesthood. Over that summer vacation, I found a dentist who, after hearing my story, reluctantly agreed to remove four perfectly good teeth and replace them with artificial ones. In the fall, I returned to the seminary and, all smiles, went looking for the dean of men. They told me he had left the priesthood.

That wiped the smile off my face in a hurry.

In the major seminary, at evaluation time, I was told I “had a displeasing countenance.” What could that possibly mean? Was the faculty dissatisfied with the face God had given me? There was no way I was going to have plastic surgery. Forget it. I learned to just grin and bear it.

It seems to me that we have replaced the sensible philosophy of bearing with unavoidable circumstances with a habit of constant complaint.

Instead of learning to make do with what we’ve been given, we’ve grown fond of moaning and groaning. This erodes our joy for life.

I once heard one of the former bishops of the Diocese of Fall River describe chancery headquarters as “the complaint department on Highland Avenue.” He said that, especially on Mondays, the phone would ring off the hook with people complaining about how Father so-and-so did or said (or didn’t do or say) this or that or the other thing. At one time, a gentle-natured priest was even assigned to sit by the phone and take complaint calls. Uncorrectable complaints do nothing positive for anyone’s morale — and that

includes bishops, priests and deacons as well as the complainer.

I’m reminded of the story of a young woman who decided to become a nun. Mother Superior informed the candidate that it was such a strict convent that a novice would only be allowed to speak two words all year, and only on her birthday.

The novice kept the vow of silence and, when called in on her birthday by Mother Superior, offered her two words: “Bed hard.” Mother Superior promised to get her a softer mattress.

A second year passed and the novice was called in again.

“Food cold,” she said. Mother Superior agreed to make sure her meals were warmer.

The third birthday in the convent, the novice stood before Mother Superior and delivered her two words for the year, “I quit!” “Well, I’m not surprised,” said Mother Superior, “You’ve done nothing but complain since the day you arrived.”

These are difficult times in the Church. Necessary changes are being made as we look forward to a future of hope. Some don’t want to change at all; others want to change faster. Change takes time. Time requires patience.

Patience is in short supply. Not everything can be changed as instantaneously as we want it to be. Not everything will ever be exactly as we want it to be.

The mission of any follower of Christ is to help change the Church and the world to more closely reflect the will of God. This task will not be completed until the Kingdom comes. In the meantime, we change the things we can and, as for the rest, we just grin and bear it — whether or not one wears braces.

Father Goldrick is pastor of St. Nicholas of Myra Parish in North Dighton.

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January 30, 2009

St. Vincent de Paul Society allows volunteer to put faith into practice

By Michael Pare Anchor Staff

THIS SAYS IT ALL — A student from Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth displays a Pro-Life message at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. last week. (Photo by Sarah Anne Sahm)

Buckley. “Instead of four items, many of the bags came back with 12 or 15 items.”

NORTH ATTLEBORO — About four years Buckley sees the success of the “Brown Bag” ago, Father David Costa was assigned to serve program as a testament to the parishioners at St. as pastor at St. Mary’s Parish on Park Street, Mary’s and Sacred Heart. It spoke volumes, said while continuing as pastor at Sacred Heart Par- Buckley, about faith and a community in North ish on Church Street. He knew that one key to Attleboro where neighbors look out for one anensuring the success of the arrangement would other. be to get folks from both parishes to work to“It’s really the dynamics of the people ingether. volved,” said Buckley. “We have so many famiAnd one of the folks he reached out to at St. lies at both parishes who have stayed in town.

Mary’s was Colleen Buckley, a lifelong parish- We have third- and fourth-generation families ioner whom he knew was instrumental in guid- and they are so dedicated.” ing St. Mary’s St. Vincent de Paul Society.

Buckley is a fitting example of the true spirit “She has excellent leadership and organiza- of giving back to others that shines at St. Mary’s tional skills,” he said, and Sacred Heart. Her “and is especially good devotion to the St. Vinat getting people incent de Paul Society volved.” goes back about eight When he talked to her years. She remembers about forging a close rebeing determined to get lationship between the more involved in parish St. Vincent de Paul Soactivities. ciety operations at the She saw a notice in two parishes, Buckley the parish bulletin and agreed that it made persaid to herself: “This fect sense. The parishes is where you need to are roughly four blocks be.” And so she placed apart. North Attleboro a call. is a small town. Folks After a meeting a know one another. few nights later, she At the two parishes, was hooked. Now, she the faithful now share serves as president of the common goal and the organization. means of helping othBuckley, who has ers. Joining forces has a son and three grandallowed them to do so children, describes her more effectively than efforts on behalf of the ever.

St. Vincent de Paul So“We share the calls ciety as her “comfort that come in to the ANCHOR PERSON OF THE WEEK — Col- zone.” Father Costa hotline,” said Buckley. leen Buckley. describes her as a hum“We help each other ble person, one who is out.” “compassionate in her Today, the food pantry that has long been approach to everyone.” located in the basement of the St. Mary’s ParShe sees all of this as a way to give back to a ish House (the former rectory) is a bustling op- parish that has given so much to her. St. Mary’s eration manned by volunteers who serve both Parish, after all, is where she grew up. She has parishes. The volunteers are swamped with re- vivid and wonderful memories of May Devoquests, whether they are for food or heating as- tions and beautiful processions into the church. sistance or help making a monthly payment on Buckley attended St. Mary’s School for nine a mortgage loan or rent. years.

“It’s unbelievable, the requests that we re“The parish has given a lot to me in my lifeceive,” said Father Costa. time,” she said. “And it has been wonderful to But it is also through those requests that the see my children receive their sacraments in the parishioners at St. Mary’s and Sacred Heart are same church as I received them.” provided an opportunity to live their faith. It is And through her involvement in the St. Vinan opportunity in which they have taken full ad- cent de Paul Society, Buckley’s faith has only vantage. been strengthened.

Last fall, the food pantry served as a tangible “I have been fortunate in my life to have not sign of just how the cooperative spirit at the two experienced what these people experience every parishes has taken over. As part of a Thanksgiv- day,” said Buckley. “There is a need for people ing “Brown Bag” program, St. Mary’s and Sa- like me to give back. It is a part of my faith … cred Heart sent out a total of 700 brown bags to I feel fortunate that I have found the St. Vincent parishioners, asking that they be filled with four de Paul Society and that allows me to give back items for a Thanksgiving meal. They asked for to others.” standard holiday meal items, such as cranberry In Colleen Buckley, Father Costa sees a sauce, stuffing, etc. woman who has “taken the Gospel to heart.”

“We wondered if maybe we would get 100 or “Living your faith is what it is all about,” he so bags back,” said Buckley. said. “It’s not only about going to church. You Well, more than 700 bags were returned and have to put it into practice.” the four items donated for each was just the beTo nominate a Person of the Week, send an ginning. email message to FatherRogerLandry@An“People just took it upon themselves,” said chorNews.org.

ON LIFE SUPPORT — Father Jay Mello, right, chaplain at Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth, is pictured with students Andrew Armstrong, Carly Carrier, and Ryan Bevilacqua in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Sarah Anne Sahm)

President’s call for change turned against him continued from page one

400 from the Fall River Diocese amid the throng, marked the 36th anniversary of the 1973 Roe v.

Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that legalized abortion in the nation.

Because it came amid concerns they could face new respect-life setbacks under the new president, including the Freedom of Choice Act that would overturn a wide range of Pro-Life activities currently allowed, the marchers were anything but silent.

Barack Obama and his vocal support of abortion came under fire from members of Congress, clergy and Pro-Life activists during the opening rally.

For nearly two hours, the pilgrims — including students from Catholic high schools in the Fall River Diocese who arrived on seven buses — listened to three dozen speakers pledge to fight efforts to expand the availability of abortion and to oppose any increases in federal funding for agencies that perform abortions.

A group of 38 from St. Patrick’s Parish in Wareham also made the trip aboard their own bus to join in creating a strong Pro-Life message for the president and the new Congress to see.

Events in the capital also included Masses at the National Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, the youth rally at the Verizon Center, Washington’s largest sports arena, lunches, and tours of churches and historic landmarks.

As they returned by bus on Friday, tired, but proud of their stand for Pro-Life in the nation’s capital, several students took turns talking to The Anchor on cell phones of Father Jay Mello and Father Kevin Cook who accompanied them.

“Being there to witness the great energy of so many people standing up for our Pro-Life cause was amazing,” said Andrew Armstrong, a senior at Bishop Stang High School and a member of St. Julie Billiart Parish, both in North Dartmouth.

“For me, baptized and looking forward to receiving my first Communion and confirmation at Easter, it was a great example of what I want to be,” he added candidly.

Carly Carrier, also a senior at Bishop Stang and a member of St. Julies’, said “seeing so many other young people like me on this march demonstrates how important in our own lives our Pro-Life beliefs are … and seeing so many people

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January 30, 2009

standing up for their faith was very moving. Making this trip for the third time was really worth it, and I’d do it again.”

Ryan Bevilacqua, another senior at Bishop Stang and a member of Corpus Christ Parish in East Sandwich, said he was amazed at the numbers, “and the fact that students representing three or four diocesan schools came together as one shows they understand what this is all about and want to make sure the Pro-Life cause gets noticed and receives greater support.”

Speaking of his charges at Bishop Stang where he is chaplain, Father Mello noted how they used the word “energy” and added, “There was tangible energy these pilgrims on the Pro-Life March demonstrated. I think that came about because they are being made aware in their studies of promised legislation like the Freedom of Choice Act, that would badly affect Pro-Life beliefs.”

He added, “The real focus of the story of this March is that it was not just part of a course, a trip, a day out of school traveling, but a meaningful, palpable pilgrimage in which the rosary and chaplet are recited; the gift of life seen as we watched the film, “Bella”; a Q and A time to examine it and talk about life; and Mass with our Bishop Coleman at St. Matthew’s Cathedral before we started back.”

Other students also spoke of their March experiences to The Anchor.

Julie Benson, a freshman at Coyle and Cassidy High School in Taunton and a member of St. Andrew the Apostle Parish there, said “the numbers were overpowering but the message they gave was enlightening and inspiring. It truly made be proud of my Catholic faith seeing so many just like me feeling they wanted to be there. And the visits to the historic places and basilica were fun.”

Meghan Dawley, a senior at Coyle and Cassidy and a member of St. Mary’s Parish in Taunton, said this second time on the March “was totally awesome, overwhelming when you saw the number of people who sacrificed to come. I’m a lone wolf in the sense that some of my friends lean to be pro-choice.

I am not ashamed of my Catholic faith, and being with so many others like me who are Pro-Life is motivating and strengthens us.”

Ryan Connolly, a senior at

Coyle and Cassidy and a member of St. Mary’s in Norton, admitted the long trek to the capital and the events left many tired. “But realizing that many don’t understand the effects of the Freedom of Choice Act, perhaps after seeing how large the group appearing on behalf of Pro-Life was, they’ll … along with our legislators … give more thought to what we and the movement are all about.”

Father Cook, who has taken part in the March since 1992 — missing only three times — said getting out the Pro-Life message on behalf of the unborn and stressing the dignity of life, is more important that ever because of what’s ahead.”

He added, “Because we no longer have a Pro-Life president, but rather one who will speak … and promised to sign law pro-choice legislation, makes these urgent times for us.”

Father Cook was referring to various appropriations bills Congress is about to take up. Those measures would delete or alter the Hyde Amendment and other riders prohibiting federal funding of abortion; eliminate conscience clauses protecting health care providers’ rights not to participate in abortions and allowing Catholic health plans to participate in the federal employees health benefits program without having to provide contraceptives; or end funding of abstinence-only education programs.

“We are proud of the more than 400 pilgrims who joined Bishop Coleman at the march,” said Marian Desrosiers, director of the diocesan Pro-Life Apostolate. “The sacrifice of the students, chaperones and adults who attended did not go unnoticed.

Many missed work, school, and sporting events, but all recognized our voices needed to be heard and no sacrifice was too great.

“Bishop Coleman encouraged the young people to give witness, in word and deed, to be prophets of our time.”

At St. Patrick’s in Wareham, parishioner Richard Zopatti, one of the 38 pilgrims from Cape parishes aboard their own bus “were moved by being in the company with so many inspired Catholics including many clergy and deacons from our diocese at Mass in the National Basilica. I fought to find a place at the front

of the march with our banner, so all could see we were there praying to end abortion; and from the spirit I saw, we’re going to succeed.”

Zopatti, district deputy of the Knights of Columbus, Massachusetts State Council, and a member of the Bishop Feehan Council 2911 in Buzzards Bay, said the parish hired its own bus “so that we might have people take part who couldn’t afford to fly to Washington. We innovatively sought out economical lodging in Maryland, and with the

assistance of our pastor, Father Arnold R. Medeiros, other parishes, and many Knights of Columbus councils … and the work of fellow Knight Kevin Ward, we were able to make this a real, prayerful pilgrimage, as was our intent.”

Desrosiers and assistant diocesan Pro-Life director Jean Arsenault thanked all who made the pilgrimage possible. “We begin plans tomorrow for next year’s, but we pray for the day we need not go,” said Desrosiers.

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January 30, 2009

Cleaning up the Internet

Concern over harmful effects of pornography

By Father John Flynn, LC

WHO’S LEADING WHOM? — Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin star in a scene from the movie “Hotel for Dogs.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Paramount/Dreamworks)

CNS Movie Capsules NEW YORK (CNS) — The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Hotel for Dogs” (Dreamworks/Nickelodeon) Wholesomely enjoyable canine caper in which an orphaned brother and sister (Jake T. Austin and Emma Roberts) shelter their dog, along with a motley group of strays, in an abandoned hotel, outwitting their neglectful foster parents (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon) and causing complications for their genuinely caring social worker (Don Cheadle). Director Thor Freudenthal’s cuddly adaptation of Lois Duncan’s 1971 children’s book, his feature debut, sees the affectionate siblings working together and with friends to care for their expanding pack and improvising a part-human, part-animal surrogate family. A couple of crass words. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture

Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

“Paul Blart: Mall Cop” (Columbia) Largely good-natured slapstick comedy relies on the physicality of Kevin James, who, in addition to co-writing the script, portrays the titular plus-size security guard defending a New Jersey mall from a pack of acrobatic thieves on the busiest shopping day of the year. Because the loveably hapless hero embodies numerous qualities infrequently championed on-screen nowadays — including chivalry, diligence and honesty — any moderately untoward moments in director Steve Carr’s effort are eclipsed by a positive message concerning respect for those not usually deemed successful or attractive, particularly those who don’t fit the ideal body mold in our looks-conscious society. Frequent violence of a slapstick nature, some suggestive humor, several instances of crude and crass language, and one sequence involving alcohol use. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II — adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, February 1 at 11:00 a.m.

Scheduled celebrant is Father Jay Mello, a parochial vicar at St. Julie Billiart Parish and chaplain at Bishop Stang High School, both in North Dartmouth

ROME, (Zenit.org) — Governments in a number of countries are raising concerns over the way in which the Internet is allowing unlimited access to all sorts of pornography.

China recently warned a number of online portals and search engines that are making it easy for Internet users to come into contact with porn, CNN reported earlier this month.

CNN revealed that the move comes as several Chinese government agencies, including the Ministry of Public Security, launched a month-long campaign to clean up the Web. Last year Indonesia announced it would block access to pornographic Web sites after the government passed legislation that criminalized producing and accessing immoral content on the Internet, reported the Financial Times, March 26.

In Australia, the federal government is studying the possibility of introducing a nationwide Internet filter, but the proposal is being strongly criticized by free speech advocates, the Associated Press reported in late December. There are also doubts over the technical possibilities of putting into place such a filter.

Federal communications minister Stephen Conroy proposed the filter last year, in fulfillment of a campaign promise made by the Labor Party government to make the Internet cleaner and safer.

In Canada a local magazine, Macleans, put the problem of pornography and the Internet on its front cover in the June 18 issue last year.

The accompanying editorial noted the incongruence of having ratings systems to protect children and teens from violent or pornographic content in cinemas and for the sale of DVDs, and also for television broadcasters, but no controls over Internet content.

An idea of the pervasive presence of pornography on the Internet was given during the annual “White Ribbon Against Pornography Week,” which ran from October 26 to November 2.

In an October 26 article on the Christian Post Website, Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, director of Concerned Women for American, noted that more than15,000 new adult movie titles are released every year.

She also said that recent figures reveal 35 million visits to porn sites from American computers every month. Crouse cited a 2007 study by the University of New Hampshire, showing that 42 percent of Internet users, aged 10 to 17, said they had seen online pornography within a one-year period.

Many, however, deny that viewing pornography has any harmful effects. A convincing reply to such views came in the form of a book published last year by Jill C. Manning, a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in the area of pornography and sexual behavior.

In her book, “What’s the Big Deal about Pornography?: A Guide for the Internet Generation,” (Shadow Mountain) Manning sets out a detailed explanation of how using porn damages adolescents, along with advice on how to overcome the addictive nature of such habits.

Pornography is certainly nothing new, Manning readily admitted, but there are some new elements that make its presence particularly harmful in recent times. Not only is porn being increasingly glamorized and accepted as a part of popular culture, but in addition the Internet has made it readily available as never before.

Before the Internet came along normally pornography was not available at home or in the workplace unless someone chose to bring it along.

Nowadays, it can enter wherever there is an Internet connection. As well, it is available at little cost and can be accessed with anonymity.

Moreover, she added, a great deal of the pornography being distributed today is disturbingly sinister, violent, and degrading.

Manning described a number of ways in which pornography damages people: — it is something that is potentially addictive. As such it can hinder a person’s ability to make clear choices; — it can powerfully distort a person’s outlook on bodies, relationships, and sexuality; — it leads people to objectify others, viewing them as sex toys that exist only for our own gratification; — due to its distorting influence it undermines opportunities for young people to be self-confident, happy, and to create enduring relationships in the future.

“It thereby affects their ability to see life in truthful, helpful, and wholesome ways,” she concluded.

Manning lamented that many young people are not taught enough about what makes relationships or marriages work as it makes them less attentive to how using porn will damage their ability to interact with others.

Citing the results of various studies into the effects of regular pornography consumption Manning pointed out a number of the harmful side-effects: — decreased sensitivity to women, showing more aggression, rudeness and less respect; — decreased desire to have children and raise a family; — increased risk of experiencing difficulties in intimate relationships; — increased risk of becoming sexually abusive toward others; — increased risk of being exposed to incorrect information about human sexuality; — increased risk of becoming sexually dissatisfied with your future spouse; — increased risk for divorce once you are married.

Manning also slammed as one of the “biggest lies that pornography

sells,” the argument that viewing it will help young people understand sexuality and become more confident.

In fact, she continued, porn users tend to have more insecurities around members of the opposite sex and more difficulty in developing close relationships.

“Every person I have worked with who has been involved with pornography has had less understanding about relationships and sexuality than those who were not looking at pornography,” Manning stated.

Another book, published in 2007 by the California-based anti-trafficking nongovernmental organization Captive Daughters, widens the debate over pornography and highlights the social damage created. In the collected essays of “Pornography: Driving the Demand in International Sex Trafficking,” a number of the authors related how the spread of pornography is linked to trafficking in women and children and prostitution.

Catharine MacKinnon, the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, argued that pornography is just another way in which women and children are trafficked for sex.

Consuming pornography is an experience of bought sex, of sexually using another person as an object that has been purchases, and in this sense is very similar to prostitution, according to MacKinnon.

Moreover, in common with prostitution, many of those who are portrayed in porn films are not there by choice, but because of a lack of choices, she argued. As with many prostitutes they consent to these acts due to a variety of factors, including sexual abuse, drug problems, or economic need.

Another of the contributors to the volume, Melissa Farley, described pornography as cultural propaganda that drives home the notion that all women are prostitutes. Farley, a clinical psychologist, is director of the San Francisco-based nongovernmental organization Prostitution Research and Education.

The Internet, she said, has created and expanded opportunities for men to sexually exploit women.

Farley also pointed out that interviews with women who were prostitutes revealed that many of them said that pornography was made of them while they were engaged in acts of prostitution.

Pornography, says the “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” not only offends against chastity, but also: “It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others” (No. 2354).

As well, the Catechism observes that: “It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world.” A fantasy world that has, nevertheless, very real damaging effects, both for individuals and society.

The Anchor

January 30, 2009

I

13

Mixed emotions

t was an amazing sight on the Washington Mall when Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th U.S. president. More the one million people filled every nook and cranny within sight of the steps of the Capitol.

Cheers and tears were the order of the day on that jam-packed mall.

I watched from my office, and couldn’t help but think that for every person watching the historic inauguration from the mall that day, one baby would be aborted this year. That’s more than one million babies.

I truly wish I could have enjoyed the inauguration of America’s first African-American president.

What a great moment for this country — the election of a man who only decades ago

By Dave Jolivet would have been considered less than human by many sick-minded people in this country.

But as I watched President Obama being sworn in, I knew what was coming — and it broke my heart. This new president is not Pro-Life, and that can only mean the 1.3 million murders of unborn children in this country will only increase.

It didn’t take long for President Obama to wave his sword at the unborn in other countries, rescinding the “Mexico City Policy” that blocked funding for international organizations which practiced or promoted abortions worldwide.

I can’t even imagine how many more of our unborn Americans will be slaughtered if our new president signs, as promised, the Freedom of Choice Act. I guess the unborn are less than human.

In essence FOCA will deny the U.S. government from interfering with a woman’s right to “terminate a pregnancy.”

Terminate a pregnancy — doesn’t sound so nasty, does it? How about mutilate a fetus?

A little more harsh, but no less true.

FOCA would immediately make null

and void every current restriction on abortion in all jurisdiction.

As proud as the late, great Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been on January 20, I can’t imagine his approval of FOCA, not after fighting so very hard and sacrificing his own life to ensure that all men and women who are created equal are treated equally.

The scene at my parish last weekend, following Sunday morning Mass was something you couldn’t even find in a Stephen King novel.

There we were, dozens of us, filling out postcards to be sent to those who represent us in government, pleading with them not to give carte blanche to the abortion industry to mutilate any more of our youngsters.

My 14-yearold asked what we were doing, and I told her we were trying to convince human beings not to kill other human beings. Not even the horror-master King could come up with a plot like that, nor can you find in any of his novels anything more horrific than the actual abortion procedure ... in any of it’s murderous forms.

Inauguration Day 2009 was indeed a proud day for millions of African-Americans and Americans of all descents. The evil of prejudice and bigotry took a major blow. But I’m so afraid that the evil of baby-killing will be filling the void very soon.

I think of our Blessed Mother’s visit to her cousin, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Lk 1:41). Luckily John wasn’t conceived in modern-day America. Otherwise, there could have been a chance he never would have lived to become the baptist.

Every Catholic with a conscience needs to pray for a change of heart for this historic new administration, or God help us all.

My View From the Stands

The Anchor news briefs

Justice, quest for unity demand respect for life, cardinal says WASHINGTON (CNS) —- Commitment to the American “ideals of liberty and justice for all” also requires a concern for all human life, Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali said on the eve of the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th U.S. president. “The taking of human life is as unjust as anything can be,” said the cardinal, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service. “It is inconsistent to claim to be just and not to reprobate the taking of innocent human life.”

Cardinal Rigali also called on the new president to live up to his vow to be “the president of all people” and to “unite all people.” Any efforts to reverse current government policies that protect human life and the conscience rights of health care institutions and providers “would tear our nation apart,” he said, calling on Obama to repudiate his campaign support for the Freedom of Choice Act. Although FOCA had not yet been introduced in the 111th Congress as of January 20, many in the Pro-Life community fear that elements of it will be introduced and passed piecemeal as a way of gradually requiring American taxpayers to support abortion and contraceptives that cause abortion in more and more circumstances.

Pope expresses hope for Gaza truce, resumption of dialogue VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI said he hoped a fragile cease-fire in the Gaza Strip would be the first step toward serious negotiations for a lasting peace in the Holy Land. The pope made the remarks at a recent noon blessing at the Vatican. The same day, the Palestinian militant organization Hamas said it would stop rocket attacks so that Israel could withdraw its troops from Gaza after a deadly three-week offensive. The pope offered prayers for “the hundreds of children, elderly and women, the innocent victims of unheardof violence, the wounded, those mourning their loved ones and who have lost their possessions.” At least 1,300 Palestinians were killed in the offensive, many of them civilians, according to Palestinian sources. Israel reported the deaths of 13 people, including three civilians. Thousands of buildings in Gaza were destroyed in the bombardment. The pope asked leaders on both sides to “help their people rise up from the ruins and from terror and courageously resume the path of dialogue in justice and truth.”

HARD WORK REWARDED — Catholic Memorial Home’s Employee Recognition Team recently recognized Brian Freitas as its Employee of the Quarter. A dietary assistant, Freitas was presented with his award at a reception held in his honor.

He also received an appreciation plaque, a monetary gift, and a reserved parking space for three months. From left: Tom Healy, administrator; Freitas; Lisa Pircio, assistant administrator; and Jocelyn Cunha, food service director.

DHF fund-raising team recognized for efforts

FAIRHAVEN — The Alzheimer’s Association has recognized the Diocesan Health Facilities Memory Walk Team for its fund-raising efforts at the 16th Annual Memory Walk in 2008.

The Diocesan Health Facilities 2008 Memory Walk Team was named a member of the 2008 High Steppers Teams fundraising club in recognition of the team’s outstanding fund-raising efforts to benefit Alzheimer’s research, programs and services for families impacted by Alzheimer’s and related disorders. There were 792 teams

and 13 separate Memory Walks throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire that raised a record-breaking $1.4 million dollars. Overall, the Diocesan Health Facilities team ranked ninth out of the 792 teams with a total of $12,455 raised.

As a member of the High Steppers Team, the Diocesan Health Facilities Memory Walk Team was given a framed certificate, a listing on the Memory Walk Website, in the 2009 walk brochure and the 2009 Annual Report as well as on a poster at the 2009 regional walk.

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The Anchor

Embracing changes along the journey

A

we are formed, how we are fter writing “Our changed, how it is that we Journey of Faith” for four years in California and for grow into a deeper union with God. three years for The Anchor, I We can speak about the am going to be taking a break. teachings of Jesus Christ, the It will give me the necessary words of Scripture, the sacratime to complete two writing projects that have been in hibernation for a while as well to assist my husband at his law practice on the Cape.

I have enjoyed so much sharing this column with you and,

By Greta MacKoul while I hope to resume “Our Journey of Faith” sometime in the future, I would like to look back upon ments and the devotions, the guidelines and the traditions of the journey we have made together up until now and give our Church, the love that we share with others and the minsome additional reflections. istries in which we serve, that There are so many ways all play a part in our Catholic to speak about our journey of faith. We can speak about how faith.

And we can speak about the it begins, and the elements that goal of the journey, a union may be necessary to take that with God that we can begin to first step into the journey. understand while on earth, yet We can speak about how

Our Journey of Faith

PART-TIME DIRECTOR OF MUSIC Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Milford, MA is seeking a parttime Director of Music to coordinate and expand the quality of liturgical life for its faith family. The candidate is required to have a B.A. in music with experience in directing music in various parish situations. Continuing professional development will be encouraged and supported. Organ and keyboard skills are necessary. The selected candidate must be a creative self-starter, able to work collaboratively with entire parish staff and eager to develop new initiatives. Duties will include direction of parish and youth choirs, Cantor preparation, weekend Masses and holy days, funerals and weddings. Compensation (including benefits) will be competitive.

Please send cover letter, résumé and three references, no emails please, by March 31, 2009 to: Rev. Richard A. Scioli, C.S.S., Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, 5 East Main Street, Milford, MA 01757

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one that we cannot fully attain in this lifetime.

I began “Our Journey of Faith” with a column entitled “The only reason.” In that first column I shared an experience that occurred when I was seven years old. On one particular Sunday, walking out the front door of the church and looking up at the blue sky, the words came into my heart, “The only reason you are here is to know God.” They were not audible words, not words that I could hear with my ears, rather words that walked barefoot across my soul, the kind of words that many people receive in prayer, in meditation.

The only reason you are here is to know God. It is a message that I believe we all know to be true. This is the important first step in the journey: the desire to know God. Once we have begun our journey, it is our faith that creates the spaces of light between the threads of the garment that is our life; the garment that surrounds our souls and that we wear in our life on earth. Without our faith, the garment would be too heavy, it may be too much to bear. In each of our lives a garment is woven, and in it there are the individual threads: work, family, responsibilities, hopes and dreams, sickness, loss and all of our life choices and experiences. In between the threads is the light of our faith, and the spaces of light are created by our prayers, the sacraments, our devotions, our ministries, our virtues and the community of faith in which we share.

When the threads of our garment are woven with the light of faith, the light of Christ, then what Jesus said becomes true in our life, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I am very grateful to Father Roger Landry for his kindness and guidance, and for giving me the opportunity to write for The Anchor, these past three years. I am also very grateful to Dave Jolivet for his kindness and support. Thank you also, so very much, for the kindness shown to me by you, my readers. Any future comments or communication may be sent to me at mackoulg1@comcast.net.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. I will remember you in my prayers.

Greta and her husband George, with their children are members of Christ the King Parish in Mashpee.

January 30, 2009

Vatican launches video news channel on YouTube

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican launched a video channel on YouTube that will feature news coverage of Pope Benedict XVI and major Vatican events.

It marked the start of the Vatican’s strategic vision of working “to be present wherever people are,” said Archbishop Claudio Celli, head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

The Vatican officially unveiled the new channel January 23 during a press conference that presented Pope Benedict’s message for World Communications Day, which was dedicated to new media technology.

Addressing pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square January 25, the pope said he hope the YouTube channel “will enrich a wide range of people — including those who have yet to find a response to their spiritual yearning — through the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ.”

The new Vatican initiative will make information and news about the Vatican more readily accessible on the Internet, the pope said at the end of his midday Angelus address.

The wise use of online networking technology can help people form new communities “in ways that promote the search for truth, the good and the beautiful, transcending geographical boundaries and ethnic divisions,” he said.

The Vatican channel is the result of a new partnership the Vatican Television Center and Vatican Radio forged with the Internet giant Google and its video-sharing Website, YouTube.

The Vatican’s television and radio operations had been collaborating for the past year and a half to produce short news videos that are aired on the Vatican Radio Website.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, head of the Vatican’s television and radio offices, said during a recent press conference it only seemed natural to start offering the news clips “not only to a prevalently Catholic audience, but to a much larger, practically global audience.”

He said it was important to offer these services to people who are looking for the pronouncements and position of “a high-level moral authority like the pope and, in general, the Catholic Church” concerning the major burning issues and problems in the world today.

“Therefore, choosing YouTube as an appropriate platform for establishing a presence on the Web” made sense, he said, especially given that so much information on the pope and the Vatican was already appearing in fragmented, out-of-context forms and scattered over mul-

tiple venues.

By creating its own channel on YouTube — which boasts 70 million viewers a month — the Vatican is seeking to give people the opportunity to access information about the pope and the Vatican from a regular and trustworthy source, said Father Lombardi.

He said Pope Benedict “was personally informed about the project and sees it as a positive step” forward for the Church.

The Vatican’s ad-free YouTube channel, www.youtube. com/vatican, each day will offer one to three short video news clips of the pope or major Vatican events with audio commentary in English, Italian, Spanish and German.

The footage is produced daily by the Vatican Television Center, which works with Vatican Radio to produce the audio commentary.

Viewers will be able to leave comments, distribute the videos by emailing or messaging the links, and share the videos with friends on various social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, as well as submit the Vatican video links to news aggregator sites like Digg.

Unlike many videos available on YouTube, which viewers can rate according to YouTube’s one- to five-star grading system, the Vatican videos cannot be rated or embedded onto external Websites or blogs. The Vatican channel’s home page, however, can be embedded elsewhere.

Just a few hours after its launch, the Vatican channel recorded more than 12,000 views and enrolled more than 500 free subscribers who will receive regular updates of new Vatican video uploads.

Henrique de Castro, a managing director for Google, said the company was honored the Vatican chose to use YouTube to communicate with people around the world.

He said in a written press release that YouTube was pleased its online users “will have access to the words of the pope on some of the most important issues facing the world today.”

More people search on Google for “God,” for example, than for many famous world figures and celebrities, he noted in written remarks.

Father Lombardi said the YouTube initiative was only the beginning of a long journey utilizing some of the possibilities today’s digital media and platforms offer.

He said the Vatican hopes to expand the kind of video coverage it offers to include highdefinition broadcasts and events without dubbed commentary, but in the original language and with “natural sound.”

January 30, 2009

I

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The Anchor

‘A special place and purpose’: My parents’ Pro-Life witness

n one of his last official acts, President George W. Bush proclaimed Jan. 18, 2009 as “National Sanctity of Human Life Day.” The official proclamation observed that “the sanctity of life is written in the hearts of all men and women,” and asserted that our “caring nation” must continue to “aspire to build a society in which every child is welcome in life and protected in law.” “Each person,” the proclamation declared, “has a special place and purpose in this world.” For me, the most powerful witnesses to this reality have been my own parents.

As is our custom, Elaine, Miriam and I traveled to Indiana for this past Christmas and New Year’s celebration. We visited family on both sides, including my dad, Frank. We stayed overnight with him at the farm house where I grew up, and after the supper that he fixed for us, he asked us to read some reflections that he had written recently about my mother, Phyllis.

The reflections were really about both of my parents. Dad recounted how he and mother met in high school. She was a junior, and he a senior. The first he laid eyes on her, she was sitting in a convertible outside of his cousin’s house, waiting with the cousin and friends to go to a party.

Dad lived in the country and

she in the city. It was an “ecuAfter the Supreme Court menical” relationship between legalized abortion in 1973, a two members of the Catholic nurse friend, whose first name Spanish and the Catholic Irish. also was Phyllis, approached These and other circumstanc- mother with the idea of gives, such as geographic distance, ing a presentation on abortion a “party line” that made private to the students at their nursing phone calls an impossibility, school. This collaboration of the graduation, and dad going into “Phylli,” as the two women jokthe army, tested the friendship. Yet it proved Massachusetts strong, resulting in their wedding at St. Patrick’s Catholic Catholic Church on Conference the south side of Fort Wayne in August of

By Daniel Avila 1948.

Dad described the college years and early moves to Texas and back to ingly were called, grew into the Indiana, the births, and other joint efforts of many people to events associated with raising a start a Pro-Life pregnancy counfamily of 10 children. Mother seling service called “Nurses had become a nurse and dad Concerned for Life.” They a chemist. With humility, dad opened an office in downtown praised mother for her religious Fort Wayne. devotion, for being “smarter Dad said that he was iniand more observant,” and for tially hesitant to get active in her ability to “quietly” handle the Pro-Life movement, but at family matters, “probably in the urging of mother he “relucthe knowledge that had she told tantly” put down the newspaper me I would have ‘blown up’ he was reading after supper one without the projection of charity night and “went to be changed” to the children.” by a presentation on abortion Eventually his reflections by the Pro-Life leader Dr. Jack reached the heart of the story Willke. Dad began to accomthat dad wanted to tell “[t]o the pany mother as she traveled descendants of Frank C. and around northern Indiana giving Phyllis Conroy Avila,” concern- presentations or attending pubing the circumstances leading to lic hearings. mother’s death.

In 1978, an abortion facility

World Day for Consecrated Life is February 8 continued from page one

to happen in conjunction with the feast of the Presentation, February 2. When the feast doesn’t fall on a Sunday, it is to be celebrated the following Sunday.

This year World Day for Consecrated Life will be celebrated on February 8.

In the Fall River Diocese, Bishop George W. Coleman will gather with those who have chosen this special calling along with other faithful at a Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral on February 8 at 4 p.m.

All are invited to attend the Mass and celebrate with those living the consecrated life.

This year’s theme is “For the Sake of the Gospel.”

Mercy Sister Catherine Donovan, diocesan episcopal representative for religious, notes that, “Those who choose to live a consecrated life do so for the sake of the Gospel.”

Individuals living consecrated lives include religious Sisters, Brothers, priests, and monks who live their lives through their profession of vows as part of their communities.

Single lay people may choose the consecrated life as consecrated virgins, as well as single people

who are part of secular institutes that make private vows to bishops as they live out their vocation in various walks of life.

Living a consecrated life means taking a religious vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

“Those who become followers of Jesus through the consecrated life bless the Church,” noted Sister Donovan in a letter sent to diocesan parishes.

In 1997 Pope John Paul II said that the World Day for Consecrated Life is intended to help the entire Church “esteem more greatly the witness of those persons,” and also is “a suitable occasion for consecrated persons to renew their commitment and rekindle the fervor which should inspire their offering of themselves to the Lord.”

John Paul indicated the purpose of the day was three-fold: — to answer the intimate need to praise the Lord more solemnly and to thank him for the great gift of consecrated life ... a gift which comes from on high; — to promote a knowledge of and esteem for the consecrated life by the entire people of God; — and for those living the consecrated life to celebrate together

solemnly the marvels which the Lord has accomplished in them.

The pope chose the feast of the Presentation because, he said, “This Gospel scene reveals the mystery of Jesus, the One consecrated by the Father, come into this world to carry out his will faithfully.”

John Paul envisioned this day as one when consecrated persons may gather “with other faithful in order to sing with the Virgin Mary the marvels which the Lord accomplishes in so many of his sons and daughters.”

Pope Benedict XVI has carried on the tradition of his predecessor saying those who are chosen by God for the consecrated life “have one expectation: the Kingdom of God: that God reign in our will, in our hearts, in the world. In them burns a unique thirst for love which can be quenched by the Eternal One alone.

“By choosing obedience, poverty and chastity for the Kingdom of Heaven, they demonstrate that any attachment or love for people and things is incapable of definitively satisfying the heart. Consecrated life, therefore, is by its nature a total and definitive, unconditional and passionate response to God.”

opened not far from mother’s office. The abortion staff soon noticed a problem. Women were not showing up for their abortion appointments. Instead, they were going to the Nurses Concerned for Life as a result of an effective Pro-Life presence outside the facility. Many decided to choose life as a result of the nurses’ ability to provide whatever help the women needed.

A year later, the nurses’ group and several individuals, including mother, were sued in federal court based on allegations that they were wrongfully hurting the abortion facility’s “business relations.” There were several court hearings, and dad detailed how sometimes he would have to take mother home because the stress was causing her blood pressure to spike. He wrote that mother was aware of the health risks but she was determined to pursue the case to its conclusion because the same legal tactics were used in other cities to intimidate Pro-Lifers into abandoning similar counseling efforts.

The defendants’ resolve caused the plaintiffs to blink, and they withdrew their case, thus avoiding having to prove their charges at trial. At that point, the defendants counter-

sued for wrongful litigation.

But, as dad related in his reflections, the case’s burden took its toll on mother. Her high blood pressure caused an aneurism to expand near her heart and her doctors recommended surgical repair. Although all of her other health indications were positive, and the surgeons were very hopeful, mother died on Dec. 6, 1983, a day after surgery, at the age of 57.

Yes, every person, born and unborn, has a special place and purpose in this world. Dad and mother found their place and their purpose in a movement dedicated to giving every unborn child the chance to live and every mother the resources to nurture life.

President Bush finished his proclamation by writing: “History tells us that with a cause rooted in our deepest principles and appealing to the best instincts of our citizens, we will prevail.” The history that was written so close to me, in my own home, and that is still being written in hearts and homes across this country, verifies the truth just expressed. Defenders of human life, no doubt about it, we will prevail. Let my parents be my witnesses.

Daniel Avila is the associate director for Policy & Research of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference.

St. John the Baptist Church

344 County St, New Bedford MA 02740 Saturday, 7 February 2009 ~ (508) 992-7727

8:15 am Church Hall: Fatima Video Presentation.

9:20 am Church: Procession of Our Lady, Angelus, Crowing Cer- emony, Sung Litany of Loreto, The 5 Joyous Mysteries.

10:30 am Mass of Our Lady: Celebrant and Preacher, Fr. Dominic, FI. 11:40 am Lunch break. (please bring a bag lunch) 12:50 pm Exposition and Procession of Blessed Sacrament.

1:10 pm Sermon on Our Lady of Fatima’s call to pray and sacrifice

for sinners by Fr. Rafael, FI. Silent Adoration.

1:45 pm Meditations on the Passion of Our Lord 2:10 pm Coffee break 2:30 pm The 5 Glorious Mysteries. Act of Consecration. Benediction.

3:10 pm Enrollment in the Brown Scapular and Conferment of Miraculous Medal. Procession.

16

Youth Pages

WEEKEND ACTIVITY — The confirmation classes of Immaculate Conception and Notre Dame parishes in Fall River recently gathered for an overnight retreat at the La Salette Retreat Center in Attleboro. Here groups of students and team members participate in various assignments.

January 30, 2009

ONE BUSY BEE — Ryan Murray, right, an eighth-grade student at St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro has won the school level National Geography Bee. Thousands of schools in the U.S., and five U.S. territories, take part in the bee. Ryan will now take a written test to see if he can compete in the State Bee in April. Those who advance to the National Level have an opportunity to win the $25,000 first prize at the National Competition held in Washington. With Ryan is his Social Studies teacher, Jay Hoyle.

DEDICATED TO OUR STUDENTS — Denise Peixoto, principal of St. Mary-Sacred Heart School, seated second from right, prepares for Catholic Schools Week activities and celebrations with some members of her staff. From left, standing: Patricia Diamond, Benjamin Brunell, Betty Ann Petterson, Camille Gingras, Elizabeth Moura, Joan Levesque, Maria Stathakis, Diane McKenna, and Shawn Sweet. Seated: Mary Clausius, Susan O’Korn, Peixoto, and Sally Sullivan.

WITNESSING HISTORY — St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro took a break from normal classes to watch President Barack Obama take the oath of office. Sister Mary Jane Holden, school principal, wanted the students to witness the historic event as it happened. Shown are eighth-grade students in their classroom watching as the events unfolded in Washington, D.C.

GETTING THEIR POINTS ACROSS — Bishop Feehan Seniors, Micaela Cameron, left, and Alana Murphy, right, flank their Public Speaking teacher Donna McPherson. The students recently won first place at the club and regional levels of the Youth Speech Contest sponsored by the Massachusetts Lions Club. The competition offers high school students the opportunity to speak on a designated topic of interest.

This year’s topic was, “How Does Modern Media Affect Our Lives.”

Youth Pages

January 30, 2009

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Be not afraid

objects. Be not afraid. Many ook down a bit. Right abuse themselves with food, there in the center of the article. See it? Next to the drugs, sex and alcohol. Be not photo. Yup, those three simple afraid. Many live with broken relationships and broken little words, superimposed promises and broken lives. Be over the picture of Pope John not afraid. Hungry and lonely.

Paul II. “Be Not Afraid.” It’s the official title of this weekly Be not afraid. Out of work, out of savings, out of time. feature. It’s been there all Be not afraid. Afraid. Be not along. Ever notice it before? afraid.

What does it mean?

“Be Not Afraid,” is probably a phrase that we’ve heard many times in our lives. In the hymn of the same name, we sing, “Be not afraid, I go before

By Frank Lucca you always, Come follow me, and I will give you rest.” It is a phrase that, I have There is no doubt that learned, is repeated more than 300 times in the Bible. And it things are tough right now.

We are all waiting for the is a phrase that was sounded next shoe to drop. We’re all by the late Pope John Paul a bit afraid. Time and time II, especially in his consisagain, however, when we join tent message to the youth together as a people, as Chrisof the world over the last tian people, we can make a quarter century of his life, “Be not afraid, young people. difference in the world. It is this very spirit of prayer, selfGet up, Jesus is calling you. giving and of caring and serHe’s your creator; he’s your vice to others, that will get us redeemer; he has a plan for your lives. Give yourselves to through these difficult times ahead. But to make it through, him; give yourselves to othwe need to set our sights on ers out of love for him, and discover the truth that will set someone greater than ourselves. The reason Pope John you free — the truth that will guide you through this earthly Paul II was not afraid is that existence and into God’s eter- he set his sights on Christ.

We must do the same. Pope nal kingdom.”

John Paul II also stated in his It was in his very first first address, “Be not afraid address as pope on October to welcome Christ … Be not 16, 1978, that John Paul II afraid. Rather, open wide appearing on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square the doors to Christ. Open right after being elected pope, the frontiers of your states to Christ’s power of salvasaid (at least three times) to tion, your economic systems all of us, “Be not afraid.” as well as the political ones, I believe that our young the wide fields of culture, of people — and all of us for civilization, of development. that matter, could relate to Be not afraid!” what Pope John Paul II said At the conclusion of his because he so fearlessly homily at his Inaugural Mass, practiced what he preached.

He dodged Nazis and then the Pope Benedict XVI continued the message of John Paul II communists when he grew when he said, “At this point, up in Poland. He studied for my mind goes back to Oct. the priesthood in secrecy. He 22, 1978, when Pope John challenged communism, suffered an assassination attempt Paul II began his ministry here in St. Peter’s Square. and went home to the Father His words on that occasion after facing a long and debiliconstantly echo in my ears: tating illness. He was tough ‘Do not be afraid! Open wide — physically, mentally and the doors for Christ. The pope morally. He was unyielding was addressing the mighty, in his beliefs. It is, therefore, the powerful of this world, a fitting title for this feature who feared that Christ might section. take away something of their It is also an ongoing message that needs to be repeated power if they were to let him in, if they were to allow the today and everyday to everyone, but especially the young. faith to be free. Yes, he would certainly have taken someBe not afraid. Today we live thing away from them: the in a society where even the dominion of corruption, the most innocent are somemanipulation of law and the times treated as disposable

Be Not Afraid

freedom to do as they pleased.

But he would not have taken away anything that pertains to human freedom or dignity, or to the building of a just society. He was also speaking to everyone, especially the young. Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that he might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? And once again the JPII said: ‘No. If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great.

No. Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed.

Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation.’ And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ. He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything.

When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundred-fold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ, and you will find true life.”

Amen.

Frank Lucca is a youth minister at St. Dominic’s parish in Swansea. He is the chair and director of the YES! Retreat and director of the Christian Leadership Institute (CLI).

He is a husband and a father of two daughters.

17 The Anchor is always pleased to run news and photos about our diocesan youth. If schools or parish Religious Education programs have newsworthy stories and photos they would like to share with our readers, send them to: schools@anchornews.org

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The Anchor

January 30, 2009

Peter Fournier to be ordained a transitional deacon tomorrow continued from page one

went in to see what would happen and found it was a good fit all around. So I kept progressing and progressing and God just kept confirming that this is where I was supposed to be.”

Now a member of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Attleboro, the soon-to-be Deacon Fournier said there wasn’t one specific moment where he realized his calling; it was more like a combination of experiences and a gradual learning process.

“It probably became clear during my pastoral year — there was a point where I was doing different types of ministries and I was also teaching and working with different programs throughout the diocese,” Fournier said.

“At one point I just stopped and looked back at everything I had done and it just seemed right.

There wasn’t one huge ‘a-ha’ moment … everything I did just led up to where I was.”

Fournier began his education with four years at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, where he majored in philosophy.

He then studied for two-and-ahalf years in Rome and more recently spent a year completing his Clinical Pastoral Education, or CPE. He’s now finishing out his final year-and-a-half at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton before he hopes to be ordained a priest in June.

During his studies he’s been assigned to several parishes throughout the diocese including St. John Neumann in East Freetown, St. Stanislaus in Fall River, St. Francis of Assisi in Swan-

sea, St. Pius the Tenth in Yarmouth, and St. Jude the Apostle in Taunton. He’s worked with the Scouts at many parishes and has also taught Religious Education classes and at parish schools.

He’s looking forward to his first assignment after being ordained, although he’s unsure where that might be.

“I’ll go wherever the bishop will have me,” he said.

When asked what he hopes to bring to his ministry, he stressed an emphasis on communication.

“I hope to bring an openness to my ministry,” Fournier said.

“I’ve worked with a lot of different priests and each one had a lot to offer and a lot to teach me. The one thing that was always in common was that openness to God’s spirit and to not have everything so rigid. One of the things that inspired me to become a priest was when growing up we had priests in our parish who were always willing to take time to say hello. They always had a smile on their faces. They were good men, they were good priests, and they showed me they were happy with what they were doing.”

It is this joy and excitement in doing the Lord’s work that Fournier looks forward to sharing with others.

“For me, that was one of the biggest draws of the priesthood — seeing someone who was so happy doing what they’re doing,” he said. “There was a peacefulness and a joy about him you sensed from just talking to him.

My hope is to also have that

FAMILY SUPPORT — Peter J. Fournier visits with his nephews, William and C.J., at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton. Fournier will be ordained a transitional deacon by Bishop Coleman tomorrow at St. Mary’s Cathedral. (Photo courtesy of Peter Fournier)

same joy and share it with those I’m around. I welcome being God’s instrument. Whatever God tells me to do through the bishop, that’s what I’ll do and I’ll do my best at it.”

Peter’s proud father, Deacon Paul Fournier, will be vesting him during his ordination tomorrow and he expressed his great joy at seeing his son take the next step before becoming a priest.

“It’s going to be strange when I read the Gospel and ask him, ‘Father, may I have your blessing?’” he said, laughing. “I’m going to be calling my son Father. But I’m very proud and very happy. He seems to be really sure-footed about his vocation and having done a pastoral year was immensely helpful for him.

He got a chance to work with the people and got a good sense for it. He’s completing his education now and he’s really sure about what he’s doing.”

“He’s very excited,” Peter said of his father. “The big joke has been how there’s now going to be two Deacon Fourniers, so if we’re at a function and someone calls out ‘Deacon Fournier’ we’ll both have to turn our heads.”

Although Fournier will be the only transitional deacon and priest to be ordained from the diocese this year, Diocesan Vocations Director Father Karl Bissinger said his ordination represents a proud and continued tradition of men answering God’s call.

“I’m excited about his ordination,” Father Bissinger said.

“He’s the only one this year, but he represents the continuation of men who are still hearing God’s call and answering it. He’s been studying for a while now and it’s good to see his journey is coming to fulfillment.”

Fournier said the path leading up to this point has been a joyous experience and he strongly encouraged those who have a calling to the priesthood or any other ministry to seriously consider answering God’s call.

“Whether you get married or become a priest, there’s going to be challenges along the way, so if you’re looking for an easy way out, that’s not going to happen,” Fournier said. “But at the same time there’s a joy that comes with being a priest, there’s a joy that comes with being a deacon, there’s a joy that comes from doing whatever God calls you to do. That’s the way you’re going to be happy — by following God’s will for your life. For me, when I’m working in a parish talking to young people, I try to show them I’m a regular person but, more importantly, I’m also happy doing God’s will.”

PAULINE PRESENCE — Father Andrew Johnson, OCSO, diocesan director of the Pauline Year and a parochial vicar at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis, delivers the homily at Sunday’s Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River, celebrating the Conversion of St. Paul. (Photo by Eric Rodrigues)

St. Paul’s conversion is a turning point continued from page one

More important for us to consider, said Father Johnson, “is what conversion is theologically and psychologically: it is a moment in time that opens out on itself and changes absolutely everything for the person. Why? Because conversion is the resurrection of Jesus Christ breaking into our lives. Did you ever ask yourself, why did Paul see the risen Christ? Why not the crucified Christ? Because the moment of conversion is the moment when the power of the resurrection is revealed in a human life.

This is why a true conversion is never reversible. The resurrection of Jesus, his victory over death, can never be reversed, so that if that power operates in our lives, we must be faithful, we will be faithful to the grace of the conversion.”

Father Johnson pointed out that Paul’s conversion was extraordinary because he was an extraordinary person with an extraordinary role to play in the Church. He was knocked to the ground. He had to be, given what his personality must have been.

The fact that he didn’t have a complete nervous breakdown over this earthquake in his life is a witness to what an amazing personality he had.”

Because we are small people “with small roles, so our experience is milder,” he said.

“But it’s still easy to draw the moral here. No matter who you are, God is calling you back. St. Paul was a great sinner. He was a murderer of God’s people who felt he was doing God’s will.

But however wrong he was, that

did not stop him when the risen Christ stepped into his life. He called him Lord and obeyed.”

Father Johnson added, “You and I? Nothing to compare with his (Paul’s) sin. But even if we do have something horrible, no matter. Be converted. Be reconciled to God.” He also pointed out that the Pauline year can be filled with many interesting but vapid questions, such as was Paul antiSemitic? Did he hate women?

Preach a new Gospel rather than that of Jesus? And what was the thorn in the flesh?

“Excuse me, but these are really questions for idle hours, or for those who don’t want to engage the real issue: what happened to Saul of Tarsus such that he became St. Paul, the Lion of God?” Father Johnson asked.

“Why do you think St. Paul preached grace, grace, and more grace? Because he liked it theologically? No.” Rather, “because he had seen grace at work in his own life. He knew who he was: a sinner loved and redeemed and, more than that, actually sanctified by God. What a sinner he was. What a saint.”

“Every time we hear the conversion of St. Paul mentioned,” said Father Johnson, “we should hear a roll of thunder that sounds like this: grace, grace, forgiveness, pardon, reconciliation.

Mercy within mercy within mercy.”

“We need to invite the power of Paul’s conversion into our own lives because it’s not his power at all; it’s the power of Christ’s resurrection.”

January 30, 2009

Around the Diocese Eucharistic Adoration

Eucharistic Adoration:

ACUSHNET — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Church, 125 Main Street, Mondays from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., ending with Evening Prayer and Benediction.

EAST TAUNTON — Eucharistic adoration takes place First Fridays at Holy Family Church, 370 Middleboro Avenue, following the 8:30 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 8 p.m.

NEW BEDFORD — Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament takes place at St. Joseph-St. Therese Church, 51 Duncan Street, Mondays following the 8:30 a.m. Mass until 1:30 p.m. For more information call 508-995-2354.

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.

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.

TAUNTON — Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament takes place every First Friday at Annunciation of the Lord Church, 31 First Street, immediately following the 8 a.m. Mass and continues throughout the day. Confessions are heard from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m., concluding with recitation of the rosary and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.

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.

WEST HARWICH — Our Lady of Life Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Holy Trinity Parish, 246 Main Street, holds perpetual eucharistic adoration. For open hours, or to sign up call 508-430-4716.

Miscellaneous Miscellaneous: EAST FREETOWN — Emmaus is a Catholic retreat program for young adults ages 20 and older. The retreat is a co-ed weekend for people who are seeking to grow in their relationship with Christ regardless of their current level of faith and practice. The weekends are held at Cathedral Camp and the next retreat is planned for February 20-22. For more information, contact Kevin Rapoza at 401-624-7605, or visit www.emmausretreat.com.

EASTON — Public adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the sacrament of the sick will take place in the chapel of the Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street, February 11. Adoration will begin with the rosary at 9 a.m. and conclude at 11:45 a.m. Mass will be celebrated at noon and include the anointing of the sick. The celebrations will commemorate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and World Day of the Sick, a special day of prayer and remembrance for all who are sick and suffering. For information, call Holy Cross Family Ministries at 508-238-4095.

HYANNIS — Beginning February 15, the Tridentine Mass formerly celebrated at Our Lady of Grace Chapel in Chatham will be celebrated Sundays at 1 p.m. at St. Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis.

MASHPEE — ECHO of Cape Cod is looking for youth applicants for its spring retreat weekends to be held at the Craigville Conference Center in Centerville.

Applicants must be high school sophomores, juniors, seniors, or freshmen in college. Scheduled retreats are February 6-8 for boys and March 6-8 for girls.

For information and to download an application visit echoofcapecod.com or call Mary Fuller at 508-759-4265.

MASHPEE — Non-practicing Catholics who feel separated from the Church or seldom attend Mass are encouraged to participate in the six-session “Catholics Returning Home” to be held on Tuesday nights from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in Christ the King Parish Hall beginning February 3. No matter how long you have been away and no matter the reason, you are invited to renew your relationship with the Catholic Church. For information call 508-477-7700.

NEW BEDFORD — “A Day With Mary” will take place February 7, 8:15 a.m.3:25 p.m., in St. John the Baptist Church, 344 County Street. It will include a video, instruction, devotion, a procession and crowning of Mary, Mass, an opportunity for the sacrament of penance, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, rosary, and enrollment in the Brown Scapular and investiture in the Miraculous Medal. For information call Mary Creeden at 508-984-1823.

NEW BEDFORD — There will be a visual presentation on the life of St. Paul at St. Anthony of Padua Parish February 8 at 2 p.m. Entitled, “The Listening Eye: Seeing St. Paul,” it will be given by New York painter, sculptor and curator Henry Artis. The presentation is free and open to the public. Donations will be accepted.

Support Groups NORTH DARTMOUTH — COURAGE is a group for people who are experiencing same-sex attraction and would like to live the Church’s teaching for chastity. They gather for prayer and conversation, seeking to support each other with the support of Christ. The next meeting will be held tomorrow at 7 p.m. For location information, call Father Richard Wilson at 508-992-9408.

NORTH DARTMOUTH — The Diocesan Divorced and Separated Support Group will have an open meeting February 11 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Family Life Center, 500 Slocum Road. The discussion will include personal difficulties regarding separation and divorce and all are welcome to attend. There is no charge and coffee and tea will be available.

Pro-Life ATTLEBORO — Concerned faithful are needed to pray the rosary outside Four Women, Inc., an abortion clinic at 150 Emory Street, Thursdays from 3-4 p.m., or 4-5 p.m. and Saturdays from 7:30-8:30 a.m. For information call 508-238-5743.

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The Anchor

Our readers respond

Individuality of Cape’s Catholic schools praised My children have been blessed with a Catholic education right here on Cape Cod. They have attended three different Catholic schools. Moving from one school to another was a decision made in the best interest of one of our children and of our family as a whole.

All children are individuals with unique needs. Each of the Catholic schools on the Cape has something different to offer in terms of academics, social offerings and school size. We are fortunate to have choices available within the Catholic education system. This is something which should be celebrated by families and administrators.

These times are a challenge.

Any private school education requires sacrifice; choices need to be made. If a family is able to make the sacrifices necessary to pay for a private school education, they will look for the one that is best for their child. If it not available within the Catholic schools system, they will look elsewhere. This is simple economic reality. In order to avoid declining enrollment, the individuality of the Catholic schools on the Cape must be supported.

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks

Feb. 2 Most Rev. William Stang, D.D., First Bishop of Fall River: 1904-07, 1907 Rev. Patrick F. McKenna, Pastor, Immaculate Conception, Taunton, 1913, Rev. John L. McNamara, Pastor, Immaculate Conception, Fall River, 1941 Rev. P. Roland Decosse, Pastor, St. Hyacinth, New Bedford, 1947 Rev. Daniel F. Morarty, Assistant, St. Brendan, Riverside, R.I., 1991 Feb. 3 Rev. Antonio O. Ponte, Pastor, Our Lady of Angels, Fall River, 1952 Feb. 4 Rev. Msgr. Hugh J. Smyth, P.R., Pastor, St. Lawrence, New Bedford. First Vicar General, Fall River, 1904-07. Administrator of Diocese, FebruaryJuly 1907, 1921 Rev. Raymond Graham, SMM, 2004 Feb. 6 Most Rev. Frederick A. Donaghy, M.M, Bishop of Wuchow, 1988 Feb 7 Rev. Arthur N. Robert, O.P., St. Anne Shrine, Fall River, 1991 Feb. 8 Rev. Raymond P. Monty, USAF Retired Chaplain, 1996

Provide options to families whose first choice is a Catholic education. Encourage families to explore the different offerings within the Cape’s Catholic education system.

We were blessed to be able to send our children to Catholic schools here on Cape Cod. Had we not been able to move them to the schools that met their individual needs, we would have considered other options.

Carol Keefe Yarmouth Port

Thanks for the Pro-Life column David Jolivet’s Pro-Life column December 12 was wonderful. The biggest problem is finding priests who will defend the Pro-Life position. In our crazy world our pastors shrink away from defending life. Many of them say it is “too political” and people don’t like to hear this subject in church. So it is not spoken about from the pulpit, unfortunately.

The Anchor had an excellent editorial about the Freedom of Choice Act. It really hit on all the problems. Yet, trying to get our priests in the diocese to get up and speak about it to parishioners is a major difficulty.

While there are numerous other problems that need our attention, the right to life is so much more important. Without protection life can become cheap to the people who support abortion on demand, also embryonic stemcell research. Father Tad Pacholczyk’s article in the December 12 edition was marvelous.

Keep reminding readers about the sanctity of life. I so appreciate your devotion to this cause.

Connie Murphy Pocasset

Homeschooling story appreciated As a local Catholic homeschooling group, Our Lady Queen of Saints was pleased to see the recent article on homeschooling and appreciate The Anchor’s support and positive portrayal of homeschooling. As the article stated, parents accept homeschooling as a calling from God, and are committed to preserving and protecting the faith through educating our children in the domestic Church, our homes.

Many families in our group are daily communicants. We teach our children to emulate the life of St. Thérèse, The Little Flower, in continual prayer.

Our Lady Queen of Saints serves more than 100 children from over 30 families in southeastern Massachusetts. We offer a variety of activities to meet the educational, social and spiritual needs of both parents and children. To insure that our children foster long-lasting friendships with their brothers and sisters in Christ, OLQOS families frequently gather together for Educational Co-Operatives, where different classes are offered by the parents of the group. We gather monthly for rosary and rosary making for the missions, parent support evenings and field trips. In the past we have hosted- All Saints Day parties, Tridentine Mass for St. Nicholas Day, an Epiphany Mass with the blessing of chalk and holy water for the Epiphany House Blessing, a Thanksgiving luncheon, and bi-annual Homeschooling Mass.

For more information about our group, homeschooling families can contact our Website at http://www.ourladyqueenofsaints.org.

Michelle Tuffile Dighton

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20

The Anchor

New abortion bills on Beacon Hill threaten moms, babies continued from page one

it will force us to surrender our rights as parents to people who have an economic and political agenda.”

In Massachusetts, approximately 25,000 surgical abortions are reported yearly to state Department of Public Health.

One in every four teen-age girls in America now has a sexually transmitted disease since premarital sex has become common, Thayer noted.

The “safe sex-condom message” does not work, she said.

Yet this is the message being pushed by Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, which is making passage of these three bills its top legislative priority. A January 23 email from the abortion provider states: “Call or email your state lawmakers today and urge them to support legislation that will repeal several old and unconstitutional anti-abortion/contraception laws. Protect

sexual health in Massachusetts.”

Previous versions of these bills were defeated but have resurfaced with the 2009-10 session. They will be given docket numbers and sent to committees after February 4, according to legislative procedure.

The bill to bypass parental consent, “An Act Relative to Consent and Counseling for Certain Minors,” would expand the categories of people allowed to speak for a minor seeking an abortion. Parental or judicial consent would not be needed if the minor could prove she had been counseled by a psychologist, social worker, teacher, nurse, or guidance counselor, or a family member at least 21 years of age.

The second bill, “An Act Updating the Public Health Laws,” would repeal the existing regulation that second and third trimester abortions be performed in hospitals.

Salem Attorney Philip D. Moran, president of the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund, said that in Massachusetts (as in all states since the 1973 landmark Roe v.

Wade and Doe v. Bolton court cases), a woman can legally abort her unborn but viable child up to birth. States can technically regulate the procedure, but restrictions have been challenged and aren’t necessarily enforced.

Such is the case in Massachusetts, Moran said, where a 1974 law still on the books requires that later trimester abortions to be done in hospitals with surgical facilities.

Both bills are sponsored by Rep. Ellen Story of Amherst.

Representatives Cleon Turner of Dennis and Sarah Peake of Provincetown are among the cosponsors.

The third bill on health education is being pushed by CARE for Youth, a coalition man-

January 30, 2009 aged by the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts.

Among its members are the ACLU, Massachusetts Teachers Association, National Organization for Women, Boston College Women’s Health Initiative, and Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus.

The Massachusetts bishops and other family and religious groups have fought this legislation, filed by Rep. Alice Wolf of Cambridge, for at least three years.

Daniel Avila, associate director for policy and research for the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, has warned: “Coalition materials tout the bill is the means to give all children the same opportunity to learn about good nutrition, the benefits of exercise, and other non-controversial subjects.” But, he said, they fail to note that sections on reproduction, sexuality and “family life” are antithetical to Christian beliefs.

On the positive side, Massachusetts Citizens for Life has also refiled one Pro-Life bill that would protect women and their unborn children. The Woman’s Right to Know Bill calls for making available the following information at least 24 hours prior to an abortion: the father’s legal responsibilities; alternatives and support services; possible risks of pregnancy and abortion; and accurate medical facts on an unborn child’s development.

This informed consent bill was sponsored by Representatives Elizabeth Poirier of Attleboro, Jeffrey Perry of Sandwich and Angelo Scaccia of Boston.

“Thousands of lives are saved each year in states that have informed choice laws like this,” said Helen Cross, an MCFL spokeswoman.

In fact, at least one maternal death from a legal abortion might not have occurred if the state had enacted this law sooner. The mother of Laura Hope Smith, a young Sandwich woman who died during a legal 2007 abortion in Hyannis, has said that her daughter might be alive today if she’d thought through the risks and consequences of her decision.

Eileen Smith said she hopes the bill will become “Laura’s Law,” thus sparing other families the grief that hers has endured.

Within the Fall River Diocese, a “Lobby Training Day” will be held on March 5 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Corpus Christi Parish in Sandwich. Sponsored jointly by the Cape Cod Family Life Alliance and Catholic Citizenship, its goal is to train lay people to influence legislators more effectively.

To contact the alliance, call Patricia Stebbins at 508-8338432 or email capecodFLA@ comcast.net. To contact MCFL, call 617-242-4199. State legislators can be reached at 617-7222000 for the House of Representatives and 617-722-1455 for the Senate.