02.08.13

The Anchor Diocese of Fall River

F riday , February 8, 2013

Area college campus ministries strive to ‘refuel’ students this Lent

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

NORTH DARTMOUTH — Their lives are fast-paced and busy. The young women and men who attend area colleges and universities quickly learn to juggle course schedules, jobs, work studies, and socializing, but sometimes forget to make time for their spiritual lives.

To help the many Catholics who attend UMass-Dartmouth in North Dartmouth step back and spiritually refuel, Father David C. Frederici, chaplain, and Dominican Sister Madeleine Tacy have developed a full slate of activities and reflections for the upcoming Lenten season. Father Frederici is also chaplain at Cape Cod Com-

munity College in West Barnstable.

At Stonehill College in Easton, the only Catholic college or university in the Diocese of Fall River, an already vibrant campus ministry will offer students there several components to enhance the Lenten season.

“Forty-seven percent of the student population at UMass Dartmouth is Catholic,” Father Frederici told The Anchor.

“Our campus ministry is here to support those students who want it and need it.

We’re not here for the number of students, although increasing the numbers would be great. We’re here to help support and Turn to page 18

RED RIBBON PANEL — Bishop George W. Coleman, center, cuts the ribbon on the new academic resource center at Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth. Joining him are, from left, Maureen Sylvia Armstrong, ’82 graduate and co-chairman of the school’s capital campaign; Peter V. Shaughnessy, president/ principal; Dr. Michael Griffin, superintendent of schools for the Fall River Diocese; and Michael J. Harrington, ’79 graduate and co-chairman of the capital campaign committee. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

Bishop Stang blessed with new academic resource center

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

stepping into the quiet — Father David C. Frederici, chaplain at UMassDartmouth and Cape Cod Community College, gives a homily at a Mass on the North Dartmouth campus in this file photo. Father Frederici and Sister Madeleine Tacy, O.P., have developed a full slate of activities and reflections for students for the upcoming Lenten season.

NORTH DARTMOUTH — Walking through the brightly-lit hallways of the new academic resource center at Bishop Stang High School, Sister Sheila Finnigan, SND, was trying to recall where her bedroom used to be.

“I’m trying to place myself … to figure out where I was,” she said.

As a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, the order that once staffed the diocesan high school, Sister Finnigan was one of

the nuns who occupied the former convent building that was recently converted into a state-of-the-art academic resource building.

“I was here for seven years,” Sister Finnigan said. “But I think it’s terrific what they’ve done. Coming back, I feel like I haven’t left at all. I’ll always be a part of the Stang family.”

Sister Finnigan joined her extended Stang family last week for the blessing and dedication of the academic resource Turn to page 14

The art of engaging teen-agers in class B y B ecky Aubut A nchor Staff

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — In elementary school, Lisa Bucci already knew what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“In my fifth-grade yearbook I wrote that I wanted to be a teacher, but I don’t know why I wanted to be a teacher at that age,” recalled Bucci. “When I was in high school, I still wanted to be a teacher but I didn’t know what the draw was — I just really wanted to do it.”

That all changed during her senior year in high school, when a requirement of her physics class required groups of students going into classrooms to teach younger students.

“Everyone got a topic, like water density or pressure, and when my team went in, everyone sort of froze up on what they were supposed to say,” said Bucci. “I took charge, which was rare because I was very, very shy growing

up — my teachers probably heard my voice maybe two times a year — so for me to step up and take over the lesson, it was then that I really liked it. That’s when I knew it was the right thing for me to do.”

Bucci graduated magna cum laude from Rhode Island College with a B.A. in physics and a B.A. in chemistry, along with a degree in secondary education. Currently in her ninth year as a physics teacher for 11th- and 12thgrade students at Hope High School in Providence, R.I., Bucci has also been teaching Faith Formation classes at St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Foster since she graduated from high school 13 years ago.

Teen-agers are reluctant to open up in almost every setting, but in a classroom it’s particularly tough to get them to engage, said Bucci. For the past two years Bucci has been a presenter at Turn to page 13

40 Days stays the course

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent

ATTLEBORO — After 40 years of legalized abortion nationwide, Pro-Lifers in the United States understand that they must be committed to the cause for the long haul.

Those who pray outside abortion clinics as part of the biannual 40 Days for Life campaigns also know their work is far from over.

Ron Larose, coordinator of the 40 Days in Attleboro, told The Anchor that the local campaign is committed to “staying the course.” The spring campaign will be held February 13 to March 24.

“We keep it on a low boil, a strong simmer. It allows us to maintain the effort over

what we know to be an extended period of time,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of folks who have been with us from the beginning, so we are very grateful for their steadfastness and their effort.”

Pro-Lifers, he said, know not to get discouraged.

The Attleboro vigil began in fall 2008, and the upcoming campaign will be the 10th. The vigilers gather from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day at Angel Park, located between divided state highway Route 118 and across the street from the Four Women Health Services in Attleboro, the only abortion clinic in the Diocese of Fall River.

Turn to page 14

News From the Vatican

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February 8, 2013

Pope says Biblical view of God can help fatherhood crisis

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — Pope Benedict XVI said the Bible can help clarify the true meaning of being a father during a recent general audience.

“Despite the crisis of fatherhood in many societies, the Scriptures show us clearly what it means to call God ‘Father,’” he said at the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.

“For those who have had the experience of an overly authoritarian and inflexible father, or an indifferent, uncaring, or even absent one, it is not easy to calmly think of God as a father or to confidently surrender themselves to Him,” he told the crowd.

Pope Benedict pointed out that “it isn’t always easy today to speak about fatherhood and, not having adequate role models, it even becomes problematic to imagine God as a father.”

“But a Biblical revelation helps us to overcome these difficulties by telling us about a God Who shows us what it truly means to be a father,” the pontiff said.

According to the pope, “it is the Gospel above all that reveals to us this face of God as a father Who loves us even to the point of giving us the gift of His Son for the salvation of humanity.”

“Jesus reveals God as a merciful father Who never abandons

His children and Whose loving concern for us embraces even the cross,” he said.

The pope’s reflections were part of a weekly series on faith, which he will continue during the Year of Faith. These teachings were drawn from the Creed’s description of God as “the Father Almighty.”

“In Christ, God has made us His adopted sons and daughters and the cross shows us also how God our Father is almighty,” he stated.

The pontiff noted that “God is infinitely generous, faithful and forgiving and that He so loves the world that He has given us His only Son for our salvation.”

He explained that God’s omnipotence transcends the limited human concepts of power. “His might is that of a patient love expressed in the ultimate victory of goodness over evil, life over death, and freedom over the bondage of sin,” he said.

God’s omnipotence, the pope noted, is not expressed in violence or destruction, but through love, mercy and forgiveness.

It is expressed through His tireless call to a change of heart, through an attitude that is only weak in appearance, and which is made of patience, clemency and love.

“God, to Whom all things belong because He made them all, reveals His strength by loving everything and everyone, patiently awaiting our conversion because He wants us as His children,” Pope Benedict reflected.

“As we contemplate the cross of Christ,” he concluded, “let us turn to God the almighty Father and implore the grace to abandon ourselves with confidence and trust to His merciful love and His saving power.”

ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR PERSONNEL DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER The Diocese of Fall River seeks an experienced educational leader with excellent communication skills who demonstrates a clear dedication to the academic and spiritual mission of Catholic education.

Must be a practicing Catholic and hold Masters Degree.

Please submit letter of interest, Pastor’s letter of recommendation, resume and transcripts by March 8, 2013 to: Michael S. Griffin, Ph.D., Superintendent Department of Catholic Education 423 Highland Ave. Fall River, MA 02720

judgment call — Pope Benedict XVI shakes hands with a member of the Roman Rota to mark the start of the judicial year at the Vatican recently. The Rota is a Vatican-based tribunal that deals mainly with Marriage cases. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters)

Pope Benedict examines society’s acceptance of unstable relationships

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — As he spoke to the Church’s highest court, which often deals with issues related to Marriage, Pope Benedict highlighted the growing acceptance of instability in relationships.

Contemporary culture “poses serious challenges to the person and the family,” he began, underscoring that it calls into question “the very capacity of human beings to bond themselves to another and whether a union that lasts an entire life is truly possible.”

Modern culture, Pope Benedict XVI told the members of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, promotes the idea that people can “become themselves while remaining ‘autonomous,’” leading to the “widespread mentality” that relationships “can be interrupted at any time.”

His speech to the Tribunal for the opening of the judicial year took place in the Clementine Hall and focused on the relationship between faith and Marriage.

Pope Benedict observed that the world’s current crisis of faith brings with it a crisis in the understanding and experience of Marriage.

Rejecting the Divine proposal, he explained, leads to a profound imbalance in all human relationships, including in Marriage.

It also “facilitates an erroneous understanding of freedom and self-realization” that operates under the belief one can flourish while remaining autonomous in a relationship, he said.

“Contemporary culture, marked by a strong subjectivism and an ethical and religious relativism, poses serious challenges to the person and the family,” the pope told the judges.

On the other hand, he said, accepting faith makes humans capable of giving themselves, allowing them to discover the extent of being a human person.

The Code of Canon Law — the set of laws by which the Church is governed and which the Tribunal is charged with upholding — defines the natural reality of Marriage as the “irrevocable covenant between a man and a woman,” he noted.

Pope Benedict then reflected on how “a human being’s choice to bind themselves with a bond lasting an entire life influences each person’s basic perspective according to which they are either anchored to a merely human plane or open themselves to the light of faith in the Lord.”

Divorced or abandoned

The Anchor www.anchornews.org

spouses were also not far from the pope’s mind as he spoke to the Tribunal.

“Being well aware that the valid Marriage bond is indissoluble and refraining from becoming involved in a new union, in such cases their example of fidelity and Christian consistency takes on particular value as a witness before the world and the Church,” he remarked.

The pope asserted that “faith is important in carrying out the authentic conjugal good, which consists simply in wanting always and in every case the welfare of the other.”

“With these considerations I certainly don’t wish to suggest any facile relationship between a lack of faith and the invalidity of a marital union,” he said.

“I wish to highlight how such a deficiency may, but not necessarily, damage the goods of Marriage, since the reference to the natural order desired by God is inherent to the conjugal covenant.”

OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER Vol. 57, No. 5

Member: Catholic Press Association, Catholic News Service

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

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February 8, 2013

The International Church

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Nigerians must not give up on democracy, bishop says

far from home — Newly-arrived Syrian refugees wait to receive aid at the Zaatri refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, recently. The United Nations urged neighboring countries to keep open their borders to civilians fleeing the intensifying conflict in Syria. More than 30,000 refugees have arrived at the Zaatri camp this year. (CNS photo/Muhammad Hamed, Reuters)

Church, governmental groups seek more funds as Syrians flood Jordan

AMMAN, Jordan (CNS) — As frightened Syrian refugees flood into Jordan and other nearby countries, U.N. officials at a donor conference in Kuwait appealed to the international community for desperately-needed funding for victims of the 22-month crisis.

The U.N. said a December request for $1.5 million to aid displaced Syrians received less than three percent in pledges, hardly enough to handle the spiraling numbers. In Kuwait, media reported, the agency received about $1 million in pledges.

Caritas, the Catholic Church’s humanitarian agency, is aiding about one-quarter of the Syrians seeking shelter in Jordan, said Omar Abawi of the group’s emergency response unit.

Each day in the last week of January, 3,000 Syrian refugees flooded into Jordan — about five times above the previous average of 700 per day. Jordan hosts some 320,000 displaced Syrians, almost half of the 700,000 housed in the region.

About 2.5 million Syrians are displaced within their own country.

While the U.N. and a Jordanian aid organization are responsible for about 83,000 refugees in Jordan’s sole Zaatari refugee camp, Caritas and others assist the larger bulk found in communities along the border and farther afield.

Caritas has distributed food coupons, medical aid and heaters during this abnormally cold winter, which has included rain, snow and temperatures below freezing.

“Although we’ve nearly reached our own appeal for $1.7 million, we expect the numbers will need to be revised again, because Syrian refugee numbers could top 500,000 here even before April,” Abawi said.

Besides supplying practical items, Caritas is working with refugees on peace-building and social integration efforts in preparation

for future reconciliation among Syria’s diverse ethnic and religious communities split apart by the civil war.

In Zaatari camp, recent arrivals stood along a metal fence to register. One 70-year-old man, whose eyes were red from crying, would identify himself only by his nickname, Abu Mohamed, for fear of reprisals against family members still in Syria.

“I came with 24 members of my family after my son was shot by government snipers.”

“Nobody helped to bring him to a hospital, and he bled to death,” Abu Mohamed said.

Ra’ed Bahou of The Catholic Near East Welfare Association said aid agencies and Jordanian officials “are doing our best, but it’s not enough.”

He said CNEWA also was helping 2,000 Iraqis who once lived in Syria and have been displaced for a second time to Jordan by providing food coupons, hygiene supplies and heaters. It also pays for education in the kingdom’s Catholic schools.

“It’s impossible to cope with 3,000-4,000 Syrians arriving a day, and we don’t know what future donations will be available to Jordan,” Bahou said.

Addressing the gathering in Kuwait, Jordan’s ruler said his kingdom cannot cope with a steep spike in Syrians fleeing intensified fighting.

“We have reached the end of the line. We have exhausted our resources,” King Abdullah II told participants from nearly 60 nations, including Russia and Iran, key allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

The kingdom’s economic council announced January 30 that the cost of hosting Syrian refugees for 18 months ending in November was more than $833 million or about three percent of the country’s

gross domestic product. The figure does not include funds spent on this latest wave of refugees.

Inside dusty Zaatari camp, refugee children run along without socks and sometimes without shoes in the cold. Most Syrians arrive with just the clothes on their backs.

Some who were flooded out of their tents in the fierce winter storm earlier in January are living in the camp’s school because alternative housing has not yet been provided.

“My family is sharing a classroom with about two dozen others,” said a 35-year-old businessman from Damascus. “Only desks are partitioning the families from each other. This is no way to live,” he said, the frustration rising in his voice.

“There are no heaters and we have no idea when we can receive either a tent or a trailer to live in,” he said, expressing fear for more heavy rain predicted.

As a result of the new appeal, the U.S. has pledged an additional $155 million in humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees the region, while Britain has promised nearly $79 million in new support.

Gulf Arab countries have also put forward $900 million.

The International Rescue Committee says donor countries must immediately address funding gaps in key areas, including assistance for “urban refugee” populations and the communities hosting them; targeted services for vulnerable women and girls, including survivors of sexual violence; and psychosocial and education support for displaced children.

Most refugees say that they just want the nightmare to end and to return home.

To make a donation via Catholic Relief Services, Caritas’ American arm, please go to https://secure.crs.org/site/ Donation2?df_id=5080&5080. donation=form1&s_src=story

LAGOS, Nigeria (CNS) — Nigerians must not give up on democracy, said Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto.

“I have been listening to what people are saying about revolution,” the bishop said. “But I can tell you very frankly that no revolution is going to take place in this country.”

Bishop Kukah spoke at the 10th Daily Trust Newspapers Dialogue on the theme “Nation Building: Challenges and Reality” in Abuja recently. Catholic News Service obtained a copy of his text.

He said few Nigerians are able to separate being in power from being in office, as many Nigerians assume that only those who are in office should provide the solutions to the country’s problems.

Bishop Kukah criticized people who describe Nigeria as a mere geographical expression and say it cannot be united.

“There isn’t a single nation in the world that was not a mere geographical expression until nationbuilding built it up,” he said.

He said he had discovered that every Nigerian leader since Prime Minister Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, who served in the early 1960s,

came to power simply by accident.

“Their good luck may have been our bad luck, but that’s a different matter. But it is important that we should begin to recruit leadership in a way and manner that can guarantee us a future,” he said.

He also dismissed the notion that every president who has ruled Nigeria is a criminal and said Nigerians should appreciate their leaders when they are right instead of throwing away the child with the bath water all the time.

He also called on Nigerians to appreciate democracy in spite of its imperfections, because not every transition from dictatorship leads to democracy.

Nigeria’s population is almost equally Christians and Muslims, and militants trying to impose Islamic law have targeted security institutions and Christian churches. Yet Nigeria’s religious leaders often say that Christians and Muslims live in harmony at the local level. In addition, the country’s rich natural resources — such as oil — have been targeted by vandals — some Church leaders have said because almost 100 million of the country’s 162 million people live on less than $1 a day.

February 8, 2013 The Church in the U.S. Use of new media essential to proclaiming the Good News, prelate says

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PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) — The next archbishop of Portland uses modern social media in the cause of proclaiming Jesus.

On January 29, Pope Benedict XVI named Bishop Alexander K. Sample of Marquette, Mich., to head the Archdiocese of Portland, succeeding Archbishop John G. Vlazny, who is retiring.

Now-Archbishop Sample maintains a Facebook page. And he kicked off the Year of Faith by tweeting throughout a 1,000mile trip across Michigan’s far northern Upper Peninsula.

The prelate — tall and slim at 52 — made an even longer journey the last week of January to appear before the media for the announcement that he’d been named spiritual leader of the 415,000 Catholics of western Oregon.

“It is my prayer and hope that together we can gaze on the face of Jesus Christ and show forth His light to the generations of the new millennium,” he said.

The Mass of installation is planned for April 2.

The new archbishop, who seems happy about his assignment, had been to Oregon once before — a boyhood salmon fishing trip to the mouth of the Columbia River. He caught nothing then.

“Now I am brought here as a fisher of men,” he said. “Hopefully, I’ll be more successful at that.”

As in Michigan, bringing Christ to others is the primary mission in western Oregon.

Whereas Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is about 24 percent

Catholic, in western Oregon, the number is 12 percent. The new archbishop is not fazed by the region’s famed religious nonaffiliation.

“I see it as rich, fertile ground for the planting of the New Evangelization,” he said, explaining his belief that Christ is what all people long for, even if many don’t yet realize it.

Social media must play a significant role in showing people Christ, Archbishop Sample said.

“We have to be there. We have to be where the people are,” he said. “We can’t be afraid of using those means.”

Before his trip west, the techsavvy archbishop spent some time on Google studying western Oregon. He sometimes uses an iPhone app to pray the Liturgy of the Hours.

In a 2012 pastoral letter for the Year of Faith, Bishop Sample told the 70,000 Catholics in northern Michigan it’s time to take up the New Evangelization with “renewed faith, fervor and zeal.” The New Evangelization, begun by Blessed John Paul II and continued by Pope Benedict, is an effort to offer Christ to the people of the new millennium in ways that make sense in their lives but remain authentic.

Paralleling the message Archbishop Vlazny has promoted in western Oregon for 15 years, Archbishop Sample wrote that it’s time for the Church to “move from ‘maintenance’ to ‘mission.’”

Bishop Sample is a native of Kalispell, Mont. who grew up in Las Vegas and attended Catholic

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schools there. After his family moved to Michigan, he enrolled at Michigan Technological University, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in metallurgical engineering in the early 1980s.

Exploring a longtime desire to become a priest, he studied philosophy at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. and then entered the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio.

His father was at first cool to the idea of priesthood, but then became a major supporter. A few months after he was ordained to the diaconate, his father died of cancer. He was ordained for Marquette in 1990.

He served in parishes for four years before being sent to Rome to earn a degree in canon law at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas, known as the Angelicum. He returned to the Marquette Diocese in 1996 and over the years served as chancellor, director of the Department of Ministry Personnel Services and on the Diocesan Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People.

When he was selected for the episcopate in his home diocese

by Pope Benedict in December 2005, he was the youngest bishop in the U.S. at 45. He was installed in Marquette in January 2006.

For his episcopal motto, he uses the Latin phrase, “Vultum Christi Contemplari” — “to contemplate the face of Christ.”

When pressed by reporters to list the skills he brings to the job, he said he is full of zeal and loves teaching. He told listeners that the main thing they should know about him is this: “I am a believer.”

Asked about homosexuality, Archbishop Sample affirmed Church teaching, which rejects homosexual acts but upholds the dignity of homosexuals, “as it does all human persons, and opposes unjust discrimination against them.” He wants people who have same-sex attractions to feel like part of the community of the Church.

With regard to Church teaching against same-sex marriage and its support for the traditional definition of Marriage between one man and one woman, he said it’s important to protect “institutions that have been the bedrock of society and culture.”

Archbishop Sample, when he was a chancery staffer in the Diocese of Marquette, helped then-Bishop James H. Garland respond to charges of sex abuse against local clergy.

“The first concern must be with those who are victimized,” the new archbishop said. He told

reporters he is committed to rigorous screening for clergy candidates and other strong measures to protect children. He promised to be “transparent” on the issue of abuse.

The new archbishop offered a statement in Spanish and then spoke words of encouragement to Vietnamese Catholics and Native Americans. “I know I will be enriched by my contact with you,” he said.

He said he hopes to work with all the people of Portland and western Oregon, not just the Catholics. Of special concern will be reaching people who have not heard or accepted the Good News.

He does not shy away from media, saying that being available to the press is part of evangelizing.

“I think the Church has the right to be at the table,” he said.

“We are part of culture and society, too.”

Archbishop Sample said he intends to teach what the Catholic Church teaches on moral matters, adding that what he says might catch the attention of the entire community, believers and nonbelievers.

The new archbishop still feels the draw of the West, where he grew up. He is an avid outdoorsman who bikes, kayaks and cross-country skis.

Priest barred from ministry facing federal drug charges

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (CNS) — The arrest of a former Connecticut pastor on federal drug charges was greeted “with a sense of shock and concern” by the Bridgeport Diocese and many Catholics in the diocese who know the priest “as a gifted, accomplished and compassionate priest.”

The reaction came in a diocesan statement issued in regard to the case of Msgr. Kevin Wallin, 61, a former pastor in Bridgeport whose priestly faculties were removed last year.

A grand jury indicted the priest and four other people on drug charges January 15. Federal

agents arrested Msgr. Wallin January 3. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The Associated Press reported that he was charged for allegedly having methamphetamine mailed to him from co-conspirators in California and making more than $300,000 in drugs sales out of his apartment in Waterbury in the second half of last year.

According to the Bridgeport Diocese, Msgr. Wallin resigned as rector of St. Augustine Cathedral Parish in Bridgeport in June 2011 after serving nine years there. “At the time, he told parishioners and friends that he was struggling with a number of health and personal issues. He was granted a sabbatical in July of 2011,” the diocesan statement said.

“During his sabbatical, the diocese became concerned about Msgr. Wallin’s wellbeing and has reached out to him,” the statement said, but the priest did not take up the offer of help. “To date, he has not spoken directly with diocesan officials.”

His priestly faculties were suspended in May 2012, and he

has not been reassigned, according to the diocese.

“The diocese stands ready to help as it has throughout the past two years,” the statement said.

“We ask for prayers for Msgr.

Wallin during the difficult days ahead for him.”

As of January 29, the priest remained in custody without bail. Jury selection in his case has been set for March.

Connecticut U.S. Attorney David Fein told AP that since last July federal and state authorities had worked together in “the dismantling of what we allege was a significant methamphetamine distribution organization that spanned from California to Connecticut.”

The AP and other news media also reported that during the last year or so, Msgr. Wallin bought an adult video and sex-toy shop in North Haven. He also has been described as being a crossdresser.

The diocese said that only when the priest resigned did it become aware of accusations he had a drug problem and sexual problems. The issues were “never part of his priesthood,” the diocese said.

5 The Church in the U.S. Redefining Marriage creates conflict, bishops warn Supreme Court

February 8, 2013

Washington D.C. (CNA/ EWTN News) — In recent legal briefs filed with the Supreme Court, the U.S. bishops warned that a redefinition of Marriage would create an “engine of conflict” that threatens freedom of religion, speech and other liberties.

“Marriage, understood as the union of one man and one woman, is not a historical relic, but a vital and foundational institution of civil society today,” said the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in a January 29 amicus brief supporting the California ballot initiative, Proposition 8.

“The government interests in continuing to encourage and support it are not merely legiti-

mate, but compelling,” the brief measure “encourages and sup- vironment for raising children.” ports the union of one man and explained.

The brief said the Ninth CirCalifornia voters passed Prop. one woman.” cuit’s definition of Marriage as This is a legitimate state in- simply “a committed lifelong 8 in 2008, reversing a court decision that imposed “gay mar- terest because these unions are relationship” is “incoherent,” riage” on the state. “wildly over-incluHowever, that efarriage, understood as the sive,” and “leads to fort was overturned union of one man and one absurd results” because by a California federal it would not exclude judge in August 2010, woman, is not a historical relic, but a vi- parent-child relationclaiming that there is tal and foundational institution of civil ships, unions between a “fundamental right society today,” said the U.S. Conference two lifelong friends or to marry.” His deci- of Catholic Bishops relationships between sion was upheld in the more than two people.

Ninth Circuit Court of In addition, the bishAppeals in February ops’ conference warned, the rethe only ones capable of creating definition of Marriage would 2012.

That decision is now being new life, the document argued, adversely affect constitutional appealed to the U.S. Supreme adding that it is reasonable to be- rights like the freedoms of reliCourt. The bishops’ brief for lieve that a home with a mother gion, conscience, speech and asthe case observed that the ballot and a father is “the optimal en- sociation.

It pointed to instances where businesses were forced to host “gay weddings” or close, as well as cases where public officials such as town clerks were forced to give up their positions over women can feel connected to Ethics and Public Policy Cen- their objections to same-sex reone another. ter, observed that while “Roe lationships. It also referenced In a further push to make constitutionalized abortion, it religiously affiliated nonprofits abortion appear “morally did not legalize it.” Therefore, that are facing the prospect of neutral” and universal, the he said, a reversal of Roe v. lawsuits for following their beidea of “choice” is now be- Wade would not ban abortion liefs and declining to recognize ing abandoned as well, Yoest within the United States, but same-sex “spouses” in benefits said, pointing out that if abor- would allow each state to de- policies.

Another brief from the bishtion is necessary for women’s termine its own policy on the ops’ conference supported the empowerment, it is logical to issue. have every American pay for Therefore, state-level ef- federal Defense of Marriage it, leaving behind any “choice” forts are a critical part of the Act, which defines Marriage as in the participation.

Pro-Life movement, Yoest the union of one man and one “What they could not win explained. In recent years, through choice they intend to Americans United for Life has impose through coercion,” she worked to craft and promote commented. state laws to limit abortion and These rhetorical changes defend life across the nation. have also affected the debates At the moment, Yoest noted, around fetal personhood, said there is a “tremendous supply Laura Garcia, professor of of legislation in pipeline” at philosophy at Boston College. the state level. Such efforts From the 1970s through the have included bans on gov1990s, she observed, a large ernment and insurance fundportion of the abortion debate ing for abortion, ultrasound centered upon whether or not a requirements, abortion clinic fetus was a person. regulations and informed conNow, because of advances sent laws. in prenatal imaging, Garcia “We have a very definite explained, “no one really de- strategy that is gaining ground nies” that a fetus is a human and gaining momentum,” person. Widespread use of 3D Yoest said. sonogram pictures has helped establish the humanity of the unborn, particularly among young people, she said.

As a response, abortion is now promoted as an unfortunate but necessary reality, the panel speakers noted, adding that the word is increasingly being abandoned altogether in favor of the term “reproductive rights.”

While the message of the Pro-Life cause has remained unchanged, symposium participants continued, the legal strategy has evolved over the past 40 years.

Ed Whelan, president of the

“M

Changes in abortion language, laws seen as Pro-Life progress

Washington D.C. (CNA/ EWTN News) — Amid changing abortion rhetoric and significant legislative advances, a group of legal experts in the nation’s capital said that they are confident in the future of the Pro-Life movement.

“In this epic struggle,” said Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, “my money’s on the baby.”

Hosting a recent symposium in Washington, D.C., Yoest and other speakers discussed changes in rhetoric surrounding the abortion debate, as well as growing legislative efforts in the 40 years since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established a “right” to abortion nationwide.

Much of the discussion focused on changes to tactics used by abortion advocates over the years.

Yoest explained that while Pro-Life advocates have been consistent in delivering a message of “defending life,” the abortion movement has changed the way it framed its arguments numerous times.

In the 1970s, she said, abortion advocates relied upon the “right to privacy” and emphasized that banning the procedure would lead to an increase in “back-alley abortions” and dangerous illegal procedures.

Today, however, abortion is seen as “reproductive freedom” and the “irreducible minimum of feminine empowerment,” she continued. The procedure is now supported as necessary for “equality and opportunity for all women,” and some have even tried to rebrand it as a means by which

woman for purposes of federal law. The act was passed in 1996 with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

That law — which the Supreme Court will also rule on this summer — is being challenged by a New York woman who contracted a same-sex “marriage” in Canada. She argues that she was unconstitutionally required to pay more than $350,000 in federal estate taxes upon the death of her partner, while a spouse in a federally recognized marriage would have been exempt.

The bishops’ brief rejected the notion of a “fundamental right to marry a person of the same sex.”

Civil recognition of same-sex relationships is “not deeply rooted” in U.S. history, it said, and previous court decisions about the right to marry “plainly contemplate the union of one man and one woman.”

The brief also rejected the claim that the plaintiff is part of “a politically powerless group needing protection against majoritarian impulses.”

“To the contrary, the last two decades have witnessed farreaching changes in how the law treats persons in same-sex relationships, changes that belie any claim of political powerlessness,” it explained.

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The Anchor Mid-February holidays

Next week as Catholics and as Americans we will be observing three significant days in a row — Tuesday is Lincoln’s birthday, Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and Thursday is Saint (this first word is often dropped in English usage today) Valentine’s Day. They are three quasi-holidays, which in our society can often be lived in superficial (or even sinful) ways, but which can invite us as followers of Christ to deepen our relationships of love for God and neighbor.

Back in November in this newspaper we recalled President Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving message, which called for conversion on the part of a country that was being torn apart by the scourge of war. This year his birthday falls on “Mardi Gras” (French for “Fat Tuesday”), the last day before the voluntary privations of Lent. President Lincoln would probably roll over in his grave (not that we Catholics believe such a thing can happen — our bodies are separated from our souls at death and await the resurrection of the dead on the last day) if he were paying attention to the bacchanalia which goes on in New Orleans, Brazil and many other places on his birthday. Instead he decreed “a day of humiliation, prayer and fasting for all the people of the nation. And I do earnestly recommend to all the people, and especially to all ministers and teachers of religion of all denominations, and to all heads of families, to observe and keep that day according to their several creeds and modes of worship, in all humility and with all religious solemnity, to the end that the united prayer of the nation may ascend to the Throne of Grace and bring down plentiful blessings upon our country.”

St. Gertrude the Great asked Jesus, when He appeared to her on the Sunday before Mardi Gras, what would He like her to do in reparation for the sins committed during those days.

Jesus replied, “You could not please Me better than by suffering patiently all that grieves or tires you, whether interior or exterior, in memory of My Passion, and by doing whatever you find most difficult and you will do this most effectually by controlling and restraining your senses. Whoever acts thus in memory of My Passion may hope for a great reward from Me.” St. Gertrude then begged Him to tell her what would be “most capable of appeasing the just anger which You feel during these three days of excess.”

He replied: “You can do nothing more acceptable to Me than to say the Our Father three times, or the Psalm Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes [Ps 116].” He then directed her as to what should be her intentions in doing these prayers: “At the first repetition, offer to God all the wearinesses and labors of My Heart for the salvation of men; and suffer or labor, praise or give thanks, in reparation for all the unlawful pleasures in which the human heart indulges at this time. At the second repetition, offer to God My Father all the abstinences and mortifications of My lips, whether in eating, speaking, preaching, or praying, in satisfaction for all the sins of the tongue now committed. At the third repetition, offer to God My Father all the actions and movements of My most holy Body, and of each member thereof, with all the bitterness of My Passion and Death, in satisfaction for all the sins which men commit now against their own salvation.”

Mardi Gras does not have to be grim for us Catholics, but we do need to be mindful of not committing sins such as gluttony in these days, and we are called upon by Christ to work for the salvation of the world by praying for sinners (ourselves and other people).

Father Landry in the article to the right of this editorial does a good job in describing how we should live Lent and Pope Benedict on page 20 offers his Lenten message to us. I urge you to also look up on the Vatican website (Vatican.va) and the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (usccb.org) for more resources.

The day after Ash Wednesday is St. Valentine’s Day. In the majority-Hindu country of India and in Moslem countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Malaysia, this holiday has been attacked (sometimes literally, with crowds breaking red Styrofoam hearts and other decorations) as either some type of Christian holiday trying to sneak into these lands (if only we were that clever) or as a Western, neocolonial and licentious celebration, inimical to the values of Hinduism and Islam (here they might be on to something).

Very little is known about St. Valentine, other than that he was a martyr (thus, the usage of red on his feast day). Some traditions say that he was a priest or bishop who helped Christians marry clandestinely during the time of the persecutions by the Roman Empire.

When the Church revised her calendar in 1969, St. Valentine’s memorial was removed from it. “Though the memorial of St. Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of St. Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14,” the Holy See wrote.

In the universal calendar of the Church, we now celebrate on February 14 the memorial of SS. Cyril and Methodius, who are co-patrons of Europe. Blessed John Paul II visited a parish named for them on Feb. 15, 1998 and explained that these two brothers, natives of Greece, had as “their entire mission… [the] ‘incarnating’ [of] the Word of God in the Slavic language and culture. In order to maintain strong ecclesial communion, they came to Rome and received the approval of Pope Hadrian II. It was in Rome that Cyril died on 14 February 869, while Methodius … continued the missionary task which he had begun with his brother. We give thanks to God for these two saints, Cyril and Methodius, who were wise messengers of the Gospel in Europe. Even today they continue to teach the evangelizers of our time the courage to preach and the necessary attitude for inculturating the faith.”

In other words, these two saints loved their neighbor enough to leave their home country, work at learning a new language and culture, then find ways to make the Gospel understandable to the people of that culture. As we celebrate St. Valentine’s Day this week, may the ways in which we express love be an “inculturating” of the message of Christ’s love to all the people in our lives — spouses, children, parents, family, friends, strangers. May we transform this holiday, heeding the warnings of our Moslem and Hindu brethren, changing it from a chocolate, jewelry and flower bonanza to being a day in which we live out our prayer, fasting and almsgiving (begun the previous day) by showing ourselves to be truly people who love our neighbors as ourselves. Honest Abe, Valentine (all the versions of him), Cyril and Methodius would be proud.

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February 8, 2013

Lenten audacity

t’s five days from the beginning of the them to us each year. But we’re never goholy season of Lent and time for us to be ing to receive the graces of conversion and formulating our Lenten resolutions in conver- holiness if we look at these practices as a sation with God in prayer. During this Year of multiple-choice test or set such low goals with Faith, in which everything we do ought to be respect to them that, even if we keep them for done with a more conscious and intense faith, 40 days, they’re really not going to help us it’s a time in which we ought to be especially much on the road to holiness and Heaven. bold in setting our Lenten commitments.

So I’d like to suggest a few ideas with As we make our Lenten resolutions, we regard to the three Lenten practices Christ should keep in mind the whole purpose of lived and called us to emulate in a particularly Lent. Pope Benedict has repeatedly said that it audacious way. is not about making a small-course correction First, prayer. Prayer is faith in action. If in our lives, but about experiencing a radical God is really first in our life, we will make the and total conversion. It’s a moral exodus in commitment not merely to say a few prayers, which we give up the easy superficiality in but to make this loving dialogue with God our which we live — lowering ourselves to the biggest daily priority. When we pray, we turn habits of those around us and conforming our- our attention to God and turn away from what selves to the worldly standards of celebrities, keeps us from God. We listen to the Good athletes, politicians and peers — and resolve News He whispers to us in mental prayer to adopt faithfully, step by step, Christ’s own or through meditation on the Bible or in the path. It’s meant to be a Passover from medioc- Rosary. We receive His healing and strength rity to sanctity, from being a part-time disciple to realign the direction of our life: rather than to inserting ourselves fully into Christ’s pasfitting Him into our day if we have time, we chal mystery, dying to ourselves so that Christ resolve to center our whole lives on Him. can truly live within us.

Some Lenten resolutions to do this would Lent is meant to help us recalibrate our be to come to daily Mass, for can there be entire existence anything more and propel us important than toward becomreceiving God ing the Christian within?; praying that our faith the Stations of calls us to be. the Cross each Our resolutions Friday; making need to keep a daily Holy

By Father this in mind.

Hour, if possible Roger J. Landry Will giving within Eucharisup candy for tic Adoration, as 40 days really we stay vigilant make us holy? How about filling up a rice with Him in Gethsemane; and trying to attend bowl with loose change or adding three extra a Lenten mission or making a retreat.

Hail Marys at the end of the day? Such resoluSecond, fasting. Many of us, even though tions are, I think, equivalent to a professional we say we believe in God, live as materialfootball player’s thinking he can train for the ists. We work so hard to put food in our upcoming season by lifting five-pound barrefrigerator and on our tables, but we don’t bells and watching Richard Simmons’ videos! work as hard or at all to nourish ourselves Rather, especially in Lent, we need to put spiritually. Fasting precisely helps us to out into the deep. reorder everything, to say no to the devil’s Many Catholics have become spiritual sis- temptations to prioritize our stomach rather sies in their resolutions. And if we’re wimps than our soul. Fasting allows us to subordiin the annual spiritual boot camp of Lent, nate our bodily desires and needs to those of then it’s almost impossible for us to have the our soul. It allows us to control our desires spiritual discipline to live by Christ’s high rather than let them control us. Fasting only standards throughout the rest of the year. on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday is not It’s not enough to give up “something,” or enough to accomplish a true conversion to pray “a little more” or give loose change from materialistic hyperdependence. The to those in need. Lent is a time to respond to fast I ordinarily recommend is three-fold: the offer of the Lord’s help to push ourselves drink only water throughout Lent; give up beyond what we think capable, in order to be all condiments on food (salt, pepper, sugar, formed into the person He created us to be, butter, ketchup, salad dressing); and forsake died for us to be, and wants us to be. It’s a time sweets and snacks between meals. That’s to be formed, precisely, into other Christs. a type of fast that not only is healthy but When Jesus calls us in the Ash Wednesday at the end of 40 days will fill you with the Gospel to pray, fast, and give alms, He’s not discipline that it takes to be a disciple! I’d calling us to do anything He Himself didn’t also encourage you to fast from television do. In our prayer, self-discipline and selfand use the time you gain to dedicate to giving, He summons us to follow and imitate prayer, reading the Bible and learning the His own bold example. Jesus prayed and “Catechism,” as the Holy Father has asked fasted in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. during this Year of Faith.

He gave Himself to others to the last drop of Lastly, almsgiving. Very often the sins we His Blood. Our praying, fasting and almsgivcommit flow from selfishness or egocentrism, ing are meant to conform us to Christ in His from putting ourselves first. That is why the prayer, fasting and total self-giving.

Lord commands us to give alms, which reJust as the devil tempted Adam and Eve in quires us to look toward others’ needs, not just the garden and Jesus in the desert, so he seeks our own; to love others in deeds and not just to tempt us. He tries to trick us to disorder wish them well; to take responsibility for the our relationship ourselves, to others, and to welfare of others, for as often as we fail to do God. Fasting, almsgiving, and prayer are the something for them, we fail to care for Christ respective antidotes.

(Mt 25:45). Jesus, Who gave everything for The more we fast and place spiritual nourus, tells us to follow Him in this way, by ishment over material food, the less vulnergiving of ourselves, our time and our material able we will be to being tempted by bread and resources for others. How charitable should other earthly pleasures. we be? Until it hurts, not giving of our surplus The more we sacrifice ourselves and our time or resources, but extending ourselves belongings for the good of others, the less like the widow with her mite. Such a standard prone we will be to giving in to the devil’s se- of generosity will conform us to Christ’s ductions to seek power or control over others. standard of love, which is the whole point of The more we pray to God and hunger to the Christian moral life. know and do His will in our lives the less To become holy is the purpose of the holy assailable we will be to the devil’s traps preseason of Lent, but it will achieve its purpose sumptuously to force God’s hand. only if we go “all in.”

These three traditional practices of Lent Father Landry is Pastor of St. Bernadette are a great remedy to the temptations of the Parish in Fall River. His email address is evil one, which is why the Church proposes fatherlandry@catholicpreaching.com.

Putting Into the Deep

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overnor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, in his Dec. 13, 2012 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, argues that the cost of birth control could be reduced by eliminating the required doctor’s visit to get a prescription — making contraception available “over the counter.” If it were made available this way, it would no longer be reimbursable by health insurance, and people could simply purchase it on their own. Jindal posits that this approach would result in “the end of birth control politics.” He relies on several simplistic assumptions and inadequate moral judgments, however, as he tries to advance this argument.

First, he misconstrues the objective. The goal should not be to remove birth control from political debate, but rather to arrive at reasonable medical, ethical and constitutional judgments about birth control and public policy. Contraception is an important topic for public discussion because it touches on basic human and social goods, such as children, family, and sexual fidelity.

Indeed, laws about contraception have always been based upon concerns for the public good and public order, as in the case of the State of Connecticut, which in 1879 enacted strong legislation outlawing contracep-

7

The Anchor

February 8, 2013

Debating birth control in the public square tion, specified as the use of “any to women’s health, then it drug, medicinal article or instru- clearly has broader public policy ment for the purpose of preimplications, and is, objectively venting conception.” This law, speaking, not merely a “personal similar to the anti-contraception matter”. laws of many other states, was in Consider just a few of the effect for nearly 90 years before health issues: contracepting it was reversed in 1965. women have increased rates of These laws codified the long-standing public judgment that contraception was harmful to society because it promoted promiscuity, adultery

By Father Tad and other evils. It relied Pacholczyk on the nearly universal conviction that children should be seen as a gift and a blessing to society, and cardiovascular and thromboemthat, in the words of one social bolic events, including increased commentator, “a healthy society, deep vein thrombosis, strokes, however tolerant at the margins, pulmonary emboli (blood clots must be based on the perception in the lungs), and heart attacks. that sex is essentially procreNewer third and fourth generaative, with its proper locus in a tion combination birth control loving family.” pills, which were supposed to Yet Gov. Jindal fails to lower cardiovascular risks, may engage these core concerns, and actually increase those risks, and instead retreats behind a comrecently there have been class mon cultural cliché when he action lawsuits brought against goes on to say: “Contraception is the manufacturers of Yaz, Yasa personal matter — the govern- min and Ocella, because women ment shouldn’t be in the busihave died from such events. ness of banning it or requiring a In seeking to serve the public woman’s employer to keep tabs interest, the government may on her use of it.” determine to become involved If it is true that contraception in such matters, as it did back in is often harmful to individuals 1879, through specific legislaand families, to Marriage and tive initiatives or through other

forms of regulatory oversight.

Indeed, the recent deployment of the HHS contraceptive mandate, as a component of Obamacare, reflects an awareness of the public ramifications of this issue, even though the mandate itself is profoundly flawed and ultimately subverts the public interest. It compels Americans, unbelievably, to pay for the sexual proclivities of their neighbors, not only by requiring employers to cover costs for the pill in their health plans, but also to pay for other morally objectionable procedures, including direct surgical sterilizations and potential abortion-causing drugs like the “morning-after” pill.

Gov. Jindal goes on to argue, “As an unapologetic Pro-Life Republican, I also believe that every adult (18 years old and over) who wants contraception should be able to purchase it.”

Yet Gov. Jindal is really quite apologetic (and inconsistent) in his Pro-Life stance by arguing in this fashion.

Contraception can never be Pro-Life. It regularly serves as a gateway to abortion, with abortion functioning as the “backup” to failed contraception for countless women and their partners.

Abortion and contraception are

two fruits of the same tree, being anti-child and therefore anti-life at the root. Certain “emergency” contraceptives (like Plan B and the new morning-after pill known as ellaOne) also appear able to function directly as abortifacients. IUD’s can function similarly, making the uterine lining hostile for an arriving human embryo, and forcing a loss of life to occur through a failure to implant.

Gov. Jindal, a committed Catholic, should not be minimizing the medical and moral risks associated with promoting contraceptive use, nor lessening social vigilance by promoting “over the counter” availability.

Committed Catholics and politicians of conscience can better advance the public discourse surrounding contraception by avoiding such forms of circumlocution, and instead, directly addressing the medical and ethical evils of contraception and the unacceptability of the coercive HHS mandate itself.

Father Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, and serves as the director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. See www. ncbcenter.org.

standing of human rights and freedom.

In typical human rights discourse, she observed, weakness and disability are seen as a reason to extend “greater care” to people, “not as a premise for their destruction.”

However, under current abortion laws, she noted, it is permissible for the vulnerable to be killed “when you’re killed by a member of your own family.”

Alvaré explained that this radical re-imagining of human rights hinges on a revised definition of freedom as action without imposition or inconvenience from anyone else. But this definition, she warned, would eventually “take us to a really, really sorry place” where any kind of human relation is seen as an imposition upon freedom.

Paradoxically, she noted, women do not walk into an abortion clinic “feeling empowered” or free, but rather feeling like they have no other options.

The assumption that motherhood is “unacceptable” has made women dependent on abortion, she said, and this dependence has been enshrined in U.S. laws and culture so deeply

worse, contributing to increased levels of infidelity, sexuallytransmitted infections and unintended pregnancies among poor and minority populations.

Republicans and Democrats have contributed to the current state of affairs by aggressively promoting domestic and international contraception programs, she added.

By equating “sexual expression” with freedom, she said, politicians gain “allegiance on the cheap,” while failing to address the real problems of un-

wed parenthood and severe economic crises.

The Pro-Life movement can benefit society, Alvaré said, through efforts to help members of all classes and cultures to “form stable families and take care of one another and their children.”

While acknowledging that such a commitment is not always easy, she added that each individual can make a difference in his or her daily life, simply by “going where a Pro-Life conviction takes you.

Making Sense Out of Bioethics

Law professor says Pro-Life views must lead to cultural action

Washington D.C. (CNA/ EWTN News) — Americans who wish to be truly Pro-Life must be willing to examine the philosophical and cultural implications of these views, said George Mason University law professor Helen Alvaré.

Being involved in the ProLife movement, she said, “will lead you places where you’ll be surprised to go, because abortion is not a single issue.”

Alvaré delivered the keynote address at the recent Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life, explaining to participants that if they want to “keep the integrity” of their positions, they must be willing to take action on social and philosophical issues connected to abortion.

Hosted annually at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., the Cardinal O’Connor Conference for Life is the largest student-run Pro-Life conference in the United States.

Alvaré, who was speaking at the conference for the third time since it began in 2000, told the 650 student participants that being Pro-Life may lead them to investigate the modern under-

that the Supreme Court has said that “women cannot order their lives” without abortion on-demand.

A Pro-Life position will also lead one to reconsider the ethical, class and race issues surrounding abortion, Alvaré observed.

Abortion advocates such as Sandra Fluke and Cecile Richards present abortion as a tool for relieving the economic burden on poor and minority women, she noted, but in reality, the cultural misunderstanding of sex has harmed the poor.

“Sex is not just tennis,” Alvaré reminded the students, adding that sexual intimacy cannot be purely recreational.

Sex produces babies — a fact that is often ignored — and is also for bonding and forming relationships, she explained. After more than four decades of promoting unrestricted contraception and abortion, there are still troubling rates of single motherhood and women in poverty, she said.

Rather than empower women, Alvaré underscored, the push for free contraceptives and abortions has made the situation

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February 8, 2013

The Anchor

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he Master had good reasons for calling fishermen as His companions.

Practical reasons. Though infinite God, Jesus nevertheless subjected Himself to the limitations of time and space.

Put simply, if He wanted His work to flourish, He needed good people to help Him do it. He needed hands to heal those He couldn’t reach, legs to walk where He couldn’t go, mouths to teach those who couldn’t hear Him. He might have chosen fishermen because their livelihood was (and still is) frequently perilous and unpredictable. Not that there’s anything especially holy about fishing, but danger and the risk of empty nets (and empty stomachs) are hard schools of perseverance and perspective; I imagine that fishermen clinging to an angry sea might keep the

To serve God is to love Him

name of God ever on their fathom, for the heart hurts lips. Yet Jesus now called to the measure it loves. Who them to begin “catching men” can measure the infinite? But (Lk 5:10), a far more challoneliness is heavy indeed, lenging business, to be sure, and that we can understand. and these fellows were going Jesus wanted close friends to need all of their courage. more than He wanted good More than that, they must workers because the work is keep their good sense to depend on God. Fishing, after all, is Homily of the Week not mastery; fishermen drop their nets Fifth Sunday in the water, but they in Ordinary Time cannot command fish (or people) to come

By Deacon near. A large element Peter Cote of their success, if they have it at all, is well out of their hands and they know it. impossible without intimacy.

Jesus had good reasons to What good may anyone accall them, but there’s a better complish without His love? one: Jesus wanted intimacy.

Without His embrace, this icy The Divine Heart wanted world would freeze our hearts. friends. Such emotional Without His strong shoulders, burdens as Jesus would bear, our burdens would crush us. perhaps, we can never fully Without His tender whispers,

our courage would fail, our minds despair. Without His Body and Blood, our spirits would shrivel and starve.

“By the grace of God,” Paul writes, “I am what I am, and His grace to me has not been ineffective. Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them, not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor 15:10).

The call to serve God is foremost a call to love Him; in loving we serve, in serving we love. In this way all can come to His arms, and all can be sent out to “catch.” It is by His love that we just are.

In the womb, we begin life already in love, and we end never at all.

“Whom shall I send?” asks the Lord, “Who will go for us?” But the question is also,

“Who will love me? Who will come into my arms?”

Respond as Isaiah did, “Here I am. Send me” (Is 6:8).

Here I am. Take me. Hold me. Never let go. My net is empty; I have nothing, I am nothing without You. Answer Him in humility, like Simon, who just won the catch of his life but left it behind: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Lk 5:8).

St. Therese, the Little Flower, speculated that it was because Simon’s net was entirely empty that the Lord filled it, and I think she’s right on. It has ever been just so between God and His friends, that if they give but a little, He returns much more.

If they empty themselves entirely, He will lavish them with astonishing abundance.

Deacon Cote serves at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Feb. 9, Heb 13:15-17,20-21; Ps 23:1-6; Mk 6:30-34. Sun. Feb. 10, Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Is 6:1-2a,3-8; Ps 138:1-5,7-8; 1 Cor 15:1-11 or 15:3-8,11; Lk 5:1-11. Mon. Feb. 11, Gn 1:1-19; Ps 104:1-2a,5-6,10,12,24,35c; Mk 6:53-56. Tues. Feb. 12, Gn 1:20—2:4a; Ps 8:4-9; Mk 7:1-13. Wed. Feb. 13, Ash Wednesday, Jl 2:12-18; Ps 51:3-6a,12-14,17; 2 Cor 5:20—6:2; Mt 6:1-6,16-18. Thurs. Feb. 14, Dt 30:15-20; Ps 1:1-4,6; Lk 9:22-25. Fri. Feb. 15, Heb 4:15,11; Ps 78:3,4bc,6c-8; Mk 2:1-12.

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or more than 30 years it’s been my privilege to explore the Catholic Church in all its extraordinary variety and diversity. I’ve traveled from inner-city parishes to the corridors of the Vatican; from the barrios of Bogota to the streets of Dublin; across the United States and throughout Europe, Latin America, Oceania and the Holy Land.

I’ve spoken to Catholics of all states of life and stations in life, from popes and heads of state to cloistered nuns and campus ministers and literally thousands of clergy; with political activists of all stripes and the wonderful people of the parish in which I’ve lived for almost three decades; with modern Catholic confessors and martyrs and with men and

The rise of evangelical Catholicism

women who are troubled in to a fresh proposal for how we their faith. should understand the Catholic The experience has been possibility in the third millenexhilarating, sometimes exasnium, and a detailed program perating, occasionally depress- of Gospel-centered reform that ing; I’ve been immeasurably enriched by all of it, in ways I can never adequately repay. But I’ve tried to make a small downpayment on a large debt with the publicaBy George Weigel tion of “Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21stCentury Church” (Basic Books). In the book, will equip the Church for its I’ve tried to focus what I’ve evangelical responsibilities in learned in more than 30 years a time of great challenge. of Catholic thinking, writThe challenge can be ing and activism through two defined simply: throughout prisms: a new interpretation of the western world, the culture modern Catholic history linked no longer carries the faith, because the culture has become increasingly hostile to the faith. Catholicism can no longer be absorbed by osmosis from the environment, for the environment has become toxic.

So we can no longer sit back and assume that decent lives lived in conformity with the prevailing cultural norms will, somehow, convey the faith to our children and grandchildren and invite others to consider entering the Church.

No, in our new situation, Catholicism has to be proposed, and Catholicism has

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

The Catholic Difference

to be lived in radical fidelity to Christ and the Gospel.

Recreational Catholicism — Catholicism as a traditional, leisure-time activity absorbing perhaps 90 minutes of one’s time on a weekend — is over.

Full-time Catholicism — a Catholicism that, as the Second Vatican Council taught, infuses all of life and calls everyone in the Church to holiness and mission — is the only possible Catholicism in the 21st century.

The Evangelical Catholicism of the future is a Catholicism of radical conversion, deep fidelity, joyful discipleship and courageous evangelism. Evangelical Catholics put friendship with the Lord Jesus at the center of everything: personal identity, relationships, activity. Evangelical Catholics strive for fidelity despite the wounds of sin, and do so through a daily encounter with the Word of God in the Bible and a regular embrace of Christ through a frequent reception of the Sacraments. Evangelical Catholics experience dry seasons and dark nights, like everyone else; but they live through those experiences by finding their meaning in a deeper con-

formity to the Cross of Christ — on the far side of which is the unmatchable joy of Easter, the experience of which gives the people of the Church the courage to be Catholic. And evangelical Catholics measure the quality of their discipleship by whether, and to what extent, they give to others what they have been given: by the degree to which they deepen others’ friendship with the Lord Jesus Christ, or bring others to meet the unique savior of the world.

Evangelical Catholics enter mission territory every day, leading lives of integrity and charity that invite from others the question, “How can you live this way?” That question, in turn, allows the evangelical Catholic to fulfill the Great Commission by offering others the Gospel and the possibility of friendship with Jesus Christ.

Having responded to the Risen Lord’s call to meet Him in Galilee, evangelical Catholics go into the world in witness to the Christ Who reveals the face of the Merciful Father and the truth about our humanity.

Strong truths generously lived: that’s Evangelical Catholicism.

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

February 8, 2013

I

t was only 46 years ago when the National Football League and the now-defunct American Football League decided to pit their champions against each other to determine American football supremacy.

On Jan. 15, 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the NFL defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the AFL, 35-10 to win the firstever Super Bowl ... although it wasn’t called the Super Bowl until a few years later when it was re-labeled as such.

What a difference 46 years can make. Actually, I got a kick out of researching some of the numbers and comparing them to last week’s Super Bowl XLVII in the Big Easy, New Orleans.

No one back in ’66-67 was

R

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Back when it wasn’t so Super

sure if the “big game” would by two networks, CBS who catch on, and no one could covered the NFL, and NBC who predict the mega-event it would covered the AFL. The cost of a become.

30-second TV commercial for In its infancy, the Super Bowl drew a crowd of 61,000 in a stadium that could hold 94,000. That translates into 33,000 empty seats. It was the only Super Bowl game

By Dave Jolivet that did not sell out.

This year’s game was played before 71,000, limited only by the capacity of Super Bowl I was $42,000 comthe Superdome. pared to up to $4 million this The cost for a ticket for the year. Back in ’67, 51 million game ranged between $6 and people watched the game on TV $12, the latter of which raised that was only broadcast in the some eyebrows.

U.S. and was even blacked out The game was televised in Los Angeles. This year it’s

My View From the Stands

Can I say yes?

ing to trust? What am I being ecently, I read the story asked to give up or change? of Abraham and that As I look at my own faith harsh request from God to oflife, I have been challenged fer up his only son; his beloved over and over again, stretched son (Gn 22). Sound familiar? beyond what I perceived as When I read this passage, at my fullest potential, and given first I am mortified that God, many opportunities to grow. my loving God could ask this Each and every time, unsure of anyone, it is just unthinkof my reactions or uncertain able. As I reread it I begin to realize that He isn’t asking Abraham or anyone of us to do something He wouldn’t do Himself. But yet there is so much more happening here; God is asking us

By Rose Mary to trust and believe in Saraiva Him. Yet like us, I am sure Abraham had his of the path to choose. It was in moments of doubt, waged an those moments, when I stepped internal battle with himself, out of God’s way and allowed and even thought of turning Him to guide me that I found back. myself where I needed to be.

Too often we get bogged Has it always been easy? No! down in the details, be it the But yet, once everything was details of this Scripture pasput into motion, things began sage or any number of pasto fall into place. Like Abrasages or even the events in our ham, everything that I needed lives. We are at times too busy was given to me. It was in my to see that the request is so trusting that I found comfort, much more, and yet what is bethat I found a way to accoming asked of us is really quite plish the task at hand. simple. We, like Abraham and The key is to allow God to so many others in the Bible, be the center of our lives, to are being asked to give of allow Jesus and the Holy Spirit ourselves, completely, to hold to work with us and through nothing back when it comes us. To strive to be the Abrato our relationship with God. ham’s of this world, saying To trust that what we need will yes to what is being asked, be provided for us, even when regardless of our comfort level. what is being asked of us may As I prepare to enter into this seem daunting or life changing.

Lenten season, my prayer is Ash Wednesday heralds the one of willingness, of giving of beginning of Lent, a time when myself into the service of God. we are asked to sacrifice, to To seek the strength of Christ, make changes in our life, to be Who said yes all the way to more reflective. During Lent the cross, to trust fully and we are all, like Abraham, asked completely, and to truly believe to challenge ourselves, to look that I am His “beloved child.” at our relationship with God, It is in this refocusing of our and ask, am I tuned into what lives that we find the answers God is asking of me, am I will-

In the Palm of His Hands

to what we seek. Albeit, they are not always what we expect or even want at times, but when all is said and done, we realize it is what we need. With this in mind, whenever I think of God as the center or my focal point, I am reminded of the ripples on a pond. When you toss a pebble into the water, the ripples fan outward, and only when they return to the center, to the source, does the water become calm again. Throughout the ages, the stories of the Bible show us this very scenario over and over again. The turmoil or indecision and the calm that follows knowing that all is well, all will be taken care of.

So as we prepare to enter into this season of Lent, let us strive to center ourselves, to ask ourselves; “Am I really aligned with what God wants of me?” “Am I willing to let go and trust completely?”

“Can I say yes, regardless of what this means?” But most importantly, let us remember that we are a people created, nurtured and cherished by God, Who loves us completely and desires only what is best for us. In return He invites us to grow into a deep and fulfilling relationship with Him, and to know that we are loved beyond measure.

Rose Mary Saraiva lives in Fall River and is a parishioner of St. Michael’s Parish, and she is the Events Coordinator and Bereavement Ministry for the diocesan Office of Faith Formation. She is married with three children and two grandchildren. rmsaraiva@ dfrcec.com.

estimated that nearly 109 million people watched the game broadcast in 25 countries.

This year’s coin toss included eight people, up seven from Super Bowl I. The National Anthem was performed by the marching bands from the University of Arizona and Grambling State University (although some say it was the University of Michigan — the first big Super Bowl controversy). This year’s was a “rendition” of the National Anthem by Alicia Keys.

The halftime show was performed by the aforementioned marching bands, along with the Anaheim High School drill team, and legendary trumpeter, Al Hirt. I’ll leave this year’s “entertainment” out of this.

In the two weeks leading up to Super Bowl I, there was relatively little hoopla. There was no clamoring for hotel rooms, no partying in the streets of Los Angeles, and no barrage of products labeling themselves the “official sponsor of Super Bowl I.” This year, during the twoweek span, the already crazed city of NOLO was besieged by hoards of NFL cuckoos; unlimited TV coverage on networks like ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN, MTV, The Weather Channel, Fox News, and CNN. I think it’s safe to say that EWTN stayed

away.

Hundreds of airtime hours were spent analyzing, dissecting, predicting, advising, praising, and condemning the teams, coaches, players, cities, leagues, etc., often by “experts” who probably didn’t know a football wasn’t round.

I consider myself a sports purist, so for me, it’s the game that matters. So for all the “advances” made in Super Bowls through the years, I would much rather have it like it was back in ’67.

As I’ve mentioned in prior columns, I was a Patriot fan back when they were the Boston Patriots, and when they went through a stretch of more than a decade without much success. I enjoyed watching the old AFL as much as I did the venerable NFL. I remember watching Super Bowl I and cheering on my boyhood pigskin heroes, Bart Starr and coach Vince Lombardi. It was football sans the extracurricular. I liked the NFL playing against the AFL. The game today is pretty much the same as back then, except you have to cut through so much hype to actually see it.

In my humble opinion, there’s nothing better than hearing our National Anthem played by a marching band, who can also provide all the entertainment one needs between halves.

Now that’s football. Super.

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February 8, 2013

Massgoers say new saints have long been guiding influence

WASHINGTON (CNS) — For Herman Ray, a Native American from Arizona, and Franciscan Sister Margaret Christi Karwowski, currently living in the Washington Archdiocese, the canonization of two Americans last October 21 — SS. Kateri Tekakwitha and Marianne Cope — confirmed something they already knew: the holiness of two remarkable women.

“She has been my guide in many ways,” Sister Margaret Christi said about St. Marianne, a Sister of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities in Syracuse, N.Y., who ministered in education and caring for the sick.

While Ray explained his belief that St. Kateri “has made a big influence on my life — thanks to her I believe I can be a Native Ameri-

can and still be Catholic.”

About a thousand faithful joined Ray and Sister Margaret Christi, 11 bishops from across the United States and two from Canada, and more than 30 priests and deacons the afternoon of January 26 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for a Mass of thanksgiving for the canonization of the

two women.

Among those at the Mass were people of Mohawk, Tuscarora, Tohono O’odham and Pima Indian heritage.

Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl was the principal celebrant, while Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput delivered the homily.

“I love both of the saints and I’m honored to speak about both today,” said Archbishop Chaput, who is a Capuchin Franciscan and a Native American. He is a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe.

He noted the many examples of holy women throughout Christian history from Mary, to those women who helped Jesus and His disciples, to the strong and faithful saints including the Catholic Church’s first indigenous saint from the United States — St. Kateri.

“The unique genius of women has always been their way to embody Christian love — real love, the kind that takes courage, endures suffering and is consistent,” Archbishop Chaput said.

The archbishop said although Continued on page 11

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February 8, 2013 Continued from page 10

both saints lived centuries apart, both understood the cost of being an outcast and the sacrifices of being disciples.

Born in 1656 to a Christian Algonquin mother and a Mohawk chief father in what is today upstate New York, St. Kateri lost both parents and her brother to smallpox and was raised by relatives.

Scarred by the disease, eventually the “Lily of the Mohawks,” was baptized in 1676. The young woman joined a Christian community of Native Americans where she was determined to live as a Christian and remain a virgin despite harassment from her people.

“The zeal of her young faith had a profound impact on the Jesuit missionaries” explained Archbishop Chaput. Those Jesuit priests soon began reporting miracles attributed to Kateri and witnessed after her death April 17, 1680, at age 24.

St. Marianne was born in Germany and immigrated to New York where in 1862 she entered what is now called the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities. According to Archbishop Chaput, Marianne “excelled in hospital work and in the intense commitment to serving the sick.”

In 1877, she was elected superior general of the order. Six years later, she took six volunteers to the Hawaiian islands to care for those suffering from Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy.

Only intending to help the volunteers set up their ministry, St. Marianne served for 35 years among the outcasts on the islands including working with St. Damien de Veuster until his death in 1889 and continuing his ministry. St. Marianne died Aug. 9, 1918, after “a lifetime of service to the most outcast and feared,” said Archbishop Chaput.

Calling participants at the Mass to reflect on the Scripture readings referencing Marriage and the symbol of the love in Marriage, he described the two saints as faithful spouses of God. “God never tires of pursuing us, the saints, or those who allow themselves to be pursued by God,” the archbishop said.

“Through the canonization of these two women, the Church gives us two wise virgins to lead us in our own processions to the wedding feast of the Lamb,” he said.

After the Mass many participants prayed before two reliquaries placed near the altar, containing relics of the saints. Some paused to look at two large banners depicting the saints that previously hung in St. Peter’s Square last October.

For Ray, St. Kateri serves as a

“bridge to both peoples, so they can understand each other.” He told the Catholic Standard, newspaper of the Washington Archdiocese, that he speaks about how St. Kateri changed his life to fellow parishioners at St. Theresa’s Parish in Phoenix. “She’s not only for Native Americans.”

Ray said combining his Native American spirituality with the Catholic faith “is just wonderful — it makes you stronger.”

While Sister Margaret Christi, most recently a teacher at Trinity Washington University, said she uses St. Marianne’s example when working with students who have challenges. The Franciscan said she sees “hope in the faces

of students whose challenges are unfathomable just as the saint saw hope in the face of victims of Hansen’s disease.”

She said she was thrilled St. Marianne was included in what she described as an “uplifting” national celebration. The Liturgy — scheduled to be broadcast on the Eternal Word Television Network — would help get the saints’ message out, said Sister Margaret Christi.

“We continue to need to spread the faith, to reach out to the poor, the suffering, the outcasts,” she said. “Catholics especially have that mission — that Gospel mandate to teach, to welcome and to heal.”

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in thanksgiving — Members of North American Indian communities attend the national Mass of thanksgiving in celebration of the canonization of St. Kateri Tekakwitha and St. Marianne Cope at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington recently. The two women were canonized October 21

by Pope Benedict XVI. (CNS photo/Nancy Phelan Wiechec)

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February 8, 2013

The Anchor

Bishop D’Arcy dies at age 80; was ‘good shepherd after heart of Christ’

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (CNS & CNA) — Retired Bishop John M. D’Arcy, who served as the eighth bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend from May 1, 1985, through Jan. 13, 2010, died at his home in Fort Wayne February 3. Bishop D’Arcy died surrounded by loved ones in the late morning hours. It was the 56th anniversary of the first Mass he ever said. He had been ordained the previous day, Feb. 2, 1957, for the Archdiocese of Boston.

He was diagnosed with lung and brain cancer in late December while visiting his family in the Boston area. In retirement, Bishop D’Arcy had assisted at parishes, conferred the Sacrament of Confirmation, and enjoyed providing retreats and missions and assisting as chaplain of Bishop Luers High School.

Bishop D’Arcy served as a priest of the Boston archdiocese from 1957 until 1975, when he was consecrated a bishop. He was an auxiliary bishop in Boston until he became the ordinary of Fort Wayne-South Bend in 1985.

He was allowed to remain Fort Wayne-South Bend’s bishop until after his 77th birthday, serving fully two years past the mandatory retirement age for diocesan bishops.

The New York Times, in its coverage of his death, focused on the bishop’s positive role in the clergy sexual abuse crisis. In an article entitled, “Bishop John D’Arcy Dies at 80; Sounded Alarm on Sex Abuse,” the paper of record reported, “Bishop John D’Arcy, who was ignored by his superiors in the 1980s when he warned about priests who later figured in the sex-abuse scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, died on Sunday.” The Times also quoted Terrence McKiernan, founder of the Web site bishopsaccountability.org, who said that in his many years of

reviewing internal Church letters, “I have read through thousands, tens of thousands of these documents,” he added, “and seen very few with D’Arcy’s level of expression of concern for the victims.”

Bishop D’Arcy called to task the University of Notre Dame, which is located in the Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese, for the school’s honoring of President Barack Obama.

On May 17, 2009, Obama received an honorary law degree at the university’s commencement.

Bishop D’Arcy’s concern was that the president had reaffirmed, and made public policy, “his long-stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred.”

“In its decision to give its highest honor to a president who has repeatedly opposed even the smallest legal protection of the child in the womb, did Notre Dame surrender the responsibility that Pope Benedict believes Catholic universities have to give public witness to the truths revealed by God and taught by the Church?” Bishop D’Arcy asked in the months following the incident. In a public statement before the ceremony, the bishop responded to many of the “talking points” Notre Dame had used to support its position inviting the president. Bishop D’Arcy humbly referred to himself, saying, “The failure [of the university] to consult the local bishop who, whatever his unworthiness, is the teacher and lawgiver in the diocese, is a serious mistake. Proper consultation could have prevented an action, which has caused such painful division between Notre Dame and many bishops — and a large number of the faithful.”

On the day of the commencement, Bishop D’Arcy spoke at a Pro-Life rally on the Notre Dame campus in lieu of attending the presidential ceremony.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, February 10, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Maurice O. Gauvin, Pastor of St. George Parish in Westport

pre-meeting meeting — Farasoa Mihaja Bemahazaka, right, a university student from Madagascar, talks with Conventual Franciscan Father Enzo Fortunato, director of the press office of the Sacred Convent of Assisi, during a recent news conference at the Vatican. The news conference was held to present details about the plenary meeting of the Pontifical Council for Culture, which will take place February 6-9 at the Vatican. (CNS/Giancarlo Giuliani, Catholic Press Photo)

Media blitz can help youths find Gospel in digital deluge, speaker says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The best way the Church can be heard and seen amid the deluge of the information age is to launch a media blitz of simple answers to life’s deepest questions, a young Catholic journalist told a Vatican news conference.

“People always say it should be quality over quantity; perhaps this was true once upon a time, but today quantity is necessary,” said Alessio Antonielli, who works for the Conventual Franciscan-run San Francesco Review magazine in Assisi.

“The Church is full of quality” with its rich 2,000-year history of writings and teachings, but “the problem is no one reads them; and today if you aren’t present in certain channels, it’s like you don’t even exist,” he said January 31, the feast of St. John Bosco, father and teacher of young people.

Antonielli was one of a number of speakers presenting details about the Pontifical Council for Culture’s plenary assembly February 6-9.

He and Farasoa Mihaja Bemahazaka, a university student from Madagascar, were invited to attend the assembly to help the council’s members and advisers explore this year’s topic of emerging youth cultures and how the Church can better respond pastorally.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the council’s president, said often it seems young people are disconnected from the real world around them, with eyes glued to smartphones and ears muffled by headphones.

“In a certain sense they have put up a shield of self-exclusion” not only against “the unbearable social, political and religious difficulties

we adults have created,” but also because “we have excluded them with our corruption and hypocrisy, precarious employment, unemployment and alienation,” he said.

Young people are passionate about many things and are often hiding their own genuine sense of spirituality, sincerity and freedom “under the guise of apparent indifference,” the cardinal said.

Antonielli said to overcome this indifference, it’s necessary to anticipate and be ready for what young people need and are looking for.

He said he was searching for the meaning of life and other important questions during his time at college. Instead of finding answers, he stumbled upon even more questions and was never actively approached with the Church’s message.

“The Church today surely risks making little impact because young people don’t ask questions anymore; however, they nonetheless want answers with one click,” he said.

The Church needs to have “a huge presence” in a world awash with choices “because few will see or hear just one pearl dropped in a pool.” The more the Church’s message is “out there,” he said, the more likely someone will come upon it and decide to explore it.

This means the Church needs to translate its values and teachings into simply understood terms and concrete actions, he said.

Antonielli, who majored in philosophy, said he needed to refer back to Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas and other thinkers of the past to decipher some of the fundamental principles of Christianity.

He said he doubted there are many others who would put in the same

kind of effort.

“If we don’t go to Mass every Sunday, it’s because the priest’s ‘lecture’ tells me nothing, it doesn’t resonate with me, doesn’t speak my language,” he said.

The Church needs to make the Gospel message more understandable, with rational explanations that are simple and quick, and deep and meaningful at the same time, he said.

While the Church needs to be more present where young people are “in the digital habitat,” it cannot forgo the power of human communion, he said.

Religious and lay Catholics also need to translate what the Church teaches concretely into their everyday lives by being credible witnesses, he added.

Antonielli and Bemahazaka said they found the Church to be most effectively present in Catholics who approached them or showed them what true friendship and fellowship is, rather than being swayed by someone who just made dogmatic pronouncements.

“What helped me most was contact with others, especially other young people,” who were active in Catholic groups and volunteer associations, Bemahazaka said. Their presence and activities gave her ways to actually become part of a faith-based community, she said.

Portuguese Bishop Carlos Alberto Moreira Azevedo said there is a real “cultural battle” in creating the right kind of conditions to help people encounter Christ.

“There’s a low birthrate in generating faith, too,” he said.

The Church needs to figure out why its efforts have sometimes failed and what has “dug the divide between youth and the Church,” he said.

Today’s adults either “don’t know how to or don’t have time to take care of their own faith and grow in the faith” so as to show young people the way, the bishop said.

February 8, 2013

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Priests offer tips for Catholics long absent from the confessional

WASHINGTON (CNS) — After “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned” — even if they get that far — there are millions of Catholics who don’t exactly know what to say next.

Even that oft-used beginning of the Sacrament of Penance, known from many a book and movie, is actually no longer the “official” beginning of a confession.

This ignorance is especially true for Catholics who have not gone to Confession in years, or even decades.

Despite parishes and dioceses inviting inactive Catholics to return to church at Lent, with the Sacrament of Reconciliation as an incentive, it is likely Catholics are afraid, bewildered or even intimidated at the prospect of returning to the confessional after such a long period away from it.

“Just come. Don’t prepare.

We’ll do it in there. I’ll help you with this. At the end of it, you’re going to think about things we didn’t cover. You can come again,” said Msgr.

Richard Lavalley, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Winooski, Vt. “The more complicated it becomes, the worse it becomes. They (pen-

itents) don’t know what to make of it and they become ashamed.”

The motivations for wanting to go back to Confession can be many, said Jesuit Father Jake Empereur, a priest since 1965 and a parochial vicar at St. Matthew Parish in San Antonio.

“It could be because of health issues. It could be because their conscience moves them to finally be able to participate in the Church and the Liturgy and Communion and things like that,” he said.

“People get married. Sometimes it’s someone’s first Communion, sometimes it’s a wedding. It’s all sorts of different reasons.”

And what they have on their mind — and want to get off their chest — can vary as well, Father Empereur told Catholic News Service.

A few things stand out, he said.

“They gave up believing in God when they were in their early 20s and now they’re thinking about that. Each case is really, truly different,” he said, adding he tells penitents to focus on “what they came to say” because it “gives me

further questioning on what I need to do (as a priest): whether or not they’re married, personal relationships, issues in their life, whatever it might be.”

“They don’t talk about a lot of non-sins, small things and so forth,” Father Empereur continued. “They have a couple of major things, relating to Marriage, they had a bad experience with a priest, or so forth.”

Msgr. Lavalley said he tells penitents, “If you’re holding back because you’re afraid or you’re frightened or you don’t know what to do or how to say it, say ‘Our Lady sent me.’ I can’t tell you how many times that’s worked.”

He recalled the time one man came into the Reconciliation room telling him, “I’m supposed to tell you somebody sent me, but I can’t remember who it was.” He added he told the man it was Our Lady, and that “she sent me, too.”

Msgr. Lavalley said he’s told penitents, “I don’t bite, I don’t kick, I don’t yell and I don’t faint. So let’s start. Can I help you by going through the Commandments? Is it easier for you to say yes or no with

me?” And in doing that, he added, “I get what I need.”

Father Empereur said he asks penitents whether they pray. “Usually they’ll say something like their evening prayers before they go to bed, or they pray before meals.

Usually they have not been going to Mass: ‘I say the Rosary’ or things like that.

“Then you can talk about participation in the Eucharist.

So you have to kind of instruct them, helping them along,” he explained. “Encourage them.

‘Are you going to be more involved in the Church? Are you going to go to Mass? Are you going to go to Confession once in a while?’”

“What’s prominent? What most outstanding in their mind? They have something on their minds. That’s why they’re coming in the first place. Usually I find my questions have to do with their relationships or to talk about their spiritual life a little bit.

After all, that’s the purpose of all this. I can’t say I’ve had two identical Confessions.”

Msgr. Lavalley, ordained in 1964, still remembers a Confession from his first year as a priest. He was hearing Con-

fessions from students at the parish grade school, and one boy was among the last to be brought in.

“This kid’s behind the screen. He’s not talking to me. He’s just breathing. ‘Do you want to go to Confession?’ (No response.) ‘Do you want to tell me what your sins are?’ ‘No.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because you know what my sins are.’

‘How?’ ‘Because I did them before.’”

Just like that boy, Msgr.

Lavalley told CNS, some penitents are habitual sinners.

“Everyone’s a habitual sinner, and so am I,” he said. “It’s not about sin, it’s about mercy and about God’s love.”

Msgr. Lavalley remembers himself as a grade-schooler making comparisons among the priests in his parish about which ones handed out sterner or lighter penances.

But he recalled one experience with a priest that “made me the confessor that I am. He was so kind and so wonderful, and I never forgot the penance he gave me. He said, ‘Can you say the name of Jesus once?

I’ll say it for you.’ And he did it without sarcasm.

“That changed my life.”

lines, that you really believe in what you’re telling them and live your life by it. My kids know at school that, to me, physics is something that is really important, and it connects in all these cool ways and I really love it.

“At church, my students know that my faith is what carries me from one day to another, and when I make a choice I really think about these things I’m asking them to think about. I share stories with them and, as long as the stories are appropriate, I think the kids really appreciate getting to know you on a personal level and see that you’re not just fronting them with ‘the Ten Commandments say this’ and ‘the Bible says this.’

You’re actually saying this is how I live my life and you can live your life this way. I’m doing it and you can do it too.

Once you make that connection with those kids, they start to listen to you more clearly.”

Early last year Bucci was recognized for her efforts and was awarded Providence’s Teacher of the Year.

“It was really an honor — and I know this is sounds cheesy — but it was nice to

represent all the teachers in Providence because we all work really, really hard,” she said.

Already students from her past have come to thank her, and Bucci said that it just shows that teachers may not recognize the influence they are currently having on a student, but the impact of the lessons are always being felt — and those lesson always start with the teacher.

“I love teaching and where I’m teaching. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” said Bucci. “Like I say to my students, as Christians we have a responsibility to each other, that whatever our gift is, we need to share it. I think the gift I have it being able to communicate really well, and in that teaching fashion, take ideas and share them so that people can use those ideas in their lives. Teaching is very important to me, and the idea that I can help these young people avoid mistakes by teaching them about our faith and thinking about choices, I think it’s so important to share that.

I would feel idle if I wasn’t doing that; it’s our responsibility.”

The art of engaging teen-agers in the classroom continued from page one

the Faith Formation Ministry Convention held by the Fall River Diocese, and during her talks she offers ideas and techniques for instructors to help initiate those classroom discussions.

“The biggest technique that I offer is the idea that everyone knows that teen-agers don’t want talk when you want them to, so to get them to start discussing — which is what you want them to do at that grade level, to start thinking about their actions — you have to trick them into it,” said Bucci.

During her workshop, Bucci offers participants a moment to see the activities from the teen-agers’ point of view.

As an example in the lesson of fairness, Bucci suggests a contest where each group competes to create the best poster from the materials found on their table. What the groups aren’t initially aware of, but soon becomes evident, is that not every table has the same amount of materials to create the poster. Often the group with the most markers and accessories are reluctant to share with those who have only pencils because the competitiveness of the activity overshad-

ows everything else. When the activity is over, says Bucci, is the moment to ask the teen-agers how they felt when some of their fellow classmates didn’t share.

“As Christians, we can’t feel that way. We have to realize we are all put on this earth, and some of us have more than others, but we should be able to share those things with everyone else and have the same opportunities. So how do you get a teen-ager to talk about that?” asked Bucci. “When you ask them how [the activity] relates to life, they now share those feelings with you.

That’s the type of lessons that I provide. You do an activity that relates to a theme, and the activity’s goal is to have them share feelings they are comfortable sharing because they experienced it together.”

It’s about bringing positive energy to the discussion and making them think, plus having them participate in an activity instead of just sitting there, thus engaging even the most quiet of students.

“The best part about the activities is they don’t necessarily connect it to their life,” said Bucci. “They can talk about

the activity without talking about their own feelings, so they don’t feel targeted.”

Bucci knows from experience that students often have difficulty coming out of their shells. As that self-described “shy student,” Bucci recalls a fourth-grade teacher who taught science, but made doing projects an integral part of the lesson plans of the classroom. The teacher’s positive attitude coupled with a clear enjoyment of the job has been an influential example of how to be a great teacher, said Bucci.

“She really liked her job, you could tell that about her.

She was really happy, really nice and I was really shy. Even the nicest teacher, I was afraid of, but I wasn’t afraid of her.

She clearly loved what she was doing, and I try to emulate that now,” said Bucci. “She’s always been a source of inspiration for me to become a teacher and teach science.”

Bucci brings the same methodology to her classes at Hope High School and St. Paul the Apostle Parish.

“It’s almost like when I teach physics. The kids see you are not just feeding them

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The Anchor

40 Days stays the course continued from page one

Campaign participants have documented babies saved from abortion, and the campaign continues to raise awareness about the clinic. The campaign is also partially responsible for the founding of Abundant Hope Pregnancy Resource Center in Attleboro, which serves women in crisis pregnancies for no charge.

The first 40 Days for Life was conducted in College Station, Texas in 2004. Since then, 2,210 individual campaigns have taken place in 481 cities. Reports from previous campaigns document 6,749 lives that have been spared from abortion, 76 abortion workers have quit their jobs and 27 clinics have closed their doors.

This spring will mark the 12th nationally-coordinated campaign.

Vigils will be held at 261 locations plus cities in England, Australia, Poland and Spain. For the first time, vigilers will participate in Nigeria, Russia, South Africa and Wales.

There will also be a new location in Massachusetts. For many campaigns, five communities — Attleboro, Haverhill, Lynn, Springfield and Worcester — participated. This time a location in Boston, outside the Planned Parenthood on Commonwealth Avenue, will host a peaceful vigil.

Larose said that before the Boston location was added, a hole existed in the reach of 40 Days.

He said that now, “I think that covers most of the major centers of abortion activity in the state.”

Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, called

that Planned Parenthood the “flagship” abortion clinic in the Commonwealth.

Two out of three abortions in Massachusetts are performed at Planned Parenthood, and the Boston location is one of the organization’s busiest. The clinic is located next to many colleges and resides practically on the campus of the city’s largest institution of higher learning — Boston University.

“I was trying to count up on my hand how many colleges are within a couple of stops on the T,” she said.

Fox praised the dedicated people who have prayed outside that clinic for many years, adding that she believes the 40 Days campaign will bring focus to their efforts.

“The 40 Days concentrates everything. The people at all the other locations, you’re also benefitting from their prayers,” she said. “It’s like if you go and pray at Mass with everyone else, it’s more than if you pray by yourself.”

The 40 Days campaigns have a proven track record of organizing vigils that attract new participants, she said.

“Everything Pro-Lifers do, you have to pray as though it’s up to God and work as though it’s up to you,” she said.

She added that she is thankful for 40 Days — an important part of the whole Pro-Life picture.

The campaign will kickoff with the monthly Pro-Life Mass at La Salette Shrine in Attleboro on February 16 at 4:30 p.m.

For more information, visit www.40daysforlife.com/attleboro.

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February 8, 2013

Bishop Stang High School blessed with new resource center continued from page one

center, officiated by Bishop George W. Coleman.

The newly-renovated fourstory, 22,880-square-foot facility is the culmination of a $6 million “Building on our Foundation Capital Campaign” that has been years in the making and is the largest renovation project since the school opened.

“Our new academic resource center will ensure the continued tradition of excellence that Bishop Stang is noted for,” said Stang president and principal Peter V. Shaughnessy. “It will allow us to enhance our mission to make known the goodness of God and to provide a Catholic education for our students to become leaders in our society founded on service, justice, peace and respect for the dignity of all human beings.”

The new addition to the Bishop Stang campus was originally built with the school in 1959 as a convent for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, who staffed the diocesan high school until they left in 1976. The building was then converted into office space and a retreat center that more recently housed the Family Ministry Office for the Fall River Diocese.

“As we celebrate the opening of our new academic resource center, we’re reminded that this building was once a convent for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur,” Shaughnessy said.

“They built a strong foundation and their charism continues to inspire our community today. We thank them in a special way for the legacy they have left us … that tradition very much continues here at Bishop Stang.”

Echoing Shaughnessy’s praise for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, former Stang president Theresa E. Dougall, a 1964 grad-

uate of the school who retired last year, said she knew many of the nuns personally and added: “I know they would be pleased to see what was once their home has now become a vibrant student learning center.”

After nearly a year of construction work, the first floor of the building now includes a series of guidance offices, an executive conference room, the advancement office, the admissions office and the president’s office.

The second floor library or “learning commons” area features a librarian’s office, student workroom with LCD display, computer alcove, and a large open space with worktables and bookshelves. A large windowed area that was previously known as the “sun room” at the far end of the second floor is to be used for meetings and collaborative work between students and teachers.

The third floor now offers two new classrooms and the fourth floor, when completed, will be designated as an art classroom and studio, replete with a new kiln, a digital photography studio, and an art gallery to display student work.

“The center will provide opportunities for Stang students, present and future, to pursue their academic goals in a technologically advanced atmosphere,” Dougall said. “It’s beautiful and you deserve it.”

Shaughnessy thanked Bishop Coleman and school superintendent Dr. Michael Griffin, along with everyone at the Chancery office and Catholic Education Center, for making this project possible. He also wished to single out the members of the “Building on our Foundation Capital Campaign” committee including co-chairmen Maureen

This week in 50 years ago — The second session of the Ozanam School of Charity, sponsored by the Attleboro Particular Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, was held in the parish hall of St. Joseph’s Church in Attleboro.

25 years ago — U.S. Navy chaplain Father James F. Kelley, a New Bedford native who was ordained for and previously served in the Fall River Diocese, was promoted to the rank of captain and began an assignment as Command Chaplain at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, Calif.

Sylvia Armstrong (’82), Michael J. Harrington (’79), and his predecessor, Theresa E. Dougall, with a special nod to honorary chairman Patrick Carney (’66).

“These four people were absolutely instrumental and indispensable to the success of the campaign,” he said. “Their energy and time was a true service to our school and their love of Bishop Stang is inspiring.”

He also credited Carney for personally contributing $1 million to the project.

“The Carney family’s generosity to Bishop Stang is simply awe-inspiring,” he said. “Not only did they give us a $1 million donation, but they also were instrumental in helping secure other major donations. We owe them a massive debt of gratitude.”

“And, of course, we thank every single donor who supported this project, whether large or small,” he added.

Having devoted more than 40 years of service to Bishop Stang High School, retired president Theresa Dougall said she’s proud to see this project finally come to fruition.

“This project has been a dream of many for years and because of the generous dedication of so many Stang benefactors, including alumni, parents, faculty, and friends, the dream has now become reality,” she said.

Proud alum Michael J. Harrington said he was “extremely happy and grateful” to see this day come.

“Everyone in this room today is blessed to be a part of Bishop Stang,” he said. “This building that has been built is for you — it’s a gift from the past. But it’s also a gift for the kids who aren’t here yet; those who hope to be part of the foundation of Bishop Stang in the future.”

Diocesan history

10 years ago — In observance of National Vocation Awareness Week, students in the Religious Education program at Holy Family Parish in East Taunton took part in a Vocation Poster Contest. Students were asked to portray “How Do You Think God Lets You Know He is Calling You?” One year ago — Father Raul M. Lagoa, longtime pastor of St. John of God Parish in Somerset, died. Father Lagoa, 66, served as pastor of the Somerset parish since 1996 and was ordained a priest on June 2, 1979 in St. Mary’s Cathedral.

15

The Anchor

February 8, 2013

Cardinal relieved of public duties for past failure to protect children

LOS ANGELES (CNS) — Cardinal Roger M. Mahony will “no longer have any administrative or public duties” as retired archbishop of Los Angeles because of past failures to protect children from clergy sex abuse, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez announced January 31.

The archbishop’s statement came the same day the archdiocese released 12,000 pages of personnel files of clergy who were the subject of a 2007 global abuse settlement. The material has been posted on the website http://clergyfiles.la-archdiocese. org, along with supporting information that includes the names of members of the hierarchy involved in the handling of abuse allegations.

Archbishop Gomez also accepted Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry’s request to be relieved of his responsibility as the regional bishop of Santa Barbara.

Cardinal Mahony, 76, headed the archdiocese from 1985 until his March 2011 retirement. Bishop Curry, 70, was the archdiocese’s vicar of clergy and chief adviser on sexual abuse cases in the mid-1980s.

“These files document abuses that happened decades ago,” Archbishop Gomez said January 31. “But that does not make them less serious. I find these files to be brutal and painful reading.

The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil.

“There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children. The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed.

We need to acknowledge that terrible failure today,” he said.

Some of files show in the 1980s that some archdiocesan officials worked to conceal child molestation by priests from law enforcement authorities. Memos exchanged in 1986 and 1987 by the cardinal and the bishop detail proposals to keep police from investigating three priests who had admitted to Church officials that they molested young boys.

“Sad and shameful as the past history of sexual abuse is,” an archdiocesan statement said, “the Archdiocese of Los Angeles can point to more than a decade of modern child protection efforts that are among the most effective in the nation at preventing abuse and dealing with allegations of abuse.”

Archbishop Gomez in his statement noted that Cardinal Mahony “has expressed his sorrow for his failure to fully protect young people entrusted to his care” and Bishop Curry “has also publicly apologized for his decisions while serving as vicar for

clergy.”

“Effective immediately,” he continued, “I have informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have any administrative or public duties” and accepted Bishop Curry’s request “to be relieved of his responsibility as the regional bishop of Santa Barbara.”

Jesuit Father Tom Reese, director of the Religion and Public Policy program at Georgetown University’s Woodstock Theological Center and author of several books about the power structure of the Church, told Catholic News Service that Archbishop Gomez’s steps were extraordinary.

“This is the first time that an archbishop has publicly recognized the failings of his predecessor in handling the abuse crisis and punished him by limiting his ministry,” he said.

Archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg told CNS that since his retirement, Cardinal Mahony has had no administrative duties. He will be “reducing his public profile, which included numerous invitations to give lectures on immigration reform, on the Church in the 21st century, etc.”

Tamberg said the cardinal also voluntarily cleared his calendar of appointments to confer Confirmation this year.

“He remains a priest in good standing and a cardinal of the Church,” said Tamberg. “He can celebrate the Sacraments with no restrictions.”

Archbishop Gomez’s statement said that “reading these files, reflecting on the wounds that were caused, has been the saddest experience I’ve had since becoming your archbishop in 2011.”

“To every victim of child sexual abuse by a member of our Church: I want to help you in your healing. I am profoundly sorry for these sins against you,” he said. “To every Catholic in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, I want you to know: We will continue, as we have for many years now, to immediately report every

credible allegation of abuse to law enforcement authorities and to remove those credibly accused from ministry.

“We will continue to work, every day, to make sure that our children are safe and loved and cared for in our parishes, schools and in every ministry in the arch-

relieved of duties — Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, retired archbishop of Los Angeles, has been relieved of all administrative and public duties in the Los Angeles Archdiocese because of his past failures to protect children from clergy sex abuse.

He is pictured on the National Mall in Washington during an immigration rally in this 2010 file photo. (CNS photo/Nancy Phelan Wiechec)

diocese,” he said.

The 2007 settlement for $600 million covered more than 500 people who made claims about being sexually abused by priests and other Church personnel.

Some of the priests who had claims against them sued to keep their names from being released, saying it violated their privacy rights.

A Superior Court judge ruled

in early January that the names of personnel identified in the files could be made public, overturning an earlier decision by a retired federal judge who was acting as a mediator in a settlement between the archdiocese and victims who said they had been abused.

Church officials in Los Angeles had fought for years to keep the files private.

The documents show that Bishop Curry suggested to Cardinal Mahony that they prevent the priests from seeing therapists who might alert authorities and that the priests be given out-ofstate assignments to avoid criminal investigators.

Cardinal Mahony declined a request for an interview with CNS. But he posted on his blog — http:// cardinalrogermahonyblogsla. blogspot.com — a letter he wrote to Archbishop Gomez, which outlines his efforts in dealing clergy sexual abuse.

“Nothing in my own background or education equipped me to deal with this grave problem,” he wrote. “In two years (19621964) spent in graduate school earning a master’s degree in social work, no textbook and no lecture ever referred to the sexual abuse of children. While there was some information dealing with child neglect, sexual abuse was never discussed.”

He outlined steps taken by the archdiocese including beginning in 1986 to develop policies and procedures for dealing with it, and seeking advice from other bishops.

Cardinal Mahony said he followed what was standard procedure around the country, including removing suspected abusers from ministry and referring them for treatment.

“We were never told that, in fact, following these procedures was not effective, and that perpetrators were incapable of being treated in such a way that they could safely pursue priestly ministry,” he wrote.

Over the next two decades,

policies became more stringent and the Los Angeles Archdiocese was one of the first to create, in 1994, a Sexual Abuse Advisory Board, he said. By the time Archbishop Gomez was named to succeed him, the cardinal wrote, the archdiocese had a zero-tolerance policy and was found to be in full compliance with the U.S. bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

“Not once over these past years did you ever raise any questions about our policies, practices, or procedures in dealing with the problem of clergy sexual misconduct involving minors,” Cardinal Mahony told Archbishop Gomez.

“I have stated time and time again that I made mistakes, especially in the mid-1980s,” he concluded. “I apologized for those mistakes, and committed myself to make certain that the archdiocese was safe for everyone. When I retired as the active archbishop, I handed over to you an archdiocese that was second to none in protecting children and youth.”

In a January 21 public letter, Cardinal Mahony said that he prays for victims of abuse by priests daily as he celebrates Mass in his private chapel.

“It remains my daily and fervent prayer that God’s grace will flood the heart and soul of each victim, and that their life journey continues forward with ever greater healing,” he said in a statement, explaining that on his altar he keeps cards with the names of each of the 90 victims he met with from 2006 to 2008.

“As I thumb through those cards I often pause as I am reminded of each personal story and the anguish that accompanies that life story,” the cardinal said.

“I am sorry.”

Tamberg said Cardinal Mahony will continue to say Mass in the parish where he lives.

The retired archbishop was named a cardinal in 1991. As a member of the College of Cardinals who is under the age of 80, he is eligible to vote in a conclave.

16

Youth Pages

growing in the faith — The First Penance Class of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford recently gathered at the church with pastor, Msgr. John J. Oliveira, and Melissa Cieto, second-grade catechist.

predicting the weather — During Catholic Schools Week, second- and third-graders from Holy Name School in Fall River gathered to learn about George the Groundhog. Students learned where the groundhog lives, what it eats, and why it may whistle. Using the new interactive white board and an iPad students tallied and graphed the number of classmates who believed the groundhog would see its shadow and those who didn’t. Art, science, math, reading and writing were incorporated into the lesson. The lesson ended with a project in which each student made their own groundhog peeking from a burrow.

keeping the dream alive — Students at St. James-St. John School in New Bedford learned about Martin Luther King Jr. during the month of January and created a dream tree.

February 8, 2013

a leader and achiever — Tiffany Devonish of Fall River, a senior at Bishop Connolly High School has been selected as a recipient of the 2013-2014 Comcast Leaders and Achievers Scholarship that recognizes high school seniors from Comcast communities for commitment to community service, academic achievement and demonstrated leadership.

cross-country friendships — Fourth-grade students at St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro got a real treat when they Skyped on their Smartboards with fourth-graders from Karen Acres School in Urbandale, Iowa (a suburb of Des Moines). According to Janelle Kerr, fourth-grade teacher from Karen Acres, “I loved hearing the rich Rhode Island accent of the principal when she told us her favorite seafood was LAHB-STUH!” The Iowa students were studying the Northeast region of the U.S. and students from St. John’s asked questions such as “What is the coolest ocean animal you have ever seen?,” “Do you go skiing in the mountains?,” and “Do you visit a forest area?” The students at St. John’s hope to speak to their new friends again and this time ask them questions about Iowa and the Midwest. Shown here is Sue Fortin holding the microphone for Michele Schremp.

MAKING HISTORY — The Attleboro chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution recently announced Bishop Feehan High School (Attleboro) history teacher and coach Mike Deady as the recipient of its annual American History Teacher of the Year award. Deady won the chapter award as well as the state award.

From left, Feehan President Chris Servant, Deady, and Principal George Milot.

Youth Pages

February 8, 2013

L

ife is very good. Give thanks for the gift of human life.

Those were the themes for the youth rally and Mass, respectively, at the March For Life in Washington, D.C. last month where more than 6,000 people, most of them youth, including about 350 from our own diocese, prayed at George Mason University’s Patriot Center. What an awesome experience it was to stand up for the dignity of all human life and celebrate its sanctity. It confirmed for me, once again, that “God is good all the time,” and “All the time God is good.”

Throughout the three-day pilgrimage we prayed and sang, listened and shared, made new friends and strengthened friendships. Most of all, this pilgrimage increased our love for God. We recognized that in one of the speakers at the rally. Her name is Elizabeth, from Austin, Texas and recently married. Elizabeth

Life is very good

spends much of her time praying for her name. The young girl people marched up ConstituIf you want more inspiration, at an abortion clinic in Austin. responded, “Elizabeth.” “That’s tion Avenue to the United States read this quote from the late She shared this one story about a my name, too,” Elizabeth said. “I Supreme Court. We spoke out for Congressman Henry Hyde of trip she was making to Chicago, am your sign. I was supposed to those who cannot. Will you be a Illinois: “When the time comes, via Dallas. She never made it to be in Chicago today, but instead voice for the voiceless? Read this as it surely will, when we face Chicago that day due to prayer and give thanks that awesome moment, the final airline problems. So she for the gift of human judgment, I’ve often thought, as headed to the abortion life.

Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a clinic to pray. Elizabeth “Prayer to End terrible moment of loneliness. met this young girl goAbortion” You have no advocates, you are ing into the clinic and Lord God, I thank there alone standing before God tried to convince her that you today for the gift — and a terror will rip your soul there is another option. of my life, and for the like nothing you can imagine.

By Ozzie Pacheco The girl, in tears, was lives of all my brothers But I really think that those in visibly troubled by the and sisters. the Pro-Life movement will not choice she was about to I know there is noth- be alone. I think there will be a make. Nevertheless, she ing that destroys more chorus of voices that have never went in and Elizabeth immediI am here.” Elizabeth helped to life than abortion. been heard in this world but are ately got down on her knees and give a baby a chance at life on Yet I rejoice that you have heard beautifully and clearly in prayed for that young mother to that day because she believes that conquered death by the Resurthe next world — and they will be and her child. we are living signs of the living rection of Your Son. plead for everyone who has been About 20 minutes later the girl God. And indeed we are. Life is I am ready to do my part in in this movement. They will say walked out. She had decided not very good. ending abortion. to God, ‘Spare him, because he to abort her baby. Elizabeth went At the youth rally Mass Today I commit myself never loved us!’” over to her and they started talkBishop Paul S. Loverde of to be silent, never to be pasAs always, but especially in ing. The girl said, “I was looking the Diocese of Arlington, Va., sive, never to be forgetful of the this Year of Faith, let’s put our for a sign from God. I saw none shared a story about his childunborn. faith and prayers into action; and decided to go in. But, I still hood. Bishop Loverde was born I commit myself to be active in Elizabeth did, Bishop Loverde’s couldn’t do it.” Elizabeth asked premature and the doctors held the Pro-Life movement, family did, Congressman Henry no hope for his survival. He was And never to stop defending Hyde did, and so can you. If God so small that his father remarked life until all my brothers and can move mountains then surely, he could fit in a shoebox. Bishop sisters are protected, with His help, we can put an end Loverde then held up a shoebox And our nation once again to abortion. Life is very good. becomes a nation with liberty God bless. amer and has made many contri- and a plastic figure of a baby and justice, Ozzie Pacheco is Faith butions to the school’s success,” born at six months for all 6,000 Not just for some, but for all, Formation director at Santo Griffin said. “After discussions to see. God had a purpose for this Christo Parish, Fall River. with Catholic Schools Office of- child — to serve Him as a priest. through Christ our Lord. Amen! ficials, and conferring with Msgr. Bishop Loverde thanks God for Oliveira, I am pleased to share his life and credits his survival NOTE: In last week’s Anchor, it was erroneously reported with you the news that Mrs. Su- to his family and through their that the St. Mary’s Education Fund Winter Brunch at the Coonsan Massoud has been appointed constant prayers to the saints, amessett Inn in Falmouth drew 70 guests. It was in fact 270

by Bishop Coleman as the next especially Mary and Joseph. Life guests. The Anchor regrets the error. principal of All Saints Catholic is very good.

Hundreds of thousands of School, effective July 1, 2013.”

Griffin went on to note that Massoud brings much experience to her new role. Prior to her time at All Saints, she was assistant principal at Holy Family-Holy Name School, also in New Bedford. Her background also includes years of service as a technology coordinator, teacher, and campus minister at Holy Family-Holy Name School and at Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth. Massoud holds a master’s degree in Catholic School Administration from Boston College, and Principal Licensure by the State of Massachusetts.

Massoud praised Swainamer for her leadership and noted that she will work closely with her through the months ahead to ensure a smooth transition, and the continued growth and success of All Saints Catholic School.

Msgr. Oliveira led the faculty in prayer at the meeting. He add- making a difference — Families of students, faculty and staff at St. Mary’s School in Mansfield ed his thanks to Swainamer for recently joined as a community to complete a project to benefit St. Francis de Sales School in Breezy her vision and leadership these Point, N.Y. that was damaged beyond use during Hurricane Sandy. As a result, more than 500 stupast few years and expressed con- dents were re-assigned to surrounding schools, giving the administration time to devise a plan for fidence in the school’s ability to the future of the school. Susan Tamul, fourth-grade teacher at St. Mary’s, extended her hand and heart to create the project joining the two communities of faith in a time of despair. Families gathered continue to move forward in its in the parish center to make 525 blue and gold scarves to send to the students, faculty and staff of St. academic and spiritual mission Francis de Sales. In an effort to build school spirit, scarves were made in St. Francis’ school colors under the guidance of Massoud. and included a prayer card on each scarf, offering prayers and wishes to students.

Diocese announces new principal at All Saints Catholic School

NEW BEDFORD — All Saints Catholic School Principal Sherri Swainamer recently announced that she will be leaving her position as principal at the close of the school year. Swainamer met with faculty to share the news, which was sent home with students in a letter to their parents. Present at the meeting with faculty were diocesan Superintendent of Schools Michael Griffin and School Director Msgr.

John J. Oliveira, who is also pastor of St. Mary Parish, a sponsor of the school.

In his comments to the faculty, and in a letter from the superintendent to parents, Griffin thanked Swainamer for her years of dedicated service to All Saints Catholic School, as well as for her previous contributions as a teacher and administrator in Catholic schools in the Diocese of Fall River. “Under her guidance, All Saints Catholic School has achieved high standards of academic excellence and a wonderful school environment that daily calls students to grow in faith, and to put their faith into practice,” he said. He also noted that “all are grateful for all Mrs. Swainamer has done to build the spirit and community of All Saints Catholic School, and we wish her well in her future endeavors.”

Griffin went on to announce that current Assistant Principal Susan Massoud will succeed Swainamer as the school’s next principal. “Mrs. Massoud has worked closely with Mrs. Swain-

17

Be Not Afraid

18

The Anchor

Area campus ministries strive to help college students ‘refuel’ continued from page one

stimulate them spiritually and intellectually.”

Father Frederici added that maintaining a spiritual life at college, especially for freshmen, can be difficult. “Ninety percent of students who were active in their parishes stop when they attend college.” The reasons vary, but Father Frederici wants the students to know there are people and resources to help them.

“Right now, we’re preparing for Ash Wednesday,” he said.

“Statistics show that all across the country, that is the most attended Mass for people ages 18 to 25. In the past, we’ve had 1012 percent of the Catholics on campus attend, up from the usual two percent.”

It’s Father Frederici’s and Sister Madeleine’s hope to have the students come back after Ash Wednesday.

UMass-Dartmouth students will have five Ash Wednesday Masses available to them — 7:30 a.m., and 12:10, 4, 7 and 9 p.m.

In addition, Father Frederici has added an extra Sunday Mass during Lent (1 and 5 p.m.), as well as Masses on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m., to go along with the usual 12:10 p.m. Masses on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available on Wednesdays from 3-4 p.m., and on Fridays from 6-7 p.m. Eucharistic Adoration is available on campus on Sundays from 2 to 3 p.m., and the Stations of the Cross will take place on Fridays at 3:15 p.m.

Father Frederici told The Anchor that he and Sister Madeleine solicit student responses and recommendations from past events. From those responses, they are offering gatherings for students this Lent, based on Father Robert Barron’s “Catholicism” series.

On four consecutive Wednesdays during Lent beginning February 20 at 7 p.m., students will have the opportunity to watch a video and then share their own

points of view on what they’ve witnessed. The series will include “Word Made Flesh, the Bread of Heaven,” “A Vast Communion of Witnesses,” “The Fire of His Love: Prayer and the Life of the Spirit,” and “World Without End.” Other campus ministry offerings at the North Dartmouth campus include a Day of Recollection on February 23 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and a “Busy Person Retreat,” from March 4 to 8. “This is pretty popular in colleges across the country,” said Father Frederici. “Students who wish to participate commit to about one-half hour of prayer each day, and then to meeting with a spiritual director two or three times a week for about 20 minutes or so. This allows the students to share reflections and devotions while not upsetting their already busy schedules.

And some may find this helpful and continue the routine after the retreat.”

Father Frederici also told The Anchor that the campus ministries at UMass-Dartmouth and Cape Cod Community College rely a great deal on its web presence at umassdcatholics.com.

The successful Faith GPS Live! blogs will continue throughout Lent. “This provides the students with the opportunity to ask any question they may have about Catholicism,” he explained. “There’s no special software necessary. The students simply go to the Faith GPS blog which begins live at 7 p.m. on February 25.” The blog will also be available in playback mode immediately following the live event.

Other online Lenten offerings include “Mere Christianity” — an online discussion about C.S. Lewis’ work, a simple read, but students can participate without having read the book; “Thoughts on God,” based on Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, “God is Love”; and “Gospel of Luke,” an introduction to the book using

the outline of “The Good News of God’s Mercy” from Loyola Press.

“Students can go to the website and click on the banner for the Catholic Corsairs blog,” said Father Frederici. “Once at the blog they can find the tabs for each of the offerings.”

“This is a great way to communicate to the students,” he added. “They have experience with blogs. Even the incoming freshmen, who have to blog as part of their summer English readings.

“What’s also nice is that the students hold dialogues on spiritual topics. A majority of students never had the opportunity to have intellectual conversations about faith. They get the surface stuff like ‘I like ...’ or ‘I feel....’ Reason doesn’t seem to have a place in some of their faith encounters.” The blogs are also available to CCCC students.

Father Frederici also mentioned that social justice is an important issue for many college students. With that in mind, the UMass-Dartmouth campus ministry offers students the opportunity to assist Catholic Relief Services through its “Rice Bowl” efforts where students collect loose change throughout Lent, with additional resources available from CRS for their spiritual reflections.

Students are encouraged to visit the umassdcatholics.com site for times and locations of all events.

The campus ministry at Catholic-based Stonehill College provides students there with a “fivefold charge”: The ministry of the Word and Sacrament, pastoral care, service beyond the campus, religious formation, and evangelization. According to its website, the campus ministry, “In the Holy Cross tradition, encourages students to think, act and lead with courage toward creating a more just and compassionate world.”

Director of Campus Ministry,

February 8, 2013 Holy Cross Father Hugh Cleary and his staff have also added special Lenten activities and reflections for students at the Easton campus.

“In Campus ministry, during Lent, we work to provide both students and staff opportunities for prayer, fasting, penance, almsgiving and reflection,” Father Cleary told The Anchor. “It is a time of positive self-denial and moderation so as to break out of our routines and see our lives and the beauty around us with a fresh perspective. We explore the value of repentance for our sins against love as we search for the fullness of God’s love.”

On Ash Wednesday ashes will be distributed at an 8 a.m. Mass on campus. Separate Masses will also be celebrated that night at 9 p.m. at four residence buildings.

The Stations of the Cross will take place on Fridays at 4:30 p.m., and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the avail-

ability for the Sacrament of Reconciliation will take place on Monday evenings at 9 p.m. The Knights of Columbus will also lead a weekly Rosary for students. The Roche Dining Commons will feature meatless Fridays as well.

Utilizing the wide reach of the Internet, every weekday during Lent, there will be a video faithsharing presentation by a student, staff or faculty member on the school ministry’s Facebook page and the campus ministry web page at www.stonehill.edu/ x26783.xml.

In addition, the college will be hosting a Moreau Year of Faith monthly lecture series. The first presentation will be by the vice president for Mission, Holy Cross Father James Lies on February 14 at 7 p.m. in the Cleary Dining Room in Roche Dining Commons. Father Lies will present on the topic of “Conscience and Moral Decision Making.”

student advocates — Maintaining a Catholic presence on the North Dartmouth campus of UMass-Dartmouth, the campus ministry there has many activities and resources for students to refuel their spiritual lives during this Lenten season and beyond.

(Photo courtesy Father David C. Frederici)

February 8, 2013

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese

Acushnet — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Monday and Tuesday from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Wednesday from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Thursday from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. Evening prayer and Benediction is held Monday through Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

ATTLEBORO — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the St. Joseph Adoration Chapel at Holy Ghost Church, 71 Linden Street, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

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

Brewster — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the La Salette Chapel in the lower level of Our Lady of the Cape Church, 468 Stony Brook Road, on First Fridays beginning at noon until 7:45 a.m. First Saturday, concluding with Benediction and concluding with Mass at 8 a.m. buzzards Bay — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street, every first Friday after the 8 a.m. Mass and ending the following day before the 8 a.m. Mass.

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

East Sandwich — The Corpus Christi Parish Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Chapel is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 324 Quaker Meeting House Road, East Sandwich.

Use the Chapel entrance on the side of the church.

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

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

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

FALL RIVER — St. Bernadette’s Church, 529 Eastern Ave., has Eucharistic Adoration on Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the chapel.

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

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

FALL RIVER — Good Shepherd Parish has Eucharistic Adoration every Friday following the 8 a.m. Mass until 6 p.m. in the Daily Mass Chapel. There is a bilingual Holy Hour in English and Portuguese from 5-6 p.m. Park behind the church and enter the back door of the connector between the church and the rectory.

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

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

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

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

NEW BEDFORD — St. Lawrence Martyr Parish, 565 County Street, holds Eucharistic Adoration in the side chapel every Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

NORTH DARTMOUTH — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m., ending with Benediction. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

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

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

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

Taunton — Eucharistic Adoration takes place every Tuesday at St. Anthony Church, 126 School Street, following the 8 a.m. Mass with prayers including the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for vocations, concluding at 6 p.m. with Chaplet of St. Anthony and Benediction.

Recitation of the Rosary for peace is prayed Monday through Saturday at 7:30 a.m. prior to the 8 a.m. Mass. taunton — Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament takes place every First Friday at Annunciation of the Lord, 31 First Street. Expostition begins following the 8 a.m. Mass.

The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed, and Adoration will continue throughout the day.

Confessions are heard from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Rosary and Benediction begin at 6:30 p.m.

WAREHAM — Every First Friday, Eucharistic Adoration takes place from 8:30 a.m. through Benediction at 5:30 p.m. Morning prayer is prayed at 9; the Angelus at noon; the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3 p.m.; and Evening Prayer at 5 p.m.

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

WOODS HOLE — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Joseph’s Church, 33 Millfield Street, year-round on weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. No Adoration on Sundays, Wednesdays, and holidays. For information call 508-274-5435.

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The Anchor Jacqueline M. Mathieu, longtime parish secretary

FREETOWN — Jacqueline M. Mathieu, 73, of New Bedford, secretary of St. John Neumann Parish for approximately 28 years, a former resident of Fall River, died January 25.

A graduate of BMC Durfee High School, Class of 1957, she was a cake decorator with the former Terminal Bakery, Fall River and a bookkeeper for P. D. Humphrey Lumber, in Tiverton, R.I. An extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, she was choir director, parish council member and women’s guild member of the former St. Mathieu Parish, Fall River.

A longtime friend of Dr. Doris Thibault, Mathieu leaves siblings, Diane M. Figuerado of Fall River and William P. Mathieu Jr. and his wife Linda of Somerset; a sister-in-law, Joane Mathieu of Fall River; an aunt, Yvette Murphy of Fall River; nephews, Donald, David and Douglas Michaels, Peter and Nathan Mathieu; nieces, Kerrie and Jennifer Mathieu and Andrea Castonguay; great nieces and nephews and many cousins. She was the sister of the late Fall River firefighter, Dennis E. Mathieu and the daughter of the late William and Eva (Ouellette) Mathieu.

Her funeral Mass was held January 30 at St. John Neumann Church. The main

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks Feb. 9 Rev. Msgr. John J. Kelly, Pastor, SS. Peter & Paul, Fall River, 1963 Rev. Peter J. McKone, S.J., Bishop Connolly High School, Fall River, 1972 Rev. Vincent R. Dolbec, A.A., Assumption College, 1985 Feb. 10 Rev. Edward L. O’Brien, Pastor, St. Mary, Mansfield, 1966 Rev. Lucien A. Madore, Retired Chaplain, Mt. St. Joseph School, Fall River, 1983 Feb. 11 Rev. John O’Connell, Founder, St. John Evangelist, Attleboro, 1910 Rev. John J. Sullivan, S.T.L., Retired Pastor, Holy Rosary, Fall River, 1961 Rev. William J. McMahon, Retired Pastor, St. Joan of Arc, Orleans, 1987 Feb. 12 Rev. Stanislaus B. Albert, SS.CC, Retired Founder, Our Lady of Assumption, New Bedford, 1961 Feb. 14 Rev. Charles E. Clerk, Pastor, St. Roch, Fall River, 1932 Rev. Msgr. Francis McKeon, Retired Pastor, Sacred Heart, Taunton, 1980 Feb. 15 Rev. Joseph G. Lavalle, Pastor, St. Mathieu, Fall River, 1910 Rev. James C. Conlon, Pastor, St. Mary, Norton, 1957

celebrant was Father Rodney Thibault, accompanied

by Fathers John Ozug, Marc Tremblay, Gregory Mathias, and Msgrs. Stephen Avila and Thomas Harrington and Deacons Bruce Bonneau and Robert Suprenault.

The family would like to express their sincere thanks for the prayers, support, blood drive during her illness, and the memorial luncheon af-

ter the Mass. The parish was very generous to her. The family would also like to express thanks to the diocesan Insurance Office for its help and support.

Donations in lieu of flowers to American Cancer Society, 30 Speen Street, Framingham, Mass. 01701, or Southcoast VNA-Hospice, 200 Mill Road Fairhaven, Mass. 02719, are appreciated.

Around the Diocese 2/11

A special Healing Mass will be celebrated at St. Anthony of Padua Church in New Bedford on February 11 beginning at 6:30 p.m. Every year the pope gives a message for World Sick Day, which will be celebrated on February 11. This year the event also coincides with the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Sacrament of Anointing will be offered during Mass, followed by Eucharistic Adoration and healing prayers. For more information visit www.stanthonynewbedford.com. Another will take place there on February 28 at 6:30 p.m. with a holy hour beginning at 5:15 p.m.

2/14

The Support Group for Divorced and Separated Catholics will offer a screening of the video “What does the Bible Say” on February 14 beginning at 7 p.m. in the parish center of St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road in North Dartmouth. This session will deal with what Scripture has to say about divorce, with a discussion to follow the video presentation. For information call 508-678-2828, 508-993-0589 or 508-673-2997.

2/16

A speaker, multi-media presentation and discussion featuring Sister Linda Bessom, SND, Faith Into Action Together Coordinator for the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, will take place February 16 at St. Vincent de Paul Parish at Holy Ghost Church, 71 Linden Street in Attleboro. The program begins with a 4 p.m. Mass, followed by a pot luck dinner at 5 p.m. and the presentation set to start at 5:30 p.m.

Sister Bessom serves on the Massachusetts Catholic Conference Social Policy Committee. The MCC is the voice of the Massachusetts Roman Catholic Bishops on Beacon Hill. Her goal is to create awareness about the ways people can advocate for vulnerable residents in our community, including unaccompanied youth, who are experiencing homelessness and poverty. Sister Bessom will provide a faith-based charity and justice response to the problems of poverty and homelessness in Attleboro, and the larger community.

2/18

St. Louis de France Parish, 56 Buffington Street in Swansea, will host weekly Centering Prayer gatherings using a Lectio Divina format. The group will meet in the family room of the main church, gathering at 5:45 p.m. every Monday in Lent beginning February 18 through March 25 (except March 18, due to schedule conflicts). Prayer begins promptly at 6 p.m. Come rest in God’s embrace. For more information contact Charles R. Demers at forums4ami@gmail.com or 508-264-5823.

2/21

A Lenten Mission, “Immersed, Enkindled, Anointed: Living Our Baptism in Everyday Life,” with Sister Bridget Haase, O.S.U. will take place at Holy Cross Parish, 225 Purchase Street, Easton, from February 18-21.Drawing on the three symbols of Baptism, Ursuline Sister Bridget Haase will help us reflect how our Baptism immerses us in the sacred of everyday life (water), enkindles us with the fire of love (candle), and anoints us for service to the world (oil). Sister Bridget will preach on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings. The mission will conclude on Thursday evening with a Lenten Reconciliation Service.

2/23

A one-day Lenten Retreat in Portuguese with Dionisio DaCosta will be held February 23, at 8:30 a.m. and concluding with a 4 p.m.

Mass. It will be held at the Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street, Route 138, North Easton. A donation of $10 is suggested. Bring your own bag lunch. Coffee, tea and water will be provided. To register or for more info: Holy Cross Family Ministries, 508-238-4095 x2027, www.FamilyRosary.org/Events; or Dionisio DaCosta at 508-577-4583 or ddacosta48@gmail.com

3/2

A Day with Mary will be held March 2 at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, 235 North Front Street in New Bedford from 7:50 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. It will include a video presentation, procession and crowning of the Blessed Mother with Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. There is an opportunity for Reconciliation. A bookstore is available.

Please bring a bag lunch. For more information call 508-996-8274.

3/8

Have you experienced an Emmaus retreat yet? Emmaus is a retreat program for men and women (ages 20 and over) who seek to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ, regardless of their present level of faith and practice. Participants will have opportunities to reflect upon themselves, their community, and their God, through a series of witness talks given by a friendly team of lay people and religious. We welcome you to share in an Emmaus weekend at the peaceful La Salette Retreat Center in Attleboro on March 8-10. For more information and for an application, visit www.EmmausRetreats.com.

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February 8, 2013

The Anchor

Pope’s Lenten message: Charity is extension of God’s love

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — Pope Benedict XVI’s message for Lent is that when people are open to God’s love, then they can “love with Him, in Him and like Him.” “When we make room for

the love of God, then we become like Him, sharing in His own charity,” said the pope in his annual message for Lent.

“If we open ourselves to His love, we allow Him to live in us and to bring us to love with Him, in Him and like Him,”

said the pontiff.

Pope Benedict’s message is titled, “Believing in charity calls forth charity.” It was released February 1 with a media event at the Holy See’s press office.

The panel presenting it included members of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum — which is dedicated to carrying out charitable work — and the president for the Society of St. Vincent of Paul, Michael Thio.

The president of Cor Unum, Cardinal Robert Sarah, said that the essence of the pope’s

message is focused on illuminating the relationship between faith and love.

The pope noted in his Lent-

en message that “faith, as gift and response, causes us to know the truth of Christ as love incarnate and crucified,

as full and perfect obedience to the Father’s will and infinite Divine mercy towards neighbor.”

“Faith implants in hearts and minds the firm conviction that only this love is able to conquer evil and death,” said the pontiff.

“Faith invites us to look towards the future with the virtue of hope, in the confident expectation that the victory of Christ’s love will come to its fullness,” he added.

Pope Benedict highlighted that “charity ushers us into the love of God manifested in Christ and joins us in a personal and existential way to the total and unconditional self-giving of Jesus to the Father and to His brothers and sisters.”

“Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the cross, gives rise to love,” he said.

“Faith precedes charity, but faith is genuine only if crowned by charity,” he stated.

“Love is the light (and in the end, the only light) that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working,” said the pontiff.

The Holy Father noted that “all this helps us to understand that the principal distinguishing mark of Christians is precisely love grounded in and shaped by faith.”

Msgr. Segundo Tejado Muñoz, the undersecretary of Cor Unum, added that “the great strength of the Church is that most times charity is done anonymously and is often volunteer work.”

The pope’s message also states that Lent, “in the context of the Year of Faith,” offers us a valuable opportunity to meditate on the relationship between faith and charity and between believing in God and love.”

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