03.20.09

Diocese of Fall River

The Anchor

F riday , March 20, 2009

A modern-day ‘voice crying in the wilderness’

B y Dave Jolivet, Editor

PHILADELPHIA — Shortly before Christ began his three-year mission for the salvation of mankind, his cousin, John the Baptist, was “a voice crying in the wilderness.”

His message was bold, to the point and uncompromising.

Throughout the 2,000-plus years of Christ’s Church, there have been other such evangelists — each concentrating on the gifts given to them by the Father.

In the infancy of the third millennium, we have a new “voice crying in the wilderness,” calling for change in the way people perceive the uncompromising teachings of the Church.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, and the director of Edu-

cation at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia isn’t clad in camel’s hair and doesn’t dine on locusts and wild honey, but his message is as clear and strong as the Baptist’s was 2,000 years ago.

Father Pacholczyk is also calling for a repentance — but from problems unheard of in the days of John. His message is for all of us to know and heed the Church’s teachings on abortion, stem-cell research, contraception, in-vitro fertilization, end-of-life issues; human cloning; and other bioethical issues.

Since June 2005, Father Pacholczyk has written a bioethics column, “Making Sense Out of Bioethics,” which began its run in The Anchor at the request of executive editor Turn to page 13

WINNING TEAMS — Couples pertaining to the Teams of Our Lady from throughout the Diocese of Fall River celebrated the gift of marriage together at a recent Mass at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in New Bedford. The Teams are an international movement for the sanctification of married couples and their families. (Photo by Antonio Lazaro)

Reconciliation Weekend finds priests ready to greet penitents

By Deacon James N. Dunbar

MAKING STRAIGHT THE PATH — Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, talks about the Church’s teaching on cloning and embryonic stem-cell research during the taping of a special program produced by Boston Catholic Television. (CNS file photo)

Pope Benedict’s letter on the reconciliation of the St. Pius X Society — page 18

NEW BEDFORD — Priests across the Fall River Diocese will be waiting, stoles at the ready, to hear confessions, absolve sins and dispense penance during the special Lenten “Be Reconciled to God” weekend that begins tonight.

Priests will be offering the sacrament of penance tonight from 7 to 9 p.m., and tomorrow from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., in all diocesan parishes.

The plan for diocesan priests to spend six extra hours in the confessional to draw more people closer to Christ and jump-start their faith renewal, is a proposal from clergy in the New Bedford Deanery and accepted

by Bishop George W. Coleman and the Presbyteral Council.

The weekend has been enthusiastically promoted not only in parish bulletins and from the pulpit, but on the Web, YouTube, video and radio as well, in an effort to draw more Catholics to what for many in today’s Church has become “the forgotten sacrament.”

As the weekend approached The Anchor reached out to hear from the priests themselves how they felt; how and what they did to promote it; what they hoped would happen; and their readiness to guide fallen-away Catholics to become reconciled with Christ and return to full communion in their Church.

In New Bedford, Father Philip N. Hamel, pastor of St. Joseph-St. Therese Parish, is taking an innovative approach to the weekend, coupling it with adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

“We will begin with a simple exposition of the Blessed Sacrament tonight at 6 p.m., and after an interlude with Mass on Saturday morning at 8 o’clock, resume adoration until 3:30 p.m.,” he told The Anchor.

While there is around-the-clock adoration at the Franciscan Chapel in New Bedford’s downtown, Father Hamel said Olga Valadao and a group of his parishioners came to him last year to ask for an overnight adoration at their parish.

Turn to page 17

Diocesan women prepare for April 19 Catholic Women’s Conference in Boston

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

FALL RIVER — Women from throughout the Diocese of Fall River will be heading to Boston on April 19 for the fourth annual Boston Catholic Women’s Conference

at Boston College.

The theme of this year’s conference, which is preceded by a men’s program on April 18, is “Trust in the Lord With All Your Heart” and key speakers for the day-long event will include Sister Nancy Kellar,

S.C., founding member of the St. Elizabeth Seton House of Prayer in Scarsdale, N.Y.; Johnnette Benkovic, founder of the Women of Grace Catholic Apostolate; Dr. Mary Healey, author of “Men and Turn to page 12

2

News From the Vatican

March 20, 2009

Life without God saps people of hope to face difficulties, says pope ROME (CNS) — Eradicating God and his moral guidance from their lives has not brought people greater happiness and freedom, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Rather it has deprived people of the strength and hope needed to overcome pressing difficulties, he said to Rome’s city officials.

A moral code is incomplete “if it does not hinge upon the inspiration of and submission to God, who is the source and judge of all good,” he said.

The pope’s remarks came during a visit March 9 to Rome’s City Hall where he addressed a special session of the city council.

In his address to the city’s leaders, Pope Benedict deplored a recent spate of violence in the city, saying it revealed a deeper social ill that exists within society.

While he did not mention specific events, public attention recently has focused on a number of rapes, including the rape of a 14-year-old girl.

These dreadful acts of violence are a sign “of a true spiritual poverty that afflicts the

heart of modern man,” the pope said.

“The elimination of God and his law, as a condition for the realization of human happiness, has not reached its goal at all,” he said.

“Rather, it has deprived people of the spiritual grounding and hope that are needed to face everyday difficulties and challenges,” the pope said.

The pope said the city could count on the cooperation and help of the Church and the city’s faithful in promoting the necessary “perennial values.”

Seated in front of a towering sculpture of Julius Caesar that stood beneath a portrait of Mary, the pope said, “In this postmodern age, Rome must reclaim its deep soul and its civil and Christian roots if it wants to promote a new humanism” that recognizes humanity’s transcendent and spiritual dimension.

“Christianity is the bearer of a shining message about the truth of humankind” and the Church recognizes its responsibility in bringing that message to society and modern culture, he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Because Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, adoration must be a Catholic’s primary attitude toward the Blessed Sacrament at Mass as well as when praying before the tabernacle, Pope Benedict XVI said.

“Our task is to perceive the very precious treasure of this ineffable mystery of faith both in the celebration of the Mass as well as during worship of the sacred species,” the pope told members of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.

Members of the congregation met the pope March 13 at the end of their plenary meeting, which was devoted to discussing ways to promote eucharistic adoration.

Pope Benedict said he hoped the meeting would result in the identification of “liturgical and pastoral means through which the Church in our time could promote faith in the real presence of the Lord in the holy Eucharist and secure for the celebration of the holy Mass the entire dimension of adoration.”

The Greek word for adoration includes the concept of submission, the pope said, while the Latin word “denotes physical contact, the kiss, the embrace that is implicit in the idea of love.”

Together, he said, they highlight the fact that in adoring the Eucharist Catholics submit to and seek union with God who is love.

Pope Benedict told congregation members that especially during Lent with its emphasis on prayer, almsgiving and fasting, Catholics should be encouraged “to rediscover fasting and live it with renewed fervor, not only as an ascetic practice, but also as a preparation for the Eucharist.”

Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, the new prefect of the congregation, told Vatican Radio, “The liturgy is, first of all, adoration.”

In the life of the Church, “the Eucharist is the center of adoration; it is the recognition of God, the recognition that everything comes from him,” the cardinal said in an interview.

“In this moment of strong secularization — when people tend to forget God, to maintain that he is not important in human life — it is necessary to reaffirm that adoration comes first, in other words, that God comes first,” he said.

“The liturgy does not recount things that happened in the past, but is the manifestation today of God’s salvation through Jesus Christ,” Cardinal Canizares said.

Adoration is key attitude toward Eucharist, even at Mass, pope says

INSPIRATION — A man holds a crucifix in St. Peter’s Square as Pope Benedict XVI leads the Angelus prayer from the window of his private apartment at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Max Rossi, Reuters)

Pope responds to criticism over Lefebvrite decision

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI has written a letter to the world’s bishops defending his decision to lift the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops and expressing regret that it gave rise to misunderstandings and polemics, according to Italian newspapers.

The pope said the controversy over Bishop Richard Williamson’s statements denying the extent of the Holocaust was “a misadventure that was for me unforeseeable” and acknowledged that the Vatican should have paid more attention to information easily available on the Internet, the reports said.

The pope said he was particularly saddened at the reaction of some Catholics who seemed willing to believe he was changing direction on Catholic-Jewish relations and were ready to “strike at me with hostility.” He thanked “Jewish friends” who helped clarify the matter and restore a sense of trust.

Excerpts from the letter were published by the Italian daily Il Foglio March 11; additional passages were reported on the blog of Andrea Tornielli, who covers the Vatican for the newspaper Il Giornale. Vatican sources said the reports were generally accurate; the Vatican press office declined comment.

According to the reports, the pope said his overture to Bishop Williamson and the other three bishops of the Society of St. Pius X was designed to close a wound and bring unity to the Church. Instead, he said, “it suddenly appeared as something completely different: as a repudiation of reconciliation between Christians and Jews.”

He emphasized that improving Catholic-Jewish relations has been

a longstanding personal theological priority.

As for the Society of St. Pius X, he said the Church cannot ignore a community of believers that has 491 priests, 215 seminarians and thousands of faithful.

He emphasized, however, that to reach full communion in the Church, the traditionalist society would have to accept the Second Vatican Council.

“One cannot freeze the Church’s teaching authority at the year 1962,” he said, referring to the society’s rejection of many of the council’s teachings.

At the same time, he said, some defenders of Vatican II need to be reminded that being faithful to the council also means being faithful to the Church’s entire doctrinal history, without cutting “the roots from which the tree lives.”

The pope also said the lifting of the excommunications was not adequately explained and gave rise to misinterpretations about the society’s status in the Church.

The fact that the Society of St.

The Anchor

Pius X has no canonical standing in the Church is based on doctrinal, not disciplinary, issues, he said. The society’s ministers, even though they have been freed from ecclesial punishment, “do not exercise in a legitimate way any ministry in the Church,” he said.

According to the reports, the pope said he recognized that upsetting statements have often come from the society’s leadership, reflecting pride and arrogance. But he said he has also witnessed “an opening of hearts” among some members.

He said the traditionalist society deserves the same kind of tolerance given to other members in the Church.

“Sometimes one has the impression that our society needs at least one group that receives no tolerance and which one can calmly attack with hatred. And if someone — in this case the pope — dares to draw close to them, he, too, loses the right to tolerance, and even he can be treated with hatred, without any fear or reserve,” he wrote, according to the reports.

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The International Church

March 20, 2009

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Former Episcopal bishop talks of his new life as Catholic priest

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

ROME — If using dolls to practice the baptismal ritual is a humbling experience for seminarians, one can imagine what it was like for someone who already had baptized hundreds of babies.

Father Jeffrey N. Steenson, the former Episcopal bishop of the Rio Grande, prepared for his ordination to the Catholic priesthood with seminarians from Rome’s Pontifical North American College.

The 56-year-old, who spent 24 years as an Episcopal priest and three years as a bishop in New Mexico, laughs about the humbling experience of the doll practice and has nothing but praise for the “graciousness and good humor” of the NAC seminarians and staff with whom he’s been working for the past year.

Welcomed into the Catholic Church in 2007 and ordained a deacon in December 2008 by Cardinal Bernard F. Law, the archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, he was ordained to the priesthood in late February by Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe, N.M. While he studies with the U.S. seminarians in Rome, Father Steenson and his wife have been living in a cottage on the grounds of the Pontifical Irish College.

Archbishop Sheehan has assigned him to pastoral work in a New Mexico parish for the summer, and then will send him to Houston where he will teach at the University of St. Thomas and

at St. Mary’s Seminary.

The Steensons’ three children — a daughter and two sons — are grown.

Educated at Harvard Divinity School and at Oxford, Father Steenson is an expert in patristics, the study of the early Church fathers. He spoke to Catholic News Service in Rome before making one of his frequent visits to the library at the Augustinianum Patristical Institute.

“I’ve been attracted to Catholicism all of my life,” Father Steenson said.

When Pope John Paul II was elected in 1978, he said, “I felt this tug,” but he continued his preparations for his 1980 ordination in the Anglican Communion.

For Father Steenson, the role of the pope as the successor of St. Peter, the servant of Church unity and the guarantor of the Church’s fidelity to tradition was key to his decision.

“It is not negative things that turned me to the Catholic Church,” he said. “I just felt God saying, ‘It’s time.’”

The time came, he said, in 2007 when he felt the bishops of the Episcopal Church had decided to give priority to their autonomy rather than to unity with the larger Anglican Communion.

The priest said that while the Episcopal Church spoke of the importance of Christian unity, it continued to approve practices — ordaining women priests and bishops, ordaining homosexuals and blessing same-sex unions — that everyone knew would be an obstacle to Christian unity.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI said his trip to the Holy Land in May would be a pilgrimage of prayer for peace in the Middle East and the entire world.

The pope, speaking at a noon blessing, confirmed that the visit would take place May 8-15. His planned itinerary will take him to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The pope said he was making the Holy Land pilgrimage “in order to ask the Lord, by visiting the sacred places of his earthly passage, for the precious gift of unity and peace for the Middle East and all humanity.”

“Even now I am counting on the spiritual support of all of you, so that God may accompany me and fill with grace all those I will meet along the way,” he said.

The visit is expected to include

a visit to a mosque in Amman, a stop at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp and several outdoor liturgies.

It will be the first papal trip to the Holy Land since 2000, when Pope John Paul II traveled a similar route during the Holy Year.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, who had more than once invited the pontiff to visit Israel, welcomed announcement of the trip.

“I am delighted that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has responded positively and accepted my invitation to visit the Holy Land,” Peres said.

“The pope will be a most honored guest, welcomed and respected by people from all walks of life.

His visit will be a moving and important event bringing the spirit of peace and hope,” he said.

Holy Land trip will be mission of peace

He said he struggled with the idea of backing out of his pastoral responsibility to the people of the Episcopal diocese. But Archbishop Sheehan helped him see that “if you can’t lead with a clear conscience, you really owe it to everyone to get out of the way. And that’s pretty much where I was in the Episcopal Church,” he said.

Father Steenson said that while Catholic and Anglican liturgies are very similar externally, “there are profound differences, too.” For example, he said, “even the high, high Anglicans would have a hard time understanding how absolutely central the Eucharist is to the Christian life” for Catholics.

While Father Steenson was a member of the conservative, traditional wing of the Anglican communion, he said he would not define himself that way in the Catholic Church.

“For instance,” he said, “I don’t have any interest at all in the extraordinary rite,” the Latin liturgy often referred to as the Tridentine rite, “or in any move of retrenchment against the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II is the reason I was able to become a Catholic.”

“I am extremely happy with the Church as I find it,” he said.

While it is up to Archbishop Sheehan to decide what activities he will be involved in, Father Steenson said he hopes to be able to place his relationships with Episcopalians at the service of Christian unity efforts.

“I really feel that ecumenism has to be a huge part” of his life as a Catholic priest, he said.

UNUSUAL ROAD TO THE PRIESTHOOD — Former Episcopal Bishop Jeffrey N. Steenson, right, gives the traditional priestly ordination blessing to Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe, N.M., after Steenson’s ordination to the Catholic priesthood at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Rio Rancho, N.M., recently. Father Steenson spent 24 years as an Episcopal priest and three as a bishop in New Mexico. (CNS photo/Celine Baca Radigan)

The Church in the U.S.

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March 20, 2009

Catholics rally against effort to legislate parish financial control

HARTFORD, Conn. (CNS) — About 5,000 people gathered outside Connecticut’s state Capitol in Hartford March 11 to protest a bill — pulled from the Legislature the previous day — that would have given laypeople financial control of their parishes.

The state’s three Catholic bishops were among the protesters, many of whom wore “Religious Freedom” stickers while they voiced opposition to the shelved bill and any future legislation of its kind.

The Connecticut Catholic Conference had called on Catholics in the state to attend the rally as a way to “show support for the Roman Catholic Church and religious freedom in our state.”

The legislation, introduced March 5, was proposed by a group of Catholics concerned about the management of parish funds following the embezzlement conviction of a Connecticut priest. At the request of its proponents, the bill was withdrawn and is dead for this legislative session.

If it had not been killed, March 11 would have been a day of hearings on the measure, which Catholics had been encouraged to attend.

Just the fact that the bill was introduced is a concern, said Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus.

He told rally participants that the bill’s intent to give authority over Church finances to elected lay boards would send a “dangerous message to all religious leaders that will chill freedom of religion and free speech.”

“In effect,” he added, “this bill states we cannot trust our priests and bishops. It is an insult to every priest in the state of Connecticut.”

In a blog on the event, a spokesman for the Knights of Columbus said Hartford Archbishop Henry J. Mansell told protesters the bill had embarrassed the state of Connecticut, making it appear to be a bigoted enclave.

The bill would have replaced an existing law that defines Catholic churches and congregations as nonprofit corporations operated by a five-member board of three clergy and two laypeople. Instead, the measure called for boards to be made up of seven to 13 laypeople elected by parishioners. It said the pastor would not be a member of the board and the bishop would serve as an ex officio nonvoting member.

“This is contrary to the apostolic nature of the Catholic Church because it disconnects parishes from their pastors and bishop,” Archbishop Mansell said in a statement read in parishes in the archdiocese.

Bridgeport Bishop William E. Lori criticized the proposed legislation in a statement read at Masses in his diocese, calling it “a thinly veiled attempt to silence the Catholic Church on the important issues of the day, such as same-sex marriage.”

Anthony Picarello, general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the bill was “not even close to constitutional” and violated the First Amendment “in at least two different ways.”

In a March 11 statement, he faulted the proposed legislation for targeting the “Catholic Church explicitly and exclusively” and for inserting “the state into theological controversies regarding how the Church should be structured and governed.”

Picarello said the bill was a “vastly disproportionate response” to one case of one Connecticut priest who was convicted of embezzling parish funds; in a second case a priest resigned when an audit showed financial irregularities.

In a joint statement March 10, the co-chairmen of the Connecticut Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, Sen. Andrew J. McDonald of Stamford and Rep. Michael Lawlor of East Haven, announced the cancellation of a scheduled March 11 hearing on the controversial bill.

EXTREME HARDSHIPS — Jaime and Elena Silahua with Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Communities Organization of Antioch, Calif., pray with their daughter Kimberly, two, during a rally organized by PICO National Network calling for help on home foreclosures in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington recently. Silahua fell behind on his mortgage payments after his teen-age son was diagnosed with leukemia in 2007 and requested a hardship modification from his lender but was denied because his income fell just short of what was needed to qualify. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)

HHS opens 30-day comment period on conscience protections rule

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is accepting comments until April 9 on its move to rescind a Bush administration regulation giving federal protection to the conscience rights of health care providers.

The 30-day comment period opened March 10 with publication of the rescission proposal in the print version of the Federal Register.

When the Obama administration announced its review of the proposal in late February, Deirdre McQuade, assistant director for policy and communications in the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of ProLife Activities, encouraged participation in the comment process “by all committed to the sanctity of human life, the freedom of conscience and the ethical integrity of our healing professions.”

“Efforts to nullify or weaken

any conscience protection will undermine our national heritage of diversity and religious freedom, reduce patients’ access to life-affirming health care, and endanger the national consensus required to enact much-needed health care reform,” she added in a statement.

HHS asked for comment on four specific aspects of the regulation, which took effect two days before President Barack Obama took office: — “The scope and nature of the problems giving rise to the federal rulemaking,” including specific examples, “and how the current rule would resolve those problems”; — information, with examples, to support or refute allegations that the regulation “reduces access to information and health care services, particularly by low-income women”;

— whether the rule is clear enough “to minimize the potential for any ambiguity and confusion” that might result from it; — whether the objectives of the rule could be accomplished “through nonregulatory means, such as outreach and education.”

The regulation codifies several existing federal statutes prohibiting discrimination against health professionals who decline to participate in abortions or other medical procedures because of their religious or other moral objections.

Planned Parenthood of America, which has filed suit against what it calls the “midnight regulation” of President George W. Bush, is mobilizing its members to support the rescission proposal.

The organization said rescinding the regulation would restore “the rights of patients to receive complete and accurate reproductive health information and services, without fear that health care providers will withhold vital information and services based on their personal biases.”

Comments may be submitted electronically on the Website www.

Regulations.gov (by entering 0991AB49 in the search box) or via email to proposedrescission@hhs. gov. Attachments may be in Microsoft Word, WordPerfect or Excel, but Microsoft Word is preferred.

By mail, one original and two copies of written comments may be sent to: Office of Public Health and Science, Department of Health and Human Services, Attention: Rescission Proposal Comments, Hubert H. Humphrey Building, 200 Independence Ave. SW, Room 716G, Washington, D.C. 20201.

March 20, 2009

The Church in the U.S.

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Vast majority of dioceses comply with sex abuse charter, audits find

NEVER TOO YOUNG — Oscar Diaz from St. Beatrice School in Schiller Park, Ill., center, joins his classmates and thousands of students from Catholic schools throughout the state of Illinois as they gather in Springfield for a rally in the Capitol rotunda recently. More than 4,000 people participated in the first “Catholics at the Capitol” political action day to learn how to make their voices heard. (CNS photo/Karen Callaway, Catholic New World)

Illinois Catholics learn to make their voices heard at state Capitol

By Michelle Martin Catholic News Service

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — They came to Springfield on trains and buses and in cars, first filling the Hall of Flags in a building near the Illinois State Capitol and then the Capitol itself.

They didn’t look much like the image of lobbyists, these girls in plaid skirts, boys in polo shirts, and men and women sporting winter coats and sensible shoes.

But the more than 4,000 participants in the first “Catholics at the Capitol” political action day — including about 3,500 Catholic school students, parents and staff members — came to learn about how to make their voices heard.

Then they put their newfound skills into practice, popping into the offices of state representatives and senators, sharing their perspective on several issues of interest to Catholics, or even just leaving a card to let their legislators know they were there.

“This is ‘Faithful Citizenship,’” said Robert Gilligan, the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, referring to the U.S. bishops’ document on faith in the public square. “For a lot of people, it was a real eye-opener, in terms of Springfield and how the process works.”

The crowd included Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago and the bishops of the five other dioceses in Illinois: Bishops J. Peter Sartain of Joliet, Edward K. Braxton of Belleville, Daniel R. Jenky of Peoria, Thomas G. Doran of

Rockford and George J. Lucas of Springfield.

Participants were greeted with a list of issues that are priorities this year for the Catholic conference.

Those issues include: opposing a bill that would remove all current restrictions on abortions in Illinois; supporting a measure to require providers to offer women an opportunity to view a sonogram before performing an abortion; opposing a proposal that would equate same-sex unions to marriage; supporting a bill to abolish the death penalty; and supporting a proposal to increase the Education Expense Tax Credit from $500 to $1,000.

The education tax credit — which allows families who spend at least $2,500 a year on kindergarten-12th grade educational expenses to take a $500 state income tax credit — is widely used by families who send their children to Catholic schools.

It was the main issue for the students, parents and school staff who attended a Catholic schools rally in the rotunda, with the crowd filling the floor of the rotunda and ringing the railings four floors up.

Zach Wichmann, associate director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, organized the rally and told the students that increasing the tax credit would be a good economic move for the state, if it would allow more families to choose Catholic or other nonpublic education for their children.

Wichmann told the children to ask their representatives not only to vote for the Senate and House

bills on the matter but to co-sponsor the measures.

“They’re going to tell you the state has no money,” Wichmann said. “And that’s true.” Illinois is facing a $9 billion deficit.

But even with a $1,000 tax credit, the state and its public school districts save an estimated $5,000 for every child that attends a Catholic school instead of a public school. Last year, the state saved more than $1.6 billion on education because families chose to pay for Catholic schools, he said.

Cardinal George also greeted the students, explaining to them that the time they spent in Springfield was “an educational day,” not only for the children, but also for the legislators.

“You are the voice of the faithful,” he said.

Cardinal George and the other Illinois bishops were able to meet with Gov. Pat Quinn and House and Senate leaders.

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WASHINGTON (CNS) — The latest audits assessing compliance with the U.S. Catholic bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” found nearly complete compliance among participating dioceses and eparchies, but the number refusing to participate rose from five to seven.

A report released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops March 13 showed that only four of the dioceses or eparchies participating in audits between July 1, 2007, and June 30, 2008, were found to be noncompliant with any articles of the charter.

Three — the dioceses of Lansing, Mich., and Las Cruces, N.M., and the Archdiocese of San Francisco — had corrected the problems cited by auditors by the end of December, while the Diocese of Tulsa, Okla., “continues to work toward full compliance with providing safe environment training to children,” the report said.

But Judge Michael R. Merz, chairman of the National Review Board, the lay advisory group under whose direction the report was produced, expressed concern in a letter to Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, USCCB president, that the number of bishops or eparchs refusing to participate had grown.

“Your Eminence is already well aware of the position taken on auditing by the bishop of Lincoln, Neb.; our concern about that does not need to be reiterated,” Merz wrote. “However, this year the bishop of Baker in Oregon also declined to be audited because he has declined to have safe environment training for children in his diocese.

In addition to the dioceses of Baker and Lincoln, refusing to participate in the audits were the Chaldean eparchies of St. Thomas the Apostle in Detroit and St. Peter the Apostle in San Diego; the Melkite Eparchy of

Newton, Mass.; the Ukrainian Eparchy of St. Josaphat in Parma, Ohio; and the Syrian Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance in Newark, N.J. In a statement last year, the Diocese of Lincoln said that after participating in the initial USCCB audit the diocese “has exercised its option to refrain from participation in the audit, as its application, though perhaps helpful in some dioceses, has not proven to be so in the Diocese of Lincoln.”

The audits were conducted by the Gavin Group, a Boston-based firm founded by former FBI agent William Gavin, and overseen by the USCCB Office of Child and Youth Protection.

Audits also were conducted at the parish level in 17 of the 188 dioceses or eparchies where audits took place.

Each of the four dioceses cited for noncompliance with the charter was found not to have completed safe environment training — the Diocese of Lansing for volunteers in the diocese, the Archdiocese of San Francisco and Diocese of Tulsa for children, and the Diocese of Las Cruces for children, employees and volunteers.

The Diocese of Las Cruces also was cited for failing to have a functioning review board and for not carrying out background checks on volunteers and employees.

All the problems were corrected by the end of 2008, except for Tulsa’s safe environment training, the report said.

The National Review Board stressed the importance of completion of the $2.6 million study of the causes and context of clergy sex abuse of minors, which is to be conducted by the New York-based John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Commissioned by the bishops in the 2002 charter, the study had been set for completion in 2009 but has not been fully funded.

Fill Your Easter Basket with Trappistine Quality Candy!

6

The Anchor Calling Catholics to a higher standard

On March 10, Pope Benedict sent the bishops of the world a letter (see p. 18) clarifying his January 21 gesture of reconciliation toward the four validly but illicitly ordained bishops of the Society of St. Pius X. He noted his action had caused a “great uproar” and unleashed an “avalanche of protests,” leading to a situation that was “more heated than any we have seen for a long time.” Many interpreted the move, he said, as the “antithesis” of reconciliation, because it seemed to “repudiate” the long-fought reconciliation between Christians and Jews. Many Catholics, he continued, felt the need or saw an opportunity to attack him with “open hostility,” such that he felt he received greater understanding from Jewish leaders than many within the Church. He said that the whole episode exposed a “bitterness” that “laid bare wounds deeper than the present moment.”

With characteristic humility, Pope Benedict first admitted the “mistakes” he made and the lessons he had consequently learned. The first mishap, which he “deeply deplored,” was not to do his homework on Bishop Richard Williamson and to anticipate how Williamson’s revisionist anti-Semitic statements would transform Benedict’s “discreet gesture of mercy” to four excommunicated bishops into an act of embracing Williamson’s indefensible ideas. The almost 82-year-old pontiff admitted that “consulting the information available on the Internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on,” and resolved that “in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news.”

He also confessed that he “deeply regretted” that he did not clearly and adequately explain the extent and limits of his January 21 lifting of the excommunications, which facilitated misunderstandings. Several commentators had accused Pope Benedict of “wanting to turn back the clock to the time before the Second Vatican Council” by his lifting the excommunication on the four bishops, since the Society does not embrace several of the teachings of the Council. Three times in his letter he emphasized that the move affected individuals on a disciplinary level rather than the Society as a whole on the doctrinal level. He lifted the ecclesiastical penalty of excommunication in order to make it easier for the bishops — and with them, it would be hoped, the members of the Society — to return to union with the Church, but he stressed that this does not mean that there has been any accord with the Society on the teachings of the Second Vatican Council that the Society calls into question. “The Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962,” Benedict stated, adding that “this must be quite clear to the Society.” In order to demonstrate that the issues that need to be resolved before the Society can receive any recognition in the Church are doctrinal by nature, he said that he was joining the Ecclesia Dei Commission, which deals with the Society, to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

After candidly and sincerely confessing the results of his own examination of conscience, however, the Holy Father then gave the world, and particularly Catholics who had criticized the gesture, questions for an examination of their own. He had previously mentioned that the whole acerbic episode had “laid bare wounds deeper than those of the present moment.” One of those deep lacerations in the Church has come from those who look at the Second Vatican Council as a rupture rather than a continuation of the 2,000-year history of the Church. Those who under the guise of a mythical “spirit of Vatican II” reject what came before the Council were among those most critical of the pope’s gesture of reconciliation, because for them the Society of St. Pius X embodies the preconciliar mindset and practices that they have long considered anathema. After reiterating the necessity for the Society to accept the authority of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, the pope challenged the Society’s fiercest Catholic critics: “Those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council,” he said, “also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church.

Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life.” In other words, if the Society can justly be faulted for not accepting the authority of the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, some of its critics can be faulted for not accepting the authority of the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, in all 20 previous Councils.

The next point of examination was far more serious: he questioned whether some of the critics really desire reconciliation and unity. The Church’s highest priority, he says, is to “make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to … the God who spoke on Sinai, … the God whose face we recognize … in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.”

In order to accomplish this goal, however, the Church must be united because — the pope says echoing Jesus in John 17 — disunity “calls into question the credibility of their talk of God.” “Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case,” the pope asks about Bishop Williamson, “to meet half-way the brother who ‘has something against you’ and to seek reconciliation?” About the Society as a whole, he continues, “Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? … Should not the great Church allow herself to be generous … and be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas?”

The pope says Williamson and the Society may be just the latest example of a disturbing and sinful modern trend. Even in the Church, he says, “one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown, which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them — in this case the pope — he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint.”

Some groups, in other words, are treated as undeserving of forgiveness. The pope could have reminded everyone of Jesus’ parable that since God has forgiven us debts we could never repay, we must be willing to forgive others their smaller debts to us, no matter how despicable their sins (Mt 18:21-35). The pope recalls St. Paul’s warning to the Galatians that if we do not love our neighbor as ourselves, but “bite and devour one another” we will be “consumed by one another” (Gal 5:13-15) and adds, “sad to say, this ‘biting and devouring’ also exists in the Church today.”

May the members of the Church who responded to Pope Benedict’s gesture of reconciliation with hostility, biting and devouring, learn from his example of humble repentance and make a confession of their own.

Be Reconciled to God

As we await the grace of the diocese’s first ever Reconciliation Weekend tonight, the words of Pope John Paul II’s 1987 homily in San Antonio, Texas, resonate: “Every confessional is a special and blessed place from which there is born new and uncontaminated a reconciled individual — a reconciled world! To those who have been far away from the sacrament of reconciliation and forgiving love I make this appeal: Come back to this source of grace; Do not be afraid! Christ himself is waiting for you. He will heal you, and you will be at peace with God! … It is a mark of greatness to be able to say: “I have made a mistake; I have sinned, Father; I am sorry; I ask for pardon; I will try again, because I rely on your strength and I believe in your love.”

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March 20, 2009

The Confessor

n his beautiful 1984 apostolic exhortaMany of the friars thought he was too easy tion on the sacrament of penance entitled on penitents. He routinely responded to the “Reconciliation and Penance,” Pope John Paul criticism with a smile but with seriousness, sayII names four “extraordinary apostles of the con- ing, “If the Lord wants to accuse me of showing fessional.” too much leniency toward sinners, I’ll tell him I have had a lot of fun in seminars, lectures that it was he who gave me this example, and and retreats over the years challenging groups of I haven’t even died for the salvation of souls Catholic priests, or women religious, or highly- as he did.” He would tell penitents who were catechized laypeople, to name these four “ex- afraid of returning to the sacrament because of traordinary apostles.” the penances other priests were known to give, Most are able to get the first, St. John Vian- “Be at peace; place everything on my shoulders. ney (1786-1859), about whom I wrote last week I will take care of it.” And he did take care of it. and whom Pope Benedict decided on Monday He would give the penitents light penances but, formally to name the patron saint of all priests in reparation for the evil they had done, would during a Year of the Priesthood to begin on June do the rest of their penance himself, staying up 19. most of the night in prayer as penitential satisFew get the second, St. John Nepomuc faction for their sins.

(1345-1393), who was killed by order of King Some charged that he was simply killing himWenceslaus after he refused to break the seal of self in the confessional. A priest must die from confession and divulge what the queen had said apostolic hard work,” he would reply. “There to him. is no other death worthy of a priest.” He would Only one person has ever gotten the third, even eat in the confessional, saying to those who St. Joseph Cafasso (1811-1860), who, in ad- thought he was extreme, “How can I desert so dition to being St. John Bosco’s mentor and a many poor sinners on the excuse of seeking food great seminary professor, distinguished himself for my body?” When he had to leave, there was by the heroic extents to which he would place a bell for penitents to ring, and no matter what himself in danger in order to confess the hardest time of day they rang it or what inconvenience it of criminals. caused, he would And no one come running has ever guessed saying, “Here the fourth, whom I am, sir, here I I think is the most am!,” lest they endearing of them become discourall: Bogdan Managed and leave. dic (1866-1942), One experiBy Father known now, but ence shows the Roger J. Landry unfortunately not great extent to too well, through which he’d go to his religious name, make his peniSt. Leopold of Castelnuovo. tents comfortable. One absolved sinner recalled, I must confess that I had never heard of St. “I had not been to confession for several years. I Leopold either until I saw his name listed by finally decided to go and went to see Father LeoPope John Paul II during my first perusal of pold. I was troubled and anxious. I had just come his apostolic exhortation during college. So I in, when he got up from his chair and greeted tracked down books that brought me into con- me joyfully like a long-expected friend: ‘Please, tact with this obscure but great saint, whom ever come in,’ he said. Troubled as I was, I went to since my ordination I have invoked as a beloved sit in his armchair rather than kneel down. Withintercessor. out a word, he knelt down on the floor and heard St. Leopold was a Croatian born in what is my confession. When it was finished, only then now called Hercegovina. When he was young, did I realize my blunder. I wanted to excuse myhis father, a fisherman, lost everything and the self; but he said with a smile: ‘It’s nothing, it’s family was reduced to destitution. St. Leopold nothing. Go in peace.’ This show of goodness never forgot what it felt like to be in need of ev- remained engraved in my memory. By it, he had erything and always showed a great compassion entirely won me over.” for those in need.

When people would thank him for his love When he was 16, he left his parents to enter a for them in the confessional, he would always Capuchin friary in Italy. He dreamed of becom- deflect their attention to the Lord. He’d point ing a missionary in Eastern orthodox lands, to to the crucifix with tears in his eyes and say, try to heal the Great Schism of the Church, but gently and warmly, “It’s he who forgives! It’s because of multiple health problems, he was he who absolves!” Pope John Paul II said at deemed unfit. He was only 4’5” tall, couldn’t his 1983 canonization that it was this “heroic walk well, and suffered from terrible stomach fidelity to Christ,” the Good Shepherd who ailments, bad eyesight and arthritis. The Capu- lays down his life to save every lost sheep, chins were known as great preachers or parish that constituted his holiness. He understood missions, but Leopold couldn’t share in that and lived by the principle that heaven rejoices work, either, because he had a stuttering prob- more for one repentant sinner than for 99 who lem that made it impossible for listeners to hear never needed to repent. the message because of the messenger.

“If you wanted to define him with just one His superiors could imagine only one minis- word,” John Paul II stated, “then he is ‘The Contry for him, the ministry of the confessional, and fessor.’ His only expertise was how to ‘confess.’ to that he was assigned. Looking at his confes- But this is where his greatness is found.” He dissional, he began to call it “My Orient” and said appeared so as to make room for Christ, the “true “I will be a missionary here.” And before long pastor of souls.” He desired to be nothing other he became a modern St. Francis Xavier of the than a nearly-hidden “shadow” of Christ’s savconfessional. ing love from the cross.

Looking back later, he realized how the Lord Shortly before his death of esophageal cancer had prepared him for this crucial missionary in 1942, he predicted that during the World War work. When he was eight, he recalled, he had then ongoing, “The Church and the friary will be gone to church to confess a venial sin against his hit by bombs, but not this little confessional-cell. sister. The priest gave him as a penance to kneel Here God exercised so much mercy for people in the middle of the church in the sight of all. It and it must remain as a monument to God’s was the birth of his vocation. goodness.” That’s precisely what happened in “I stayed there deeply saddened, and won- 1945, when the church and friary were almost dering within myself: Why treat so severely a completed destroyed, but his confessional left child for such a slight fault? When I get big,” unscathed. It, and he, remain as testimonies to he vowed to himself and to God, “I want to be a the goodness of God in extending his mercy and religious, a confessor, and treat the souls of sin- the goodness of priests like Leopold in dispensners with much goodness and mercy.” ing it so lavishly at such a cost.

That’s precisely what he did. For most of the May St. Leopold intercede for all the priests 52 years of his priestly life, the vast majority of of the diocese as they exercise that same ministry them spent in Padua, he heard confessions 12- tonight and tomorrow in the diocesan Reconcili18 hours a day. His confessional was besieged ation Weekend. by penitents won over by that “goodness and Father Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of mercy.”

Padua Parish in New Bedford.

Putting Into the Deep

March 20, 2009

H

Introducing Protestantism

aving become acquainted pline, and organization. There are with the Eastern Christian evangelicals who believe in the Churches — Assyrian (Nestorian), effective grace of infant baptism, Oriental Orthodox (Monophysite), and others who don’t. and Eastern Orthodox — it’s time With the ideological revoluto turn westward, to the faith com- tions of the 1960s, new fault munities born directly or indirectly lines emerged in Protestantism. of the Protestant Reformation of More significant than the old the 16th century. denominational distinctions are Protestant Christianity isn’t a the divisions within the mainline/ single communion but an alphabet oldline churches between those soup of denominations, transdenominational fellowships, and independent congregations, The Fullness most of which today of the Truth may be categorized as either mainline (now

By Father often called oldline) or Thomas M. Kocik evangelical. Mainline Protestantism is historically divided along denominational lines: Lutheran, who are committed to the historic Episcopalian, Methodist, Presteachings and practices of their byterian, Congregationalist, and denomination, and those who others. Many evangelical Proteswould accommodate the Gospel to tants belong to independent local liberal secular culture, especially churches, while millions of others with regard to sexual morality and are affiliated with denominations abortion rights. Serious, believsuch as the Assemblies of God, ing Lutherans, for example, now the Southern Baptist Convention typically feel that they have more (the largest Protestant body in the in common with serious, believing United States), the Nazarenes, and Baptists – with serious, believing sundry “Holiness” groups. The Catholics, for that matter – than term “evangelical” itself covers a they do with the unorthodox vast spectrum of doctrine, discimembers of their own denomi-

T

nation. The mainline church bureaucracies are predominantly liberal in theological commitments and social and political attitudes, whereas evangelical church leadership and laity alike are generally conservative.

Despite their conflicts and contradictions, their organizational divisions and revisions, and — prior to the rise of the ecumenical movement that was launched a century ago — their history of sermonizing against one another, Protestants have always felt some interdenominational unity because they were all “Protestant,” named by their protest against the Church of Rome. To be a Protestant meant chiefly that one was not a Catholic (or Orthodox, although Orthodoxy has never been a significant presence in the minds of most Protestants). For various reasons, many who used to call themselves Protestant now prefer to be known simply as Christian.

The term “Protestant” derives from the protest drawn up by a small group of German princes at the imperial Diet (court) of Speyer on April 19, 1529, against

St. Paul: A different approach

how and what Paul preached? here are so many ways This approach had the merit of to look at St. Paul. He is actually being original (more or so vast a subject that at times less) and since my last creative it’s hard to limit and focus our study of him. The Holy Father’s idea had come to me in about 1977, I was thrilled. So off I recently concluded series given each week at his Wednesday au- went to research and write, and I was somewhat pleased with the dience were brilliant and fascinating and cogent, and I had the result. Therefore, dear reader, over the next few months, I shall easy job of summarizing them for The Anchor over the last seven months or so.

They appeared every Living the other week. But alas, the Pauline Year Holy Father’s talks ended in February, and I was soon being browbeaten

By Father Andrew

by Father Landry to Johnson, OCSO come up with something just as good or even subject you to the full force of better to finish out the Year of my creative mind as it ponders St. Paul. What to do? What to the question, what were these do? I was brought back in my cities and regions like which St. mind to a similar situation that Paul traveled and wrote to? Who had happened to me not so long actually read those letters for the ago. It was quite an unpleasant very first time, what were those memory. One day, when I was people like, and how did conpanicking about what to say in an upcoming retreat which I had crete local conditions and characters shape the very thought put off preparing for until the and preaching of St. Paul? last minute, I thought to myThis approach has one great self, why not take a fresh, new benefit.

It allows one to use angle? Be bold, I said. Instead not just the letters of St. Paul, of writing about Paul himself but the appropriate sections or his letters or his theology or from the Acts of the Apostles (God forbid) his “spirituality,” which illuminate the letters, which were all pretty well trodand the works of history of den ground, why not talk on the the ancient Greco-Roman people he actually wrote to, the world. This was the best part. cities to which he addressed his I love history. letters, uncovering the cultural So here is what I will try to and historical and even geodo, beginning next time. St. graphical aspects that shaped

7

The Anchor

Paul wrote letters to real people in real cities. Concrete cases, concrete situations, concrete problems, produced concrete, practical teaching. He was not interested in concepts or ideas unless they served the Gospel he preached. He was not an abstract thinker. He wrote at one point, “We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:5). This meant, I believe, that for Paul, every human thought had to be put to the service of the Gospel of Christ.

My disclaimer: In no way will this be an exhaustive treatment, but only a very brief introduction into an area I found fascinating. Perhaps you will, too.

One final thought. St. Paul, as he wrote, had no idea that his letters would be gathered up and canonized. The very style of his Greek shows this: it is fresh, at times, in both senses of the word. Perhaps as we look at his work in this way, we can gain a sense of that freshness. St. Paul should never, ever be boring.

He should inspire, enlighten, at times, perhaps, puzzle or enrage, but never bore.

Father Johnson is diocesan director of the Pauline Year and parochial vicar at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis.

the decree of the Holy Roman emperor, Charles V, to repeal the concessions that had previously been granted to the followers of the Martin Luther (1483-1546), a former Augustinian monk of Erfurt who had been excommunicated for heresy. Except for this purely historical definition, it’s hard to give a formula that clearly captures the soul of Protestantism.

We have only to cite the two most famous and equally representative Protestant theologians of the 20th century. According to Karl Barth (died 1968), Protestantism could be defined by unflinching faithfulness to the Bible; Paul Tillich (died 1965), on the other hand, defined Protestantism as the refusal of any intermediary between God and the believer.

The sovereign authority of Scripture and salvation by faith in the sole grace of God — these are Protestantism’s first principles.

Before we go more deeply into these principles and the consequences that were drawn from them, we should note that Protestantism originated as a reforming movement within the Catholic Church — one that at first intended only to purge the Church of real and imagined abuses, and bring her back to her own sources.

In truth, Luther and the first generation of Reformers didn’t think of themselves as ex-Catholics. It is probably the case, for instance, that when Philip Melanchthon, Luther’s friend and chief aide, died in 1560 he understood himself to be a Catholic, despite what he viewed as the temporary break with Rome.

In any event, the Protestant Reformation soon developed multiplying internal divisions and had come to reject the principles that had been set down in the beginning; or else these principles were given a sense contrary to traditional Catholicism and to the beliefs and intentions of the first Reformers. Taking the Bible as their sole rule of faith, the most radical of the Reformers, like untrained gardeners in an overgrown garden, hacked about with machetes, slashing unknowingly through elements that had been part and parcel of Christianity for more than a thousand years: sacramental worship, prayers for the dead, Marian doctrine and devotion, fasting, monastic life, clerical celibacy, even the Eu-

charist. Subsequent generations continued the departure from Catholic faith and practice. By the end of the 16th century, the older ex-Catholic leadership of former priests, nuns, monks, and friars was replaced by a new leadership that had never said or attended Mass, and by a laity that had never confessed its sins to a priest, gone on pilgrimage, prayed the rosary, invoked patron saints, or gained an indulgence. Protestant identity had evolved into something very different from the self-understanding of Luther and his earliest disciples. Unless we understand the Catholic background and context of the early Protestant Reformation, we’ll misunderstand Protestantism.

Over the next few months, we’ll examine the causes of the Reformation and the reaction that set in within the Catholic Church to offset the excesses of the Reformers. We’ll also survey the major Protestant traditions and their denominational embodiments, as well as that amorphous and relatively recent phenomenon called evangelicalism. Our purpose is to show that the Gospel truths professed and lived in these communities can have within the Catholic Church the full flowering that they have never found outside her.

Father Kocik is a parochial vicar at Santo Christo Parish in Fall River.

DIOCESAN TRIBUNAL FALL RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS Decree of Citation Sinceherpresentdomicileisunknown,inaccordwiththeprovisionof Canon1509.1,weherebyciteCatherineLillehoj,Ph.D.toappearinperson beforetheTribunaloftheDioceseof FallRiver(887HighlandAvenueinFall River,BristolCounty,Massachusetts) onApril3,2009at2:30PMtogivehis testimonyregardingthequestion: IS THE BIANCO-LILLEHOJ MARRIAGE NULL ACCORDING TO CHURCH LAW? Anyonewhohasknowledgeofthe domicileofCatherineLillehoj,Ph.D.is herebyrequiredtoinformherofthis citation.

GivenattheofficesoftheDiocesan TribunalinFallRiver,BristolCounty, Massachusetts on March 13, 2009.

(Rev.)PaulF.Robinson,O.Carm.,J.C.D. Judicial Vicar (Mrs.) Denise D. Berube Ecclesiastical Notary

8

I

n today’s Gospel, Jesus recalls for Nicodemus the story of Moses and the Israelites in the desert as recorded in the book of Numbers. The tiring and frustrated Jews continue their litany of complaints regarding their difficult desert existence. Their faith is waning.

In response to their infidelity and fickleness God subjects them to a plague of deadly serpents and once again Moses intercedes on their behalf. Moses is told by God to create a bronze serpent and raise it aloft upon a pole. All who looked up at this serpent of bronze were healed of the deadly effects of snakebites.

In our day the serpent on the pole has become the symbol of the medical profession, a symbol of healing. What was once

The Anchor

Lifting up

a sign of despair and death, cided to “make his word flesh” becomes, through the grace of in the person of his Son. St. God, now a sign of hope and Paul tells the Ephesians in our life. second reading that our God In today’s first reading is rich in mercy and because from Chronicles, we find that then, some 700 years later, their Homily of the Week complaints and lack of Fourth Sunday faith continue unabated in Lent as all the princes of Judah, priests, and the

By Deacon people added infidelity John Fitzpatrick to infidelity. Early and often did the God of their fathers send his messengers to them, for he had of his great love for us, even compassion on his people. But when we were dead in transthey mocked the messengers of gressions, brought us to life God, despised his warning and with Christ. He raised us up scoffed at his prophets. They with him. just did not get it.

Why? “Because God so And then after repeated loved the world that he gave attempts to send his word his only Son, so that everyone through the prophets, God dewho believes in him may have

March 20, 2009

eternal life.” The words of Jesus to Nicodemus are a gracefilled summary of the outreach of God’s love and care for us in the story of salvation. God bends down to pick us up to share in a life that St. Paul tells us will be so great that it will surpass everything ears have heard, eyes seen, and minds conceived.

To accomplish his mission, though, the menacing cross must first be lifted up — with Jesus nailed to it. But what appeared as despair and death was transformed by God as Jesus was again lifted up in resurrection. The oncemenacing symbol of despair and death becomes through God’s grace, unlimited mercy and unconditional love — our

symbol of healing, of hope, of eternal life.

During this holy season of Lent may we as followers of Christ come to recognize our God-given ability to lift up and similarly transform others, if only in some small yet meaningful way. We can think about those things we can do to help someone feel better, like through a smile, picking up the phone, an apology given, a love spoken, or a reach outward in a genuine attempt to see the Christ who lives in others.

And then, by virtue of the way we treat others, others will come to see the Christ who lives in us.

Deacon Fitzpatrick serves as a permanent deacon at Holy Family Parish in East Taunton.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Mar. 21, Hos 6:1-6; Ps 51:3-4,18-21b; Lk 18:9-14. Sun. Mar. 22, Fourth Sunday of Lent, 2 Chr 36:14-16,19-23; Ps 137:1-6; Eph 2:4-10; Jn 314-21. Mon. Mar. 23, Is 65:17-21; Ps 30:2,4-6,11-12a,13b; Jn 4:43-54. Tues. Mar. 24, Ez 47:1-9,12; Ps 46:2-3,5-6,8-9; Jn 5:1-16. Wed. Mar. 25, The Annunciation of the Lord, Is 7:10-14; 8:10; Ps 40:7-11; Heb 10:4-10; Lk 1:26-38. Thu. Mar. 26, Ex 32:7-14; Ps 106:19-23; Jn 5:31-47. Fri. Mar. 27, Wis 2:1a, 12-22; Ps 34:17-21,23; Jn 7:1-2,10,25-30.

O

n March 9, President Barack Obama gave my Pro-Life mother a nasty 95th birthday president: an executive order rescinding the restrictions that President Bush had placed on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. As policy, the executive order was even more an irresponsible blank check than many had feared it would be, according to Yuval Levin, who once worked on these questions at the President’s Council on Bioethics.

Nor did the executive order deign to even nod to the moral debate that has raged around this issue for years. The president tried to do that in a speech announcing the executive order. Yet the speech, containing four fibs and a waffle, was even worse.

Fib One: According to the president, his executive order will “lift the ban on federal fund-

Four fibs and a waffle

ing for promising embryonic of moral reason, President Bush stem-cell research.” But as Ryan pushed the science in a more Anderson quickly pointed out, fruitful direction, such that stem “There never was a ban on fedcells that have the same propereral funding for embryonic stem- ties as embryonic stem cells can cell research. President Bush was, now be obtained by morally in fact, the first president in hisacceptable means. Furthermore, tory to fund embryonic stem-cell what “moral values” inform an research. The Bush compromise executive order condemning the was to order funding restrictions smallest members of the human that prevented the further destruc- family to death? tion of human embryos in order to obtain their stem cells. Federal funding of research using existing stem-cell lines was permitted.”

Fib Two: President

By George Weigel Obama claimed that the Bush compromise was a “false choice between sound science and moral valFib Three: The president ues.” That is a false portrait of claimed that his executive order the choice Bush made, and of its was the first step in “letting scieffects; for by following the path entists ... do their job, free from manipulation or coercion....” This is a favorite Obama rhetorical device: set up straw men, then huff and puff eloquently until the straw man is no more. The truth of the matter, as Ryan Anderson

The Catholic Difference

pointed out, is that “critics of embryo-destructive research have never been hostile to science.

The dispute is not about whether stem-cell research should proceed; it is about how it should proceed.”

No one who opposes the Obama policy is against listening to scientists; but since when is science absolved from moral scrutiny? Obama seems to think of scientists as secular high priests whose work cannot be questioned or subjected to the legal boundaries erected around every human activity that touches on the integrity of life.

Perhaps the insightful German film, “After the Truth,” in which a fictional trial explores the “humanitarian” rationale for medical “experiments” under German National Socialism, should be screened in the White House theater; I’m sure the good folks at Ignatius Press will donate a DVD. Fib Four: The president

promised that the research allowed by his executive order would be “scientifically worthy and responsibly conducted.”

But his policy flies in the face of the current trends in stem-cell science, where the most exciting possibilities involve “induced pluripotent stem-cell” technology.

IPSC technologies not only avoid embryo-destruction; they hold out the possibility of creating regenerative therapies that are patient-specific through the reprogramming of a patient’s own adult cells.

The Waffle: The president vowed to oppose cloning for human reproduction; he did not say he would oppose so-called “therapeutic cloning,” in which clones are created and then destroyed for research purposes. But there’s no need for waffling if you really know the science: at the present state of research, IPSC technology looks likely to do whatever “therapeutic cloning” would do — and do it better.

His claims to the contrary, neither the president’s executive order nor his speech exhibited any serious wrestling with the arguments of those who believe embryo-destruction is immoral.

The issues were misrepresented and the opponents’ views caricatured; the relevant science was ignored. This is change no morally reflective person can believe in — a presidentially mandated advance for the culture of death.

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

Kids these days

juniors and seniors.) The Retreat Sunday 15 March 2009 — Director of ECHO No. 263 was Craigville, Cape Cod — “The Ellen Driscoll of Falmouth. It Wonder Years” TV series prewas a girls’ weekend. miere anniversary (1988) recently sailed into Nantucket Sound, dropped anchor, disembarked, trudged Reflections of a the beach, and climbed Parish Priest the bluff. (Actually, I just drove to Craigville

By Father Tim Conference Center in my Goldrick truck, but that doesn’t sound nearly as poetic.)

Next year will be the 40th At any rate, I washed ashore for anniversary of these ECHO yet another ECHO Youth Reweekend retreats on the Cape. I treat (high school sophomores,

I

9

The Anchor

March 20, 2009

The Ship’s Log

first served on ECHO No. 43 in 1973, together with then-Father George Coleman and Father Tom Lopes. Father Coleman had already served on one previous ECHO team, but the grand master was Tom Lopes, with six ECHO weekends under his belt. Back then, I was the rookie. Since then, I have been on 26 ECHO weekends.

Time flies. Things change. Father Coleman is now my bishop. Father Tom Lopes (who was on Cape Cod ECHO

Look good, feel great: Lenten makeover, part II

T

An apt comparison would his is part two in a three-part series on spir- be between spiritual hygiene and dental hygiene. If by reguitual renewal for Lent. In part larly brushing and flossing our one, I introduced a beautiful, teeth, we think we are doing visual image from St. Paul for everything we can to prevent the process of spiritual renewal tooth decay, then we are misfound in Ephesians 4:22-23; taken. We also need to visit the “You were taught, with regard dental hygienist periodically to your former way of life, to for plaque removal, fluoride, put off your old self, which is and x-rays, or we are just being corrupted by its deceitful asking for painful cavities and desires; to be made new in the maybe even a root canal. attitude of your minds; and to OK, I confess. This is not a put on the new self, created to hypothetical analogy for me. be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

This week we’ll look at step two of St. Paul’s process of spiritual renewal, beginning with the sacrament of reconciliation, which

By Heidi Bratton neatly follows all three of steps.

1. First, we walk I have had an emergency root into the confessional encrusted canal due to lack of regular with spiritual dirt, more comdental cleanings. It was exmonly called sin. cruciating; almost worse than 2. Secondly, we loosen the childbirth. And still, until I bespiritual dirt, throw it off, and gan going to reconciliation on are washed clean, or confess a regular basis, I would have our sins, make our act of conpreferred to open my mouth trition, and are absolved of our to my dentist for root canal sins by the priest. than to my parish priest for a 3. Thirdly, we walk out of confession. the confessional clad in a penUn-confessed sins, especialance, which helps us remain ly little ones, have a habit of reconciled to God. building up like plaque around Some common mistakes we our souls. They contribute to a make in this process, and may slow, nearly invisible decominadvertently and incorrectly position of our moral character teach to our children, have to causing decay at the core of do with thinking that “little” our relationships with Jesus sins are no big deal. Someand with those around us. A times we do this by renaming daily examination of our conas mistakes or weaknesses science is vital self-care for our that which we know to be sin. souls, similar to daily brushing Sometimes we skirt sin by and flossing. It is in the confesimagining, “I don’t need to go sional, however, as it is in the to confession for doing ‘that.’ dentist’s chair, that a trained I mean, I’m only human.” expert can help us clean up sin Each time we minimize our that we do not see and cannot sin, however, we minimize our reach on our own. Fortunately, need for God, our potential to I’ve learned my lesson on both know the depths of his mercy and forgiveness, and our ability accounts. Just like regular dento live healthier, more fulfilling tal cleanings, regularly going to confession isn’t as daunting lives.

Home Grown Faith

when we recognize it as an important part of the overall plan for our spiritual health, and simply schedule it into our lives.

Another mistake we make in this area is to think that once we are clean, we are done.

Jesus shows us the error in this thinking in Luke 11:24-26: “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order.

Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.”

If in the process of spiritual renewal, we stop after being cleansed, we are left naked or empty, depending on which analogy we use. In this state of being, Jesus tells us that we are left vulnerable to the return of the same “favorite,” old sin, and so we must move on to step three of St. Paul’s process of spiritual renewal; being made new.

Stay tuned for some ways to understand this final step in the next column, but more importantly, please, take advantage of extended “office” hours for the sacrament of reconciliation offered at every church in the diocese this weekend, March 20 and 21. Oh, and one more idea; after going to sacrament of reconciliation with the family, why not celebrate by enjoying a small treat together? Caution: if the treat is not sugar-free, don’t forget to brush your teeth afterward.

Heidi is an author, photographer, and full-time mother.

She and her husband raise their six children in Falmouth. homegrownfaith@gmail.com.

No. 1 with Fathers Martin Gomes, Terry Keenan, and Eddie Correia) is living in retirement. Change has also happened for the students. Kids these days are different from kids in 1973.

In 1973, the arriving candidates were urged to remove their wristwatches so that they would live in the present moment and not be distracted by the passing hours.

We still remove the wall clocks and stash them out of sight, but few of today’s kids wear wristwatches. This is a digital culture. Kids carry cell phones. Cell phones tell time, among other functions. Now we advise the candidates to turn off their cell phones and put them away during the presentations.

I did see a cell phone in use during one of the breaks. It was a minor infraction, if anything.

Turns out, the caller had decided to phone Africa to check on a friend. What was the friend doing in Africa? She had flown to Ghana the day before to spend two weeks working with children suffering from AIDS. Why, back in 1964, I considered it the adventure of a lifetime to take the bus to New Jersey. Did it take a long time to make the transatlantic phone connection?

Oh, yes. There was a 30-second delay. Calls are now made to Africa without so much as batting an eyelash.

If you really want to be current in digital technology, you don’t telephone, you text message. (This is done using both thumbs. If you are “all thumbs,” you now have the advantage.) I was in the chapel, preparing to celebrate Mass for the group.

We were waiting for one of the retreat talks, being held in a separate building, to conclude so that Mass could begin. In came a text message. “Your congregation will be arriving in three minutes. Light the candles.”

Why, in my day, you just kept an eye on the clock and, at the appropriate time, reminded the altar boy to go to the altar and light the candles.

On this ECHO weekend, there are other technologies

in use as well. Forget vinyl records. Even cassette tapes are passé. The songs used during the retreat are on compact disks or better still, an I-Pod. Why, in my day, you just mimeographed the lyrics on cheap paper. If you felt artsy, you used colored paper. There were four colors from which to choose; white, pink, blue and yellow. The lyrics are still distributed, but on paper with lovely multi-colored photographic backgrounds.

Back in the 70s, we thought we were the cat’s meow when we projected slides to go along with a song. We were groovy.

Now, kids produce computerprojected texts, still photos, and live-action videos woven seamlessly into a stunning visual meditation.

A surprising number of young people have little fear of standing in front of an audience and sharing their thoughts — and they make sense. They face their audience with aplomb.

When I was their age, I would more likely have melted into the floor like the Wicked Witch in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939). By the way, kids today spontaneously use words like “aplomb,” “plethora” and “positivity.”

They’re not only logical but also articulate. I suspect schools are doing a fine job with instruction in public speaking and language skills. I also think that the fact that so many of the students are involved in school drama clubs helps greatly.

I’m amazed at our young people — at least the 25 young women with whom I spent the weekend. They’re seeking and eager to learn about the faith.

They think logically. They’re poised. They’re skilled communicators. They’re inclined to spend spring break not on some beach in Florida or Cancun, but helping the poor in Ghana or Honduras or a bayou in Louisiana. They are an inspiration to old Church fogies like me.

Kids these days.

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

Team and candidates of ECHO No. 263. (Photo by Mary Fuller)

10

The Anchor

Move over little dogs ...

I

n George Thorogood’s “Move It On Over,” he warns, “Move over little dog, a mean old dog is movin’ in.”

That pretty much sums up what March Madness, which kickedoff yesterday, is all about.

The NCAA men’s college basketball championship tourney is all about the mean old dogs chomping their way through the field of 65, making it to the Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Final Four,

My View From the Stands

By Dave Jolivet the title game and ultimately becoming top dog.

The 65 lucky schools to make it to the “Big Dance,” were whittled down from nearly 375 schools across the country, from 32 conferences and 14 independent schools.

The conference champ of 31 of those conferences received an automatic bid, while the rest were chosen by the selection committee based on God-knows-what.

The first round is comprised of 64 games, many of which feature mean old dogs disposing of little dogs like Morehead State, Robert Morris U., Radford U., and Steven F. Austin U. Call the

vet, because there’s going to be some hurtin’ puppies.

Most of the mean old dogs will continue to advance. Once in a while one or two walk away, tail between its legs, licking its wounds.

Like last year, Denise, Emilie and I have completed our brackets for bragging rights in the Jolivet household. Not being a mean old dog, Igor doesn’t take part — there’s no place for a paranoid pooch in March Madness.

Last March, the girls held up pretty well until the third or fourth rounds. You see, they, for whatever reason, didn’t select the mean old dogs, and it cost them dearly as this old dog coasted to an easy win.

This year, I’ve noticed they seem to have figured out which dog is which (not that I helped them — it wouldn’t be fair).

We may have ourselves a real dog fight this year, although the irony is amongst the three of us, our predicted champion is a panther, an orange, and a Sooner.

Not a canine in the bunch.

Come April 6, one of us will be the hoops guru for a year. I have just one message for Denise and Emilie: “Move over cool dogs, a hot dog’s movin’ in.”

March 20, 2009

Inspiring and informing the next generation of Catholics

By Michael Pare Anchor Correspondent

simply put, is beautiful.

Three diocesan priests — Msgr.

SOUTH YARMOUTH — The way Tom O’Connor, and Fathers Roger Landry and Swaida sees it, God gave him a gift. He had Jay Mello — offer their thoughts and words no choice but to do something with it. of inspiration. Also, six laypeople from the “Every person has unique talents and in- diocese offer candid insights into the sacraterests,” said Swaida, a parishioner at St. ment and what it has meant to them.

Pius X Church. “The important thing is Their messages are as simple as they are what you do with your skills. Are you us- profound in explaining the impact that taking your talents in a negative or a positive ing part in the sacrament of reconciliation way? Are you using your talents the way has had on their lives: “It has strengthened God calls you to? When my parents raised my relationship with Jesus,” said one man. me they helped me to “I’ve never felt joy realize the importance and peace the way I of the Catholic faith feel now … a peace and using my talents and energy that I nevand interests for the er had,” said another. good of others. They “My whole life has deserve credit for been changed,” offered everything I have aca woman. “I’m happy complished.” all the time. I have no Swaida’s talents shame. No guilt.” and passion can be “He didn’t want found in multimedia us to go through this work, which led him alone,” said a young to form the Christian man. “He wanted us Film Brotherhood, a to be free from our non-profit organizasins.” tion that immediateIn the video, Father ly began addressing ANCHOR PERSON OF THE WEEK — Tom Landry offers the perwhat Swaida saw as Swaida. spective of a priest. a serious problem in “There is no greattoday’s culture. er joy than to be able “There are so many negative values and to be God’s instrument to reconcile one of images in multimedia that youth have to his sons or daughters to him through the contend with,” he said. “I believe youth sacrament of confession,” he said. want to be inspired and motivated with their Swaida credits Father Landry with comfaith. The mission of the Christian Film ing up with the questions for the participants Brotherhood is to inspire the next genera- and says that the interviews were quite easy. tion of disciples.”

After all, the subjects were speaking about Swaida sees in our youth the very future something for which they cared deeply. of the Catholic Church.

There was no coaching, no dress rehearsal “Anything I can do to inspire others to necessary. live more fully in the Catholic faith is an “For me, it was inspirational to hear all honor,” he said. of them,” said Swaida. “We just had to sit To that end, Swaida and his Christian them down. They were all extremely sinFilm Brotherhood are in the midst of pro- cere.” ducing a series entitled “Saint Everyone,” Swaida hopes that the reconciliation vidwhich is designed to inspire young adult eo and the DVD series “Saint Everyone” Catholics to “live more fully in their bap- mark the beginning of his effort to spread tismal call to holiness.” the word of God. Using the multimedia apWhile he was working on the series, proach, he said, is especially fitting. After Swaida was contacted by Msgr. Gerard all, it’s through the same kind of multimeO’Connor, who asked him if he would cre- dia channels that today’s youth are being ate a video for the Diocese of Fall River’s bombarded with negative messages rather Reconciliation Weekend, which is taking than positive ones. Through his efforts, he place tonight and tomorrow in the parishes wants to fight back a bit, in the name of of the diocese.

God. Swaida sees it as his responsibility to Swaida did not have to think twice. After do so. all, wasn’t this another way to use the gift “I think it is something we all need to do that God gave him to benefit others? as Catholics,” he said. “The central mission “I think more people should take advan- of the Church is evangelization.” tage of the benefits of the sacrament of recSwaida gets something out of it, too. He onciliation and receive absolution, so I was loves what he’s doing. happy to take on the project,” he said.

“The rewards are amazing,” he said.

The 10-minute video, which is called “Having been raised Catholic, I feel blessed “Be Reconciled to God,” can be found on to be taking a gift and to be using it to do the Web at www.BeReconciledtoGod and something good for God.” on YouTube. For those who view it, it is obTo nominate a Person of the Week, send vious that Swaida put not only his full tal- an email message to FatherRogerLandry@ ent, but his heart into the effort. The result, AnchorNews.org.

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The Anchor

March 20, 2009

Diocesan Pro-Life Mass is March 25 in North Dartmouth

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

NEW HOUSE OF WORSHIP — The new Our Lady of Lourdes Church, located on Route 6 in Wellfleet, will be dedicated by Bishop George W. Coleman during a special Mass Sunday at 3 p.m.

(Photo courtesy of Valerie J. Williams, Holmes & Edwards, Inc.)

Bishop to dedicate newly-completed Our Lady of Lourdes Church Sunday

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

WELLFLEET — Bishop George W. Coleman will join members of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in celebrating the opening of a new 500-seat church and parish hall complex with a dedication Mass Sunday at 3 p.m.

The new structure, located on a 10-acre site at 335 Main Street (Route 6), is the culmination of a major fund-raising campaign on the part of parishioners, who raised more than $2 million to construct the new church on property previously purchased by the diocese in 1987.

The additional costs for the new construction were covered by a loan from the Fall River Diocese.

While elated that the project

has at last come to fruition, Father John F. Andrews, pastor, admitted he will be happy when everything is “over and done with” and the new church is finally open.

“It’s taken 12 long years to get this accomplished,” Father Andrews said, noting the construction of a new church for the parish was his top priority upon being appointed pastor by thenBishop Sean O’Malley in 1997.

“But I’m happy the day has finally come,” he added.

While the new church was under construction, parishioners have been attending Mass and services at Visitation Church, the parish’s mission in North Eastham, which Father Andrews said will be permanently closed after the 11 a.m. Mass on Sunday.

Future use of that building has

yet to be determined, but it will likely be put up for sale in the same manner that the former Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Wellfleet Center was sold to the town in 2001.

Founded in 1911, Our Lady of Lourdes Parish initially included the towns of Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, Chatham and Brewster. The new church will serve approximately 400 registered families in a parish that now encompasses all of Wellfleet, half of Truro and half of Eastham, with boundaries equidistant from parishes in Orleans and Provincetown.

Once the new church is dedicated, Father Andrews said he’s looking forward to celebrating the parish’s 100th anniversary in 2011.

NORTH DARTMOUTH — St. Julie Billiart Church will be the site of the annual diocesan Pro-Life Mass on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, at 11 a.m.

Bishop George W. Coleman will be the principal celebrant at the Mass which will also recognize two adults and one youth for their unswerving dedication to the Pro-Life movement.

With a new respect life setback seemingly emerging from our nation’s capital each week, a reenergizing of Pro-Life advocates is needed now more than ever.

Just within the past few months, the country has witnessed a rescinding of the Mexico City Policy which ensured no U.S. funds were used for performing or promoting abortions in other countries; a reversal of a ban on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research; and the very real threat of the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act, which would nullify any state bans on abortion across the country.

Receiving the John Cardinal O’Connor Pro-Life Award for youth will be Samantha Varnerin, a senior at Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro, and a member of St. Mary’s Parish in Mansfield.

The diocesan Pro-Life committee solicits nominees from principals of diocesan parochial schools, campus ministers and pastors. The committee reviews the nominees and ultimately selects a worthy recipient.

Some of Varnerin’s Pro-Life attributes include her attendance at the March For Life this past January in Washington, D.C., and her assisting Bishop Coleman in the planning details of the pilgrimage; her acceptance of the presidency of Feehan’s Pro-Life Group; gathering 100 of her classmates to attend a ProLife teaching session at Feehan;

and her involvement this Lent in obtaining signatures for the National Petition to Stop the Federal No-Limit on Abortion Bill, by which she is making her classmates aware of the details of the upcoming FOCA vote.

“We are pleased to nominate Samantha for the award,” said Marian Desrosiers, diocesan director of the Pro-Life Apostolate. “She truly represents young people today who are willing to stand up and speak the truth to a culture that desperately needs their message. Samantha knows the values needed to stand up for justice for all.”

“We are not meant to know what justice is and leave it at that,” said Varnerin. “We are meant to spread the truth of what abortion, capital punishment and embryonic stem-cell research really means for victims and all those involved. It is our duty as Catholics to strengthen the movement.”

Two men from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Seekonk will receive the adult Cardinal O’Connor award; Steve Marcotte and Ron Larose. The men are co-directors of the Diocese of Fall River’s involvement in the 40 Days For Life campaign that links peaceful presence outside an abortion clinic with prayer and fasting.

The adult recipients are chosen by the Pro-Life committee advisory board.

“We want to recognize them for the outstanding campaign they have brought to our diocese,” said Desrosiers. “We are recognizing them on behalf of all those who generously give of their time and commit to be present at the last abortion clinic in our diocese.”

All are invited to attend the Mass and Desrosiers hopes to see a large student showing. “This is a great opportunity for students to gather with their bishop and peers in prayer,” she said.

12

The Anchor

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, March 22 at 11:00 a.m.

Scheduled celebrant is Richard E. Degagne, pastor of St. John Neumann Parish in East Freetown

Diocesan women prepare for conference continued from page one

Women Are From Eden: A Study Guide to John Paul II’s ‘Theology of the Body’”; and Kerri Caviezel, wife of actor Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”

Jim, who is slated to speak during the men’s conference on April 18, will also join his wife during the Sunday session.

The annual gathering, which began a year after the Boston Catholic Men’s Conference in 2006, was organized by a number of Bostonarea Catholic women who were active in women’s or family ministries and saw an opportunity to build on the success of the men’s conference. That first convocation drew an estimated 3,300 Catholic women and interest has steadily increased since.

“Last year we went up with a bunch of women from Holy Name Parish and we also had some women on the bus from Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Seekonk, and St. Julie Billiart in Dartmouth, as well as other scattered parishes throughout the Fall River area,” said Barbara Wenc, a parishioner at Holy Name Parish in Fall River. “We had a full bus last year and hope to have a full bus again this year.”

Like the men’s conference, the second-day women’s event will feature the aforementioned speakers along with an opportunity for those present to socialize with other participants, receive the sacrament of penance, participate in the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and celebrate a closing Mass with Cardinal Sean O’Malley. There will be special presentations on the Divine Mercy, since April 19 is Divine Mercy Sunday.

Wenc, who has attended all of the previous conferences, expressed excitement over this year’s program being a full-day event.

Both the first and third year of the women’s conference were only held in the evening, she explained, and this year they are returning to a full-day format like what was done in 2007. Last year the conference was held on Friday evening so as not to interfere with the papal Mass at Yankee Stadium.

“It’s something we’re all looking forward to,” Wenc said. “In 2007 we had Immaculee Ilibagiza,

who offered a powerful witness about her ordeal in Rwanda and how she survived it through prayer.

Talks like that give you inspiration to know that your prayers are being heard and they’re always answered — maybe not in the way that we want them to be — but they’re always answered.”

“Immaculee was amazing,” agreed Maureen Brawley, a parishioner at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Seekonk. “That was a presentation that really stood out to me. I think all the speakers bring a great message and each speaker can touch a person in a different way. I think each speaker will touch each person if they’re open to the message and reconnecting with others is what’s really important in life.”

Brawley is very enthusiastic about the fact that the women’s conference will encompass a fullday agenda again this year.

“Last year was just Friday evening, so I’m glad it’s a whole day,” she said. “It’s really hard to cram it all into one night. The whole thing is about taking the time to connect with other Catholic women from all over the diocese, so going back to a full day really makes sense.”

Brawley said the conference theme of “Trust in the Lord With All Your Heart” is particularly appropriate this year given the difficult economic situation many families are now in.

“To me, it means give all your worries to God, because he will take care of what’s important and right now that’s what everyone needs to keep in mind,” Brawley said. “Not that finances aren’t important, but in the end you can’t take it with you and we’re not on this earth to please anyone other than God.” Brawley and Wenc expressed their joy at being able to attend this annual get-together each year and they strongly urged other Catholic women in the diocese to join them.

“When you see that many people gathered together in their life of faith, it’s an inspiration for you to go forward with your own,” Wenc said. “It’s definitely a worthwhile day and I would encourage everyone to attend.”

For more information about the conference, visit www.catholicboston.com.

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March 20, 2009

Dressed for success

e dress for what we for mere sexual pleasure and want. When it comes woman often wants man for emoto men, what are women really tional satisfaction. But that’s way looking for? Are their choices of below the dignity of both. clothes helping them or hindering Jesus came into the world them from achieving their goal? to redeem us totally, and that From a merely psychological involves redeeming the wounded and neurological point of view, nature of love. One of the fruits the woman usually seeks a longof that redemption occurred when term relationship. So says Dr. he raised the natural institution of Louann Brizendine, a neuropsymarriage to the level of a sacrachiatrist speaking from an amoral ment. This sacrament is a symbol of his eternal, boundless love for point of view in her book, “The Female Brain.” Female chemistry, the Church and a means by which a man and a woman can receive she states, helps to explain both that love and share it. Through that and why a woman is natutheir marriage blessed by the rally inclined to settling down Church a couple can receive the with a man.

Oxytocin, the “relationship graces they need to maintain their hormone,” is released by the covenant of love throughout the brain from the second week of wear and tear of an entire lifetime pregnancy and reduces the woman’s stress by deactivating the stressrelated hormone cortisol, Brizendine describes.

It’s present in a nursing mother, bringing her to be attached effectively

By Joan Kingsland to her child. It’s released during sexual activity, moving her to bond emotionally with her partner. and win the battle of love versus All of this means that a lust in the human heart. Sacrawoman’s heart is affected very mental marriage helps the man differently than a man’s through and woman, in short, to reach sexual intimacy. Psychiatrist Dr. true love.

Miriam Grossman concludes in Clearly, a woman’s desire for her book “Unprotected”: “You a lasting relationship of love that might say that we are designed culminates in marriage relates to to bond.” This is why so many the way she dresses. For starters, women’s hearts are broken when she needs to transmit what she a guy dumps them the morning really wants through the way she after. In satisfying his desire for presents herself to others. She gratification, he sometimes loses should send a powerful message interest in her altogether, while that she’s not willing to settle for oxytocin simultaneously makes some cheap, fleeting relationship, her feel even more strongly atthat she’s not willing to be treated tached to him than before. Victor as a mere object of physical pleaHugo put it eloquently in “Les sure, that she’s aiming high.

Miserables”: “How often women A recent survey, described give men their hearts but we take in the popular book “For Young only their bodies.”

Women Only” by Shaunti FeldFrom a spiritual viewpoint, we han and Lisa Rice, showed that know that God wanted men and 66 percent of men believe that women to find fulfillment in love. a sexually active relationship It was original sin that wounded doesn’t mean that they intend the complementary relationship to marry the woman or make a between man and woman. The significant life commitment with result is a weak tendency on both her. sides to treat the other only as an A friend of mine told her object. Man often wants woman future spouse early in their court-

ship that she wanted to give the gift of her virginity to her husband on their wedding night. He answered simply: “I know.” He had gathered that just by observing her, which attracted him to her in the first place.

When a woman wears seductive clothing she’s projecting a different message. Here women aren’t always aware of just how sensitive men are, visually speaking.

“Even decent guys in great dating relationships struggle with a desire to visually linger on and fantasize about the female body — and much of that struggle depends on what a girl is wearing,” we read in “For Young Women Only.” So if a woman wears provocative clothing, she’s enticing men — whether she intends to or not — to a “short-circuit response.”

Furthermore, if he gives into the temptation and lusts after her, he’s all the more likely to pressure her to comply. If she does, then the hormone oxytocin mentioned above may cause her to bond effectively with someone lacking love and commitment. How many broken marriages are rooted in a relationship that was based upon mere physical attraction? It’s so hard to lay down the solid foundations for a happy marriage when the passions take over. But sexual pleasure does not suffice to hold a marriage together.

Choosing to wear modest clothes involves a whole lifestyle. It means making a big investment. We forego passing pleasures now, which are thinly disguised as love, so that we can build a real and lasting love relationship that can stand the test of time. When our clothes match that intention we’re saying true love is worth it. A man who’s a good catch will respond “you’re worth it” by his actions.

Joan Kingsland, a consecrated woman of Regnum Christi, teaches theology at Mater Ecclesiae College in Greenville, R.I. This is the third installment in a six-part series.

tegral to the Tridentine Mass, and so this will be a special opportunity to reacquaint parishioners with the grace and beauty of the High Mass as it has been sung throughout the ages,” Father added.

For Easter Sunday, the said Latin Mass will be assisted musically by the Schola Cantorum of Falmouth.

The diocesan-approved Latin Mass was permanently moved to St. Francis in early February. It is celebrated at 1 p.m. every Sunday,

and has become a standard part of the weekend Mass schedule at St. Francis. That schedule includes Mass in the vernacular on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings. It also includes Masses in Spanish at 3 p.m. on Sundays and at 7 p.m. in Portuguese for the Brazilian community.

For further information on parish schedules and programs, contact the parish office at 508775-0818 or on the Web at www. stfrancishyannis.org.

Faithfully Feminine Fashion

Traditional High Mass to be celebrated at St. Francis Church

HYANNIS — On Laetare Sunday, March 22, the traditional Latin (Tridentine) Mass will be sung as a High Mass for the first time in more than three decades at St. Francis Xavier Church on South Street.

“Since Laetare Sunday is set aside as a sign of joy during the penitential season of Lent, it seemed to be an appropriate time to reintroduce the sung Mass into our calendar,” said Father Andrew Johnson, parochial vicar.

“Sacred music and chant are in-

Modern-day ‘voice in the wilderness’ speaks for the truth continued from page one

Father Roger J. Landry.

In his monthly column, Father Pacholczyk explains Church teachings on bioethical topics in a style and language the common Catholic reader can fully understand.

“I receive a lot of emails expressing gratitude that I tackle complex issues and make them simple,” he told The Anchor in an recent interview, “without trivializing the truth or bending it in any way.”

Father Pacholczyk doesn’t simply provide lip-service.

He knows his topics and he knows them very well. Born in Boston in 1965, and raised in Arizona, his father Andrzej was an astrophysics professor at the University of Arizona.

Following in his dad’s footsteps, young Tadeusz earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale University and did post-doctoral research at Mass. General Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

He was ordained a priest by then Bishop Sean O’Malley at St. Mary’s Cathedral in 1999 and later continued studies in Rome in theology and bioethics.

After serving as a parochial vicar at Holy Trinity Parish in West Harwich and St. Patrick’s in Falmouth, Father Pacholczyk was granted permission

by Bishop Coleman to accept the director’s position at the NCBC in July 2004.

Since Father Pacholczyk’s column first ran in The Anchor, nearly 45 diocesan newspapers and one secular newspaper in the U.S. now run the monthly feature. Additionally, two Catholic papers in Canada and one in Australia run the column. It is also posted on two English Websites and in various blogs.

MSOOB is also translated into Spanish and appears in six Spanish newspapers and on two Spanish Websites; and is translated into Polish where it appears in one Polish newspaper.

Father Pacholczyk shared a couple of emails he’s received with The Anchor. One read in part: “A regular reader of the Brooklyn Tablet for most of my life, I’ve never before felt the slightest urge to write in response to anything I read in it.

But your article is challenging, provocative and intellectually rigorous, and I just had to say thank you.”

Another reader said, “I do a lot of research on the Ameri-

13

The Anchor

March 20, 2009

can Civil War and as I read the development of slavery from Jamestown to the creation of the United States Colored Troops, it becomes apparent how bad laws deform the consciences and intellects of a whole nation. Our laws favoring contraception and abortion will give us trouble for several hundred years, just as slavery did.”

Father Pacholczyk said he writes about provocative topics “including birth control, the real meaning of sex, Viagra, breast implants and abortion,” and some readers get upset. The Church’s teachings “hit them between the eyes in terms of something they may be doing that is not in conformity with the teachings of Christ.”

He added that many readers “contact me and ask what they should do, maybe because they had their tubes tied or underwent in-vitro fertilization. Perhaps they will share a story about someone very close to them who had an abortion who they wish to help find peace.

“People are hungering for healing and hope, and I believe they catch a taste of it any time they commit themselves fully to the truth, the same truth I try my best to share and convey through the column.”

Despite his prolific educational background, Father Pacholczyk said, “Writing the column is extremely difficult for me,” admitting he is “not a good writer.” He said he struggles over every sentence, phrase and paragraph, rewriting and revising often. “I have at least three editors read

it over and offer suggestions.”

He added, “It is painful, and I feel like I am giving birth each month when I struggle with a new column and a new topic.”

Yet when the finished product appears in print, he sees that it is “a real privilege that I am able to write this monthly column, and to be able to share, in some small measure, the wisdom of the Church, revealed in Christ, that sets people free.”

Spiritually, Father Pacholczyk is set free, but free time is not part of the package. In addition to writing the monthly column and serving as director of the NCBC, he is in charge of a new certification program of health care workers and ethics board members across the country.

“The National Catholic Certification Program in Health Care Ethics provides a yearlong program that deals with the major bioethical issues that arise in modern medical and research environments,” he told The Anchor in a January 16 feature on the program.

The course is taken online and Father Pacholczyk does meet with the candidates faceto-face at sometime during the course. Several people from the Fall River Diocese have completed the course and several more are in mid-course.

As head of Education at NCBC, he also organizes and often speaks at an annual bioethics seminar for bishops from North, Central and South America.

And if that were not enough, Father Pacholczyk spends a great deal of time on the road traveling the U.S. lecturing on

bioethics to parish organizations, medical groups and even at hearings for various state governments.

You’ll find him dressed in a black suit with a Roman collar instead of camel’s hair, and his simple diet is slightly a notch above wild honey and locusts,

but his message of evangelization is as critical as was John the Baptist’s all those years ago.

He is a voice crying in the 21st-century wilderness, and he’s trying to lead everyone to the same savior Jesus’ cousin did on the banks of the Jordan River.

“LOURDES, FRANCE; GARABANDAL, SPAIN; & FATIMA, PORTUGAL PILGRIMAGE Spiritual Director: Fr. Joseph P. McDermott, Pastor Immaculate Conception Church 122 Canton Street, Stoughton, MA 02072

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Includes Airfare, Ground Transportation & Lodging with Breakfast & Dinner each day.

INCLUSIVE FEATURES: PORTUGAL:

Fatima: - Tour Fatima - Mass @ Chapel of Apparitions - Visit Basilica of Our Lady - Visit home of Francisco & Jacinta - Stations of Cross along the Via Sacra Lisbon: - Tour the beautiful town of Lisbon, Portugal’s capital - Mass @ the Church of the Holy Eucharist - Visit St. Anthony’s Church - Visit Jeronimo’s Monastery (Belem)

SPAIN:

Salamanca: - Tour & overnight in the cultural town of Salamanca - Mass @ the new Cathedral Garabandal: - Tour, Mass, & overnight in the amazing town of Garabandal - Apparitions of Blessed Virgin occurred here San Sebastian: - Visit & have lunch in the sophisticated seaside resort of San Sebastian

FRANCE:

Lourdes: - Tour & Mass in the spiritual town of Lourdes - Visit St. Bernadette’s Farmhouse - Bathe in Miraculous Waters @ Lourdes - Torch Light Procession Nimes: - Tour the Roman town of Nimes Lyon: - Tour & overnight in the City of Lyon - Visit Arena Nevers: - Mass @ St. Bernadette’s Church - View incorrupt body of St. Bernadette Paris: - Mass @ St. Catherine Laboure Church (Miraculous Medal Chapel) - View incorrupt body of St. Catherine - Visit St. Vincent de Paul Church - Mass @ Notre Dame Cathedral - Visit the Louvre Museum Lisieux: - Mass @ St. Theresa Lisieux Church - Normandy Beach - Dinner @ the Eiffel Tower

For further information you may contact Margaret Oliverio @ 781-762-2029 or 781-344-2073

14

The Anchor

Our readers respond

Major questions I can’t believe the letter written by Kathy King in the February 13 Readers Respond section. She begins by stating how proud she was that Barack Obama was elected president and then she says she doesn’t agree with his decision on abortion. I know there are many Catholics like Ms. King who heard priests pleading not to vote for candidates who are for abortion and are handing out cards to send to the politicians pleading to stop abortion, and it falls on deaf ears. I know there are thousands of Catholics marching in Washington D.C. to stop abortion, but it does no good. These politicians get elected by millions of our fellow Catholics voting for them. I wonder when they go to confession — if they go to confession — whether they inform the priests that they don’t agree with and act on the teaching of the Church?

Albert Laurino, Plymouth

Thanks for a new look at the old Mass Thank you for the February 13 article on the translation of the “extraordinary form” of the Latin Mass (1962 missal) from Chatham to Hyannis. I am glad that that form of Mass will now be celebrated in a more-central location so that more people can experience what was lost, and gained, in the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Permit me to make the friendly observation that some quotations in the article suggest too sharp a distinction between the extraordinary form

and the “ordinary” (present) form, but it should be noted that the ordinary form may be celebrated in Latin, with the priest and people together facing the same direction, towards the liturgical “east” (as is typically done in the extraordinary form). It is important to keep these points in mind when comparing the older and newer forms of the Mass, in order to avoid comparing apples to oranges. Moreover, whether the present liturgy represents what the majority of the Council Fathers had in mind when they ordered a reform of the Roman rite is a question open to debate, as attested to by no less an authority than Pope Benedict XVI. Father Thomas Kocik Santo Christo Parish, Fall River Not everyone has the right to choose Your January 16 article entitled “Catholics muster to fight Freedom of Choice Act” is a shade of the Spanish Inquisition. Stop and think. If you restrict one group’s freedom, eventually your own freedom may be endangered by laws.

The Freedom of Choice Act protects you as well. You can choose not to have an abortion, unlike the policies of China, in which women who already have one child are forced to have abortions.

Leave well enough alone. Live the way you want to live and be thankful that you have the rights and privilege to do so. If you are that unhappy with freedom in this country, like the radical Muslims who want to kill us, you have the freedom to move to

any Catholic country in Europe.

Marilyn Kagan, Providence, R.I. Executive Editor responds: The point is that a baby, just like we were at his or her age, has no freedom not to be aborted.

Just like it’s wrong for Al-Qaeda to choose to kill innocent people, so it’s wrong for others to kill innocent human beings, which happens every time a child is aborted, whether in China or in Providence.

Once we say that it’s OK to kill innocent human beings, there’s no solid defense against those who want to kill innocent letter writers.

Telling House Speaker Pelosi how to vote Who has the right to cast House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s votes? Your article of February 27 suggests that, if the matter relates to “the dignity of human life from conception to natural death,” the Church does.

“The dignity of human life from conception to natural death” is a broad subject, though. It includes abortion, stem-cell research, and in-vitro fertilization. What about contraception, gay marriage and gay adoption, and end-of-life medical decisions?

And why stop directing our governmental officials with just the issue of the dignity of human life? If the Church’s teachings on that broad topic are important enough to be required legislative goals for our Catholic legislators, then surely the Church’s teachings on the Eucharist are, too.

There is truth and beauty for me in the teachings of our Catholic Church, and I thank God that I am free in this country to worship as I choose. But if I am free to choose to be Catholic, others — many of whom disagree with me — are free, too, and Speaker Pelosi must serve us all. If Catholic legislators won’t do that, then Catholics won’t be elected as legislators.

I would prefer that the Church not tell the Speaker of the House how she must vote. What I would ask her to do is to draw strength and wisdom from her faith and then make the best decision she can for the good of the democracy she has sworn to serve.

Attorney David Ament, Falmouth Executive Editor responds: One would think that it should be unnecessary to have to remind public officials who claim to be faithful Catholics that they should not vote in favor of bills that promote and fund the intentional slaughter of innocent fellow human beings in the womb, but because Speaker Pelosi obviously thinks that she can be a good Catholic and do so, it was necessary for the pope to remind her that she is mistaken. In doing so, the pope was not trying to cast her vote but remind her of her duties as a human being and as a Catholic on which she will be judged. To say that innocents shouldn’t be allowed to be destroyed is a principle of the natural law, not merely a binding moral teaching of the Church Jesus founded, and hence is totally different than her using her office to mandate Sunday Mass attendance.

Praying for leaders’ change of heart Thank you for Dave Jolivet’s January 30 column on Pro-Life. It is sad that President Barack Obama is not Pro-Life.

I am so very grateful that the mothers of many adopted daughters and my multi-

March 20, 2009 handicapped granddaughter were Pro-Life.

May our prayers and all who are Pro-Life change the hearts of our leaders. Keep up the good work.

Eileen Hodge, Seekonk Accusers aren’t always the victims Father Landry’s February 20 column regarding the movie “Doubt” was interesting and revealing. He seems to believe or suggest that many of the priests who have had “credible” allegations of sexual abuse against them are innocent. He said that the great virtue of the film is that it “conveys that contested accusations against priests “often hinge on circumstantial evidence,” which is “like a Rorschach test for the one interpreting the data.” This is a slap in the face of the victims of these crimes saying that many of the victims, therefore, are not telling the truth. He also said that the movie shows that it’s hard to discover the truth.

By the bishops’ own figures, provided to the John Jay Law School report requested by the bishops themselves, approximately 12,000 victims were raped or molested by nearly 5,000 priests (these numbers are only from America). And he wants us to believe that many of those accused priests are innocent? The lesson of the movie should be: The next time a priest is accused, let’s remember the victim.

A majority of priests are good men with wonderful years of service to God and the laity. However, the fact remains that nearly 5,000 priests did sexually abuse unsuspecting children and the young and impressionable.

Edward J. Scahill Jr., Mashpee Executive Editor responds — As the title implied, the article was written about the issues raised by a movie, not about every allegation of child abuse ever made.

In many of the cases the reader describes, priests confessed to their crimes and sins.

In some cases, their guilt was proven. In others, the allegations against them were disproved or the accusations were recanted.

Many cases are still under investigation.

The reader seems not to fathom the possibility of a false accusation. I would agree that the next time a priest is accused, we should remember the victim — and determine who the victim is, which in the case of a false accusation, would be the priest.

Executive order facilitates black genocide Isn’t it tragically ironic that this country’s first black president should be our first commander-in-chief to condone, encourage, and facilitate black genocide? For, on January 23, only three days after taking office, Barack Obama signed an executive order that enables the killing of unborn black babies by abortion in Third World countries.

More tragic is President Obama’s bailing out of foreign abortion businesses during our country’s current economic crisis.

Even pro-abortion taxpayers should object to this. For this fiscally and morally irresponsible action of our new president robs millions of Americans of their money and robs the most helpless members of our human family of their most precious rights, their inalienable right to continue to live their lives inside and outside of their mothers’ wombs.

Richard A. Carey, Needham

March 20, 2009

The Anchor

FALL RIVER DEANERY-LENTEN MISSION March 23-26, 2009 Guest Preacher Rev. John Kelleher, OSB Our Lady of Victory Parish, Centerville, MA

Mission Theme THE PATH OF CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP Afternoon Mission Homily and Mass St. Mary’s Cathedral, 12:05 PM Mass, Monday-Thursday 327 Second Street, Fall River, MA Evening Mission Homily and Mass Monday, March 23, 2009 Mass at 7 PM St. Joseph Church, 1335 North Main Street Tuesday, March 24, 2009 Mass at 7 PM ­Holy Trinity Church, 951 Stafford Road Wednesday, March 25, 2009 Mass at 7 PM St. Michael Church, 189 Essex Street Thursday, March 26 Maronite Rite Mass at 7 PM St. Anthony of the Desert Church, 300 North Eastern Avenue

Confessions heard 30 minutes before each Mass.

Following each evening Mass, refreshments will be available in the parish hall each night after Mass.

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16

Youth Pages

OUTER CAPE CONTINGENT — Several youths from St. Peter the Apostle Parish, Provincetown, attended the recent New England Catholic Youth Conference in New Hampshire.

HAPPY HARRIERS — The Bishop Feehan High School Cross Country team celebrated its State Championship season during a banquet at the Pawtucket Country Club. More than 100 people attended and listened to guest speaker, Mike Atwood, a 1989 grad and member of the first Bishop Feehan Boys’ Cross Country State Championship team, talk about how unique it is to be on a cross country team and the special friendships formed. He is currently a cross country coach and teacher at Foxboro High School. Other presenters were Athletic Director Paul O’Boy, Coach Bob L’Homme, Principal Bill Runey, and President Chris Servant. “Not too many people can claim they have been on a championship team,” said L’Homme. All members of the team received jackets, plaques featuring the team picture and record, and key tags. Letter winners also received a watch. Shown is the team with coaches Bob L’Homme, Paul Powell and Christy Miller.

GOOD LISTENERS — Six students, Sister Marianna Sylvester, director of Youth Ministry; and chaperone Gina Baptista from Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in New Bedford, had their picture taken with Vallimar Jansen, one of the main speakers at the recent New England Catholic Youth Conference in New Hampshire.

March 20, 2009

HITTING THE HARDWOOD — The sixth-grade girls’ basketball team at St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro will compete in the CYO New England Tournament to be held in Waterbury Conn., next weekend. From left: Meaghan Luongo, Emily Cataloni, Kimberly Runey, Felicia Lapore, Emma Champagne, missing is Madison Tager. Coaches are Bill Runey, and Mary Louise and Robbie Champagne.

A NEW PARISH FIRST — St. Andrew the Apostle Parish recently installed its first class of altar servers since St. Paul’s and St. Joseph’s parishes joined together. The girls were installed at a Mass on March 8. From left: Grace Teixeira; Deacon Alan Thadeau; Erin Murphy; Monica Domal; Father Timothy P. Reis, pastor; and Caitlyn Dorsey.

FOOD GATHERERS — Students from various grades at Holy Name School in Fall River, stand in front of one of the nine carts of food items recently collected and given to local soup kitchens and a food pantry.

March 20, 2009

T

wo weeks ago, I had the privilege to be part of the New England Catholic Youth Conference (NECYC) held every two years in New Hampshire. The conference, attended by more than 500 participants, was a weekend filled with opportunities for prayer, workshops, keynotes, community building and fellowship. As the participants gathered in the ballroom of the Radisson Hotel for talks, workshops and Mass, the other diocesan directors, youth ministers and I who were in attendance realized how hungry our Catholic young people are for a closer relationship with God. Those of us in ministry (and some who are not) may be familiar with the continuing research that our “numbers” for Mass attendance are down and our young people are not involved in the Church. Yet at the same time, our young people hunger for a deeper relationship with our risen Lord.

So how are we, the adult Church, feeding them?

Overall, our current models of

Youth Pages Hope on the living God

faith formation have difficulty keep- be that for our young people? ing young people connected to the Since I began working in the Church after they receive the sacraOffice of Faith Formation, I have ment of confirmation. Numerous seen and heard countless adults say social and familial factors play a role that they, too, want more. They want as to why this is so. But as the body to develop and nurture not only a of Christ, we must continuously find deeper relationship with Christ, but new ways to connect our youth and young adults to God, to the faith and to the Church. Is there an easy answer or a specific quickfix “canned program” each parish can purchase and implement to help? The anBy Crystal Medeiros swer is no. Hope, however, is not lost.

If we want to have an adult Church that is converted, they want to know more about the catechized and connected, then the theology of the Catholic Church. current adult Church must come This is only the beginning. This is together as one body with many our hope. parts, ideas and talents to convert, If more adults come together catechize and connect our young seeking to be formed in the faith, people. Through our baptism, we are then they can in turn serve the young all called to live out Christ’s threeChurch. If it takes a village to raise fold mission of priest, prophet and a child, then it takes the Church to king. How can the adult Church be raise a faithful and faith-filled young that for our young people? Can we Catholic. This is the mission of our

Be Not Afraid

Diocesan priests ready to greet penitents continued from page one “It was incredibly well organized by them,” the pastor said. “I went to the church to spend time between 2 and 4 a.m., and I was amazed to find between 15 and 20 people in prayer.

At first it didn’t look large because our church seats 1,200. But when I realized how great was the turnout with not only our parishioners but those from other parishes too, I was nicely stunned.”

So when the Reconciliation Weekend, which Father Hamel said, “Is a wonderful idea,” was initiated, “it seemed a perfect time to link that with adoration,” he added.

To assist those keeping the hours in church, refreshments are available in a side sacristy.

He said he recalled how as a young man at the former St. Jacques Parish in Taunton, many would come to spend time before the Blessed Sacrament at the then popular 40-hour devotions; and that periods of scheduled prayer in adoration is currently gaining more attention on a wide scale basis, especially among young people.

“If the Reconciliation Weekend becomes a yearly event I would plan to have the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in conjunction with it at our parish,” Father Hamel stated.

In Taunton, Father Henry S. Arruda, pastor of St. Anthony’s Parish, says he has been spreading the message for the special weekend via the parish bulletin and in his preaching, “in hopes of having more people come to the sacrament of reconciliation which is most timely during this wonderful penitential season of Lent.”

He made it clear that like any pastor “having more people come to the sacrament of penance is always very pleasing for me, because it means more people are making an effort to become closer to God.” He’s also hopeful that those who are parishioners or not, but who have been away from the sacraments will take advantage of coming to confess their sins and failings and return to the full practice of their faith.

“For those who have been away from the sacraments and attending Mass for a while it will mean guidance on the part of the priest, and we are always ready to assist. For those who might have a hesitancy or trouble, I simply tell them, ‘just talk to me.’”

Having done that is when “they become happy … that’s the joy of being reconciled with Christ,” Father Arruda added.

“The idea that confessing means emptying

the bag of one’s sins, comes from yesteryear.

But the concept today is more one of reconciling, entering into a new friendship, a relationship with Jesus and our neighbor, and that is what the sacrament should be more about. This is what we strive for in hearing confessions and is what the penitent should also be working towards.”

Father Arruda said the weekend “is a good effort towards bringing back those who might have been away from church for a time. My prayers are that people across our diocese will take advantage of this great opportunity. I’ll be there in the confessional for the designated hours … as well as any time someone wants to confess.”

In New Bedford, Father John J. Oliveira, pastor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish, said the reconciliation weekend effort is vitally important, “but I have no clue as to what it will produce.”

He noted that in his parish as well as the other two other Portuguese parishes in the Whaling City “there are some people who, following an old ethnic tradition, come to confession during Lent to meet their obligation as Catholics. And this might skew the numbers we would be reporting as suggested following the weekend.”

He also pointed to three upcoming Lenten missions and penance services — hosted by New Bedford parishes as well as the New Bedford Deanery — in which confessions and the sacrament of reconciliation will be available — “all of which will offer many opportunities for our parishioners to receive the sacrament.”

And while those active in the parish administration are not negative to the reconciliation weekend, they acknowledge that its usual promulgation in the bulletin and from the pulpit might not be the most successful to drawing penitents at a time when the sacrament of reconciliation is seen as “the forgotten sacrament.”

“Of course, marriage can be considered a forgotten sacrament too,” Father Oliveira said.

Because data show that an average of 75 percent of parishioners in churches across the diocese aren’t attending Mass every week — and so missing hearing the message for the reconciliation weekend, and also not reading it in the bulletin or in The Anchor — means looking for a more modern method of publicity, he said.

The Internet and YouTube, which are drawing more young people, currently being used by the diocese to promote the weekend “are prob-

17

faith: to spread the Good News to all the ends of the earth — but the ends of the earth begins in our homes, parishes and schools.

To the men and women who make up our faith formation, youth ministry and campus ministry teams and to our clergy and religious who have embraced this mission of the Church, thank you for your commitment and for all that you do. These men and women too often are not valued for all they do to help form our young people. It is a vast undertaking and they cannot do it alone. How can we who are adults get more involved beyond attending Mass on Sunday to aid in the formation of our young people? How can we build a community within our parishes?

Let’s place our hope on the living God. Pope Benedict XVI has called us to do the very same when he implemented the World Youth Day theme for 2009 — “We have set

ably the best means today to getting the word out,” Father Oliveira opined.

At Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville on the Cape, pastor Father Mark R. Hession said, “As we planned for the reconciliation weekend and the extra six hours when confessions will be heard we invited them by saying ‘bring yourself and someone else too.’”

Father Hession pointed to the success of reconciliation weekends in several of America’s

our hope on the living God,” from 1 Timothy 4:10. In keeping with the pope’s decision, the Office of Faith Formation will apply this theme to the Diocesan Youth Convention and Junior High Rallies in October. Hoping on the living God, however, is not simply a weekend event. Rather, it is a call for all of us, young and old(er), to place our hopes in the Lord and come together as Church.

So consider this as we enter the spring and summer months: How can adults hope on the living God to help our young people become converted, catechized and connected adults?

Initiate these questions with your pastors and faith formation teams.

Invest in the future of our Church by becoming involved and engaged in our present young Church.

And never lose hope.

Crystal is assistant director for Youth & Young Adult Ministry for the diocese and youth ministry coordinator at St. Lawrence Martyr Parish in New Bedford. cmedeiros@dfrcec.com.

big cities, but wondered what response would come in smaller, active and tightly-knit parishes such as those on Cape Cod. “What we are doing — a tad different than most,” he said, “is to point out that 120 of our parish children are readying for their first penance in advance of their upcoming first Communion at Easter. We are using that as an example and incentive hoping many will follow.”

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The Anchor

March 20, 2009

Pope Benedict’s letter on the reconciliation of the St. Pius X Society

On March 10, Pope Benedict sent this letter to the bishops of the world: Dear Brothers in the Episcopal Ministry: The remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated in 1988 by Archbishop Lefebvre without a mandate of the Holy See has for many reasons caused, both within and beyond the Catholic Church, a discussion more heated than any we have seen for a long time. Many bishops felt perplexed by an event that came about unexpectedly and was difficult to view positively in the light of the issues and tasks facing the Church today.

Even though many bishops and members of the faithful were disposed in principle to take a positive view of the pope’s concern for reconciliation, the question remained whether such a gesture was fitting in view of the genuinely urgent demands of the life of faith in our time.

Some groups, on the other hand, openly accused the pope of wanting to turn back the clock to before the Council: as a result, an avalanche of protests was unleashed, whose bitterness laid bare wounds deeper than those of the present moment.

I therefore feel obliged to offer you, dear brothers, a word of clarification, which ought to help you understand the concerns which led me and the competent offices of the Holy See to take this step. In this way I hope to contribute to peace in the Church.

An unforeseen mishap for me was the fact that the Williamson case came on top of the remission of the excommunication. The discreet gesture of mercy towards four bishops ordained validly but not legitimately suddenly appeared as something completely different: as the repudiation of reconciliation between Christians and Jews, and thus as the reversal of what the Council had laid down in this regard to guide the Church’s path.

A gesture of reconciliation with an ecclesial group engaged in a process of separation thus turned into its very antithesis: an apparent step backwards with regard to all the steps of reconciliation between Christians and Jews taken since the Council — steps which my own work as a theologian had sought from the beginning to take part in and support.

That this overlapping of two opposed processes took place and momentarily upset peace between Christians and Jews, as well as peace within the Church, is something that I can only deeply deplore.

I have been told that consulting the information available on the internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on.

I have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news. I was saddened by the fact that even Catholics who, after all, might have had a better knowledge of the situation, thought they had to attack me with open hostility. Precisely for this reason I thank all the more our Jewish friends, who quickly helped to clear

up the misunderstanding and to restore the atmosphere of friendship and trust which — as in the days of Pope John Paul II — has also existed throughout my pontificate and, thank God, continues to exist.

Another mistake, which I deeply regret, is the fact that the extent and limits of the provision of 21 January 2009 were not clearly and adequately explained at the moment of its publication.

The excommunication affects individuals, not institutions. An episcopal ordination lacking a pontifical mandate raises the danger of a schism, since it jeopardizes the unity of the College of Bishops with the pope. Consequently the Church must react by employing her most severe punishment — excommunication — with the aim of calling those thus punished to repent and to return to unity. Twenty years after the ordinations, this goal has sadly not yet been attained.

The remission of the excommunication has the same aim as that of the punishment: namely, to invite the four bishops once more to return. This gesture was possible once the interested parties had expressed their recognition in principle of the pope and his authority as pastor, albeit with some reservations in the area of obedience to his doctrinal authority and to the authority of the Council.

Here I return to the distinction between individuals and institutions. The remission of the excommunication was a measure taken in the field of ecclesiastical discipline: the individuals were freed from the burden of conscience constituted by the most serious of ecclesiastical penalties. This disciplinary level needs to be distinguished from the doctrinal level. The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved.

In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers — even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty — do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.

In light of this situation, it is my intention henceforth to join the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei — the body which has been competent since 1988 for those communities and persons who, coming from the Society of Saint Pius X or from similar groups, wish to return to full communion with the pope — to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This will make it clear that the problems now to be addressed are essentially doctrinal in nature and concern primarily the acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and the post-

conciliar magisterium of the popes.

The collegial bodies with which the Congregation studies questions that arise (especially the ordinary Wednesday meeting of Cardinals and the annual or biennial Plenary Session) ensure the involvement of the prefects of the different Roman congregations and representatives from the world’s bishops in the process of decision-making.

The Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962 — this must be quite clear to the society. But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life.

I hope, dear brothers, that this serves to clarify the positive significance and also the limits of the provision of 21 January 2009. But the question still remains: Was this measure needed? Was it really a priority? Aren’t other things perhaps more important?

Of course there are more important and urgent matters. I believe that I set forth clearly the priorities of my pontificate in the addresses which I gave at its beginning. Everything that I said then continues unchanged as my plan of action.

The first priority for the successor of Peter was laid down by the Lord in the upper room in the clearest of terms: “You … strengthen your brothers” (Lk 22:32). Peter himself formulated this priority anew in his first Letter: “Always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15).

In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognize in a love which presses “to the end” (cf. Jn 13:1) — in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. The real problem at this moment of our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light that comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects.

Leading men and women to God, to the God who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers.

Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith — ecumenism — is part of the supreme priority. Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in seeking

peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of light — this is interreligious dialogue.

Whoever proclaims that God is Love “to the end” has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity — this is the social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the encyclical “Deus caritas est.”

So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church’s real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact that we must accept.

But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who “has something against you” (cf. Mt 5:23ff.) and to seek reconciliation?

Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents — to the extent possible — in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences?

Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole?

I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, six seminaries, 88 schools, two university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful?

Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim him and, with him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity?

What would then become of them?

Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things — arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude that clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of

her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas?

And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them — in this case the pope — he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint.

Dear brothers, during the days when I first had the idea of writing this letter, by chance, during a visit to the Roman seminary, I had to interpret and comment on Galatians 5:13-15. I was surprised at the directness with which that passage speaks to us about the present moment: “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another.”

I am always tempted to see these words as another of the rhetorical excesses that we occasionally find in Saint Paul. To some extent that may also be the case. But sad to say, this “biting and devouring” also exists in the Church today, as expression of a poorly understood freedom. Should we be surprised that we too are no better than the Galatians? That at the very least we are threatened by the same temptations? That we must always learn anew the proper use of freedom?

And that we must always learn anew the supreme priority, which is love?

The day I spoke about this at the major seminary, the feast of Our Lady of Trust was being celebrated in Rome. And so it is: Mary teaches us trust. She leads us to her Son, in whom all of us can put our trust. He will be our guide — even in turbulent times. And so I would like to offer heartfelt thanks to all the many bishops who have lately offered me touching tokens of trust and affection, and above all assured me of their prayers.

My thanks also go to all the faithful who in these days have given me testimony of their constant fidelity to the successor of Saint Peter. May the Lord protect all of us and guide our steps along the way of peace. This is the prayer that rises up instinctively from my heart at the beginning of this Lent, a liturgical season particularly suited to interior purification, one which invites all of us to look with renewed hope to the light which awaits us at Easter.

With a special Apostolic Blessing, I remain Yours in the Lord, BENEDICTUS PP. XVI From the Vatican, 10 March 2009

March 20, 2009

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Around the Diocese Eucharistic Adoration: Eucharistic Adoration ACUSHNET — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Church, 125 Main Street, Mondays from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., ending with evening prayer and Benediction.

Port St. Lucie, Florida

BUZZARDS BAY — Eucharist 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.

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55+ active community.

Golf, tennis, etc. free.

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774-219-1601

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

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

For more information call 508-995-2354.

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

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

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

Recitation of the rosary for peace is prayed Monday through Saturday at 7:30 a.m. prior to the 8 a.m. Mass.

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

Miscellaneous: Miscellaneous ATTLEBORO — The 40 Days for Life Pro-Life campaign invites people throughout the diocese to join in 40 days of prayer and fasting for an end to abortion. A peaceful vigil will take place outside a local abortion clinic, 150 Emory Street through April 5. Those interested in participating or for further information can contact Steve Marcotte at 508-406-1211 or visit www.40daysforlife.com/attleboro.

BREWSTER — The Lazarus Ministry of Our Lady of the Cape Parish, 468 Stony Brook Road, will be conducting a bereavement program beginning April 17 through May 22.

“Come Walk With Me” is a six-session program for people who have experienced the death of a loved one. Sessions will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The program is open to members of all faiths. Pre-registration is required by calling 508-385-3252 or 508-394-0616.

BUZZARDS BAY — A Padre Pio prayer and healing service will take place on Sunday at 3 p.m. at St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street.

EASTON — A Holy Week retreat featuring the new film, “Rosary Stars: Praying the Gospel,” will be offered at the Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street April 6, 7 and 8 beginning at 11 a.m. The film features meditations and inspiring reflections by contemporary film and sports personalities with the rosary led by a rosary star. Mass will follow at 12 p.m.

For more information call 508-238-4095.

FALL RIVER — Father John Kelleher of Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville will preach during a Lenten Mission titled “The Path of Christian Discipleship,” sponsored by the Fall River Deanery. The four nightly sessions within the context of Mass will be held at 7 p.m. on Monday at St. Joseph Church, 1335 North Main Street; Tuesday at Holy Trinity Church, 951 Stafford Road; Wednesday at St. Michael’s Church, 189 Essex Street; and Thursday at St. Anthony of the Desert Church, 300 North Eastern Avenue (Maronite Rite).

FALL RIVER — A Lenten program titled “Happy Birthday St. Paul — 2,000 Years” will be presented March 28 at Saint Anne’s Hospital from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. Mass and lunch will follow the presentation. The program presenter is Dr. Joyce Kelly, teacher at the Institute for Religious Education and Pastoral Studies at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn.

For more information, call 508-678-2373.

FALL RIVER — A Healing Mass will be held Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at St. Anne’s Church, 818 Middle Street. Rosary will be recited at 6 p.m. with Benediction and healing prayers after Mass.

FALL RIVER — Steve Marcotte, co-director of the 40 Days for Life campaign in the diocese, will speak about the effort March 26 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. in Room H209 at Bristol Community College, 777 Elsbree Street.

MASHPEE — “The Power of Forgiveness,” a Lenten retreat for women, will be held April 3 from 9:15 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the parish hall of Christ the King Church, The Commons.

All women are welcome and attendees are asked to RSVP by calling 508-477-2837 by April 1.

MATTAPOISETT — “Following Mary’s Pathway in 2009,” a day retreat and spiritual renewal facilitated by Sister Paula Hagen, co-author of “Ministry of Mothers Sharing,” will take place tomorrow from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at St. Anthony’s Church, 22 Barstow Street.

For more information, call 508-758-8421 or 508-758-4369.

NEW BEDFORD — St. Mary’s Church is having a Stations of the Cross service March 23 at 7 p.m. Stations are viewed from the perspective of our Blessed Mother.

NEW BEDFORD — St. Kilian’s Parish, 306 Ashley Boulevard, will be showing the following movies during Lent: “Bella” on Sunday, “Padre Pio” on March 29, and “St. Rita” on April 5. Shows begin at 2:30 p.m., sponsored by the St. Kilian Youth Group. Admission is free.

SOUTH ATTLEBORO — “The Beckoning,” a Lenten series, will take place Wednesdays in Lent through April 4 at 6 p.m. in St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Church, 18 Baltic Street.

Anna Rae-Kelly is the presenter. The series is free, open to the public, and will be followed

by Mass at 7 p.m. For more information call 508-761-8111 or visit www.annaprae.com.

SWANSEA — St. Louis de France Parish, 56 Buffington Street, will host weekly Centering Prayer gatherings using a Lectio Divina format. The group will meet in the Family Room of the main church at 6:15 p.m., every Wednesday in Lent, through April 8. Prayer begins at 6:30. For more information, contact Charles R. Demers at forums8799@mypacks.net or 508-264-5823.

TAUNTON — The faith community of St. Andrew the Apostle Parish, 261 Tremont Street, prays the Stations of the Cross every Friday during Lent at 6:30 p.m.

WEST HARWICH — A Holy Hour will be held March 23 at 1 p.m. at Holy Trinity Church, Route 28. The rosary will be followed by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

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

March 23 Rev. James F. Kelley, USN Ret. Archdiocese of Anchorage, Former Assistant, St. Mary’s Mansfield, 2002 March 24 Rev. John J. Murphy, CSC, 2004 March 25 Rev. John J. Brennan, SS.CC. Retired Founder Holy Redeemer, Chatham, 1991 Rev. Paul Leo Deyo, SS.CC., 2008 March 27 Rev. James W. Conlin, Pastor, St. Patrick, Somerset, 1918 Rev. Antonio P. Vieira, Pastor, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, New Bedford, 1964 Rev. Richard W. Beaulieu, Former Pastor, St. Francis Xavier Parish, Acushnet and Notre Dame Parish, Fall River, Former Principal at Coyle and Cassidy High School, Taunton, and Former Diocesan Director of Education, 2007 March 28 Rev. Alfred J. Levesque, Pastor, St. Jacques, Taunton, 1960 Rev. Bernard A. Lavoie, Chaplain, Catholic Memorial Home, Fall River, 1972 Rev. Dieudonne Masse, OFM, Retired, Montreal, Canada, 1983 Rev. Howard A. Waldron, Retired Pastor, St. Thomas More, Somerset, 1985 March 29 Rev. James H. Carr, Assistant, St. Patrick, Fall River, 1923 Rev. Msgr. Edward J. Moriarty, Pastor, St. Patrick, Fall River, 1951 Rev. Lucio B. Phillipino, Retired Pastor, Immaculate Conception, North Easton, 2002

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March 20, 2009

RE-ENERGIZING — Each year, the staff of Our Lady’s Haven in Fairhaven celebrates Mission Day and re-dedicates themselves to service to the residents and working with one another to offer the most compassionate and highest quality care to the men and women served through programs and services. Above, Msgr. Edmund J. Fitzgerald, center, director of Diocesan Health Facilities, of which Our Lady’s Haven is a part, Deacon Robert Lorenzo, left, and Sacred Hearts Father Ambrose Forgit, right, at the Mission Day Mass. Below, Msgr. Fitzgerald greets resident Margaret Canavan, center, and staff nurse Karolyn Dunham following the liturgy.

Please visit us at: www.CarmelTerrace.org or 508 788 8000 933 Central St. Framingham, MA 01701 On the campus of St. Patrick's Manor