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Diocese of Fall River, Mass.

F riday , March 28, 2014

Our Lenten Journey

Diocesan youth invited to gatherings to better understand faith life, mission role

By Dave Jolivet Anchor Editor

NORTH DARTMOUTH — High school and middle school students in the Diocese of Fall River will gather at various locales within the next few days with individuals ready to assist them in living out their faith.

On Sunday the annual High School Youth Convention will take place at Bishop Stang High School, 500 Slocum Road, North Dartmouth, from 11:15 a.m. to 6:45 p.m.

With the theme “One Body, One Mission,” the convention, hosted by the diocesan Office of Faith Formation and organized by graduates of the Christian Leadership Institute, will key on

ways young men and women can make a difference in the lives of others; in their own neighborhoods and around the world.

All of the participants will take part in workshop sessions, Mass and prayer.

The opening session will be presented

by Joe Martino, part of the Faith Formation ministry at St. Julie Billiart Parish in North Dartmouth and a member of the Residents Encounter Christ prison ministry, who will share experiences he’s had with REC sessions.

Sister Marianna Sylvester, RSM, Youth Ministry coordinator at Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in New Bedford, will speak about her work Turn to page 15

Some of the members of the St. John Neumann choir gather to rehearse for a special Taizé prayer service to be held at the East Freetown parish on Palm Sunday evening.

Area parish choir finds harmony in social justice and spiritual peace

By Dave Jolivet Anchor Editor

struggling to meet the co-payments of their medical expenses.

Pastor Father Gregory Mathias EAST FREETOWN — It started as an idea to “practice what one sings,” and the 30-member parish choir have and the concept was quickly fanned joined forces to present a special Taizé into a flame that will hopefully illumi- prayer experience at the parish on nate the spiritual lives of the parish- Palm Sunday evening.

Taizé originated in France during ioners of St. John Neumann Parish in East Freetown, as well as ease the World War II as an ecumenical mofinancial burdens of elderly patients Turn to page 15

High school student fights cyber-bullying with Teenangels

According to Aftab’s introduction on the Teenangels’ website (www.teenangels.

ATTLEBORO — Bishop Feehan org), Teenangels was created after she High School junior Katherine Franklin contributed her expertise on Internet safety to a TV special with ABC was recently honored with News focused on teen girls. a President’s Volunteer During a Q&A session Service Award for her for the TV special, Afmore than 500 hours of tab fielded questions from volunteer service in Teenteen-agers that made her angels, a group of 13- to realize that the teens were 18-year-old volunteers concerned about younger who have been specially children’s online safety, trained in all aspects of and Aftab recognized that online safety, privacy and teaching a select number security. of teen-agers online safety Teenangels, a division pointers would allow those of WiredSafety.org, teen-agers to spread the was founded in 1999 by cyber-lawyer Parry Bishop Feehan High School message about cyber-bulAftab, executive director junior Katherine Franklin was lying. Working with an iniof WireSafety.org, the recently honored for her more tial group of girls ranging world’s largest online safety than 500 hours of volunteer in age from 14 to 17, the service in Teenangels. and help organization.

Turn to page 13

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

Sacred Hearts Father Thomas McElroy, SS.CC., pastor of St. Joseph’s Parish in Fairhaven, recently went on a thanksgiving pilgrimage to Rome and had the honor of meeting and concelebrating Mass with Pope Francis at the Vatican. (Photo courtesy of Father Tom McElroy)

Fairhaven pastor awed, humbled to meet pope

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

FAIRHAVEN — It was just a little more than one year ago — on Mar. 11, 2013, to be exact — that Sacred Hearts Father Thomas McElroy, pastor of St. Joseph’s Parish in Fairhaven, underwent a serious surgical procedure to remove a cancerous tumor on his right lung.

The surgery was, by all accounts, a great success and Father McElroy was soon back ministering to his Fairhaven parishioners.

“I have a real expectation that (the cancer) is gone,” Father McElroy recently told The Anchor. “The reports I’ve gotten so far have been very positive. The next report I expect from the

oncologist will be in May and that will give me a real indication, but so far, it’s been a great recovery and good healing.”

As a way of praising God for his successful surgery and remarkable recovery, Father McElroy decided to embark on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving earlier this year with one of his best friends, Msgr. Edward D. Sheridan, V.G., of the Hamilton Diocese in Canada.

“Msgr. Sheridan and I have been buddies for about 54 years; we met in seminary college,” Father McElroy said. “He has a serious heart condition and he had a quintuple bypass about 18 years ago. But just before I had my Turn to page three

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News From the Vatican

March 28, 2014

Pope to fathers: Teach your children well, always be by their side

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — On the feast of St. Joseph, patron saint of the Universal Church and Jesus’ foster father, Pope Francis urged all dads in the world to stick by their children’s side, teaching them, guiding them and loving them.

“I ask that you have the grace to be very close to your children, letting them grow, but being by their side. They need you, your presence, to be there, your love!” the pope told fathers present in St. Peter’s Square.

Despite a massive citywide transport strike in Rome, more than 80,000 people made their way to the square for the pope’s weekly audience.

The pope dedicated his catechesis to the role and example of St. Joseph. March 19 also marked the celebration of Father’s Day in Italy, as well as the first anniversary of the formal inauguration of Pope Francis’ ministry as Bishop of Rome and pope.

St. Joseph’s “great mission is to be a guardian,” the pope said.

The saint is a model for all educators, whether they are teachers, catechists, parents, religious or priests, “who are fathers, too, you know!” he said.

Like an educator, St. Joseph guided and accompanied Jesus so He could grow in “wisdom and age and grace,” Pope Francis said.

This is the same thing all parents must do, and “it would be a serious mistake to think that a father and a mother can’t do anything to teach their children to grow in God’s grace,” he said.

Even though God was Jesus’ Father, St. Joseph lovingly took on the paternal role and taught the young Jesus various skills, the value of work, reverence for the Lord, and fidelity and obedience to God’s will, the pope said.

He also had to keep his family safe during the difficult period of their exile to Egypt, he said, which makes the saint a special example for refugees and those facing persecution.

In remarks to Arabic-speaking visitors, especially those from Lebanon and the Holy Land, the pope said St. Joseph “knew how to cross the darkness of doubt, the experience of exile and fleeing from home, without ever losing faith in God and His love.”

“Learn from him that only trust in God can turn doubt into certainty, evil into good, total darkness of the night into a radiant dawn,” he said.

In his main audience address, the pope gave his heartfelt greetings to all fathers in the square, asking them to show who they were by raising their hands. “Oh, how many dads!” he said. “Best wishes! All the best on your day!”

Pope Francis kisses a disabled child during a visit to the parish of Santa Maria dell’Orazione on the outskirts of Rome recently. (CNS photo/Stefano Rellandini, pool via Reuters)

Vatican, Rome in preparation mode for canonizations of John XXIII, John Paul II

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Just over five weeks before the canonizations of Blesseds John XXIII and John Paul II, Rome hotels are reporting they are almost fully booked and the Vatican has confirmed the Mass will take place in St. Peter’s Square, despite knowing that hundreds of thousands of people will have to watch the ceremony on large video screens.

Pope Francis had announced in late September that he would proclaim the two popes saints in a single ceremony April 27, Divine Mercy Sunday.

Less than two weeks after the date was announced, the prefecture of the Papal Household issued an advisory that access to St. Peter’s Square would be first-come, first-served and warned pilgrims that unscrupulous tour operators already were trying to sell fake tickets to the Mass.

With perhaps more than one million people expected to try to attend the Liturgy, rumors abounded that the Vatican would move the ceremony to a wide-open space on the outskirts of town. But the Vatican confirmed that the Mass would be held in St. Peter’s Square, just outside the basilica where the mortal remains of the two rest.

Blessed John Paul, known as a globetrotter who made 104 trips outside Italy, served as pope from 1978 to 2005 and was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on Divine Mercy Sunday, May 1, 2011. Blessed John XXIII, known particularly for convoking the Second Vatican Council, was pope from 1958 to 1963; Pope John Paul beatified him in 2000.

In July, Pope Francis signed a decree recognizing the healing of a Costa Rican woman with a life-threatening brain aneurysm as the miracle needed for Blessed John Paul’s canonization. The same day, the Vatican announced that the pope had agreed with members of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes that the canonization of Blessed John should go forward even without a second miracle attributed to his intercession.

A first miracle is needed for beatification. In Pope John Paul’s cause, the miracle involved a French nun suffering from Parkinson’s disease, the same disease the pope had. In the cause of Pope John, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of an Italian nun who was dying from complications after stomach surgery.

In February, Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, said Pope Francis did not skip an essential step in approving Blessed John’s canonization, but “only shortened the time to give the entire Church the great opportunity of celebrating 2014 with John XXIII, the initiator of the Second Vatican Council, and John Paul II, who brought to life the pastoral, spiritual and doctrinal inspiration of its documents.”

The cardinal said Pope Francis did not dismiss the need for a miracle attributed to the late pope’s intercession, but recognized that the “positio” or official position paper prepared for Blessed John’s cause, is “full of accounts of miracles” and favors granted by God through his intercession. One case, often mentioned, involves a woman

from Naples who accidently swallowed cyanide; she believes her poison-induced liver damage was miraculously reversed after prayers to Blessed John.

Asked by reporters in July to describe the two late popes, Pope Francis said Blessed John was “a bit of the ‘country priest,’ a priest who loves each of the faithful and knows how to care for them; he did this as a bishop and as a nuncio” in Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece and France before becoming a cardinal and patriarch of Venice.

He was holy, patient, had a good sense of humor and, especially by calling the Second Vatican Council, was a man of courage, Pope Francis said. “He was a man who let himself be guided by the Lord.”

As for Blessed John Paul, Pope Francis told the reporters on the plane, “I think of him as “the great missionary of the Church,” because he was “a man who proclaimed the Gospel everywhere.”

A spokeswoman for the office of Rome’s mayor said the city hoped by March 24 to have a working estimate of the number of pilgrims, as well as preliminary plans for transporting them to the Vatican and providing them with water, toilet facilities and first aid stations.

Marco Piscitello, a spokesman for the Rome hotel owners’ association, Federalberghi, said that already by early March, owners were reporting that more than 82 percent of hotel rooms in the city had been booked for the canonization weekend.

“There will be a strong presence in Rome for this double canonization,” he said.

March 28, 2014

Fairhaven pastor awed, humbled to meet Pope Francis continued from page one

operation for cancer, he had another major heart attack.

He called me and suggested we take a pilgrimage and offer some prayers of thanks, since we’d never taken a trip together before.”

Agreeing that a pilgrimage was in order, Father McElroy was pleasantly surprised when his friend suggested they go to Rome.

“He likes Rome very much,” he said. “Of course, my general house (for the Sacred Hearts Fathers) is there and I could stay with them … but he told me he’d make all the arrangements.”

The two priests were scheduled to fly out from Canada on January 19 for a 10-day excursion to the Eternal City, and Msgr. Sheridan had another surprise in store for his longtime friend.

“He told me we’d be staying in the Casa Santa Marta,” Father McElroy said. “Of course, I had no idea what that meant.

He said: ‘You don’t know what that means? That’s where the Holy Father lives.’ Of course, to go and stay there, you generally have to be a monsignor or cardinal, but I was traveling with him. That’s how we got to stay there.”

For more than a week, Father McElroy was able to witness, first-hand, “the simplicity of the Holy Father.”

“The pope comes every morning and every lunchtime to have his meals with everyone,” he said. “And we sat maybe 10 or 12 feet from him at every meal. Everyday we saw him.”

And being in such close quarters with the pontiff on a daily basis, he anticipated he would get to meet and concelebrate Mass with him.

“We had assumed we’d be able to concelebrate Mass with the pope at some point and also have pictures taken with him,” Father McElroy said.

“One day his secretary told us: ‘You cannot concelebrate (Mass) with the Holy Father.’

But when he left, I told Msgr.

Sheridan that by hook or by crook, we would.”

Father McElroy’s experience as a member of the Sacred Hearts community would soon help him to make an important friend at the papal Turn to page 19

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The Church in the U.S.

4

March 28, 2014

Arkansas judge strikes down heartbeat-based abortion ban

Little Rock, Ark. (CNA/EWTN News) — A U.S. District Court’s ruling against Arkansas’ fetal heartbeat-based abortion restrictions disappointed Pro-Life advocates, but they said the effort still helps the unborn.

Arkansas State Senator Jason Rapert, who sponsored the legislation, said that despite the ruling, the law was still “a win for the Pro-Life movement” because of its other provisions.

“When people have to face the reality that there’s a living heartbeat in their womb, that will make them rethink about taking the life away from their baby,” he told the Associated Press.

Jerry Cox, president of the Arkansas-based Family Council, said advocacy for the law was still worthwhile.

“I believe the only way we’re going to change things for the better is by challenging the status quo of abortion,” Cox said, according to ArkansasNews.com.

The March 2013 law would have barred most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy on the grounds that the unborn child has a heartbeat at that point. The legislation would have created the strictest restrictions on abortion in any U.S. state.

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright, in a recent decision, said the law was unconstitutional on the grounds that only a doctor can determine whether or not an unborn child can live outside of its mother.

The judge stated that viability, an unborn child’s ability to survive outside of its mother, rather than heartbeat should determine whether abortions should be allowed. Viability is typically placed at around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Her decision said that legal precedent “does not declare that viability is fully achieved with the advent of a heartbeat.”

She added that the Supreme Court has “stressed that it is not the proper function of the legislature or the courts to place viability at a specific point in the gestation period.”

Laws based on fetal heartbeat, she wrote, “would undoubtedly contravene the Supreme Court’s determination that viability in a particular case is a matter for medical judgment.” She said viability is attained when “there is a reasonable likelihood of sustained survival outside the womb.”

She added that the state “presents no evidence that a fetus can live outside the mother’s womb at 12 weeks.”

Last year Webber Wright halted the law’s enforcement pending judicial review. She left in place other parts of the law that require doctors to search for a fetal heartbeat and to tell the mother if a fetal heartbeat is detected.

Before the law passed, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe vetoed the bill, saying its lack of a viability standard would lead to legal challenges. The state legislature overrode his veto.

The state attorney general’s spokesman Aaron Sadler told the Associated Press that Webber Wright’s decision was “not a surprise.” As of March 14, the attorney general had not decided whether to appeal the decision.

Sen. Rapert urged an appeal, saying that a national Pro-Life organization has volunteered to defend the law at no cost to state taxpayers if a special counsel is designated to appeal Webber Wright’s decision.

This 2011 file photo shows some of the damage caused to Cathedral High School, St. Michael’s Academy preschool and middle school in Springfield. The June 1, 2011, tornado cut a 39-mile path through western Massachusetts. Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell of Springfield recently announced that a FEMA settlement will help facilitate the rebuilding of the school. (CNS photo/Fred LeBlanc)

Bishops’ spokesman urges more humane immigration policy

Washington D.C. (CNA/EWTN News) — President Barack Obama’s recent action on immigration may indicate a move towards a better approach to immigration, a policy expert for the U.S. bishops’ conference says.

“Certainly we need to have a more humane deportation policy,” Kevin Appleby, director of the U.S. bishops’ Office of Migration Policy and Public Affairs, told CNA. “We need to reform the system.”

Appleby said that while some changes require that the government “reform the system from Congress,” there are “a lot of things the president can do within his authority” by working within existing laws.

The renewed focus on deportations of undocumented workers, a process that often separates family members from one another, stems from recent statements from the White House. Earlier in March the National Council of La Raza declared Obama “the deporter-in-chief.”

NCLR President Janet Murguía said at the time, “We consider him the deportation president, or the deporter-in-chief,” Politico reported. In reaction to the

criticism, the president invited Murguía and other immigration activists to a meeting with the president and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

After the meeting, the president said that he has asked Johnson to “do an inventory of the department’s current practices to see how it can conduct enforcement more humanely within the confines of the law.”

“The president emphasized his deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes from our broken immigration system,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.

During the first five years of the Obama Administration, two million undocumented immigrants have been deported. This is more than during the eight years of the Bush Administration.

Appleby said he hoped that the president would examine the U.S. government’s detention policy. The president could set criteria for whom he “would defer their deportation,” such as those with undocumented children who grow up in the United States.

These children are now given conditional protection from deportation under the DREAM

act.

While the president wouldn’t “be able to give people legal status,” Appleby said, “there are other kinds of deportation tools that he doesn’t have to use as much.”

He also suggested that the president “limit deportation and focus on criminals” rather than on law-abiding people working in the United States.

With comprehensive changes, Appleby added, the immigration system should be recalibrated “so that families are reunited more expeditiously, and those who want to come and work — and we need their work — can come safely.”

Appleby said that Catholics in particular are sensitive to the issue of immigration.

“Polls show Catholics are more attuned to this issue than other faiths.”

“First of all we’re an immigrant Church, we grew with the waves of immigration,” he said, adding that because Catholics “serve immigrants in our programs our parishes, our hospitals, our schools,” the Church has a “firsthand knowledge of the broken immigration system.”

Because of the Church’s work across the globe, it also understands “why people are coming and what they’re doing to get here.” The reasons why people feel they have to leave their home countries and the steps they take to relocate would “break your heart,” he said.

Most importantly, though, Appleby said, the Catholic faith has a respect for the humanity of immigrants.

“Christ Himself was a refugee,” he said, “a Man Who had no place to lay His head.” The immigration issue, he added, is “part of our DNA.”

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March 28, 2014

In the shadow of Pope Francis: La Salette missionary serves poor in Argentina

By Linda Andrade Rodrigues Anchor Correspondent

ATTLEBORO — As a missionary priest at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, Father John Sullivan’s vocation has taken him from the Alpine mountain heights of the Valley of the Apparition of Our Lady of La Salette in France to the southern tip of South America where he served in the poorest barrios of Argentina for 18 years.

While their paths never crossed in Cordoba, Pope Francis and Father Sullivan share the same mission.

“We have drawn life from working for the poor,” said Father Sullivan, who has spent 50 years in religious life.

Born in Boston in 1943, Father Sullivan was raised in Dorchester.

“Because both my parents were born in Ireland, they were very strong Catholics,” he said.

“Our faith was so much a part of our lives — it was the air you breathe.”

Father Sullivan received his calling in childhood.

“I remember as a six-yearold boy I dreamed of being a missionary, driving down a dirt road in Africa dodging poison arrows,” he said. “I think it was the pennies I put in the poor box, saving my coins during Lent for the babies in Africa. Even as a child, I had a global sense of the Church.”

Father Sullivan went to public school for six years and became an altar boy in the fourth grade.

His middle school years were spent at St. Ambrose School, where he was taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph.

“My eighth-grade Sister told my mother, ‘John is a good boy, but he bears watching,’” he said laughing.

Then he attended Christopher Columbus High School in Boston under the direction of the Franciscans and began to explore religious life.

“My mother and father wanted me to go to St. John’s when I finished high school to be close to home,” he said. “I had a crush on a girl, but I broke her heart and went into the seminary a junior in high school. I was 16 years old.”

Father Sullivan attended the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette minor seminary in Hartford, Conn., where he graduated from high school. He spent the next two years in formation at Altamont, N.Y., followed by novitiate in Bloomfield, Conn.

Then he studied theology for

four years at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. “It was right after Vatican II and an exciting time to live,” he said. “There were 90 guys in my class, both diocesan and religious. In our first year we went to school in our habits, but by June we were going to school in jeans.”

Father Sullivan spent two summers working in the Appalachians of West Virginia, where he said he developed a love for the poor.

Theology in Cambridge with the Jesuits and became co-director of their seminary for five years; but toward the end of his tenure there, the desire to be a missionary intensified.

“I began to rediscover the dream I had as a child, and I also learned to love my own La Salette spirituality,” he said.

Embarking on pilgrimage, Father Sullivan went to France to the site of the Apparition of Our Lady of La Salette.

Las Termas, Argentina, serving five parishes in the city and 60 communities in the campo (country). He said Mass outdoors under a quebracho tree where the temperature hovered around 100 degrees in the summer.

“Not even the dogs go out,” he said. “Everybody takes a siesta from 12 to four o’clock.”

Father Sullivan remembers his first homily there.

“I was saying Mass, and I tried to say, ‘Go in the peace of

Surrounded by the people of Cordoba, Argentina, Father John Sullivan, M.S. (kneeling in first row at far right) served the poor in Argentina for 18 years. He now serves the local community at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro.

Ordained to the priesthood on May 30, 1970, he returned to Altamont and taught for the next five years.

“I wanted to be a missionary to get away from books, and they gave me a teaching job,” he said. “But I didn’t know if I had a strong enough character to go (to Latin America). I thought I would fall in love with a pretty young woman down there and leave the priesthood.”

His next assignment took him to a Polish parish in Westfield for five years.

“That was my first experience of parish life,” he said.

Father Sullivan studied Scripture at the Weston School of

“I cried,” he said. “I felt so emotional like I was home, even though I was in France.”

He spent a month there with other La Salette priests and Brothers from all over the world.

“I needed to make a choice whether to stay in France or to go to Latin America,” he said. “I had done poorly with French so I thought I would try Spanish.”

At 42, Father Sullivan finally realized his dream. He was sent to Colegio Maryknoll in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to study Spanish for five months.

“After I got out of school, I thought I spoke Spanish pretty well,” he said.

His first assignment was in

Christ without fear (miedo), but instead I said without husband (marido),’” he explained laughing. “Some of the women went, ‘Yeah!’ and got a big kick out of that. The people told me I speak with my heart. I fell in love with them quickly, and they fell in love with me.”

Father Sullivan spent five years in Las Termas, then was assigned to Yofre Norte, a barrio of the city of Cordoba where he served for nine years.

“It is similar to Boston in some ways, but the poverty is much deeper,” he said. “Poor people here would be middle class in Argentina.”

He took the bus to the parish center and served eight communities in the campo. They were so distant that he said Mass once a month in each of them.

His last four years in Argentina were spent in the very poor barrio of José Ignacio Diez.

“My house was robbed two or three times,” he said. “The taxis were afraid to come into my barrio, but I feel the people kind of protected me.”

Father Sullivan received guidance from his spiritual director, a Jesuit in Cordoba.

“I would often eat with the Jesuits in the house where Pope Francis lived. I think I ate at the table where he ate in Cordoba.”

After serving in Argentina for 18 years, Father Sullivan decided to come home.

“I felt it was time for the native people to serve their own,” he said. “I could go back to the U.S., where bilingual priests were needed.”

When Pope Francis was elected a year ago, Father Sullivan wrote to him in Spanish.

“I told him, ‘If you are ever in the U.S., here’s my phone number,’” he said.

Leading parallel lives, Pope Francis and Father Sullivan serve the poor. Together they cared for the poor in Argentina, and now Father Sullivan reaches out to our local community while the pope’s vision is changing the world.

“We have to learn their stories and not judge them,” said Father Sullivan. “We’re connected.

We’re all family.”

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March 28, 2014

Anchor Editorial

The plane controversy and God’s role in suffering

As of press time (Tuesday afternoon), we still have not found the missing Malaysian Airlines jet, whose disappearance has proven to be a ratings bonanza to CNN and other cable channels (although the supposed report that CNN apologized for briefly cutting away to another story was a satirical piece on the website of the New Yorker magazine, not something which really happened).

In the midst of this hoopla (if it weren’t hoopla, the cable stations would not be running commercials in the middle of their non-stop coverage. The usual rule-of-thumb in special coverage is: no commercials during coverage of a tragedy, such as a terrorist attack; commercials can be aired during “lighter” situations, such as a blizzard, thus helping to “pay for” the “news”), we need to remember that human beings are the victims of whatever happened. Most likely they are dead now, so we need to pray for the repose of their souls and for the consolation of their grieving relatives. Back on March 16, after leading the Angelus prayers in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said, “I invite you to remember in prayer the passengers and crew of the airplane in Malaysia, as well as their families.” He paused in silent prayer and then continued, “We are near you in this difficult time.”

Tragedies like this bring up the age-old question, “Where was God?” Pope Benedict back in 2006 when he visited Auschwitz said, “Where was God in those days? Why was He silent?

How could He permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil?” The pope then quoted Psalm 44, in which Israel complains to God about being allowed to be ravaged by her enemies.

She demands of God, “Rouse Yourself! Why do You sleep, O Lord? Awake, do not cast us off forever! Why do You hide Your Face? Why do You forget our affliction and oppression? For we sink down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up, come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of Your steadfast love!” (Ps 44:19, 22-26).

Pope Benedict explained that “this cry of anguish, which Israel raised to God in its suffering, at moments of deep distress, is also the cry for help raised by all those who in every age — yesterday, today and tomorrow — suffer for the love of God, for the love of truth and goodness. How many they are, even in our own day!” The passengers on the airliner did not suffer (as far as we know at the moment) due to their love for God, but nonetheless they were ultimately innocent victims of either a hijacking or an accident.

People often say, in reaction to an untimely death, “It was God’s will.” Although it is true that everything happening in the universe is allowed by God, that is not to say that God applauds it all. In His permissive will, He does not intervene to stop human free will from being carried out.

“We cannot peer into God’s mysterious plan — we see only piecemeal, and we would be wrong to set ourselves up as judges of God and history,” continued Pope Benedict.

He then said that we should continue to complain to God (since the Holy Spirit did inspire Psalm 44 to be written as it is); “When all is said and done, we must continue to cry out humbly yet insistently to God: rouse Yourself ! Do not forget mankind, Your creature!”

This crying out to God should not be just a way to throw the burden all on His shoulders

(as He climbs to Calvary?). It needs to bounce back to us. “And our cry to God must also be a cry that pierces our very heart, a cry that awakens within us God’s hidden presence — so that His power, the power He has planted in our hearts, will not be buried or choked within us by the mire of selfishness, pusillanimity, indifference or opportunism. Let us cry out to God, with all our hearts, at the present hour, when new misfortunes befall us, when all the forces of darkness seem to issue anew from human hearts: whether it is the abuse of God’s name as a means of justifying senseless violence against innocent persons, or the cynicism which refuses to acknowledge God and ridicules faith in Him. Let us cry out to God, that He may draw men and women to conversion and help them to see that violence does not bring peace, but only generates more violence — a morass of devastation in which everyone is ultimately the loser. The God in Whom we believe is a God of reason — a reason, to be sure, which is not a kind of cold mathematics of the universe, but is one with love and with goodness. We make our prayer to God and we appeal to humanity, that this reason, the logic of love and the recognition of the power of Reconciliation and peace, may prevail over the threats arising from irrationalism or from a spurious and godless reason.”

Pope Benedict’s words at Auschwitz have been echoed many times by Pope Francis over this past year. He quoted the same psalm as did his predecessor in his January 16 daily Mass homily: “Thou hast made us a byword among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples.” Pope Francis said this psalm leads us “to think about the scandals in the Church, but are we ashamed?

So many scandals that I do not wish to mention individually, but we all know about them. We know where they are! Some scandals have been very costly.” According to the Vatican website, the pope said that the problem is that “the Word of God was rare in those scandals. In those men, in those women, the Word of God was rare. They did not have a bond with God. They had a position in the Church, a position of power and comfort” but not “the Word of God.” In this January homily the pope was speaking about evil closer to home, but in those situations, too (even more so!), our calling out to God should cause a change in our own hearts.

Pope Francis has contrasted the tragedies of a computer ( June 5, 2013) or a brick ( June 7, 2013) falling with that of a human being suffering, how we seem so much more concerned about our belongings than about our neighbors’ suffering. New Year’s Day he said, “Yesterday I received a letter from a gentleman, perhaps one of you, who, in bringing a family tragedy to my attention, went on to list the many tragedies and wars that exist today in the world, and he asked me: ‘What is happening in the heart of man which is leading him to do such things?’

And at the end he said: ‘It is time to stop.’ I, too, believe it would do us good to stop on this path of violence and seek peace. Brothers and sisters, I make the words of this man my own: What is happening in the heart of man? What is happening in the heart of humanity? It is time to stop!”

The hoopla about the plane has distracted us from so much evil and violence in the world, but maybe a good thing that can come from this tragedy might be solidarity in compassion for the victims and their families. May God be with them — in their prayer and through us.

Pope Francis’ weekly Angelus address and prayer

lo!

Dear brothers and sisters, hel-

Today’s Gospel presents us with the meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman in [the Samaritan town of ] Sychar near an ancient well where the woman had come to draw water. Jesus found Himself seated at the well that day “tired from His journey” ( Jn 4:6). He immediately says: “Give Me a drink” (4:7). In this way He overcomes the barriers of hostility that existed between Jews and Samaritans and the prejudiced mentality toward women.

Jesus’ simple request is the beginning of a frank dialogue through

which, with great delicacy, He enters into the interior world of a person to whom, according to the social norms, He should not have even spoken a word. But Jesus does it! Jesus is not afraid. Jesus, when He sees a person, goes forward, because He loves. He loves us all. Prejudice does not hinder His contact with a person.

Jesus places the person before his [the person’s] situation, not judging him but making him feel appreciated, recognized and in this way awakens in him the desire to move beyond his daily routine.

Jesus’ thirst was not so much for water but to meet a parched OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER

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soul. Jesus needed to meet the Samaritan woman to open her heart.

He asks her for a drink of water to bring to light the thirst that was in her. The woman is moved by this encounter: she asks Jesus those profound questions that all of us have but that we often ignore. We, too, have many questions to ask, but we cannot find the courage to pose them to Jesus! Lent, dear brothers and sisters, is the opportune time to look inside ourselves, to allow our most genuine spiritual needs to emerge, and to ask the Lord’s help in prayer. The example of the Samaritan woman invites us to express ourselves in this way: “Jesus, give me that water that will eternally quench my thirst.”

The Gospel tells us that the disciples were astonished that their Master spoke with that woman. But the Lord is greater than prejudices; this is why He was not afraid to engage with the Samaritan woman. Mercy is greater than prejudice. This we must learn well! Mercy is greater than prejudice, and Jesus is very merciful, very! The outcome of this meeting at the well was that the woman was transformed: “She left her water jar behind” (4:28) and ran into the town to tell people about her extraordinary experience. “I found a Man Who told

me everything I have done. Could He possibly be the Messiah?” She was enthusiastic. She went to get water from the well and found another water, the Living Water of mercy that wells up to eternal life.

She found the water that she had always been looking for! She ran to the village — that village that judged her, condemned her and rejected her — and announces that she has met the Messiah: Someone Who changed her life.

Because every encounter with Jesus changes our life, always. It is a step forward, a step closer to God. And thus every encounter with Jesus changes our life. It is always, always this way. In this Gospel, we, too, find the inspiration to “leave our water jar behind,” the symbol of all that is apparently important but that loses value before the “love of God.” We all have one, or more than one! I ask you, and me: “What is your interior water jar, that which burdens you, that which distances you from God?” Let us leave it aside and listen to the voice of Jesus with our heart. He offers us a different water, a water that brings us closer to the Lord. We are called to rediscover the importance and meaning of our Christian life, begun in Baptism, and like the Samaritan woman, to bear witness

to our brothers. Bear witness to what? To joy! Bear witness to the joy of the encounter with Jesus, because I said that every encounter with Jesus changes our life, and every encounter with Jesus fills us with joy, that joy that comes from within. And this is how the Lord is. And speak of how many wonderful things that the Lord knows how to do in our heart when we have the courage to leave our water jar behind.

The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary, and she conceived by work of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary ...

Behold the handmaid of the Lord: Be it done unto me according to Thy Word.

Hail Mary ...

And the Word was made Flesh: And dwelt among us.

Hail Mary ...

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray: Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts; that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection, through the same Christ Our Lord.

Amen.

Anchor Columnists

March 28, 2014

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7

The threat of hell for those who make hell on earth

ast Friday night, Pope Francis went to St. Gregory VII Parish near the Vatican to participate in a prayer service dedicated to supporting those who have family members murdered by the mafia.

Since 1995, the prayer service has been held on the first day of spring as a means of comforting members and strengthening Italian citizens to rise up in unison to oppose the evil of the mafia. The annual event begins with a prayer vigil, followed the next day by a demonstration in a place that has been the scene of yet another recent mafia hit.

Since this year’s prayer service was being held just outside the Vatican walls, Pope Francis responded to the invitation of the organizing group Libera — an association of more than 1,600 anti-mafia organizations with a name, “Free,” symbolizing its hope for a society free of the mafia evil — to come to pray with them and enter into public solidarity with their cause.

During the prayer vigil, the names of 842 innocent people murdered in the crossfire of mafia violence in Italy were somberly read, one-by-one.

Among the names were those three-year old Nicolo “Coco” Campolongo, whose charred body was found in January next his grandfather’s scorched remains in a car to avenge a family member’s unpaid drug debt; three-year-old

the mafia,” he said. “Please, change Domenico Petruzzelli, who was your lives. Convert. Stop what you shot dead with his mother and are doing. Stop doing harm. And her friend by mafia gunmen on we pray for you. Convert, I ask you March 17; 11-year-old Domenico this on my knees. It is for your own Gabriele, gunned to death while good. This life you are living now playing soccer in 2009; mafia critic will not bring you pleasure. It will Father Giuseppe Diana, murdered by the Camorra in Calabria in 1994 while he was preparing to celebrate Putting Into Mass and whose stole Pope the Deep Francis used to bless those assembled; and Blessed martyr Giuseppe “Pino”

By Father Puglisi, the anti-Cosa NosRoger J. Landry tra crusader, murdered by the mafia in 1993 in front not bring you joy. It will not bring of his church in Sicily as parishyou happiness. Power, the money ioners were celebrating his 56th you have now from your many dirty birthday. dealings, from your many mafia At the end of the prayer crimes, is blood money. It is power vigil, Pope Francis gave some that is stained with blood, and you brief prepared remarks in which will not be able to take it with you he expressed his solidarity with to the next life. Repent! There is all those who have lost famstill time, so as not to end up in ily members. But then speaking hell. This is what awaits you if you extemporaneously, very softly, and continue on this path.” slowly — as if he were hearing the For a man whose words aboard words from Someone else before he was echoing them to the crowds Shepherd One in July, “Who am I to judge?” have led some to mis— he addressed some of the most powerful words of his pontificate to interpret that there is no judgment those whose iniquity had caused the any longer for sin, Pope Francis reminded the mafiosi — and evpain that brought all of the people eryone else — that there is a Judge together in prayer. and that we will be adjudicated on “I feel that I cannot finish withthe basis of our deeds. Just as he has out saying a word to those who are absent today, to the absent protago- often spoken to us of the reality of the devil, so he reminded us of the nists: to the men and women of

reality of hell for those who choose to make hell rain down on others on earth.

It’s an important Lenten message for all for those who don’t want to “covert” or “stop doing harm.”

Pope Francis finished his remarks by reminding those involved in the Neapolitan Camorra, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian Ndrangheta crime syndicates of simple humanity.

“You have a father and a mother: think of them,” he said softly. “Cry a little, and repent!” He challenged them not only to think about how they would feel if someone killed their own family members, including kids and grandkids, but to consider their lifestyle from the perspective of their parents, who are doubtless filled with shame in this world and in the next.

One leading anti-mafia magistrate in Calabria, Nicola Gratteri, last November publicly warned the pope that the mafia are “very nervous” and displeased at the way he’s cleaning up the Vatican bank and financial structures, which in the past were susceptible to mafia manipulation. He speculated that the pope was already in their crosshairs as a risk to their $150 billion annual revenues from prostitution, drugs, intimidation, and corrupt contracts and businesses.

Gratteri well knows that there’s a precedent for the mafia to respond with characteristic violence when a pope calls them forcefully to conversion.

In May 1993 John Paul II went to Agrigento, Sicily, and said, “Those who have the weight on their conscience of so many human victims must understand that it’s not permitted to kill the innocent!

God once said, ‘Thou shalt not kill,” and no one, no human organization, no mafia, can change or trample on this most right Divine right! In the name of the crucified and Risen Christ Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, I say to those responsible: Convert! The judgment of God will come one day!”

The mafia responded by bombing two churches in Rome, including the pope’s cathedral of St. John Lateran, and by assassinating Father Puglisi.

So it’s a good time for us to pray for the pope, and with the pope for all those who with him are fighting against the evil of the mafia. Let’s pray that his message of the possibility of mercy may reach the hearts of those in the mafia — before it’s too late for other innocent victims existentially or too late for mafiosi eschatologically.

Anchor columnist Father Landry is pastor of St. Bernadette’s Parish in Fall River. fatherlandry@ catholicpreaching.com.

Can businesses claim religious freedom from paying for contraceptives that cause abortion?

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y the time you read this, the United States Supreme Court will have heard arguments in the companion cases of Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of HHS, vs. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. vs. Sebelius. The cases raise the important question whether closely-held family-run businesses can claim religious freedom from the requirement imposed by the government under Obamacare that employers provide free contraceptive coverage for drugs that can cause abortion. The one-hour argument was on March 25 but a decision from the Supreme Court is not expected much before its current term ends in late June.

With the help of some law students, I filed an amicus brief on behalf of a number of not-forprofits, like Mass. Citizens for Life and Mass. Family Institute, arguing from our legal history and tradition that secular corporate charters have often been the vehicle for the practice of religion unhindered by government control. I summarized the argument in an op-ed published in the Sunday Globe for March 2 under the heading, “Our legal heritage favors religious freedom.”

does consider corporations to be For example, it is telling that legal persons, a long-standing Roger Williams, who favored a legal fiction that dates back to broad understanding of religious the middle ages and even before, freedom, received a charter for and is included in Blackstone’s Rhode Island which stated: “No Commentaries on the Laws person within the said colony, at any time hereafter, shall be in any wise molested, punished, disquieted or called in question, for any difference in opinion in matters of religion ... but that all ... freely and fully have and

By Dwight G. Duncan enjoy his and their own judgments and consciences in matters of religious concernments.” In 1658, the General Assembly reinforced the of England, written just before American independence. validity of the charter, reminding If a person’s religious practice is the other colonies that: “Freedom substantially burdened by governof different consciences, to be protected from enforcements, was ment, then the burden falls on the government to demonstrate both the principal ground of our charthat its interest is of a convincing, ter; which freedom we still prize compelling nature, and that the as the greatest happiness that restriction on religious freedom men can possess in this world.” is no broader than necessary to The technical legal question achieve that compelling governbefore the Supreme Court is whether business corporations are ment interest.

In response to my piece in persons within the meaning of the Globe, several letters to the the Religious Freedom Restoeditor were published on the ration Act, a federal law that following Sunday, all making applies to all persons, but doesn’t arguments against the position expressly define “person.” Of course the federal Dictionary Act of the corporations, and in favor of the government mandate. For would presumably kick in, which

Judge For Yourself

example, a “reproductive health advocacy fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health,” writes, “As a physician specializing in family planning, I am outraged when I see news outlets publishing misinformation about contraception.”

The good doctor categorically states, “No method of birth control causes abortion.” The issue, then, is whether any of the forms of contraception can cause abortion.

Well, the doctor reports that “contraception, including emergency contraceptive pills such as Plan B and ella, work primarily before fertilization occurs. They do not work postimplantation and do not disrupt an established pregnancy.” Notice the words “primarily” and “postimplantation.” They are a tacit admission by the letter-writer that the emergency contraceptives secondarily work after fertilization to prevent implantation of the fertilized embryo in the womb. Without double-speak, that is an abortion. Which is the issue for the Greens, the owners and directors of Hobby Lobby, and what they object to, since

they do not object to other forms of contraception that do not have an abortifacient feature. QED. So some forms of contraception can cause abortion. The fact that this happens to outrage the “reproductive health advocate” is just a perk.

The other letters raise in different ways the claim that the relevant religious freedom at issue here is that of the employee, not the employer. But the regulations under Obamacare are not requiring employees to use or refrain from using contraceptives that can cause abortion. They can do whatever their religion, conscience, or freedom permits.

But the contraceptive mandate is requiring employers to provide abortifacient contraceptives freeof-charge, and thus to cooperate in doing what they regard to be religiously prohibited. And so the relevant religious freedom in these cases is that of the employer, not the employee. From the employers’ perspective, if it’s your body and your choice, why should I have to pay for it if it runs the risk of killing a human embryo?

Anchor columnist Dwight Duncan is a professor at UMass School of Law Dartmouth. He holds degrees in civil and canon law.

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his week is the Fourth Sunday of Lent, and as the Liturgical tradition holds — it is rather unique. This Sunday is a break in an otherwise penitential season and it marks the halfway point in our Lenten preparation for Easter. Today the Church rejoices in joyful anticipation of the Easter mystery. We look ahead with joyful hope to what awaits, the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is almost as if we have reached the crest of the hill and now can see our destination in view. Although Lent is a season of Penance, we have much in which to rejoice at this momentary mid-juncture.

Very appropriately, each of the three Scripture readings this week characterizes one of the many facets of Easter joy. They all anticipate the joy of Easter and the happiness that Reconciliation brings.

The central theme of this week’s readings is that God makes everything new in and through Jesus Christ. We are children of the light baptized into the glory that is Christ. We are initiated into the life of Christ Who is the light of the world. In the reading from the first Book of Samuel, we have Samuel going in search of a new king in place of Saul who was not faithful to the Lord. When he finds David, son of Jesse, God tells the prophet to anoint him because God Himself has chosen him to rule over His people. In the second

March 28, 2014

Let Christ open our eyes

wisdom when we need to think reading from his Letter to the wisely or speak wisely, and to Ephesians, St. Paul reminds them inspire us to be models of faith that faith and Baptism rescued to others. We see the presence of them from the darkness of sin God around us in nature and in and introduced them into the light of Christ. They are no longer blinded by the darkness of ignorance. So, Homily of the Week he urges them to live lives Fourth Sunday that reflect the light of of Lent Christ they have received.

We are to live as children

By Deacon of the light and find out Gary John what pleases the Lord.

“You were once darkness, but now you are light in every loving gesture. We hear the the Lord.” In the Gospel readpersonal Words of God commuing from St. John, we have the nicated to us through the voices marvelous story about the cure of of others and through the written a man born blind. It speaks about word in Scripture, in poetry, in going from darkness to light — literature, in song lyrics, cards and as a result of Jesus’ intervention. letters we receive, and even on Once the blind man is cured, he billboards. We often ask ourselves, is able to see Jesus as his Lord, what would Jesus do, when we are something the religious leaders faced with important decisions? were unable to do.

In short, we feel plugged into the What is spiritual sight and Spirit. We feel the presence of Jewhat is spiritual blindness? What sus walking beside us, like feeling things are important to see, feel, the wind on a warm sunny day. experience, observe and monitor We feel the love of God washing in the spiritual life? What causes over us, like when we swim in the spiritual blindness? And, if we are ocean and a wave crashes over us. experiencing such blindness, what This is what it is like to have spirican we do to seek healing? When tual sight. We feel plugged into we are spiritually in tune, when the Spirit and become recharged. we enjoy spiritual sight, what is This is what it is like to grow in it that we see or experience? We faith. feel the love of God. We see Jesus Spiritual blindness is different. as a model for life and a Person We feel empty, judgmental, envito follow as a disciple. We see the ous, suspicious, afraid, autonopower of the Holy Spirit workmous, depressed, lonely, disconing in our lives to give us courage nected, and out of energy. when we are afraid, to give us

If we are feeling blind how do we get healed? How do we look for Jesus?

In the Gospel the first line reads — “As Jesus passed by He saw a man blind from birth.” This may give us a hint of how to make a start. Oftentimes it begins with proximity. It begins with being in the right time at the right place. It begins with creating an opportunity. It begins with making our way closer and closer to Jesus so that we can give Him the opportunity to help us in our need. This requires a conscious decision on our parts.

We need to move closer to Jesus through our prayer. We need to move closer to Jesus though our reading of Sacred Scripture — especially the Gospels. We need to see Jesus as a Healer. We need to see Jesus as our Savior, as our Messiah. What we do need is a commitment of time and attention through an act of the will on our part. We need to say to ourselves, “I am tired of feeling this way. I am tired of feeling blind. I want to see. I want to be healed.

And, I am willing to do what it takes to grow closer to Jesus in order to be healed and to be given spiritual sight.”

Lent is a time we re-examine our faith in Jesus, it is a time we bring our contemporary spiritual blindness to Him for healing.

If we say we see, yet lead our lives as if Christ were irrelevant,

then we allow sin to blind us.

To come to Christ at the altar but abandon Him in the street, is to walk in blindness; sooner or later you must stumble and fall. To recognize Jesus in the abstract only is not to recognize Him at all. In fact, it is worse than rejecting Him outright. For the Pharisees the Messiah was an abstraction, a figment of their own selfish imagination. For the blind man, Jesus was anything but abstract. Being Christian is not about inventing our own version of Jesus, but of letting Jesus open our eyes to see Him as He truly is. And we can only find Him if we look for Him where He has made Himself available: in the Church, in the Sacraments, in the Bible, in charity, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We make a tragic mistake if we confine Him to the sacristy. If He waits for us there, it is only so that we will lead Him into every corner of our lives, including the darkest ones. Do not try to fool the Light by pretending there is no darkness in your life, least, seeing the door of your heart closed, He must with great sadness leave you in the fantasy world of your own blindness.

Open your eyes and keep them open so that Christ can shine in you and, through you, into the darkness of the world!

Deacon Gary John was ordained as a permanent deacon last October and currently serves at Holy Trinity Parish in Fall River.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Mar. 29, Hos 6:1-6; Ps 51:3-4,18-21b; Lk 18:9-14. Sun. Mar. 30, Fourth Sunday of Lent, 1 Sm 16:1b,6-7,10-13a; Ps 23:1-6; Eph 5:814; Jn 9:1-41 or 9:1,6-9,13-17,34-38. Mon. Mar. 31,Is 65:17-21; Ps 30:2,4-6,11-12a,13ab; Jn 4:43-54. Tues. Apr. 1, Ez 47:1-9,12; Ps 46:2-3,5-6,8-9; Jn 5:1-16. Wed. Apr. 2, Is 49:8-15; Ps 145:8-9,13c-14,17-18; Jn 5:17-30. Thurs. Apr. 3, Ex 32:7-14; Ps 106:19-23; Jn 5:31-47. Fri. Apr. 4, Wis 2:1a,12-22; Ps 34:17-21,23; Jn 7:1-2,10,25-30.

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istorians of the Roman Liturgy generally reckon the restorations of the Easter Vigil (by Pius XII) and the adult catechumenate (by Vatican II) as two of the signal accomplishments of the 20th-century Liturgical movement. I wouldn’t contest that claim, but I’d add something else to the highlights reel: the recovery of the Baptismal character of Lent for every Catholic.

Back in the day, Lent was about what you didn’t do: eat candy, smoke, drink, whatever.

And of course the three classic methods of keeping the 40 days — fasting, intensified prayer, and almsgiving — retain their perennial significance. What I discovered three years ago, however, was that those practices come into clearer spiritual focus when they’re “located” within an understanding that Lent is the season when all of us — not just those who will be baptized or received into full Communion with the Church at Easter, but

Lent: The annual catechumenate all of us — becomes, in a sense, a better friend of Jesus Christ and catechumens. a true embodiment of His saving Shortly before I spent Lent grace and mercy? With whom and Easter Week 2011 in Rome, must I be reconciled? preparing “Roman Pilgrimage: The tone shifts with the third The Station Churches” (Basic Sunday in Lent, as the Church Books), a friend suggested to me that the reformed Liturgy of Lent fell into two broadly-defined periods. Digging into the Liturgical texts of Lent on a daily basis in 2011, after

By George Weigel attending Mass at the Roman station church of the day, persuaded me that he was quite right. begins three weeks of reflection The days immediately folon the meaning of Baptism and lowing Ash Wednesday and the the Liturgy asks all the baptized first two weeks of Lent have to consider how well we are liva penitential character, as the ing in imitation of Christ. The Biblical and patristic readings at questions posed come from the Mass and in the Liturgy of the three great catechetical Gospels Hours ask each of us to underread on the third, fourth, and take an extended examination fifth Sundays in Lent: Jesus and of conscience: Am I being the the woman at the well; Jesus witness to the Kingdom and curing the man born blind; Jesus the evangelical missionary that raising Lazarus from the dead. In I ought to be? What within me the early Church, the explananeeds purifying if I’m to become tion of those Gospels completed

The Catholic Difference

the catechumens’ preparation for Baptism. For those already baptized, as I wrote in “Roman Pilgrimage,” they prompt a searching reflection in preparation for our being blessed with Easter water, which is Baptismal water: “How am I responding to Christ’s thirst for my friendship in prayer, in light of Jesus’s invitation to the Samaritan women, whom He asked for a drink of water? How are my eyes being opened to the demands of my mission, by the Christ Who gave sight to the man born blind? Do I, like Martha, truly believe that Jesus is the Son of the living God, with power to raise me, like Lazarus from the bonds of sin and death?”

Reflecting on those questions, the already-baptized experience a new catechumenate, a period of preparing to go up to Jerusalem with Jesus, Who will meet His messianic destiny there — and Who, in embrac-

ing that destiny in obedience to the Father, will be revealed as the Risen Lord Who makes all things new, including our brokenness.

The evangelical Catholicism of the 21st century and the third millennium demands more of Catholics than the culturallytransmitted and culturallycomfortable Catholicism in which many of us were raised.

Confronting a culture that rejects the Biblical vision of the human person and human relationships — converting that culture — is not easy. But it can be a great adventure, when it’s lived in the confidence that what is revealed at Easter is true: love is stronger than death.

That is what Lent is for. The “annual catechumenate” of Lent prepares us to be missionary disciples who can display the Divine mercy because we have known it in our lives.

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

March 28, 2014

Sunday 24 March 2014 — Homeport: Falmouth Harbor — Dick Clark’s retirement from “American Bandstand ” — 25th anniversary. ou know me, dear readers. I keep my thumb on the pulse of popular culture. Lately the blogosphere is abuzz with comments on several Internet videos posted by a Catholic deacon. His diocese will remain unnamed — so will the permanent deacon. I’ll just call him (The Reverend) Mr. Rogers. He isn’t a pastor (he can’t be because he’s a deacon, not a priest). He is a “Pastoral Director” of one of three parishes that have been clustered together. It seems the canonical pastor lives in one of the other two parishes. The church (Rev.) Mr. Rogers shepherds is a blast from the past. No, really. It’s a blast from the 1970s.

I remember the ’70s. I was ordained in the ’70s. I enjoyed being a priest in the ’70s. And I have nothing against (Rev.) Mr. Rogers.

I’m sure he’s well-intentioned. The problem is that this is 2014, not 1972.

In the ’70s, we priests were trying to figure out what the decrees of the Second Vatican Council actually meant and how to imple-

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very child has a human father. No matter the circumstances of his conception, half of his DNA comes from a man. Whether he is conceived — ideally — in the marital embrace, or through an intimate encounter apart from a lifelong union — including rape and in vitro fertilization — he cannot exist without the seed of life that comes from his father.

Despite all of the reproductive technologies that have attempted to bring forth human life using alternative methods, they cannot avoid this foundational aspect of biology. Human persons require fathers for their existence.

It is also a fact of life that the father requires an introduction to his offspring, and this is usually done by the biological mother. After the child has emerged from the womb, he is handed to the father who receives him with joy. Often this takes place in

Anchor Columnists Dude, seriously? ment them on the parish level. Many of us were left scratching our heads. We did the best we could under the circumstances. Looking back, some of our pastoral solutions were way too “creative” and not very wise.

I remember the “Hootenanny Mass,” also known as the “Guitar Mass” or the “Folk Mass.”

The music was often insipid, but it was all we had at the time. I was a charter subscriber to “Folk Mass Magazine” (which went out of business decades ago). I remember presiding at one parish Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Advent. A member of the folk group startled me by suddenly setting up a folding chair in front of the altar, calling up all the children to sit in the sanctuary, and singing “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

I remember a church sanctuary being filled with helium balloons at a First Communion Mass. There was back then something called “Clown Ministry.” It was no joke. And I remember altars draped with tacky felt banners hastily pasted together with Elmer’s Glue.

“Home Masses” were a

status symbol back then.

If you could finagle one, you could impress all your friends and neighbors. You never knew when another priest might be in your parish saying Mass on somebody’s coffee table.

I remember, as a seminarian, attending my first concel-

ebrated Mass. The presiding priest prayed the Eucharist Prayer in English. The concelebrant did so in Latin, just to be sure it was valid. I was once concelebrating morning Mass with a priest classmate (in another diocese) when, at the Eucharistic Prayer, several religious Sisters came up to “concelebrate.”

If you really wanted to experience the ultimate “Hootenanny Mass,” however, you needed to attend a retreat for young people.

One night, the Bishop of Fall River turned on his television. There Bishop James L. Connolly saw a news segment featuring a priest (from

another diocese) celebrating the Eucharist amidst a gaggle of teen-agers. It was Communion time. Instead of a procession, the participants were all dancing about.

The ciborium containing the consecrated Hosts was being passed around in a “serve yourself ” manner. The flabbergasted bishop decided then and there he wanted a more orthodox youth outreach. He asked one of his priests to establish our own youth retreat program.

It’s called ECHO. (Rev.) Mr. Rogers, caught in a ’70s time warp, posted a promotional video on YouTube illustrating how the parish he directs is different from all others. It has since been removed. The deacon explains how worship is “people-centered” (as opposed to God centered?). As folks arrive for Mass, they are expected to chat with whoever will listen. Mass is delayed so that birthdays can be cheered, anniversaries applauded, and strangers identified. Mass begins when the priest bows profoundly to the congregation. The tabernacle is nowhere in sight. There, it seems, the various parts of the Mass are

9 interchangeable. The verse before the Gospel is used as an Entrance Hymn. The homily takes place before the Gospel. There are two large screens in the “worship space” on which to project old movies and TV commercials during Mass. I notice that the pews are mostly empty.

On its Facebook page, this parish describes itself as “a caring community.

We have lively Spirit-filled Liturgy. We welcome all people as they are. We reach out with love to all in need.”

Well, that certainly clarifies things. By the way, I see on the parish website that the youth group is busy sewing catnip toys for stray cats. I am not making this up.

Oh, yes indeedy, I remember the ’70s. Now that some 50 years have passed, the decrees of the Second Vatican Council are beginning to be more deeply understood.

Francis is the first pope to have served his entire priesthood in this post-Vatican II era. The pope has been ordained a priest only four years longer than I. Seriously, dude. The pope gets it.

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

Every child has two daddies the very hospital room where the birth has taken place, but so many of us have seen the emotional introductions taking place elsewhere. The soldier returning home after a long tour of duty is one familiar setting in which he takes the child in his arms for the first time at an airport or other place of greeting, receiving the little bundle from the mother, and the couple is surrounded by well-wishers (and often the media) because that introduction is a pivotal moment that all people can understand and rejoice in.

Beyond the initial introduction, the mother remains the bridge to a healthy father-child bond, wherein the child’s respect for the father grows naturally, fed by the mother’s respect for him within their complementary union. Even when circum-

stances necessitate that the child be placed for adoption, the adoptive mother is usually the primary care-giver, and fosters the bond between the child and the adoptive father.

A mother’s attitude towards the father is foundational to the child’s understanding of the men in his life — she can create either a bridge or an obstacle, depending on how healthy her relationship is with the man charged with fathering her child.

So what about the circumstances that are less than ideal? Perhaps the relationship with the child’s father is not bound in a lifelong

marital union. Perhaps she doesn’t know the child’s father. Perhaps she knows him but doesn’t choose to have him take part in the child’s life. Perhaps she is married but doesn’t respect the father — or even care for him. Perhaps she wants the man to care for the child, but he refuses to be a father. Perhaps she doesn’t understand fatherhood and its importance, and undermines the relationship through her ignorance.

There are so many obstacles to fatherhood that haunt children in this fallen world. We must recognize and mourn each of these occasions of sin, because a child who doesn’t have a healthy relationship with a father has the added difficulty of finding God the Father — as He wishes to be

known. In the very way that Holy Mother Church creates a loving atmosphere in which her spiritual children can find God the Father, each mother is tasked with making sure her own children respect fatherhood.

When the disciples asked our Lord to teach them to pray, He began with the words, “Our Father,” using the word “Abba,” which means “Daddy.” God the Father is the source of all fatherhood, and His is the embrace for which we are all created. Men and women must each do their part to remove these obstacles that exist in the lives of our children. All the reproductive technologies in the world cannot erase the basic facts of life: children need fathers.

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

She blogs at feminine-genius. typepad.com.

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March 28, 2014

G

It’s bound to happen

ood people of Southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod and the Islands, it’s bound to happen. Some Tuesday, soon I pray, I’ll come into the office without our area falling into the cross hairs of a nasty old storm chugging up the Atlantic coast on a path to merge with another nasty system meandering its way across the Midwest, all with the purpose of making everyday life a bit more miserable for folks

My View From the Stands

By Dave Jolivet across the Diocese of Fall River.

As it stands right now as I peck away at this column, the Cape and Islands are about to be slammed with blizzard conditions with snow accumulations anywhere from eight to 18 inches, while the rest of us will get only “moderate snow with only 30-40 m.p.h. winds.”

That’s not to mention the hungry Atlantic chomping at the bit to eat away at our coastal communities.

“But, if the track of the storm moves slightly in one direction or the other ....”

How many times have we heard that statement over the last five months?

It’s going to happen — I promise it will. I’m going to come in on a Tuesday and begin my column with “As I sit and write this week’s entry, the weekend weather in Southern New England promises nothing but bright sunshine with daytime temperatures in the upper 70s and nighttime temps falling to the mid 60s.

“It’s the perfect weather to remove that weathered old tarp on the grill and give the trusty old cooker a tune up for the

season. Once complete, it should be fired up and tested with a few slabs of marinated meat; and for the vegans out there, with some big, fat old asparagus stalks, green peppers, onions, mushrooms and any other gem that grows from God’s green earth.

“It will be the perfect weekend to scrape last season’s mud and sand from the golf clubs and hit the links to cover them with this season’s mud and sand.

“It’s going to be the perfect weekend to put the screens back on the windows and doors and air out the house, allowing the abode to once again breathe fresh air.

“It’s going to be just right to break out the T-shirts and shorts, slather on some sunscreen (making sure it’s not five or six years old), and head outside to read, relax, and just push this past winter into the far recesses of our memory bank, only to be withdrawn during August when the

temps hit the 100s with matching humidity levels.”

It’s bound to happen people.

Right? Meanwhile we can offer this as a Lenten sacrifice, asking God at the same time, to give us a break, at least on Easter Sunday.

Dave Jolivet can be contacted at davejolivet@anchornews.org.

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March 28, 2014

Thousands of rare Vatican manuscripts to go online

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Thousands of rare manuscripts until now accessible only to scholars at the Vatican will go online over the next four years, thanks to help from a Japanese information technology company.

Officials of NTT DATA Corporation and the Vatican Library announced their joint project at a news conference March 20.

The library, founded by Pope Nicholas V in the 15th century, preserves some 82,000 manuscripts dating back to the early centuries of Christianity.

Among its treasures are an illustrated edition of the works of the Roman poet Virgil, produced around the year 400, and illustrations of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” by the 15th-century Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli.

The library has been scanning its collection for several years with help from various nonprofit groups, and has already digitally archived 6,800 manuscripts, said Msgr. Cesare Pasini, the library’s prefect. But so far only some 300 documents are accessible on its website (vaticanlibrary.va).

NTT DATA Corporation will supply the technicians and equipment necessary to produce high-definition digital records of another 3,000 manuscripts and place them online over the next four years. The library will solicit donations to defray the estimated $23 million cost of the project, among other ways by allowing contributors to sponsor digitalization of individual manuscripts.

The library plans to offer a total of 15,000 manuscripts online, free of charge to all visitors, by 2018.

Among the documents to be scanned by the Japanese company are some from the library’s Asian holdings, which include watercolors of Japanese dancers painted from the 16th through the 18th centuries, and an oath signed by Japanese Christians vowing to defend their missionaries to the death.

The library plans eventually to offer online access to its entire manuscript collection, a total of 41 million pages. Msgr.

Pasini declined to estimate how long it would take to complete that project.

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March 28, 2014

High school student fights cyber-bullying with Teenangels continued from page one

inaugural group of teens named themselves “Teenangels” after a program started by WiredSafety.

When Franklin was a sixth -grader at Annie Sullivan Middle School in the town of Franklin, she and a group of students were approached about starting the still relatively new program that was slowing making its way into Massachusetts; “They called together kids who they felt were leaders in the school, and they explained to us that there was a mom in town who had seen a lot of problems with cyber-bullying with children in town, and she was worried so she reached out to the Teenangels and wanted to start a chapter in (the town of ) Franklin,” she recalled.

Franklin applied and was accepted into the Teenangels program. She spent the following summer at Dean College in Franklin. Led by a moderator who was a professor at the college, Franklin made her way through the program’s educational modules.

“For example, one module was on cyber-bullying, another module was on password protection, another was online predators; you’d go through each module step-by-step, and at the end of the module we’d have to create a project from everything we learned, and submit it to Parry Aftab, and she would let us know if we passed and could go on to the next module,” said Franklin.

It was around that time that the news media picked up on the story of Phoebe Prince, a young girl living in South Hadley, Mass., who had been bullied so badly at South Hadley High School she committed suicide at the age of 15.

“It just really hit close to home,” recalled Franklin. “To see it happen to someone so young, and to see what we had learned applied to this case; we had seen some online cyber-bullying in middle school, but when it got to the point where someone took their own life because they were experiencing what we were learning about, it really hit home. We knew that what we were learning was really going to apply to the audience we were going to be teaching it to.”

After finishing the Teenangels program, Franklin and fellow Teenangels chapter members put on a public presentation at Dean College for local parents entitled, “Let’s Talk about Cyber-bullying,” which explained to parents what cyber-bullying was and offered techniques to combat cyberbullying. The group continued to

make itself known in the town of Franklin by giving a series of presentations to the fourth- and fifth-graders at each of the six elementary schools in Franklin.

“We got a really nice response.

They were asking questions and getting involved,” said Franklin.

“We also made a few surveys, and we surveyed kids about what social media sites they were using, and how they were using them, so that we could improve our presentations to parents and students.”

Based on the results of those surveys, Franklin and her group continued to offer parent presentations in the area, sharing the results of the surveys with parents; “That was nice too because there were parents of younger children who didn’t really know a lot about what kids were using,” she said, “so they got kind of a heads-up, and they found that really helpful.”

Franklin also traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend a Wired Kids Summit. At each summit, chapters present what they’re working on, explained Franklin.

During her first summit, while still in the seventh grade, her chapter did a presentation on cyber-bullying; the following year her chapter focused on texting.

The presentations on Capital Hill were made to various executives from companies such as Facebook, Google, AOL, Nickelodeon, and Seventeen Magazine.

“We were able to show how younger kids were using their sites from a young kid’s perspective,” said Franklin.

When Franklin was a freshman at Bishop Feehan, she made her biggest impact as a Teenangels representative when she was featured on the TV program “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” being filmed in Springfield.

At age 11, Carl Joseph WalkerHoover committed suicide in his home in 2009 after relentless bullying by classmates, according to his mother. Walker-Hoover had killed himself in the home, and the family was hoping the home makeover would give them a fresh start.

“We were able to display our knowledge to their community and to the show,” said Franklin, “and on the show I was able to describe this method we have called ‘Stop, Block and Tell.’ Stop what you’re doing if you’re being bullied online; block the person who is trying to contact you; and tell a trusted adult. I think just a simple message like that summed up all our training, and it was nice to display that to a community that was grieving over an issue we had

been learning so much about.

“I feel that technology is great and can be used in so many great ways, but to see it being used in poor ways in harassing people, it’s sad and I think that being able to take what I have learned and display it in front of an audience — even if it’s just a small message — it’s nice because I know that I’m helping at least one person. A lot of people like the ‘Stop, Block and Tell’ message because it’s simple and easy to remember.”

Last summer her chapter held three training sessions for parents regarding social media at the Franklin Public Library; “I got to work one-on-one and helped them set-up privacy settings on Facebook,” said Franklin.

Franklin also has taken what she has learned through Teenangels and created a Digital Awareness Club at Bishop Feehan High School, which will have its first meeting soon to watch the movie, “Cyberbully.” Franklin is excited that she’s taking what she’s learned and “opening up the audience a little more” by teaching fellow classmates, who will in turn continue to raise awareness.

Franklin said it was an honor to have Bishop Feehan nominate her for the President’s Volunteer Service Award, which recognizes Americans of all ages who have volunteered significant amounts of their time to serve communities and their country. Though only a junior, she is already thinking about launching a cyber-bullying awareness volunteer program in college.

“It’s just an amazing feeling that I, and the other kids in my chapter, have put so much work into learning this issue that we felt was such a major issue not just in our community, but everywhere,” said Franklin. “To be able to put so much work into that, and to see so many parents thank us for the information; it’s so simple and yet so powerful. It’s just a great feeling that I could have helped one family and helped prevent an awful situation; just to help on a community level is such a reward.”

CNS Movie Capsules NEW YORK (CNS) — The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by Catholic News Service.

“Divergent” (Summit) In post-apocalyptic Chicago, independent will is eliminated, and each person is assigned, at age 16, to a social faction with a specific duty. One shy young woman (Shailene Woodley), however, discovers that she has a rare gift: she is a “Divergent,” capable of adapting to any group she pleases.

Since such versatility is seen as a threat to the status quo by the evil administrator of the system (Kate Winslet), the malleable lass is forced to hide her secret by leaving the altruistic bloc in which she was raised and joining the very different section of the populace responsible for security. As she undergoes rigorous, even vicious martial arts training, she falls for her instructor (Theo James), and together they uncover a nefarious plot that jeopardizes her family.

Director Neil Burger’s expositionheavy screen version of Veronica Roth’s novel pushes the boundaries of mayhem to the limit, placing the film squarely outside the proper reach of younger teens. Intense violence, including scenes of torture. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults.

“Muppets Most Wanted” (Disney) Another sprightly musical outing for the beloved puppet ensemble created by Jim Henson, this time hinging on the most unlikely of plot twists: Kermit the Frog’s (voice of Steve Whitmire) confinement in a Siberian gulag.

His imprisonment comes courtesy of a Russian gangster lookalike (voice of Matt Vogel) — “the world’s most dangerous frog” — who, aided by a human confederate (Ricky Gervais), is out to take Kermit’s place on a Muppet world tour as part of his plans for a daring jewel heist. Director and co-writer James Bobin’s followup to his 2011 re-launch “The Muppets” — which also features a hilarious Tina Fey as Kermit’s principal jailer — combines singing, dancing, innocent humor and entertaining cameos. The resulting treat is then topped off with an endearing message about loyalty to friends. Some slapstick violence. The Catholic News Service classification is A-I — general patronage.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, March 30, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Msgr. Barry W. Wall, a retired priest of the Fall River Diocese, residing at Cardinal Medeiros Residence in Fall River

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Our readers respond Now that the Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade is over we no longer have to “wonder whether the school in Harvard would have been better off to take the more ‘low key’ approach.” (cf Anchor editorial 3/7/14) The city’s mayor and his contingent of homosexual activists did not march. And that’s what we all wanted for the honor of St. Patrick, right? Not to allow a parade named for the patron of the archdiocese to become a “Gay Pride” carnival.

At Immaculate Heart of Mary School, we prefer the St. John the Baptist outspoken approach, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife!” For defending the integrity of Marriage, John lost his head. In doing the same, what’s a little criticism from the left, the right, or The Anchor?

If there was one thing we learned from Father Leonard Feeney it was not to waste time on innocuous things like naming bridges but to be what the editorial called “proactive.”

Brother Thomas Dalton, Principal Immaculate Heart of Mary School, Harvard In response to the editorial of 3-7-2014, “Distraction from our Lenten Call,” let me point out that Kevin Cullen’s mention in The Boston Globe of Father Feeney was itself a distraction from the issue at hand and a typical example of the yellow journalism commonly peddled today by drones of that paper. Cullen raised the specter of Father Feeney in order to impair the credibility of the Immaculate Heart of Mary School operated under the auspices of the St. Benedict Center. The Father Feeney controversy is water under the bridge. Thank you for clarifying that the “excommunication” allegedly imposed against Father Feeney was lifted in 1972. This lifting of any and all excommunications and censures occurred without any formal renunciation on Feeney’s part. Cardinal Medeiros can be credited with sorting out that issue (For further information readers should consult Gary Potter, “After the Boston Heresy Case,” 1995). IHM enjoys good standing with the Church.

IHM School made the principled decision to withdraw from Boston’s 2014 St. Patrick’s Day Parade when it learned that a group advancing a homosexualist agenda insisted on entering the parade on their own terms. The school neither identifies with nor supports such an agenda. On religious, pastoral, and cultural grounds, IHM School chose not to lend its float, its band, and its elementary students to an event that was swiftly being hijacked into a platform for a pressure group militantly at odds with Biblical faith, Church teaching, and Catholic life. The various attempts of the pressure group to control the event by manipulating pliant politicians and parade sponsors into boycotting the parade unless the instigators got their way reflect an aggression that many fair-minded observers find excessive.

Similarly, intemperate was the barrage of obscene, profane, and sexually-charged messages sent by the pressure group and its fellow-travelers to the school via the telephone, electronic mail, and the post. It is difficult not to detect a certain violence at work in the tactics of coercion employed by the bullies of “diversity.” Persuasion rather than force might have served their cause more effectively.

Nonetheless, with the assurances of the Veterans Association that the lobbyists themselves had either withdrawn from the parade or could not muster a sufficient contingent to march as a Veterans’ group, IHM School agreed to march in the parade according to the original arrangement.

Its float after all features the figure of St. Patrick, patron saint of the Archdiocese of Boston and the central figure of the eponymous parade.

As a visibly Catholic institution, IHM School bore a coherent witness to the Catholic faith and life by refusing to be suborned into promoting causes that threaten its very purpose and mission.

St. Thomas More, who chose martyrdom over political correctness in the 16th century, would be proud of the witness borne by IHM School in March of 2014. I support IHM in preparing students to be, like St. Thomas More, men and women for all seasons. Such citizens may well

afford us in the future a refreshing change from the prolific heirs of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Chancellor Thomas Cromwell, and the slick time-server Attorney General of Wales, Richard Rich. To paraphrase St. Matthew and St. Thomas More, “Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world … but for ‘Southie’, Richard, for ‘Southie’?” Far from distracting me from my Lenten call, IHM School reinforced it: Turn away from sin, and believe in the Gospel.

Luke Austin Gardner, Mass.

The Anchor 3/17/14 editorial quotes Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen saying that Father Feeney was excommunicated for his extreme interpretation of St. Cyprian’s teaching that outside the Church there is no Salvation. Wrong! Father Feeney was excommunicated for proclaiming the (then obscure) Dogma of Faith: There is but one Church of the faithful outside of which no one at all can be saved. Fourth Lateran Council.

The editorial then takes up the letter from the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston dated Aug. 8, 1949. A copy was never given to Father Leonard Feeney, whom it concerned. Excerpts appeared for the first time in the Pilot, the official organ of the Archdiocese of Boston, on Sept. 3, 1949, and then in its entirety on Sept. 6, 1952. Eventually it was published in the theological journal “American Ecclesiastical Review” but never in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. It was not made public until 1963 when universal salvationist Father Karl Rahner, who was the editor, printed it in “Denzinger.” It contradicts Pope Pius XII on “related” Church membership and itself on implicit desire. On this point the letter would also condemn St. Thomas Aquinas for insisting on explicit faith and it would condemn you also for your catechumen at the portico. It distorted the Council of Trent on justification and Pope Pius IX on invincible ignorance. This letter with its errors and ambiguities overthrew all the higher documents of the Church’s Ordinary and Solemn Magisterium. Discipline overstepped doctrine and confusion reigned. A critique of the letter follows: Paragraph 6: However, this dogma must be understood in that sense in which the Church herself understands it. For, it was not to private judgments that Our Savior gave for explanation those things that are contained in the deposit of faith, but to the teaching authority of the Church.

Correction: This dogma must be understood as the Church has defined it, exactly as the words state and declare.

Paragraph 11: In His infinite mercy God has willed that the effects, necessary for one to be saved, of those helps to Salvation which are directed toward man’s final end, not by intrinsic necessity, but only by Divine institution, can also be obtained in certain circumstances when those helps are used only in desire and longing. This we see clearly stated in the Sacred Council of Trent, both in reference to the Sacrament of regeneration and in reference to the Sacrament of penance (“Denzinger,” nn. 797, 807).

Correction: There is nothing about desire and longing in 797.

Paragraph 14: These things are clearly taught in that dogmatic letter which was issued by the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius XII, on June 29, 1943, “On the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ” (AAS, Vol. 35, an. 1943, p. 193 ff.). For in this letter the Sovereign Pontiff clearly distinguishes between those who are actually incorporated into the Church as members, and those who are united to the Church only by desire.

Correction: the encyclical says those who do not belong to the Church may be ordained toward the mystic Body of the Redeemer, by certain unknowing desire and resolution (quandoquidem, etiamsi inscio quodam ac voto ad mysticum Redemptoris Corpus ordinentur).

Paragraph 16: Toward the end of this same encyclical letter, when most affectionately inviting to unity those

who do not belong to the body of the Catholic Church, he mentions those who “are related to [ordained toward] the Mystical Body of the Redeemer by a certain unconscious yearning and desire,” and these he by no means excludes from eternal Salvation, but on the other hand states that they are in a condition “in which they cannot be sure of their salvation” since “they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church” (AAS, 1. c., p. 243). With these wise words he reproves both those who exclude from eternal Salvation all united to [ordained toward] the Church only by implicit desire, and those who falsely assert that men can be saved equally well in every religion (cf. Pope Pius IX, Allocution, “Singulari quadam”, in “Denzinger,” n. 1641 ff.; also Pope Pius IX in the encyclical letter, “Quanto conficiamur moerore,” in “Denzinger,” n.

1677).

Correction: the encyclical says “in which it is not possible for them to be without fear regarding their eternal Salvation” The Holy Office letter targeted for attack those who rightly insisted that dogmas, being univocal, be believed as stated. Even before the letter was issued, Father Feeney had been silenced and had lost the right to perform any priestly function for insisting that the then obscure dogma, there is no Salvation outside the Church (eens), be understood as stated.

The Hierarchy and Father Feeney, without abjuration, were eventually reconciled. And now Father’s followers, without change in theology, enjoy good relations with their bishops while the Holy Office letter remains but an embarrassment for the Church.

Warren Goddard Portsmouth, N.H. “Low Key” like the way Our Lord mentioned in a quiet aside to the money lenders in the temple that they were wrong? This is nothing but an embarrassing promotion of cowardice. How can anyone turn away from sin when priests and the archdiocese are afraid to proclaim what sin is?

This isn’t a popularity contest the serious matter of souls and their Salvation is what is at stake.

Mary Alexander Townsend, Mass.

The editorial errs where it says that Father Leonard Feeney was “excommunicated for his extreme interpretation of St. Cyprian’s teaching, ‘Outside of the Church, there is no Salvation.’” That was not the reason given on the decree, which mentioned “grave disobedience” for refusing a summons to Rome for a canonical proceeding, the exact nature of which was kept hidden from Father Feeney. This manner of proceeding violated his canonical rights, as he knew and as he informed the Holy Office officials who summoned him.

All this is painstakingly documented in the book, “They Fought the Good Fight” by Brother Thomas Mary Sennott, M.I.C.M. The Church’s magisterial teachings are amply clear on the issue. There are three de fide definitions of the Church on the subject. Perhaps you could share those with your readers: http://catholicism.org/categor.

My community resides in New Hampshire and not in Harvard, Mass., so I am from a different house than Brother Thomas Augustine (Dalton), M.I.C.M., with whom this editorial takes issue. The fact that Father Feeney’s communities are “indeed very much Catholic” has been affirmed by the Church.

Please see this page for confirmation: http:// catholicism.org/our-sta.

I applaud Brother Thomas Augustine’s actions. The homosexual activists seeking to intrude themselves into the Southie St. Patrick’s Day Parade are truculent thugs that wish to force acceptance of their objectively sinful and unnatural “lifestyle” on the rest of us. It is not loving or merciful to yield to their agenda.

The suggestion that Brother Thomas would have better handled things by quietly pulling out of the parade strikes me as a form of moral cowardice in the face of brazen attacks against

Catholic faith and morals — the very patrimony that St. Patrick bequeathed to the Irish people.

Should he have maintained such a respectful silence had a band of neo-Nazis been admitted to march? Or if NAMBLA were accepted in the parade?

Had St. Patrick remained “low key” in this approach to Ireland’s Druidic paganism, Boston’s Irish would probably be celebrating a parade in honor of Samhain rather than St. Patrick’s Day. No need to wonder who could march in that parade.

Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. Richmond, N.H. Executive Editor Responds: Thank you all for your responses. Your writings have been food for my thought and prayer over these weeks. I am not an expert on the Father Feeney/Cardinal Cushing controversy, so I will not respond point-bypoint on that matter. Then-Archbishop Gerhard Muller (prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), in a Sept. 12, 2012 interview with the National Catholic Register, responded to a question about the doctrine of “no Salvation outside of the Church and said, “[T]here has been a development of all that was said in the Church, beginning with St. Cyprian, one of the Fathers of the Church, in the third century. Again, the perspective is different between then and now. In the third century, some Christian groups wanted to be outside the Church, and what St. Cyprian said is that without the Church, a Christian cannot be saved.

The Second Vatican Council also said this: Lumen Gentium 14 says: ‘Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary

by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.’ He who is aware of the presence of revelation is obliged by his conscience to belong publicly and, not only in his conscience, in his heart, to this Catholic Church by remaining in Communion with the pope and those bishops in Communion with him. But we cannot say that those who are inculpably ignorant of this truth are necessarily condemned for that reason. We must hope that those who do not belong to the Church through no fault of their own, but who follow the dictates of their God-given conscience, will be saved by Jesus Christ Whom they do not yet know. However, if a Catholic says today: ‘I am going to put myself outside the Church,’ we would have to respond that without the Church, that person is in danger of losing Salvation. Therefore we must always examine the context of these statements. The problem that many people have is that they are linking statements of doctrine from different centuries and different contexts — and this cannot be done rationally without a hermeneutic of interpretation. [I]nterpretation does not change the content of the teaching.” Before becoming pope, Cardinal Ratzinger explained this doctrine well in the Declaration Dominus Iesus in the year 2000.

Regarding the pulling out of the IHM School from the parade, I did affirm it was a good thing; I just questioned the approach (we are free to disagree about that). IHM’s defenders say that it was being like SS. John the Baptist and Thomas More, standing up against the sexual immorality of Herod and Henry VIII. That is true, but this past Sunday we heard in the Gospel Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman, another sexual sinner. Jesus’ approach was different than John’s in that circumstance, but both approaches were according to God’s will and were meant to try to convert the sinner. The teaching of the Church is clear — how one presents that teaching in a given context can help listeners accept or reject it. I was attempting to defend the archdiocese when it was attacked by the Catholic Action League, just as I defended Bishop Tobin of Providence when the Boston Globe attacked him after Nelson Mandela’s death. Bishop Tobin was working in one context, while the archdiocese is in a different one (where its credibility was destroyed by the abuse crisis). In the judgement of the archdiocese, if it had intervened in the parade controversy, people would have ignored its teachings and would use this as one more reason to leave (or never return to) the Church. I believe the archdiocese is trying to use Pope Francis’ approach of getting people “in the door,” to have an encounter with Christ, and from there to grow in their understanding of how to live that faith chastely.

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Parish to offer Taizé Palm Sunday service

said Howard. “But with Father’s support and that of the choir and the pacontinued from page one rishioners, the dots are all being connastic style of prayer that includes Karen Howard, a choir member, told nected, and we are reaching out to the music, chant, Scripture, and silence in The Anchor. “Our choir director Linda poor.” a peaceful atmosphere, with the em- Johnson brought to light a thought With regards to the Palm Sunday phasis on the power and peace of the saying that we often sing about taking service Father Mathias said, “I do think care of the poor, but do we do anything that this is one possible response to Holy Spirit.

“I don’t think there is much famil- about them? She asked, ‘Do we practice Pope Francis’ call to provide a message iarity with Taizé,” Father Mathias told what we sing?’ She made us step back which ‘warms the heart.’ Along with The Anchor. “It’s a bit alien to people. and think. Eventually members of the this, I think the invitation to a contemI suppose that I am thinking of Taizé choir felt that maybe there was a way to plative moment is, at the same time, as a kind of spiritual experiment. The combine our love for music and our call an invitation to ask the right questions pressing question for me as a pastor is to help the poor.” about life and to experience the stirHoward approached Father Mathias rings of the Holy Spirit in the heart. how to attract people and help them to with the concept of recording a CD to We are focused on the evocative atmobecome more contemplative.”

Father Mathias is familiar with the raise funds for those in need. “He said sphere which can be created within the Taizé experience. In a column he wrote it was a ‘bold move,’ but he gave us his church that night using candles and to his parishioners he said, “I have al- full support,” said Howard. colored cloth.”

She said that Father Mathias also ways thought that this Taizé form of It is in that atmosphere that the serprayer could possibly be the perfect mentioned his interest the Taizé form vice will provide faithful with the opremedy for the sorts of lives we live in of prayer and asked if the choir would portunity to slow down and quiet down this country. Faith is fed by contempla- be up for such an attempt. with Taizé’s emotional chant, silent re“St. John’s choir is a very dynamic flection, Scripture readings, petitions tion and prayer, but modern life compels us to move too fast for either of and adventurous group,” Father Math- and song. ias told The Anchor. He added in his these disciplines.”

“We are extending invitations to all In addition to the Taizé service, the column, “If any choir has the ‘chops’ to our parishioners, our Confirmation stuSt. John’s choir is recording a CD of pull it off, they do.” dents and even area parishes to come The idea was also spawned that col- and experience this remarkable form of some of its favorite spiritual music, that will be marketed by Catholic Internet lection baskets be available at the Palm prayer,” said Howard. “This has all come Television Network, with all the profits Sunday Taizé prayer service, again with about by the grace of the Holy Spirit going to the parish’s new Social Con- the proceeds going toward the Social Who is allowing all of this to happen.” cerns Committee, which will assist area Concerns Committee’s goal of helping Father Mathias mentioned in his elderly patients meet their co-pays. elderly with their medical co-pays. column to parishioners that the Taizé “Everything happened so quickly,” movement was a spiritual response to “This all started earlier this year,” the horrors of World War II. “It was

Diocesan youth offered convention, rallies continued from page one

with United Interfaith Action, a faithbased organization in Southeastern Mass., that promotes social justice and works to improve the lives of residents in the area.

The final session will be led by guestspeaker, musician and presenter John Angotti. Angotti is a full-time music missionary who travels many parts of the world providing inspirational music and witness.

Angotti’s message is one of hope, healing and truth with the love of God. “My passion is to not only provide music for worship, but music that sings of the true witness of my experience with Christ in my life, that leads me to the table in faith,” he said. “I have found that people relate through music and testimony. All of us have a cross, even though we may try to hide it. But there is no hiding from God, Who is with us all the time.”

“All of the sessions will key on mission,” Rose Mary Saraiva, of the Faith Formation Office told The Anchor. “The speakers will tell of the homeless, the

sick, and those in prison, and what our mission is to help those people.”

Bishop George W. Coleman will join the youth for a Mass during the day.

The Faith Formation Office is also sponsoring three rallies for middle school-aged students, on March 31 and April 1.

The first rally will take place at Bishop Stang High School on March 31 beginning at 9 a.m. until 11:30 a.m.

An evening session will take place at Stang from 6 to 8 p.m. Parents are encouraged to attend the evening event.

The April 1 event will take place at Pope John Paul II High School, 120 High School Road, Hyannis, from 9 to 11:30 a.m.

“The format for the rallies is similar to the Youth Convention,” said Saraiva, “but scaled down a bit. John Angotti will be the only speaker at the three middle school rallies.”

Information and registration forms for the convention and the rallies can be found at the diocesan Faith Formation website, www.fallriverfaithformation.org.

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

founded by a Swiss Protestant man named Roger Shutz, (Brother Roger), who envisioned a community dedicated to peace and Reconciliation and, over time, the prayer gatherings of this community of Christians from all denominations became world renowned for the way they attracted the young people of Europe and for the ethereal/ mystical singing which accompanied their communal prayer. The musical arrangements were a modern take on ancient chant; sung not only in Latin, but in all of the representative languages of the participants.”

“Time will tell if this is something that will have the sort of effect it had in Europe, on our local diocese,” Father Mathias told The Anchor. “Perhaps it could become a monthly offering which, eventually, becomes ecumenical and a magnet for people from all over our area: who knows? It may very well influence our celebrations of Mass, which are of supreme importance to our lives of faith.”

The Taizé Palm Sunday prayer service will begin on April 13 at 7 p.m. at St. John Neumann Church, 157 Middleboro Road, East Freetown.

For more information on the service or on the choir’s upcoming CD, “Voices Raised for Healthcare,” contact the parish at 508-763-3040.

For more information on Taizé, visit the website at www.taize.fr/.

Youth Pages

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Doris Donovan, a Holocaust survivor, recently visited St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro. She spoke about the history surrounding the Holocaust as well as her family’s experience escaping Nazi Germany just before the start of World War II. Her family was Jewish, but they managed to immigrate safely to the United States when Doris was less than a year old.

March 28, 2014

Pictured are officers of the National Junior Honor Society at St. Francis Xavier School in Acushnet wearing their festive St. Patrick’s Day green while collecting donations in the preschool classroom for their “Pennies for Patients” drive. The NJHS set a school goal to collect $1,000 in the month of March to benefit The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society as a part of the school’s focus on Lenten almsgiving. Students are excited to deposit their donations when the little red wagon visits their classroom at break time.

The St. John the Evangelist School, Attleboro, eighth-grade boys and eighth-grade girls each won the Catholic Athletic League Fall River Diocese Senior Division Basketball Championship which was played at St. Mary’s School in Mansfield. The teams will move on to the New England Division playoffs.

Skyler Callahan, an eighth-grade student at St. Joseph School in Fairhaven, was among those to receive a John F. Kennedy Make A Difference Award at the JFK Library and Museum in Boston.

Skyler was recognized for serving the community by visiting nursing homes and homeless shelters and performing in fund-raisers for charitable groups.

Skyler was nominated for this award by her teachers and principal.

Clifford the Big Red Dog recently visited St. Michael School in Fall River to kick off Reading Week and School Book Fair. Here principal, Sister Marie Baldi, SUSC, greets the lovable pup.

Students at St. James-St. John School in New Bedford recently enjoyed “Sundaes on Friday,” a fund-raiser held for the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society.

Espirito Santo School in Fall River recently started a craft club after school for middle school students. KG Crafts in Fall River donated already-crocheted granny squares to the school. The students are learning how to sew the squares together and then will learn a simple single crochet to finish the edges. Here eighth-graders Nicolas Ourique, Jacqueline Raposo, Sofia Cordeiro, and Vanessa Dias work on their projects. The completed throw afghans will be donated to a local shelter.

March 28, 2014

Youth Pages

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apologize if I am being too redundant writing about spring and Lent (since Frank Lucca did a few weeks ago) but I love spring! My sinuses hate spring but the rest of me loves it! And the word “Lent” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for springtime.

I love the newness of the season. All that was lost during the winter is brought back to life in spring.

People start emerging from the homes, shaking off the sleepiness of winter. We begin to see From left: Skylah Dias and Jacob Castro and from St. Stanislaus the grass again and the School, and John Aguiar of St. Michael School, both in Fall River, re- first buds of the season. cently competed in a National Futsal U.S. Youth tournament in KanDuring the spring, we sas. set our clocks ahead and gain more hours of daylight. The season of Lent transitions us from the darkness of winter into the light of spring.

Waltham — John Aguiar al tournament is fantastic and a Lent, as we know, is a season of St. Michael School, and Jacob credit to every one of them,” said of preparation. It helps prepare Castro and Skylah Dias from St. head coach Matt Hardiman. “It us for the joy of Easter. The three Stanislaus School, both in Fall has been thoroughly enjoyable pillars of Lent are prayer, fasting River, were members of the GPS this weekend to watch the boys and almsgiving. The Church calls Massachusetts U14 Elite Boys play and spend time together as us to focus on these three aspects futsal team that placed second a team and really fight for each during this season because they in the recent Nation at the 2014 other. It would have been fan- are not only the pillars of this U.S. Youth Futsal Nationals that tastic to win the tournament but season but because they are the took place recently at the New when we put this into context it pillars of our faith. These are three Century Fieldhouse in New proves more what a great job the areas that we should be focusing Century, Kan. boys did,” said Hardiman. “They on all year-round. However, we “Being 14 years old, and to have played against teams that are not always as focused as we have the opportunity to play at train together for three-four ses- should be and Lent gives us that the nationals and making it to sions a week and have not only opportunity to retrain ourselves the finals, is a dream come true,” matched them they have at times for the year ahead.

The season of Lent helps us to said Dias, midfielder for the been far superior. It is a great not only prepare for Easter but GPS-MA Crusaders. feeling as a coach to walk around it is also training for our spiritual The GPS Team qualified sec- a tournament and have parents life.

It’ s our spring training! I do ond in its group after two wins approach you and congratulate not remember ever being this and one loss. It took part in an you on the quality of your team. excited for the baseball season exciting semi-final match with This is a credit to the boys, they to start. I feel like there are three the F.C. Black Knights, also from all have bright futures ahead.” reasons that might be causMassachusetts, which was forced Castro placed second with the ing this. First, we are returning into penalty kicks. GPS goal- least goals allowed in the tourna- World Champions. There is so keeper Castro was able to make a ment through the finals, while much anticipation in the followsave and the five GPS Kick-Tak- Aguiar led the team with 12 as- ing season. Secondly, this year’s ers scored. GPS advanced into sists and had one goal. Dias led Super Bowl was a dud. Besides the 2014 U.S. Futsal Nationals the team in goals (10) and had the fact I didn’t care for either Finals against an academy futsal five assists. team and wished neither would club out of Dallas Texas — City Futsal is the only form of in- win, the game was not even a Futsal Sounders. door soccer endorsed by FIFA. It good game. And lastly, the CeltIt was a match up that was earned the status of FIFA’s offi- ics are terrible so they are not highly talked about during the cial form of indoor soccer in the enough to get me through the tournament where both teams 1980s as it was recognized as a two seasons. So I am so ready were highly skilled and equally scaled-down version of outdoor for this baseball season. It is with great joy that I approach opentalented. soccer played indoors.

It was GPS-MA vs. Texas It is a five-on-five, small- ing day. This joy, this anticipaand the crowds were electrifying, sided game played on a hard tion is a fraction of the joy we chanting for Massachusetts and surfaced, basketball-sized court are called to have as we wait for Texas throughout the match. with a smaller, heavier low Easter. In his book, “A Prayer GPS was up 3-1 at the half, bounce ball. Futsal is played for Owen Meany,” John Irving and the Texans never gave up, with touchline boundaries and writes, “(Baseball) is a game with a lot of waiting in it; it is a game eventually coming back in the without walls. second half with a penalty kick; Futsal gives a player more with increasingly heightened anticipation.” Lent is our time to the shot changed the momen- touches on the ball, helps to prepare for this celebration just as tum of the game and the Texans improve make quicker decision spring training is the time for the won 4-3 in an amazing come- making, improves speed of play, baseball players to prepare for the back. It was a fantastic final and helps with ball control; it helps to season. a real spectacle for the game of improve attacking and defensive Jamie Moyer, a former MLB futsal. skills as well as maintains a very pitcher who retired in 2013, once “To be runners-up in a nation- high intensity of play.

Three area youth placed second in national Futsal U.S.Youth tourney

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Training day said of spring training, “I’ve always approached spring training as if I have something to prove.”

I love this thought because we can apply it to Lent as well. I feel like I have something to prove to myself during the Lenten season.

I push myself to pray harder, sacrifice greater, and give more.

This year I gave up make-up for Lent. Sometimes I feel like it is

Be Not Afraid

By Amanda Tarantelli a greater sacrifice for those who have to look at me. Every year I find myself really struggling to keep my sacrifice up about halfway through. Every year I find myself in the middle of Ordinary Time and I have let myself slip on what I gained during Lent.

This is one reason why Lent happens every year, to train us for the upcoming year. Babe Ruth once said, “Never allow the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” Fear is not of God. He tells us in Scripture that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn 4:18). We approach our faith with an open heart recognizing that our fear is overcome by the glory of the cross.

Lent teaches us this.

The need for Lent brings us all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Because of Original Sin we need a Savior. Because of Original Sin, we are constantly in need for a “spring training” to

get us back into a good spiritual condition. And baseball teaches us that failure is inevitable. A good batting average in baseball is .333. That means two out of everything three times at bat you do not get a hit. This is considered successful. Much like a new season, our faith teaches us that Reconciliation can give us a second chance at glory and Lent reminds us of this need for repentance. Tommy Lasorda, a famous baseball player and coach, once said, “No matter how good you are, you’re going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you’re going to win one-third of your games. It’s the other third that makes the difference.” Lent is that time between adversity and glory. It is that time when we move from our losses to our victory. What matters is what we do with this time. This is the same with spring training. It’s that time between the lull of the off season and the joy of the regular season in which you prepare for the ultimate victory of a baseball season.

Let us not waste the rest of this spring training. Let us prepare for our ultimate victory at the end of our season, our final destination that we are trying to reach. And as we end this spring training, let us also remember to “root, root for the home team.”

Go Red Sox! Anchor columnist Amanda Tarantelli has been a campus minister at Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth since 2005. atarantelli@bishopstang.com.

New principal named at Coyle-Cassidy

TAUNTON — Dr. Michael An active member of the dioS. Griffin, superintendent of cese, St. Laurent is a member of schools for the Diocese of Fall the Diocesan Pastoral CounRiver, has announced the ap- cil and the Health Care Subpointment of Kathleen C. St. Committee of the Massachusetts Laurent as principal Council of Catholic of the new joined enBishops. A recipient tity between Coyle and of the Marian Medal, Cassidy High School St. Laurent received and Taunton Cathothe “Live Each Day lic Middle School. St. With Dignity” award Laurent replaces Robfor her efforts to deert Gay who is retiring. feat the Massachusetts St. Laurent received assisted- suicide ballot a bachelor of science initiative in 2012. She degree in nursing from Kathleen C. St. Laurent is certified in Catholic the former Southeasthealth care ethics. ern Massachusetts University and St. Laurent will assume her a master of science degree in nurs- position on July 1. In her new ing from the University of Rhode role, St. Laurent will be responsiIsland. A former nursing admin- ble for overseeing the day-to-day istrator, St. Laurent has held vari- operations of the high school and ous positions at the school during middle school divisions of Coyle the past 23 years including teach- and Cassidy. er, Science Department chairman She and her husband Michael and currently vice principal of reside in Somerset and are the Academic Affairs. parents of two adult children.

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March 28, 2014

St. Vincent’s Home in $1 Million Giveaway to fight hunger

FALL RIVER — St. Vincent’s Home is participating in the Feinstein Foundation’s 17th annual $l Million Giveaway to fight hunger through April 30. A portion of donations in the form of cash, checks, pledges or food items received by St. Vincent’s during that time frame will be matched by Alan Shawn Feinstein of the Feinstein Foundation. The more donations made to St. Vincent’s Home through April 30, the larger the share of the Feinstein Foundation’s $l Million Giveaway that St.

Vincent’s will receive.

The Feinstein Foundation’s past $1 Million Challenges to fight hunger have raised more than two billion dollars for hunger-fighting charitable and religious organizations nationwide. By making a donation to St. Vincent’s Home by April 30, you will become a part of the most successful ongoing efforts to fight hunger. Donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law and can be mailed to St. Vincent’s Home, 2425 Highland Avenue, Fall River, Mass., 02720. For

Around the Diocese St. Anne’s Parish in Fall River will host a Lenten Day of Recollection with Father Peter Stravinskas (author, educator, and editor of The Catholic Response magazine) on Laetare Sunday, March 30. The first presentation on the Sacrament of Reconciliation begins at 3 p.m.; the second, a meditative guide to St. John’s Passion narrative, begins at 4:30 p.m., with a break between the two talks. Solemn Vespers and Benediction will be at 5:45 p.m. followed by sung Mass (Ordinary Form) at 6:30 p.m. For directions or more information, visit www.StAnneShrine.com or call 508-674-5651.

Bishop George W. Coleman will be the principal celebrant of the annual diocesan Pro-Life Mass that will be held at St. Julie Billiart Church in North Dartmouth on April 3 at 11 a.m. Note: the Mass has been rescheduled due to weather. At the Mass the bishop will present the winners of this year’s John Cardinal O’Connor Awards — one to an adult and one to a youth — who have demonstrated a strong desire to defend life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death. All are welcome to attend.

A Day with Mary will be held April 5 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish at St. James Church, 233 County Street in New Bedford from 7:50 a.m. to 3 p.m. It will include a video presentation, procession and crowning of the Blessed Mother with Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. There will be an opportunity for Reconciliation and bookstore will be available. Please bring a bag lunch. For more information call 508-996-8274.

The Fall River Diocesan Council of Catholic Women’s annual Day of Recollection will be held on April 5 at St. Anthony’s Parish Center, 126 School Street in Taunton. The speaker will be Sister Cynthia Bauer, O.P., who will discuss “Pope Francis and the Role of Women.” Sister is currently the chaplain at Morton Hospital in Taunton and is a member of the Dominican Sisters of Hope. Coffee will be served at 9:30 a.m., followed by Sister’s talk and the Rosary, to be followed by lunch. If you plan to attend, RSVP by calling 508823-7623.

Holy Cross Family Ministries will sponsor a retreat afternoon on April 6 from 2 to 5 p.m. at Bishop Stang High School, 500 Slocum Road in North Dartmouth. The keynote speaker will be Alejandro Aguilera-Titus of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. There will be a break-out session led

by Jim and Terry Orcutt, founders of My Brother’s Keeper, a ministry based in Easton which serves people in need. The program will also include Benediction, Rosary, praise and worship music and a snack break. The event is free.

A bus will be going to the retreat, leaving from St. Vincent de Paul Parish (71 Linden Street in Attleboro) at 1 p.m. and returning after the event. A freewill donation to help pay for the bus would be appreciated, but is not required.

The Stations of the Cross will be celebrated each Friday in Lent at 6 p.m. at St. Bernadette Parish (529 Eastern Avenue) in Fall River. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s eloquent Way of the Cross meditations are used. Before and after the Stations of the Cross, the Msgr. Prevost Council of the Knights of Columbus are offering clam cakes and chowder in the parish hall to assist people in living their Lenten abstinence. All are welcome.

more information, contact Melissa Dick at St. Vincent’s by calling 508-235-3228 or email: melissad@stvincentshome.org.

As a ministry of the Fall River Diocese since 1885, St. Vincent’s Home is no longer an orphanage but a multi-service, behavioral health, child- and family-serving organization serving children and families throughout Southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod and the Islands. St. Vincent’s provides direct care, in-home and community-based services, outpatient behavioral health, residential and group living assistance, many forms of support and stabilization, respite for families, life-skills training for older adolescents, and special education for middle and high school students.

For 129 years, St. Vincent’s has been “Working With Children and Families to Preserve Hope.” Visit www.stvincentshome.org for more information.

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks March 29 Rev. James H. Carr, S.T.L., Assistant, St. Patrick, Fall River, 1923 Rev. Msgr. Edward J. Moriarty, Pastor, St. Patrick, Fall River, 1951 March 30 Rev. Aime Barre, On Sick Leave, Fall River, 1963 Rev. Benoit R. Galland, USN Retired Chaplain, 1985 Rev. Lucio B. Phillipino, Retired Pastor, Immaculate Conception, North Easton, 2002 March 31 Rt. Rev. Msgr. George C. Maxwell, Pastor, SS. Peter & Paul, Fall River, 1953 April 1 Rev. George A. Lewin, Pastor, St. Mary, Hebronville, 1958 Rev. Edwin J. Loew, Pastor, St. Joseph, Woods Hole, 1974 April 2 Rev. Adolph Banach, OFM, Conv., Pastor, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, New Bedford, 1961 Rev. Donald Belanger, Pastor, St. Stephen, Attleboro, 1976 Rev. James B. Coyle, Retired Pastor, St. Dorothea, Eatontown, N.J., 1993 April 3 Rev. Henry F. Kinnerny, Former Pastor, St. Peter, Sandwich, 1905 Rev Roger G. Blain, O.P., 2000 Rev. Clarence P. Murphy, Former Pastor, Our Lady of the Assumption, Osterville, 2010 April 4 Rev. Lionel Gamache, S.M.M., 1972 Rev. James F. McCarthy, Retired Pastor, Sacred Heart, Fall River, 1985 Rev. Gaspar L. Parente, Retired Pastor, St. Theresa, Patagonia, Ariz., 1991

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

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

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

Brewster — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the La Salette Chapel in the lower level of Our Lady of the Cape Church, 468 Stony Brook Road, on First Fridays beginning at noon until 7:45 a.m. First Saturday, concluding with Benediction and concluding with Mass at 8 a.m.

buzzards Bay — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street, every first Friday after the 8 a.m. Mass and ending the following day before the 8 a.m. Mass.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NORTH DARTMOUTH — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m., ending with Benediction.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

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

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

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

SOUTH YARMOUTH — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Pius X Parish, 5 Barbara Street, on Thursdays from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., from March 13 to April 10. The Sacrament of Reconciliation will also be offered at this time.

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

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

WAREHAM — Eucharistic Adoration at St. Patrick’s Church begins each Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. and ends on Friday night at midnight. Adoration is held in our Adoration Chapel in the lower Parish Hall.

WEST HARWICH — Our Lady of Life Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Holy Trinity Parish, 246 Main Street (Rte. 28), holds perpetual Eucharistic Adoration.

We are a regional chapel serving all of the surrounding parishes. All from other parishes are invited to sign up to cover open hours. For open hours, or to sign up call 508-430-4716.

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March 28, 2014

Fairhaven pastor awed, humbled to meet Pope Francis continued from page three

residence.

“One day one of the Sisters who waited on us and takes care of the guest house told me they were from India,” he said.

“She immediately recognized the Sacred Hearts community from my medallion. And I told her that we couldn’t concelebrate Mass with the Holy Father, and that we were upset about it.”

Apparently Father McElroy’s disappointment made an impression on the Sister as he and Msgr. Sheridan were invited to attend and concelebrate a Mass with Pope Francis on Saturday for his staff. It was an experience he won’t soon forget.

“During the Mass you can see the simple style of the Holy Father and the way he’s so down-to-earth and very prayerful,” Father McElroy said. “It just oozes out of him.

It was a powerful thing to witness.

“When it came time, for instance, for the Eucharist to be given out to his staff, he went right over to the tabernacle and took it out himself.

Instead of having a monsignor or a bishop do it for him, he went right over and did it himself and then finished celebrating the Mass.”

Although he had enjoyed his daily meals a scant few feet from the pontiff and had now succeeded in getting to concelebrate Mass with him, Father McElroy still wanted to meet and take a photo with Pope Francis.

“They told us we wouldn’t be able to take pictures with him on the weekend,” he said.

“They suggested that we could come on Monday and take a photo (after Mass) in Casa Santa Marta.”

And so, two days later, Father McElroy met with Pope Francis privately in the hallway just outside the chapel in the papal residence.

“He doesn’t speak English, but he understands it and he can speak back to you in broken English,” Father McElroy said. “I told him who I was and that our community was working in the Diocese of Fall River for Bishop Coleman. I told him I was working in a little parish in Fairhaven called St. Joseph’s and everyone from the diocese wanted him to know that they really loved him and we’re so happy that he’s our shepherd.

“He knew about my illness and I told him I was recovering from lung cancer, and he said to me: ‘Si, si,” which is ‘yes’ in Italian. We prayed and then he said: ‘Now I want you to do something for me, Father.’

And I said: ‘Yes, Holy Father, what is it?’ And he said: ‘Please make sure you pray for me faithfully every day.’ I said: ‘We remember you at Mass, as you know, but your name will be on my lips every single day.

It will be the very first thing I do when I begin my day, and when I finish my day I will pray for you.’ And he was very grateful.”

Even though they had shared meals and concelebrated Mass, it was this brief but significant moment that Father McElroy said would remain with him forever.

“I found that when he is speaking to you and when he is listening to you, it’s like you’re the only person in the world,” he said. “He’s so constant and attentive.”

“There’s no question that he’s a people person,” Father McElroy added. “He’s so easily able to talk with you, and I saw that when he was sitting having breakfast or lunch.

He was talking with everyone and laughing with them. Of course, I was watching him like a hawk because I was so thrilled to be there. When it would come time for something he needed at the table, someone would come over and offer to wait on him, but he’d get up and get his own salad. It was so great to see.”

As his week in Rome progressed, Father McElroy said he would often pass Pope Francis in the corridor as he was being ushered to and from appointments by the omnipresent Swiss Guards.

One night he even mistakenly pushed the elevator button to the second-floor suite where the pope resides, raising the suspicion of one of the guards.

“I was going to the chapel and I got on the elevator and pushed one of the buttons and the door opened on the other side of the second floor, where I was staying, and all of a sudden this Swiss Guard stood up and just looked at me,” he said. “I said: ‘I guess I’m in the wrong place.’ He just nodded.”

Noting how all the rooms in Casa Santa Marta are “very well done” and not at all “os-

tentatious,” Father McElroy said Pope Francis’ living quarters are equally simple and modest.

“His rooms are exactly as ours,” he said. “If you take a picture of any room, Pope Francis’ is the same.”

As if he wasn’t already convinced of the Holy Father’s deep humility and prayerful attitude, Father McElroy said he was caught off-guard one night as he went to make his nightly adoration inside the chapel at Casa Santa Marta.

“It was about 9:30 p.m. and I walked into the chapel,” he said. “There was no one else in there, so I walked in and turned the lights on. I was up near the Blessed Sacrament, making my adoration, and I heard someone come in behind me. So I thought to myself, ‘Well, I have to tell them to turn the lights off when they leave.’ When I turned around, I saw it was the Holy

Father! He was kneeling there by himself, only in his white cassock. He wasn’t wearing his zucchetto, but he had his cross on and he was alone, saying his prayers. I was so impressed.

I mean you could feel the holiness from him.”

As the 10-day pilgrimage began to wind down, Father McElroy admitted to Msgr.

Sheridan that he would miss seeing Pope Francis every day.

“It was such a blessing to see him on a daily basis,” Father McElroy said. “His whole stance and the way he is and his style he has lived his whole life. It’s not something he just picked up. He lives a very simple life. Even when he travels on an airplane, they offer to give him a first-class seat, but he prefers to sit in the back with the crowd. That’s just how he is.”

While Father McElroy’s pilgrimage of thanksgiving also included daily visits to St. Peter’s Basilica for Mass — which is located just across the street from the Casa Santa Marta — and jaunts

to Lourdes and several other beautiful churches in Rome, he said the best part of the trip was the time he spent in the presence of Pope Francis.

“It was such a privilege, honor and joy to be with him and to talk with him a little bit,” he said. “When you tell people you shook his hand and got to meet him, they are just awed by that.”

As he prepared to celebrate the feast of his parish’s namesake and patron, St. Joseph, last week, Father McElroy inspired a similar bit of awe in one of his young parochial school students.

“Pope Francis has the full regalia of a bishop on him, but it’s all white,” Father McElroy said, smiling. “Our (order’s) habits look pretty much the same. So I sent the picture I took with Pope Francis over to the school so they could show it around. When I arrived this morning, one of the kindergarten teachers pointed to me and asked: ‘Who is this?’ and a student replied: ‘It’s Pope Francis!’”

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March 28, 2014

Bishop George W. Coleman recently met with representatives of Religious Communities ministering in the Fall River Diocese. Top photo from left: Sister Marie Dyer, FCJ; Sister Madeleine Tacy, OP; Sister Catherine Donovan, RSM, who is the Episcopal Representative for Religious for the Diocese of Fall River; Father Anthony Szakaly, CSC; Sister Mary Lou Sullivan, SUSC; Bishop Coleman; Sister Dorothy Scesny, PBVM; Sister Maria Simona Pia Muller, FI; Sister Regina Jenkins, SSCC; and Father Stanley Kolasa, SSCC. (Photo by John E. Kearns Jr.)