06.03.11

The Anchor Diocese of Fall River

F riday , June 3, 2011

Pope John Paul II High School to graduate first class B y Kenneth J. Souza A nchor Staff

HYANNIS — With the first graduating class from Pope John Paul II High School preparing for commencement exercises June 6, Head of School Christopher W. Keavy sees this as a significant achievement for those giving and receiving diplomas.

“It’s a little like the school’s graduation, not just this class’ graduation,” Keavy said, noting that the current crop of 27 graduates entered the diocesan high school four years ago as the only students in a facility designed to accommodate 500.

“It’s our graduation to a mature school, if you will. We’ll be celebrating all that this week; not just what this class has accomplished along with their families, but also what

the school has accomplished in four years.”

The first Catholic high school opened in the Fall River Diocese in nearly 40 years, Pope John Paul II High School was launched with 38 freshmen in the fall of 2007 on the former Barnstable High School campus in downtown Hyannis. The school reached an important milestone earlier this year when it received a 10-year accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and now that first freshman class — slightly pared down to 27 — will graduate and leave behind a lasting legacy.

“Legacy is a big thing for our class,” said Matthew Laird of Sandwich, the class salutatorian who will be attending Turn to page 18

Father John F. Andrews

Father Henry J. Dahl

Father Brian J. Harrington

Spent most of priesthood on Cape Cod

Late vocation was a blessing

A fulfilling life guided

by God

WELLFLEET — After nearly a half-century of service to the Fall River Diocese, Father John F. Andrews has many happy memories as he prepares for his well-deserved retirement.

“I liked all the parishes I served, I had a good time at all of them,” Father Andrews said, pausing to Turn to page 15

PROVINCETOWN — Comparatively speaking, his was a late vocation, having been ordained a priest for the Diocese of Fall River in 1996 at the age of 55. But for Father Henry J. Dahl, pastor of St. Peter’s Parish at the very end of Cape Cod in Provincetown, the last 15 years have proved to be very fulfilling and Turn to page 18

SEEKONK — As Father Brian J. Harrington readies himself for retirement in June, looking back at his 44 years of ministry in the Fall River Diocese has him thinking of the unique ways that God has guided his life.

“I had no intention of going Turn to page 14

Three diocesan priests to retire

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

RIDING IN STYLE — Assistant principal and senior class moderator Meaghan Wile carts around students during a recent senior barbecue at Pope John Paul II High School in Hyannis. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

Controversial U.N. children’s treaty divides Americans

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent

BOSTON — Parents from all over the United States are asserting their right and their duty to raise their children without interference from the state. They believe that they, not government officials, understand what is best for their offspring.

Because of this, these parents oppose the nation’s ratification of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of

the Child. They also support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would enshrine parental rights.

The CRC was adopted by the U.N. on Nov. 20, 1989. Currently, the U.S. and Somalia are the only two member nations who have not ratified the treaty. The 193 other U.N. nations have all adopted it.

The 15-page document asserts the “dignity and worth of the human person” and calls for Turn to page 15

on retreat — Candidates for the permanent diaconate recently participated in a retreat at St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford. With the candidates is Msgr. John J. Oliveira, director of the diocesan Permanent Diaconate Office.

Permanent deacon candidates to be instituted into Ministry of Reader

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

NEW BEDFORD — During a May 21 diaconate candidate retreat held at St. Mary’s Par-

ish in New Bedford, Father Andrew Johnson, OCSO, chaplain at Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, began the morning session by addressing the 16

diaconate candidates with the words, “You are being called, not asked, to the Ministry of Reader. This is a personal call Turn to page 14

2

News From the Vatican

June 3, 2011

Gathering of families in 2012 to look at family, work, free time

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Catholics, like everyone, often are challenged to balance the demands of family, work and free time, but they also have an obligation to show others there is a Christian approach to all three, said Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan.

“Our being Catholic should become a unique and original way of living the challenges that face every family,” the cardinal said at a Vatican news conference to discuss plans for the World Meeting of Families 2012.

The international gathering, cosponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Family, will be held in Milan May 30-June 3, 2012. Pope Benedict XVI is expected to attend.

At the Vatican news conference, Cardinal Tettamanzi and Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, president of the family council, presented catechetical material their staffs developed to help Catholic couples around the world prepare for the gathering.

“The Family: Work and Celebration” is the theme Pope Benedict chose for the 2012 gathering and while Cardinal Antonelli said specific challenges vary widely around the world, “globalization means that many problems are becoming common everywhere in the world.”

The Pontifical Council for the Family has translated the catechetical material into English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and Polish and will send the texts to bishops’ conferences to print, dis-

tribute and adapt, he said.

The booklet, which is designed to be used at 10 periodic meetings of small groups of families, offers reflections from the Bible and from papal documents on the themes of marriage and family life, human dignity and labor, and rest, celebration and keeping Sunday as the Lord’s day.

Each chapter includes discussion questions for a husband and wife to talk about and for groups of couples to discuss together.

Father Davide Milani, director of communications for the Archdiocese of Milan, said the group discussions as well as more global sharing through Facebook and other media would ensure that the preparation period is not focused exclusively on the experiences of families in Europe.

The archdiocese has launched a website for the 2012 meeting — www.family2012.com — and the Pontifical Council for the Family also has opened a new website — www.family.va — although as of May 24 most of the content was available only in Italian.

Auxiliary Bishop Franco Brambilla of Milan, who coordinated the drafting of the catechesis, said Catholic couples should be aware of just how much work and free time influence their family life, but they also must recognize that they can “transform the world through work and humanize time with a Christian sense of celebration, especially regarding Sundays.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The editor of the Vatican newspaper said he was cured of a childhood disease through the intercession of St. Pope Pius X. “I have an authentic veneration for him because, according to family tradition, I was miraculously cured because of him,” said Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of L’Osservatore Romano.

In 1954, when Vian had just turned two years old, he was struck by “an almost deadly form of diphtheria,” he said in an inter-

view with Il Consulente Re, an online Italian Catholic magazine.

Vian said that on the eve of Pope Pius’ canonization in May 1954, a Spanish priest who was a friend of Vian’s father said the family should pray for the intercession of the late pope. Family members already felt a close tie to the Treviso-born pope because they were from the same part of northern Italy, Vian said.

After the priest celebrated Mass “on the pope’s tomb” in St. Peter’s Basilica, “I was cured,” Vian said.

Editor of Vatican paper says he received miracle from St. Pope Pius X

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perseverance — Japanese pilgrims hold a banner as Pope Benedict XVI arrives to lead his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican recently. The banner says: “Despite Earthquakes (Tsunami) We Will Persevere.” It also calls attention to the beatification cause of Takayama Ukon. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Pope Benedict speaks of wrestling God’s blessing

VATICAN CITY (Zenit.org) — Prayer requires trust and closeness with a God who desires to bless us, though He remains mysterious and seems unattainable, said Benedict XVI. The pope affirmed this during a general audience in St. Peter’s Square, in which he continued looking at sacred Scripture to offer his teaching on prayer.

He drew from Genesis 32:22, where Jacob wrestles with God. “It is not an easily interpreted passage, but it is an important one for our life of faith and prayer,” he said.

The Holy Father recalled the story of Jacob — how he had stolen his twin’s birthright and tricked his father into giving him his blessing.

After all this, when he is ready to face his brother, he is “suddenly attacked by an unknown figure who wrestles with him for the whole of the night.”

This battle “becomes for him a singular experience of God,” the pontiff said. He explained: “The text does not specify the aggressor’s identity; it uses a Hebraic term that generically indicates ‘a man,’ ‘one, someone;’ it therefore has a vague, undetermined definition that intentionally keeps the assailant in mystery. Only at the end, once the battle has ended and that ‘someone’ has disappeared, only then will Jacob name Him and be able to say that he has wrestled with God.” Benedict noted how the episode unfolds “in obscurity” with not only the assailant’s identity hidden, but also the battle’s progress.

“Reading the passage, it is hard to establish which of the two contenders succeeds in having the upper hand,” he noted. “The verbs used often lack an explicit subject, and the actions progress in an almost contradictory way, so that

when one thinks that either of the two has prevailed, the next action immediately contradicts it and presents the other as the winner.”

Jacob asks for his adversary’s blessing; then the rival, instead of submitting, asks Jacob his name.

“Here the battle undergoes an important development,” the pope explained. “To know someone’s name, in fact, implies a kind of power over the person, since the name, in biblical thinking, contains the most profound reality of the individual; it unveils his secret and his destiny. Knowing someone’s name therefore means knowing the truth of the other, and this allows one to be able to dominate him.”

When Jacob reveals his name, it is therefore a form of surrender, the Holy Father clarified.

“But in this act of surrender, Jacob paradoxically also emerges as a winner, because he receives a new name, together with an acknowledgement of victory on the part of his adversary, who says to him: ‘Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.’”

The pope explained how in Hebrew, the name Jacob alludes to his “problematic beginnings,” and the verb “to deceive, to supplant.”

“Now,” he said, “in the battle, the patriarch reveals to his opponent, through an act of entrustment and surrender, his own reality as a deceiver, a supplanter; but the other, who is God, transforms this negative reality into something positive: Jacob the deceiver becomes Israel; he is given a new name that signifies a new identity. But also here, the account maintains its intended duplicity, since the most probable meaning of the name Israel is ‘God is mighty, God triumphs.’”

So Jacob triumphs, but “his new identity, received by the same adversary, affirms and testifies to God’s triumph.”

“When in turn Jacob will ask his contender’s name, He will refuse to pronounce it, but He will reveal Himself in an unequivocal gesture, by giving Him His blessing. That blessing which the patriarch had asked at the beginning of the battle is now granted him. And it is not the blessing grasped by deception, but that given freely by God, which Jacob is able to receive because now he is alone, without protection, without cunning and deception. He gives himself over unarmed; he accepts surrendering himself and confessing the truth about himself. And so, at the end of the battle, having received the blessing, the patriarch is able finally to recognize the other, the God of the blessing.”

Benedict XVI said the account of Jacob’s struggle “becomes for the believer a point of reference for understanding his relationship with God, which in prayer finds its ultimate expression.”

“Prayer,” he said, “requires trust, closeness, in a symbolic ‘hand to hand’ not with a God who is an adversary and enemy, but with a blessing Lord who remains always mysterious, who appears unattainable. For this reason the sacred author uses the symbol of battle, which implies strength of soul, perseverance, tenacity in reaching what we desire. And if the object of one’s desire is a relationship with God, His blessing and His love, then the battle cannot but culminate in the gift of oneself to God, in the recognition of one’s own weakness, which triumphs precisely when we reach the point of surrendering ourselves into the merciful hands of God.”

June 3, 2011

3

The International Church

Catholics working with undocumented migrants welcome new Mexican law

young faithful — Palestinian girls light candles beside an icon of Mary at St. Joseph Church in the West Bank town of Jifna recently. Bringing young Catholics back to church and engaged in parish life in the Palestinian areas has been a challenge for priests. (CNS photo)

West Bank priest works to re-engage young Catholics in parish life

JIFNA, West Bank (CNS) — As dusk fell on this sleepy West Bank village, Father Firas Aridah looked down from the balcony of his office onto the church courtyard, where a group of young boys — and one girl — were in the midst of a heated soccer match.

Religious songs in Arabic flowed over the church’s loudspeakers and mingled with the shouts of the children as they played on the clear Saturday evening. As soon as the church bells began to ring, the boys disappeared while the girl slipped into the church, but the priest was not worried.

He knew that while the pews at St. Joseph Church filled mostly with women and girls, the boys would be back later, when the church youth group began its special activities for the younger children. Most importantly, what he saw was that among those parishioners who came to Mass, there were almost 25 young children — including four boys — and teenage girls.

After the first and second Palestinian uprisings, the Church lost many of its youth to the political arena, and political rivalries infiltrated the lives of families and the Church, Father Aridah said before the Mass. Now he and other priests in the diocese have been focusing on bringing Catholic youth back into the church.

“The youth need many things, like hope,” Father Aridah said.

“We have to gather them inside the church and beside the Church, to live their brotherhood and to live their Christianity as it should be.”

At the conclusion of the Mass, the courtyard filled with young people of all ages. Boys roughhoused and tried to shoot some hoops; young girls gathered in small groups, giggling; young men

and women chatted with each other along the wall of the church. Youth leaders tested the microphone and lined up the younger children.

Suddenly the sounds of the “Hokey Pokey” blasted through the speakers and the children were shaking and wiggling, laughing and teasing.

On Saturday evenings Father Aridah normally leads the young adult group in Bible study, reading a selection from the Gospel and discussing its relevance to their lives, but this particular Saturday in May was dedicated to the younger children of the parish.

Fadi Makhlouf, 34, the choir director, organist and youth leader, smiled from the church entrance as the dancing was about to begin. He said parishioners need to “live our Christianity. Father Firas and, in general, other priests are trying to get the youth back to the churches.

In some places they are succeeding, in some not. “ Father Aridah said he is not trying to remove Christian young people from political activities.

“From the Church they can give their testimony of faith and be involved in the society as it should be, as Christians,” said Father Aridah. “I have to give them a Christian view how to live in the political parties, how I have to protect my dignity by peace, not just throwing stones.”

Young Christians need to learn how to witness their faith on one hand while being an instrument of peace on the other, said the priest.

Through their growing connection with the Church and study of their religious texts, he hopes he can provide the youth with the necessary tools.

During the intifada, when there were closures and curfews, the church became only a place to pray because residents were afraid

to send children alone, recalled Fairuz Shomali, 23, who said she has always been involved with Church activities.

Now she is trying to provide for the younger generation what she did not have during those years: a place to socialize and strengthen the sense of community.

“It is important to encourage the youth and to make them aware of their Christian religion, why we pray. We live here as Christians,” she said.

William Abdo, 24, drifted away from the Church in his late teens when he became involved in political activities. When he was 18 he spent eight months in an Israeli jail for throwing stones at an Israeli jeep.

“It’s a complicated issue, coming to church or not. When you get older you begin to see things differently,” said Abdo. Now, he said, he sees the Church as a way to reach out and help people, not just as a place of prayer or religious beliefs.

Even during the local elections four years ago, politics divided families and parishioners, Abdo said. Now, he added, with an active youth outreach program, young people are beginning to become more mature in their outlook and realize the unique role the small Christian community can play in their lives. As they are given more responsibility and bigger roles to play within the Church community, more youth will begin to come, he predicted.

“Christian youth need to be active in both the Church and the community,” he said.

Part of the reason more young people are returning to the church, said Diana Makhlouf, 22, is that Father Firas, 36, is close to their age and someone to whom they can relate.

MEXICO CITY (CNS) — Catholics who work with undocumented migrants welcomed Mexico’s new immigration law, which gives expanded legal and human rights protection to the undocumented migrants crossing through the country.

The law also promises to overhaul the country’s immigration ministry in an effort to diminish corruption. Mexican President Felipe Calderon signed the law May 24.

It marks the latest effort to improve the treatment of undocumented migrants crossing through Mexico on northward journeys to the United States. The journeys have become increasingly dangerous in recent years as criminal groups attack and kidnap migrants for ransom.

“The efforts of new administrations have started to give us hope,” said Olga Sanchez Martinez, director of the Jesus the Good Shepherd Shelter for the Poor and for Migrants in Chiapas. Her shelter serves migrants whose limbs have been severed while jumping on and off of trains.

Sanchez, who attended the lawsigning ceremony, said people who work with migrants have been treated with suspicion by the authorities and viewed as somehow

involved in illegal activities. She and others cautioned that changing a culture among immigration authorities and long-corrupted police departments patrolling migrant routes might take some time.

“The behavior of some immigration agents has left something to be desired because they have lost the value of human beings,” she said.

“The new law protects people like me, who have dedicated their lives to (defending) human worth,” she added. “For the first time, shelters are being recognized for their extraordinary work.”

The law creates a new type of visa for migrants crossing through Mexico. It also limits detentions in immigration facilities to 15 days, imposes new penalties for public officials criminally taking advantage of migrants and attempts to eliminate corruption in the immigration ministry by subjecting staff to more thorough vetting processes.

The National Human Rights Commission said more than 11,300 migrants had been abducted over a six-month period last year. The commission added that authority figures have been accused of being involved in the wrongdoings committed against migrants.

Rev. Msgr. John J. Oliveira, V.E. 106 Illinois St., New Bedford, MA 02745

Anchor 06/03/11

4

June 3, 2011 The Church in the U.S. Catholic hospital, after tornado’s direct hit, makes plans to recover

JOPLIN, Mo. (CNS) — Officials at St. John’s Regional Medical Center, a Catholic hospital that took a direct hit from a Category-F5 tornado that struck Joplin May 22, pledged to rebuild and announced that a 60bed mobile hospital to open May 29.

“The Sisters of Mercy came to this community in 1885 and opened the hospital in 1896.

They’ve been through hard times before — perhaps nothing of this magnitude — but our commitment to Joplin remains,” Lynn Britton, president and CEO of Sisters of Mercy Health System, which runs the hospital, said at a news conference.

Five patients and one visitor at the hospital lost their lives in the fierce twister, but 183 other patients were evacuated to other facilities in Missouri and Arkansas.

Britton also shared plans for the mobile hospital, which offers emergency, surgery, imaging, lab and inpatient care. She said the facility would be able to handle winds up to 100 miles an hour.

The six fatalities recorded at St. John’s were included in the total of 146 confirmed dead. The number injured in the storm was more than 1,000. Another 29 were reported missing.

In a statement issued the day after the storm, the hospital officials praised employees who were injured while working to

save patients from harm. “Their selfless efforts put their patients first and resulted in a timely and orderly evacuation,” the statement said.

The hospital asked that residents who have retrieved what

president, said a command center had been established for the 2,800 Mercy co-workers to provide information and assistance.

He said many employees are needed to perform various duties at the mobile hospital and that

week.

Structural engineers were set to arrive in Joplin to evaluate the hospital building, Britton said.

Donations to the Joplin Tornado Relief Fund, or wherever the need is greatest, can

utter devastation — Drapes hang out of the shattered windows of St. John’s Regional Medical Center May 23 after a devastating tornado hit Joplin, Mo. At least 146 people died and thousands of structures wiped out in a monster tornado that left a path of destruction nearly a mile wide through the heart of the city in southwestern Missouri. (CNS photo/Ed Zurga, Reuters)

appear to be patient files strewn about by the tornado to hold onto them and respect the privacy of those named in the files until St. John’s has a system in place to collect them.

Gary Pulsipher, St. John’s

some positions also were expected to be available at other Mercy hospitals and clinics in the surrounding area.

Plans about the hospital’s future were to be discussed by the hospital’s board later in the

be made online through a site set up by St. John’s at https:// ssl.4agoodcause.com/mercy/donation1.aspx?id=1.

Catholic Charities USA planned to send a disaster response team to Joplin May 25, but members were delayed by severe weather in Kansas City, Mo. Kim Burgo, the agency’s vice president disaster operations, told CNS that Catholic Charities staff from the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Mo., had opened relief operations at St. Peter Parish in Joplin.

Nearby, the church, school and rectory buildings of St. Mary Parish were destroyed by the tornado, but the parish pastor, Father Justin Monaghan, was reported unhurt. “The pastor rode it out in the bathtub. He’s fine,” said Leslie Anne Eidson, editor of The Mirror, newspaper of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau. “He’s staying with a local parishioner right now.”

The Catholic Charities USA team planned to travel to Joplin to assess what services the agency could provide, Burgo said.

In a statement, Bishop James.

V. Johnston Jr., of SpringfieldCape Girardeau, urged Catholics in the diocese to keep the people of Joplin in prayer, “especially those whose lives were taken as well as those who lost loved ones.”

“We pray especially for the people of St. Mary’s Catholic Church and school who suffered

a total loss as well as St. John’s Mercy Hospital which sustained major damage,” he said.

“Diocesan staff have been in contact with the other Missouri Catholic Charities organizations based in the Springfield-Cape Girardeau and Kansas City dioceses and the Archdiocese of St. Louis,” said a statement from the neighboring Diocese of Jefferson City.

“Staff are working on an appropriate response in consultation with diocesan Bishop John R. Gaydos. “The diocese hopes to be more specific about its response very soon as new information becomes available and additional consultation occurs with other charitable entities and organizations.”

McAuley Catholic High School, which serves the city’s two parishes, escaped damage, Eidson said. It was being used as an overflow triage center.

In a message posted on his Facebook page the evening of the storm, Father John Friedel, St. Peter’s pastor, said: “Just got back from closing down the Catholic high school, which was opened as an overflow triage center. Our area of town was untouched, though the neighboring parish (20 blocks away) has probably lost their entire physical plant. I know you’ve all seen the footage of St. John’s, our Catholic hospital, which is probably also a total loss!

“Please keep our community in your prayers. ... There has been and will be much suffering.

Such destruction and violence. ...

Thanks, everyone, for your calls, texts and messages of support.

Going to sleep now, so we can be at it again in the morning.”

Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri was in Joplin and seeking donations to aid tornado victims, she added. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul also was coordinating its own relief efforts in the Joplin area, according to Eidson, who said the Convoy of Hope, which has a large operation in southwestern Missouri, had already established a base in Joplin.

Joplin, in southwest Missouri near the borders of Kansas and Oklahoma, sits in “Tornado Alley,” so called for the frequency and ferocity of the region’s twisters.

“The tornado has split Joplin in two,” reported Eidson. Travel in and out of the city was difficult in the wake of the tornado, she added.

Information about donations and materials needed by Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau can be found online at http://home.catholicweb. com/diocspfdcape/

June 3, 2011

The Church in the U.S.

5

College graduates are urged to keep texting in check, stay connected to God

radio personality — Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen is pictured preaching in an undated photo. In the late 1920s, he appeared on “The Catholic Hour” radio program and later became its most popular host. He moved to television in the 1950s with “Life is Worth Living.” He was named a bishop in 1951 and became archbishop in 1969. (CNS file photo)

Pope receives papers for cause of Archbishop Sheen, whom he knew

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When Bishop Daniel R. Jenky of Peoria, Ill., presented Pope Benedict XVI with two thick volumes about the life of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the pope surprised him by saying he had worked with the late archbishop.

Pope Benedict “told me something I hadn’t known: he worked on the commission for mission at the Second Vatican Council with Fulton Sheen,” Bishop Jenky told Catholic News Service. The pope served as a theological expert at the council in the 1960s.

At the end of a recent weekly general audience, Bishop Jenky presented the pope with two leather-bound volumes with golden lettering on the side: “Fultonius Ioannes Sheen.”

The tomes — totaling close to 2,000 pages — are the “positio,” the official position paper, outlining why the Catholic Church should recognize Archbishop Sheen as a saint.

Archbishop Sheen, who was born in Illinois in 1895 and died in New York in 1979, was an Emmywinning televangelist. His program, “Life is Worth Living,” aired in the United States from 1951 to 1957.

Bishop Jenky said, “I hope it helps” that the pope personally knew Archbishop Sheen, who was national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in 1950-66 and attended every session of Vatican II. For the Peoria bishop, the most impressive thing about Archbishop Sheen was his untiring evangeliz-

ing effort, which was addressed not just to radio or television audiences, but to taxi drivers and anyone else he happened to meet.

“I don’t know how many people he brought to the faith; it must be thousands and thousands,” the bishop said. “He never passed by an opportunity to bring someone to the faith. He was a hands-on evangelizer.”

Msgr. Stanley Deptula, executive director of the Peoria-based Archbishop Fulton Sheen Foundation, joined Bishop Jenky for the trip to the Vatican.

They also gave the pope an album with more than 100 letters from cardinals and bishops in North America, Australia and Africa supporting Archbishop Sheen’s cause.

Msgr. Deptula told CNS that Archbishop Sheen should be beatified and canonized because “he was a dynamic missionary, he used all the modern means available to spread the Gospel throughout the world.” In fact, the archbishop was host of “The Catholic Hour” radio program for 22 years before beginning his television career, he wrote several popular books and traveled the world speaking and preaching once his program went off the air.

The diocesan phase of the sainthood cause concluded in 2008 and the postulator, or promoter, of the cause took the eight boxes of eyewitness testimony and “every book Sheen ever wrote” and summarized the material, creating the “positio,” the monsignor said.

The Congregation for Saints’ Causes will study the “positio” and if congregation members agree,

they will recommend that the pope officially declare that the archbishop lived the Christian virtues in a heroic way.

Before Archbishop Sheen can be beatified, the pope also must recognize a miracle attributed to his intercession.

“We actually have two fullydocumented alleged miracles of cures that seem to have been effected by God through the intercession of Archbishop Sheen,” Msgr.

Deptula said. “Actually, we also have a couple more that have come into our office. Really, every day I hear stories about little miracles, ways that Fulton Sheen continues to change lives today.”

The best documented cases involve cures that took place in the United States, he said. “One happened in central Illinois to an elderly woman in the Champaign area.

And the other, kind of the stronger case that we will probably be pursuing to present to the Holy Father, involved a baby in the Pittsburgh, Penn., area.”

The monsignor said he could not reveal many details about the case, but “basically this baby was born with several life threatening diseases, any one of which would have been a very serious illness for this infant.”

“The parents and family and friends prayed for the intercession of Archbishop Sheen. They had the baby baptized, and I believe his middle name is Fulton,” he said.

“It seems to have been a miracle.

The baby lived and seemed to have been cured of those illnesses” and is now in the first or second grade.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Today’s college graduates are all too familiar with texting and using online social networks, but they were advised to keep these tools in check so they can stay connected to God and others.

“It is important to stay connected to friends, family and associates. It is also important to stay connected to the deeper reality of our existence — our relationship with God,” Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl told the graduating class at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Md., recently.

Recounting how one young man told him that he receives or sends hundreds of text messages a day in order to stay connected, the cardinal offered alternative advice emphasizing the need to be connected to the Gospel message.

“Be true to your identity.

Never forget your relationship to God,” he said.

He also noted that the graduates “face grave challenges and great opportunities” in bringing Christ’s hope to the world and they also have “a wonderful opportunity to renew the face of the earth” and their relationships with God and each other.”

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood also spoke about technology dangers during the recent commencement at Jesuitrun Boston College.

He urged the graduating class to act with civility particularly in today’s climate where the internet is damaging the political discourse, the Boston Herald reported.

“When you can tweet, or blog, or post to Facebook from a device that fits in your pocket, it’s easy to forget that your digital words can be far more callous and cutting than your verbal ones,” LaHood said adding that “people regularly type things on the web that they would never say in person.”

Other graduation speeches might not have addressed modern technology but still challenged students to do their part in making a difference in today’s world.

Capuchin Franciscan Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, urged graduates at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio to stay close to Jesus to obtain true success in life.

He said their mission is to rise above the world’s preoccupation with material possessions, physical beauty, intelligence and fame, and strive instead for holiness.

The graduation ceremony also included tributes to Franciscan Father Michael Scanlan, chancellor of Franciscan University for the past 37 years, who is retiring this summer.

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6

The Anchor

The causes and context of sexual abuse of minors by U.S. priests, Part II

Last week we began an analysis of “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010” (see pages 14-15 of last week’s Anchor), the 152-page report by a research team from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on the why behind the what of the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church in the United States of America.

Much of the criticism of the report, made within an hour of its release and before the report could have been thoroughly read even by the world’s greatest speed reader, alleged that the report was a ruse that was trying to exonerate and scapegoat free-loving hippies. Last time, we analyzed the role that the sexual revolution played in tearing down the walls of sexual morality, boundaries that were no longer there to restrain certain priests poorly formed in celibate chastity from acting on their psychological and moral perversions with accessible children or teens. The independent report, written for rather than by the U.S. bishops, was not trying to pretend that the flower children were fully responsible for the sexual abuse crisis, but was drawing the rather obvious sociological conclusion that when these poorly-formed priests began to follow the prevailing winds of the sexual revolution rather than the Gospel, there were catastrophic unintended consequences.

With regard to the larger accusation of the report’s trying to exculpate the bishops, it’s obvious that the critics have either not read the report or are misrepresenting its clear findings. In the fourth chapter of the report, on “The Organizational Response to Incidents and Reports of Sexual Abuse of Minors,” the John Jay College researchers examine the reaction of individual bishops and the bishops as a body over the course of the last several decades. They mention what the bishops knew and didn’t know, what they did and didn’t do. They mentioned that few bishops ever ignored allegations of the sexual abuse of minors, but many, especially in the early days, responded in a totally inadequate way, with one-third just being sternly reprimanded before returned and another third sent for a psychological evaluation before acting on a psychologist’s obviously erroneous recommendation that the offender was safe to return to parish work. “When allegations of abuse were made,” the researchers wrote, “most diocesan leaders responded.

However, the response typically focused on the priest-abusers rather than on the victims. Data indicate that the majority of diocesan leaders took actions to help ‘rehabilitate’ the abusive priests.”

They go on to describe that in 1985, the bishops as a body commissioned a report after details of the first truly notorious priest abuser, Gilbert Gauthe of Lafayette, La., became public. They mentioned how the U.S. bishops as a body in 1992 developed the “Five Principles” — to respond promptly to all reasonable allegations of abuse, to relieve credibly alleged offenders promptly of his duties and send him for medical evaluation and intervention, to comply with civil reporting obligations, to reach out to victims, and to deal as transparently as possible with the issue before the Church and society. But the researchers said many bishops failed to follow these guidelines they themselves had developed. From that point forward, at least, they imply, the bishops were not acting out of ignorance, but were disobeying what they themselves had recognized needed to be done to respond to injured children, scandalized families, and abusive priests. “There is little evidence that diocesan leaders met directly with victims before 2002,” they noted. “Diocesan leaders were more likely to respond to the sexual abuse allegations within the institution, using investigation, evaluation, and administrative leave rather than external mechanisms of the criminal law. Many of the diocesan leaders’ actions were not transparent to those outside the Church.”

With regard to keeping their commitment to all Five Principles, they mentioned laconically, “these Principles were not consistently implemented in all dioceses.” In perhaps its strongest criticism, they charged that even though society in general — and even the psychological sciences in particular — lacked a deep understanding of the long-term damage suffered by victims, the bishops who didn’t attend to their needs cannot be let off the hook, because “the absence of acknowledgment of harm was a significant ethical lapse on the part of leadership in some dioceses.” These bishops, in other words, failed morally.

But the authors noted that that failure on the part of not a few bishops is not the whole story. They said that while there were among the bishops clearly some “laggards” — who responded in totally inadequate ways not only to victims but also to the implementation of the bishops’ own standards — there also were many episcopal “innovators,” who “led the organizational change to address the problems of sexual abuse of minors.” The authors called attention to the fact that “the media often focused on the laggards, even though they constituted a minority of diocesan leaders, which further perpetuated the image that the bishops as a whole were not responding to the problem of sexual abuse of minors.” The media has made those ordinaries who failed far more infamous than they’ve made famous those bishops who championed victims. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the evil lives on in newsprint and the good is interred in the newspapers’ own secret archives.

As good as the report is, however, it clearly has some weaknesses. One is methodological. We will never get to a full understanding of the causes of the sexual abuse of minors by sociological analysis alone. As the original anecdotal study of the causes and context of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, written in 2004 by the National Review Board chaired by Attorney Robert Bennett, stressed, “the overriding paradigm that characterizes the crisis is one of sinfulness,” of abominable sins of commission on the parts of offending priests and horrible sins of omission on the part of some bishops in response to it. These spiritual causes are something a sociological analysis is incompetent to determine, and these are the questions that most Catholic observers want to have answered: how could Church leaders not respond as true spiritual fathers to their wounded children after Jesus Christ Himself emphatically promised millstones to those who harmed the young? In this regard, the Bennett report is a much deeper study of the causes and context of the abuse crisis. But this is something for which we really cannot fault the authors.

With regard to the second major weakness, we can: the authors’ analysis of the role of homosexual molestation in the crisis. The 2004 John Jay College study of the nature and scope of the abuse documented that 81 percent of the allegations of abuse by clergy concerned male victims, of whom 78 percent were post-pubescent. That means that between 1950-2002, more than 60 percent of clergy sexual abuse was the same-sex molestation of teen-age boys. The Bennett report candidly noted that “most of the abuse was homosexual in nature.” The present report, however, seemed to want to downplay this preponderance or treat the sex of the victims as somehow insignificant. “The data do not support a finding that homosexual identity and/or pre-ordination same-sex sexual behavior are significant risk factors for the sexual abuse of minors,” they wrote. They did it first by trying to distinguish same-sex behavior from same-sex identity. “It is necessary to differentiate between sexual identity and sexual behavior, and … it is important to note that sexual behavior does not necessarily correspond to a particular sexual identity.”

The second step was to characterize the incidence of the sexual abuse of minors as a crime of “opportunity”: the only reason why the vast majority of victims were post-pubescent boys was not because the abusers had same-sex attractions to them, but because the offending priests had greater access to them.

While it is true, as the report notes, that there were few altar girls prior to the early 1990s, it ignores that most parish schools were co-ed and that most of the incidents of the molestation of minors happened after extensive “grooming” of victims, when abusers plotted over the course of weeks or months to earn the trust of victims to whom they were attracted and of their families. The researchers tried to give the impression that a more plausible explanation for the preponderance of abuse against post-pubescent boys is that those with heterosexual or bisexual “identities” groomed and engaged in same-sex “behavior” with teen-age boys to whom they were not sexually attracted because these boys were simply more available than girls. The far saner scientific and commonsensical explanation is that those with same-sex attractions engaged in grooming and abuse with those to whom they were sexually attracted. This does not mean that priests with same-sex attractions are to blame for the clergy sexual abuse crisis or that a given priest with same-sex attractions is likely to abuse. But the data show that the real spike in the sexual abuse of minors between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s — what the authors describe as the peak of the crisis — was predominantly a spike in victimizing teen-age boys. If we’re going to understand the causes and context of the crisis so as to learn what to do to prevent its recurrence, we need to be capable of candidly stating and examining this inconvenient truth.

June 3, 2011

The Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary

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greater openness to the Spirit of God his final article on the Roworking within our life. Like the first sary focuses upon the Glorious Apostles, we are inadequate disciples, Mysteries, which surround Our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension, Pentecost, but through the grace of the Holy Spirit we become empowered to witness to and the Assumption and Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. These myster- the faith we profess — our faith in Jesus Christ! Let us remember here also ies lead us into a contemplation of the our young people who receive the Sacglorious things that have already been rament of Confirmation and are sealed accomplished in the lives of Jesus and with the Holy Spirit. May they be given Mary and that God wants to do in each the grace to overcome the challenges of ours. they face in the secular world.

Pope John Paul II taught us, “The The Assumption of Mary into contemplation of Christ’s face cannot Heaven is the fourth Glorious Mystery. stop at the image of the Crucified One. Here we focus our attention on that He is the Risen One! The Rosary has event, though not recorded in the Bible, always expressed this knowledge born in which our Blessed Mother, who was of faith and invited the believer to pass freed from the corruption of original sin beyond the darkness of the Passion in order to gaze upon Christ’s glory in the by virtue of her Immaculate Conception, did not experience death, but was Resurrection and Ascension. Contemtaken up into heaven both body and plating the Risen One, Christians rediscover the reasons for their own faith soul.

Death is the separation of our body and relive the joy not only of those to whom Christ appeared — the Apostles, from our soul. Mary never experienced this reality because of her perfect “yes” Mary Magdalene and the disciples on to God. Let the road to us pray here Emmaus — to imitate her but also the Putting Into fidelity to the joy of Mary, will of God. who must the Deep Let us also have had an ask Mary equally inBy Father to intercede tense experifor those ence of the Jay Mello who knownew life of her ingly choose glorified Son.” against God’s will. May their hearts be The first Glorious Mystery is the softened through her maternal intercesResurrection of Christ from the dead. sion.

The glory of Easter is the central The fifth Glorious Mystery of the mystery of our faith. After three days Rosary is the Coronation of Mary as in the tomb, Christ conquers death and queen of heaven and earth. Mary, the rises from the dead. He appears to His most perfect of all God’s creatures, is Apostles so that they would see and honored as the queen of angels and believe that this truly happened. Their saints. As daughter of God the Father, encounter with the Risen Lord moves them to go throughout the whole world Mother of God the Son and spouse of God the Holy Spirit, Mary is rightly as witness of the Resurrection and the crowned with glory.

Gospel of Jesus Christ.

All are called to look to Mary as In meditating upon this mystery we the faithful example of how we are to have an opportunity to pray for those live our lives. Let us pray here for all who do not believe in Christ or in His those who seek worldly honor, titles Resurrection. So many people live or acknowledgements. May Mary’s as if human death is the end. But we humility be a guide for all of us, know that is not the case: our souls are knowing that all those who humble immortal and will be reunited with our themselves before God will be gloribodies at the end of time. Let us pray fied by Him. that we may never forget this reality.

John Paul II further explained, “The Jesus’ Ascension into heaven is the second Glorious Mystery of the Rosary. Glorious Mysteries thus lead the faithful to greater hope for the eschatologiIn the Acts of the Apostles, we read about that day when Our Lord, gathered cal goal towards which they journey as members of the pilgrim People of God with His Apostles, was taken up into in history. This can only impel them to heaven and seated at the right hand of bear courageous witness to that ‘good the Father. news’ which gives meaning to their One prayerful reflection here might entire existence.” The Glorious Mysbe that we always have the grace to follow the example of the Apostles and teries are prayed on Wednesdays and Sundays. keep our gaze set on heaven. Often we This concludes my reflections upon can get caught up in the things of this world and forget that we were made for the most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Certainly, there are many heaven — and can forfeit that destiny. different things to meditate upon in Let us pray that we may live each day each of the mysteries, and many things mindful of this heavenly reality. for which to pray. These reflections The third Glorious Mystery of the Rosary is the Descent of the Holy Spirit were meant to be a different way of looking at this traditional Marian devoupon Mary and the Apostles at Pentetion of the Church. Regardless of how cost. After Jesus ascended to heaven, the Apostles gather with Mary in prayer we go about it, may each us grow in our devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary awaiting the One that Jesus promised, through our prayerful recitation of the the Holy Spirit who would empower Holy Rosary. the Church to continue the mission of Father Mello is a parochial vicar at Christ throughout every generation.

St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth.

Pentecost reminds us to pray for a

June 3, 2011

Q: A member of the RCIA program was told by another member of the parish that if they were going to become Catholic they needed to terminate their involvement with the Masonic lodge before they could join. Is this still the case in the United States? — T.N., Howard City, Mich.

A: This question is more canonical than liturgical.

The Church’s position with respect to membership of Masonic lodges, even though canon law no longer explicitly mentions the Masons, has not substantially changed.

The new code states in Canon 1374: “A person who joins an association which plots against the Church is to be punished with a just penalty; however, a person who promotes or directs an association of this kind is to be punished with an interdict.”

An interdict is an ecclesiastical penalty that deprives the person of the right to celebrate or receive the Sacraments but is less harsh than excommunication.

This text greatly simplified the former code that

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he Wizard of Oz” is popular because it gives us an odd idea that is as peculiar as it is recognizable: we have to lose our home in order to discover it. Indeed, we often have to lose it even to know that we are sheltered.

Watching Dorothy travel afar only to discover home again fortifies us in our own homes, allowing us even to exult in the monotony of it (a quality that Chesterton described as characteristic of both children and God). Through our imagination, we realize the most odd idea of all: the “givens” of our life are the things we know and understand the least.

Our creed is our spiritual home. We memorize it young and recite it by heart over and over, until the words are a mere exercise of the mouth and tongue; so it rarely occurs to us that it is an actual dwelling place: four walls for rest and recovery, a roof for our sorrow, a floor for our joy. The gift of the convert is that he makes the familiar home of our creed strange and in so doing allows us to discover that we are actually

7

The Anchor

Membership in the Masons

of other associations likewise had specifically mentioned unmentioned inasmuch as the Masons. This change led they are contained in wider some Masons to think that categories. the Church no longer banned “Therefore the Church’s Catholics from being Masons, negative judgment in regard since, among other things, in to Masonic association remany countries membership mains unchanged since their at a lodge was merely social principles have always been and had nothing to do with plotting against the Church.

In order to clarify the issue the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

By Father published a declaEdward McNamara ration on Nov. 26, 1983, shortly before the present Code of Canon Law came into effect. considered irreconcilable with This declaration, signed by the doctrine of the Church Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and therefore membership in states: them remains forbidden. The “It has been asked whether faithful who enroll in Masonic there has been any change in associations are in a state of the Church’s decision in regrave sin and may not receive gard to Masonic associations Holy Communion. since the new Code of Canon “It is not within the comLaw does not mention them petence of local ecclesiastical expressly, unlike the previous authorities to give a judgment Code. on the nature of Masonic as“This Sacred Congregasociations which would imply tion is in a position to reply a derogation from what has that this circumstance in due been decided above, and this to an editorial criterion that in line with the Declaration was followed also in the case

Liturgical Q&A

of this Sacred Congregation issued on Feb. 17 1981.”

The congregation’s judgment, therefore, was not so much based on whether the Masons as such or any specific group of Masons effectively plot against the Church today. This does not deny that some Masonic groups have historically combated the Church nor that even today, in some countries or at certain levels, the lodge remains at the forefront of those who oppose the Church’s freedom of action.

Rather, the Vatican congregation above all stressed the incompatibility of some Masonic principles with those of the Catholic Church.

This incompatibility resides in some aspects of Masonic ritual, but more importantly in elements regarding the question of truth.

In its effort to bring together people of different provenances, Masonry requires that its members adhere to a minimal belief in a supreme architect of the universe and

The liberty of orthodoxy

sheltered in it. If you read no ancient heresy find its way onto “Oprah” and smell to its other book of Chesterton’s, starving audience like new the one book you should truth. We humans can someread is “Orthodoxy.” At the times insist upon struggle writing of it, he had not yet when ease is at hand, but at crossed the Tiber — it is the last, I’m touched by this. simply about his devotion to It seems humanity values what C.S. Lewis would later the things for which he has call “Mere Christianity”— but Rome haunts every page of the book.

We who know his A Twitch eventual destination can practically visuUpon a Thread alize Chesterton in the country of mere

By Jennifer PIerce Christianity entering the terra firma borderland between The Church of England to toil, more. It seems that and Catholicism. we all, like Dorothy, have Prior to “Orthodoxy,” to leave our home to find it Chesterton wrote another again. book called “Heretics” about Upon the publication of the connection of all “mod“Heretics,” Chesterton’s literern” philosophies to ancient heresies that had already been ary circle issued him a chaltried and found wanting. How lenge. Come now, they said, we are very well schooled true that remains today! The in what you do not believe. movement that calls itself Isn’t it time that you stopped “New Age” is really quite dancing around the matter and quaint, for the surest sign told us what you do believe? that an idea is ancient is that As graceful as Chesterton it is presented as a new and was at his particular dance, startling revelation. Only in he occasionally needed severe this amnesiac culture can

pruning, as most productive vines do. The fruit of that particular social pruning was “Orthodoxy.”

Stepwise, Chesterton laid out his argument from the ground zero of doubt.

And “ground zero” is an apt metaphor here, for he describes Buddhism as a self-enclosing circle, a centripetal force. Christianity, in contrast, explodes outward. In this metaphysical ground zero, the domain of both the sceptic and the pagan, there are either two insane traps: either one doubts the world or one doubts heaven.

Twin forms of insanity. Either our senses delude us or what meets our senses is all there is. In other words: reality is either a dream or reality is dreamless. Orthodoxy is the bridge between these two forms of madness, it is the only solution to this endless logical trap, the most false of all false dichotomies.

Christianity is the only thing that tells us that heaven is at hand, that the world is cursed/

leave aside all other pretensions of truth, even revealed truth.

It is thus basically a relativistic doctrine, and no Catholic, nor indeed any convinced Christian, may ever adhere to a group that would require him, even as a mere intellectual exercise, to renounce the affirmation of such truths as Christ’s divinity and the Trinitarian nature of God. Of course, for many people active in Masonic lodges, the conversations and activities are more social in nature and rarely veer toward the realm of philosophical speculation.

A Catholic, however, cannot ignore the fundamental principles behind an organization, no matter how innocuous its activities appear to be.

Father Edward McNamara is a Legionary of Christ and professor of Liturgy at Regina Apostolorum University in Rome. His column appears weekly at zenit.org. Send questions to liturgy@zenit. org. Put the word “Liturgy” in the subject field. Text should include initials, city and state.

blessed, that this body and its fallenness is the very key to our salvation. Our pagan past is redeemed through the figure of Christ, He is the conduit through which the past enters the present, full of splendor and, as Chesterton emphasized, joy. This may seem obscure at first glance, a mystic fancy, but it is, after all, exactly what the medieval Christians like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine did. They turned back toward pagan philosophy, seized it, and passed it through the lens of the Carpenter who died in Golgotha. Through that lens, the body of knowledge becomes complete, it is the only holistic epistemology (which is just a fancy word for all that we know, or all that we think we know). Without it, the present is always born of an uneasy trauma: a rupture with the past. Without it, there is never what Chesterton called “the democracy of the dead.”

Jennifer Pierce is a parishioner of Corpus Christi in East Sandwich, where she lives with her husband Jim and three children.

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June 3, 2011

The Anchor

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oday’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles allows us to summarize our Easter season which is about to end. St. Luke in his Acts describes the location of the Apostles after Jesus’ Ascension as being on Mount Olivet, “a Sabbath day’s journey” from Jerusalem. This is an important detail because it suggests to us that the Apostles began to track time according to the Sabbath. They lived from Sabbath to Sabbath, resting on the first day of the week from labor and dedicating themselves to the breaking of the Bread, to prayer and to teaching. They model for us what it means to be a true follower of the Lord — to rededicate our-selves to the New Covenant Jesus established by keeping holy the Sabbath, the day that God sanctified by His “r and r” (rest and Resurrection).

A Sabbath Day’s journey

Every time we come to will glorify Him just as He Mass on Sunday, we celhas glorified the Father. On ebrate Easter Sunday anew.

Easter Sunday and every Through the breaking of Sunday in Easter, we have the Bread and the opening witnessed how the Father of the Scriptures, the Pasglorified His Son — through cal Mystery: Jesus’ death, the Resurrection and various Resurrection, and Ascenappearances to the Apostles. sion, are presented to us. We do not just remember the Homily of the Week Easter Liturgy of a few weeks ago or Seventh Sunday the events of the of Easter original Holy Week,

By Father but we actually William M. Sylvia participate and celebrate in them every Sunday we come to worship. We begin, like the The glory for which Jesus Apostles, to account time by prays reached its compleour chronological closeness tion on Thursday, the day to each Sabbath. By drawwe celebrated Jesus’ ascending closer to the Lord’s Day, ing into heaven. The miswe draw closer to the living sion that Jesus was sent to God. accomplish, the mission to In the Gospel reading give eternal life by revealfrom John, Jesus prays to ing the Father and the One the Father that the Father Whom He sent, continues

today through His Church.

We do this by being anchored in the Sabbath, by living out those same mysteries in our lives that we observe every Sunday at Mass. By so doing, we give glory to the Father.

At every Mass on the Sabbath, we are meant not only to glorify God, but also to assist in the salvation of our neighbor. This is performed through the teaching office of the Church, which is exemplified par excellence in the homily. The task of the preacher is to help prompt people consistently to say “Yes” to the Lord through their thoughts, words, and deeds. But it is also the task of every Christian to help his neighbor to “not be suffered as a murderer, a thief,

an evildoer, or as an intriguer,” as St. Peter tells us in his first letter. St. Peter does remind us, though, that we are called to suffer for the Lord’s name so they we may rejoice with the Lord when His glory is revealed.

On this Seventh Sunday of Easter, we gather in spirit and body in our respective parishes to welcome the day the Lord has made — the Sabbath day. We assemble to break the Bread, to pray, and to teach/learn about the Lord. We do all this on the day that the Lord made holy through His rest and Resurrection. Let us continue our lives in the graces we have received this Easter season by allowing our time to be counted by Sabbath to Sabbath, just as the Apostles did after the Resurrection.

Father Sylvia is a parochial vicar at St. Mary’s Parish in Mansfield.

Upcoming Daily Readings: June 4, Acts 16:1-10; Ps 100:1-3,5; Jn 15:18-21. Sun. June 5, Sixth Sunday of Easter, Acts 8:5-8,14-17; Ps 66:1-7,16,20; 1 Pt 3:15-18; Jn 14:15-21. Mon. June 6, Acts 16:11-15; Ps 149:1-6a,9b; Jn 15:26-16:4a. Tues. June 7, Zep 3:14-18a or Rom 12:9-16; (Ps) Is 12:2-3,4bcd,5-6; Lk 1:39-56; Lk 1:39-56.

Wed. June 8, Acts 17:15,22-18:1; Ps 148:1-2,11-14; Jn 16:12-15. Thur. June 9, Feast of the Ascension (Holy Day of Obligation), Acts 1:1-11; Ps 47:2-3,6-9; Eph 1:1723; Mt 28:16-20. Fri. June 10, Acts 18:9-18; Ps 47:2-7; Jn 16:20-23.

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Reactionary liberalism and Catholic social doctrine

he debate over Catholic social doctrine and U.S. social welfare policy took an unhelpful turn in May when a gaggle of academics fired a shot across the bow of House Speaker John Boehner, prior to his commencement address at the Catholic University of America. Their charge? That Boehner’s House voting record showed him to be a man who fails “to recognize (whether out of a lack of awareness or dissent) important aspects of Catholic teaching.” Why? Because he had not supported legislation that, in the professors’

that anyone who challenges that view, addressed “the desperate linkage is in “dissent” from settled needs of the poor.”

Catholic teaching.

Speaker Boehner, a CathoThe 2012 election seems lic with a solid Pro-Life voting record, is a big boy who can defend his votes on various issues. What bothered me about the open letter to Boehner was its tone (smarmy), its assumptions about

By George Weigel the one-to-one correspondence between the principles of Catholic social doctrine and the likely to be defined by a major policy preferences of the Demonational debate on the welfare cratic Party, and its suggestion state, government spending, and social responsibility. If libertarian minimalism of the sort espoused

by Ron Paul sits poorly with the rich and complex tradition of Catholic social doctrine, so does reactionary liberalism of the sort espoused by the anti-Boehner pedagogues. So perhaps a review of the basics is in order, to put the forthcoming argument on a more secure footing.

(1) The Church’s concern for the poor does not imply a “preferential option” for big government. The social doctrine teaches that the problem of poverty is best addressed by empowerment: enabling poor people to enter the circle of productivity and exchange in society. The responsibility for that empowerment falls on everyone: individuals, through charitable giving and service work; voluntary organizations,

The Catholic Difference

including the Church; businesses and trade unions. Government at all levels can play a role in this process of empowerment, but it is a serious distortion of the social doctrine to suggest that government has exclusive responsibility here. On the contrary: in the 1991 social encyclical, Centesimus Annus, Blessed John Paul II condemned the “Social Assistance State” because it saps welfare-recipients of their dignity and their creativity while making them wards of the government.

(2) Fiscal prudence is a matter of justice extended toward future generations, and is therefore an inter-generational moral imperative (as is provision for the retired elderly). To leave mountains of unserviceable debt to future generations is shameful. The reactionary defense of governmental pension and social welfare programs with no evident concern for their fiscal implications violates the moral structure of Catholic social doctrine: the portside analogue to a cool indifference toward the fate of the poor.

(3) There are legitimate disagreements about the implications of the Church’s social doctrine for American social welfare policy.

To suggest that the social doctrine provides obvious, clear-cut answers to questions about the future of Medicare or Medicaid is

to misrepresent that teaching. To charge someone with “dissent” from Church teaching because that someone disagrees with one’s own prudential judgments about the application of the social doctrine to complex policy issues is a serious misuse of the notion of “dissent” and borders on calumny (a false statement that “harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them”— “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” 2477). It ill behooves anyone to make such a charge; it particularly ill behooves academics who publicly dissent from settled Catholic teaching on marital chastity, sexual morality, and qualifications for Holy Orders from chairs at Catholic universities.

(4) The moral imperative legally to protect innocent human life from conception until natural death is a settled matter in Catholic doctrine. So is the nature of marriage as the stable union of a man and a woman.

Catholic legislators who support the abortion license are manifestly in dissent and have damaged their communion with the Church.

So have legislators who support “gay marriage.” Academics eager to demonstrate their fidelity to Catholic social doctrine might point this out — and support the bishops who do.

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

June 3, 2011

Copy-cat congregations

Friday 3 June 2011 — at home on the Taunton River — 176th birth anniversary of Giuseppe Sarto (St. Pius X, 257th pope and founder of the Diocese of Fall River) hey say, dear readers, that imitation is the highest form of flattery. I suppose it’s a compliment to us, in an odd sort of way, that there are imitation Catholic churches. Unlike Coca-Cola, these denominations are not the real thing.

Some of the fakes look so much like the original it’s difficult for the untrained eye to tell which is authentic and which is not. If churches were handbags or wristwatches,

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I

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The Anchor these “Catholic” churches would be what people often call “knockoffs.” The marks of the Catholic Church are four. We are one, holy,

The Ship’s Log Reflections of a Parish Priest

By Father Tim Goldrick catholic and apostolic. Now it gets complicated. You’ve got your Reformed Catholic Church, your Independent Catholic Church, your Liberal Catholic Church, your Old

The gift of gab

trials and sufferings He permitn her book, “The Female ted these saints to go through.)

Brain,” Dr. Louann BrizenA woman’s capacity to comdine, MD identifies the process municate her personal experiwhereby a male brain is formed ences is highly valued. But her in a human embryo. “A huge expansiveness isn’t always fully testosterone surge beginning appreciated. Words like gosthe eighth week will turn this sip and busybody seem to get unisex brain male by killing off attached more easily to the womsome cells in the communication an. In fact, the gift of communicenters and growing more cells cativeness can degenerate or be in the sex and aggression centers. misused, giving a bad name to The fetal girl’s brain cells sprout the art of communicating. more connections in the comWomen have a greater munication centers and areas that tendency to value speech as process emotion.” a means for establishing and Brizendine then draws an evident conclusion: “Because of her larger communication center, this girl will grow up to be more talkative than her brother. In most social contexts, she will use many more forms

By Joan Kingsland of communication than he will.”

This particular feminine gift of commaintaining communion with municativeness can be put in the others. It’s a precious way for spotlight by comparing men and knowing and appreciating a women mystics. The beloved person. It implies accompanying, saints Padre Pio and the Curé of abiding in the presence of others.

Ars transmitted Our Lord’s merThere’s no special need for doing ciful love through their actions, business or achieving some set particularly within the confespurpose, as is the case for many sional. But neither of them was men. For them talk about trivial forthcoming about his mystical matters is often considered useinterchanges with Christ. less chatter.

It’s thanks to the female mysEven conversations on lighter tics that we can taste vicariously themes, however, can bolster a Christ’s tender, intimate love relationship. A woman grasps for the individual person. Saints that what matters is the listenlike Faustina Kowalska, Margaing, the interest and empathy ret Mary Alacoque and Teresa that is shown — the interchange of Avila emphasize their own that accompanies the words. An unworthiness at the same time as important part of building relathey provide delightfully detailed tionships, after all, is communidescriptions of how Our Lord cating. What is spoken doesn’t encouraged, guided and carefully always have to be at the most watched over each one of them. serious level, though room needs Reading these accounts, it’s to be left for that too, as well as easy to put yourself in their for moments of silence. place, imagining that Jesus In the realm of communicaChrist is addressing his lovtion, women can sometimes ing words directly to you. The close up the channels, assuming experience is consoling and their husbands understand why encouraging. (It’s also a little they’re doing so, when all too unnerving, given the amount of

Feminine Gifts

Catholic Church, your various national Catholic churches, etc.

The Liberal Catholic Church is rooted in theosophy. Theosophy combines vaguely Christian beliefs with spiritualism and esoteric ideas recycled from Eastern Religions (reincarnation, etc.). One of the co-cofounders of the Liberal Catholic Church was J. I. Wedgewood, a wealthy Englishman and former Anglican priest. (You’ve heard the surname. The family business still manufactures expensive china.)

The Anglican Church is one

often the husbands haven’t a clue. A judge who was glad to be retiring because of all the messy divorce cases he had to deal with told me that if he had his way, he would get women to state clearly what is bothering them.

Given the differences between the way men and women think and perceive, it’s important not to jump to conclusions about the other’s actions. Healthy dialogue in which each expresses his or her point of view serenely and in a tactful, nonjudgmental way, is key.

While women do have a propensity for communicating, that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Quarrels and strong differences of opinion make the going tough. That’s when women are called to draw from their inner strength and make the extra effort to open the channels once more.

Extending the olive branch is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, the one who can give in when it comes to unimportant matters, the one who can say “I’m sorry” first, shows greater strength of character.

To maintain a healthy Christian hold on our aptitude for communicating, we can take St. Paul’s injunction to heart: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worth of praise, think about these things” (Phil 4:8). We could add: Speak about these things, too!

Joan Kingsland, a consecrated woman of Regnum Christi, teaches theology at Mater Ecclesiae College in Greenville, R.I. She received a doctorate from the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Rome.

of those national churches that’s fond of calling itself Catholic. The Vatican Archives has the original decree excommunicating its founder, King Henry VIII. King Henry, was, shall we say, more than a bit whacked. The Anglican Communion of churches is coming apart at the seams. There is a distinct possibility it will not survive much longer in its current form. The Holy Father has generously provided a “personal ordinariate” for those Anglicans (including bishops and priests) who have decided in conscience to return to the fold, even while retaining some of their traditions (like, for the present, married clergy). But I digress.

Father Wedgewood left the Anglican Church and rose to world leadership in the Theosophical Society. Wedgewood then attached himself to the Old Catholic Church. But when the Old Catholic Church renounced Theosophy, this left Wedgewood in a precarious position. A suspended bishop of the Old Catholic Church ordained Wedgewood a “bishop” in 1916. But when the Old Catholic Church in Britain dissolved, the Most Reverend Wedgewood found himself a bishop without a church. Not to worry. He founded his own church and got appointed its first bishop.

The newly-minted bishop then proceeded to teach a theological soup of esoteric theosophy mixed with a dab of Freemasonry and a sprinkle of rosicrucianism. That’s the Liberal Catholic Church in a nutshell. It is not Catholic.

Then in 2009, along came the Reformed Liberal Catholic Church. It is in fact neither liberal in outlook nor Catholic in faith.

By the way, they also consider themselves Orthodox. I told you it was complicated.

We’ve already encountered the Old Catholic Church. Let’s take a closer look. Oh dear, it’s even more complicated. The first Old Catholic Church was founded in the Netherlands in 1712. They were excommunicated. They are schismatics. This is getting messy.

Other national churches, rejecting this or that Church teaching,

affiliated with the Old Catholic Church over the years. The German off-shoot wanted to “deRomanize” the papacy. Oh, look.

The pope in Rome, Benedict XVI, is German. The Polish groups wanted more say in the running of the Church. Did any of them happen to notice that Blessed John Paul II was Polish? Maybe it’s time to hang it up. The protesting Polish groups, by the way, have since disaffiliated from the Old Catholic Church. You’ll need a score card to keep track.

The Independent Catholic Church describes itself as an amalgam of disaffected Catholics, Anglicans, Orthodox, and Protestants (of various denominations.) The words “Independent” and “Catholic” used in its very title are oxymoronic. So is the Independent Catholic Church.

As the one and only Catholic Church, we are constantly confessing publicly that we are far from perfect. We are flawed because we are human. We are also holy because we are human — at least we try to be as human and holy as possible. We are one in faith, although we are inclusive of many versions of the true faith, each with its particular expression.

We are certainly “catholic,” meaning universal in scope. We are apostolic in that we are founded on the Apostles. Of course, the apostolic church experimented with various ecclesiastical models in the early days. Some worked, some didn’t. And of course the Church structure that survived has been repeatedly adjusted over the centuries to meet the needs of changing times.

That being said, we remain to this day the only One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Beware of the imposters. None of these imitation Catholic congregations are affiliated with the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, yet they dare to call themselves Catholic. Let me be blunt. We have more nuts out there calling themselves “Catholic” than Planters has peanuts. There ought to be a law.

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

10

G

eorge Mendes is a hero surrounded by heroes.

George, 88, is a resident at Our Lady’s Haven in Fairhaven.

It’s no secret to him, his wife and children, the Haven staff, and his hospice caregivers that George is in the late twilight of an amazing life.

George is in the latter stages of Parkinson’s disease, an ailment he’s lived with since the mid-1940s. But that hasn’t deterred him from living his life to the fullest — a life that was nearly cut far too short in France during World War II. I learned of George Mendes from Michele Clayborne, director of professional relations for Guardian Hospice and Palliative Care based in Stoughton. Michele called me at The Anchor office and told me that she had seen the cover of one of our recent editions showing a billboard in the Boston area promoting euthanasia. She told me she knew of a person who was the “anti-euthanasia.” A person living with the same debilitating disease as Blessed John Paul II, and experiencing it with the same dignity and love of life.

Michele told me that one of George’s final requests was to attend a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. He had been once previously in the 1990s.

George is an avid Red Sox fan.

Hospice does great things, despite having the stigma that they’re there to “help one die.”

I discovered that’s quite the

The Anchor

June 3, 2011

A living, breathing billboard for life

contrary. Hospice exists to rella (from Holy Cross Parish “help one live” ... and live to in South Easton) and nurse the fullest.

Yvanna Wilkinson. The Our The hospice heroes involved Lady’s staff thinks the world with George hit the ground of George and gave them a running to see if they could rousing send-off. make George’s wish come true.

“The ride was two hours Like a well-choreographed there and two hours back,” Broadway musical, everything Deacon Zarella told me. “But just fell into place.

George was in heaven.”

The building in StoughThe rains didn’t hold back ton where Guardian Hospice is located is owned by long-time Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield’s fatherin-law. Needless to say, Jim Stover has season’s tickets to the

By Dave Jolivet Bosox, and when he learned of George’s wish, he donated three seats and arranged with the Red Sox to give the for the trio, and the Sox didn’t 88-year-old a special “VIP cooperate very much either, package,” including a Sox losing 11-0. But George hat, player pictures and other Mendes had a ball. Unlike keepsakes. many others at Fenway that It’s not easy for George to day, George stayed until the get around, so the logistics last out was made. of getting him to and from Deacon Zarella told me that Fenway had to be meticubecause of the Parkinson’s, lously thought out. Again, with George often has to actually the pieces nicely falling into hold his eyes open with his place, the husband of a hospice fingers. “But at the game, they worker owned an ambulance were open all by themselves company and graciously doall day,” he marveled. nated a vehicle and driver for At a recent visit to Our the day.

Lady’s Haven, I asked George Come game day, it was what his favorite part of the overcast, cold and there was a day was. After saying “everyheavy threat of rain in the air thing,” he added “Watching the — not nearly enough to stop game and drinking my beer.”

George Mendes or his hospice The ice cream wasn’t too bad friends Deacon George Zaeither he said. When asked,

My View From the Stands

“Did you enjoy yourself?” he quickly responded “Oh yeah.”

George’s beautiful wife of 66 years, Mary, was with her husband as usual the day I visited. She sang the praises of the hospice staff and the volunteers, the “heart” of hospice.

Parkinson’s disease isn’t the only thing hampering George Mendes. He still shows the scars of severe injuries he sustained during World War II. Ironically, they occurred nearly the same time as his Parkinson’s appeared in the mid-40s. And he’s lived with both since.

George told me he was a Sergeant First Class in the U.S. Army, having been drafted in 1942. He was a demolition expert and worked in bomb disposal. While serving in France in 1944, George witnessed an accident with one of his company’s ammunition trucks, which had backed up “in the wrong place.” George went to rescue the driver at which time the truck exploded. George sustained burns on his face, hands and ankles. His jaw was ripped open and both hands were shattered, scars still visible today, and his helmet lining actually melted to his head.

He saved the driver’s life.

As George was telling me that he was given last rites, he paused. The emotional scars are still as evident as the physical.

George spent the next 11-and-one-half months in various hospitals in France, England and the U.S. He received a disability discharge.

Shortly after the war, George met Mary and eventually married. In his memoirs, George wrote, “A friend said she had a girl she was working with that she wanted me to meet. So she took me to a goat

dinner and I met my wife.”

George’s loving hospice nurse, Paula Carrazana, was there when I met George. I watched her when she spoke to George, or listened to George.

The care, concern, love and respect was evident on her face. She told me that the care hospice provides is what the patient wants, not someone else. “We provide George and others with a quality of life they deserve,” she said. For instance, George, who is susceptible to pneumonia, chose food over health, meaning that pureed food would be best, but he chose to eat regular food.

“We have the highest regard for a full life for the patients,” she added.

George Mendes loves life.

He still watches the Red Sox and Bruins on television, still plays the guitar a bit, not too bad with his disfigured fingers ... I’m a hacker with good fingers ... and he still plays Wii. George Mendes loves his family and caregivers too. The Our Lady’s staff love him, the hospice staff loves him, and Mary and his children love him.

George admitted himself to Our Lady’s Haven roughly seven years ago when he worried for Mary’s safety taking care of him. George wants to go back home. The hospice staff is looking into that possibility.

No one but God knows how much time George will be with us. I’m told that may be about six months. I know, no matter what, George will be a shining example of living and loving with dignity. Just how God wants it.

So those who put up the billboard in Boston promoting euthanasia, remember you’ll have to answer for your actions. God too has billboards ... promoting life. One of them is a living, breathing billboard ... George Mendes.

To advertise in The Anchor, contact Wayne Powers at 508-6757151 or Email waynepowers@ anchornews.org

11

The Anchor

June 3, 2011

Publication by Holy Cross Father continues mission of ‘Rosary Priest’

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

NORTH EASTON — Servant of God Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C. died 19 years ago today. The charismatic Holy Cross Father who was a friend to movie stars and common folk, traveled the globe to strengthen families through the intercession of his beloved Blessed Mother and her Rosary.

When Father Peyton was called home to the Father, his mission continued to flourish and bring hope, reconciliation and peace to families everywhere. Through the works of Holy Cross Family Ministries, founded by Father Peyton and headquartered in North Easton, the Rosary Priest’s mantra of “The family that prays together stays together” lives on ... as strong as ever.

Holy Cross Family Ministries, along with its affiliates, Family Rosary and Family Theater Productions, share Father Peyton’s mission of strengthening the family through prayer and meditating on the life of Christ.

Father John Phalen, presi-

dent of Holy Cross Family Ministries, is one of about 30 Congregation of Holy Cross Brothers, Sisters and priests who have taken Father Peyton’s mission to heart.

Father Phalen travels across the world preaching Rosary missions. He has taken some of those mission experiences and put them in print in a newlyreleased book by Ave Maria Press, entitled, “Living the Rosary, Finding Your Life in the Mysteries.”

Father Phalen told The Anchor that the Mysteries of the Rosary depict the life and mission of Jesus. “It’s a prayer people know well,” he said.

“There’s no other prayer that preaches Christ’s life from 2,000 years ago to today.”

Father Phalen said that when he preaches a mission, he shares with those in attendance aspects of his own life that relate to each mystery, and asks them to try to relate each mystery to something in their own lives. “I invite people to think of their own stories and experiences and relate them to that particular mys-

tery,” he explained. “Afterward, I ask them to break into small groups and talk to their neighbors giving examples if they can. Many people are surprised by the similar instances in their own lives.”

Father Phalen has included some of his experiences in the book, along with techniques for “going deeper into the Mysteries.”

While many people find it hard to concentrate while praying the Rosary, Father Phalen said that he tries to help people to know what to concentrate on. “The Mysteries of the Rosary go deeper into the life of Christ,” he said. “Each Mystery covers all of the major feasts of the Church calendar. These are not minor events in Jesus’ life.

The Mysteries are God telling us that He loves us, over and over again.”

Father Phalen told The Anchor that his family prayed the Rosary often when he was a boy, but he wasn’t a model Catholic.

In the introduction to his book, he writes, “With a very short attention span and two sisters who rather looked forward to

my antics, I did my best to subvert the family Rosary.”

But Father Phalen remained faithful to praying it until a point in his life when he deserted it.

He was brought back to the prayer following the tragic death of his 23-year-old brother.

“I was distraught over losing my only brother,” Father Phalen shared. “I was working with a Spanish Ministry in South Bend, Ind. at the time. The people there are more jovial when it comes to death. They had a tradition of a Novena of Rosaries after the death of a loved one. They would gather in a large group and pray the Rosary for nine straight days. Each session was more jovial than the previous, and eventually on the last day there would be a Mass and a fiesta.”

Some individuals held a novena for Father Phalen’s brother. “I couldn’t believe all the people who came,” he recalled.

“It brought me back to life, it made me examine my life more closely.”

Father Phalen said he finds it

“humbling and a blessing” to be following in Servant of God Father Patrick Peyton’s footsteps.

“I know I’ll never speak to a crowd of a million people like he did, but I and the other members of the congregation bring our gifts to others through the Rosary and Our Blessed Mother’s intercession. God intended for Father Peyton’s mission to continue and grow. The Rosary is being passed on from generation to generation.”

Holy Cross Father Willie Raymond, national director of Family Theater Productions in Hollywood, said of Father Phalen’s book, “Two of my heroes are Pope John Paul II and Father Peyton. Both men shared an intense devotion to Our Blessed Lady and the Rosary. I know of no one who has more fully and eloquently integrated the devotion of Father Peyton to Mary than Father Phalen. He has a gift for relating the Mysteries of the Rosary to our daily lives.”

For information on Father Phalen’s book, visit hcfm.org or call 1-800-299-7729.

12

The Anchor

June 3, 2011

Wisconsin parishioners turn pillowcases into dresses for children

APPLETON, Wis. (CNS) — Old pillowcases for new dresses.

Sounds almost like something out of the Arabian Nights. But making pillowcases into dresses for children in Haiti is how a couple of dozen people spent part of weekend at St. Thomas More Parish.

Scissors cut bright fabric while half a dozen sewing machines stitched pieces together and sewed elastic into pillowcases to make dress tops.

“Dressing God’s Children” is the brainchild of Karen Rickert. She had been on mission trips to Honduras and to the Dominican Republic.

In January, she took part in a work mission to the Green Bay diocesan mission at Elias Pina in the Dominican Republic.

During the stay, she arranged to take a two-day trip over the border into Haiti. She went with a Dominican Sister from Brazil, Sister Maria Marciano, whose order works in the area.

“That was so emotional, to see the destitution in Haiti,” Rickert said. “The kids over there, all of those under eight are running around with no clothes on. They are so poor.”

She found that people displaced from Port au Prince by the January 2010 earthquake were coming to the border area to try to find food and housing.

Rickert was stunned by the conditions and to find people living in mud huts.

“I saw these kids running around naked and it broke my heart,” she told The Compass, newspaper of the Green Bay Diocese. “They only eat once a day and then only seed pods. I thought the Dominican Republic was bad. When I saw this, this was much worse.”

When she and her husband, Jerry, returned to Appleton from the trip, Rickert found herself haunted by those memories and wanting to do more to help.

“I started going online and looking up Haiti,” she said.

“What caught my eye were pillowcase dresses.”

She found the idea in Tennessee where some Catholic parishes were making the dresses for earthquake victims in Haiti.

The simple pattern used one pillowcase with the seam end cut open. Adding elastic to the open top and seaming in armholes creates a dress.

Rickert, who belongs to her parish’s Service and Justice Commission approached the other members with the idea.

They agreed to help. Catholic Financial Life, a faith-based financial services company, will pay for shipping the dresses.

And, through word of mouth, dresses started coming in before the sewing day, held May 7.

“I thought maybe 100 dresses,” Rickert said. “We’re going to have a lot more than that.”

One lady brought five dresses to Rickert’s place of work.

A volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul started setting aside pillowcases.

On the sewing day itself, Joanne Delforge brought in eight dresses that she had made after hearing about the project.

She had sewn them — including one made from a man’s dress shirt, complete with the pocket — in the space of three weeks.

“I have a slow computer,” Delforge said. “So while the computer is loading up, I go over to my sewing machine. I like to sew and this is a worthwhile project.”

Carol Sullivan brought her daughters, Paige, Ashley, Jaclyn and Amber, to learn to sew.

“Karen invited us,” Sullivan said. “She’s devoted to the cause, so when she asked for help, I thought it would be fun.”

She also thought it was a life lesson for her girls. “I know I’m teaching them to serve others and giving them opportunities to serve other people, but to be told to do it and to be given an opportunity to do it are two different things.”

Anita Revord had come to the sewing day along her mother, Yvonne Sondgeroth, who was visiting from Illinois.

Sondgeroth, a retired seamstress, planned to take several dozen dresses back home to finish by the end of the month.

She also intends to enlist aid in Illinois.

Rickert plans on another sewing day in the fall. She’s thinking that they might make tank tops and/or shorts for boys on that day. She has also asked St. Thomas More’s pastor, Father Jim Lucas, to bless all the clothing before it is shipped.

“I would just love to go and work with Sister Maria all the time,” Rickert said. “But I have to work to pay for my house.”

So, for now, she’ll just keep the dresses coming. And she and Jerry plan to be on the next diocesan mission trip to the Dominican Republic.

in hot water again — Johnny Depp, center, stars in a scene from the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.” For a brief review of this film see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Disney)

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

“Kung Fu Panda 2” (DreamWorks) Perfunctory if unobjectionable animated sequel follows rotund martial arts warrior Po (voice of Jack Black) as he learns about his origins and confronts the power-hungry peacock (Gary Oldman) responsible for his parents’ demise. Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson keeps the action moving along at a brisk pace, overseeing by-the-numbers visuals and imparting an anodyne message concerning the path toward inner peace: Move beyond the past and focus on the present. Mild fantasy violence.

The Catholic News Service classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” (Disney) In the adequate fourth movie inspired by the amusement park ride, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) leads various seafarers — his nemesis Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), an old flame (Penelope

Cruz) and the evil pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane) — to the Fountain of Youth. Applying a Broadway musical sensibility, director Rob Marshall (“Chicago”) cannot dispel the feeling that the franchise has grown long in the tooth. Although admirably straightforward, the picture lacks visual grandeur and the jolly, swashbuckling energy that has made the series so popular. Recurring action-adventure violence

and peril, including nongraphic knife play and swordplay; some lightly suggestive humor and innuendo; several scary sequences; one rude expression; and frequent alcohol consumption. The Catholic News Service classification is A-II — adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned.

Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, June 5, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Michael Racine, pastor of St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet.

June 3, 2011

13

The Anchor

Pope encourages Caritas to work more closely with bishops, Vatican

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Because it acts in the name of the Catholic Church in promoting development and helping the needy, Caritas Internationalis must be guided by bishops and the official teaching of the Church, Pope Benedict XVI said.

The Vatican is responsible for following the activities of Caritas and “exercising oversight to ensure that its humanitarian and charitable activity, and the content of its documents, are completely in accord with the Apostolic See and the Church’s magisterium,” the pope said during a meeting with delegates to the Caritas general assembly.

Representatives of the 165 national Catholic charities that make up the Caritas Internationalis confederation met in Rome.

The general assembly’s agenda included work on new statutes that would strengthen Vatican

oversight of the organization’s operations, reflecting Pope Benedict’s teaching on Christian charity and that in 2004, Caritas Internationalis was given a special juridical status by the Vatican.

Pope Benedict said that with the new juridical status, Caritas “took on a particular role in the heart of the ecclesial community and was called to share, in collaboration with the ecclesiastical hierarchy, in the Church’s mission of making manifest, through practical charity, that love which is God Himself.”

Caritas, he said, is called to bring the Church’s message to international political and social discussions. However, he said, “in the political sphere — and in all those areas directly affecting the lives of the poor — the faithful, especially the laity, enjoy broad freedom of activity.

Crisis of ‘indifference’ shows need for New Evangelization, pope says

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — Pope Benedict stressed the urgency of evangelizing modern society, saying that Christians today face the task of reaching a world that grows increasingly apathetic to the message of the Gospel.

“The crisis we are living through,” he said, “carries with it signs of the exclusion of God from people’s lives, a general indifference to the Christian faith, and even the intention of marginalizing it from public life.”

The pope made his remarks on May 30 to members of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, as they prepare for their upcoming synod in 2012. During the meeting, which will take place October 7-28 next year, bishops and other participants from around the world will discuss the late Pope John Paul II’s vision of proposing the Christian faith in new ways.

Pope Benedict explained that “the term ‘new evangelization’ recalls the need of a new way of evangelizing, especially for those who live in a situation like today’s where the development of secularization has left deep marks on even traditionally Christian countries.”

He noted that “proclaiming Jesus Christ, the sole Savior of the world, is more complex today than in the past, but our task continues to be the same as at the beginning of our history. The mission hasn’t changed, just as the enthusiasm and courage that motivated the Apostles and first disciples should not change.”

The Church’s message, he said, “needs to be renewed to-

day in order to convince modern persons, who are often distracted and insensitive. That is why the new evangelization must find the ways to make the proclamation of salvation more effective, the salvation without with life is contradictory and lacking in what is essential.”

Pope Benedict observed a growing “phenomenon” of people in modern society “who wish to belong to the Church but who are strongly determined by a vision of life that is opposed to the faith is often seen.”

“It is important to make them understand that being Christian is not a type of outfit that one wears in private or on special occasions, but something living and totalizing, capable of taking all that is good in modernity.”

He emphasized that the entire Christian community “is called to revive the missionary spirit in order to offer the new message that persons of our times are hoping for.”

The “lifestyle of believers needs real credibility, as much more convincing as the more dramatic is the condition of the persons to whom it is addressed.”

Pope Benedict expressed his desire to council members that they outline “a plan to help the entire Church and the particular different Churches in the commitment of the new evangelization; a plan whereby the urgency of a renewed evangelization takes charge of formation, particularly that of the new generations, and is united to the proposal of concrete signs capable of making the Church’s response in this particular moment clear.”

“No one can claim to speak ‘officially’ in the name of the entire lay faithful, or of all Catholics, in matters freely open to discussion,” Pope Benedict said.

“On the other hand, all Catholics, and indeed all men and women, are called to act with purified consciences and generous hearts in resolutely promoting those values which I have often referred to as ‘non-negotiable,’” he said.

The pope has used the term in reference to the obligation to protect human life and to support the traditional family based on the life-long marriage of a man and a woman open to having children.

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, who was re-elected president

during the assembly, told Pope Benedict, “Wherever a sign of God’s love is needed, Caritas is there.”

Caritas, he said, “is a faithfilled answer” to people’s cries for help and is an advocate for the dignity of the poor and their human rights.

“We have dreamed and continue to dream of a world formed by one human family and with zero poverty,” he said.

Pope Benedict told members that because their confederation is able “in a certain way to speak and act” in the Church’s name, Caritas has “particular responsibilities in terms of the Christian life, both personal and in community. Only on the basis of a daily commitment to accept and to live fully the love of God can

one promote the dignity of each and every human being.”

As a global confederation helping millions of people in dozens of countries each year, Caritas increasingly is listened to in international forums, the pope said, and he thanked Caritas for being an advocate of “a sound anthropological vision, one nourished by Catholic teaching and committed to defending the dignity of all human life.”

Pope Benedict said that without recognizing that human beings were created by God and are called to eternal life, “we risk falling prey to harmful ideologies” that do not advance the good of the whole human person because integral development includes the person’s spirituality and eventual salvation.

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14

The Anchor

June 3, 2011

Permanent deacon candidates to be installed as Readers continued from page one

and you must make the personal, individual response to the call. This vocational call is one that goes back to the Apostles.”

The deacon candidates used the retreat day as an opportunity to participate in several sessions. The men had time to reflect the Word of God that each of them would soon be called upon to proclaim in his parish Liturgies.

“The retreat is required before anyone receives a minor order,” and is the second step to becoming a deacon, said Msgr.

John J. Oliveira, diocesan director of the Permanent Diaconate and pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford.

Each man first went through a period of “aspirancy” or discernment, where he weighed his decision of commitment carefully before being formally accepted as a deacon candidate

by Bishop George W. Coleman last year. The next step is to become an acolyte and then finally each man will be ordained as a deacon; a process, said Msgr.

Oliveira, that will take another

two years.

During the retreat, Father Johnson explained the history and significance of what was once known as “The Minor Orders.” Before Vatican II, there were four minor orders: porter, exorcist, lector, and acolyte.

These were required before an individual could receive the Sacrament of Orders as a deacon or a priest.

Vatican II called for the revision of the Sacraments and Liturgy, Father Johnson continued.

The revisions came about because almost no one performed the ministries of porter or exorcist, or even the ministry of lector. Pope Paul VI issued the document entitled Ministeria Quaedam, eliminating minor orders completely, and also eliminating tonsure (the practice of shaving one’s head, leaving a small circle) and the subdiaconate. He established two “offices” of reader and acolyte.

When asked how the Ministry of Reader is different than a lector at Mass, Father Johnson took some time to explain that

their call is not only to proclaim the Word of God as ordinary ministers, but the grace to instruct others in the faith to prepare for the Sacraments and to bring the message of salvation to those that have not heard it.

Pope Paul VI stated in the Norms regarding the Holy Order of Deacons (1972), “It is especially fitting that the ministries of reader and acolyte should be entrusted to those who, as candidates for Sacred Orders, desire to devote themselves to God and to the Church in a special way … both by study and by gradual exercise of the Ministry of the Word and of the altar, candidates for Sacred Orders should through intimate contact understand and reflect upon the double aspect of the priestly office … in this way, candidates are to approach Holy Orders fully aware of their vocation, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, constant in prayer, and aware of the needs of the faithful.”

Using the Rite of Institution of Reader, Father Johnson led

the group through the significance and meaning of the rite that will be used. He continued the retreat phase with a review of Pope Benedict XVI’s exhortation entitled “Verbum Domini” (The Word of the Lord) and concluded with a prayerful challenge for each of the men to cherish the Scriptures, to proclaim them, to internalize them, to live them and to pass that gift of faith on to others.

“Father Andrew provided great insight into the Ministry of Reader and the meaning of the rite that will be used by the bishop and the candidates at our installation,” said deacon candidate Paul Levesque of St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet.

Assisting Msgr. Oliveira with the retreat was Deacon Frank Fantasia, assistant director of Deacon Formation. After formally requesting the bishop in writing of their intent to be instituted into the Ministry of Reader, the men enjoyed fellowship and a luncheon prepared by the parish and the Office of the Permanent Diaconate.

The wives of the deacon candidates joined their husbands for a Holy Hour and Benediction, and then everyone joined the parish family of St. Mary’s Parish for Mass.

During the Liturgy, Msgr.

Oliveira noted the relevance of the day’s first reading which coincidently was the passage from Acts 6:1-7, that speaks of the institution of the diaconate by the Apostles. Following the homily, Msgr. Oliveira blessed the albs, a liturgical vestment which each man will wear in his ministry as readers. Each candidate was called forward, along with his wife, as Deacon Fantasia presented the diaconate candidate’s wife the alb, and then had the wife assist her husband in robing for the first time.

“Msgr. Oliveira’s blessing of the albs was a beautiful ceremony,” said Levesque.

“It was great having our wives attend, having the albs presented to them, and then having them assist us with robing.

Our wives are a source of great support to our ministry.”

be a Brother, Father Harrington said that Msgr. Sweeney advised him to try the seminary.

“He said you could always go and see what seminary life is all about, and if the Brothers is what I wanted, then certainly he encouraged me. You get caught up in the routine of seminary life, I went right along,” said Father Harrington. “My plans were not the Lord’s plans.”

Father Harrington graduated from St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield, Conn., and earned a Master’s in Theology at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton.

He was ordained May 20, 1967 at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River by Bishop James L. Connolly.

Father Harrington did double duty after his ordination, serving as parochial vicar for the Sacred Heart Parish in Taunton and teaching at Msgr. Coyle High School in Taunton, an assignment that incidentally had him teaching alongside the Holy Cross Brothers. He left Coyle High School in 1971 to teach full-time at Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro.

“I was lucky because my next assignment was [teaching] with the Sisters of Mercy,” said Father Harrington, where he taught six classes a day for the next seven years. “It was just a wonderful experience.”

To this day, Father Harrington continues to cross paths

with former students.

“It was a wonderful experience to have the minds and hearts of young people, and to simply be there and to witness the values that are so much a part of our life as Catholic people,” said Father Harrington.

“So many of them even now, 44 years later, you see kids that you taught in school bringing their families up — a beautiful affirmation.”

Father Harrington left Sacred Heart Parish in 1971, taking a three-year hiatus from parish life to focus on teaching.

He was assigned as curate to St. Mary’s Parish in Norton in 1974, but in 1978, he was advised that he should go back to a parish on a full-time basis to cement his parish experience.

When an assignment opened in his hometown of New Bedford, Father Harrington said another opportunity arose that created a moment of pause.

“At that time the military ordinariate wrote to us for priests to enter the military. I always wanted to go into the Navy,” said Father Harrington.

He went down to see the military vicar along with another priest, and the decision was made that the older of the two being considered could go.

That meant Father Harrington was in while the other priest was out. Yet even as it seemed he would be able to pursue his

wish to join, Father Harrington decided to put the final decision in God’s hands.

“I said to myself, ‘Am I just being rebellious because as an Irishman I could be?’” laughed Father Harrington. “I said I had to pray about it, and the military vicar gave me a couple of weeks.”

When he returned to state his decision, Father Harrington stopped at a chapel.

“I said, ‘I’ve never done this before Lord. I’m going to pray and I want You to give me something from Your Word that I’m not being rebellious and the Navy is where I should go,’” recalled Father Harrington. “So I went in and prayed for a few moments and then opened the Bible.”

He just so happened to open to the Book of Jonah, right to the passages where Jonah was being told to go and “preach to the cities but instead, he got on a boat and he wasn’t supposed to be on there. When they found out that it was he who was causing the winds, they threw him overboard,” said Father Harrington. “So I said thank you to Jesus, and I went to New Bedford.”

Father Harrington served as pastor to St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford (1978-1985); St. Francis of Assisi Parish in New Bedford (1985-1988); St. Patrick’s Parish in Somer-

set (1988-1993); and St. Julie Billiart Parish in Dartmouth (1993-2005) before coming to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Seekonk.

“All the parishes I’ve been at, as priests we are so fortunate to meet and to share the journey with so many faith-filled people,” said Father Harrington.

“They are the ones in their testimony who keep you strong in your vocation; beautiful, beautiful people.”

Just because he is retiring doesn’t mean Father Harrington is going to stop. Along with making himself available to cover for New Bedford priests during their holiday vacations, Father Harrington hopes to take an extended stay in Ireland to visit relatives and also take some time to attend additional courses of study in theology.

“I just want to tell them that it’s been a joy to be with them,” said Father Harrington, of his final words to all those he ministered to in his lifetime.

“They have been an inspiration and I just pray that they continue to grow in the life of Christ. It’s been great to be in the brotherhood of the priesthood. I just want to thank everyone for being a part of my own journey. By the witness of their faith, what a great help they have been. They have preached to me by the witness of their lives.”

A fulfilling life led by God continued from page one

into the priesthood,” said Father Harrington, who initially wanted to become part of the Holy Cross Brothers.

Born in New Bedford, the son of the late Patrick and Evelyn Harrington, Father Harrington grew up in the Holy Name Parish and attended Holy Name grammar school, eventually graduating from Holy Family High School. Being a student of the Sisters of Mercy during his years at Catholic school, Father Harrington spoke of how those 12 years of witnessing their personal devotion to God helped shaped who he became in later life.

“I cannot put into words the impact the Sisters had on my life.

Their dedication through grammar school and high school, we got an education and it was just a beautiful experience. Just looking at them everyday, I knew that this was something that I wanted to have,” recalled Father Harrington, whose three sisters all joined the order. “My one desire after graduating was to join a community that had the same charism that the Sisters had, and I chose the Holy Cross Brothers.”

That all changed when a Sister of Mercy asked him if he had ever considered the priesthood, and then brought him to see the then-pastor of Holy Name Parish, Msgr. Timothy P. Sweeney.

After talking about his desire to

June 3, 2011

15

The Anchor

Controversial U.N. children’s treaty divides Americans

Cape Cod mainstay full of happy memories

“special care and assistance” for youth. It also states that parents have the “primary responsibility for upbringing and the development of the child.”

That same ideal can be found in Catholic teaching. “The Catechism” states, “Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children.”

The CRC bans the abduction, trafficking, sexual abuse, prostitution of, and violence against, juveniles. It recommends guidelines to protect children from economic exploitation and from material injurious to their well-being.

It declares that minors have the right to freedom of expression, religion and association and that they should be guaranteed access to education.

The treaty also references the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which says that kids need special safeguards “before as well as after birth.”

President Barack Obama has said it is “embarrassing” that the U.S. has not signed on. On March 10, his administration told the U.N. Human Rights Council that it intends “to review how we can move toward ratification.”

Legislators in Illinois and Rhode Island have submitted resolutions urging the U.S. Senate to adopt the CRC. At a hearing in Rhode Island, Catholic school students from St. Raphael Academy testified in favor of the resolution, which did not pass.

The R.I. resolution acknowledges what many opponents fear — that if enacted, the CRC would override U.S. laws. The CRC “would become superior to the laws of the states and their judicial systems, and would be subordinate only to the text of the Constitution,” R.I. legislators attested.

In the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts Family Institute urged voters to contact Sen. Scott Brown and ask him to sponsor U.S. Senate Resolution 99, which opposes ratification of the CRC. Thirty-seven senators have already signed on to that resolution. Ratifying the treaty requires a two-thirds Senate majority.

MFI warned in a May 19 email to supporters that the treaty would automatically override almost all American laws on youngsters and families. They believe it would also override the Constitution. The document would intrude on citizens’ rights to self-determination and selfgovernment, they said.

“The treaty’s ‘best interest

note that he ministered 34 years on Cape Cod alone.

“Msgr. John A. Perry is the only one who has me beat with 37 years on the Cape,” he said, laughing.

Father Andrews, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Wellfleet for the past 14 years, will be retiring at the end of June.

It was during his tenure there that he oversaw the design and construction of a new church, which was dedicated by Bishop George W. Coleman in March 2009.

While that accomplishment is rare for any pastor, Father Andrews has the distinction of being responsible for two church-building projects, having previously helmed the construction of a new church for St. Joan of Arc Parish in Orleans, which was dedicated by Bishop Daniel A. Cronin in August 1984.

Despite these important milestones, Father Andrews said one of the greatest joys of his ministry was his participation in the ECHO retreat program on Cape Cod. “I was involved with ECHO for 49 years and it was the best thing I did,” Father Andrews said. “The goal of the ECHO program, whose name is derived from the acronym for ‘Encountering Christ in Others,’ is to bring people who have strayed from Christ back to Him. It’s designed for high school juniors and seniors. I got involved with it while I was assigned to St. Margaret’s Parish in Buzzards Bay with a parishioner there named Mary Fuller, who’s still active with the program.”

Father Andrews said it was this personal connection to Catholic youth that left a lasting impression on him … and apparently on them, too.

“I still get letters from people who were on ECHO retreats with me,” he said. “It was a long time ago, but people still send me Christmas cards and photos. It was just a super, fantastic program. It was God’s grace coming through my priesthood into other people and me bringing them through my priesthood to God. Oh, I loved it!”

When Father Andrews was appointed a first-time pastor at St. Joan of Arc Parish in Orleans, he had to curtail some of his involvement with ECHO. “I was too far away and I couldn’t easily take off for a weekend,” he said.

Born in Dighton, the son of the late Francis and Julia (Trond) Andrews, Father Andrews grew up in Sacred Heart Parish in Taunton and graduated from Berkley Grammar School and Msgr. Coyle High School before entering Cardinal O’Connor Minor Seminary in Jamaica Plain and then continuing on to St. John’s Seminary in Brighton.

He was ordained by Bishop James L. Connolly on Feb. 2, 1962 at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River.

Father Andrews’ first assignment as pastoral assistant was at St. Joseph’s Parish in Fall River, where

continued from page one

of the child principle’ would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent’s decision,” MFI said. “This treaty would violate U.S. Sovereignty and take away parental rights.”

As far back as 2001, Focus on the Family called the treaty’s language “vague” and open to radical interpretation by the U.N. committee in charge of it.

Focus on the Family said the committee views parents “not as a resource, but a problem to be circumvented.”

In 2002, the U.N. committee said that governments should provide children with “confidential sexual and reproductive health services, free or low cost contraception, condoms and services.” The following year, the committee further specified that minors should have access to information on sexual and reproductive health “regardless of prior consent from parents or guardians.”

Nowhere in the CRC treaty are reproductive or sexual health matters specifically mentioned.

ParentalRights.org, a website that seeks to protect children by empowering parents, outlines many negative aspects of the document and says that its beneficial aspects are unnecessary in the United States.

“What makes [the U.S.] a leader in human rights is not accession to some overreaching international treaty; it is the precepts of moral decency already enshrined in American law. Self-governed Americans, responsible to write, implement, and enforce our own laws, became a model for human rights, not because we will surrender our sovereignty to the United Nations, but expressly because we won’t,” ParentalRights.org said.

On its website, The Campaign for U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child argues that ratifying the CRC would “enhance our role as an international leader in human rights.” It would allow the U.S. to participate in the treaty’s committee and “take an active role in encouraging further progress in countries which have already ratified the convention.”

The group also claims that it would benefit children here at home by providing a framework for cost-effective and comprehensive policies that address the specific needs of young people. Currently, young

people in America face high rates of poverty, abuse, teen pregnancy, suicide and firearmrelated deaths, the website says.

Patricia Stebbins, president of the Cape Cod Family Life Alliance, told The Anchor that the CRC is a “miserable document” that needs to be opposed.

The wording of the treaty gives children a right to freedom of religion and only gives parents the authority to give their progeny advice about religious beliefs, she said.

“Parents would not be allowed to teach their children religion. If the child does not want to go to church, you cannot make him,” she said.

Stebbins added that the CRC is not the only thing parents should be working against. All over the country, but especially in Massachusetts, “homosexual indoctrination” has entered the educational system, she said.

“It has really penetrated almost every subject. I went to a meeting once, and there was a social studies teacher from Princeton, Mass., and she was bragging about how, as a lesbian, she was able to tell children about lesbianism, homosexuality and how right it was and how normal it was,” she said.

In April 2005, one parent who objected to the pro-samesex marriage book his son brought home was arrested. He spent the night in jail and was brought into court in handcuffs the next morning.

David Parker’s kindergarten-aged child was given a “diversity book bag” that contained a book called “Who’s in a Family,” which features a same-sex couple.

Parker told his child’s Lexington school that he wanted to be notified before the subject of homosexuality would be presented to the boy. The school refused, and when he refused to leave a scheduled meeting with the principal until the situation was resolved, the school called law enforcement.

Stebbins said that parental rights are eroding in this country and that she supports a national parental rights amendment.

A proposed amendment, sponsored up by ParentalRights. org states that “the liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right.”

U.S. laws, state laws and international treaties cannot infringe upon this right, it adds.

The organization’s website says, “Fit parents should be allowed to direct the upbringing of their children.”

continued from page one

he served for one year. He was later assigned to SS. Peter and Paul Parish in Fall River from 1963-1971; St. Margaret’s Parish in Buzzards Bay from 1971-1973; and St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis from 1973-1980.

“While I was in Fall River, I worked as chaplain for the Boy Scouts,” Father Andrews recalled.

“At SS. Peter and Paul Parish we also had a diocesan championship baseball team and a championship basketball team. CYO was very big in that parish and I went to every game.”

Father Andrews’ first pastoral assignment was at St. Joan of Arc Parish in Orleans, which he served from 1980-1991. He also served as pastor of St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet (1991-1994); St. Dominic’s Parish in Swansea (1994-1995); and St. Patrick’s Parish in Fall River (1995-1997) before being assigned to Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in 1997.

Father Andrews plans to live his retirement years at the house in Berkley he shares with his sister.

“I’m looking forward to taking care of my yard and mowing the lawn,” he said. “My sister and I built the house about 17 years ago.

She died two years ago, but another sister lives in the house now.”

In addition to maintaining his home, Father Andrews said he plans to spend a little more time dabbling with genealogy and studying Civil War history — a pastime he picked up after researching two great uncles from Scituate who were killed in battles at Fredricksburg and Petersburg.

Father Andrews previously helped compile a complete necrology of priests who served the Fall River Diocese along with classmate Father Barry W. Wall that is still used today in the annual diocesan Catholic Directory.

“It was quite a project,” he said.

“It took us about three years.”

He also can claim connection to The Anchor: his brother Bob worked as a reporter for the diocesan newspaper just after graduating from Stonehill College.

“He worked with The StandardTimes of New Bedford right out of college and he knew they wouldn’t like him to work as a reporter for another newspaper,” he said. “So Father John P. Driscoll, who was general manager of The Anchor, and he worked together to use my father’s first name and my mother’s maiden name as a byline. So he wrote sports articles under the pseudonym ‘Frank Trond’ in the early 1960s.”

When asked if he’ll remain active in retirement, he said that diocesan priests are always in need.

“Father Wall told me he’s busier now than when he was a pastor,” Father Andrews said, laughing.

“I’ll just send them all my phone number and tell them ‘I’m ready to say Mass.’”

Youth Pages

16

PERSONS OF THE YEAR — Coyle and Cassidy High School in Taunton recently held its annual Honors Night. Numerous students were recognized for their many contributions to the Coyle and Cassidy community, in the classroom, on the playing fields, or in a service capacity. The evening culminated with the awarding of the school’s most prestigious designations, Man and Woman of The Year. Dr. Michael Scanlon and his daughter Samantha, both Coyle graduates, were on hand to present the awards in honor of Scanlon’s late father Joseph Scanlon. This year’s recipients were Benjamin Williams and Angela Schondek, who will be continuing their studies at Providence College and Smith College respectively. From left: Williams, Schondek, Samantha Scanlon, and Michael Scanlon.

The Anchor is always pleased to run news and photos about our diocesan youth.

If schools or parish Religious Education programs, have newsworthy stories and photos they would like to share with our readers, send them to:

June 3, 2011

ART WITH FEELING — Caroline Fortin, an eighth-grade student at St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro, recently won a first-place award for the 2011 Holocaust Education and Resource Center of Rhode Island’s annual art and writing contest. “I enjoy art and drawing, so I decided to participate in the contest because I thought it would be a fun experience,” said Fortin. “After learning about the Holocaust during literature and taking on the part of Anne Frank in a play, I knew what the victims went through, so it felt more meaningful to paint the picture.” She entered a painting of several different Holocaust scenes for the middle school category.

schools@anchornews.org

Our Lady’s Monthly Message From Medjugorje May 25, 2011

Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina “Dear children! My prayer today is for all of you who seek the grace of conversion. You knock on the door of my heart, but without hope and prayer, in sin, and without the Sacrament of Reconciliation with God. Leave sin and decide, little children, for holiness.

Only in this way can I help you, hear your prayers and seek intercession before the Most High.

“Thank you for having responded to my call.”

Spiritual Life Center of Marian Community One Marian Way Medway, MA 02053 • Tel. 508-533-5377 Paid advertisement

HARVEST TIME — Bishop Feehan High School’s science teacher, Audrey Lavertu, is one of the first educators in Massachusetts to take advantage of the Amgen-Bruce Wallace Biotechnology Lab Program; an educational outreach opportunity that provides research-grade equipment and curricular assistance to secondary educators. The program enables high school students to gain hands-on, molecular biotechnological real world laboratory experience. Among other activities of the lab protocol, students learn how to identify, isolate and then replicate genes using biotechnology kits valued at $20,000 each, on loan at no cost to Feehan, for a three-week period. From left: Lavertu, explains the process of harvesting proteins to advanced placement students Megan Johnson, Caitlin Murphy, and Brendan O’Neil.

Youth Pages

June 3, 2011

O

17

‘Let no one look down upon you because you are young!’

ne of the great privileges that I have is working in the diocese in various youth programs that are near and dear to my heart. One program that specifically is important to me not only helps young people develop their faith, but also leaves them with very important life skills. The Christian Leadership Institute helps young people develop their natural and supernatural selves.

CLI seeks to foster the leadership potential of young men and women and to heighten each young person’s awareness of leadership and ministerial roles and responsibilities in the parish, high school and work settings. CLI daily sessions focus on the art of leadership, communication skills, leadership styles, group dynamics and planning skills. Other sessions explore various aspects of Catholic Christian discipleship, and how that is embodied through prayer and liturgy, moral decisionmaking, sacramental living and service. CLI participants are challenged to use his or her skills and talents in planning sessions for specific portions of the daily program: morning wake-up, morning and night prayer, meal blessings, daily liturgy and evening socials.

Despite this full schedule, there is still time for relaxation and recreation on the grounds of the diocesan retreat facility, Cathedral Camp, East Freetown. CLI is a blast … in fact CLI has been rated by graduates as nearly a perfect 10 year after year!

Recently, one 1999 CLI grad, who was hired by a huge multi-national corporation and

underwent six weeks of training that. there indicated that most of what One of my favorite Bible was covered in those six weeks, passages we proclaim on CLI is she learned at CLI. I just rethe one in which we hear about cently spoke to another graduate Paul who went from town to who is the Dean of Students at a town sharing the message of major university who spoke of Christ with everyone. Before the effect CLI had on her faith he left each town, however, and business life. Several of our he always left behind a new graduates are now priests, with teacher, someone whom he had one serving on this year’s team enabled as a minister, an elder as a spiritual director and team leader. There are many others too numerous to mention who have been in touch with us over the years.

In fact, this year’s team

By Frank Lucca of adults has four CLI grads serving on team!

I would be remiss if I didn’t thank all of the teams who was respected as a leader in of CLI over the last 23 years. It the community. But in one town, always amazes me that they say he could not find such an elder, yes to team when most have to so he called a young man named give up a week of vacation to do Timothy. This young Timothy so. The team truly embodies that became the first youth leader commitment to our faith’s call to of the New Testament. As Paul action and to the CLI program. continued his ministry in other This year’s team includes Crystowns, he supported Timothy tal Medeiros, Beni Costa, Elena through letters. Here is part of Sardinha, Amanda Tarantelli, Paul’s message sent to Timothy, Chad D’Adamo, Father David a message that is also sent to us.

Frederici, Father Jeff Cabral, “Let no one look down upon Phil Perreira, Gualter Chaves, you because you are young, but Margaret Dors and Nathan be an example to all in speech Domingue. and behavior, in love, faithfulMany young people may ness and purity. Devote your feel that they are not ready for attention to the public reading leadership. After all, they are too of the Scriptures, to teaching young to be an influence in their and to prayer. Do not neglect environments, are they not? the spiritual gifts you possess, Nothing could be further from which was given to you through the truth. Young people have the laying on of hands by the elsuch an opportunity to shape ders as a body. Make these matand influence their work, school ters the most important things in and Church communities. CLI your life, so that your progress seeks to give young people the may be seen by all. Keep strong skills to help them accomplish in them, with a close watch on

yourself and your teaching, for by doing so you will further your own salvation and that of the people who listen to you.”

During CLI, the team shares with the candidates a number of Bible stories in which a young person is called to a role of leadership. Here are a few examples of what they’ve said in the past. Remember David of David and Goliath fame?

Imagine David’s fear as he came face to face with this strong and powerful warrior, armed only with a slingshot and five stones.

Yet, God responded by giving David courage and strength. David slew Goliath, and saved God’s people from certain death at the hands of the Philistines. There was Esther, a young woman, who became King Xerxes’ queen, called by God to plead to the king to save the Israelites from death at the hands of Haman. And there was Jeremiah, called to remind the Israelites of God’s faithfulness to them at the very time of their unfaithfulness to God. Many other young men and women were called

by God to share the special message. Among these was a young woman named Mary.

Called to bear God’s own Son and bring Him into this world.

And of course there was Jesus Himself: an ordinary Jewish boy who studied and worked and played. He grew in the awareness that He too, was to spread God’s message that we are good and we are created to love God and one another. All are living examples of what youth can accomplish with God’s help.

Is there any doubt that all young people can be called to be leaders? The 12 adult leaders who conduct the CLI experience believe that each and every young person can develop the skills that are necessary to make a difference in this world.

I would encourage all of you, whether a young person, or an adult, to take a look at CLI. We have not reached near our capacity for several years now, so I encourage our pastors, youth ministers, high school staff and parents to seek out young people who can benefit from the CLI experience and sponsor them this year. Young people, I encourage you to seek out adults in your parish to speak to them about CLI. If a parish sent one candidate, that candidate, that parish, that school, that community and dare I say all of God’s people will benefit greatly.

CLI will be held on June 2429 at Cathedral Camp. For more information, please visit http:// www.fallriverfaithformation. org/youth-and-young-adult/cli/.

More than 1,000 young people have lived the CLI experience.

I hope to meet some of you this summer at CLI 2011. You are being called to leadership. How will you respond?

Frank Lucca is a youth minister at St. Dominic’s Parish in Swansea. He is chairman and director of the YES! Retreat and director of the Christian Leadership Institute (CLI). He is a husband and a father of two daughters. Comments, ideas or suggestions? Please email him at StDominicYouthMinistry@ comcast.net

media, connects children from various cultures to examine a week in the life of children in other regions and countries.

“Not only are my children learning from the other children, but I am learning from the other teachers,” said thirdgrade teacher Tina Schmidt.

Flat Classrooms takes its name from its intent to break down the walls between various cultures, she told The Catholic Standard & Times, Philadelphia’s archdiocesan newspaper.

“The fact that we don’t know them makes it more fun to share information and tell them about our lives,” said St. Ignatius student Mateo Blanco.

The children are examining such topics as school, time, language, clothing, housing, transportation, leisure time, food, celebration and enter-

States. “My hobbies are playing the violin, which I have to practice a lot, and checking out my wiki,” she told the other students. She also uploaded a PowerPoint presentation showing traditional Korean dresses.

At St. Ignatius, Vincent countered, “I don’t play the violin but I play the electric guitar.” He added he likes to run and play soccer.

Although Adham lives in a warm climate with year-round sun and wears a uniform consisting of a white shirt and maroon pants, Qatar’s national colors, Carolyn informed him Pennsylvania has four seasons and in winter she wears a parka and long-sleeved shirts and in summer short sleeves or tank tops and shorts, but in school, she does wear a uniform.

“It is fun to see what things we have in common with them

and what we don’t have in common with them,” said St. Ignatius student Cate Golembuski.

Be Not Afraid

Catholic school uses technology to chat with electronic pen pals

B y Lou B aldwin Catholic News Service

YARDLEY, Penn. — What’s the greatest difference between schoolchildren living in Qatar, a small emirate on the Arabian Peninsula, and schoolchildren in the United States? Is it the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the subjects they learn, the sports they play?

All of these are somewhat different, but as third-graders at St. Ignatius of Antioch School in the Philadelphia suburb of Yardley learned, the most noticeable difference is that the school week there runs Sunday to Thursday, not Monday to Friday, because Qatar is a Muslim country and Muslims worship on Fridays.

The St. Ignatius children are participating in a program called the Flat Classrooms Project, which, thanks to electronic

tainment.

As a practical matter, it helps that all the children can communicate in English, and many of the schools are interacting though live Skype videos, texting through a secure website and transmitting prepared video, a necessity for regions where the time differences are too great for live conferencing.

The St. Ignatius children are in contact with students in other parts of the United States as well as Canada, South Korea and Qatar.

Adham, who attends Qatar Academy, informed his U.S. counterparts that he learns English at school but speaks Arabic at home.

Annabelle, a nine-yearold Korean girl who attends the Seoul Foreign Language School, was born in the United

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The Anchor

June 3, 2011

Pope John Paul II High School to graduate first class

Late vocation was a blessing

Holy Cross College in Worcester in the fall. “We consider ourselves pioneers, because no one else will get to do the things we did. When we came to this school, we didn’t have anything to see or judge, so we took a big leap of faith to come here. The classes after us all have something to see now.

It’s awesome to be a part of that legacy.”

“As the first graduating class, I think there were a lot of expectations we had to meet, but it was worth it,” agreed classmate Greta Bieg of Mashpee who plans to study English at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. “It was great having such a small class, because everyone knew each other and helped each other. The faculty and staff here were great, too.

I’ve had teachers here that I’ll probably stay in touch with for years afterwards. They really motivated me: especially my English teachers, who made me want to pursue a career in English.”

Class valedictorian Alissa Bergeron of Mashpee, who will also attend Holy Cross College in the fall, said her years at Pope John Paul II High School were “a oncein-a-lifetime experience” and she’s proud of everything she and her classmates have accomplished.

“I feel like we’ve definitely blazed a trail here,” Bergeron said. “Being the ‘guinea pigs,’ we got to try everything out first and managed to figure out what works and what doesn’t, so it should be helpful for the classes that follow. I watched some clubs and pick-up teams go from two or three people to full-fledged extracurricular activities.”

inspirational.

“The time has raced by,” Father Dahl, who will be retiring this month, told The Anchor.

“But these years have given me opportunities to do things as a priest that I never thought possible.”

Perhaps it’s fitting that Father Dahl’s journey to the Catholic faith was “late” as well. “I entered into full communion with the Catholic Church when I was 19 years old. Right from the start, I knew and appreciated the blessings of being a Catholic.”

The son of the late Harry J. and Hazel E. (Boone) Dahl, Father Dahl attended grade school in Staten Island, N.Y., and high school in San Antonio, Texas.

After high school, he entered the U.S. Air Force in 1960, serving until 1964.

He spent 30 years in the retail credit and personnel management field in Southern California and Oregon, receiving a bachelor’s degree in Management of Human Resources in 1991.

“My Catholic faith was always very important to me through those years,” he said. “I was very blessed to be successful and happy, and there came a time in my life that I sensed that I wanted to thank God for all those blessings. The time had come for me to express my thanks in a radical way, and that’s when I entered the seminary.”

Father Dahl received a Master of Arts Degree from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Conn. in 1995, and a Master of Divinity in 1996.

He was ordained by then-Fall River Bishop Sean O’Malley on June 8, 1996 at St. Mary’s Cathedral. He was assigned to Corpus Christi Parish in East Sandwich as a parochial vicar.

“Those first few years at Corpus Christi were my formative years,” said Father Dahl. “I was very fortunate to work with thenpastor Father Marcel Bouchard.

He was a wonderful teacher.”

Father Dahl said he benefited from working at a large parish.

“There were always so many things going on,” he recalled.

“That helped me to experience things I didn’t learn at seminary.”

Father Dahl said the seminary concentrates on spiritual and sacramental growth, but not much about administration of a parish.

“While at Corpus Christi, I gained experience with helping Father Bouchard build a new church, something that would help me later on in my ministry. While serving as pastor of St. Peter’s, we had a devastating fire that completely destroyed our 130-year-old building. Once

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Senior class president Naiemeh Hadawar of Centerville, who will be going on to Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, said she considers herself “blessed” to have attended the school and she’s very proud of her classmates.

“Everyone in this class worked very hard and we achieved a lot,” Hadawar said. “I saw my classmates really grow over the past four years. I think we’ve all grown academically, spiritually and emotionally.”

Having previously attended grades seven and eight at St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School in Hyannis, Hadawar said she knew the value of a Catholic education and wanted to continue it.

“I really didn’t know what to expect as a new school, but it was all worth it,” she said. “We’re like a family and it’s been great.

I think we’re all going to keep in touch; it’s not over.”

She also credits the small but dedicated faculty for much of the school’s success.

“The teachers are all invested in the students here,” she said. “They’re always available for us, so there’s no excuse if you don’t succeed.”

One of those teachers, Elizabeth Heston, who began teaching history and English at the school in 2009, said she remembers how warm and welcoming the students were to her when she arrived for a first-time barbecue.

“They immediately came over to me and made me feel welcome,” she said. “I was immediately drawn to the spirit here at Pope John Paul II High School. It’s been a wonderful two years and I look forward to many more.”

Assistant Principal Meaghan Wile, who also serves as senior class moderator, said she’s proud of this pioneering class and their determination to make themselves and their school succeed.

“These guys worked hard for it and they deserve it,” Wile said. “They are the ones who have paved the way, so all our classes will be following in their footsteps. But they really did keep going, even when things got difficult. We have more than 110 freshmen applying for entrance next year, and I think that’s a testament to what this first class has done. I think the community in general has noticed that even though it’s a small school, it’s growing every year.”

Keavy said this graduating class also has the unique perspective of seeing how far the school has come since their freshman year.

“They can look back and remember where they were just a few short years ago and see what’s coming down the road,” he said. “They’ve seen the before and after picture. I think that gives them a unique viewpoint on our recent past, on our current experience, and where the school is headed in the future.”

Adding that he’s very proud of this first class, their families, and all the supporters and donors in the community who took a huge leap of faith on a new, unproven school, Keavy said it’s an example of how strong faith can be.

“Faith is having to believe in something not yet seen,” Keavy said. “For these students and their families, they couldn’t see and they didn’t know when they started here as freshmen. They had to believe in each other, in the school staff and, most importantly, in what God might unfold for them in the upcoming four years.

“Here we are after those four years and we see the school is thriving, we see college acceptances as the success that really validates what that faith called for. It makes me very proud for our students and their families and very happy for them that they were able to receive what we were hoping for them to receive four years ago.”

Bishop George W. Coleman will confer diplomas on the first-ever graduating class during commencement exercises to be held at Pope John Paul II High School in Hyannis on June 6 beginning at 7 p.m.

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again I had to go through the building stage.”

Father Dahl also credited his time as chaplain at St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford, and as diocesan director of the Office of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, as helping him to minister to his parishioners.

In 2002, when Bishop O’Malley was contemplating pastor changes, Father Dahl told the bishop, “I hope you consider me soon, while I still have the energy,” referring to his later vocation.

Father Dahl did become pastor of St. Peter’s in 2002. The loss of the church building on Jan. 25, 2005 was a trying time for the pastor and his parishioners. “But they are a great community of believers,” said Father Dahl. “Despite having lost the place where generations were baptized, married and received the Sacraments, they made it through the ordeal and were part of building a great new church.

“I’ve gained such inspiration and have had my faith strengthened by witnessing and being a part of the times when people had their faith tested through deaths and marriage and home break-ups. The people here have a great holiness, and I’ll always remember that.”

Father Dahl recalled a time when as a new priest, he told Bishop O’Malley that not being from this area would make him “feel like an outsider.”

“Bishop O’Malley told me, ‘Keep an eye on the people in the pews, and you will see their holiness,’” Father Dahl told The Anchor. “I did and I felt very welcome wherever I’ve been in this diocese.”

As Father Dahl looks back on his 15 years as a priest, he is very optimistic about the future of the Church. “I have great confidence in the Church in the future,” he said. “I have full faith the Holy Spirit is guiding her. I have no fears for the Church. Whatever changes are necessary, are the changes that will occur.”

Father Dahl’s brief stay in Southeastern Massachusetts will end when he retires. “I truly loved my time in Massachusetts,” he said. “But I’m heading where the winters are warmer.”

He and Father Thomas C. Weible, 83, who is currently in residence at St. Peter’s will move to Sun City, Ariz. “I hope to remain active in the Church out there,” added Father Dahl.

The parishioners are hosting a special dinner for Father Dahl June 6 at the Provincetown Inn. Father Dahl’s last Mass at St. Peter’s will be July 3, after which he’ll head out west.

June 3, 2011

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese

Acushnet — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays and Fridays 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturdays 8 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays end with Evening Prayer and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.; Saturdays end with Benediction at 2:45 p.m.

ATTLEBORO — St. Joseph Church holds eucharistic adoration in the Adoration Chapel located at the (south) side entrance at 208 South Main Street, Sunday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

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 following the 11 a.m. Mass until 7:45 a.m. on the First Saturday, concluding with Benediction and Mass. 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 — Eucharistic adoration takes place at the Corpus Christi Parish Adoration Chapel, 324 Quaker Meeting House Road, Monday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. Also, 24-hour eucharistic adoration takes place on the First Friday of every month with Benediction at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning.

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, following the 8 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 8 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 8:00 a.m. Mass until Rosary and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.

FALL RIVER — Notre Dame Church, 529 Eastern Ave., has eucharistic adoration on Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the chapel.

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

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

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

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

HYANNIS — A Holy Hour with eucharistic adoration will take place each First Friday at St. Francis Xavier Church, 347 South Street, beginning immediately after the 12:10 p.m. Mass and ending with adoration at 4 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.

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.

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

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

OSTERVILLE — Eucharistic adoration takes place at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, 76 Wianno Avenue on First Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and every Friday from noon to 5 p.m., with Benediction at 5 p.m.

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

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

WAREHAM — Adoration with opportunities for private and formal prayer is offered on the First Friday of each month from 8:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. at St. Patrick’s Church, High Street. The Prayer Schedule is as follows: 7:30 a.m. the Rosary; 8 a.m.

Mass; 8:30 a.m. exposition and Morning Prayer; 12 p.m. the Angelus; 3 p.m. Divine Mercy Chaplet; 5:30 p.m. Evening Prayer; 7 p.m. Sacrament of Confession; 8 p.m.

Benediction.

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

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

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The Anchor

Our readers respond

Thank you On behalf of religious women and men throughout the country, I want to express thanks for the outstanding generosity of the people of the Diocese of Fall River. The checks from the 2010 Retirement Fund for Religious appeal now are reaching our national office, and we are very grateful for the $187,414.24 contributed by Catholics from the diocese. This amount represents a 29 percent increase over the amount contributed in 2009, and it is the highest amount ever contributed by the Diocese of Fall River in the 23 years of this appeal. We are deeply grateful. Given the status of our country’s economy, we realize that this represents sacrifices on the part of many. You can be assured that all of those who contributed so generously will be remembered in prayer by the Sisters, Brothers and religious order priests who benefit from this kindness. May God’s shower His abundant blessings on all of the people of the Diocese of Fall River.

Sister Janice Bader, CPPS Executive Director National Religious Retirement Office Washington, D.C.

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks June 4 Rev. Louis J. Terrien, O.P., Dominican Priory, Fall River, 1920 Rev. Jose P. d’Amaral, Parochial Vicar, Santo Christo, Fall River, 1949 Rev. George Daigle, Pastor, Sacred Heart, North Attleboro, 1979

June 5 Very Rev. Thomas J. McLean, V.F. Pastor, St. Francis Xavier, Hyannis, 1954 Rev. Msgr. Louis Prevost, Retired Pastor, St. Joseph, New Bedford, 1970 June 6 Rev. Cornelius J. Keliher, Retired Pastor, St. Mary, North Attleboro, 1993 June 8 Rev. John S. Czerwonka, Assistant, St. Stanislaus, Fall River, 1961 June 9 Rev. Timothy J. Calnen, Pastor, St. Joseph, Woods Hole, 1945 Rev. Joseph S. Larue, Pastor, Sacred Heart, North Attleboro, 1966 June 10 Rev. William H. Curley, Pastor, SS. Peter & Paul, Fall River, 1915 Rev. George A. Meade, Chaplain, St. Mary’s Home, New Bedford, 1949 June 11 Rev. Msgr. Augusto L. Furtado, Retired Pastor, St. John of God, Somerset, 1973 Rev. Richard J. Wolf, S.J., Bishop Connolly High School, Fall River, 1986

Second the motion I wish to “second the motion” about First Communions written

by Dave Jolivet in the May 6 edition of The Anchor. Congratulations to him for speaking out! He made me proud!

I, also, attended St. Anne’s School in Fall River from kindergarten to grade eight, and then became teacher and principal there for 22 years. I was very much involved in preparing children for First Communion not only at St. Anne’s but in other parishes as well. The teachers and I tried our best at rehearsals to emphasize the importance of the Sacrament, the meaning of this great moment for both the children and the parents.

Much to the disappointment of some parents, we de-emphasized the fancy attire and picture-taking, and attempted to focus on the sa-

credness of the celebration. At this “teachable moment” it was important to encourage parents and God-parents to continue to bring the children to Mass and continue celebrating this gift of Jesus. May God gift us with hope!

Theresa Bisson, O.P. Dominican Sister of Hope

Letters are welcome but the editor reserves the right to condense or edit for clarity if deemed necessary. Letters should be typed, no longer than 100 words and should include name, address, and telephone number. Letters do not necessarily reflect the editorial views of The Anchor.

Send to: The Anchor, Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA 02722-0007, or email to fatherrogerlandry@ anchornews.org.

Around the Diocese 6/4

A Day with Mary will take place tomorrow from 8 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. at St. Kilian’s Church, 306 Ashley Boulevard, New Bedford. It will include a video instruction, a procession and crowning of the Blessed Mother along with Mass, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and an opportunity for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. There is a bookstore available during breaks. For more information call 508-9841823.

6/4

Spend the day together as a family at the Family Rosary Retreat sponsored by Holy Cross Family Ministries to be held at Boston College High School, Dorchester tomorrow from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The full day of activities will include workshops for all age groups, keynote speakers, eucharistic adoration, Mission Rosary and Vigil Mass. For more information or to register call 508-283-4095 or 800-299-7729 or visit www. familyrosary.org/conference.

6/9

The Diocese of Fall River’s Divorced and Separated Support Group will meet June 9 at 7 p.m. for part two of its series on “Marriage Breakdown.” The evening will include a screening of the video “Ends and Beginnings,” with discussion to follow. The group will meet in the parish center of St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, North Dartmouth. Parking is available to the left of the church. For more information call 508-993-0589, 508-673-2997 or 508-678-2828.

6/9 6/18

A Healing Mass will be celebrated at St. Anne’s Church, 818 Middle Street, Fall River on June 9 beginning with Rosary at 6 p.m. Benediction and healing prayers will follow after Mass.

The second annual My Brother’s Keeper Family Walk will be held June 18 at Stonehill College and The Sheep Pasture in North Easton beginning with registration at 9 a.m. The threemile walk will begin with a prayer service and end with lunch and family activities. Parking is available at the Holy Cross Center, 500 Washington Street. For more information call Erich Miller at 508-238-7512 or visit www. mybrotherskeeper.org.

6/21

The fourth annual Summer Catholic Reflections Series sponsored by St. Anthony’s Parish, East Falmouth; Our Lady of Victory Parish, Centerville; and hosting parish Christ The King in Mashpee will begin June 21 at 7 p.m with Father Robin Ryan speaking on “Prayer in Times of Suffering.” Father Ryan is the vice-provincial of the Passionist Congregation in the eastern United States and has taught systematic theology at St. John’s Seminary in Boston and at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. For directions and more information visit www. christthekingparish.com.

6/21

SS. Peter and Paul Parish at Holy Cross Church, 47 Pulaski Street, Fall River will be celebrating a Healing and Anointing Mass at the 4 p.m. Liturgy on June 25. The church will also host exposition of the Blessed Sacrament immediately following the 10:30 a.m.

Mass on June 26 in observance of the Feast of Corpus Christi and in honor of its patron saints. Benediction will be offered at 2 p.m. For more information call the parish office at 508-676-8463.

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The Anchor

June 3, 2011

Knights of Columbus, Sisters of Life to host WYD center for English-speakers

New Haven, Conn., (CNA) — The Knights of Columbus and the Sisters of Life are sponsoring and hosting a pilgrim center for English-speaking participants at World Youth Day in Madrid.

Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson said the center will provide “a place of rest, prayer and fellow-

ship for English-speaking pilgrims from around the world” where they can join friends and participate in “a spectacular outpouring of faith.”

Activities at the center will be free and scheduled around the World Youth Day event program. Events include Masses and devotions, catechesis sessions,

concerts, speakers, witness testimonies, prayer and movie screenings.

Other events at the site include a eucharistic procession and an outdoor Way of the Cross.

Eucharistic adoration and Confession will be available continuously at the site throughout the week.

The center, named “Love

and Life: A Home for English-Speaking Pilgrims,” is co-sponsored by Holy Cross Family Ministries, Canada’s Salt and Light Television, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, the Apostleship of Prayer, the World Youth Alliance and the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family.

The Knights and the Sisters hosted a smaller pil-

grim center at World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney.

More than one million pilgrims are expected to participate in the Madrid World Youth Day gathering, which begins on August 16 and ends August 21. Pope Benedict XVI will also celebrate Mass at the event.

A smartphone application for the “Love and Life” center is available through its website, http:// wydEnglish.org