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The Anchor Diocese of Fall River

F riday , June 7, 2013

Cape parish to host Year of Faith series

BREWSTER — The paThe talks will be given by rishioners of Our Lady of Father Flavio Gillio on four the Cape Parish, 468 Stony Tuesdays — June 18 and 25 Brook Road in Brewster, in- and on July 9 and 16 — at vite everyone to at9 a.m. and repeated tend a series of four at 7 p.m. each date presentations on in the parish center people whose lives of Our Lady of the “profess, celebrate Cape in Brewster. and share the faith.”

This is the secDuring this Year ond series of conferof Faith, these lecences Father Flavio tures will present is giving during this people from the Year of Faith. The Father Flavio Scriptures and from last series on Mary Gillio Church history as was very well-atexamples of individtended, with about uals who have traveled and 120 persons joining the conjourneyed the difficult walk ferences on Tuesdays. Some of faith. They will include came from as far as Provincpeople like Abraham, Jonah, etown.

Mary of Magdala, Peter, A well-known speaker Thomas, Paul and contempo- who has given lectures on rary examples of faith-filled Scripture for the past two Turn to page 15 persons.

Vermont assisted suicide law ‘very troubling’ for Mass.

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent

BOSTON — Last fall, Massachusetts voters rejected physician assisted suicide at the ballot box. Last year, Vermont, too, defeated an effort to legalize death by prescription — only to see another measure signed by the governor this May. Some opponents of such laws in the Commonwealth wonder if the news up north foretells their fate.

Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life said in a May 18 email to supporters about the Vermont law, “The death lobby hopes this will open the floodgates, at least in the northeast.”

Proponents of doctor prescribed death often claim such measures would give patients greater peace of mind, choice and control of over their final days of life. Physician-assisted suicide is legal in Oregon and Washington.

The Green Mountain State became the third to legalize the practice when the law, effective immediately, was signed by Gov. Peter Shumlin on May 20.

Vermont’s law allows residents, at least 18 years old and given

less than six months to live, to take a lethal dose of medication.

Kris Mineau, president of Massachusetts Family Institute, called the new law’s passage “very troubling.”

In Massachusetts the legislature never voted on doctor prescribed death last year, choosing instead to bounce it around in committee and let the issue go directly to voters in November. Citizens defeated the measure with 51.9 percent of the vote.

Mineau called the defeat of the measure “miraculous,” noting that before the campaign began, polls showed that opponents of physician-assisted suicide were down 20 points. According to state law, the earliest the same issue could appear in the voting booth again is 2018.

Mineau warned that the Massachusetts legislature could take up the issue at any time.

“We never rest on our laurels or take anything for granted,” he said. “We expect that they will be back to try to pass legislation in Massachusetts, but I think the good news is that the legislature has heard from the defeat last Turn to page 18

MESSIAH MARCH — A priest carries the monstrance with the Body of Our Lord through the streets of New Bedford during a recent procession on the feast of Corpus Christi. (Photo courtesy of Father Louis Maximilian, F.F.I.)

Bereavement ministry helping those dealing with grief

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

FALL RIVER — When Rose Mary Saraiva’s 23-year-old daughter passed away in a car accident in 2006, her life turned upside down.

“When Rachel died, I basically stopped living for a year,” said Saraiva.

Drowning in her grief, she left her job as a district sales manager when it became too difficult to work.

“If you know anything about sales, it’s very trivial and you have to put on a plastic face everyday, have a smile everyday, and I knew that it would be tough,” said Saraiva. “It was OK to put the mask on every once and a while, but to do that everyday? It doesn’t allow you to cope with it, no one wants to hear you’re sad and no one wants to hear your story.”

Saraiva stayed home and immersed herself in reading everything she could about dealing with grief, trying to find solace in Google-search results that would help her cope. Once day she received an email inquiring

if she knew anyone who would be interested in part-time secretarial work. Saraiva responded, saying she would be interested in the position and within days, she found herself as part of the Family Ministry staff of the Fall River Diocese.

“Ironically I started here a year and a day after Rachel’s death. I don’t think of coincidences,” said Saraiva, who began thinking of creating a bereavement ministry shortly after she arrived. “I wanted that to be my pet project, that I’d love to see local bereavement support groups because when my daughter died, I called the diocese and everywhere I could, and the nearest to me were Centerville (Mass.) and West Warwick (R.I.).”

The Fall River native and resident acknowledged that traveling long distances at that time to find a support group would not have worked for her.

“I knew that sometimes going five minutes down the road required me to stop 10 times because I couldn’t focus,” said Saraiva, of those moments she would break into intense sobbing,

sometimes without warning.

When the offices moved to its current location on Highland Avenue in Fall River in 2010, and transformed from Family Ministry to Faith Formation, Saraiva began to take classes at Bristol Community College to earn a certificate in thanatology, the study on how loss affects physical, psychological and social well-being.

The class was not only another step in creating a bereavement ministry in the Fall River Diocese, it was another step in the healing process for Saraiva.

“Knowing that when you’re grieving, everything is normal,” she said. “Just understand that because I walk into a room and feel the need to walk back out again — that’s OK. The biggest thing for me was the cultural aspect of grief. We learn that people grieve differently for different reasons.”

Being brought up in a Portuguese household where “death was a part of our life,” said Saraiva, that cultural influence showed her that death is an integral part of life and that having her parents allow her to attend funerals as a Turn to page 18

News From the Vatican

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June 7, 2013

Pope: when Christians lack difficulties, ‘something is wrong’

VATICAN CITY (CNA/ EWTN News) — Faithful Christians will always face difficulties, said Pope Francis recently, warning that a worldly, career-based approach to faith avoids the suffering and persecution inherent in following Christ.

“Many Christians, tempted by the spirit of the world, think that following Jesus is good because it can become a career, they can get ahead,” the pope said.

“When a Christian has no difficulties in life — when everything is fine, everything is beautiful — something is wrong.”

He suggested this temptation is common for a Christian who is “a great friend of the spirit of the world, of worldliness.”

“You cannot remove the cross from the path of Jesus, it is always there,” he added.

Pope Francis delivered his homily at morning Mass at the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta residence where he lives, on Saturday, June 1, the feast of the martyr, St. Justin.

“Think of Mother Teresa: what does the spirit of the world say of Mother Teresa?

‘Ah, Blessed Teresa is a beautiful woman, she did a lot of good things for others.’ The spirit of the world never says that the Blessed Teresa spent, every day, many hours in adoration ... Never!” the pope said.

He explained that the worldly spirit “reduces Christian activity to doing social good.”

“As if Christian life was a gloss, a veneer of Christianity,” he said. “The proclamation of Jesus is not a veneer: the proc-

lamation of Jesus goes straight to the bones, heart, goes deep within and changes us.

And the spirit of the world does not tolerate it, will not tolerate it, and therefore, there is persecution.”

Just as Pope Francis criticized career-based Christianity, he also warned about a solely culture-based approach to the faith.

He criticized the attitude of following Jesus because one was born in a Christian culture.

He said this ignores “the necessity of true discipleship of Jesus, the necessity to travel His road.”

“If you follow Jesus as a cultural proposal, then you are using this road to get higher up, to have more power. And the history of the Church is full of this, starting with some emperors and then many rulers and many people, no?” the pope observed.

The Holy Father said that this attitude is present even among some priests and bishops.

He concluded with an exhortation to follow Jesus Christ truly.

“Following Jesus is just that: going with Him out of love, behind Him: on the same journey, the same path. And the spirit of the world will not tolerate this and what will make us suffer, but suffering as Jesus did,” he said.

“Let us ask for this grace: to follow Jesus in the way that He has revealed to us and that He has taught us. This is beautiful, because He never leaves us alone. Never! He is always with us. So be it.”

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TEARS FROM HEAVEN — Pope Francis waves amid a sea of umbrellas as he arrives to lead his weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican May 29. (CNS photo/Giampiero Sposito, Reuters)

Pope Francis: What have you done to make the Church holy, welcoming?

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — All Catholics must ask themselves what they personally have done lately to build up the holiness of the Church and ensure people feel welcomed and loved in it, Pope Francis said.

“Some people today say, ‘Christ, yes; the Church, no,’ like they say, ‘I believe in God, but not in priests,’” the pope said. Such a position does not make sense because “it is the Church that brings us Christ and brings us to God. The Church is the great family of God’s children.”

During his recent weekly general audience, an audience that began with the pope getting drenched by a cloudburst as he rode through St. Peter’s Square in an open popemobile, Pope Francis announced he would begin a series of audience talks about the Church.

“The Church is the great family of children of God,” he said. “Certainly it has human aspects from the members who comprise it, pastors and faithful.

They have defects, imperfections, sins.

“Even the pope has them — and he has many — but what is beautiful is that when we become aware that we are sinners, we find the mercy of God. God always forgives. Don’t forget this. God always forgives.”

“Sin is an offense against God, but it’s also an opportunity,” he told the estimated 90,000 people gathered in the square and the avenue beyond. “Humiliation can lead one to see there is something beautiful awaiting you: the mercy of God. Think

about this.”

God’s plan, the pope said, is to unite all humanity into one family where everyone recognizes he or she is a child of God and loved by Him: “The Church is born from God’s desire to call all people into communion with Him” and “to participate in His Divine life.”

During the Year of Faith, he said, Catholics should pray that their parishes and the entire Church would increasingly be a family that lives and shares God’s love and mercy.

Noting that many people today complain about the Church, Pope Francis urged Catholics to ask themselves several questions: “How much do I love the Church? Do I pray for it? Do I feel part of the Church family?

What do I do to make the Church a community where everyone feels welcomed and understood, everyone feels the mercy and love of God Who renews life?”

In his morning Mass homilies in the days leading up to the audience, the pope had been speaking about the Church’s identity and the attitude that Catholics should have toward those who come to their parishes and the attitude Catholics should have toward the world.

Celebrating Mass with Vatican employees in the Domus Sanctae Marthae where he lives, Pope Francis spoke of the danger, even the temptation, for the Church and its members of forgetting that salvation comes from the cross of Christ.

“The triumphalism of the Church stops the Church,” he said. It becomes a Church that

journeys only halfway to its goal of salvation because people become satisfied with everything being “well-organized — all the offices, everything in its place, everything beautiful, efficient.”

Martyrdom is part of the life and journey of the Church, he said, as he urged those at Mass to pray for “a humble Church.”

During his morning homily, the pope spoke about the importance of priests, parish workers and parishioners being open and welcoming to those who come to the parish asking for something.

He used several examples, including that of a couple who goes to a parish to arrange their wedding, but before being congratulated, are told how much it will cost and asked for their Baptismal certificates.

Too many times, the pope said, “we are faith-checkers instead of facilitators of the people’s faith.”

Pope Francis also used the example of an unmarried mother who goes to a parish asking that her baby be Baptized only to hear, “No, you aren’t married.”

“This young woman had the courage” to carry her baby to term and not have an abortion, he said, and “what does she find?

A closed door. And this happens to a lot of people. This is not good pastoral zeal. This pushes people away from the Lord.”

“Jesus instituted seven Sacraments and we, with this kind of attitude, institute an eighth: the sacrament of pastoral control,” he said, using the term in Italian for the customs control at an international airport.

June 7, 2013

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The International Church

Belgian bishops welcome court condemnation of 2010 cathedral raid

FIT FOR A KING — Girls throw flower petals before the Blessed Sacrament during a Corpus Christi procession in Gora Kalwaria, Poland, May 30. A Eucharistic procession is a traditional feature of the celebration of the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. (CNS photo/Kacper Pempel, Reuters)

Experts meet in Mexico for conference on Shroud of Turin

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNA/EWTN News) — Experts from around the world gathered in Mexico for a conference on the Holy Shroud of Turin in light of the latest studies indicating that the linen bears the characteristics of Jesus’ burial cloth.

The conference, entitled “The Holy Shroud and the Year of Faith,” took place May 24-25 in Mexico City as the Mexican Center for the Study of the Shroud marked its 30th anniversary.

The center is led by Dr. Adolfo Orozco, who is dedicated to studying and making known the burial cloth “that is presumed to have enveloped the body of Jesus of Nazareth and was a witness to the moment of the Resurrection.”

In addition to the conference

at the Marian Plaza at the Basilica of Guadalupe, an exact replica of the shroud was also on display.

Among the characteristics of the shroud discussed during the conference were its three-dimensionality, the first-century style weaving of the linen and the impossibility that it could have been the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, as historical records show that it was exhibited in Europe 92 years before the artist was born.

The blood on the shroud is human and was absorbed into the cloth before the image was imprinted upon it, experts said.

The scientific analysis of the shroud fits with the Gospels’ narration of the historical facts, along with research on Hebrew

customs from that time period.

Although it is unknown how the image was imprinted on the cloth, it can be compared to a radioactive reaction, which would coincide with the moment of the Resurrection, experts explained.

Speakers at the event included Dr. Bruno Barberis, director of the Shroud of Turin Museum; Father Eduardo Chavez Sanchez, postulator of the cause of canonization of St. Juan Diego; Dr. John Jackson, director of the Center for the Study of the Shroud in Colorado Springs; and Dr. Rafael de la Piedra, a lay consecrated member of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae and the director of the Center for Catholic Studies of Lima.

For Jesuit, Syrian war is professional challenge, personal heartache

ROME (CNS) — For Jesuit Father Nawras Sammour, the ongoing conflict in Syria is a professional challenge and a personal heartache.

Father Sammour is Jesuit Refugee Service’s regional director for the Middle East and lives in Damascus, Syria. He was born in Aleppo, and his mother, brother and sister still live there, but his nieces and nephews “have all left.”

Tens of thousands of Syrians have died and millions have been displaced in more than two years of fighting between President Bashar Assad’s government and rebels seeking his resignation.

“Sometimes I can’t believe we Syrians have reached that level of violence,” Father Sammour said.

“I’m shocked. Shocked.

“We need to step back and realize that we went too far,” he told Catholic News Service May 31 during an interview at JRS headquarters near the Vatican.

In a situation that is so tense and

so divided, particularly among different Muslim groups, Father Sammour said Syria’s small Christian communities may be frightened.

But with Christian aid programs and partnerships with others providing assistance, they also enjoy a certain respect as non-partisans looking only to help others.

With the help of funding from a variety of agencies — including the worldwide Caritas network and the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Relief Services — JRS has about 250 paid employees in Syria and another 300 volunteers.

They visit displaced families living in shelters, abandoned buildings, mosques, churches and monasteries and provide food and basic necessities. JRS runs field kitchens that serve 20,000 meals a day. They provide medicine to the chronically ill, operate a clinic in Aleppo and provide psycho-social support to almost 5,000 children, offering them a safe environment where

they can play and try to keep up with their school work.

Father Sammour said the situation in Syria “is not calming down at all. The tension is worse. People are nervous. Syria is much more fragmented, and fear is much more established in the hearts of people,” he said.

The work with the children, though, may be the seedbed of a better future. The children come from Christian as well as Sunni Muslim and Alawite Muslim families, and the JRS team is earning the trust of their parents.

“That will help with long-term reconciliation,” Father Sammour said.

The Jesuit said he and other staff members have become “more prudent” when moving around the country because of the increased risk of kidnapping. Two Orthodox bishops were kidnapped in late April and have not been heard from since.

OXFORD, England (CNS) — The Belgian Catholic bishops’ conference has welcomed judicial condemnation of a 2010 police raid on the cathedral and residence of Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Mechelen-Brussels.

On May 28, Belgium’s Court of Cassation condemned the June 24, 2010 raid, during which documents were seized and the tombs of two cardinals were pried open. The raid occurred during a bishops’ plenary meeting, and the bishops were held all day as police confiscated cell phones, documents and computers.

In its ruling, which is final under Belgian law, the court said the “legally unjustified” raid had been ordered by a judge on the basis of a single witness’ testimony. The court ordered the return of all seized material to the Church.

“We are satisfied with this definitive judgment,” said Jesuit Father Tommy Scholtes, spokesman for the Brusselsbased bishops’ conference. “But the raid’s illegality was only one aspect of the many problems we still face, and the Church must await further developments.”

Father Scholtes told Catholic News Service May 30 that the Church’s advisers would decide on further steps in connection with the “illegal action,” but warned the court judgment was unlikely to affect public atti-

tudes toward the Church.

Meanwhile, a lawyer representing the Church, Fernand Keuleneer, said the ruling confirmed the raid had “irreparably violated the right of those concerned to an equitable process.”

“As we argued from the beginning, the court believes the investigating judge was on a fishing expedition,” Keuleneer said in a May 29 statement.

“By arbitrarily seizing such an improbable number of documents, he deliberately attempted to gather proof about supposed offenses without the slightest indication they had taken place. This was breaking the law.”

Belgium’s Catholic Church has been dogged by allegations of abuse since early 2010, alongside parallel claims against the Church in the neighboring Netherlands and Germany.

Keuleneer said the bishops would continue “to cooperate with correctly conducted judiciary instructions” on sexual abuse.

The Le Soir daily reported May 29 that “material seized illegally by police cannot now be used for inquiries into possible cover-up attempts by the Church.”

“This is very hard blow for the civil parties hoping to find evidence in it to incriminate the Church’s hierarchy,” the newspaper said.

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

June 7, 2013 The Church in the U.S. CLINIC marks 25 years of helping immigrants through Church agencies

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WASHINGTON (CNS) — Like it was yesterday, Vanna Slaughter pulls from memory the details of what was happening when Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., known as CLINIC, was created — 25 years ago.

When the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference established CLINIC as a legal services adjunct to the more policy-focused Migration and Refugee Services, the immediate goal was to provide legal support to Catholic agencies that were assisting with a new immigration law that was helping millions of people legalize their status.

“It was Oct. 13, 1986, and I was at the University of Texas in Austin at an immigration conference,” remembered Slaughter, the division director for Catholic Charities of Dallas, Immigration and Legal Services. A major overhaul of immigration laws had been in the works in Congress but everyone at the conference thought the bill was dead. The Simpson-Mazzoli Act, officially the Immigration Reform and Control Act, or IRCA, fell apart in conference committee after more than a year in the works and having versions passed by both House and Senate.

But that day, Slaughter remembered, word came that the bill had been revived and all the conference participants were asked to return to their rooms, get on the phone and urge their members of Congress to pass it.

She remembers the details because those phone calls marked the start of a whole new chapter in the Catholic Church’s outreach to immigrants. Slaughter spoke with Catholic News Service May 22 during an anniversary celebration for CLINIC at which she received the Silver Anniversary Network Leader Award.

The bill passed and was signed into law the following month, providing, among other things, a vehicle for about three million undocument-

ed immigrants to legalize their status.

Within a very short time, then-Msgr.

Nicholas DiMarzio, the director of MRS, was asking the U.S. bishops to create a separate corporation to give legal backup to the handful of diocesan immigration service agencies (Catholic Relief Services was and remains the only other separate corporation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops).

“When I interviewed for the job, they asked me what I wanted to do with MRS,” recalled Bishop DiMarzio in a phone interview with CNS. He’d served for nine years as refugee resettlement director for the Archdiocese of Newark before being hired at MRS in 1985.

He knew he wanted a nationwide legal services corporation to provide the expertise such agencies lacked, the bishop said. “And that’s exactly what happened.”

“It was not simple at all,” continued Bishop DiMarzio, who has headed the Brooklyn, N.Y., Diocese since 2003.

There were complications about incorporating and implications for tax-exempt status, for example.

MRS had legal assistance offices in Washington, New York, El Paso, Texas, and San Francisco, which had to be dismantled and folded into the new Washington-based headquarters of CLINIC. But the pieces all came together and 25 years later, CLINIC has grown from 17 affiliated organizations to more than 200 Catholic and community-based immigration programs, with more than 300 field offices in 47 states. CLINIC has more than 1,200 representatives who have been accredited with the federal government to process immigration applications, along with attorneys who assist hundreds of thousands of low-income immigrants a year.

“It’s become the premier nonprofit legal services network in the country,” said Bishop DiMarzio, acknowledging a bit of pride in how

his idea has evolved. He is currently a member of CLINIC’s board of directors.

Don Kerwin, former director of CLINIC and now a member of its board who also heads the Center for Migration Studies, said resettling refugees and helping immigrants integrate were among the original functions of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the precursor to today’s USCCB. Its Bureau of Immigration was created in 1922, eventually evolving into Migration and Refugee Services.

When IRCA became law, dioceses quickly geared up with the help of CLINIC to provide low-income immigrants with assistance in applying.

Over the last 25 years, CLINIC programs have adapted with the times. Currently, groundwork is being laid for the potential passage of a new comprehensive immigration reform law. That includes plans to train employees and volunteers to process applications and to help parishes, dioceses and other organizations prepare communities by offering English classes and gathering documents, for instance.

“It’s a network that has grown with practically no federal funds,” Kerwin said. “There’s always been a huge amount of resourcefulness and individual drive.”

“It’s one of the expanding areas of Church social ministry that’s not

federally funded,” he said. “And the bishops have really stuck with it.”

In addition to IRCA, major programs in which CLINIC has had a role include: — Helping more than 100,000 people apply for citizenship since 1997.

— Training more than 7,600 immigration practitioners in 2012 alone.

— Establishing an attorney-ofthe-day hotline; a hotline for asylum seekers; and a nationwide pro-bono project to represent immigrant children.

— Helping Haitians displaced by the 2010 earthquake and immigrants displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita to obtain permission to stay in the U.S. — Creating a model for “know your rights” programs for detained immigrants that has been adopted nationwide.

At the anniversary celebration, Sister Maureen Kelleher, a member of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary, recalled that in CLINIC’s early days, the program she worked with among farmworkers around Naples, Fla., was struggling to help newly legalized immigrants get the documents to be able to work.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service wasn’t providing the work cards people needed to show employers, Sister Maureen ex-

plained. “CLINIC sued and it went all the way to the Supreme Court.

We won.”

Bishop Richard J. Garcia of Monterey, Calif., who is CLINIC’s board chairman, said even bishops in regions far from the traditional immigrant-heavy states along the Mexican border are strong supporters. Recently, CLINIC’s work in helping victims of human trafficking has been a key focus for dioceses that haven’t traditionally dealt much with immigration issues, he said.

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, was on the board of CLINIC at its founding and has continued to regularly be involved with its work.

He told the guests at the anniversary event that “you’ve been a family, watching out for migrants.”

When CLINIC was created “we realized the problems facing immigrants were not going away. And while MRS was working with the government agencies (on shaping policy) someone had to work with the people,” he told CNS. “It was a natural evolution from the policy work.”

“I wish more people understood” the work CLINIC does, Cardinal McCarrick added. “I wish the average Catholic realized this work is an expression of the challenge of the Lord when He said, ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed Me.’”

OAKLAND, Calif. (CNS) — In a joyful celebration that incorporated the many gifts of the diverse communities that make up the Oakland Diocese, Bishop Michael C. Barber was ordained and installed as Oakland’s fifth bishop May 25 at the Cathedral of Christ the Light.

With his brother Jesuit Father Stephen Barber at his side and another brother, Kevin Barber, serving as lector, Bishop Barber, 58, became the first Jesuit to become bishop of Oakland. He also is the first priest to be named bishop of Oakland. All previous bishops had already been ordained bishops.

At the end of the Mass, the new bishop moved through the main aisle of the soaring glass-and-concrete cathedral, blessing the people and receiving applause.

“People have asked me, ‘What is your vision as bishop?’” he said in remarks from the ambo.

“I would like to do for Oakland what Pope Francis is doing for the whole Church.”

He was interrupted by applause.

“My vision is this: The priests take care of the people. The bishop takes care of the priests. And we all take care of the poor, and the sick and the suffering.”

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco was the principal consecrator for the ordination of Bishop Barber, who succeeds him in Oakland. Co-consecrators were retired Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla of Yakima, Wash., who is also a Jesuit, and Auxiliary Bishop Thomas A. Daly of San Jose.

Other bishops present included retired Bishop John S. Cummins, the second bishop of Oakland, from 1977 to 2003, and Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron, who was Oakland’s third bishop.

He was named coadjutor bishop in January 2003 and was head of the diocese from October 2003 to January 2009, when he was named to Detroit.

During his remarks, Archbishop Cordileone told the new bishop that he could count on the support of his brother bishops.

The Mass included contributions from a prelude by songs of praise and worship from the Voices of St. Benedict Gospel Choir; a spirited call to worship to the drumbeat of a “kebero” from the Eritrean Catholics of the Ge’ez Rite; a reading in Vietnamese; and a responsorial psalm in Spanish.

The cathedral, which was dedicated almost five years ago, was

filled to its 1,350-seat capacity. An additional 300 chairs were placed on the Cathedral Plaza so those unable to be seated inside could watch a broadcast of the proceedings.

During the ordination rite, in which chrism was poured on his head and hands to anoint him, Bishop Barber received the ring, miter and crozier before being invited to occupy the cathedra, or bishop’s seat.

The chrism was made from oil from the olive trees on the grounds of the motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose.

The oil was consecrated by retired Seattle Archbishop Alex J. Brunett, who had served as Oakland’s apostolic administrator since last October.

In his comments later, Bishop Barber thanked Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, apostolic nuncio to the United States, and his consecrators, as well as Archbishop Brunett.

“Everyone I have spoken to hates to see you go,” he told the retired archbishop. “You will go down in the history of Oakland not as the apostolic administrator, but as the beloved apostolic administrator.”

New bishop wants to serve Oakland as pope serves ‘the whole Church’

5 The Church in the U.S. Florida bishops say use of death Father Greeley, sociologist and penalty ‘sanctions revenge’ best-selling author, dies at 85 TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CNS) and the governor has reviewed

June 7, 2013

NO MORE WORDS — Father Andrew Greeley, American sociologist and prolific best-selling author, died May 29 at age 85 at his home in Chicago. He is pictured in a 1985 photo during a reception in his honor in Chicago. (CNS photo/courtesy of the Catholic New World)

CHICAGO (CNS) — Father Andrew Greeley, a Chicago archdiocesan priest and well-known novelist, journalist and sociologist, died late May 29 at his home in Chicago’s John Hancock Center. He was 85 years old.

Father Greeley was perhaps most widely recognized for the more than 60 novels he wrote, some considered scandalous with their portraits of hypocritical and sinful clerics. But he also wrote more than 70 works of nonfiction, often on the sociology of religion, including 2004’s “Priests: A Calling in Crisis.”

The title notwithstanding, the research he presented in that book found that priests are among the happiest men in the United States — a conclusion that mirrored his own experience.

“Andy loved being a priest, and he spoke very positively about the priesthood,” said Father Greg Sakowicz, who was pastor of St. Mary of the Woods Parish in Chicago for many of the years Father Greeley filled in at weekend Masses there.

“His Masses were very personal.

He would name the altar servers and have the people applaud for them,” the priest told the Catholic New World, Chicago’s archdiocesan newspaper. “Families with young children loved his Masses, because they almost had a backyard picnic flavor to them, it was so personal and warm.”

On the other hand, Father Sakowicz said, people who prefer their Liturgy to have more structure did not enjoy them so much, but that was all right with Father Greeley.

“You either loved him, or you just shook your head,” Father Sakowicz said, repeating a line often said — and acknowledged by Fa-

ther Greeley — that he never had a thought that went unpublished.

Born in Oak Park, Father Greeley attended St. Angela School on the West Side, was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1954 and served as assistant pastor of Christ the King Parish from 1954 to 1963, while pursuing postgraduate studies in sociology at the University of Chicago.

In later years, he taught sociology at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona.

He maintained a relationship with the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago from 1982 until he stopped working following a 2008 accident in which his coat caught on the door of a taxicab in Rosemont, leading to a fall that caused a traumatic brain injury.

While he returned home after a long hospitalization and rehabilitation, and enjoyed visitors, he no longer appeared in public.

His final book, “Chicago Catholics and the Struggles Within Their Church,” was published in 2010.

He was released from archdiocesan duties to pursue his academic interests in 1965, and he remained a priest in good standing. He published his first novel, “The Magic Cup,” in 1975, although his most popular books may have been “The Cardinal Sins” (1981) and “Thy Brother’s Wife” (1982).

In later years, many speculated that his priest/bishop detective Blackie Ryan was a stand-in for Father Greeley himself. Father Greeley denied that, but acknowledged that the “little bishop” was his “spokesman.”

In a 2003 interview with the Catholic New World, Father Greeley spoke of the importance of story

to the religious imagination, saying he tried with his novels to do what the stained-glass artists of Renaissance Europe did with their windows: to spark the imagination and lead it to faith.

For him religion — like life itself — was at root a story: It’s the story of the Creator, Who loves the world so much He gave Himself up for it.

In his novels, he once said, he attempted to convey the way the love and grace of God operate in the world and the Church.

In 1986, Father Greeley established a $1 million Catholic InnerCity School Fund, providing scholarships and financial support to schools in the Chicago archdiocese with student populations more than 50 percent minority.

In 1984, he contributed a $1 million endowment to establish a chair in Roman Catholic Studies at the University of Chicago. He also funded an annual lecture series, “The Church in Society,” at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, from which he received his licentiate in sacred theology in 1954.

He received numerous awards, including the 2006 Campion Award, given by America magazine on a regular basis to a noted Christian person of letters, and the 1993 U.S. Catholic Award, recognizing him for furthering the cause of women in the Church.

During the Second Vatican Council he wrote “The Yardstick” for what was then National Catholic News Service, while its regular writer, Msgr. George G. Higgins, was in Rome to assist at council sessions. Msgr. Higgins, who also was a Chicago priest, started the weekly commentary on economic, labor and social problems in 1945.

— Using capital punishment to show that killing is wrong “sanctions revenge,” Florida’s seven Catholic bishops said in a letter to Gov. Rick Scott.

Asking that Scott commute the death sentences of inmates Elmer Carroll, William Van Poyck and Marshall Gore to life in prison, the bishops said the violence of capital punishment would do little to relieve the pain of the survivors of the men’s victims or be helpful to society.

Scott recently signed warrants for the executions of the men over a span of 26 days starting May 29. Observers said the executions would be the most in such a brief period of time in more than two decades.

“Governor, will our citizenry be any safer, will Floridians be any better protected, if we execute these men? Will not the safety of persons and the preservation of public order be as secure if instead you commute these sentences to lifelong confinement?” the bishops asked.

“Killing people to show that killing is wrong is a piercing contradiction and one that touches our very souls,” the Church leaders added. “Executions coarsen us. We daily condemn the glorification of violence, but what example is set when our state legitimizes killing? What results can we expect?”

Signing the May 22 letter were Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami and Bishops Gerald M. Barbarito of Palm Beach, Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Felipe J. Estevez of St. Augustine, Robert N. Lynch of St. Petersburg, John G. Noonan of Orlando, and Gregory L. Parkes of Pensacola-Tallahassee.

The letter comes as Scott considers the Timely Justice Act passed by the Florida Legislature in April. The act would speed up the state’s death penalty process by requiring the governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days after all appeals are concluded

clemency. It also would reduce a death-row inmate’s ability to file additional motions once the appeals process ends.

Scott has until mid-June to sign or veto the bill.

Sponsors of the bill pointed to the fact that 40 percent of the state’s 406 prisoners awaiting execution have been on death row for at least 20 years. Detractors have said the act would give the state less time to recognize that an innocent person has been convicted.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila of Denver urged legislators to repeal the death penalty.

The archbishop’s call May 22 came after Gov. John Hickenlooper granted a reprieve to deathrow inmate Nathan Dunlap, who was scheduled to be executed in August for the 1993 murders of four people in an Aurora, Colo., restaurant.

In announcing the reprieve, Hickenlooper called for a statewide conversation on the death penalty. The announcement came weeks after Colorado lawmakers defeated a bill to abolish capital punishment, saying the topic needs more public debate.

Archbishop Aquila agreed with the governor that Coloradans must give thoughtful consideration to capital punishment.

“The governor is correct. Coloradans should work together to end the practice of punitive killing — for the sake of justice and the sake of human dignity,” Archbishop Aquila said in a statement.

“My support for the death penalty’s repeal is rooted in my respect for the dignity of all human life,” he said. “Every human being has a fundamental right to life. It is wrong to take life needlessly, either through execution or abortion or criminal acts of violence.

“When will Americans open their eyes to recognize that violence only begets violence?” he asked.

6

The Anchor Oboedientia et pax

This past Monday night Pope Francis met with pilgrims from the Italian city of Bergamo, hometown of Blessed John XXIII, and spoke to them on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of their paisan (you can read more about John XXIII in George Weigel’s column on page eight of this edition). The current Holy Father asked the assembled crowd what made people look at his predecessor and see in him “a shepherd and a father.” He posed the question, “How could he reach the hearts of so many different people, even many non-Christians? To answer this question, we can refer to his episcopal motto, oboedientia et pax: obedience and peace. ‘These words,’ noted the then-Archbishop Roncalli [John XXIII’s pre-papal name] on the eve of his episcopal ordination, ‘are [in a way] my story and my life’” (“Journal of a Soul,” retreat in preparation for consecration as bishop, 13-17 March 1925).

The people of Bergamo then were reminded of how John XXIII exuded peace.

“Angelo Roncalli was a man who was able to communicate peace; a natural, serene, friendly peace; a peace that, with his election to the pontificate, was manifested to all the world and [came to be called his] ‘goodness’” [here Pope Francis is making reference to how people back then referred to the pope as “Good Pope John”].

This peacefulness and goodness in John XXIII was not an innate gift. As Pope Francis said Monday night, “In fact, Pope John conveyed peace because he had a mind deeply at peace, the fruit of a long and challenging work on himself, an effort that has left abundant traces in [his autobiography], ‘Journal of a Soul.’ There we can see the seminarian, the priest, the bishop Roncalli struggling with the path to the gradual purification of the heart. We see him, day by day, careful to recognize and mortify the desires that come from his own selfishness, careful to discern the inspirations of the Lord, allowing himself to be guided by wise spiritual directors and inspired by masters such as St. Francis de Sales and St. Charles Borromeo.

Reading those writings, we truly see a soul taking shape, under the action of the Holy Spirit working in His Church.”

This molds well with what Father Landry reports to us in the column to the right, about what Jesus in His Sacred Heart asks of all of us, but especially those of us consecrated to Him in a special way. The current pope and his predecessor from half a century ago are both very popular people, but the way of life which they live and promote is not one which is often praised in this world. It is the scandal of the cross (about which Pope Francis preached on June 1). Blessed John embraced the cross with love for Christ and with love for his neighbor. That is why he was successful in communicating in his very being that he was a man of love — because he followed in the footsteps of Him who loved us to the end.

Next Pope Francis spoke about the other word in Blessed John’s motto, obedience, calling it “the decisive word. If peace was the outward hallmark, obedience constituted for [Pope John] the inner disposition: obedience, in fact, was the instrument with which to achieve peace. Firstly, [obedience] meant to [Pope John] something very simple and concrete: performing that service in the Church, which his superiors asked of him, without seeking anything for himself, with no escape from anything that was required of him, even when it meant leaving his homeland, dealing with worlds unknown to him, remaining for many years in places where the presence of Catholics was very scarce. This willingness to be led, like a child, built his priestly path ... Through this obedience, the priest and bishop Roncalli, however, also lived a more profound faithfulness, which could be called, as he would say, abandonment to Divine Providence. He always recognized, in faith, that through that path of life apparently driven by others, led by their tastes or on the basis of their own spiritual sensitivity, God was designing a project of His own.”

What Pope Francis said Monday about Blessed John’s obedience to human superiors and how he internalized it in prayer is good food for thought for all of us, especially at this time of year when priests are transferred around the diocese. We may not have chosen a particular assignment or a particular pastor if it were up to ourselves, but we are called to trust in the plans of God (which are not normally laid out in blueprints before us).

Pope Francis spoke of his predecessor’s “daily abandonment to the will of God, [through which] the future Pope John lived a purification, which allowed him to detach himself completely from himself, and to adhere to Christ, thus allowing the holiness to emerge, which the Church has [now] officially recognized. Jesus tells us, ‘Whoever loses his life for Me will save it’ (Lk 9:24). Here is the true wellspring of Pope John’s, of the peace that he sowed throughout the world. Here is the root of his holiness: in this, his evangelical obedience.”

“This, then, is a lesson for all of us, and also for the Church of our time. If we let ourselves be led by the Holy Spirit, if we mortify our selfishness to make room for the love of the Lord and to His will, then we will find peace, then we will be builders of peace and peace will spread around us.”

With the secular news media openly hoping for Pope Francis to make some radical change in Church teaching, there exists a temptation to resent such authors and activists, to want to “put them in their place.” However, if we follow the Holy Spirit’s promptings, it seems much more likely that Christ would want us to mortify ourselves rather than immediately “going for the jugular” in an argument about what the pope really wants us to do. As he says, we Catholics need to find peace in Christ, through these practices of prayer and sacrifice. This peace will help us to then respond in love to these curious authors, who actually are unwittingly revealing their own thirst for the Divine. May the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so obedient to God the Father’s will, help us to achieve that peace.

T

June 7, 2013

The wounding of Christ’s Heart

oday the Church marks the Solemnity we’ve made a vow, a total commitment of of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a ourselves. Jesus is asking from us a covenant of feast specifically requested by Jesus in His love, in response to His toward us. apparitions to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in He’s doing so not because He’s some type the 1670s. of egomaniac desirous of attention, but because Nine days ago I was privileged to be able He knows that the only way we’ll obtain to celebrate Mass in the Chapel in Parayhappiness, holiness and Heaven, is through le-Monial, France, where these apparitions a life in which we take advantage of, rather occurred. I was preaching a retreat in Ars to than take for granted, the gift of Him in the 30 seminarians from across the United States.

Sacrament of love.

Because the Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney, So today on this great solemnity of the famously described the priesthood as the “love Sacred Heart, each of us needs to ponder how of the Heart of Jesus,” I wanted to take these we truly treat Jesus in the Eucharist. future priests to the place where Jesus taught us Jesus said that “most” treat Him with most powerfully about the love flowing from indifference. We can clearly see that apathy in His priestly Heart. the three-quarters of Catholics in the U.S. who There’s also a special connection between don’t attend Mass each week or in the others priests and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, because who miss without compunction whenever today is the day when the whole Church prays something “more important” comes up, like for the sanctification of priests, so that they work, or kids’ sporting events, or family might acquire a priestly heart like Christ’s. outings. We also see it in priests, for example, During Mass, I pondered with the who don’t celebrate or even attend Mass on seminarians what Jesus said to St. Margaret their days off. This wounds Jesus’ Heart. In Mary, something that should be a wake-up call contrast, He wants us to treat Him in the Mass for everyone who loves the Lord Jesus. as the greatest Difference-Maker in our life, as Pointing to His Heart that was aflame with our true priority, as the “source and summit” of love and enveloped by a crown of thorns, Jesus our life, the fulcrum of our week and day. said, “Behold He declared the Heart that that most treat has so much Him with loved men that irreverence. it has spared We see this in nothing, even the way many exhausting and approach the consuming itself Mass, without

By Father in testimony of a sense that its love. Instead they’re in the Roger J. Landry of gratitude, I Presence of God. receive from It’s shown when most only the people attend difference, irreverence, sacrilege, and the Mass in a rush, when they dress in a way they’d coldness and scorn that men have for Me in the never dress for an important engagement, when Sacrament of love.” they receive Holy Communion lackadaisically The “Sacrament of love” to which He or with dirty hands. It’s shown in the way referred is the Holy Eucharist. Jesus indicated people make poor or half-hearted genuflections that in response to this total gift of Himself or none at all. It’s shown in the way priests to us, He receives from “most” only apathy, sometimes celebrate Mass with little or no impiety, frigidity, contempt, and desecration. devotion. All of this pains Jesus. In contrast, Jesus went on to describe to St. Margaret for our sake, He wants us to treat Him with Mary something that I wanted to underline deep piety. One of the best ways to grow in for the seminarians. The greatest sorrow of Eucharistic reverence is through adoration: if His Heart, He said, comes when those who we learn how to adore Christ outside of Mass, should love Him more don’t really love Him we can then much more easily adore Him in much or at all. “What I feel the most keenly,” Mass.

Jesus lamented, “is that it is hearts that are Jesus then said most treat Him with consecrated to Me that treat Me in this way.” coldness. We see this in the way many The ancient aphorism, “The corruption come to Mass without enthusiasm, as bored of the best is worst of all,” is applicable with and distracted spectators rather than ardent regard to what most wounds Jesus’ Heart. To participants. Christ wants us more passionate whom more is given, more is to be expected, about Him at the Mass than the most fanatical and when priests, religious, deacons, and Bruins’ fans are during a successful playoff consecrated men and women take Jesus’ gift of run. He wants us singing, sincerely meaning Himself in the Eucharist for granted, it’s all the the prayers we say, treating others at Mass with more painful. us with warmth and love. When we don’t, He’s The response of the majority who treat Jesus wounded. in the Eucharist with little enthusiasm, love and He added that most treat Him with scorn. reverence can be likened to the sorrow Jesus It’s shown in the way some speak disdainfully experienced in Capernaum, when after Jesus about Jesus in the Eucharist, calling Eucharistic described for the first time in depth the mystery adoration “cookie worship” or the tabernacle of the Eucharist, many of his “disciples” — “the bread box.” It’s shown in the way some those who had followed Him for up to two priests and extraordinary ministers mishandle years — abandoned Him, saying that the the Eucharistic particles or pour extra Precious teaching about eating His Flesh and drinking Blood down the sink into the sewer system.

His Blood was too hard to endure. When Jesus, in contrast, want us to treat Him with those who have received special consecrated grateful appreciation. vocations treat the Lord in this way, however, Jesus finally talked about sacrilege, seen it’s much more like the betrayal of Judas. most commonly by people’s receiving Him In response to all of these breaches of faith, without being in the state of grace. Most of Jesus asked for reparation, not to placate His us would never invite a guest over for dinner wounded Heart, but to change our hearts and to a filthy house, but many receive Jesus with the hearts of others with regard to how we souls in need of thorough purification through should be responding to this greatest gift of all. the Sacrament of His mercy. We likewise see It’s no surprise that the reparation He requested it when priests celebrate Mass while living has a particularly Eucharistic form. He asked double-lives or when ministers of Holy for the establishment of a feast of His Sacred Communion knowingly give Holy Communion Heart within the Octave of Corpus Christi. to those who are obstinately persistent in He called for us to receive Him frequently in manifest grave sin. Jesus wants, rather, for us Holy Communion, particularly on first Fridays, to receive and share Him in a sacred, not a and to adore Him, especially on Thursdays in sacrilegious way. memory of His agony and the desertion of the The feast of the Sacred Heart is meant to disciples. transform us, to educate our hearts to love Jesus Jesus wasn’t just asking for intellectual and to love like Jesus. The best way we train to recognition of His Eucharistic love. He was do so is by receiving Jesus in the Eucharist with asking for devotion, which means letting that precedence, piety, passion, praise and purity — truth descend from our heads to our hearts, in short, by treating Him as He deserves. to our knees, to our folded hands and to our Father Landry is pastor of St. Bernadette missionary feet. The word “devotion” comes Parish in Fall River. His email address is from the Latin expression de voto, which means fatherlandry@catholicpreaching.com.

Putting Into the Deep

7

The Anchor

June 7, 2013

State legislators organizing to respond to religious freedom challenges

WASHINGTON (CNS) — State legislatures, rather than the federal courts, are becoming the new battlegrounds over religious freedom, two state legislators acknowledged at the 2013 National Religious Freedom Conference.

Citing examples of legislative proposals and the introduction of rules governing state-funded programs and schools, Oklahoma State Rep. Rebecca Hamilton, a Democrat, and Idaho State Sen. Curt McKenzie, a Republican, said they believe such efforts are intended to remove any religious influence from public life.

Hamilton, who identified herself as a Pro-Life Catholic, told the 150 people at the conference that she has been told by at least one constituent to “go to church all you want but leave it there.”

“The arrogance of telling me to ignore my religious beliefs ... is a result of the ethos of the culture in which we live, in which it’s OK to attack people because of their faith,” Hamilton said.

“We’ve reached the point in this country that bashing people because of their faith is accepted, it is tolerated. You can get reelected doing it. You can have big ratings on your television show doing it,” Hamilton said.

In response, legislators in some states have formed religious freedom caucuses, small groups of legislators committed to blocking attempts to limit religious practice.

Tim Schulz, state legislative policy director for the American Religious Freedom Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said nine state caucuses have been formed in the last year. He told the conference similar caucuses are being formed in nine other states.

McKenzie, who spearheaded the formation of the Idaho caucus in 2012, said the group has helped protect religious freedom through the passage of a law allowing students at public universities to follow their own consciences and faith standards in forming groups and selecting their own leaders.

Similar legislation has made its way to other states, he said.

“Don’t underestimate the ability of this program to influence policy at the state level,” McKenzie said. “Legislators find input from you as thought leaders invaluable.”

Jennifer Kraska, executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, expressed concern over what she described as “out-

right hostility” toward religious belief that emerged at times in debates in the Colorado Legislature.

She called for a broad-based effort to educate people about the threats to religious freedom that have emerged nationwide.

“I am hopeful that in Colorado we will someday soon put an end to these senseless attacks on religious liberty,” Kraska said.

“I know for the vast amount of people in Colorado, the issue of religious liberty is not a partisan issue. Rather it is a constitutional value that must be protected and cherished.”

A round-table of six religious leaders of different faiths also explored concerns about limits on religious freedom, with several speakers addressing the importance of reaching out to young adults at a time when religious practice among members of that age group is declining.

“Young people in the 20-to-40 (year-old) demographic don’t understand our concerns,” said the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III, senior policy adviser to the presiding bishop of the Pentecostal Church of God in Christ. “We’re using an eight-track tape in an iPad world.”

Rabbi Abba Cohen, director

of the Washington office of Agudath Israel for America, urged the audience to challenge derisive comments about religion and religious practice.

“This indeed creates a more secular society,” he said. “This leads to the creation of a poison atmosphere in society to weaken laws protecting religious freedom.”

Speakers also raised concerns that discrimination against people of faith has increased in workplaces and schools and within government. Among examples cited were a business that restricts someone wearing a turban or a hijab from having public contact with customers, bullying of students representing a minority faith and rules that require men and women wanting to obtain a driver’s license or photo identification to uncover their hair in violation religious practice.

Amardeep Singh, director of programs with the Sikh Coalition, a Sikh civil rights organization, said that because such practices are growing, people of faith must stand together to defend one another. He also called for tolerance not just among people faith but in wider society.

“If we’re going to ask society

to accept our differences, we’re going to have to accept secular differences as well,” Singh said.

The conference also heard from Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, director of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University in New York, who urged participants to better understand their neighbors and appreciate their differences, especially when it comes to faith traditions.

He said differences among people, whether faith traditions or cultures, must be protected. A society that allows for no differences among people is totalitarianism, he said.

Rabbi Soloveichik said America’s founders recognized the importance of religious freedom and the Biblical concept of covenant that exists between God and people as well as among people. But he questioned whether government officials today understand those principles.

“In this day and age American public officials speak of freedom of worship rather than free exercise, as if our religious identity is reserved for the Church and the synagogue and not something we take with us and freely obey in the public square,” he said.

ROME (CNS) — As the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi prepare for a new beginning after a Vatican-ordered reform, the groups are asking members to participate in a novena of atonement and healing in the aftermath of their founder’s misconduct.

“In each of us, the healing process has been and continues to be deeply personal,” said a letter signed by Legionary Father Sylvester Heereman, acting superior; Gloria Rodriguez, director of the consecrated women’s branch of Regnum Christi; and Jorge Lopez, director of the consecrated men’s branch of Regnum Christi.

The general chapter of the Legionaries and the general assemblies of Regnum Christi’s male and female branches are likely to be held early in 2014, bringing the election of new superiors and the adoption of new constitutions and statutes, the three leaders said in a recent letter to members.

In 2010 Pope Benedict XVI ordered the reform and reorganization of Regnum Christi and the Legionaries after revelations that their founder, the late Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, had fathered children and sexually

abused seminarians.

The three leaders told members: “We have to bear the wounds of a painful institutional past, above all the feeling of a broken fatherhood and the pain associated with the human errors that have been committed and that have made us suffer.”

As Regnum Christi and the Legionaries move toward adopting their new constitutions and norms and return to a more normal way of working, they must prepare with prayer, the leaders said, suggesting the prayer begin with the May 29 to June 7 novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Members want to prepare for the feast of the Sacred Heart “by making atonement for our offenses against love, and consoling and accompanying the heart of Jesus,” the leaders said.

And they want to prepare for the chapter and assemblies with “a journey of conversion” in order to know Christ’s will better and to put it into practice.

“The renewal of the Legion and Regnum Christi in holiness depends upon our capacity of living up to the truth in our own lives and of being open to embracing the grace of conversion to the heart of Jesus,” they said.

Pope Francis met privately

May 27 with Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, whom Pope Benedict had appointed in 2010 to oversee the reform of the Legionaries and Regnum Christi.

A statement on the Legionaries’ website said, “During the 45-minute meeting, Cardinal De Paolis updated Pope Francis on the different steps of the path that the Legion and Regnum Christi have undertaken” and on the work of drafting the

new constitutions of the Legion of Christ.

The cardinal also “informed the pope that he foresees the need for a specific statute, or rule, for Regnum Christi that would regulate the life of the members and their relationship with the Legion,” which had exercised almost complete control over the lay branch.

“This statute will also have to be approved by the general chap-

ter of the Legion, by the general assemblies of the consecrated men and women and by an assembly of the entire movement,” the statement said.

It added, however, that “the whole outcome of the journey of renewal that Regnum Christi and the Legion of Christ have undertaken” under the guidance of Cardinal De Paolis “will be presented to the Holy Father, who will have the final say.”

Legionaries, Regnum Christi members begin novena of atonement, healing

This week in 50 years ago — Father John Laughlin, pastor of the Holy Ghost Parish in Attleboro, presided over the groundbreaking of a new church to supplant the old one built in 1921.

25 years ago — The girls’ tennis team at Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro celebrated 100 straight regular season wins. Feehan’s girls also won their seventh consecutive league championship and were Massachusetts state champions that year.

Diocesan history 10 years ago — Father Stephen B. Salvador, pastor of SS. Peter and Paul Parish at Holy Cross Church in Fall River, was awarded the prestigious Silver St. George Award at the Biennial Conference of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting.

One year ago — Fall River native Jason Brilhante was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop George W. Coleman inside the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in the city.

8

June 7, 2013

The Anchor

I

n today’s Scripture, both Elijah and Jesus restore life.

Both incidents are restorations to earthy life and not resurrections, although Christians will undoubtedly read them in the light of eternal life.

The intervention of Elijah involves intercession on the family’s behalf. With Jesus’ early designation as Lord, the stage is set for a clear manifestation of God’s power over death itself.

The compassion of Christ explains His spontaneous outreach to the woman, with no request from any side.

Jesus said: “I am,” proclaiming for all to hear, “I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies” (Jn 11:25).

I am the God of the living!

In today’s Gospel, the response of Jesus is to come forward and touch the coffin, the bier on which the young man was being carried; “and the bearers stood still. Jesus said to

God’s power over death

the young man, ‘Young man, I of us. We who are struggling say to you, arise.’” The image is with life, we who are lonely and that Jesus is leaning forward and all of us who are overcome with speaking directly to the young the daily struggles of life. We man who is lying there dead. It must not overlook the fact that might even be a whisper in his Jesus is always with us, He feels ear.

After this there is a Homily of the Week pause: “And then the dead Tenth Sunday man sat up and began to in Ordinary Time speak and Jesus gave him back to his mother.” This

By Deacon Tony episode invites us to feel Cipriano and understand the delight of the mother and her joy, her wonder, her amazement at what has happened in our loneliness and our emptiness. this action of Jesus and of this Let us not forget to always young man sitting up. call on Him, Jesus is always there This story has the same dyto make our heavy burdens light namic as Lazarus coming out of and He is always there to help us the tomb. It’s virtually impossible carry it. to overdo the joy and amazement The Gospel also reveals how of this event.

Jesus Christ had absolute power The response of the crowd over physical death. Jesus says is first of all, fear. Everyone is that we must fear another death: afraid, in this instance, because of that of the soul, which because of the new life that had happened. sin loses the Divine life of grace, Jesus has compassion for all remaining forever excluded from

life and happiness.

On the contrary, God wishes all men to be saved, this is why He sent His Son on earth so that all men would have life “in abundance” (see Jn 10:10). The Heavenly Father is not resigned to lose a single one of His children; rather He wants all to be with Him, holy and immaculate in love (see Eph 1:4). Holy and immaculate as the Virgin Mary, eminent model of the new humanity. Her happiness is full, in the glory of God. In her shines the end to which we all tend. We will entrust our deceased brothers and sisters to her, in the hope of meeting them in the Father’s house.

How many times has Jesus made miracles in our lives that we are not aware of? For example, at night when we sleep it is as if we died in that span of time and in the morning when we wake up Jesus raises us back

to life again. The big question is, “do we say our thank you to Jesus for the blessing of a new life?”

In addition, I would like to remind all Catholics of the prayer of St. Gianna Beretta Molla: “O Jesus, I promise You to submit myself to all that You permit to befall me, make me only know Your will. My most sweet Jesus, infinitely merciful God, most tender Father of souls, and in a particular way of the most weak, who suffer poverty, violence, and injustice, most miserable, most infirm which You carry with special tenderness between Your Divine arms, I come to you to ask You, through the love and merits of your Sacred Heart, the grace to comprehend and always do Your holy Will, the grace to confide in You, be grace to rest securely through time and eternity in Your loving Divine arms.”

Deacon Tony Cipriano currently serves St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Attleboro

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. June 8, Tb 12:1, 5-15, 20; (Ps) Tb 13:2, 6-8; Lk 2:41-51. Sun. June 9, Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, 1 Kgs 17:17-24; Ps 30:2, 4-6, 11-13; Gal 1:11-19; Lk 7:11-17. Mon. June 10, 2 Cor 1:1-7; Ps 34:2-9; Mt 5:1-12. Tues. June 11, Acts 11:21b-26, 13:1-3; Ps 98:1-6; Mt 5:13-16. Wed. June 12, 2 Cor 3:4-11; Ps 99:5-9; Mt 5:17-19. Thurs. June 13, 2 Cor 3:15-4:1, 3-6; Ps 85:9ab-14; Mt 5:20-26. Fri. June 14, 2 Cor 4:7-15; Ps 116:10-11, 15-18; Mt 5:27-32.

I

n the course of preparing “The End and the Beginning,” the second volume of my biography of John Paul II, I was struck by a historical coincidence that isn’t much remarked these days: the opening of the Second Vatican Council in October 1962 coincided almost precisely with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Pope John XXIII solemnly opened the Council on October 11; national security adviser McGeorge Bundy showed President Kennedy reconnaissance photos of Soviet missile and bomber emplacements in Cuba on October 16; and while the Council sorted itself out, the world held its breath during 13 days at the brink of nuclear war. That shattering experience had two im-

‘Pacem in Terris’ at 50

portant impacts on the remainder of John XXIII. The Ostpolitik of of Pope John’s pontificate: it Pope John’s successor, Paul VI, strengthened the pope’s deterdestroyed much of the Church’s mination to explore the possibil- credibility in Hungary, did little ity of a modus vivendi with the to ease the pressure on Catholics Soviet Union and the communist regimes it controlled in eastern Europe; and it helped inspire the pope’s 1963 encyclical, “Pacem in Terris,” whose very title, “Peace on Earth,”

By George Weigel evoked a widely-shared aspiration in the wake of the October 1962 superpower showdown.

The new Vatican “eastern in what was then Czechoslovapolitics” — the Ostpolitik, as it kia, and created circumstances became known — cannot claim that led to serious penetration of much success. Soviet persecuthe Vatican by Soviet-bloc inteltion of Christian churches actuligence agencies. Perhaps the ally increased during the years one important accomplishment of the Ostpolitik was that it became, in a wholly unanticipated way, a kind of diplomatic façade behind which the unexpected Polish pope, John Paul II, could hammer on Soviet-bloc human rights violations even as Vatican diplomats continued a series of negotiations that were going essentially nowhere.

What about “Pacem in Terris,” though? As the Church and the world marked the encyclical’s golden jubilee this past April, what might be considered its lasting accomplishments?

The first of these achieve-

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

The Catholic Difference

ments had to do with the encyclical’s global reception: the universal resonance of “Pacem in Terris” confirmed the late-20th century papacy as a unique voice of moral authority among the deeply divided and often-conflicted tribes of planet earth. That authority has continued into the 21st century, thanks to the two U.N. addresses of John Paul II and the “September Addresses” of Benedict XVI in Regensburg, Paris, London and Berlin.

That same moral authority has already begun to be wielded

by Pope Francis who, in his post-election address to the diplomats at the Holy See, reminded the assembled representatives of worldly power that there can be no peace without reference to the moral truths embedded in the world and in us — truths that are accessible to everyone by the use of reason.

The second enduring impact of “Pacem in Terris” was to have inserted the Catholic Church fully into the latemodern debate over human rights, aligning the Church with those human rights activists who played key roles in bringing down the Berlin Wall and ending communist tyranny in Europe

— a historic transition that made “peace on earth” (including the disarmament for which John XXIII called) more of a reality. Like many United Nations documents, and like subsequent Church statements, “Pacem in Terris” engaged in “rights talk” rather loosely, with virtually every imaginable social good being described as a “human right.” That has led to some enduring issues, even problems, in the explication of Catholic social doctrine. But matters of conceptual precision notwithstanding, there should be no doubt that the Church’s deployment of the language of “human rights” has helped magnify its moral voice in world affairs.

Then there is “order,” a recurring idea throughout the encyclical. The world is being “ordered” — shaped and governed — by various contending forces, John XXIII noted; by what principles will that “ordering” continue? By brute force — political, military, or economic?

Where is the space in world affairs in which moral principles can act as a leaven in the world’s getting itself in order?

An urgent question today, just as it was in 1963.

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

June 7, 2013

O

ften someone will ask the question, how do you pray? What is your prayer life like? Is there a right way to pray?

My own prayer life varies all the time, sometimes I love to sit in quiet contemplation, allowing the message or messages to come through the silence. Other times, I allow the words of a song to wash over me, giving me the answers or comfort I need.

There are a multitude of ways to pray, to continually strengthen our relationship with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Most importantly is that my prayer life is a continual conversation with God, and that is what prayer is meant to be.

Prayer is talking to and opening up to God, it is a conversation, and it is not at all one-sided, we just have to learn to quiet ourselves in order to hear what is being spoken to our hearts. This is not always easy, and like many of you, I was taught to memorize my prayers, and often in the silence I find myself repeating them to fill the void. At a very young age, we needed to know all our prayers and be able to recite them; and when no words will come, these prayers can place a soothing balm on any anxious situation.

For many of us, looking at other forms of prayer is as foreign as

W

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What is prayer?

traveling to another country. Over all aspects of our lives. The key is the years I have learned that there to be open to what God is doing are so many forms of prayer, and for us, and accepting and trusting we can make it as individual as that He knows what is best and what we truly need. we are.

If we look to the Bible we see Personally, I love to incorporate as many different ways as a variety of prayer forms and possible. Scripture (Lectio Divi- methods, from songs and poetry na — praying with Scripture) is to guidance and wisdom. We can always one of my favorite forms and having the wisdom of generations of faith-filled people to guide me, is reassuring and comforting. There are many passages that

By Rose Mary speak to us and relate to Saraiva our modern day situations, especially as they overcame adversity and found a deeper love and knowl- find Scripture passages and aredge of all that God desires for ticles that deepen our faith and spirituality. There are so many, us.

Recently I have learned to in- many passages that demonstrate corporate the photos I take into for us how through prayer God my prayer life (Visio Divina — answered His faithful people praying with images or other (even those who questioned their media), allowing the imagery to faith), and how they prayed in the speak to me, to see the message form that best matched their perand recognize what called me to sonality.

In Hebrews 11:1-39 we are the image. This form of prayer came to me after sharing images given a glimpse of the faith of our of nature in its imperfections with ancestors; in Numbers 4:1-33 and my spiritual director. She helped 2 Chronicles 6:12-18 holy places me to see that I was finding the are set aside for the faith-filled beauty in all the unlikeliest places to gather and pray. Tobit 3:1-6 and in doing so, recognizing that and Job show us how prayer susGod provides healing and hope in tains us through misery and dif-

In the Palm of His Hands

Shedding a little light on Hawaii’s past

e left our vehicles at students were already on the the base of the grassy balcony outside the light takrise, picked out way through ing in the magnificent view of some scrubby brush, and then began the climb toward that tall, white tower reaching into the sky just ahead of us.

There was a feeling

By Father of excitement building Patrick Killilea, SS.CC. in the band of young people following our lead while our great the peninsula and those green guide, Slim Kim our airclad pali. We had scaled the port jester, kept up his usual 189 steps to the top of the banter. I confess that I myself was experiencing a mixture of Kalaupapa Lighthouse.

On Sept. 1, 1909, just one excitement and trepidation but year after St. Francis Church I kept my big mouth shut.

When we reached the door- had been dedicated, the light in this lighthouse was set in way of this great white tower, motion by James Keanu, the Kim ushered the happy herd first lighthouse keeper. This of students from Chaminade light, situated about two miles University inside and immediately they began to sing and from the Hansen’s Disease Settlement, would sweep prance their way up the spiral across the peninsula’s lava staircase until they reached rocks and become part of the the top of this 132-foot struclives of the patients in Kalauture. papa.

I carefully brought up the As the late and great Richrear with Sister Rosemary ard Marks once said, “That not far behind. Her role was light was special to the people to make sure that I did not of Kalaupapa … everyone can chicken out and turn back. remember that light looking When we reached the top, the

Moon Over Molokai

over us.” In 1966, the light was automated and the original lens, which had initially been taken to Maui, is now in safekeeping here in Kalaupapa, awaiting the day when it will be on display here in the museum.

The young people of Chaminade would have loved to linger there at the “top of the world” so to speak, but it was now time to come back down to earth literally, as well as figuratively. So we descended those spiral stairs, uplifted by this exhilarating experience and looking forward to the next adventure (stay tuned).

For my part, I gave thanks to the Lord for bringing my young and exuberant charges safely back to earth, and for watching over us, as this great light has watched over our people for more than a century.

Aloha.

Father Pat Killilea, SS.CC., is pastor of St. Francis Parish in Kalaupapa, Hawaii.

ficulties, even when our world is turned upside down. Moses is seen praying not for himself, but interceding for the people. Moses approaches God as one would any parent; he brings to God his concerns, his worries, and his hopes for those in his care, and does so as anyone pleading on behalf of another.

Throughout the Old Testament and well into the New Testament, many of the people we encounter carry on a conversation with God. No recited words, no scripted prayers, just a total surrender to the knowledge that God loves and provides for us.

In the New Testament, Jesus Himself showed us varied forms of prayer, as well as teaching us how to pray. Jesus early on in His ministry, would go off to find a quiet place to pray, to reenergize, in doing so, He would find the strength to continue doing the work that lay ahead. Not unlike our modern-day retreats, where we allow ourselves to enter fully into God’s love and care, trusting that we are where we need to be at that moment, and that we will be given what we need for the journey.

Prayer is an integral part of who we are, throughout the world and in every culture and belief system, we find prayer in all its varied forms. It is a way to enter into communion with God, to strengthen our relationship and to deepen our faith. Regardless of where we are in our own faith life, we need to remember to pray without ceasing (Phil 1:311), to pray for each other (Phil 3-7), and to find time to pray (Mt 14:22-23).

Prayer is a powerful tool and has the ability to move mountains, so there is no right or wrong way to pray, the goal is to simply pray. To recognize the beauty all around us, and to see as a child sees (Mt 18:1-5), taking in the wonder and awe of all God’s creation as if it were for the first time. And to truly remember that God wants only what is good for us, and to be in a deep relationship with each and every one of us.

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

Hamas order would lead to closing of two Catholic schools in Gaza

JERUSALEM (CNS) — Five schools in Gaza — two Catholic and three Christian — face closure if the Hamas government follows through on an order forbidding coeducational institutions, said the director general of Latin Patriarchate Schools in Palestine and Israel.

“This will be a big problem,” Father Faysal Hijazin told Catholic News Service by telephone. “We hope they will not go through with it, but if they do, we will be in big trouble.

We don’t have the space and we don’t have the money to divide our schools.”

In addition to finding additional space, he said, the schools face having to hire more teachers. Men and women teachers would not be allowed to teach classes of the opposite sex beyond the fourth grade under Islamic law.

“We will never accept this even if we have to close the schools,” Father Hijazin said.

He said Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal of Jerusalem hoped to speak with Gaza’s prime minister, Ismail Haniya, to discuss the Church’s concerns.

The patriarchate administers the Latin Patriarchate School, with 370 students, and the Holy Family School, with 650 students. In addition, the Rosary Sisters operate their own school. The majority of the students enrolled in the schools are Muslim.

Four of Holy Family School’s recent graduates are Christian.

Father Hijazin said that although the order did not specifically single out the Christian schools, the five are the only schools with mixed enrollment in Gaza.

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Diocesan health facilities presents annual awards

FALL RIVER — The Diocesan Health Facilities held its annual Scholarship and Awards Banquet on May 7 at the Venus de Milo Restaurant in Swansea.

The diocesan-based system of health care consists of five skilled nursing and rehab care facilities, along with an adult day health care program and a care management consulting program.

The skilled nursing facilities are located in North Attleboro, Taunton, Fall River, New Bedford and Fairhaven.

Bethany House Adult Day Health is located in Taunton and the EldersFirst Care Manager Program has clients throughout the geographic coverage area.

This year’s scholarship recipients were: — Gloria Murray, LPN, Catholic Memorial Home, Fall River; — Bianca Babbitt, CNA, Madonna Manor, North Attleboro;

— Stephanie Falk, LPN, Marian Manor; — Tania Franklin, CNA, Our Lady’s Haven, Fairhaven; — Natasha LePage, CNA, Sacred Heart Home, New Bedford; — Management Scholarship: Halina Malec, Director of Pastoral Care, Madonna Manor, North Attleboro.

This year the Reflection of Mission Award, awarded to those who go above and beyond the call of duty with residents, family members and staff, was given to the following: — Deacon Peter Cote, Catholic Memorial Home, Fall River; — Linda Wall, Madonna Manor, North Attleboro; — Bobbi Scharpenter, Marian Manor, Taunton; — Jeanne Pereira, Our Lady’s Haven, Fairhaven; — Susan Henshaw, Sacred Heart Home, New Bedford.

ABOVE AND BEYOND — This year’s “Reflection of Mission Award” winners pose with Msgr. Edmund J. Fitzgerald, executive director of the diocesan health facilities for the Fall River Diocese.

June 7, 2013

The Anchor

June 7, 2013

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Cape Cod parish hosts festival series for Year of Faith

By John O. DellaMorte Special to The Anchor

EAST SANDWICH — Are you missing the mark? Have you encountered the transforming power of a viable relationship with Christ?

Do you want to move from a boring obligatory faith to a lifegiving, healing faith centered on a relationship with Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit?

Deacon Ralph Poyo, founder of New Evangelization Ministries, recently helped parishioners at Corpus Christi Parish in East Sandwich to answer these important questions during a “Faith Festival.”

Father George Harrison, pastor of Corpus Christi Parish, said: “After experiencing Deacon Ralph’s ability to powerfully connect with the parents, sponsors and candidates of our Confirmation program, I decided to bring Deacon Poyo back to the parish for a week-long Faith Festival.”

The festival was held from

June 3-6, every night at 7 p.m.

“It is my hope that many would take advantage of this opportunity because I knew that it will be a life-changing event for all who did,” Father Harrison added.

Deacon Ralph, a popular national speaker and evangelist, travels throughout the country ministering to individuals and communities by providing practical steps for living the abundant life.

Deacon Ralph inspires all to enlist the help of the Holy Spirit to guide them to become Jesus’ disciple. For more information about Deacon Ralph or to see him in action, visit www.newevangelizationministries.org.

The Faith Festival is a response to Pope Benedict’s call for a Year of Faith. A special year, set aside for Catholics throughout the world to rediscover, and share with others, the precious gift of faith entrusted to the Church and the personal gift of faith that we have each received from God

the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Pope Benedict XVI introduced the Year of Faith with a beautiful expression of his hopes for us: “Intent on gathering the signs of the times in the present of history, faith commits every one of us to become a living sign of the presence of the Risen Lord in the world. What the world is in particular need of today is the credible witness of people enlightened in mind and heart by the Word of the Lord, and capable of opening the hearts and minds of many to the desire for God and for true life, life without end” (Porta Fidei, 15).

For more information and details about the Faith Festival at Corpus Christi Parish, East Sandwich featuring evangelist Deacon Ralph Poyo, visit www. corpuschristiparish.org.

John O. DellaMorte is Year of Faith Coordinator at Corpus Christi Parish, East Sandwich

FIRM IN THE FAITH — Deacon Ralph Poyo, founder of New Evangelization Ministries, recently presented a Faith Festival at Corpus Christi Parish in East Sandwich.

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June 7, 2013

The Anchor

Sisters shine on ‘Bible Challenge’

WASHINGTON (CNS) — “The right earlobe, right thumb and right big toe,” answered Sister Peter Joseph.

The crowded cheered as host Jeff Foxworthy affirmed her answer to the question of what parts of the body God instructed Moses to anoint.

Sister Peter Joseph, along with Sister Mary Suso and Sister Evangeline — from the Ann Arbor, Mich., community of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist — competed in the cable TV show “The American Bible Challenge.”

The Game Show Network’s most successful show to date, now in its second season, has three teams of three participate in games and trivia to win money for their favorite charity.

“It’s a great show,” Sister Peter Joseph told Catholic News service in a telephone interview. While she hopes it encourages people to go read the Bible, “at the very least they’re learning something from the questions, and it’s a very positive game show, which is something exciting nowadays.”

Sister Maria Suso explained, “It’s lighthearted, and through it people realize the things they don’t know about the Bible. There’s so much beauty and humor in the details of the text.”

The three Sisters made it to the finale of the show May 23 but were bested there by the Wagner Warriors, a team of three brothers from Oklahoma. Still, the Sisters won a total of $55,000 for their charity, $10,000 of which they received by being voted the show’s fan favorite.

The money won will go into a fund to provide for the medical expenses of the aging Sisters in their religious community.

As one of the youngest and fastgrowing communities in the country, the elder Dominican Sisters are especially busy with facilitating the entrance of these newcomers, so these three were excited to be able to provide for them for a change.

“They aren’t focused on themselves,” said Sister Maria Suso.

“They’re busy with fundraising and

building new housing; the older Sisters are really pouring themselves out for us.”

The three competing Sisters are representative of a community where the average age is 28; all are young and relatively new to the community.

Sisters Evangeline and Peter Joseph are novices and Sister Maria Suso is a temporary professed member. In several more years the Sisters will be able to take final vows.

The team of three assembled after their mother superior learned about the show.

“Mother Mary Assumpta asked any Bible experts to come forward,” said Sister Maria Suso. Though she wasn’t originally thrilled about the possibility of the publicity and limelight, she felt obligated by her vow of obedience to let Mother Mary Assumpta know of her prowess.

Out of those who were Biblically knowledgeable, three were chosen.

Though the Sisters’ life of prayer and study of religious texts predisposed them to knowledge of Bible trivia, “we studied a lot,” said Sister Peter Joseph. Each Sister took a third of the Bible and then shared the notes on each section between them.

“The studying definitely paid off because some of the questions were pretty challenging,” Sister Maria Suso remarked.

Underneath all the facts and trivia, the Sisters and other contestants on the show exhibited that a love for the Word of God drove them.

For Sister Maria Suso, the call to her vocation began with regular prayer and reading of the Bible. “At age 14, I was very unhappy though I had a good life; through some conversations I realized it was a spiritual problem. I fell in love with God through reading the Scriptures.”

“It was really fun,” commented Sister Peter Joseph of their experience on the show and on it being taped in Hollywood before a studio audience. “I don’t think anyone in there had seen a religious Sister before, especially not one in real habit.”

BY THE BOOK — Sisters Evangeline, Peter Joseph and Maria Suso participate in “The American Bible Challenge.” (CNS photo/ Lisa Rose, courtesy GSN)

SCI-FI FAMILY — Jaden Smith and Will Smith star in a scene from the movie “After Earth.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Columbia)

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

“After Earth” (Columbia) Grueling sci-fi adventure set 1,000 years after humans have been forced to evacuate an environmentally despoiled Earth.

While on an intergalactic military mission, a general (Will Smith) and his teen son — played by Smith’s real-life son Jaden — become the sole survivors of a crash landing on the Blue Planet. With Dad temporarily disabled as a result, the lad must brave a hostile array of predators in order to reach the other part of their wrecked spacecraft — and the signal beam that represents their only hope of rescue. While the filial relationship at the heart of director and co-writer M. Night Shyamalan’s plodding coming-of-age drama is ultimately characterized by selfsacrificing love, the code by which the father lives — and which he strives to instill in his offspring — seems to have more in common with Zen Buddhism than with the values promoted in Scripture. The script’s glib portrayal of the bonds uniting veterans will also strike at least some viewers as either jingoistic or exploitative. Much action violence, some of it bloody, gory medical images, a stifled crude term, a few mildly crass expressions. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults.

The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

“The Reluctant Fundamentalist” (IFC) A thought-provoking — yet flawed — exploration of the wideranging impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks both on individuals and on whole cultures. In 2011 Pakistan, a journalist (Liev Schreiber) has been recruited by the CIA to interview the chief suspect (Riz Ahmed) in the kidnapping of an American professor. Things may not be as they appear, however, as the self-professedly peace-loving radical recounts his experiences in the United States — including his meteoric rise to the top within a wicked corporation (run by Kiefer Sutherland), his romance with a bohemian artist (Kate Hudson),

and his fall from corporate grace as a result of post-Twin Towers discrimination. Working from the novel by Mohsin Hamid, director Mira Nair lets the audience pass judgment, for better or worse. The result is an absorbing story with a flawed conclusion — one that seems to prioritize the force of circumstance over conscience when choosing between good and evil.

Fleeting action violence and gunplay, a gruesome image, brief sensuality, some profane and crass language. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults.

The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted.

Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, June 9, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Riley J. Williams, parochial vicar of St. John the Evangelist and St. Vincent de Paul parishes in Attleboro

June 7, 2013

Challenge the Catholic community I am writing in regards to the editorial on page six of the May 10 Anchor regarding the Gosnell Trial.

The first two sentences refer to the protest outside one of the Attleboro funeral homes after the remains of one of the Marathon Bombers were brought there. I felt that the protest, and any controversy surrounding such protest, was about the right for one who has committed an egregious crime to be brought to a funeral home and be buried. I did not understand the correlation between the first few sentences of the article and the rest of the article’s argument.

It makes me wonder why the Anchor staff would not challenge us as a Catholic community on why we were against a corporal work of mercy-to bury the dead. We needed to be reminded that as difficult as it was, and remaining at all times cognizant of the lives that were lost and irrevocably changed by the actions of the bombers, that we still needed to be challenged to live our values.

It seems that we as members of the Church lost an important teaching moment.

Also, if you had challenged us to follow this corporal work of mercy, I wonder if you would have questioned where were the Catholic bishops? I do not remember seeing or hearing any of them make a statement regarding the protests in Attleboro. Three of them had opportunities as Attleboro is within Bishop George W. Coleman’s jurisdiction, Worcester is within Bishop Robert McManus’ and of course the bombings happened within Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley’s, OFM, Cap. I am deeply grateful to the woman in Virginia who said she was doing “what God calls us to do,” when she sent e-mails to various faith organizations to see what could be done. Her courage and witness both humble me and challenge me to try to live closer to what our Catholic faith asks of each one of us.

Sheila Matthews, St. Patrick’s Parish, Somerset; Joseph R. Asiaf, M.D., Brockton EXECUTIVE EDITOR RESPONDS: Thank you for your reminder to all of us of the corporal work of mercy of burying the dead. This week at daily Mass we have been hearing from the Book of Tobit, in which Tobit is threatened with the death penalty for carrying out the Divinely-ordered task of burying the dead. He was punished with the confiscation of all his goods (which turned out to be a temporary punishment, but even under a new pagan ruler Tobit did risk punishment in his burial of the abandoned dead).

A point I was trying to draw in the editorial was that people can quickly rally together to protest something which does not need to be attacked (the North Attleboro funeral home’s brief housing of the body of the marathon bomber), while we ignore true evil going on

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Our readers respond

just a few miles away (the killing of the innocent unborn in an abortion clinic, which also causes psychological scars for the mothers, employees, and others involved).

I probably should have been stronger in the editorial in reminding the Catholic public about the corporal works of mercy. In my homilies that weekend I did cite an article by a local Protestant minister on the topic.

However, as one can read in the letters to the editor, a bigger problem we have amongst us Catholics is not a widespread rejection of that corporal work of mercy (although more people protested outside the North Attleboro and Worcester funeral homes than outside of the abortion clinic, the numbers still represent a miniscule percentage of the Catholic population), but a widespread rejection of the teachings of the Church regarding the Third, Fifth and Sixth Commandments (regarding the Sabbath, killing and adultery). True, the protesters may have been breaking (I am writing “may” because I have been criticized for judging the state of people’s souls) the Fifth Commandment, as Jesus expanded it to include any type of hatred.

In regards to the bishops, their primary responsibility is to help us achieve salvation in Jesus Christ. As we saw when Cardinal O’Malley spoke out forcefully for gun control, the bishops’ remarks on issues which are not defined doctrine caused anger amongst some Catholics (note the letterwriter from a few week’s ago who threatened to cancel his subscription to The Anchor if we continued running CNS articles discussing Church leaders speaking out on issues which are not amongst the “non-negotiables”).

The bishops are in an unenviable position of having to proclaim the Gospel in such a way that people will actually respond to it, while themselves remaining true to it.

One can argue about whether or not they should have spoken out on this issue or other ones (we are not compelled by any teaching to affirm their every action and the laity do have a right and duty under canon law: “According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons” [Canon 212, §3]).

As such, I believe you are doing that now (I hope with the reverence mentioned in the canon, since I have already in recent months had to deal with “ad hominem” attacks here in the letters section and cannot allow that against our bishops).

I agree that the actions of the woman in Virginia and of the undertakers in North Attleboro and

Worcester (Christians in all three cases) were the right ones, but I also think (not that you have to agree with me) that the bishops were right in keeping silent. Had they spoken out in the middle of that macabre circus, people would have just brought up pedophilia or other dark moments of our history and the dead body would have been buried no faster.

‘Common Core’ impacts schools, even Catholic ones Have you heard of “Common Core?” Briefly, it is a one-size-fitsall federal education program, developed by a coalition of private organizations; adopted by the U.S. Department of Education and unquestionably heralds the onslaught of nationalized education.

Coupled with a carrot of big bucks, it gives federal control over what is taught to our children in public and has already signed on many parochial schools.

All Massachusetts children will be forced to participate in this new and untried curricula — which is also a data collection plan! Think of our schools gathering and storing information including blood types, bus stop information, medical and disciplinary records, family income, racial profile, religious affiliation and more. Think of machines monitoring facial expression, posture analysis and skin conductor sensors.

Already in Texas one school system, without parental knowledge, scanned every childʼs eyes (which are like fingerprints). Can you imagine what will — and will not — be taught to your children, part of which is removal of fiction (Tom Sawyer, et. al.) in favor of governmental tracts?

Consider Chairman Maoʼs “Little Red Book,” Hitlerʼs “Mein Kampf.” Is there any possibility that morals, family values, religion in any form will survive in this milieu?

Parents and teachers need, desperately, to look further into this long term goal which has now been initiated and is now on track for a federal takeover of local public and

private schools. There are many sources for more information on Common Core, such as parentalrights.org; LibertyChalkboard.org; americanthinker.org or an article in the Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB10001424127887324659404 578503561386927962.html Or you can attend an upcoming talk by the articleʼs author, Jamie Gass, director of the Pioneer Institute’s Center for School Reform and Sandra Stotsky, professor emerita of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas and member of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (2006-2010), which will be offered on Thursday, June 13 from 7 to 9 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.) at the Falmouth Public Library, 300 Main Street (use meeting entrance on Katherine Lee Bates Road).

To reserve a seat or for more information contact Mary Anne Alliegro email her at the following: theteam@libertychalkboard.org or call 985-788-3414.

Ask what your school is doing!

This governmental “gift horse” desperately needs to be looked at in the mouth as it has horribly sharp teeth for our schools and our country.

Patricia Stebbins, East Sandwich EXECUTIVE EDITOR RESPONDS: Thank you for this information.

What you write about reading “government tracts” and the writings of Hitler and Mao is true — the Common Core requires a certain percentage of reading be done of non-fiction works (and to get that done, the reading of some fiction classics has been eliminated).

Much criticism has already been reported on this part of the Common Core, even from normally pro-government sources (although the stated goal was a positive one — training children to be able to read primary sources themselves).

However, the elements which you described are not as well-known, so it might be beneficial for people to check out the speech or the articles you listed.

Misconception about Boy Scouts article An article in the May 31 issue of The Anchor is based on a common misconception about Boy Scouts, that they are an organization. The National Council is an organization. Boy Scouts of America is a program administered by the National Council and various local councils which is chartered for use by various sponsors for the development of their own boys in local units. Thus it is not an outside group seeking a place to meet.

Let us say that “XYZ” church wishes to develop maturity, leadership and patriotism among the boy members of the church and chooses the Boy Scout program to do that, then the membership in the unit can be restricted to only members of “XYZ” church.

If “XYZ” church has no gay boys, no gay boys will be joining from outside. If “XYZ” church has openly gay boys, then that church has to decide how it will minister to those members; it is not a Boy Scout issue!

As far as the leadership is concerned, the sponsor has the right to choose the unit leader and the institutional representative. This is enough to guarantee that the entire leadership will reflect the standards of the sponsor.

If this tripartite foundation of sponsor, program and unit is properly implemented, then no prospective sponsors need have any qualms or fears that the recent decision of the National Council regarding gays will have any negative impact on their boys.

Father Martin Buote, former diocesan chaplain for Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Campfire EXECUTIVE EDITOR RESPONDS: Thank you for the clarification.

The article which you mentioned came from one of our wire services. I was only a Cub Scout, so was not aware of all the intricacies about which you wrote.

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The Anchor

June 7, 2013

Keeping up with Francis: The nuances of Vatican communications

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Of the various innovations that Pope Francis has already introduced into the way a pontiff lives and works, one of the most significant is his celebration of weekday morning Masses with invited guests.

The practice is revealing of the new pope’s character and of how he understands his role as leader of the Universal Church, and it exemplifies the challenge he presents to the Vatican apparatus surrounding him.

Pope Francis is not the first pope to include outsiders at his morning Masses. The gregarious Blessed John Paul II was regularly joined by as many as two dozen people, including visiting bishops and laypeople, in his private chapel in the Apostolic Palace.

But Pope Francis, who has chosen to live in the Vatican guesthouse, has been celebrating Mass there with more than 50 people each morning, systematically working through the ranks of personnel of the Roman Curia and Vatican City State, high officials and maintenance workers alike.

And while Blessed John Paul typically followed the reading of the Gospel in his private Masses with a period of silent reflection, not a homily, Pope Francis has been delivering short sermons in the folksy style that has become his trademark.

These morning homilies, ex-

cerpts from which usually appear the same day in the Vatican newspaper and on Vatican radio, have been the occasion of some of the pope’s most quotable remarks. In recent weeks, he has told his congregation that “Satan always rips us off” and that a Christian should reflect joy rather than showing the “face of a pickled pepper.”

At times, the identity of those attending a given Mass has seemed to lend a special significance to the pope’s words. When he told a group of staff members from the Vatican bank that “offices are necessary, but they are necessary only up to a certain point,” many observers took it as a sign of imminent change at the controversial financial institution.

While some may be reading unwarranted meaning into the pope’s words, he clearly intends his sermons to affect how his collaborators see their roles and obligations.

“When a bishop, a priest goes on the road to vanity, he enters into the spirit of careerism and ... ends up being ridiculous,” the pope said May 15.

Such frankness, so uncustomary for the office, has naturally piqued the public’s (or at least the press’) desire for more, in the form of complete transcripts. But the Vatican spokesman has announced that this desire will remain unsatisfied.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi explained May 29 that, be-

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cause the pope gives his off-thecuff morning homilies in Italian, not his native Spanish, the Vatican would never release a full transcript without “rewriting of the text on several points, given that the written form is different from the oral.” Such treatment would be inappropriate in this case, Father Lombardi added, because the more formal character of the resulting document would not be true to the “familiar” atmosphere that Pope Francis desires for his morning Masses.

The statement was puzzling, since the extensive textual excerpts and audio clips of the homilies already available do nothing to disguise the unpolished nature of the pope’s words.

Why would such imperfections become unacceptable only when quoted at full length?

“In the whole of the pope’s activity,” the spokesman continued, “the difference is carefully preserved between the various situations and celebrations, as well as the different levels of commitment of his pronouncements.”

Public “homilies or addresses are transcribed and published in full,” Father Lombardi said, but not the pope’s words on “more familiar and private” occasions.

The Jesuit might have added that officials in the Secretariat of State ordinarily read the pope’s public statements ahead of time and approve the texts and translations that the Vatican officially releases to the press. Such review is obviously not possible when the pope ad-libs.

That the Vatican has declined to publish full transcripts of the morning homilies is less significant than the decision to relegate publication of excerpts and summaries to its in-house journalists, rather than the pope’s official spokesman.

Using less prestigious vehicles to transmit some of the pope’s words is evidently meant to convey a lower “level of commitment” on the part of the pope himself.

Such distinctions are likely to be lost on most readers and listeners, if the experience of Pope Francis’ predecessor is any guide.

Pope Benedict XVI published his bestselling trilogy of “Jesus of Nazareth” books under the name Joseph Ratzinger, to make clear that they did not form part of his papal magisterium.

Yet when the second volume of the series reiterated and elaborated on the Second Vatican Council’s teaching that the Jewish people have no collective responsibility for the death of Je-

DAILY LITURGY — Pope Francis celebrates Mass in the chapel of Domus Sanctae Marthae at the Vatican April 13. (CNS photo/ L’Osservatore Romano via Catholic Press Photo)

sus, Jewish leaders directed their thanks and praise not to an elderly German theologian but to the leader of the Catholic Church.

Likewise, after Pope Benedict speculated in an interview on the ethical nuances of condom use for disease prevention, the ensuing controversy could hardly have been greater had he done so in an encyclical or other papal document.

In the age of smartphones and social media, the border between public and private has practically vanished, even for a pope, especially one as outgoing and spontaneous as Pope Francis. Communications is thus one area — almost certainly not the only one — in which the Vatican bureaucracy will be struggling to keep up with its new boss.

WESTPORT — In recognition of the eighth annual World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, Bristol Elder Services, Inc. and the Southeastern Alliance for Elders will host a 2013 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day Conference titled “STOP Elder Bullying.”

The conference will be held on June 13 at White’s of Westport, 66 State Road (Route 6) in Westport from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

To register, call Bristol Elder Services at 508-675-2101.

The conference will address elder bullying. Bullying exists not just among the young. Many elders also experience this devastating assault on their dignity.

They may be bullied by family members, by caregivers, or by their peers.

According to the March 2012 AARP Bulletin, “between 10 and 20 percent of residents in senior care homes are mistreated by peers ... nationwide that translates to hundreds of thousands of people who endure abuse. Many incidents of name-calling, bossy behavior, loud arguments and, at its most extreme, physical violence go unreported.”

Keynote speaker, Jean Benson Bernstein, will give a talk entitled “Harmony Among Elders,” drawing on her extensive experience in elder residential services.

The conference will also include a panel with representatives from the Office of Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter and South Coastal Counties Legal

Services, who will address the civil and criminal aspects of elder bullying. Resource tables will be available.

An application for social work continuing education credits has been submitted. Registration is free for the first 30 elders to register, courtesy of the Office of Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter. Elders needing transportation can request assistance at registration.

SAFE is an elder justice coalition formed by Bristol Elder Services and other community agencies. Bristol Elder Services is the local resource for seniors who are abused, neglected, exploited, or self-neglecting. The agency is responsible for protective and crisis services in the 23 communities of the greater Attleboro, Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton areas.

SAFE’s mission is to prevent and eliminate abuse of elders.

Bristol Elder Services has received more than 2,000 elder abuse reports since July 1, 2012.

If you have cause to believe that you or someone you know who is 60 or older is being abused, neglected, or exploited, there is help. Call Bristol Elder Services at 508-675-2101 to file a confidential report.

After normal business hours, reports may be filed with the statewide Elder Abuse Hotline at 800-922-2275. You may also call Bristol Elder Servcies for more information about SAFE at 508675-2101.

Elder abuse conference to be held in Westport

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The Anchor

June 7, 2013

Sister Gertrude Lauzon, OP, taught in diocesan schools

CALDWELL, N.J. Fall River (1944-1949, — Sister Gertrude Lau1961-1962 and 1970zon, OP, of the Domin1982); St. Peter School ican Sisters of Hope, in Plattsburgh, N.Y. Newburgh, N.Y., died (1949-1960); and St. on May 30 at St. CathFrancis Xavier School erine of Siena Convent in Acushnet (1962in Caldwell, N.J. She 1964). was 93 years of age.

Sister taught parSister Gertrude The daughter of ish Religious EducaLauzon, OP the late Alfred J. and tion classes at St. Ann Arthimine Guay Lauzon, she Parish in Mooers Forks, N.Y. was born Apr. 4, 1920 in Lynn, (1960-1965); St. Joseph ParMass. ish in West Chazy, N.Y. (1965Sister Gertrude entered the 1969, principal); and Holy Ronovitiate of the Dominican Sis- sary Parish in Ellenburg, N.Y. ters of Fall River on Aug. 27, (1969-1970). From 1983 to 1939; made her First Profes- 1994, Sister was treasurer for sion Mar. 7, 1941; and Final the Dominican Sisters in Fall Profession Mar. 7, 1944. Sister River. In 1995 she retired to Gertrude earned her BA in His- the Newburgh Center of Hope tory/Philosophy and Theology in Newburgh, N.Y. and then from Regis College. moved to Waterford Glen Adult Sister Gertrude taught at the Care Facility in Wall, N.J. and elementary level at Dominican finally to St. Catherine of Siena Academy in Fall River (1941- Convent in Caldwell, N.J. 1944); St. Anne School, also in Sister Gertrude is prede-

ceased by her parents, Alfred J. and Arthimise Guay Lauzon, three brothers: Paul, Gilbert and Alfred Jr., and five sisters: Regina Dawe, Eva Kirwin, Lillian Asselin, Claire Starkey and Eva Kirvan. She is survived by many nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews.

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on June 4 at the Chapel at Mariandale Center, Ossining, N.Y., followed by burial at the Dominican Sisters cemetery at Mariandale in Ossining.

Funeral arrangements were under the direction Brooks Funeral Home at 481 Gidney Avenue, Newburgh, N.Y. Donations in Sister Gertrude’s memory can be made to The Dominican Sisters of Hope, Development Office, 299 North Highland Avenue, Ossining, N.Y. 10562-2327.

ROME (CNA) — A 43-yearold Mexican man whom Pope Francis prayed over in St. Peter’s Square on Pentecost Sunday said that he had suffered from demonic possession for more than a decade.

Father Gabriele Amorth, the exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, told CNA on May 22 that the man had received a “prayer of deliverance” from the pope, who laid hands on him and prayed after Mass on May 19.

In an interview published by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the man, identified as Angel, recalled that his problems began one day in 1999 as he returned from Mexico City to his hometown in Michoacan by bus.

“I felt an energy enter the bus.

I did not see it with my eyes but I felt it,” he said. “I noticed that it approached me and stood in front of me. And suddenly, I felt like a knife stabbed me in the chest and then, little by little, I had the sensation that it was opening my ribs.”

Initially, Angel thought it was a heart attack, but he did not die.

However his health worsened, because he vomited everything he ate.

“I felt punctures all over my body, as if it were full of needles,” he said. “Even the sheets hurt me. I started losing the ability to walk.”

Soon, he said that he began falling into trances, uttering blasphemies and speaking in un-

entered into me and it said it was because of a curse that someone put on me.”

Angel’s health continued to deteriorate despite several exorcisms. He became unable to work and had to close his advertising company. He was forced to sell his house in order to support his wife and two children.

However, he recently had a dream in which he saw Pope Francis “dressed in red and praying with an incense burner in his hand and surrounded by bishops and cardinals.”

He said that he initially didn’t give it much thought, but when he woke up, he turned on the television and saw “a Mass with the pope dressed in red and with incense burning in his hand, surrounded by bishops and cardinals.”

“And a thought came to my mind: Do I have to go to Rome?” he said.

Although Angel was hesitant to travel because he was so sick, he eventually decided to make the trip to Rome with a priest that he knew.

He had been reading the book “The Last Exorcist,” by Father Amorth, “which states that both Benedict XVI and John Paul II had performed exorcisms and prayers of delivery over the possessed.”

Father Amorth witnessed the pope’s prayer over Angel and said the next day, “there is no doubt that he is possessed.”

Man prayed over by pope says he suffered from demons known languages, with doctors who attended him unable to explain what was wrong.

Angel’s health became so poor that he received last rites on four different occasions. The anointing brought an improvement to his health, so he started praying with a particular devotion to the Divine Mercy.

In 2004, he attended a lecture in the Mexican city of Morelia by a Ukrainian priest who explained his case.

“I told him what was happening to me, how bad I felt. He touched a relic of Padré Pio to my chest and I saw a special light that surrounded me,” he recalled.

“I felt a great peace. But at the same time, I noticed something that began to scratch inside me. That something knocked me down and started to manifest itself. I couldn’t do anything, that presence was stronger than me and it overpowered me.”

That day, Angel said, it was clear that he was possessed, and this knowledge made him feel fearful and “very dirty.”

“My family reacted at first with disbelief and, in fact, between my siblings there are some who are still skeptics and who believe that what I have is the result of a psychological imbalance,” he stated.

Initially, a priest in Mexico City performed four or five exorcisms on Angel.

During one of them, the priest “asked the demon how he had

Cape parish to host Year of Faith series continued from page one

summers, Father Flavio was born and raised in Chieri (Turin), Italy. He obtained his degree in philosophy at the Instituto Filosofico Aloisianum in Padova, Italy. He continued his studies in theology with a post-graduate major in Jewish studies at the Catholic University of Paris.

Further post-graduate studies in Scripture were done at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has taught at the Major Theological Seminary in Albania, the Faculty of Theology in Naples, and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Father Flavio spent eight years teaching in the Holy Land and leading tour groups. He speaks six modern languages, including Hebrew. For the past two years he has given retreats and Bible study programs in the United States. He has spent two summers at the La Salette parish of Our Lady

of the Cape as part of an ongoing summer Biblical program.

He is also presently working at La Salette Shrine in Attleboro, having asked to join the La Salette Congregation in the United States.

Using some of the key Biblical characters as a starting point, Father Flavio’s latest series, entitled “People of God,” will focus on the following topics: — June 18: “The Prophet Who Got Angry at God”; — June 25: “The Woman and the Alabaster Jar”; — July 9: “The Apostle Who Challenged Jesus”; and — July 16: “The Seed on Rocky Ground.”

The lectures will explore the core elements of these characters’ faith and will present examples of the lives of some modern saints to strengthen us on our own faith journey.

For a detailed flier or more information about the series, call 508-385-3252.

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Youth Pages

June 7, 2013

Once upon a time — Students, faculty and staff at SS. Peter and Paul School in Fall River recently attended a performance by internationally-acclaimed storyteller Len Cabral. This performance, entitled “Exploring World Cultures Through Folktales,” was enjoyed by all.

one with boston — Staff, students and families of St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School in Hyannis celebrated Memorial Day with a special remembrance to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. Each student and staff member were given a t-shirt to wear on the school’s field day. The design was specific to the school and memorialized the victims of the Boston Tragedy. Above, Stephen Thompson, U.S. Army Captain (Ret.), and parent of two children at St. Francis Xavier Prep, speaks to the students during the ceremony. Thompson was in charge of the military funerals at Arlington National Cemetery and assigned the details for wreath laying ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

RUNNING THE RACE — Students from St. James-St. John School in New Bedford recently participated in Greater New Bedford Catholic School Track Meet.

water works — Students in grade two at St. Joseph School in Fairhaven explored the properties of water recently. As the integration of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education continues to be a major focus at the school, students tested the cohesive property of water by counting how many drops of water could fit on a penny. Students were amazed to see that many teams counted more than 50 drops of water could fit and observed surface tension in action as a large bubble formed on the surface of the coin.

MATH IN MANSFIELD — Students at St. Mary’s School in Mansfield took their math lessons outside recently to see what geometrical shapes they could find in the stone wall surrounding the St. Francis prayer station.

praying together — Students in first and seventh grades at Holy Name School in Fall River recently worked on their Prayer Partner program. After singing “Good Morning, Jesus,” the group collaborated on a project to celebrate the feast of Pentecost.

June 7, 2013

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Youth Pages

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‘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 and young adult programs that are near and dear to my heart. One program that specifically is so very 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 and 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 decision-making, Sacramental living and service.

CLI participants are challenged to use their 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, Testament. As Paul continued there is still time for relaxation his ministry in other towns, he and recreation on the grounds supported Timothy through letof the diocesan retreat facility, ters. Here is part of Paul’s mesCathedral Camp, East Freetown. sage sent to Timothy, a message CLI is a blast … in fact CLI that is also sent to us. has been rated by graduates as “Let no one look down upon nearly a perfect 10 year after year!

Many young people may feel that they are not ready for leadership.

After all, they are too young to be an influence

By Frank Lucca in their environments, are they not? Nothing could be further from the truth! Young people have such you because you are young, but an opportunity to shape and be an example to all in speech influence their work, school and and behavior, in love, faithfulChurch communities. CLI seeks ness and purity. Devote your to give young people the skills attention to the public reading of to help them accomplish that. the Scriptures, to teaching and to One of my favorite Bible prayer. Do not neglect the spiripassages we use in CLI is the tual gifts you possess, which one in which we hear about St. was given to you through the Paul who went from town to laying on of hands by the elders town sharing the message of as a body. Make these matters Christ with everyone. Before he the most important things in left each town, however, he alyour life, so that your progress ways left behind a new teacher, may be seen by all. Keep strong someone whom he had enabled in them, with a close watch on as a minister, an elder who was yourself and your teaching, for respected as a leader in the com- by doing so you will further munity. your own salvation and that of But in one town, he could not the people who listen to you” (1 find such an elder, so he called Tim 4:12-16). a young man named Timothy.

During CLI, the adult leadThis young Timothy became ership team shares with the the first youth leader of the New candidates a number of Bible

Be Not Afraid

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. 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 that 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. CLI will be held on July 13-18 at Cathedral Camp.

For more information, visit www.fallriverfaithformation.org/ youth-and-young-adult/cli/ Nearly 1,000 young people have lived the CLI experience over these last 25 years. I hope to meet some of you this summer at CLI 2013. You are being called to leadership. Respond!

Frank Lucca is a youth minister at St. Dominic’s Parish in Swansea and a Campus Minister at UMass Dartmouth.

He is the chairman and a director of the YES! Retreat and the current director of the Christian Leadership Institute (CLI).

He is married to his wife of 35 years, Kristine, and a father of two daughters and a son-inlaw.

Comments, ideas or suggestions? Please email him at StDominicYouthMinistry@ comcast.net

BREATH OF FRESH AIR — Students from St. James-St. John School in New Bedford recently enjoyed a day at the city’s Buttonwood Park Zoo.

RITE OF PASSAGE — The Class of 2013 at Coyle and Cassidy High School was surrounded by family and friends as they commenced into St. Mary’s Church in Taunton for the last time. Emily of Curley of Taunton, who will be attending Oberlin College, gave the salutatorian welcome. Joseph Fichera of Raynham, who will be attending Brown University, and David Orsi of Norton, who will be attending Bryant University, gave the co-valedicatorian addresses. His excellency Bishop George W. Coleman, in addition to Dr. Michael Griffin, superintendent of schools for the Fall River Diocese, and Thomas Hoye, mayor of Taunton, were on hand to confer diplomas. Pictured, from left, Dr. Griffin; Dr. Mary-Pat Tranter, president of Coyle and Cassidy; Joseph Fichera; Emily Curley; Bishop Coleman; David Orsi; Bob Gay, principal of Coyle and Cassidy.

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

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The Anchor

June 7, 2013

Bereavement ministry helping those dealing with grief continued from page one

young girl didn’t scar her; unlike the United States’ culture, where the idea of death is to be avoided at all cost “Unfortunately in our country, in the U.S. death is to be pushed aside and is not a normal part of life,” she said. “When someone starts crying — I hear it all the time, ‘Well, it’s been two months, why aren’t you smiling?

Why aren’t you back to work?’

They don’t realize, and I emphasize this with the group, every death is as distinctive to the person who has suffered the loss.”

What works for one may not work for another person. Journaling helped Saraiva cope, as well as getting counseling; admitting she needed help was hard for her to say.

“When you have pride or think you should be able to do this on your own, admit you need help,” she recommended because one of the things about grief “is you need to talk about it; that’s one of the things that help in the healing.”

Saraiva continued to research and educate herself on the bereavement ministry, including attending and observing bereavement groups, until she finally got the go-ahead to create her own group in May of 2012 at her own parish, St. Michael’s Parish in Fall River. The dining room in the rectory was chosen as the meeting place because of its homey atmosphere. With the relaxed setting in place, Saraiva set out to create an atmosphere that was “safe, where they can share and say things — the anger, the hurts, about those who have hurt them — without judgment,” she said.

Initially not sure who would

attend that first meeting, Saraiva was pleasantly surprised to see six people come.

“It was amazing because it also spoke to the need. I would have been happy if two people showed up. I had both male and female, and they were pretty much from everywhere,” said Saraiva, of those who hailed from New Bedford, Dartmouth and even Rhode Island. “Everyone figured it would be made up of only people from my parish, but at that first meeting there were only two from my parish.”

The numbers only grew from there; on average the weekly meetings have eight to 10 people, with her largest group once consisting of 16 people. The group meets once a week for six weeks, giving those grieving something to look forward to every week but without a huge commitment.

Being around like-minded individuals suffering through the many different stages of grief allows individuals to share and support each other, and discover that while the personal loss may be unique to each person, the ways of coping may actually be the same.

People often share how they pick up articles of clothing from those who have died and smell it, oftentimes putting clothing in totes because they’ve heard it preserves the scent, said Saraiva.

“To hear someone say that I put on my wife or husband’s sweater; I take my daughter’s clothes and wrap them around me,” often reveals that many of those grieving thought they were the only ones who did that, said Saraiva. “We all hold on to talismans that meant something to our loved ones. I’ll tell you right

now that my daughter’s hospital bag is still intact, in my closet in my bedroom. I haven’t opened it. It will probably be there for years. Her flip-flops are in my closet; I’ll never wear them, but they’re there.”

The manners of death run the gamut and range from sudden deaths, illness, suicide, and even suspicious deaths with no answers for the family. Those lost have been significant others, children, parents, siblings and a sometimes overlooked loss, close friends.

“That was a teaching moment for the group because it’s not your wife, sister or brother,” said Saraiva. “However sometimes this close friend is more than family; a close friend is someone who knows you.”

Another interesting group sometimes overlooked is when a sibling loses another sibling “because they don’t really fit in,” explained Saraiva. “Everyone is taking care of mom, everyone is taking care of the children (of the deceased) but now the sibling is caught in the middle. The sibling has to be strong for the parent, strong for the nieces or nephews if there are some; it’s interesting to have that dynamic.”

The demographics are young and old, and Saraiva knows how much it takes for a person to make that first step. She tells a story of a gentleman who needed two attempts to just make it through the door. Saraiva admits it took her three tries just to enter a class to observe a group.

Whether it’s a new member or a member who has been there from the beginning, each person brings their own gifts and teachable moments to the others in attendance.

“When a new member joins us, look at that as a positive. I was there but look how far I’ve come,” said Saraiva, who then flipped the coin and said those “veterans” of the group can offer the same to the new person, who can look at those who have grieved, highlighting that they can survive their grief too and “serve as a beacon of hope.”

Underlining the clear need of having an up-and-running bereavement group in the area is how quickly the awareness of her group has spread simply by wordof-mouth. Saraiva said she’s received phone calls from multiple hospitals and school systems in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

A Google search for local grief support groups reveals her group tops the search results.

This year’s Catholic Charities

Appeal shined a spotlight on the bereavement ministry, a segment that blew “a lot of priests away” after they saw the segment, said Saraiva, adding that two volunteers in the group shared his and her own personal thoughts on the ministry. “Everyone was very impressed with that segment.”

After outgrowing St. Michael’s Parish, Saraiva now holds her weekly meetings at St. Joseph’s Parish in Fall River. Her dream is that every deanery has its own bereavement support group and she’s one step closer to that goal now that the New Bedford Deanery has its own, facilitated by Beni Costa-Reedy at St. Mary’s Parish in South Dartmouth.

Anyone can start his or her own support group and Saraiva has created an outline that one can follow, though her only recommendation is that the person be at least three years past his or her own grief because “anything before that, you think you’re ready to handle it and you’re not,” she said. “You can’t help anyone unless you can help yourself.”

Her bereavement ministry just celebrated its one-year anniversary in May, and Saraiva said that the ministry might be ready to take the next step and create

a new type of group for those who have been participating during this past year and are ready to begin to pull away to perhaps a once-a-month meeting as they continue to rebuild his or her life after a tragic loss.

“The growth just shows the need. People can come anytime; if they want to get a feel for the group, they can come. I do recommend anyone to come to the group two or three times — ideally three because that’s when you can see some of the benefits,” said Saraiva. “It’s OK to walk away from a group because not all groups fit.”

And while her bereavement group may not be a one-size-fitsall, Saraiva lives with the knowledge that the group is a testament to a grieving mother who has been trying to do all she can to help more than one.

“The roots have taken shape and now it’s just blossoming,” said Saraiva.

For more information, call Saraiva at 508-678-2828, ext.

27, or email her at rmsaraiva@ dfrcec.com or go to the website www.fallriverfaithformation.org and click on the bereavement page. If you’d like to read Saraiva’s personal blog, go to http:// rmsaraiva.blogspot.com.

Vermont assisted suicide law ‘very troubling’ continued from page one

November that this is not a popular topic in Massachusetts.”

Mary Beerworth, executive director of Vermont Right to Life, called the Vermont law the “most horribly written” measure their legislature has ever enacted.

The bill took so many twists and turns along the way to passage.

Beerworth called the final product “irresponsible” and “sloppy.”

Many of the bill’s safeguards did not make it through the process. The law does not require written informed consent, a second opinion regarding a patient’s ability to make an informed decision or a review of patient files. Patients do not need to administer the lethal drugs themselves and a guardian can overturn a direct patient request.

“Parts were ripped out just to get one vote in their pockets,” Beerworth said. The bill passed by two votes in the state Senate and 10 votes in the House.

Beerworth added that the state’s hospitals are “in a whirlwind” and unsure of how to keep themselves safe from liability under the new law. Two of the state’s 15 hospitals are Catholic.

She said many opponents worked long and hard to fight the law, adding, “We’re not done.”

True Dignity, which opposed the bill, launched a hotline for Vermonters to report abuses of the new law.

In a May 20 press release, the organization asked residents to watch for patients who are being unduly influenced to kill themselves or given lethal drugs against their will.

The group plans to compile a list of “safe” doctors, nursing homes and other health care providers that refuse to participate in the new law.

In a May 21 press release, Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on ProLife Activities, called the law’s passage a “tragic moment for Vermont.”

“It is also a sign of an alarming trend nationwide. In the three states where physician-assisted suicide is now legal, doctors are called upon to destroy life, rather than to save life and provide much-needed comfort in times of pain and distress,” he said.

June 7, 2013

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese

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

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

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

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

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

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

Use the Chapel entrance on the side of the church.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Anchor U.S. bishops’ second annual Fortnight for Freedom set for June 21-July 4

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The U.S. bishops’ second annual Fortnight for Freedom — a period of prayer and fasting to raise awareness of challenges to religious liberty, both nationally and internationally — is planned for June 21 to July 4.

The observance kicks off with Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore celebrating an evening Mass June 21 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Baltimore.

It will conclude with a noon Mass July 4 to be celebrated by Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

More details can be found at www.Fortnight4Freedom.org including events and suggested activities for parishes and families, as well as fact sheets, educational resources and suggest-

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming week 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 June 12 Rev. Thomas H. Taylor, Pastor, Immaculate Conception, Taunton, 1966 June 13 Rev. Edward F. Donahue, S.J., Boston College High School, Dorchester, 1974 Rev. Henry F. Bourgeois, C.S.C., Stonehill College, 2004 Rev. Roland Bousquet, Pastor, St. Theresa, New Bedford, 2010 June 14 Rev. Msgr. George E. Sullivan, Retired Pastor, St. Joseph, Fall River, 1980 Rev. Msgr. Joseph A. Cournoyer, Retired Pastor, St. Michael, Swansea, 1982 Rev. James H. Coughlin, S.J., Fairfield University, Fairfield, Conn., 1992 Rev. Justin J. Quinn, Chaplain, Madonna Manor , North Attleboro, Former Pastor, Immaculate Conception, Fall River, 1996 Rev. Ambrose Forgit, SS.CC., Pastor, Our Lady of the Assumption, New Bedford; St. Joseph, Fairhaven, 2010

ed prayers for the observance.

The site includes a study guide on the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, “Dignitatis Humanae,” and quotes about religious freedom from the nation’s Founding Fathers and the writings of Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Archbishop Lori, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, noted the fortnight occurs just weeks before August 1, the date final rules take effect for implementing the federal contraceptive mandate, requiring most employers to provide contraceptive coverage for employees.

The Catholic Church and other faith groups object to the requirement “coercing us to violate our deeply held beliefs,” the archbishop said in a statement.

During the fortnight, the Supreme Court’s decisions on the definition of Marriage “will likely be handed down as well,” he added, referring to rulings the court is expected to issue in late June on two same-sex marriage cases. One is a challenge to the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, a voter-approved initiative banning same-sex marriage, and the other is a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Around the Diocese 6/10

St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1359 Acushnet Avenue in New Bedford, will celebrate the feast of its patron, St. Anthony, with a three-day novena June 10-13 concluding with a 6:30 p.m. Mass on June 13. The homily will be given by Father Svetozar Kralijevic, OFM, a Franciscan priest from the parish of Medugorje. There will be a blessing with a St. Anthony relic and all are welcome.

6/11

The Catholic Cancer Support Group will hold its next monthly meeting on June 11 at 6 p.m. at Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville. The meeting will start with a Mass and Anointing of the Sick at Our Lady of Victory Church at 6 p.m., and then move over to the parish center for a summer potluck supper. Come join them for conversation, support, and sharing of information. If your last name starts with the letters A through L, please bring a salad or dessert. For those with last names starting with M through Z, please bring an entrée to share. If possible, please drop off your food before the Mass. The committee will provide all paper products and beverages. The Catholic Cancer Support Group of Our Lady of Victory is a Malta ministry and is faith-based, but all are welcome — cancer patients, survivors, family and friends.

Reservations are not needed. Future meetings will continue to take place at Our Lady of Victory at 230 South Main Street in Centerville on every second Tuesday of the month.

For more information, call 508-778-4468 or 508-775-5744.

6/13

St. Anthony’s Parish in East Falmouth will sponsor an Island Queen Evening Cruise on June 13 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Watch the sun set on Vineyard Sound, enjoy good food, entertainment, and a 50/50 raffle to benefit the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. For more information call 508-457-0085.

6/18

On June 18 at 7 p.m., the 2013 Summer Catholic Reflections series, sponsored by Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville, Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Osterville, St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth, and Christ the King Parish in Mashpee, will commence at Christ the King Parish Hall in Mashpee. The first presentation, “Salt, Light and Leaven,” will focus on Catholic responsibilities in public life during which John Carr, director of the Center on Catholic Social Teaching, will outline key elements of the Catholic mission and message in public life. Carr is also the Washington correspondent for America magazine. There is no admission fee and all are welcome. For directions or more information, visit www.christthekingparish.com.

6/20

A Healing Mass will be held on June 20 at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1359 Acushnet Avenue in New Bedford. The Mass will begin at 6:30 p.m. and will include Benediction and healing prayers. At 5:15 p.m. there will also be a holy hour, including the Rosary. For location information, visit www.saintanthonynewbedford.com or call 508-993-1691.

6/22

A Day with Mary will be held June 22 at St. Brendan’s Parish, 384 Hartford Avenue in Bellingham, Mass. from 8:00 a.m. to 3:35 p.m. It will include a video presentation, procession and crowning of the Blessed Mother with Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. There is an opportunity for Reconciliation and a bookstore is available. Please bring a bag lunch. For more information call 508-996-8274.

6/26

The Pro-Life Ministry of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Pocasset and St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in North Falmouth will sponsor a “Coffee and Conversation” meeting on June 26 at St. Elizabeth Seton Church in North Falmouth, with Mass celebration at 9 a.m. followed by coffee and refreshments served in the parish center. Guest speaker will be Marian Desrosiers, director of the ProLife apostolate and Project Rachel for the diocese. All are welcome. To plan for refreshments, please call 508-563-3561 or 508-457-7699.

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The Anchor

June 7, 2013

To advertise in The Anchor, contact Wayne Powers at 508-675-7151 or Email waynepowers@anchornews.org

GLAD GRADS — Bishop Stang High School held its 50th commencement exercises on June 2 at in the John C. O’Brien Gymnasium of the North Dartmouth campus.

Bishop George W. Coleman presided at the graduation of 167 members of the Class of 2013. Joanna Riccitelli of Somerset, the number one student in the class, delivered the valedictory address. Eleanor Blair of Plainville, the number two student in the class, delivered the salutatory address. The Baccalaureate Mass was celebrated on June 1 at St. Julie Billiart Church, North Dartmouth. Above, top: students process in for the ceremony; bottom: the class officers toss up their mortarboards immediately following the ceremony. (Photos courtesy of Suzy Burke)