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Diocese of Fall River, Mass.

F riday , July 4, 2014

Fourth generation member to become grand knight of Falmouth council

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

FALMOUTH — On July 20, Gregory S. Pinto will be installed as the newest grand knight of the Falmouth Knights of Columbus, Council No. 813.

By taking on this pivotal role, Pinto will not only be following in a time-honored tradition of a Catholic fraternal organization dating back to 1882, but he also will be following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, Robert Alfred Goffin, who served as the first grand knight for the Falmouth council when it was chartered on Sept. 6, 1903.

“I am looking forward to July 20, although the installation is just a ceremony,” Pinto recently told The Anchor. “It’s an important ceremony, but I’ve already started to take on the role (as grandRobert Alfred Goffin, picknight elect).” tured circa 1898, was the In the weeks leading first grand knight of the Falup to his formal instalmouth Knights of Columbus, Council No. 813. On July 20 his lation on July 20, to great-grandson, Gregory S. be held at St. Joseph’s Pinto, will be installed as the Church in Woods K of C council’s newest grand Hole immediately folknight. lowing the 10 a.m.

Mass, Pinto has indeed taken over much of the responsibilities for leading the K of C council from current Grand Knight Edward F. Graham Jr., who will forever maintain the honorific title of past grand knight.

Although Council No. 813 is headquartered in Falmouth and it serves three parishes — St. Anthony’s in East Falmouth, St. Patrick’s in Falmouth, and St. Elizabeth Seton in North Falmouth — it actually can trace its roots back to Woods Hole.

“Our council started at St. Joseph’s Church,” Pinto said. “On our charter it says the council was chartered in Woods Hole, county of Barnstable Turn to page 14

St. Pius X Parish in South Yarmouth recently celebrated its 60th anniversary. Msgr. Henry Munroe, former pastor, concelebrated Mass with the current pastor Father George C. Bellenoit, and others for the occasion. A parish picnic followed Mass. See page 15.

St. Elizabeth and the 700-year-old vow that we keep

By Linda Andrade Rodrigues Anchor Correspondent

SOMERSET — Centuries before the Fourth of July came to commemorate our nation’s independence, it marked the feast day of St. Elizabeth of Portugal, one of the most extraordinary women in history — although too few people, even among Catholics, are acquainted with her.

Yet as Catholics in the Diocese of Fall River, we are

acquainted with religious feasts or festivals, which are a part of our devotion no matter our cultural heritage.

According to a history posted online in memory of Father Raul M. Lagoa, the former pastor of St. John of God Parish in Somerset, the original Holy Ghost Feast was held during the reign of Queen Elizabeth of Portugal, who lived from 1271 to 1336.

Known as a peacemaker, St. Elizabeth was devoted Turn to page 18

Summer events just heating up for area faithful

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

MASHPEE — As schools in the Fall River Diocese have let out to allow students to take a break from academics during the summer, parishes and other organizations around the diocese are just gearing up their schedules for the summer months.

A collaboration of Cape Cod parishes (Our Lady of the Assumption, Osterville; Our Lady of Victory, Centerville; and St. Patrick’s, Falmouth) has already begun at Christ the King in Mashpee its annual Summer Catho-

lic Reflections, a series of speakers that “consistently have about 225 folks attend” the presentations, said the pastor of the parish, Msgr. Daniel Hoye. “We must be doing something right.”

A committee composed of people from various parishes, explained Msgr. Hoye, chooses the speakers corroboratively, thus creating a varied summer program that is always well attended. On July 22 at 7 p.m., Father Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., will present “Being the Body of Christ Today.” A Catholic priest and DominiTurn to page 15

Franco-Americans honor several diocesan faithful

By Dave Jolivet Anchor Editor

NEW BEDFORD — The organization had its beginning in February of 1919 as La Ligue des Presidents (The Franco-American President’s League). After a name change in 2003 to La Ligue des Franco-Américains, the Franco-American League is still active in the Whaling City 95 years later.

According to La Ligue, its “goals were to help coordinate activities of all the local clubs and societies whose purposes were to foster the interests of New Bedford’s Franco-American population. In doing so,

it would help preserve the French religious heritage and culture and to yearly celebrate the feast of St. Jean Baptiste.”

That’s exactly what happened on this year’s feast day, when the La Ligue met for a Mass and banquet while honoring several area individuals, some of whom are very active in ministries in the Diocese of Fall River.

At a banquet held at the Wamsutta Club in New Bedford, Father Marc H. Bergeron, pastor of Our Lynette Ouellette, left, and Father Marc H. Bergeron, Lady of Fatima Parish in New Bedford, was honored right, were recent honorees at a La Ligue des Francoas the Franco-American Professional of the Year; and Américains banquet in New Bedford. In the center is La Turn to page 18

Ligue’s president Normand Ouellette, husband of Lynette. (Photo by Ron Cabral)

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News From the Vatican Synod document cites cultural and economic threats to family

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The working document for the October 2014 extraordinary Synod of Bishops offers a picture of the Catholic Church today struggling to preach the Gospel and transmit moral teachings amid a “widespread cultural, social and spiritual crisis” of the family.

The 75-page “instrumentum laboris,” published by the Vatican June 26, is supposed to “provide an initial reference point” for discussion at the synod, whose theme will be the “pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization.”

The document is based principally on comments solicited in a questionnaire last November from national bishops’ conferences around the world. It also reflects comments sent directly to the Vatican by individuals and groups responding to the questionnaire, which was widely published on the Internet.

Topics in the working document include some of the most contested and controversial areas of Catholic moral teaching on the family, including contraception, divorce and remarriage, same-sex marriage, premarital sex and in vitro fertilization.

Bishops’ conferences responding to the questionnaire attributed an increasing disregard of such teachings to a variety influences, including “hedonistic culture; relativism; materialism; individualism; (and) the growing secularism.”

Recognizing that most Catholic couples do not follow the Church’s teaching against the use of artificial birth control, the document says that “for many Catholics the concept of ‘responsible parenthood’ encompasses the shared responsibility in conscience to choose the most appropriate method of birth control.”

The document says the use of natural family planning, condoned by the Church, encourages responsible decisions about family size while respecting human fertility and “the dignity of the sexual relationship between husband and wife.”

Bishops expressed particular concern with the “ideology called gender theory, according to which the gender of each individual turns out to be simply the product of social conditioning and needs” without “any correspondence to a person’s biological sexuality.”

The bishops see a need for

better teaching of “Christian anthropology,” the document states.

Noting that contemporary culture dismisses or misunderstands theories of “natural law,” which seek to “found human rights on reason,” bishops increasingly prefer to invoke Scripture in support of Catholic moral teaching.

The document also points to economic factors behind Catholics’ disregard of that teaching: Cohabitation without Marriage can be driven by financial need; “youth unemployment; and a lack of housing.” A widespread “contraceptive mentality” reflects, in part, a shortage of “child care, flexible working hours (and) parental leave.” Long working hours and commuting times “take a toll on family relationships.”

“The Church is called to offer real support for decent jobs, just wages and a fiscal policy favoring the family as well as programs of assistance to families and children,” the document states.

The document refers briefly to scandals over the sexual abuse of children by priests, which it says “significantly weaken the Church’s moral credibility,” as do other forms of “counter-witness in the Church,” including the lavish lifestyles of some clergy and unwelcoming attitudes in some parishes toward separated, divorced or single parents.

The bishops recognize the challenges of ministering to growing numbers of people in such “irregular” situations, including divorced Catholics who have remarried civilly without obtaining an annulment of their first Marriage, leaving them ineligible to receive Communion.

Their predicament, which Pope Francis has said exemplifies a special need for mercy in the Church today, has been a topic of unusually open debate at the highest levels of the Church over the last year.

Many in such situations feel “frustrated and marginalized,” the document states, noting proposals for rendering the annulment process simpler and quicker — and warnings that such streamlining might obscure Church doctrine on the indissolubility of Marriage.

The document also notes proposals that the Catholic Church consider adopting Orthodox practice, which allows for second and even third Marriages under certain circumstances.

On the other hand, some bishops and others “want to see more attention given to sepa-

rated and divorced persons who have not remarried but have remained faithful to their nuptial vows,” and who often “have the added suffering of not being given proper care by the Church and thus overlooked.”

The document draws a connection between family breakdown and a “crisis of faith,” noting that, with the increase in single-parent households, many children now miss experiencing the “love of a father, thereby making it particularly difficult to experience God’s love and Him as Father.”

Regarding unions between partners of the same sex, bishops around the world “are trying to find a balance between the Church’s teaching on the family and a respectful, non-judgmental attitude toward people living in such unions.”

“A distinction must be made between those who have made a personal, and often painful, choice and live that choice discreetly so as not to give scandal to others, and those whose behavior promotes and actively — often aggressively — calls attention to it,” the document states.

While opposing adoption of children by same-sex couples, almost all bishops said they would greet requests to baptize children living with such couples “with the same care, tenderness and concern which is given to other children.”

The document states that children of parents in “irregular” situations should also feel welcome in Catholic schools, where “words and expressions need to be used which create a sense of belonging and not exclusion fully aware that ‘irregular’ is a word applied to situations, not persons.”

“Children or young people are not to blame for the choices and living situations of their parents,” the document states.

It adds that excessive rigidity in such matters runs the risk of “making an unjust distinction between different morally unacceptable situations,” for instance, by punishing children of an invalid Marriage but not those whose parents “live a life of crime and exploitation.”

The complete text of the synod working document in English will be posted at: http://www. vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/ index.htm.

The complete text in Spanish will be posted at: http://www. vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/ index_sp.htm.

July 4, 2014

Pope Francis smiles as he meets children during a recent general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Alessandro Bianchi, Reuters)

Vatican to appoint adviser for Legionaries of Christ

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — In a statement released by Father Federico Lombardi S.J., the Vatican spokesman revealed that the Holy See is to appoint an adviser to assist the Legionaries in the revision of their newlydrafted constitutions.

Having received numerous questions from journalists regarding the state of the Legionaries in light of the set revisions, Father Lombardi published the answers he received from Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz and Archbishop Jose Rodriguez Carballo, who are currently overseeing the process.

Cardinal Braz de Aviz serves as prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and Archbishop Carballo as the congregation’s secretary.

In the recent statement, Archbishop Carballo explained that the identity of the Vatican-appointed adviser has not yet been released, but that as “a gesture of fraternal closeness” he and Cardinal Braz de Aviz met with the Legionaries general director, Father Robles Gil, July 3 to discuss the needed changes to their constitutions and to reveal who the adviser will be.

The role of the assistant “will be assumed by a consecrated person, as anticipated, who

knows the Legionaries and will be able to be of help to the general council on legal and other themes, according to need” the archbishop explained.

He also emphasized the autonomy of the Legionaries, stating that “this figure is an assistant, not a visitator, commissioner or delegate,” and as such “has neither a voice nor a vote, and is merely an assessor, and was agreed upon before the general chapter.”

Archbishop Carballo also clarified that following their first general chapter earlier this spring, the Legionaries are no longer under the watch of the apostolic delegation investigating them, but have “returned to the competence of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life.”

Regarding the various corrections to be made to the text of the Legionaries’ new constitutions, the archbishop observed that they are “very few in number.”

The new constitutions were drafted during the congregation’s first General Chapter meeting, which began on January 9 and was mandated

by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in wake of the revelation of the double-life led by the congregation’s founder, Father Marcial Maciel, who has since died.

July 4, 2014

The International Church

Archbishop Paul R. Ruzoka of Tabora, Tanzania, speaks at a recent fund-raiser in Toledo, Ohio, sponsored by the Universal Initiative Foundation to raise money for a sanctuary for albino and other vulnerable children in Tanzania. (CNS photo/Laurie Stevens Bertke, Catholic Chronicle)

Tanzanian archbishop calls attention to plight of albino children

TOLEDO, Ohio (CNS) — Don and Gisela Stiles are on a mission to raise awareness of the plight of albino children who have been targeted in Tanzania by witch doctors for their body parts and subject to mutilation and slaughter in a wave of violent attacks.

As part of their crusade, the Toledo Catholic couple founded the nonprofit Universal Initiative Foundation and is raising money to build a sanctuary in the Archdiocese of Tabora, Tanzania, to protect hundreds of albino and other vulnerable children.

The sanctuary took a step closer to this spring as guests of a fund-raising dinner in Maumee bid on items needed to construct and furnish the facility.

Archbishop Paul R. Ruzoka of Tabora was present to relay the urgency of the cause. He traveled to the Diocese of Toledo for two weeks in May to speak at the fund-raiser and to other groups about the plight of albinos in Tanzania.

Though he had been to the United States previously, the archbishop said it was the first time he had traveled outside his country to highlight the growing problem of violence against albino people.

Tanzania has one of the highest rates of albinism in the world, with the congenital disorder affecting as many as one in 1,400.

Since 2007, 76 people with albinism — a defect of melanin production that results in little or no color in the skin, hair and eyes — have been attacked and their body parts hacked off and sold to witch doctors, according to the Universal Initiative Foundation’s website, www.universalif.org. Only 14 victims survived the attacks.

While cultural taboos have long existed against albinos, Archbishop Ruzoka said the at-

tacks are a recent development stemming from a boom in the mining and fishing industries.

“People of all walks of life are seeking fortunes, including witch doctors, who convince people that they have charms to make them get rich quickly,” he said.

The witch doctors promise potions made from the body parts of albinos — particularly innocent children — will bring wealth and good fortune.

Another myth is the idea that having sex with an albino woman can cure AIDS. “These witch doctors depend on the ignorance of people, coupled with the superstitions and myths surrounding people with albinism, causing great harm to the victims and fear among families and relatives if not the society at large,” the archbishop.

Five acres of land have already been donated for the construction of a self-sustaining, secured facility to house and educate as many as 600 children and young adults. Residents would include those with albinism as well as non-affected children orphaned

by AIDS or abandoned and neglected through poverty.

“We want to make it a home — a community of love for these children, and that can only be realized if they are mixed up with the other children,” Archbishop Ruzoka explained. “We need to empower them through a good education and to restore their human dignity.”

An Italian congregation of Missionaries of Charity has already sent Sisters to oversee care of about 10 children who are housed on the property now. They have a convent and living quarters for the children, but the archbishop said they would like to accommodate more children and add a school on site.

He estimates $500,000 is

needed to complete the first phase of the project, which includes a dormitory for 50 to 60 children, a kindergarten and primary school, kitchen and dining facilities, recreational facilities, an infirmary and water and energy installations. Future plans call for the sanctuary to house 600 children and young adults along with a secondary school and vocational training.

The state recognizes and is supportive of the archdiocese’s plans for the sanctuary and has promised assistance to ensure the program fits into the educational system, Archbishop Ruzoka noted.

Mrs. Stiles said the Universal Initiative Foundation was close to reaching its initial goal of raising $50,000 for the sanctuary.

Contributions may be made through www.universalif.org or by sending a check or money order, payable to the Universal Initiative Foundation, 1685 Lance Point Drive, Suite C, Maumee, Ohio 43537.

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The Church in the U.S.

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July 4, 2014

Supreme Court upholds religious freedom for Hobby Lobby

Washington D.C. (CNA/EWTN News) — On June 30 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Hobby Lobby and similar employers cannot be forced to comply with the federal contraception mandate against their religious beliefs.

In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the federal government had failed to prove that the mandate was the least restrictive means of advancing its goal of providing free birth control to women.

The court said that the mandate cannot be applied to closely-held corporations with religious owners who object to it. The IRS defines “closely-held corporations” as those with more than 50 percent of their stock held by five or fewer individuals.

Craft giant Hobby Lobby and its owners, the Green family, had challenged a federal mandate issued under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which requires employers to offer health insurance covering contraception, sterilization and some drugs that can cause early abortions.

The Greens said that mandate would require them to violate their deeply-held Christian beliefs against facilitating abortion.

Failure to comply with the

mandate could have resulted in fines of more than $1 million per day. In July 2013, the Greens received a temporary court injunction protecting them from the penalties until the Supreme Court ruled on their case.

Hobby Lobby has more 500 stores across the U.S. Motivated by the Green family’s Christian beliefs, the stores are closed on Sundays and the owners pay minimum wages above the national standard.

The company drew support from Christian, Jewish and Hindu groups concerned about religious freedom. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops filed a brief voicing opposition any rule that would require religiously motivated business owners to “choose between providing coverage for products and speech that violate their religious beliefs, and exposing their businesses to devastating penalties.”

More than 100 members of Congress and 20 states filed legal briefs supporting Hobby Lobby, as have ProLife groups including Democrats for Life.

In the same ruling, the Supreme Court also struck down the mandate as it applies to Conestoga Wood Specialties, a company owned by a Mennonite family with religious objections to the regulation.

The decision could have a widespread impact in the more than 100 other religious freedom lawsuits filed against the mandate by more than 300 plaintiffs.

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

Two young girls watch a World Cup soccer match on a television from a holding area where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center in Nogales, Ariz., recently. (CNS photo/Ross D. Franklin, pool via Reuters)

Texas diocese responds to immigrants’ need in surge of children

McALLEN, Texas (CNS) — Scared, tired and hungry, immigrants, mostly mothers with their children, have been arriving at the McAllen and Brownsville bus stations at odd hours.

Most hope to travel farther to connect with waiting family members.

They are among hundreds of immigrants — mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala — arriving daily, dropped off by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after being apprehended in the United States.

Because of the vast number of families and children traveling on their own who have been picked up on the border, mostly in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, ICE has been giving families permission to travel on to their final destination with instructions to appear in court for deportation proceedings.

More than 52,000 minors traveling alone and 39,000 families have been picked up this fiscal year. The number of children traveling alone has doubled over a year ago and is more than seven times the number that was typical annually through 2011.

For the past two months, volunteers acting on their own have been meeting immigrants at the bus station. They provide food and help the disoriented families navigate bus travel. As the numbers escalated, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley opened two assistance centers.

When they arrive at the bus station, “they are scared, they’re hungry, they’re tired,” said Sister Norma Pimentel, a member of the Missionaries of Jesus, who is executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. “They don’t know who to trust. They fear someone will take advantage of them.”

She said she told the people at the bus station, “Somos de la Iglesia.

Estamos aqui para ayudar.” (“We

are with the Church. We are here to help.”)

One center is at Sacred Heart Church, near McAllen’s bus station. Volunteers helped approximately 200 people the first day.

A second center is in the gymnasium across the street from Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville, and a third is planned in Harlingen.

“The assistance centers are an immediate and temporary response to the need,” said Sister Pimentel. “A long-term solution is needed.”

She said false information circulating in Central America has contributed to the influx. Some are under the impression that they will receive asylum if they cross into United States with their children, for example. Asylum is a status available to people who have a credible fear of persecution or physical harm in their homelands.

Being released by ICE with orders to appear in immigration court is confusing to some, said Sister Pimentel. “They think they are being offered amnesty.”

In reality, the immigration agency “is giving themselves space to breathe” because it is overwhelmed by the number of children and families being detained in the area.

One young man in his early 20s arrived from Guatemala with his infant child. His wife had been kidnapped in Mexico and he was he forced to continue without her.

Another, Roger (his last name has been withheld for his safety), 14, is a U.S. citizen who was living with his aunt in Miami. He flew to Honduras to accompany his mother as she crossed illegally into the United States.

He said it took them four tries before they finally crossed the Rio Bravo in the dark. He said he would do it again.

Another teen, a 16-year-old from the department of Morazon, El Salvador, spent four days lost in

the Rio Grande Valley, drinking dirty water and eating oranges to survive before he found help. He was left on his own by smugglers who were paid $3,000 to get him into the United States.

The oldest of five children, Juan was sent north by his parents, who wanted him to get an education. As the youngest of the 11 young men who were traveling in an enclosed truck, he said he was hit and teased. He told The Valley Catholic, newspaper of the Brownsville Diocese, that he had not had anything to eat or drink during that trip.

He was found on the side of the road and brought to the assistance center at Sacred Heart.

There, after a 19-day journey, he contemplated whether to turn himself in to Immigration and Customs Enforcement or figure out a way to get to New York to the uncle who was waiting for him.

As soon as the call for donations went out, people started bringing needed items to the center. One business donated 600 pairs of new shoes. Others have provided portable showers.

Some of the immigrants have gone weeks without a shower or change of clothes as they traveled across their home countries and Mexico. The centers are offering food, clothing, toiletries, baby supplies and travel packets.

Ivania Molina Melendez, a parishioner at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in McAllen, said she was exhausted by the end of her day of helping, but that she was filled with joy from serving.

She said the volunteers are overwhelmed by the stories the women share about their journey.

They see them arrive hungry and grateful for a place to rest, grateful for a bag of supplies, grateful for the prayers from strangers before their bus leaves, en route to Boston, New York City, Houston, San Antonio, and Chicago.

July 4, 2014

The Church in the U.S.

Nancy Clark of Worcester, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “The Holy Spirit is slowly guiding us in the right direction.”

Mark Bashour, another plaintiff, has been doing sidewalk counseling in Worcester for 30 years. “Obviously I am very pleased,” he said. “Now we can get closer and they can hear us much better.

“It was a long, time-consuming three-year process taking the issue to the Supreme Court,” he said, “but by winning, now no other states will try to pass a law like this.

It is very important.”

In a concurrence with the main opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia warned about shortcomings in the majority opinPro-Life demonstrators sing outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington as they await the court’s rul- ion what he sees as the court’s ing on a Massachusetts law that mandated a buffer zone to keep protesters away from abortion clinics. “onward march of abortionIn a unanimous ruling, the court said the 2007 law violated the freedom of speech rights of Pro-Lifers speech-only jurisprudence.”

He was joined by Justices Anunder the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. (CNS photo/Jim Bourg, Reuters) thony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

Scalia observed that the court’s majority opinion “carries forward this court’s practice of giving abortionWASHINGTON (CNS) state law that kept protest- convictions.”

— In a June 26 decision, the ers from approaching within The U.S. Conference of rights advocates a pass when U.S. Supreme Court unani- six feet of a person who was Catholic Bishops had joined it comes to suppressing the mously ruled that 35-foot within 18 feet of an abortion with other religious groups in free-speech rights of their opbuffer zones around abortion clinic — similar to a 2000 law filing an amicus, or friend of ponents.”

He complained that the clinics — meant to keep dem- in Colorado that the Supreme the court, brief for this case. majority opinion “has someonstrators away — violates Court upheld that year.

Tom Brejcha, president of thing for everyone,” and was First Amendment rights.

The Supreme Court’s opin- the Thomas More Society, a invalidating the law in quesThe decision, a victory for ion distinguished protest- Chicago-based law firm, used tion because it is inadequately Pro-Life groups, reversed an ers from those who “seek not the words “fantastic, wondertailored to circumstances and appellate court decision up- merely to express their opposi- ful” and “great achievement” is “certainly attractive to those holding a 2007 Massachusetts tion to abortion, but to engage to describe the court’s deciof us who oppose an abortionlaw that made it a crime for in personal, caring, consensual sion. anyone other than clinic work- conversations with women Brejcha is familiar with the speech edition of the First ers to stand within the yellow about various alternatives.” notion of buffer zones be- Amendment.”

But the main part of the semicircular lines painted 35 The U.S. Supreme Court cause his firm has defended opinion moves toward crefeet from entrances of abor- upheld freedom of speech Pro-Life advocates accused of ating a version of the First tion clinics in Massachusetts. for Pro-Life Americans in a violating Chicago’s “bubbleAmendment that applies only Eleanor McCullen, lead June 26 decision in the case zone” law, which forbids pickto speech about abortion, plaintiff in the case, McCul- of McCullen v. Coakley. The eters, protesters or counselors he said.

By concluding that len v. Coakley, said she should court unanimously declared within 50 feet of the clinic be able to speak and offer ad- unconstitutional a Massachu- entrance to approach clients vice to women going to these setts law barring Pro-Life ad- within eight feet to talk or clinics. McCullen, a 77-year- vocates from public sidewalks give literature. old who attends Mass at St. near abortion facilities.

He said some of the pasIgnatius Church at Boston The court’s decision “has af- sages of the court’s decision College, said when the case firmed the American tradition are “almost lyrical” particularwas brought to the Supreme of basic constitutional rights ly when it describes how the Court that she had helped for all,” said Boston Cardinal plaintiff was “trying to commany women decide against Sean P. O’Malley, chairman of municate a peaceful message.” abortion.

He said the court’s opinthe U.S. bishops’ Committee The Supreme Court, in its on Pro-Life Activities. ion that sidewalk counselors opinion written by Chief JusHe said in a recent state- are not necessarily protesters tice John Roberts, said the state ment that the now-over- — but people who want to law blocked public sidewalks turned legislation “reflects an engage in one-on-one converthat have been traditionally ominous trend in our society” sations — confirms the work viewed as open for free speech. because it reveals how abor- they do which he described as It also said the government’s tion supporters seek to deny “conversations at the edge of ability to limit speech in those Americans who “seek to pro- an abyss.” places is “very limited.”

A group that was praying tect the unborn” their right The law in question was to freedom of speech and as- outside a Planned Parenthood put in place in an attempt to sociation as well as the “right facility in Worcester on June prevent violent demonstra- to participate in the public 26, also was pleased with the tions or protests outside clinic square and serve the vulner- court’s decision. entrances. It replaced a 2000 able in accord with our moral “I’m very excited,” said

Supreme Court strikes down ‘buffer zones’ at abortion clinics

5 a statute like the one overturned is not content-based and therefore not subject to strict scrutiny under the law, “the court reaches out to decide that question unnecessarily,” Scalia wrote.

Scalia cited ways in which he says the main opinion singled out abortion-only speech in reaching its conclusion that the law was unconstitutional.

And he concluded that although he agrees with what the court decided, he thinks it unnecessarily addressed the issue of whether the law was sufficiently narrowly tailored.

“The obvious purpose of the challenged portion of the Massachusetts Reproductive Health Care Facilities Act is to ‘protect’ prospective clients of abortion clinics from having to hear abortion-opposing speech on public streets and sidewalks,” he said.

“The provision is thus unconstitutional root and branch and cannot be saved, as the majority suggests, by limiting its application to the single facility that has experienced the safety and access problems to which it is quite obviously not addressed,” he concluded.

Justice Samuel Alito also had a separate concurrence.

In it he faulted the majority for concluding that the Massachusetts law is viewpoint neutral, but he nevertheless agreed that it is unconstitutional because it burdens free speech more than necessary to accommodate state interests.

Editor’s note: Next week’s Anchor will feature reaction to this Supreme Court decision from people in the Fall River Diocese who work diligently for the end to legal abortion in this country.

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July 4, 2014

Anchor Editorial

Hobby Lobby and its impact for us

Monday the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties in a decision regarding the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requiring employers to include contraceptive coverage (including aborifacients) in their employees’ health insurance policies (please read article on page four for the details). Anchor columnist Dwight Duncan had prepared a “friend of the court” brief from Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL) on behalf of these companies. Anne Fox, president of MCFL, wrote Monday, “I think MCFL’s amicus brief, citing the history of religious liberty in the colonies, which was the basis for the views of our founding fathers, helped to win this case. Again, we are very grateful to Dwight Duncan and the law students who helped him write the brief !”

We do appreciate the victory, but it is not as broad as we would have hoped. For one thing, four of the court’s members voted against us, so should one member of the court majority on this case leave the court due to death or retirement, a new justice could be appointed who could help overturn this decision (this is why thinking about the Supreme Court is so important to do when voting for president [since the president names the members] and for senator [since the senators can, and have in the past, blocked a nomination]).

The majority decision in Hobby Lobby said that Hobby Lobby, Conestoga and other companies which have religious objections to the taking of a human life cannot be forced to pay for abortifacient contraception. However, the decision says that this type of contraception can be provided either by the government paying for it (Anne Fox, in her email, wrote, “It is assumed that the Obama Administration will step in to pay, so now we’ll all be paying!”) or via the “accommodation” which HHS continues to insist that Catholic and other religious institutions (which are not church buildings themselves, but parish schools, Church-run charitable institutions, etc.) use, which would have the insurance companies pay for the contraceptive coverage. Various arms of the Catholic Church have active lawsuits in various courts at present trying to have this “accommodation” eliminated.

The court’s majority suggests using the “accommodation” approach for companies like Hobby Lobby. “In fact, HHS has already devised and implemented a system that seeks to respect the religious liberty of religious nonprofit corporations while ensuring that the employees of these entities have precisely the same access to all FDA-approved contraceptives as employees of companies whose owners have no religious objections to providing such coverage. The employees of these religious non-profit corporations still have access to insurance coverage without cost-sharing for all FDA-approved contraceptives; and according to HHS, this system imposes no net economic burden on the insurance companies that are required to provide or secure the coverage.”

The fact that the court’s majority, which included frequent friends of the Church, such as Antonin Scalia, would suggest that the “accommodation” might be a possible approach for the government to use with Hobby Lobby does raise concerns that when the Catholic Church ends up before the Supreme Court to fight the HHS mandate, we will either lose or the case will not even be accepted.

However, there may be hope. In footnote nine of the court’s decision, Justice

Samuel Alito wrote, “In a separate challenge to this framework for religious nonprofit organizations, the court recently ordered that, pending appeal, the eligible organizations be permitted to opt out of the contraceptive mandate by providing written notification of their objections to the Secretary of HHS, rather than to their insurance issuers or third-party administrators. See Little Sisters of the Poor v. Sebelius, 571 U. S. Docket 13A691 (2014).” So, the Supreme Court had given us at least temporary relief from the mandate.

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, issued a statement Monday, in which they said, “We welcome the Supreme Court’s decision to recognize that Americans can continue to follow their faith when they run a family business. Now is the time to redouble our efforts to build a culture that fully respects religious freedom. The court clearly did not decide whether the so-called ‘accommodation’ violates [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] when applied to our charities, hospitals and schools, so many of which have challenged it as a burden on their religious exercise. We continue to hope that these great ministries of service, like the Little Sisters of the Poor and so many others, will prevail in their cases as well.”

Alito’s decision explained what abortifacient birth control is. “Although many of the required, FDA-approved methods of contraception work by preventing the fertilization of an egg, four of those methods (those specifically at issue in these cases) may have the effect of preventing an already fertilized egg from developing any further by inhibiting its attachment to the uterus.” In footnote seven Alito added, “The owners of the companies involved in these cases and others who believe that life begins at conception regard these four methods as causing abortions, but federal regulations, which define pregnancy as beginning at implantation, see, e.g., 62 Fed. Reg. 8611 (1997); 45 CFR §46.202(f ) (2013), do not so classify them.” The Catholic Church, of course, would agree with these companies.

Father Dylan Schrader, writing in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review earlier this year, said that the religious liberty issues involved in the HHS mandate are important, but “To focus only on this aspect of the mandate, however, is to miss an even more foundational point, namely, that contraception, sterilization, and abortion are really evil. When it comes to any policy that directly seeks to facilitate contraceptive acts and abortions, we cannot limit ourselves to an approach that would imply that such a policy is acceptable as long as it isn’t forced on Catholics (or other religious employers). Contraception, sterilization, and abortion are always wrong for everybody, regardless of their religious beliefs.

We should be seeking to eradicate these evils altogether, not merely seeking an exemption from cooperating in them ourselves. The Catholic position is not that Catholics should not contracept or abort; it is that no one should contracept or abort.”

So, we can rejoice that Hobby Lobby and Conestoga won their lawsuits, but we have a lot of work to do –— work of prayer and penance, work of better informing ourselves about Church teaching, work of following Christ in our familial lives.

Pope Francis’ Angelus address of June 29 Dear brothers and sisters, hello!

From ancient times the Church of Rome has celebrated the Apostles Peter and Paul on a single feast on the same day, June 29. Faith in Jesus Christ made them brothers and martyrdom made them one.

St. Peter and St. Paul, so different from each other on a human level, were personally chosen by the Lord Jesus and responded to the call by offering their whole life. Grace ac-

complished great things in both, it transformed them. And how it transformed them! Simon denied Jesus in the tragic moment of His passion. Saul harshly persecuted the Christians. But both experienced the love of God and let themselves be transformed by His mercy. In this way they became friends and Apostles of Christ. This is why they continue to speak to the Church and still today point out the road OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER

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of Salvation to us. We too, even if we fall into the gravest sins and the darkest nights, God is always able to transform us as He transformed Peter and Paul. He can transform our heart and forgive us completely, transforming the darkness of our sin into the dawn of light. This is how God is: He transforms us, He always forgives us, just as He did with Peter and as He did with Paul.

The book of the Acts of the Apostles displays many of the characteristics of their witness. Peter, for example, teaches us to look upon the poor with the eyes of faith and to give them what is most precious to us: the power of Jesus’ Name.

This is what he did with the paralytic. Peter gave him what he had, namely, Jesus (cf. Acts 3:46).

Regarding Paul, the episode of his call on the road to Damascus is told of three times. This is the turning point of Paul’s life and it clearly delineates a before and after. Before, Paul was an archenemy of the Church. After, he placed his whole life at the service of the Gospel. For us too, the encounter

with the Word of Christ is able to transform our lives completely. It is not possible to hear this Word and remain as we are, to stick with our habits. It pushes us to conquer the egoism in our heart to follow resolutely that Master Who gave His life for His friends. But it is He Who with His Word changes us; it is He Who transforms us; it is He Who forgives us completely, if we open our hearts and ask for forgiveness.

Dear brothers and sisters, this feast awakens a great joy in us before God’s work of mercy in the hearts of these two men. It is the work of God’s mercy in these two men who were great sinners. God wants to fill us too with His grace just as He did with Peter and Paul.

May the Virgin Mary help us to receive this grace as they did, with open hearts, and not to receive it in vain! May it sustain us in time of trial to bear witness to Jesus Christ and His Gospel. We ask it today especially for the metropolitan archbishops who were named this past year and who celebrated the

Eucharist with me this morning in St. Peter’s. I greet all of them with affection together with their faithful and their relatives. Let us pray for them!

The Angel of the Lord declared to Mary: And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary ...

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

Hail Mary . . .

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

Hail Mary . . .

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

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

Amen.

Anchor Columnist

July 4, 2014

O

7

Best practices for promoting priestly vocations

n June 16, there was a great article in The New York Times about identical twins being ordained priests in the Diocese of Lansing, Mich., and about the twin farming towns that have been extraordinary fruitful seedbeds of priestly and religious vocations.

When Gary and Todd Koenigsknecht were ordained priests on June 14, they became the 21st and 22nd priests from the small farming village of Fowler, which boasts a population of 1,224.

That brought them into a tie with the neighboring village of Westphalia, eight miles away, which has a present population of 938.

Fowler and Westphalia have likewise produced an outstanding crop of many female religious vocations, with Fowler presently leading the holy competition 43 to 37.

Jesus instructed us to pray to the Harvest Master to send laborers for His harvest and the farming families of Fowler and Westphalia have certainly responded.

In the Koenigsknechts’ parish of Holy Trinity, there is a weekly Holy Hour for priestly and religious vocations, regular fund-raisers to support those who are following such calls, vibrant parish youth programs, and high Mass attendance.

The same can be said of Westphalia and St. Mary’s Parish and School, where the Times article said that more than 12

of the 43 sixth-graders raised considerably larger. Why are their hands when asked if some parishes so fruitful while they were considering life as a many other parishes haven’t priest, Brother or Sister. produced a seminarian or In essays in their home novice in years? parish bulletin, the KoenigTwo recently-published resknecht twins described the ports by Georgetown’s Center impact of the vocational soil for Applied Research in the on their vocations.

Apostolate give us a window Father Todd said that into best practices in vocahome was his first seminary, tional promotion and a lot of reminiscing that his “priestly formation began long before I Putting Into entered seminary,” the Deep in the prayers said at home and in the genBy Father eral attitude of faith Roger J. Landry that led to making and keeping daily commitments to God. Father Gary said that two hope with regard to vocational experiences really affected him. numbers.

The first was seeing his uncle, One study showed that a priest, stop everything to there are presently 350,000 pray his Breviary while helpsingle Catholic males 14 and ing them farm on his weekly older in the U.S. (three percent day off. The second was a of the overall male Catholic conversation with his parents population) who say they’ve when he entered adolescence “very seriously” considered a when they asked him if he vocation to the priesthood, had ever thought about the yet only 1,000 (0.29 percent) priesthood and religious life, enter seminary or novitiate and told him that if God were each year. In the other study, calling, they’d have his full CARA sought to examine, by support. Both episodes, he interviewing present seminarsaid, gave him the courage to ians and young clergy, what listen for a call and respond. were the factors that led them The vocational fruitfulto go from serious considerness of the tiny parishes of ation to entering. If that perSt. Mary’s in Westphalia and centage increased just a little, Holy Trinity in Fowler is the report said, “there would something that should inspire be no discussions of a priest and challenge Catholics in the shortage.” parishes, cities and towns of CARA described that our diocese, most of which are among the most significant

factors were having priests as teachers in the classroom, receiving regular Spiritual direction, experiencing a vibrant campus ministry, participating in Christian service opportunities, having supportive friends and roommates, going on retreats, having access to daily Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, the Liturgy of the Hours and Bible studies.

For all these reasons, CARA says that strengthening Catholic colleges and universities is essential, since these parts of a “vocational culture” are more easily found on Catholic campuses, where only seven percent of Catholics attend but from which 44 percent of priestly ordinations come. One of its strongest recommendations to promote vocations is for bishops to sacrifice talented priests to teach courses and be present in vibrant campus ministries.

It also described the importance of vocational encouragement. Their studies show that if a young man has three people encourage him toward the priesthood, he is five times more likely to consider a priestly vocation. The first time one is encouraged, he might laugh it off. The second time, he might think something strange is happening. The third time leads him to ask whether he really ought to consider it.

Ninety-four percent of

seminarians and recentlyordained clergy testify to how important this encouragement was from priests, family members, friends and roommates.

At the same time, the CARA studies revealed that, as important as this encouragement is, only five percent of unmarried Catholics have ever encouraged anyone to think about the priesthood and a quarter of priests have never encouraged anyone. That, CARA believes, is one of the reasons why 349 out of 350 young men “very seriously” considering the priesthood never end up entering the seminary.

One of the main things that has to be done to promote priestly vocations, therefore, is to “encourage the encouragers,” to create a culture in which all priests and faithful are regularly supporting those boys and young men they think might have priestly vocations to consider it.

That’s something that’s clearly happening in Folwer and Westphalia.

That’s something, we pray, that will happen more and more in Fall River and Westport, Fairhaven and Wareham, Falmouth and Wellfleet, and in the homes and farms, schools and colleges throughout our diocese.

AnchorcolumnistFatherLandry is pastor of St. Bernadette’s Parish in Fall River. fatherlandry@ catholicpreaching.com.

Cardinal O’Malley, Mass. Citizens for Life welcome Supreme Court decision affirming Freedom of Speech for Pro-Life Americans

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court upheld freedom of speech for Pro-Life Americans in a June 26 decision in the case of McCullen v.

Coakley. The court unanimously declared unconstitutional a Massachusetts law barring Pro-Life advocates from public sidewalks near abortion facilities. Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, issued the following statement.

“Today the Supreme Court found unconstitutional a Massachusetts law imposing criminal penalties on Pro-Life Americans who peacefully pray for and offer alternatives to pregnant women approaching abortion clinics. This discrimi-

natory law barred these citizens from gathering on nearby public sidewalks, while exempting ‘clinic escorts’ trained to expedite women into the facility.

Clearly this was an attack on Pro-Life Americans’ freedom of speech, and we welcome the court’s decision to overturn the law.

“This now overturned legislation reflects an ominous trend in our society. Abortion supporters, having long denied that unborn children have a right to life, would deny that their fellow Americans who seek to protect the unborn have the same rights as other Americans — the right to freedom of speech and freedom of association; the right to participate in the public square and serve

the vulnerable in accord with our moral convictions. Increasingly we see this trend evidenced at various levels of government. We are encouraged and pleased to know that with regard to this particular issue, our highest court has affirmed the American tradition of basic constitutional rights for all.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had joined with other religious groups in a “friend of the court” brief urging this result. The brief can be found online at: www.usccb.org/about/ general-counsel/amicus-briefs/ upload/cls-amicus-brief-filed.pdf.

MCFL statement Massachusetts Citizens for Life welcomes the Supreme

Court unanimous decision, McCullen v. Coakley, which strikes down the Massachusetts so-called Buffer Zone as a violation of the First Amendment.

The court reiterates tradition in this country that the sidewalk is the vehicle for free speech. There are already laws on the books which prohibit blocking entrances, harassing people, etc.

The McCullen decision ​ makes it clear that more restrictive laws may be written only if the current laws are not working — something that the state of Massachusetts failed to prove.

“This is a victory for all citizens who value their First Amendment rights and for

clinic-bound women who might need someone to talk to,” says Anne Fox, President.

Mark Rienzi, the lead counsel said, “Americans have the freedom to talk to whomever they please on public sidewalks. That includes peaceful Pro-Lifers like Eleanor McCullen, who just wants to offer information and help to women who would like it. The Supreme Court has affirmed a critical freedom that has been an essential part of American life since the nation’s founding.”

Massachusetts Citizens for ​ Life is the oldest and largest Pro-Life organization in the state. Founded in 1973, it works to restore legal protection to all human life.

8

July 4, 2014

Being more like little children

W

hen I graduated from college, I received a gift from a family member. It was a book. A book called “Ultimate Power”

by Anthony Robbins. The book was centered on how to obtain success in life and what techniques, tricks, and methods the author discovered were successful in his ability to attain success. I eagerly read the entire book cover to cover in hopes of attaining success, wealth, and happiness. Although I do find some of the instructions he provided to be helpful, the goal that I strive for has changed significantly since my graduation date.

As the Church of God, we understand a goal beyond the confines of our flesh. We seek to obtain the ultimate goal, to live in Heaven with God for all eternity. We know and understand that success is attained by “gaining” entrance into Heaven. Wealth is obtained not by saving money or having expensive “toys” but by helping others achieve their eternal Salvation. And happiness, well, the greatest happiness is experienced in the presence of God and in helping others!

Now that we understand do little children understand our goal, what techniques, that advanced individuals, tricks, or methods can we use teachers, adults, CEOs, CFOs, to obtain that goal? In this and other wise and learned week’s readings, Jesus provides people not understand? Chilus with a perfect example and dren have two specific skills instruction. which set them apart from The example provided is Jesus Himself. The prophet Homily of the Week Zechariah explains Fourteenth Sunday how Jesus will enter in Ordinary Time Jerusalem prior to His suffering and death

By Deacon — meek, and riding Thomas McMahon on an ass. No golden chariot with hoards of soldiers holding Him up. No stretch limousine those of us who are older. with a Jacuzzi in back. No First, children can trust othmillion dollar yacht. Our Lord ers easily. At a very young age, and Savior, our Divine God, a child will trust their parents rode into town on the back of implicitly. They are unable to a donkey. In this action, He eat without trusting in another demonstrated the attitude and to provide nourishment for behavior we should seek to them. When we tell them the mimic. earth is round, the sky is blue, In the Gospel, Jesus proand stars are like the sun only vides us more instruction on much farther away, children how to attain our final goal. believe that the earth is round, It is something so simple that the sky is blue, and stars are children understand it while like the sun only much farthose the world considers to ther away. They don’t have to be wise, learned, and successcircumnavigate the world to ful do not. The smallest ones believe it’s round. They don’t among us “get it.” It makes question the color of the sky you wonder, doesn’t it? What and say they believe it’s orange.

Children don’t need to board a space ship and go visit every star to verify they are like the sun. They just believe this is true because they have been taught that it is.

Children are also naturally curious. They seek to discover that which they do not know and continue to attempt to learn new things.

How many of us have been caught in a game of 20 questions by an inquisitive child?

Or constantly asked the question, “Why?” until we just can’t answer any more? Children seek to gain an understanding when they don’t know the truth and continually seek out answers until they are satisfied that they understand it. They are not afraid to ask questions and seek out the answer.

Jesus, Who is the ultimate fair Judge, will make the determination of whether or not we reach the goal for which we are striving. Because He loves us and wants us to achieve that goal, He provides us with the techniques, tips, and method. As the Church of God, we should work

together using these instructions with vigor. We must seek to be humble and to voluntarily pursue meekness and gentleness in our actions and attitude. We need to learn to let go of the things we cannot change and trust in God so that everything will work out in His plan and for His glory.

Finally, we need to be curious about our Lord and our faith. If we don’t understand something, we should seek out the truth so we can learn it. If a teaching of the Church seems contrary to what society is telling us as morally right, we need to seek out the “Catechism” and search for why the Church teaches what it does. Everything the Church believes is publicly explained in detail for the greater understanding of every member and non-member of the Church.

Instead of focusing on growing up and advancing as a member of society, to reach Heaven we need to learn how to grow down, seek humility, and be more like little children.

Deacon McMahon was ordained as a permanent deacon last October and currently serves at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish in Seekonk.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. July 5,Am 9:11-15; Ps 85:9ab,10-14; Mt 9:14-17. Sun. July 6, Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Zec 9:9-10; Ps 145:1-2,8-11,13-14; Rom 8:9,11-13; Mt 11:25-30. Mon. July 7, Hos 2:16,17b-18,21-22; Ps 145:2-9; Mt 9:18-26. Tues. July 8, Hos 8:4-7,11-13; Ps 115:3-7b,810; Mt 9:32-38. Wed. July 9, Hos 10:1-3,7-8,12; Ps 105:2-7; Mt 10:1-7. Thurs. July 10, Hos 11:1-4,8c-9; Ps 80:2ac-3b,15-16; Mt 10:7-15. Fri. July 11, Hos 14:2-10; Ps 51:3-4,8-9,12-14,17; Mt 10:16-23.

Pope: Jesus was a Pastor, not a ‘moralistic’ power-seeker

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — In a recent daily homily Pope Francis warned of those who reduce the faith to moralism and ambition, stating that people in Jesus’ time followed Him because He spoke the truth in a way they understood.

“This is why the people followed Jesus, because He was the Good Shepherd. He wasn’t a moralistic, quibbling Pharisee, or a Sadducee who made political deals with the powerful, or a guerrilla who sought the political liberation of his people,” the pope explained in the Mass.

“He was a Pastor! A Pastor Who spoke the language of His people, Who understood, Who spoke the truth, the things of God.” Addressing those present in the Vatican’s St. Martha guesthouse, the Roman pontiff drew attention to the scene in the day’s Gospel from Matthew in which the people were aston-

ished by the teachings of Jesus.

The pope said so many followed Jesus because “they were astonished by His teaching,” and His words “brought wonder to their hearts, the wonder of finding something good, great.”

Pope Francis noted there were four specific groups who also spoke out at the same time as Jesus, but were unable to reach the people.

The first such group were the Pharisees who reduced “the faith in the Living God” to a type of “casuistry” and bickering by burdening their people with “more than 300” commandments to follow, and subjecting them to “contradictions of the cruelest kind of moralistic quibbling.”

Giving an example, the pope stated “You have to obey the fourth Commandment!” to which the people respond “Yes, yes, yes!” or “You have to feed your elderly father, your elderly mother!” to which they also say “Yes, yes, yes! But you know, I

can’t because I gave my money to the temple!’”

“You don’t do that? And your parents starve to death!” he went on.

“The people respect (the Pharisees), because the people are respectful. They respected them, but they didn’t listen to them! They went about their business,” the pontiff observed.

The second group, the Sadducees, “did not have the faith, they had lost the faith,” because they “made it their religious work to make deals with the powers: political powers, economic powers.

They were men of power,” the pope said.

Another group was the “revolutionaries,” or the zealots, who “wanted to cause a revolution to free the people of Israel from the Roman occupation,” he noted.

However the people “had good sense, and knew to distinguish when the fruit was ripe and when it was not! And they didn’t follow them.”

The last group was the Essenes, the pope observed, saying that they were “good people” but that even though they were like monks who had consecrated their lives to God, they were still “far from the people, and the people couldn’t follow them.”

Pope Francis went on to describe that these “were the voices that reached the people, and none of these voices had the power to warm the hearts of the people.”

“But Jesus did! The crowds were amazed: They heard Jesus and their hearts were warmed.

The message of Jesus reached to the heart.”

Recalling how Jesus “approached the people,” healed their hearts and was “not ashamed to speak with sinners” but rather “went out to find them,” the pontiff explained that Christ “understood their difficulties” and “felt joy, He was happy to be with His people.”

“And this is why the people followed Jesus, because He was the Good Shepherd” Who “spoke in such a way that the people loved the things of God. That’s why they followed Him.” The Roman pontiff then invited the audience to question themselves: “Whom do I like to follow? Those who talk to me about abstract things or quibbling morals? Those who talk about the people of God but have no faith and negotiate with political, economic powers?”

“Those who always want to do strange things, destructive things, so-called wars of liberation, but which in the end are not the paths of the Lord? Or a faraway contemplative? Whom do I like to follow?”

Pope Francis concluded by praying for these questions to “bring us to prayer, and to ask God the Father, Who brings us close to Jesus, to follow Jesus, to be amazed at the things Jesus tells us.”

July 4, 2014

Anchor Columnist Let your fingers do the talking

Friday 4 July 2014 — Homeport: Falmouth Harbor — American Independence Day ou know me, dear readers, I keep my thumb on the pulse of the popular culture — or at least I thought I did until quite recently. Faithful reader Father David Deston has fraternally corrected me. It does no good whatsoever to keep my thumb on the pulse. The proper method of taking a pulse is not with the thumb at all but rather with the index and middle fingers. Father David should know. He’s a hospital chaplain. This goes a long way in explaining why I so often miss the mark when it comes to interpreting trends in contemporary culture. I’ve been using the wrong digit all along.

This quite naturally leads me to today’s meditation on the symbolic meaning of hand and finger gestures.

On this Independence Day, I think of the U.S. military salute. Some say it began in late Roman times, when political assassins known as the Sicarii (dagger-men) roamed the streets. In those days, when greeting a public official, it was best to show your right hand to prove you were unarmed.

Others say it came from medieval times when a knight in armor (shining or otherwise) would lift the visor of his helmet to reveal his face to a friend. Still others maintain it comes from tipping the hat. So many expensive military hats were worn out by this gesture of respect that, as a cost-cutting measure, the hat tipping was replaced by a salute. At any rate, a military salute is a signal of respect which uses the full right hand raised to the eyebrow, palm down.

The civilian pectoral salute of placing the hand over the heart during the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem was introduced by Congress in 1942 at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

There are also less honorable hand signs — those used by criminal gang members to identify themselves or to insult members of rival gangs, for example. These gestures are carefully studied by police departments all over the country.

Then there are similar signs used by “gangstastyle” musicians, hip-hop artists, and such iconic performers as Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. Our teens have picked up some of these gestures and repeat them in harmless imitation, generally oblivi-

Y

ous to the original meanings.

Did you know, dear readers, that hand signs have been used for centuries in Jewish, Catholic, and Orthodox worship? These prayer gestures are sometimes so subtle you might miss them.

In the Jewish tradition, the Aaronic Blessing (Num 6:22- 27) is prayed by the kohamin, the sons of Aaron, with hands extended over the people. Both hands are

The Ship’s Log

Even under attack, family shows its importance, Vatican official says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The continuing strength of many traditional families around the world and the longing of many people to have such a family demonstrate that “despite past or even current challenges, the family, in fact, is the fundamental unit of human society,” said the Vatican observer to U.N. agencies in Geneva.

Addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said the family “continually exhibits a vigor much greater than that of the many forces that have tried to eliminate it as a relic of the past or an obstacle to the emancipation of the individual or to the creation of a freer, egalitarian and happy society.”

The archbishop emphasized how important traditional families are for the development of the individual and for community development efforts.

Debates about “the nature and definition of the family” at

Reflections of a Parish Priest

the Human Rights Council and other U.N. agencies often give the impression that “the family is more of a problem than a resource to society,” the archbishop said. Yet “most people find unique protection, nurture and dynamic energy from their membership in a strong and healthy family founded upon Marriage between a man and a woman.”

And at a time when many countries are debating same-sex marriage, he said, “Ample evidence has demonstrated that the best interest of the child is assured in a harmonious family environment in which the education and formation of children develop within the context of lived experience with male and female parental role models.”

The Vatican, he said, firmly believes “the family and Marriage need to be defended and promoted not only by the state, but also by the whole of society.”

By Father Tim Goldrick

9

held flat, palms down, with the four fingers of each hand divided into a “V” shape. (Think “Star Trek”: “Live long and prosper.”) The hand gesture forms shin, an emblem of El Shaddi. El Shaddi is “The Lord God Almighty” in the Jewish priestly tradition of Torah.

As very young Roman Catholics, the first religious hand gesture we probably learned was the Sign of the Cross. We were taught to bless ourselves with our right hand in the Name of the Trinity — Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We used holy water to recall the original blessing of our Baptism.

In Eastern Rite icons of Jesus, the Lord is shown holding His right hand in a particular way. The pinkie and ring fingers are touching the thumb, these three digits symbolizing the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. The other two fingers are held straight. Those two fingers represent the two natures of Jesus — Divine and human. It’s a gesture that is sometimes used by the Vicar of Christ, the pope.

There’s another gesture used by Eastern Catholic and Orthodox bishops and priests. It is a form of finger spelling. The index finger of the right hand is held up straight (forming the letter “I”). The middle finger is slightly curved (forming the letter “C”). The ring finger is held down and crossing the thumb, thus forming an “X.” The pinkie is held up, but slightly curved in the form of another “C.” Put it together and what have you got? IC XC. These Greek letters are a Christogram or monogram for the name of Jesus. The four Greek letters stand for the Holy Name — Jesus the Christ.

We Roman Rite bishops and priests don’t speak as eloquently with our hands as do our Eastern Rite brothers. We bless with our hands extended, held flat, fingers together. You can see this when a priest extends his hands horizontally over the gifts of bread and wine placed on the altar. You can see this as well in a Solemn Blessing or Prayer over the People. We bless by making the Sign of the Cross in a similar fashion but with hands held vertically. You can see this at the very conclusion of Mass or in the blessing of religious objects.

So, dear readers, when it comes to prayer, you can sometimes let your fingers do the talking.

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

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lthough the “official” summer season has begun, in many ways July 4 is the kickoff of these easier months. School is over everywhere and vacations have been planned or will be planned in the near future.

The pace of pastoral activities slows down somewhat with the ending of Religious Education classes and the closing of school. In vacation areas, the work increases with the addition of extra Masses to accommodate the summer visitors.

We do not associate July 4 with thanksgiving. It is a celebration of our independence as a country. Festivities include cookouts, barbecues, fireworks, parades, etc., to celebrate our freedom. But, as someone has noted, freedom isn’t free.

With the news constantly reminding us of the dangers and difficulties where there is no freedom, perhaps we should spend a little time this July 4 giving thanks for those who have made us a free nation and for those who continue to make it free.

As a Church, we need to pray that

July 4, 2014

It’s good when thanks are given least, recognized. the freedom of religion continues as Most of us can relate to the relalegal constraints threaten to take away that freedom. We give thanks to those tive who has sent a gift for a birthday or wedding but it is never recognized. who lead us in fighting for our freedom in the legislature, and those who Gratitude is not a common experience these days. continue to defend our right to freeLetters to “Dear Abby” and other dom and independence in the armed such venues services. are frequentRecently, I ly discussing had the occaLiving the means sion to send the to overcome some flowers this lack of Faith to a person gratitude. for a signifiBy Msgr.

I can recall cant occasion John J. Oliveira one suggesin their life. tion that told It did not the grandtake much mother to send a check and not sign time, but it did consume some time in making the purchase, choosing the it. It would make the grandchild call to find out why the check was not arrangement, specifying the time of signed. It would also provide an opdelivery and then ultimately paying portunity to speak to the child. for the cost of the flowers sent.

It is my personal goal not to cash It was a pleasure to get an aca check or deposit a gift (not that knowledgement. It was by email, and there are that many) until a thank you was simply a four word expression of gratitude. While I might have expect- note has been sent. I recall one person ed a more gracious response, it was, at checking his bank statement wondering if I had received the check since it was not cashed. I explained that I wanted to send a note first.

Gratitude is not experienced today. To some extent, I think people expect others to be at their service.

As a priest, you do not get many thanks from the people you serve.

Much like one’s boss not saying thanks, it is just expected that you do your job. As someone has said, they don’t thank you for what you have done, but for what you are going to do.

Although one does not work for thanks, it is nice when it is given.

Ultimately, we know God is aware of our efforts and is pleased with them. That’s what really counts.

It is in this context that I am pleased that those in charge in the Diocese of Fall River have scheduled an opportunity to express our gratitude to Bishop George W. Coleman for his

years of service to our diocese in his ministry as priest and bishop. This will consist of a Mass of Thanksgiving and a public reception. Originally scheduled for this month, the event has been changed to August to allow those vacationing to participate.

While being the bishop of a diocese has probably never been easy, these days it is more difficult.

Not only are legal concerns always an issue, but the closing of parishes and the shortage of clergy make the episcopacy more onerous. The lack of active participation of many Catholics in their parishes heightens the problems that exist.

In the 23 years I worked with Bishop Daniel A. Cronin and Bishop Sean P. O’Malley, OFM, Cap., the number of complaints far exceeded the calls to offer thanks for their ministry.

As he awaits his retirement, it is good that we acknowledge with gratitude the many things Bishop Coleman has accomplished quietly.

The pastors have collaborated with him; some, serving in more than one parish. Others have accepted difficult assignments at his request. We are grateful for how he has guided us in the love of God and neighbor in the years he has served as our bishop.

Anyone who decides to do something is criticized, and, if they decide to do nothing, they are criticized as well. We are grateful that Bishop Coleman has had the courage to make difficult decisions and has thereby assisted the Church of Fall River. While there are challenges the new bishop will face, they will be less because of the leadership of our bishop.

My personal gratitude is expressed to Bishop Coleman for his support and allowing me to continue as diocesan director for the Pontifical Mission Societies and as director of the deacons. Likewise, I am grateful for having been able to continue to serve as a Minister of Confirmation during his tenure — thank you bishop.

As we celebrate July 4, let us be grateful for our freedom and for those who sustain it. But this year, let us also be grateful for all that Bishop George W. Coleman has accomplished. We pray his retirement years will be filled with much good health and happiness.

Anchor columnist Msgr. Oliveira is pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford and director of the diocesan Propagation of the Faith and Permanent Diaconate off ices.

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

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July 4, 2014

St. Faustina play brings Divine Mercy message to life

Seattle, Wash. (CNA/ ultimate reality,” Defilippis said. more accessible. A small set and EWTN News) — A once-ob- “And I think Faustina is an in- cast allows the productions to scure nun from 1930s Poland credible sign right now to help us be staged in smaller venues such would probably be surprised to deal with what we call our pass- as churches and nursing homes, find that she is the subject of a ing, and that’s why I think this which is cheaper, and likely to atplay travelling all across the Unit- play is so exciting.” tract a wider audience. ed States in 2014.

The actress said she had always Defilippis has seen his plays But popular demand was prayed the chaplet with her family impact people in extraordinary, what ultimately drove Leonardo and knew of Divine Mercy Sun- and more ordinary ways.

Defilippis, founder of St. Luke day, but it wasn’t until she audi“I’ve had blind people being productions, to create “Faustina: tioned for the role of the saint that able to see a show, and then they Messenger of Divine Mercy.” she really began learning about St. revert back, but they actually saw “It’s amazing how there’s an Faustina. Once Vargo landed the the show. God gave them the interest in her. She was kind of role, Defilippis sent her to spend grace to do that. Many things hidden (in her life), but Divine a week with Sisters from the same have happened that are strange, Mercy is probably the fastest order as Faustina who live in but also very common,” Defilipgrowing devotion in the entire Dorchester. pis said, adding that he’s heard of world,” he said.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh my people who name their child after “When I saw that young peo- gosh I don’t know about this, for seeing a play about a certain saint ple were really into her or who have met their fuand they had a devotion ture spouse at a show. to her, I said I need to be The Faustina show open to doing a play on in particular has forced Faustina.” people to confront places The one-woman, two in their lives where they hour show tells the story need forgiveness and of St. Faustina Kowalhealing, Defilippis said. ska, who at a young age “We have a huge upjoined the Sisters of Our tick of Confessions hapLady of Mercy, and who pening when they leave received visions and mes(the show), which is sages from Christ which amazing to think about she inscribed in a diary. that a play is increasing Christ asked her to tell the Sacraments,” Defilipthe whole world about pis said.

His message of mercy, Vargo said she hoped which would prepare that the audience would mankind for the end of come away from the play Photo courtesy of St. Luke’s Productions. the world. knowing “that they are so While the saint died loved and so special that at the age of 33, she had already an entire week? What am I going Our Lord would do anything for filled hundreds of pages with the to do?’” Vargo said, “But by the them, and it’s never too late to be words Christ spoke to her, which end of it I was crying because I forgiven for anything that you’ve is now a published volume enti- had to leave.” done.”

Vargo was encouraged to purtled “Divine Mercy in My Soul.”

For future plays, Defilippis is In 2000, St. John Paul II canon- sue acting and performing after looking into a variety of saints — ized her, instituted the feast of Di- a grade school teacher compli- John Paul II, Benedict, Mother vine Mercy, and helped to spread mented her singing voice. Several Teresa and Clare, to name a few. devotion to the Divine Mercy im- years into her acting career after He said while his production stuhigh school and college, she had a dio has dabbled in other art forms age and chaplet.

Featuring Maria Vargo as deeper conversion in her faith. such as film, he believes live dra“That made me want to do ma has the most powerful impact Faustina, the play shows the joys and great struggles the saint en- things that glorified God,” Vargo dured in her life as a mystic. Wo- said. For a few years, Vargo set ven into the play is also a modern acting aside to write and record story of healing and forgiveness original Christian music. She in the life of a young woman who then was working for a faithbased theater company when a learns about Divine Mercy.

“I love what Jesus said about friend told her about auditions for the chaplet — that even the most “Faustina.”

While Vargo interacts with hardened sinner would receive grace if he prayed the chaplet characters who appear on a screen one time,” said Vargo. “I think the during the play, she said being the show is super powerful in show- only live actress on stage was an ing that we can pray for everyone adjustment.

“It took a lot of trusting in the and that our sacrifice and pain is worth something if we unite it to Lord,” she admitted. “I’m used to working with actors that are there His pain and suffering.”

What also makes “Faustina” in the flesh, and I had to make a powerful story is that it forces it look and feel as believable as people to face the reality that they possible that I’m having a living, will someday die and meet Jesus, breathing experience with this screen.”

Defilippis said.

Defilippis said he often cre“The biggest taboo in our culture is death. No one wants to ates small shows with just one deal with death. But that is the or two actors, to make the plays

on an audience.

“It does something to you that movies can’t do because you’re right there in the moment, and it really touches you. You’re in a way having a more Incarnational experience where for a moment you feel like you’re really seeing the saint,” he said. “It’s kind of like, ‘Would rather see Jesus on film or would you rather see Him in person?’”

The power of a live perfor-

mance is also something Vargo has seen affect herself and her audiences.

“Someone came up to me after a show and said, ‘You’re not acting, you’re living it.’ And that’s how I feel, I’ve put my whole heart and soul into it. I give it everything I have,” Vargo said.

“Faustina: Messenger of Divine Mercy” will continue to tour the United States through the spring of 2015.

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July 4, 2014

Catholic site aims to engage through beauty, accessibility Rome, Italy (CNA) — The U.K.-based Faith movement has just launched a new interactive website aimed at giving Catholics the tools for evangelization in an accessible, attractive format.

“What the Faith movement does well is allow you to see the coherence of the Catholic faith,” said Middlesbrough seminarian Ryan Day, who helped with the development of the site.

“The great value of this new website is that it offers a way to explain, in an everyday synthetic way, how the truths of the faith and the Catholic Church fit together,” he recently told CNA. The site contains videos, articles, blog posts, and free pamphlets for download that respond to common “big questions” such as “Why God?” “Why Jesus Christ?” and “Why the Church?”

Day, age 29, noted, “We are an aesthetic generation. People are interested in the packaging of a message as much as they are interested in the content.”

Its creators hope the site will be a user-friendly resource for young Catholics and others looking for deeper answers to questions about their faith.

Thirty-one-year-old seminarian Matthew O’Gorman, studying for the priesthood with the Diocese of Southwark, said, “Given it’s available on your tablet or smartphone, it’s like having a little St. Paul in your palm.

It’s what young people need and it’ll help them realize that Jesus Christ and His Church is what they’re looking for in their hearts.”

“The website will really help when friends ask, ‘Why do you go to Church on Sunday?’ so that you can now give really good reasons,” said 21-year-old Vanessa Reith, a student at the University of Edinburgh who also helped shape the site.

“I find Faith is a place I can ask questions and not be frustrated by the answer. There’s no fear of the truth and that’s attractive.”

The Faith movement, which holds conferences, symposia, and evenings of reflection, as well as publishing a magazine, was founded in 1972. Its goal is “to offer the Church and the world a new insight into the Catholic faith based upon a synthesis of contemporary science and Divine revelation.”

“Without the Faith movement I wouldn’t be in seminary.

When I was 14 I needed to be convinced before being converted and that is exactly what Faith

does. They give a clear message about how believing in God makes sense: it’s not crazy being Catholic,” O’Gorman remarked.

O’Gorman and Day are only two of the many young men who became involved with the Faith movement at a young age and have since gone on to discernment of a priestly vocation.

Day credits the large numbers of religious vocations to the Faith movement’s “synthetic, Christcentered theology.”

“It’s hard to hear about Christ as the answer to the deepest questions of mankind and the source of all our healing and all our joy and our final end, and the Church as the continuation of Christ’s mission on earth and not see the priesthood as absolutely essential in the Christian life,” he explained.

“The vision of the priesthood that comes with that kind of Christ-centered theology really encourages young men like myself to ask seriously that question: Am I being called to play my part in the Lord’s work as another Christ for His people?”

Dominic Findlay-Wilson, studying for the priesthood with the Diocese of Clifton, said the Faith movement was “instrumental in me discerning my vocation. It seemed to present such a sound and all encompassing vision of my faith.”

Findlay-Wilson began attending the Faith summer sessions almost 20 years ago.

He recalled that he was “attracted by the enthusiasm and the joy that the priests had as well as the sound teaching they gave. It seemed to me that they gave concrete answers to many questions I had concerning my faith.”

“In all my years of attending conferences I have never seen a question that hasn’t been answered yet!” he remarked.

The new website aims to offer those answers in a more modern venue.

“The website really gives you a sense of what it is like at the conferences,” explained Day. “You can see young people who are happy, who are engaged with their faith.”

On the site, “you can find a coherent apologetic vision in which the truths of the faith — from why God exists to why there is a Church — come together perfectly, on an everyday level of explanation.”

The site can be found at: faith. org.uk

CNS Movie Capsule “Transformers: Age of Extinction” (Paramount) Initially engaging but interminable 3-D action sequel in which a small-time inventor (Mark Wahlberg), his teen daughter (Nicola Peltz) and her boyfriend ( Jack Reynor) get caught up in a clash between good and evil alien robots capable of changing shape at will. Director Michael Bay’s fourth installment of a saga based on a set of Hasbro toys benefits from Wahlberg’s strong presence, an amusing turn by Stanley Tucci as a Steve Jobs-like tech pioneer and some pleasant visuals. But scattered religious references and

Mark Wahlberg and Jack Reynor star in a scene from the movie “Transformers: Age of Extinction.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsule. (CNS photo/Andrew Cooper, Paramount Pictures)

a more sustained theme about the dangers of overreacting to terrorism — Kelsey Grammer plays a top-ranking CIA agent for whom the only good automaton is a dead one — wind up being obscured by constant combat and ridiculous dialogue. Ehren Kruger’s script also includes a wayward relationship and a heavy dose of vulgarity, making this an inappropriate sci-fi slog for the youthful viewers who might best be able to en-

dure it. Relentless, though largely bloodless, violence, an implied premarital situation, at least one use each of profanity and rough language, numerous crude and crass terms. 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.

Bishop’s letter on ‘language of love’ finds global audience

Lincoln, Neb., (CNA/ EWTN News) — Nebraska Bishop James D. Conley’s pastoral letter “The Language of Love” has had an international impact in the first three months since it was published.

“Sacrifice is the language of love,” Bishop Conley’s pastoral letter reads. “Love is spoken in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, Who poured out His life for us on the cross. Love is spoken in the sacrifice of the Christian life, sharing in Christ’s life, death, and Resurrection. And love is spoken in the sacrifice of parents, and pastors, and friends.”

The pastoral letter, published March 25, discusses topics like Marriage and the reasons behind Catholic rejection of contraception and sterilization. It is addressed to the Catholic families and healthcare providers of the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb. The letter was reprinted in several outlets in the U.S. and in other countries. In Germany, the Bishop of Regensburg cited the letter in a homily and a Germanlanguage translation was published on the popular website Kath.net.

A Danish translation of the letter was published at the website of the Denmark-based magazine Katolsk. It has also been published in the Philippines.

Last week in London, Bishop Conley spoke about “The Language of Love” at St. Patrick’s Evangelization School, a forma-

tion program for young adults aged 20-30 based at the parish of St. Patrick in London’s SoHo neighborhood.

At the time of its release, the pastoral letter was delivered to every Catholic family registered in the Diocese of Lincoln. It was also made available as a podcast on the diocese’s website.

Bishop Conley’s letter says that American culture rejects “the gift of new life,” and therefore rejects love, through the use of contraception, which “gravely and seriously disrupts the sacrificial, holy and loving meaning of Marriage itself.”

Marriage is a call to “loving as God loves freely, creatively and generously.”

The letter also exhorts Catholic physicians, pharmacists and other health care professionals to pursue the “art of healing.”

It notes that contraception and sterilization “denigrate and degrade the body’s very purpose.”

In March, Bishop Conley told CNA that Catholics who reject or ignore the immorality of contraception should look to the Church and to the teachings of Christ as “a message of love and mercy,” a message proclaimed by Pope Francis.

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

Celebrant is Father David C. Deston Jr., Technical Assistant at St. Michael Parish, and Chaplain at Charlton Memorial Hospital, both in Fall River.

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July 4, 2014

Granny squares

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s I read Dr. Mary Neal’s book, “To Heaven And Back,” my attention was drawn to her analogy of God as Master Weaver and each of us as a thread. Neal says, “Without our individual contribution, the tapestry would be incomplete or broken.” Weaving is outside my realm of personal experience so my mind substituted crocheting with yarn. I visualized a pattern I had seen where each granny square was a different color and/or different pattern of stitches. Yet, together these squares made a stunning afghan.

The poem “The Master Weaver’s Plan” (http:// www.meetmeinthemeadow. com/2012/02/the-masterweavers-plan/) describes human life as a weaving between the Lord and me. Yet, it is the Lord filling the shuttle and doing the weaving. In this model, where is free will?

Where is a person recognizing God’s gifts and choosing how to best use them? Only the Master Weaver gets to see the finished upper side of

from the forefront of my mind the cloth. I don’t know about until quite by accident I found you, but I always wish to the connection that I needed understand connections and to better appreciate the model where we are going. of God as Master Weaver. I In her book, “A History with God,” Dr. Mary McDon- found an old student sketch modeling protein synthesis. ald presents a seemingly conI smiled as I stared down trary image of God. McDonald describes the symbolism of at grandma in her rocking a Crucifix with Jesus without arms. Each of us is to serve as Jesus’ Wrestling with God arms for His work in Holding on for this world. To do this, His blessing our actions have to be work-centered on God and focused upon

By Dr. Helen J. Flavin what God wishes us to do. chair making an afghan (new I tried in vain to syntheprotein) from yarn and granny size the two images. I finally squares (amino acid building decided that Neal’s book was blocks). In the cell, grandma about her afterdeath experi(protein synthesis) works with ences. As such, her model of a the materials and directions at finished tapestry makes sense hand. Yet, there is an underfor analysis of a completed human life. However, as Soren lying purpose, direction and guidance to that process.

Kierkegaard says, “Life can That sketch reminded me only be understood backwards; of a Lenten project where but it must be lived forwards.”

Thus, McDonald’s idea seemed students were invited to join a group to prepare afghans for to fit better with my life expecharity. I had thought to have riences. them each do some granny I let the controversy slip

Fall synod to review state of family; 2015 synod to draw up proposals

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Representatives of the world’s Catholic bishops, meeting together in a synod, are not expected to make any formal proposals about the Church’s pastoral care of families until after a second, larger gathering in 2015.

The extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family will meet at the Vatican October 5-19, bringing together the presidents of national bishops’ conferences, the heads of Eastern Catholic churches and Vatican officials.

The world Synod of Bishops, which will include more bishops — many elected by their peers — will meet at the Vatican Oct. 4-25, 2015.

Introducing the working document for the first synod assembly — formally an “extraordinary” synod — Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, said participants “will thoroughly examine and analyze the information, testimonies and recommendations received” from around the world in response to a questionnaire sent out in November.

The responses to the questionnaire, submitted by about 90 percent of the world’s bishops’ conferences and about 800 Catholic organizations or indi-

viduals, formed the basis for the working document for the extraordinary assembly.

The results of the extraordinary assembly will form the basis for the working document for the 2015 meeting, he said.

The general assembly in 2015, “representing a great part of the episcopate and continuing the work of the previous synod, will reflect further on the points discussed so as to formulate appropriate pastoral guidelines,” the cardinal said.

Only the suggestions of the 2015 synod will be forwarded to the pope as formal proposals for Church action, he said.

The theme of the extraordinary synod is: “The pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization.” Cardinal Baldisseri said there would be about 190 voting members, plus “fraternal delegates” from other Christian churches as well as observers and experts appointed by Pope Francis.

At a news conference June 26, Cardinal Baldisseri announced that the theme of the 2015 synod would be: “Jesus Christ reveals the mystery and vocation of the family.” That gathering, he said, was expected to include about 250 voting members.

In a letter to families in February, Pope Francis explained that the “extraordinary synodal assembly will be followed a year later by the ordinary assembly, which will also have the family as its theme.”

The pope also noted that the World Meeting of Families would take place in Philadelphia in September 2015; “may we all, then, pray together so that through these events the Church will undertake a true journey of discernment and adopt the necessary pastoral means to help families face their present challenges with the light and strength that comes from the Gospel.”

Cardinal Baldisseri announced that Catholics around the world will be asked to observe a day of prayer for the synod and its deliberations September 28.

Italian Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto, chosen

by Pope Francis to be the special secretary of the extraordinary synod, recently told reporters, “the doctrine of the Church is not up for discussion,” but the synod members will be called upon to find ways to improve the “pastoral application” of Church teachings, ways to explain it and to help Catholics live it.

squares. Then one of us would bind those into an afghan.

This way one afghan would symbolically be a team effort.

However, each student insisted on doing her own baby blanket. Since I had already made a number of squares, I finished that project.

A friend wished a baby blanket for her Costa Rican friend who was expecting a little girl. I offered her the choice of my completed afghans. The moment she saw the blanket with the granny squares she fell in love with it. I tried to explain that its design was simple compared to the others.

She would not hear of sending any other blanket.

The short story “The Baby Blanket” by Winoma Smith presents a similar tale, but one whose focus is on the recipient. Sometime after Smith had sent the afghan to her church, a former neighbor returned to visit. The neighbor shared the tale of someone unknown, yet so special in her daughter and granddaughter’s lives.

Smith’s gift had left the state and ended up in the hands of an unwed teen-ager.

This girl doubted her ability to be a mother. However, seeing her newborn daughter wrapped in the blanket gave that young girl the courage to accept the responsibility of motherhood. Yes, the neighbor’s daughter was that unwed mother.

With our gifts and resources, Smith and I had each worked on a small project.

I had thought of myself in control and as serving as God’s hands to complete the venture.

However, in looking at the whole picture, God had something else in mind for each of our humble undertakings.

With this, I finally had my synthesis of the images of God. I understood what it meant to be a weaver under the Master Weaver. In addition, I learned that in stillness, contemplation and mystery of coincidences one can catch a glimpse of God’s right side up of the tapestry.

The poem “God’s Quilt” (found at http://thestarlitecafe. com/poems/101/ poem_8340380.html) presents an interesting view of the tapestry of our lives come Judgment Day. In the poem, the person watches as an angel sews together the squares made from her life. As the finished quilt is raised, she fears the threadbare spots in the squares.

However, the light shining through provides an image of the Face of Christ. For each of us, may the Face of God, the Master Weaver, always shine through the granny squares we are weaving with our talents and choices in serving the Christ without arms.

Anchor columnist Helen Flavin is a Catholic scientist, educator and writer born and raised in Fall River. She is a member of St. Bernadette’s Parish and received her Ph.D. in neurochemistry from Boston College and teaches in the Chemistry Department at Rhode Island College. She can be reached at Helen Flavin biochemwz@ hotmail.com.

An Argentina fan wears a mask of Pope Francis as he attends the recent 2014 World Cup Group F final between Argentina and Nigeria at the Beira Rio stadium in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Argentina defeated Nigeria, 3-2. (CNS photo/Stefano Rellandini, Reuters)

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July 4, 2014

Fourth generation member to become grand knight in Falmouth continued from page one

in Massachusetts. And our first grand knight, my greatgrandfather, grew up in Woods Hole. My grandmother grew up in Woods Hole.

My mother grew up in Woods Hole. I grew up in East Falmouth, but my family is from Woods Hole.”

Little did he know back in 2007 when he was first asked to join the Knights of Columbus that Pinto would soon be filling the shoes of his greatgrandfather as the council’s grand knight.

“The grand knight at the time was Norman Drouin, and I knew him from St. Anthony’s Parish in East Falmouth,” Pinto said. “He came up to me after Mass one day and asked if I’d ever heard of the Knights of Columbus and if I ever considered joining.”

It wasn’t long after being recruited that Pinto was soon tapped to serve as the council’s treasurer, given his affinity for numbers and the fact that he was an accounting major in college.

“I took on the treasurer’s role in that first year and it sort of snowballed from there,” Pinto said. “I started asking a lot of questions. One of the questions I asked was: ‘What’s the Robert Goffin Association?’ I was told the council itself could not hold any real property, and so they had to set up a building corporation to hold the property and it was named the Robert Goffin Corporation. I asked why they picked Robert Goffin and they told me he was the (council’s) first grand knight.”

Admitting he was being coy about the whole thing,

Pinto said he inquired at the next meeting if anyone had a photograph of Robert Goffin.

“They said they didn’t think any pictures existed,” Pinto said. “So the next meeting I came in and brought a photo of Robert Goffin to them.

They asked: ‘Where did you get that?’ I told them: ‘From my mother; he’s her grandfather.’”

It soon dawned on his brother knights that Pinto had a direct relation to their founding grand knight.

“I knew he had been in the council and I knew he was the first grand knight, because my mother and aunts had told me about him,” Pinto said.

Although he’s served in various roles since joining the K of C in 2007, it wasn’t until he agreed to take on the position of deputy grand knight a couple of years ago that Pinto gave any serious consideration to possibly taking on the title that his great-grandfather once held.

“The deputy grand knight they had at the time had taken on a second job … and they wanted me to take the position,” Pinto said. “At that point I became the deputy grand knight — that was about a year-and-a-half ago — I was appointed to fill out his term and then last year I was elected for another oneyear term.”

With the exception of the trustees and the financial secretary, all of whom serve three-year terms, Pinto said most officers are installed for one-year terms, although “it’s generally accepted that you’ll serve two or three years.”

“It takes a year to learn

This week in 50 years ago — A group of girls from the diocese met at St. Joseph’s Church in Fall River to prepare to travel to Colombia, British Honduras, Oklahoma, and New Mexico as part of the Papal Volunteers for Latin America and Extension Lay Volunteers programs.

25 years ago — More than 350 men and women from the Fall River Diocese were commissioned extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion in ceremonies held at Notre Dame Church in Fall River, Immaculate Conception Church in Taunton, and St. Pius X Church in South Yarmouth.

the job and at that point they don’t want to let you go,” he added. “I’ve been asked if I would serve at least two years, and I agreed.”

At the same time he was elected to another one-year term as deputy grand knight, Pinto was also asked to serve as a district warden for the K of C. “You have all the local councils in the towns and parishes, and they answer to the state council, and the state council answers to the supreme council, which is based in Connecticut,” Pinto explained. “Within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, as it’s called, there are different districts. I think there are about 56, maybe a little bit more.

Every district has a district deputy. You go from the state deputy and state board down to the district level, then down to the councils.”

According to Father Timothy Goldrick, pastor of St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth and chaplain-elect for Council No. 813, every parish he has served has had an active K of C council.

“I find the men of the Knights to be extremely supportive of the life and ministry of priests and seminarians,” Father Goldrick said.

“The Knights are willing and able to share their time and talent with the faith community on all levels. I’m proud to be called a brother Knight.”

Noting that the K of C is much more than “a generic men’s club or good-time social club,” Father Goldrick said the organization was founded on the Christian precepts of spirituality and morality.

Diocesan history

10 years ago — Father Richard D. Wilson was appointed pastor of the newlymerged Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish at St. James Church in New Bedford, uniting the four parishes of St. Anne, St. Hedwig, St. James, and Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.

One year ago — The Christian Leadership Institute celebrated its 25th anniversary by hosting 18 teen-agers at Cathedral Camp in East Freetown. More than 1,000 young people have graduated from CLI since its inception in the Fall River Diocese.

“They are strong supporters of the beliefs and teachings of the Catholic Church,” he said. “They are fine Catholic gentlemen.”

Although there are about 135 members on the council’s membership roster, Pinto said there are maybe about 30 who remain active and show up on a regular basis.

“But we can work with 20 to 30 and we can build on that,” he said. “I’ve gotten a couple of guys that I know to join, now the trick is to get them to become more active.”

While they still use their longtime facility located at 279 Brick Kiln Road in Falmouth for meetings and events, Pinto said they sold the building a couple of years ago and maintain deeded rights to the space, which has led to some misconceptions that the council is no longer active.

“It’s one of those situations where we’re very much in a rebuilding phase,” he said. “My goal as grand knight is to increase our activity every year.

I hope we can recruit some new members and the trick now is to have something for them to do. There are all sorts of programs out there that the Knights of Columbus support. I have a little bit of a game plan, and now it’s time to sit down and present it to the members.”

One of Pinto’s first agenda items is to implement a business plan for the council.

“It may sound strange for a fraternal, charitable organization, but I think we need one,” he said. “Then we need to be able to get the word out that certain programs are available, and then we’ll go from there.”

Some of the K of C-supported programs that Pinto hopes to revitalize include things like an essay contest for the local schools, a soccer challenge, and a free-throw contest. He also hopes to reach out more to the greater community beyond the three parishes the council now serves.

“I don’t know if I’ll get to everything this year, but I’ll start with the small programs and take steps to get our name out there,” he said. “It’s all about public relations. Anywhere we go, we need to make sure we either have a sign with us that says Knights of Columbus, or wear something to identify us to make sure people know we still exist. We’ve got to get out and keep visible.”

Noting that it’s not a prob-

lem unique to the K of C, Pinto said many Church-related and charitable organizations have seen a downturn in membership and participation in recent years.

“Everyone is doing their own thing these days and people think if I can just email or text someone, I don’t need to see them,” Pinto said. “And then the people in my age group are busy raising families, often working one, two or three jobs to support them, so there’s not a lot of time to devote to other things. That’s life.”

Pinto said he hopes many of his family members and friends will attend the council’s 111th installation ceremony on July 20, during which he and 14 other officers will be installed for the 20142015 fraternal year.

“I would say that my mom had a smile from ear to ear when she found out I was going to become grand knight, but it might have wrapped around her head,” he said.

“My mother is very proud.

But my girlfriend is a little bit wary. She’s already seen some of the things I’ve had to do as deputy grand knight.”

“I am excited to have Greg Pinto serving as the grand knight of the Falmouth council,” Father Goldrick said. “He brings with him to the office both the enthusiasm of a young man and the deep community roots of an elder. It’s the best of both worlds.

“If I was asked to describe Greg in three words, those words would be ‘faith,’ ‘courage,’ and ‘enthusiasm.’ These are the three marks of a Catholic leader.”

For Pinto, taking on the role of grand knight is just another way for him to serve the council his great-grandfather helped found 111 years ago.

“Every problem that creeps up is mine; and every accolade that creeps up is the council’s — that the way I see it,” he said. “I don’t expect people to pat me on the back, because I’ve got all these other people to help out. All I’m doing is standing here steering the ship, but if the guys don’t go and put the sails up, we’ll just sit here in the water. But I’ll do my best to put a vision out there and say: ‘This is where we want to go.’”

For more information about the Knights of Columbus and local councils within the Fall River Diocese, visit www. massachusettsstatekofc.org.

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July 4, 2014

South Yarmouth parish marks 60th anniversary SOUTH YARMOUTH — On June 22 parishioners began the 60th anniversary celebration at St. Pius X Parish in South Yarmouth. The parish was founded in June of 1954, and it had the honor of hosting some of the first families who began worshiping at the church 60 years ago. One couple also renewed their vows at the noontime Mass.

Msgr. Henry T. Munroe was the celebrant, Father Philip Davignon was the homilist, and the concelebrants included pastor Father George Bellenoit, Father

Jason Brilhante, Father Daniel Cambra, Father Lawrence Pratt, Father Andre Remillard, and Father William Salmon.

Following the Mass there was a picnic at the parish life center. Hundreds of people came out to enjoy the picnic and to swap memories of their time spent at St. Pius.

The picnic was staffed by volunteers who cooked hot dogs and hamburgers for everyone and parishioners brought a mountain of homemade cakes, cookies and sweets to share.

From left: Father George Bellenoit, Msgr. Henry Munroe, and Father Jason Brilhante have a hand in cutting the cake for the 60th anniversary of St. Pius X Parish in South Yarmouth. (Photo by Ben Volpe)

M

y pooch Igor and I have the perfect relationship.

She knows I’m the alpha-dog and she always treats me with love and respect. Except, maybe, when there’s a perfectly-grilled, leftover swordfish steak unattended on the table waiting to be wrapped up and put in the fridge.

That’s when she becomes a magician and makes the swordfish steak disappear — in one gulp and then gives me the old “Who me?” look. I’ve since forgiven her for that, but will never forget.

But this summer, good old Iggy and I are having a border war.

My deck, from early spring until late fall, becomes our primary living room. The Jolivets spend more time on the deck than inside during this time.

The problem is, our deck faces the south, which means we get

Summer events just heating up for area faithful continued from page one

can friar, Father Radcliffe has taught, studied and continues to live at the Blackfriars in Oxford.

On August 7 at 7 p.m., Mark K. Shriver will present “Faith, Hope and Love in Action” by using his father’s example to glean insights about the durability of faith. Shriver will share the lessons he learned in writhing his New York Times best-selling and Christopher Award-winning memoir, “A Good Man: Rediscovering my Father, Sargent Shriver.”

“The speaker series is a great way for parishes to collaborate,” said Msgr. Hoye. “We are able to offer an excellent adult education series.”

The Blessing of the Fleet in New Bedford will be taking place during the Working Waterfront Festival September on September 29 at 1 p.m.

From July 31 to August 3, the streets of New Bedford will come alive as thousands of visitors will descend on the city to celebrate the 100th feast of the Blessed Sacrament, founded by four Madeiran immigrant men who wanted to recreate the religious festivals that were so common in the villages of their home island and to commemorate their safe passage to these American shores. A summer tradition, the feast has become the largest Portuguese feast in the world.

For the youth in the diocese, there is a summer program being offered at the College of St. Mary Magdalen in Warner, N.H. High school students can take the opportunity to study

theology, philosophy, literature and political science. During the summer program, students also attend daily Mass, enjoy sports, socials and day-trips that include hiking and canoeing. The program is open to students entering their sophomore, junior or senior year of high school; it runs from July 27 to August 9. For more information, go to www.magdalen.edu or contact the admissions office: 603-4562656.

On July 11, the Pro-Life Apostolate of the Fall River Diocese will be hosting its fourth annual Pro-Life Boot Camp at Stonehill College in North Easton. A huge part of its continued success is seeing campers returning to work as junior staffers, as past junior staffers return as chaperones, said diocesan director of the Pro-Life Apostolate, Marian Desrosiers, who also credits Jocelyn Trindade and Cassandra Borges as tireless supporters and volunteers for the annual Boot Camp.

“We are very excited,” said Desrosiers, as she began to list the speakers who will present during the weekend. “Father Roger Landry [pastor of St. Bernadette’s Parish in Fall River] will join us on Saturday evening and keynote with ‘Renew: The New Evangelization.’ Judy Studer, the Guardian of the International Our Lady of Fatima Statue and her granddaughter, Jessica Marfeo, Miss Rhode Island 2013, will speak on Sunday to campers and their parents.

A member of Pure in Heart, Christina Giordano, from Bos-

Someone has it made in the shade

flip-flops for dogs — at least not full sun exposure from 10 a.m. that I know. Plus, there’s no way until about 4:30 p.m.

For Denise, this is not a prob- she can plop down and lay on the deck-turned-grill. lem. She’s a sun goddess and is This year, I decided to invest totally in her element under the big yellow orb.

But for me, that’s problematic. After years and years of playing baseball, softball, basketball, running road races and going to the beach,

By Dave Jolivet my skin is quite sundamaged, and I’ve had a few skin problems over the years. In fact I had part of my in a big sun umbrella to provide shade for me and Iggy. ear removed from such damage.

It’s a seven-foot umbrella, and So, I must be prudent and careful it casts a decent amount of shade. when it comes to sun exposure.

As soon as I mounted it in posiThe problem for my canine tion and opened it for the first is that the direct sunlight causes time, Igor immediately staked a the deck floorboards to become claim dead center in its path. I scalding hot. It’s unbearable on my two bare feet, not to mention didn’t even have a chance to get my deck chair in position.

Igor’s four. And they don’t make

My View From the Stands

Now, as the day progresses, obviously the sun slides across the sky changing the position of the shade on the deck.

That means Igor and I scramble to get the best spot. This has been going on for a couple of months now, and I can’t seem to get the upper paw on this.

She’s too quick for me. One time as I was moving my chair to a better position — already claimed by Iggy — I brushed her tail and she shot me an evil eye. Emilie said “Dad, you put the chair on her tail!” I retorted, “Relax, she’s overreacting.” Then we both noticed a clump of fur beneath my chair leg. Oops, sorry pup.

Added to this mix is the fact that Emilie is not the sun god-

ton and Jay Hamel, married father of eight, will be speaking to the young men and women on Femininity/Masculinity. They spoke last year, did a tremendous job, and were well-received by the youth; Jay is from St. Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet.”

Father Riley Williams, a parochial vicar St. Vincent de Paul and St. John the Evangelist parishes in Attleboro, will speak and help during the course of the weekend, while Deacon Eduardo Borges will be joining the group for the first time as a speaker.

Thanks to financial and spiritual support by contributors that include Mass. State Council of the Knights of Columbus, local Knight councils, parish and individuals, the annual Pro-Life Boot Camp is accessible to all, said Desrosiers.

The St. Mary’s Education Fund Gala, an annual fundraiser whose proceeds benefit the St. Mary’s Education Fund that provides need-based scholarships to students in the Diocese of Fall River, is being held on July 11 at the Willowbend Country Club in Mashpee.

Various levels of sponsorship are available. For more information, contact Jane Robin at 508-7593566.

The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro (www.lasaletteshrine.org) and its Retreat and Conference Center (www. lasaletteretreatcenter.com) have many events during the summer; click on “Events Calendar” on their respective websites.

dess her mother is and she likes the shade as much as her dad and canine sister. And when Danny is over, he too vies for a shady spot.

I imagine it’s quite the sight for our neighbors to see three adults and a dog squeezed into one area on the deck while Denise and the plants have the other 80 percent.

Some would say, “Get a bigger umbrella,” but that’s not practical because it would block the sun from our flowers, tomato, strawberry, and pepper plants.

That would mean the plants and Denise would be fighting for the sun spots.

Once we’re back indoors, I’m back to being the alpha-dog, sans the swordfish. At least in the house I have it made in the shade.

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

16

Youth Pages

Msgr. Stephen J. Avila recently surprised students at St. Mary’s School in Mansfield by making a guest appearance at field day as the Ice Cream Man! Ice cream was supplied by the School Parent Association.

July 4, 2014

The fifth-grade students at Holy Name School in Fall River recently shared their “Book in a Bag” projects with their classmates. Students read a book of their choosing and gave a summary using a variety of artifacts to enhance their reports.

Kindergarten students from St. Mary-Sacred Heart School in North Attleboro recently held a graduation ceremony accompanied by school director, Father David Costa; principal, Denise Peixoto; two teachers: Maria Stathakis and Elizabeth Moura and their aides: Shannon Gartman, Lisa Trotter and Tammie Ahearn. The students sang songs about moving on to first grade and all received a special diploma.

Students in grade eight at St. James- St. John School in New Bedford recently visited Inner Bay Restaurant to enjoy Portuguese cuisine.

St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro, in partnership with ShoeBox Recycling, introduced a school-wide shoe recycling program. Students, faculty, families, and community members participated. With ShoeBox Recycling bins placed throughout the school, students were encouraged to responsibly discard their gently used shoes. ShoeBox Recycling is raising awareness and improving education at all levels about the need to participate regularly in shoe recycling, where all of the secondhand goods collected are destined for reuse. “We are thrilled to become a part of a meaningful program that encourages our students and our community about small steps that have a large global impact, such as shoe recycling for reuse,” said Sister Mary Jane Holden, C.P., principal. Front row, from left: Nicholas Roy, Matthew Corso, and Lauren Bessette; and back row: Savannah Blanchard, Sophia Fernandes, and Emmaculate Omolo organized and packed the shoes.

July 4, 2014

Youth Pages

17

Leader says Life Teen’s goal to ‘completely transform’ youth ministry

The faculty of Coyle and Cassidy High School and Middle School Division in Taunton recently came together in prayer as one in solidarity of the new venture. The faculty and administration participated in a prayer service that included reflections,welcoming remarks and farewell wishes. As Coyle and Cassidy begins anew, they also bade farewell to some outstanding colleagues. Retiring Principal Bob Gay, a true Renaissance man, was presented with a “Renaissance Cross” in appreciation for his many contributions over the last four years.

Bishop Stang High School, North Dartmouth, recently hosted “Money Management for College Bound Teen-agers” with America’s Young Financial Coach Peter Bielagus. The program was sponsored by the Stang Parent Association and Bishop Stang High School. “As we send our seniors into the world and off to college, we do all that we can to make sure they are well-prepared emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually,” said Peter Shaughnessy, president/principal of Bishop Stang High School. “Our Money Management program gives them the tools to have a secure financial future and a healthy relationship with their finances.” This is the third time Bielagus has been part of the Stang Senior Wellness programming. Seniors participated in the morning presentation which covered relevant topics like avoiding credit card debt, the significance of saving, how to improve credit scores, and managing loans in college and beyond.

Juliette Lacoste of Centerville became the first female student-athlete at Hyannis’ Pope John Paul II High School to earn a scholarship to a Division I program when she signed her letter-of-intent to swim for Mt. St. Mary’s University in Maryland. “She is totally dedicated to her family, her school, her academics, her sport, and, most important, her faith,” said Head of School Christopher Keavy.

“We’re eagerly looking forward to following Juliette’s achievements in the coming years.” “Juliette epitomizes what a Lion student-athlete is,” said Pope John Paul II High School athletic director John Muldoon. “She is a role model for her peers and was instrumental in establishing a culture of excellence in and out of the pool.” “I’m confident that Pope John Paul II High School prepared me well for the next phase in my life and I’m excited and ready to take on this challenge,” concluded Lacoste.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (CNS) — The goal of Life Teen “is to completely transform the idea of what youth ministry is in our Church and what it can be,” said the director of events for the Mesa-based organization.

“It needs to be more dynamic. It’s not meant to be boring, but to be an experience on Sunday night and not just a class,” said Stephen Lenahan. “Everything in our Church is so grand, why not for our youth on a Sunday night by showing them the beauty of our Church?”

Lenahan, who works in Life Teen’s Atlanta office, made the comments to The Catholic Sun, newspaper of the Phoenix Diocese, during the organization’s mid-June conference in Scottsdale.

The annual Catholic Youth Ministry Training Convention, sponsored by Mesa-based Life Teen Inc., was an opportunity for new and seasoned leaders to be renewed and affirmed in their ministry.

The conference had as its theme “Inspire,” and it didn’t disappoint the 700 attendees with its 60 breakout sessions lead by well-known youth leaders offering practical and comprehensive training.

Topics ranged from how to balance a budget and lead a youth group meeting to relational ministry and dynamic environments.

Not one to shy away from societal issues facing teens today, the conference also offered leaders a course on samesex marriage and same-sex attraction under the heading, “Same Love, Same Church.”

Attendees had the opportunity to pick classes based on the needs of the teens they serve.

The setup in the hotel ballroom rivaled any big-ticket event. The threescreen backdrop was impressive with a beautiful image of an iconic Christ as 60 priests concelebrated daily Mass.

Worship leaders and former Diocese of Phoenix music ministers Ike Ndolo and Emily Wilson led spirited praise and worship, with an infectious sound seemed to resonate with the participants.

Three bishops, along with religious and deacons, also attended with another 100 people leading talks or hosting workshops, including Scott Hahn, professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, and Fa-

ther John Parks, chaplain and theology teacher at Notre Dame High School in Scottsdale.

“There are two types of preachers, those who get up to say something and those who get up because they have something to say,” Father Parks said, advising youth ministers to be relevant, resourceful and real with the teens they serve.

“God called you to be here and He called you to preach to His teens, His flock. He called you to do this,” he added.

Life Teen is in nearly 1,700 parishes in the United States and in 17 other countries. Besides its Mesa headquarters and its Atlanta office, it has a leadership team in St. Louis. With the motto “Leading teens closer to Christ,” and a special emphasis on the Eucharist, the international ministry hosts training and workshops throughout the year and offers scholarships for priests to attend.

Youth ministers were not only formed in the head, but the heart. The recent conference was a spiritual renewal that offered Adoration, Reconciliation and daily Mass.

Chris Epplett from the Diocese of Grand Rapids, Mich., works with 100 teens in his high school program. He made his way to Scottsdale and found himself “renewed and given the zeal to do ministry.”

“Being able to dive into the theme, ‘inspired’ was good because it allows us to not just further inspire those teens we work with, but to be inspired,” he told The Catholic Sun. The goal of the conference is to give youth ministers the tools to lead, listen and nurture intimate relationships with God, thereby impacting their parish ministries.

St. Patrick Life Teen coordinator Scott Bagshaw has been involved in youth ministry since 1996 as a participant, leader and speaker.

He said the training is not only invaluable but necessary to know what works in youth ministry and how to implement it.

“That’s when the work really starts, when I apply all that I’ve learned,” Bagshaw said. “If we’re not staying close to God, our teens won’t either. We need an opportunity to recharge with each other and share, then we can go out and set the world ablaze.”

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

18

July 4, 2014

St. Elizabeth and the 700-year-old vow that we keep continued from page one

to the Holy Spirit and built a church dedicated to the Holy Ghost in Lisbon. There are many stories of the queen’s piety and service, but the dearest to the Portuguese people of the Azores is the one explaining their devotion to Queen Elizabeth and the Holy Ghost.

During the 13th century the Azores suffered from many violent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and the most seriously hit was the island of Pico. The people could not survive the drought, crop failures, and famine that now plagued them, so they gathered together in prayer to the Holy Ghost for help.

On the morning of Pentecost Sunday, there was a great rising sun, and the people saw in the sunrise a ship coming into the Port of Fayal. This ship was laden with the necessities of life, and food was distributed among the people of the various islands. Their prayers had been answered.

When the queen heard of this providence, she organized a solemn procession in honor of the Holy Ghost. Accompanied by her maids, she carried her crown through the streets of Lisbon to the cathedral, where she left it on the altar as an offering of thanksgiving for the favors the Holy Ghost had given her people.

In addition, she began a tradition of feeding the poor at Pentecost. Each year she chose 12 people to whom she gave a new suit of clothing and personally served them a meal at her table.

Consequently, the people of the Azores vowed that they and their children and their

children’s children would commemorate the day by giving thanks to Queen Elizabeth for the sacrifice she made.

Since then, many Portuguese churches have displayed replicas of her eight-sided crown in remembrance of her goodness and God’s grace. She was canonized by Pope Urban VIII in 1625 in recognition of the miracles that were attributed to her pious life.

The feast of the Holy Ghost or Festa do Espirito Santo is a universal celebration throughout the Portuguese-speaking world, especially in the Azores, Portugal, Brazil and among the many immigrant communities of New England and California.

This summer throughout the diocese parishes will hold their annual feasts, including the parishioners of St. John of God Parish who will host their festival on July 18, 19 and 20.

The Holy Ghost is symbolized by a crown and a dove, and there is always food associated with the feast, culminating with a procession in which bread, meat and wine are distributed among the poor.

But who is this woman who has endeared herself to centuries of generations of Catholics?

The daughter of King Peter III of Aragon and Queen Constance, Elizabeth was born in Saragossa, Spain, around 1271 and grew up in a family of six brothers and sisters.

“Her childhood days were regularly divided between her studies, her sewing, her prayers — kneeling, she accompanied her chaplain at the Divine Office on a daily basis — and rec-

reation,” according to a history on the EWTN website. “She was deemed a great beauty, very early in life.”

Her parents weighed the political advantages of a matrimonial alliance with King Denis of Portugal, and Elizabeth became his wife, by proxy, when she was 12 years old. A year-and-a-half later, she arrived in Portugal to start her new life as wife and queen.

Her husband allowed her liberty in her religious devotion and esteemed her piety but did not imitate it. The couple had two children, Alfonso, who later succeeded his father, and a daughter Constance. The king also fathered seven children with several other women, and Elizabeth took them into her care and tutored them as well.

“God made me queen so that I may serve others,” St. Elizabeth said, her Christian faith

guiding every part of her life.

“She gave orders to have pilgrims and poor strangers provided with lodging and necessaries, and made it her business to seek out and relieve persons who were reduced to necessity,” according to “Butler’s Lives of the Saints.” “She provided Marriage dowries for girls and founded in different parts of the kingdom charitable establishments, particularly a hospital in Coimbra, a house for penitent women at Torres Novas, and a refuge for foundlings.”

Jealous of his half-brothers, Alfonso led a revolt against his own father. Riding out between opposing forces, Elizabeth reconciled them.

She also averted war between Ferdinand IV of Castile, and his cousin, and between the prince and her own brother, James II of Aragon.

After her husband died in 1325, Elizabeth professed in the third order of St. Francis

and lived in a house which she built near to her convent of Poor Clares, where she led a life of great simplicity dedicated to prayer and care for the poor.

Elizabeth died on July 4, 1336 at Estremoz, where she had gone on an errand of reconciliation between her children in spite of her age and the great heat. She was buried in the church of her monastery of Poor Clares at Coimbra.

“We ought not to forget her, and God has ensured this in the land she blessed, where her body remains incorrupt,” according to the EWTN history. “Reposing in the Church of St. Clare, her elaborate coffin has been opened several times through the centuries, and as recently as 1912. The teams of examiners, invariably composed of doctors and Church officials, consistently reported that St. Elizabeth remains intact, as beautiful and serene as if she merely slept.”

In his 44 years as a priest in the Diocese of Fall River, Father Bergeron has ministered in many traditional FrenchCanadian parishes including St. Joseph’s and St. Anthony of Padua parishes in New Bedford and St. Anne’s Parish in Fall River, before coming to Our Lady of Fatima in New Bedford in 2012.

He has a long list of diocesan appointments and duties and is currently the diocesan director of the Ecumenical and Interfaith Affairs Office and is a member of the board of directors for the Massachusetts Council of Churches.

Ouellette is certainly no stranger to the diocese, having been a longtime DCCW member and officer on the national, diocesan, district and affiliate levels; is a Marian Medal winner; a member of the St. George’s Parish Council in Westport; an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion; a member of several non-diocesan organizations; and volunteers for charities including heart, cancer, arthritis and the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.

She has been married to Normand Ouellette (La Ligue’s current president) for 49 years and has one son and two grandchildren.

Part of the levity of the day was when the group learned that Ouellette’s parents Armand and Yvette were wellknown Vaudevillian perform-

ers, appearing on stage as the “French Court Magician,” and “Yvette Queen of Escapes.”

“I even appeared on stage with my father,” Ouellette said, “at about three or four. I have a photograph of me in a bunny costume as part of the act.”

“Learning about Lynette’s parents added to the fun of the day,” said Father Bergeron.

“La Ligue is one of several organizations that work to promote the French language and culture,” added Father Bergeron. “Interestingly St. John the Baptist is the patron saint of Franco-Americans and several other ethnic groups.

This leads to celebrations at this time of year.

“French Canadians were one of the major immigrant groups in our area. They made major contributions especially to the Catholic Church here in our diocese. It is good to encourage their descendents to keep in touch with their roots and each other.”

Also honored was Raymond E. L’Heureux (Franco-American Veteran of the Year), a graduate of St. Kilian’s School in New Bedford and Bishop Stang High School. Part of his service in the United States Army was a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1968-69.

Recipient of the Roland G. Vanesse Ligue des FrancoAméricains Scholarship was Andrew D. Letendre, from Greater New Bedford Vocational-Technical High School.

Franco-Americans honor several diocesan faithful continued from page one

Lynette (Landry) Ouellette, past president of the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women, among many other diocesan duties, was honored as the Franco-American of the Year.

The members and honorees gathered at 9:30 a.m. for a tribute at the Franco-American Veterans Square at the intersection of Nauset and Mount Pleasant streets and Hathaway Road, and then attended the 10:30 a.m. Mass at St. JosephSt. Therese Church, celebrated

by Father Philip Hamel, a distant cousin of Ouellette.

From there La Ligue went to the Wamsutta Club for the festivities.

“Several good friends joined me for the celebration,” Father Bergeron told The Anchor. “That made it all the more pleasant. It was a very happy experience to have received the award and to be informed of it by Dr. Alfred Saulniers (La Ligue archivist), my Bishop Stang High School classmate. We were in the first graduating class at Bishop Stang in 1953.”

Ouellette, also La Ligue’s secretary, told The Anchor, “I was very proud to receive the award.

It was a great honor. I’ve been involved in the French community for many years in the area. I was a French teacher for a number of years at Westport High School, and another of the recipients at the banquet, Ava Gagnon (Franco-American Educator of the Year) was a student of mine there.”

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July 4, 2014

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese Acushnet — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Evening prayer and Benediction is held Monday through Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

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

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

ATTLEBORO — There is a weekly Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration Thursdays from 5:30 to 6:30 pm at St. John the Evangelist Church on N. Main St. 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 TAUNTON — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the chapel at Holy Family Parish Center, 438 Middleboro Avenue, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. On First Fridays, Eucharistic Adoration takes place at Holy Family Church, 370 Middleboro Avenue, from 8:30 a.m. until 7:45 p.m.

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

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

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

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

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

FALL RIVER — Good Shepherd Parish has Eucharistic Adoration every Friday following the 8 a.m. Mass and concluding with 3 p.m. Benediction in the Daily Mass Chapel. A bilingual holy hour takes place from 2 to 3 p.m.

Park behind the church and enter the back door of the connector between the church and the rectory.

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

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

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

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

Please use the side entrance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mass.

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

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

NEW BEDFORD — Our Lady’s Chapel, 600 Pleasant Street, offers Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day. For information call 508-996-8274.

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

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 are invited to sign up to cover open hours. For open hours, or to sign up call 508-430-4716.

Religious applicants fare worse in job hunt, studies suggest

Hartford, Conn. (CNA/ EWTN News) — Two studies suggest that religious self-identification on a job applicant’s resume can harm his or her job prospects, with Catholics receiving almost as few responses to job applications as Muslims in some parts of the U.S. “What we found is that, when applying for a job, it’s better not to mention religion at all — but employers really don’t want you to mention being a Muslim,” University of Connecticut sociology professor Michael Wallace recently told the UConn Today blog.

Wallace is a co-author of two studies on religious discrimination in job applications: one focused on New England and another on the U.S. South.

The Southern study, published in the journal “Social Currents,” said that religious-based discrimination complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have increased from 1,388 in 1992 to 3,790 in 2011.

That study, conducted in 2010, sent 3,200 resumes for 800 job positions in customer service, hospitality, media, retail, real estate, shipping and clerical work, the Washington Times reports.

The fictitious resumes from recent graduates were similar except

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks July 12 Most Rev. Joseph P. Delaney, 2005 July 13 Rev. Arthur P. Deneault, M.S., La Salette Father, 1979 July 14 Rev. Nicholas Fett, SS.CC., Pastor, St. Boniface, New Bedford, 1938 Rev. Edmund J. Neenan, Assistant, Sacred Heart, Oak Bluffs, 1949 Rev. Vincent F. Diaferio, Pastor, Holy Rosary, Fall River, 1998 July 16 Rev. Bernard Percot, O.P., Founder, St. Dominic, Swansea, 1937 Rev. Matthew F. Sullivan, SS.CC., Retired Chaplain, Bristol County House of Correction, Former Pastor, St. Mary, Fairhaven, 2002 July 17 Rev. William J. Smith, Pastor, St. Jacques, Taunton, 1960 Rev. Edmond Rego, Assistant, Espirito Santo, Fall River, 1981 Rev. Ernest N. Bessette, Retired Pastor, St. Joseph, Attleboro, 1997 July 18 Rev. Adalbert Szklanny, Assistant, St. Patrick, Fall River, 1968 Rev. Lionel G. Doraisi, SSS., 1984 Rev. Joseph Quinn, C.S.C., Holy Cross Residence, North Dartmouth, 2007

for one resume line that randomly indicated whether the applicant participated in a university-related religious group.

The fictitious job applicants were atheists, Catholics, Evangelical Christians, Jews, pagans, Muslims, and an imaginary religious group called “Wallonians.”

Resumes from a control group did not mention religious participation.

Researchers then measured and compared prospective employers’ responses sent by email or voice mail. Job applicants without religious identification on their resumes received the most phone responses from prospective employers. Self-identified religious applicants were 26 percent less likely to receive a response.

Among religious applicants, Jewish applicants were most likely to receive a response, followed

by Evangelical Christians and pagans. Catholics ranked next, equal to “Wallonians,” followed by atheists and Muslims.

The New England study, conducted with a similar methodology, sent 6,400 resumes for 1,600

job postings in the Northeast U.S. in 2009.

Self-identified religious applicants performed more poorly than applicants whose resumes did not mention religious affiliation.

That study found that resumes that mentioned any religious affiliation received about 25 percent fewer phone call responses.

Muslim applicants received 33 percent fewer responses than the control group.

“There was also evidence of discrimination against atheists, Catholics and pagans,” said the abstract of the New England study, published in the December 2013 issue of “Research in Social Stratification and Mobility.”

“We hope our work encourages future research on religious discrimination in the workplace,” said the researchers in their Southern study.

They said that further research should explore aspects of religious discrimination in work assignments, disciplinary action, promotion opportunities and benefits, as well as religious accommodation in the workplace.

Around the Diocese All are invited to attend a morning of prayer, praise, teaching and healing power. Barbara Wright will be the guest speaker at a Prayer Meeting on July 12 at St. Anthony’s Church, 126 School Street in Taunton from 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon. Wright is a very gifted speaker and she has inspired many people. This is event is sponsored by The Living Word Prayer Group. For more information, call Mary Leite at 508-8222221.

The Men’s Club of St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in North Falmouth invites parishioners to attend its Clam Boil 2014 on July 18 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. The menu includes one quart of steamers, linguiça, sausage, hot dogs, onions, corn on the cob, white and sweet potatoes, with lemonade and watermelon for $20 per person. A kid’s table will feature hot dogs, chips, juice and dessert for $5. Tickets will be sold after the Masses and in the rectory daily, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information call Paul at 508-548-1228.

A special celebration of the profession of Father Flavio Gillo and other La Salette Seminarians will be held during the 12:10 p.m. Mass on July 27 at La Salette Shrine, 947 Park Street in Attleboro, in the shrine church. Together, let us invoke Our Lady and the Holy Spirit to bless and enrich their lives in her service in “Making Her Message Known” throughout the world. Thank you for your esteemed presence and prayers.

The annual Good Shepherd Parish Feast will be held on August 8 and 9 from 5 to 10 p.m. and on August 10 from 12 noon to 6 p.m. at 1598 South Main Street in Fall River. The feast will feature a multi-national food tent and live entertainment including Steel Dreams on Friday, Kings Row on Saturday, and Summer School on Sunday afternoon. Activities include homemade malassadas, a Portuguese bazaar, Chinese auction, jewelry, a country kitchen, games and activities for children and teens, along with many crafters, artisans and vendors. On Sunday, August 10, the feast Mass will be at 10 a.m., followed by a procession through the surrounding neighborhood.

The Children’s Choir at Christ the King Parish in Mashpee needs more voices. The choir sings at the 8:30 a.m. Mass, 52 Sundays a year. There is no age limit and no auditions. It meets in St. Jude’s Chapel at 8 a.m. to go over the music program for the 8:30 Mass, sing the Mass, then have rehearsal in the chapel after Mass. They sing a simple hymn program and have lots of fun. Just show up before or after Mass and enjoy. Being a choir member you will be assigned a robe and choir book. Call Dick Tellier at 508-888-7012 if you have any questions.

Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River is searching for missing alumni as the school plans its 50th anniversary to take place during the 2015-16 school year. If you or someone you know is an alumnus of Bishop Connolly High School and is not receiving communications from the school, send your contact information by email to Anthony Ciampanelli in the Alumni Office at aciampanelli@bishopconnolly.com; via the school’s website at www.bishopconnolly.com; by phone at 508-676-1071 extension 333; or mail the school at 373 Elsbree Street, Fall River, Mass. 02720. Please provide the graduate’s name (including maiden name if appropriate), complete mailing address, telephone number, email address, and the year of graduation.

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July 4, 2014

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

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