08.31.12

Diocese of Fall River

The Anchor

F riday , August 31, 2012

Governor recognizes CCHD-sponsored group for labor leadership

By Father Marc Fallon Catholic Social Services

NEW BEDFORD — Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick recently recognized the Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores (the Community Worker Center) of New Bedford for its leadership in the successful Reform Employment Agency Legislation (REAL) campaign conducted by more than 40 community groups and labor organizations. CCT is supported by the Catholic Cam-

paign for Human Development of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops under the auspices of Catholic Social Services. An independent community service agency, CCT received its not-for-profit status from the Internal Revenue Service earlier this year after several years with Catholic Social Services as its fiscal sponsor.

Washington-based CCHD staff and CSS had been conTurn to page 15

BRANCHING OUT — Renovations are moving at a brisk pace at Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth to convert the former convent and one-time Family Ministry Offices for the Fall River Diocese into an Academic Resource Center for the school. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

Work proceeds in earnest on new Bishop Stang High School expansion

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

IN HER FOOTSTEPS — Christ the King Parish of Mashpee brought its summer Catholic reflection speaker series to a close last week when Martha Hennessy, granddaughter of Dorothy Day, presented her talk on Day’s legacy, including Day’s work in the Catholic Worker Movement. (Photo by Becky Aubut)

Granddaughter of Dorothy Day pays visit to Cape Cod parish

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

MASHPEE — Christ the King Parish of Mashpee brought its summer Catholic reflection speaker series to a close last week when Martha Hennessy, granddaughter of Dorothy Day, presented her talk on Day’s legacy, including Day’s work in the Catholic Worker Movement. Hailing from Vermont, Hennessy is

the seventh of nine grandchildren and is as committed to the Catholic Worker Movement as her late grandmother.

“My grandmother was a radical lay-Catholic, who had a significant impact,” said Hennessy, adding that often she’ll meet people who either have never heard of Day or have a great love for her and her work.

Born in 1897, Day was Turn to page 14

NORTH DARTMOUTH — As students and teachers returned to classrooms at Bishop Stang High School this week, they may have had to contend with the occasional thump or sound of revving construction equipment as work proceeded in earnest to turn an adjacent building into an Academic Resource Center for the school.

But it will all be worth it when the new

22,880-square-foot facility is ready for occupancy later this school year, according to school officials.

“I’m excited,” said Peter Shaughnessy, president and principal of Bishop Stang. “We’re looking at this as a springboard for the renovation of all our facilities. This is going to be a cutting-edge space for our students to be able to cultivate and develop those 21st-century skills that are necessary for success.”

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Wellfleet parish marks 100th anniversary

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

WELLFLEET — During His time on earth, Christ was very comfortable being with and around those who made their livings from the sea. The Gospels are filled with references to fish and fishermen.

The Lord fed the 5,000 with loaves and fish; He called some of His Apostles from their boats on the Sea of Galilee proclaiming He would make them fishers of men; and His first meal with the Apostles following His resurrection was a piece of broiled fish.

It’s apropos that fishing families from the Azores and Nova Scotia first brought the Catholic faith to Outer Cape Cod more than 150 years ago. From the strong faith of those hard-working people blossomed Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Wellfleet that will be celebrating its 100th anniversary with a Mass celebrated by Bishop George W. Coleman on September 9 at 10:30 a.m.

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through the years — The Our Lady of Lourdes schoolhouse church in Wellfleet in 1912 was to blossom into the new 500-seat complex shown below. (Top photo courtesy of Judith A. Thureson)

News From the Vatican

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August 31, 2012

Pope explains how Mary’s queenship points to Jesus

Castel Gandolfo, Italy (CNA/EWTN News) — Pope Benedict XVI recommended that Christians look to the queenship of Mary, who is “queen in the service of God to humanity,” as a sure guide towards her Son. “Dear friends, devotion to Our Lady is an important part of spiritual life. In our prayer we should not fail to turn to her, confident that Mary will intercede for us with her Son,” the pope said to pilgrims during a recent general audience at Castel Gandolfo.

“Looking upon her, let us imitate her faith, her complete openness to the loving plan of God, her generous welcoming of Jesus. We learn to live from Mary.”

The pope recalled how the establishment of a particular day to celebrate the queenship of Mary is actually a “recent establishment,” even though it has “an ancient origin and devotion.” When Pope Pius XII created the feast in 1954, he originally placed it on May 31, at the end of the month dedicated to Mary.

“On that occasion he said that Mary is Queen more than any other creature for the elevation of her soul and for the excellence of gifts received. She never ceases to bestow all the treasures of her love and of her care on humanity,” Pope Benedict said.

Following the Second Vatican Council the feast day was moved

by Pope Paul VI to August 22, so that it would be “eight days after the Solemnity of the Assumption to emphasize the close relationship between the royalty of Mary and

her glorification in soul and body next to her Son.” The fact that Mary is “uniquely bound to her Son” on earth and in Heaven lies at the root of today’s feast, said the pope, since she now participates in “God’s responsibility for the world and the love of God for the world.”

Just as the kingship of Jesus “has nothing to do with that of the powerful of this world,” as evidenced

by His washing of the disciples’ feet or death on the cross, so the queenship of Mary “is not (one of) wealth and power” but is “a service of love,” Pope Benedict taught.

She is “queen in the service of God to humanity, is queen of the love that lives the gift of self to God (so as) to enter into the plan of salvation of man. To the angel she replies: ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord.’”

This love is expressed, suggested the pope, in the fact that Mary is continually “watching over us, her children, the children who come to her in prayer, to thank her or to ask for her maternal protection and heavenly help, perhaps after having lost their way, burdened with grief or anguish amid the sad and troubled vicissitudes of life.”

It is the queenship of Mary that we should turn to throughout life, he said, “so that from her Son we may receive every grace and mercy necessary for our journey along the roads of the world.”

“To Him Who rules the world and holds the destinies of the universe we turn with confidence, through the Virgin Mary.”

Diocese of Fall River

OFFICIAL

His Excellency, the Most Reverend George W. Coleman, Bishop of Fall River, has accepted the nomination of the Reverend Gustavo J. Nieto, IVE, Provincial Superior of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, Province of the Immaculate Conception, and has made the following appointment: Rev. Eduardo Coll, IVE, Pastor of Saint Kilian Parish in New Bedford.

Effective September 1, 2012

The Anchor www.anchornews.org

OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER Vol. 56, No. 33

Member: Catholic Press Association, Catholic News Service

Published weekly except for two weeks in the summer and the week after Christmas by the Catholic Press of the Diocese of Fall River, 887 Highland Avenue, Fall River, MA 02720, Telephone 508-675-7151 — FAX 508-675-7048, email: theanchor@anchornews.org.

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no room for a busy signal — Father Caesar Atuire, chief executive officer of Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, a Vatican-related pilgrimage agency, talks about the pilgrim experience during a recent interview in his Rome office. (CNS photo/Robert Duncan)

Smartphones down: A real pilgrimage takes time, reflection

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Father Caesar Atuire is not naive enough to ask his pilgrims to leave their smartphones at home.

However, the CEO of a Vatican-related pilgrimage agency does ask his pilgrims to at least look at the holy sites — perhaps even say a prayer — before clicking and capturing the moment in a photo, text message, Tweet or Facebook post.

Father Atuire, a Ghanaian-born priest of the Diocese of Rome, personally leads at least three of the pilgrimages he oversees each year for Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, which organizes spiritual travel from Rome for 40,00050,000 people each year and assists about 700,000 pilgrims visiting the Eternal City annually.

More and more, he said, helping travelers become pilgrims means overcoming a fixation with images that completely overshadows experiencing the reality of setting off on a journey, meeting new people, exploring different cultures and entering into prayer.

People at audiences and Masses with Pope Benedict XVI see the pope through their camera lens, cellphones and iPads. The same thing happens at Christian holy sites around the world, he said.

“What I insist with our pilgrims is live the experience and, if the experience is so powerful, then try to immortalize it with an image, but don’t start off with the image,” he said.

A second, similar modern obstacle to an authentic pilgrim experience is Facebook or other social networks and the general ease of communicating with others anywhere in the world.

Father Atuire talks about “being present, but absent.” He said, “I can be here with you, but all that I’m doing is geared toward telling people elsewhere what I’m doing right now. That’s a kind of absenteeism that’s becoming very pronounced even in our pilgrimages.”

The third big risk is speed, he said.

“It takes 90 minutes to fly from Rome to Lourdes,” and as soon as the plane lands, he said, people are calling home, “asking the kids to take the laundry out of the machine. And I say, ‘Wait a minute, you still aren’t here.’”

People’s minds, hearts and souls need time to move from thoughts of work, home or school, Father Atuire said, so his agency offers catechesis on the planes.

In addition, each morning guides conduct a brief meeting to remind people of where they are and what they’re about to do.

All people need a break from the daily grind now and then, he said. They need to get in touch again with their families, with nature, with themselves and with God. If a person isn’t traveling for work, they usually either are “running away from something or searching for something,” the priest said.

The key difference between leisure travel and a pilgrimage is the search for a spiritual encounter, he said, and throughout history certain shrines and sites have become known as places with “a density of God’s presence,” he said.

For the priest, who travels often, the three places that top his list for “spiritual density” are the chapel of Christ’s tomb in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher; the grotto where Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in Lourdes, France; and the Sea of Galilee in the silence of the early morning or late evening.

“I don’t think you can do anything but pray” in those places, he said.

“Religious experience has a corporal dimension,” Father Atuire said. “When people are in search of a deep religious experience, the body somehow needs to be involved,” so setting off from home and going on a pilgrim-

age is quite natural, not only for Christians, but also for members of most other major religions.

“Christian pilgrimage is all about encounters,” beginning with encountering other seekers and believers, but also being encouraged by them or learning from them how to move closer to the encounter with God. Unfortunately though, he said, too many people today focus so much on getting to the holy places that they lose sight of the fact that a pilgrimage is a journey: “The road is the pilgrimage and it prepares you for the encounter.”

While a pilgrimage is a purposeful break from one’s normal routine, it’s not a break from rules and good manners, he said.

“A pilgrimage is putting order into your life, going back to put real order in your life — order in terms of your relationships with other persons, order in terms of your relationship with God,” he said. “Sin is disorder, and a pilgrimage is an opportunity to recover that harmony that has been lost through everyday life. That’s why it’s a deeply religious experience.”

Although often immersed in the nitty-gritty of chartering planes and buses, booking hotels and writing homilies for his pilgrims, Father Atuire does have a dream file, and it already includes a detailed itinerary. He just needs to find the time, the resources and the pilgrims.

One day, he said, he’d love to take a group to the Marian shrine at Kibeho, Rwanda, where young people reported apparitions of Mary in the 1980s; the local bishop has recognized the apparitions as authentic.

“It’s a region of Africa that is struggling to find peace, stability and growth” following the genocide of the 1990s, Father Atuire said. He would like to bring a group of pilgrims with him to, “look into Our Lady’s message and see what signs of hope we can find there.”

August 31, 2012

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The International Church

In Britain, ongoing struggles over laws regulating euthanasia

MANCHESTER, England (CNS) — Tony Nicklinson, a man paralyzed from the neck down following a stroke seven years ago, wept before television cameras after he was told that he had lost a two-year legal battle to change the law on euthanasia.

Three High Court judges rejected the claim brought by Nicklinson, 58, and another stroke victim named only as Martin, 47, that doctors should be able to end the men’s lives at a time of their choosing under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees a right to private and family life.

Nicklinson died of natural causes August 22. But in their August 16 ruling, the judges said that Nicklinson wanted “to be able to choose to end his life by voluntary euthanasia,” and such a change would have consequences far beyond the two cases.

“It is not for the court to decide whether the law about assisted suicide dying should be changed,” the judges said. “Under our system of government these are matters for Parliament

to decide, representing society as a whole, after parliamentary scrutiny, and not for the court on the facts of an individual case or cases.”

The case represents the latest in a string of attempts to use the courts to reverse Britain’s ban on euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The most successful of these came three years ago when multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy forced Keir Starmer, the country’s most senior public prosecutor, to clarify the circumstances under which her husband might be breaking the law if he helped her to travel abroad to commit suicide.

Pressure on Parliament — which has also robustly resisted repeated attempts to change the law — is also relentless, with four bills introduced between 2003 and 2006 all rejected by politicians.

Dignity in Dying, a group once called the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, confirmed in an August 17 email to Catholic News Service that yet another attempt will be made to change the law.

“We are currently consult-

ing on a new assisted dying bill, which will be tabled in the House of Lords next year,” said spokesman James Harris.

“We have examined the evidence from those jurisdictions that have legalized and regulated some form of assistance to die,” he added. “The evidence from 15 years of practice in Oregon shows that assisted dying can be legalized safely.”

The battle to change the law is also being fought in the media, with numerous opinion polls conducted with the aim of demonstrating widespread support, especially among the young, for euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Euthanasia campaigners are also using celebrity endorsements to curry support, with actors, singers, novelists, comedians, philosophers and even war veterans agreeing to serve as Dignity in Dying patrons. They include Sir Patrick Stewart, the “Star Trek” actor, and Sir Terry Pratchett, the science fiction writer.

The Catholic Church, not wishing to see the debate presented as a struggle between faith and “progress,” is gener-

Archbishop asks international help to stop terrorism in Nigeria

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The president of the Nigerian bishops’ conference called for the international community to help his country improve its security operations to stop the “fundamentalist, fanatic” Boko Haram terrorist group.

The day after a Catholic church, an elementary school and a police station in Damagun were attacked, presumably by Boko Haram members, Archbishop Ignatius Ayau Kaigama of Jos told Vatican Radio: “There is high religious tension in Nigeria, but we are not at war between Christians and Muslims.

The Boko Haram is at war with Christians, because they have vowed they will kill Christians because they are ‘infidels.’ This is a fact, but it is not the whole Islamic community.”

In its two-year campaign to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law on the entire country, Boko Haram has been blamed for more than 1,400 deaths of Christians, Muslims and police officers.

Archbishop Kaigama, who was interviewed August 20 in Rimini, Italy, where he addressed a meeting of the Communion and Liberation lay movement, told Vatican Radio that in his country, where the population is about half Muslim and half Christian, “There is no neat division between political problems and religious problems. They are inter-

twined.”

“It is erroneous to always reduce every crisis in Nigeria to religion. Religion does a lot of good; we shouldn’t see it as always generating crisis,” the archbishop said.

In addition, he said, people must look for the root causes of tensions in Nigeria, including the economic, political and social issues that “trigger these crises, but somehow eventually they always become Christian-Muslim crises.”

The vast majority of Nigerians — Christians and Muslims — want to live in peace and are frightened by the actions and agenda of Boko Haram, he said, “but somehow the violence continues to grow.”

“The government seems helpless. The security agents, even though they are all over the place, don’t seem to provide the security that would allow people to go about their normal business peacefully,” Archbishop Kaigama said.

“People are afraid that if this conflict situation continues, the consequences will be disastrous: There will be either an open, very terrible religious conflict or even a civil war that will pit the North against the South,” he said.

The majority of people in the North are Muslim, while the majority of people in the South are Christian.

If there is war in Nigeria, he said, it will affect other West African nations and, perhaps, the whole continent.

“We don’t want a war in Africa, that is why we are asking the international community to assist in a way that we can resolve the problems of security so that we can live happily in peace,” the archbishop said.

ally taking a back seat, but is listed as one among dozens of medical, disabled rights and religious charities that form the broad coalition of the Care Not Killing alliance.

Catholic doctors are more outspoken than Church leaders, however, and in recent months some have taken huge risks with their careers to warn the public that a system designed to care for people in their final hours is operating effectively as a euthanasia pathway.

Known as the Liverpool Care Pathway, following its development in a hospice in the city over a decade ago, it allows medical staff to decide if a patient is dying, then to sedate the patient with opiates and to remove artificial food and fluids, which under British law are classed as “treatment.”

Audits have revealed that patients take an average of 29 hours to die. Patients are seldom removed from the pathway.

But Dr. Patrick Pullicino, a Catholic neurologist in southeast England and also the adjunct professor of neurology and neuroscience at the New Jersey Medical School in the United States, told a medical conference in London in June that the lack of an effective evidence base for patient prognoses made the Liverpool Care Pathway an “assisted death pathway.”

He said sick and elderly people who were not dying were being killed by their doctors — sometimes solely because they were “difficult to manage” or because health service staff faced pressure to free up hospital beds.

He told the conference that if Britain accept the Liverpool Care Pathway then it must accept “that euthanasia is part of the standard way of dying as it is now associated with 29 percent of NHS deaths” — a figure representing about 130,000 people a year.

Pullicino back up his case by telling his audience that he had personally intervened to remove one patient from the pathway and the 71-year-old man, who would have died within hours, lived another 14 months.

Dr. Philip Howard, a Catholic who works in a health service hospital in Surrey, near London, said he believed the practice of “terminal sedation” would supersede arguments over whether euthanasia should be legalized.

He said it was extremely difficult to predict when a patient would die, especially if the disease is noncancerous. The short life expectancy on the Liverpool Care Pathway “suggests that in some cases, (or perhaps many), the pathway is either causing or significantly contributing to death,” he said in an August 15 email to CNS. The government insists, however, that the pathway “is not euthanasia.” In a recent statement given to CNS, the Department of Health described the pathway as an “established and respected tool” that enjoyed “overwhelming support from clinicians at home and abroad.”

“If, as sometimes happens, a patient improves, they are taken off the LCP and given whatever treatments best suit their new needs,” the statement said.

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August 31, 2012 The Church in the U.S. Formation efforts draw Catholic men to deeper faith, fellowship

OMAHA, Neb. (CNS) —Michael Jones, a member of St. Columbkille Parish in Papillion, said he came to the third annual Heartland Catholic Men’s Conference in Omaha to meet others in fellowship and learn more about the faith of the Church.

Such opportunities for inspiration and formation were lacking when he was raising children, said Jones, 63, noting that although ages of participants varied widely at the conference, many who had gathered there were about his age.

“Maybe we just all got hungry (for spiritual growth) at the same time,” Jones said.

Similar sentiment — a strong desire for sharing in Faith Formation — appears to have been the spark that more than a dozen years ago ignited what has become a growing Catholic men’s movement in the United States, said Peter Kennedy, administrator of adult Faith Formation in the Omaha Archdiocese’s Office of Evangelization and Catechesis.

And the movement is being fueled in part by concerns about a loss of male spiritual leadership in the midst of declining morals and a secularization of society, he said.

“There’s a genuine spiritual hunger,” Kennedy told the Catholic Voice, Omaha’s archdiocesan newspaper.

Many men now being schooled through men’s groups that concentrate on spirituality and teachings of the Church say things like “I never heard this before,” Kennedy said.

Some aspects of Catholicism — the centrality of the Eucharist and the Church’s insistence on social justice — were taught well over the past 40 years, he said.

But other aspects of catechesis often were insufficient, such as Church teaching on Baptism and Penance, the dangers of contraception and the importance of marriage and family life, Kennedy said.

At the same time, many Catholic men pursued success in the workplace and left the spiritual formation of their families to their wives, Kennedy said.

Men’s groups organized around Bible study and spirituality have sprung up in parishes

Other nationally known efforts include “St. Joseph’s Covenant Keepers” and weekend retreats designed separately for men and women, such as “Christians Encounter Christ” in the Archdiocese of Omaha.

The call of Pope Benedict

mensministry — that includes a list of various men’s groups and other resources, he said.

The conference included talks by theology professor Scott Hahn of Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio; Deacon Alex Jones, who serves in the Arch-

men of faith — Men pray before the Blessed Sacrament during the fourth annual Catholic Men’s Conference at Holy Trinity Diocesan High School in Hicksville, N.Y., earlier this year. Men’s groups organized around Bible study and spirituality have sprung up in parishes for decades, and some have been established over the past 20 or 30 years at a diocesan or regional level. (CNS photo/ Gregory A. Shemitz, Long Island Catholic)

for decades, and some have been established over the past 20 or 30 years at a diocesan or regional level. The Knights of Columbus fraternal organization was founded in 1882 and it has service, social and spiritual components, and a strong international presence.

But new men’s groups are helping feed men’s hunger for spirituality and encouraging them to take on faith-filled, leadership roles, Kennedy said. Two of those are the Houston-based “That Man is You!” and “The King’s Men,” which began in Philadelphia. Both were founded in 2004 and are growing across the country through small, parish-based groups.

XVI and Blessed John Paul II for a “New Evangelization” of Catholics and non-Catholics in the midst of a heightened secularization also is being heard across the country, and men are among those responding, Kennedy said.

The archdiocese’s response to the movement includes the Heartland Catholic Men’s Conference in Omaha, which this year drew about 600 men from as far away as Illinois and Wisconsin, as well as Iowa, Kansas and South Dakota, Kennedy said.

The archdiocese also has encouraged participation in “That Man is You!” and it has established a site on its website — www.archomaha.org/

diocese of Detroit; and Deacon Ralph Poyo of the Diocese of Raleigh, N.C. And the men’s movement is not a phenomenon unique to Catholics.

A ministry based at a Baptist church in Albany, Ga., made the widely known films “Courageous” (2011) and “Fireproof” (2008), which call men to stand up for their faith. And the evangelical, ecumenical, Colorado-

based “Promise Keepers,” founded in 1990, drew many Catholics — and was one impetus for Catholics to form similar groups.

In a recent interview with the Catholic Voice, Mark Houck, president and founder of “The King’s Men,” said his group encourages weekly meetings that include reciting the Rosary and holding 45 minutes of catechesis. Its ministries include helping battle abortion and pornography and defending traditional marriage, he said. It has grown from one parish at its founding to 33 parishes in 15 states.

And even as “The King’s Men” was organizing eight years ago, “That Man is You!” was founded, driven in part by noting that a Protestant men’s group was drawing a lot of attention in Houston, and Catholics were among those joining the group, said Jamie Gonzales, a program coordinator for the group.

That acted as a prompt for “That Man is You!” founder Steve Bollman to design the organization’s three-year men’s program, which combines the teachings of the Catholic Church and inspiration drawn from its saints with social science research demonstrating the importance of faith to society, Gonzales said.

“That Man is You!” has grown from one site in Houston to more than 300 programs in parishes across 37 states and Canada, Gonzales said.

One of the fastest growing regions is the Archdiocese of Omaha, where it has expanded from 10 parishes in 2010 to 28 this year, he said. Across Nebraska, 50 parishes are involved in “That Man is You!”

Applicants line up for deferred deportation; benefits vary by state

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The first days for applying for deferred deportation for some young adults under a program to use prosecutorial discretion brought out tens of thousands of applicants to workshops around the country and a first wave of responses from state governments about what privileges they would and would not extend to the recipients.

In Chicago, an estimated 13,000 people lined up at the Navy Pier to get information and apply for deferred deportation status for 15- to 30-year-olds on the first day applications could be filed under a move announced by President Barack Obama in June. Embassies and consulates around the country had long lines of people seeking documents they might need to apply.

Church-run service agencies

such as Guadalupe Social Services in the Diocese of Venice, Fla., reported steady calls and full schedules of appointments from people seeking help figuring out the program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Lindsay Spinazzola, immigration counselor for Guadalupe Social Services, said she’s maxed out at three appointments a day for the next few weeks to help people figure out if they can participate in the program. “I get about 10 calls a day,” she said, noting that she’s a one-person operation for immigration cases at Guadalupe, which is in Naples, Fla. A much larger nonprofit legal aid organization in the area is handling most calls, she told Catholic News Service. “There’s a huge training program being held tonight,” she said.

August 31, 2012

The Church in the U.S.

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Cardinal Dolan to pray at close of both parties’ conventions

lay presence — An extraordinary minister of Holy Communion distributes Communion during a Mass at Transfiguration Church in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, N.Y. As Catholics prepare to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, all Church members need to make a renewed effort to ensure lay people are aware of their responsibility for the Church and are allowed to exercise it, Pope Benedict XVI said. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)

Court approves Texas ban on Planned Parenthood funding

AUSTIN, Texas (CNA/ EWTN News) — In a unanimous decision, a federal court on Tuesday lifted an injunction that protected Planned Parenthood from a Texas law that bars state funds from organizations that perform or promote abortion.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who backed the law, said the decision is “a win for Texas women, our rule of law and our state’s priority to protect life.”

Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Steven H. Aden also praised the decision in a statement, saying it shows “abortionists and their political allies are bluffing when they say that states cannot stop taxpayer funding from being used to subsidize abortions, whether directly or indirectly.”

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of

Appeals in New Orleans lifted a federal district court’s temporary injunction that preserved state funding before an October trial in which Planned Parenthood intends to challenge the law, the Associated Press reported.

The court decision said the district court “gave insufficient attention to Texas’s authority to subsidize speech of its choosing within its programs.”

The funds concern the Texas Women’s Health Program, which provides services to many women not qualified through Medicaid. The program previously funded Planned Parenthood’s provision of family planning and health services to poor women. About 65,000 women of the 130,000 enrolled in the program secured services through the abortion provider,

OMAHA, Neb. (CNS) — Bishops need help restoring trust and healing wounds inflicted on the faithful by the clergy sexual abuse scandal, and people who work in the Church to assist victims and create safe environments for children can be key partners, the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People said recently.

Despite efforts over the last decade by bishops and others in the Church to atone for wrongs done and take swift action when abuse is reported, many Catholics “remain hurt, angry, cynical and confused,” Bishop R. Daniel Conlon of Joliet, Ill., told more than 100 people at the National Safe Environment and Victim Assistance Coordinators Leadership Conference in Omaha. Safe environment and victim assistance coordinators

carrying out duties called for by the bishops’ 2002 “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” are good candidates to assist bishops as they strive to make the Church safe for children and young people and overcome mistrust and anger, the bishop said. “You are the fresh faces,” he said. “Most of you are lay members of the Christian faithful, with secular credentials and without so much built-in conflict of interest. As such, you are in a position to bring new credibility and energy to the critical task of healing the wounds and rebuilding trust.”

It is a long-term project that includes day-to-day tasks such as contacting victim survivors, arranging counseling programs, scheduling training sessions, giving talks and filling out forms, Bishop Conlon said.

Victim assistance coordinators can help heal the Church, bishop says

though state funds were not used for abortion.

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and daughter of former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, said the legal case is “about the women who rely on Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, birth control and well-woman exams.

However, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot said that the decision “rightfully recognized that the taxpayer-funded Women’s Health Program is not required to subsidize organizations that advocate for elective abortion.”

He said his office is “encouraged” by the decision and will continue to defend the Women’s Health Program in court.

State-level efforts to defund abortion providers have increased in recent years. However, they have faced significant legal and regulatory obstacles as well as interference and threats from pro-abortion rights officials in the federal government.

In December 2011 the Obama Administration threatened to deny federal funding to the Texas women’s health program if the law stood.

A similar defunding effort in New Hampshire that threatened $1.8 million in funding for Planned Parenthood caused the Department of Health and Human Services to say it would give a federal grant to the abortion provider.

In July 2012 a federal official with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Chicago reaffirmed that an Indiana law barring Medicaid funds to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood is unacceptable on the grounds that it denies women the freedom to choose their health care providers, according to the Associated Press.

NEW YORK (CNS) — New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan will offer closing prayers at the Democratic National Convention September 6, as he will at the Republican National Convention a week earlier.

Cardinal Dolan, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, accepted an invitation from the Democratic convention organizers to deliver the Benediction on the last night of the September 4-6 event, after clearing it with Charlotte, N.C., Bishop Peter J. Jugis, said a statement from Joe Zwilling, spokesman for the New York Archdiocese. Since the Charlotte convention is in his diocese, protocol would call for Bishop Jugis to have the say over whether a bishop from another diocese plays such a role.

Zwilling’s statement from the previous week announcing Cardinal Dolan’s participation in the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla., said the cardinal had cleared that activity with St. Petersburg Bishop Robert N. Lynch, whose diocese includes Tampa.

“It was made clear to the Democratic Convention organizers, as it was to the Republicans, that the cardinal was coming solely as a pastor, only to pray,

not to endorse any party, platform, or candidate,” said Zwilling’s statement.

Clergy from several denominations are scheduled to pray at the opening and closing of each day’s sessions of the party conventions.

The tradition of such prayers goes back more than 100 years.

It is unusual for the same person to pray at both conventions in the same year, but it’s not without precedent. For example, in 1948, Philadelphia Cardinal Dennis J. Dougherty prayed with both parties when the nominating conventions met in Philadelphia.

Nor does the local Catholic prelate always participate. At the 2008 conventions, neither Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver nor Archbishop John C. Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis, Minn., participated in the Democratic and Republican conventions, respectively, in their cities. Archbishop Chaput said he was never approached about it, and Archbishop Nienstedt said he declined.

6

The Anchor Small steps lead to giant leaps

Last weekend began with two Armstrongs in the news — first we heard that Lance Armstrong was no longer going to fight allegations that he had used performance-enhancing drugs while he was a competitive bike-racer, thus probably losing his Tour de France titles. He did not admit guilt; he just admitted to being tired of spending so much time and money trying to clear his name.

Then Saturday came the news that Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, had died. After he had stepped on the moon and enjoyed the beautiful view of earth from there, he made his way around this planet, bringing some needed joy to U.S. service personnel over in Vietnam. He also met Pope Paul VI at the Vatican, together with his fellow astronauts Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins. In a speech to the three of them (which you can find on the Vatican website), the Holy Father spoke of his admiration of their courage and of how he was united with so many people throughout the world, praying for the astronauts while they made their daring voyage.

“Man has a natural urge to explore the unknown — to know the unknown; yet man has also a fear of the unknown,” the pope told them. He continued, “Your bravery has transcended this fear, and through your intrepid adventure, man has taken another step towards knowing more of the universe; in your words, Mr. Armstrong, ‘one giant leap for mankind.’”

Unfortunately, as one can read in this issue of The Anchor, humanity has not been always leaping over the last 43 years towards greater knowledge of the Truth, whether about the world or about the human person.

We do not know here at this paper whether Lance Armstrong is guilty or innocent of the charges of “doping.” However, we do remember the negativity that he expressed towards religion in his autobiography, “It’s Not About the Bike.” In part, this was due to his negative experiences dealing with religious hypocrites, such as an abusive stepfather. He also disagreed with the Catholic Church’s teaching on in vitro fertilization, which he and his first wife (whom he married in a Catholic Church) used to produce three children (we do not know how many other lives were lost in the laboratory because of this process). Lance’s disagreements with his wife about faith were supposedly one of the reasons why their marriage broke-up.

Ironically, in his second major relationship after the divorce, he and his girlfriend were able to have children the natural way. Maybe he should have trusted more in God (or at least in how nature made his body) some years beforehand (as Jesus said, “Fear is useless. What is needed is trust”). Trusting in God’s will for our lives is not easy to do, and Lance Armstrong is a product of our culture, so only God can judge his actions and motives. What the Church can do is indicate what is objectively moral and immoral and help us follow the path which Christ has laid out for us.

We live in a world of “have it your way,” as Burger King used to tell us. We are impatient and have a hard time focusing on what is really important in our lives, being more focused on the means of communication than on what we are supposedly communicating, as Father Caesar Atuire said on page two of this edition.

In this type of world, we often do not imitate the form of regal bearing that Jesus and Mary have (which each baptized Christian has due to their Baptisms), that of loving service, but instead we follow the dictum of “might makes right.” We “choose” to do whatever will make us happy (in the short term at least), regardless of how these choices will impact other human beings (and their lives and happiness). Sometimes a baby or an elderly, infirm person is the “inconvenience” that we would like to be rid of. Sometimes it is more “profitable” to abuse one’s workers, since they are afraid to stand up for their rights. Sometimes we choose to only look at our own economic interests, instead of being concerned for how our nation is slipping faster and faster away from Christianity and the natural truths that she affirms.

Pope Paul said to the astronauts, “We give praise to God, the Creator of the world.

We pray to Him that we may see more of the good Creation, and that from this we may see more clearly His power, His infinity, and His perfection, that by this knowledge men may more and more be drawn together, as His children, in fraternal love, in peace and in prayer.”

As Genevieve Kineke writes on page nine, it does not appear that Pope Paul’s prayer has been answered affirmatively by God (so far). God did hear that prayer, since He always hears our prayers and responds with love. God is united with us Christians (and with all humanity) in our sufferings.

“Religious experience has a corporal dimension,” Father Atuire said on page two.

“When people are in search of a deep religious experience, the body somehow needs to be involved.” Christ gives us Himself in the Eucharist so that our body can encounter His Body, so that our relationship with Him might transform not only our minds, but also our bodies, beginning with what we do with our bodies (and the bodies of other people, who were all created in the image and likeness of God). The Eucharist helps us to feel, in our bodies and in our souls, that we are not alone, that Christ’s message, “Be not afraid,” is true.

We Christians are called to make “small steps” each day which ultimately lead to “giant leaps for mankind.” If we make these small steps according to the logic of Christ, many times we will have to suffer rejection for them in this life, but we will be doing so for the good of others, who will be able to enjoy a future in which their lives and dignity will be respected. No performance-enhancing drug can help us make these steps. As we read later in this issue, we’re called to “maximum sacrifice,” to serve God and others “regardless of the cost.” May our prayer and sacrifices help us to live in the grace (having the inner life of the Holy Trinity within us) needed to make these steps of love.

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August 31, 2012

The mystery of rejection

ast week, we considered Buffalo killing Him to see them walk away, He Bishop Richard Malone’s thoughts knew that they had heard Him accurately on martyrdom in the New Evangelization and they just didn’t want to believe in Him and we distinguished between what Archand what He was saying. He was promising bishop Fulton J. Sheen used to call “red” to give them the greatest gift the world has and “white” martyrdom: red, the martyrdom ever known, but they were rejecting that of blood, and white, the martyrdom of suftreasure. fering and rejection on behalf of the Gospel.

The importance for each of us to contemBishop Malone indicated that Catholics plate Jesus’ white martyrdom in Capernaum today must recover the courage of the marwas shown to me a couple of years ago in an tyrs in proclaiming and living our faith in the unforgettable way. midst of a relativist culture that is becoming I brought a group of American seminarincreasingly intolerant. ians doing a summer course in Rome to It’s a supremely obvious point that we meet Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former have no greater example of the type of Archbishop of St. Louis and now Prefect of witness to which we’re called than Jesus the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura (Supreme Himself, Whose life featured both red and Court). When Cardinal Burke began to take white martyrdom. Catholics are well aware questions at the end of our session, one of of His bloody witness — we remember it the seminarians asked him if he had any every time we behold the crucifix and make advice for them as they were preparing to be the Sign of the Cross. But His white marordained to preach the Gospel. The young tyrdom may be even more instructive to us man said that the cardinal had the reputation as we seek to heed His commands to come for being one of the most prophetic preachto Him, to follow Him and to proclaim the ers in the United States, not ducking any of Gospel to every the controvercreature. sial issues even Jesus’ white when he had Putting Into martyrdom beto suffer, and gan soon after the seminarthe Deep He was born, as ian wondered He was called what lessons

By Father

by Simeon a the cardinal had Roger J. Landry “sign to be conlearned from tradicted” and these experiwas persecuted ences that could

by Herod before the Word would even utter guide them.

His first human words. It continued when Cardinal Burke prefaced his answer by His cousins tried to seize Him because they saying that we always have to preach the thought He was out of His mind, when He truth with charity and to strive to commuwas vehemently opposed by the Scribes and nicate to others that passing on the truth of Pharisees who accused Him of the capital Christ is one of the greatest acts of charity. sin of blasphemy, and when His fellow But then he got to the heart of his reply: Nazarenes rose up to try to throw Him off He said he couldn’t imagine any preacher of a Nazarene promontory after hearing Him the Word mounting the pulpit without havpreach in their synagogue. ing prayed long and hard about Jesus on the The most poignant instance of Jesus’ cross and about Jesus’ rejection in Caperwhite martyrdom, however, happened in naum after He had tried to indicate to them the scene the whole Church contemplated the new daily Manna that would sustain on Sunday. After having told the crowds them in the desert of life far better than the in Capernaum that He was going to give first manna had sustained the Israelites. That them the greatest gift ever — Himself as is a meditation He returns to frequently, he their spiritual nourishment — Jesus had to said. We learn there the truth, he said, that endure seeing not just the crowds but His sometimes, sadly, people reject the good. “disciples” abandon Him in great numbers, Sometimes people reject the Lord and the murmuring to themselves that His teaching truth and love He came into the world to was hard and unendurable. Jesus was so give. And sometimes those who are trying to wounded that He turned to the Twelve and pass on Jesus’ truth with charity will be the asked them if they, too, were going to leave first to experience the pain of that rejection Him. — and they have to be prepared for it.

He had labored already for quite some The seminarian then asked, with humility time to form a group of disciples around and candor, what he should do if he is afraid Him. He had preached. He had worked to suffer rejection for preaching the diffimiracles to feed them. He had labored from cult truths that many of the Catholics in his dawn to dusk on various occasions curdiocese might not want to hear. ing one-by-one all the sick that had been “If someone who has been commisbrought to Him. And after the Bread of Life sioned to preach the Gospel doesn’t feel discourse, he was left basically with the that he can preach the whole truth of God Twelve — including His betrayer, as Jesus that will set us free,” Cardinal Burke stated recognized for the first time on that occabefore taking a long pause. I anticipated he sion. was going to conclude the sentence by sayWhen the Good Shepherd who had ing something like, “He should think about promised to leave the 99 to go, find and another line of work.” save each lost sheep, saw the “99” abandonBut after the delay, Cardinal Burke gave ing Him, He conceivably could have gone his apodosis, “Such a seminarian should after them to prevent them from leaving. He pray long and hard that the Lord give him could have offered to multiply another five the grace to preach that truth with faith, loaves and two fish to feed them. He could charity and courage.” have walked on water and invited them, like That same advice is valid for all CathoHe once invited Peter, to do the same. He lics who have been commissioned by Christ could have put on another show of curing through Baptism to preach the Gospel. It’s the blind, deaf, and lame. He could have of- particularly timely as we prepare for the fered to water down or change His teaching white martyrdom — and perhaps red — that on the need to eat His Body and drink His will accompany the New Evangelization.

Blood.

Father Landry is pastor of St. BernaHe didn’t. As much as it must have been dette’s Parish in Fall River.

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent

BOSTON — While young athletes in Massachusetts spend the end of summer training for fall sports, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has changed the game, as it were.

On June 26, the education board amended its athletic policy to allow boys to play on girls’ sports teams and vice versa.

The education commissioner, Mitchell D. Chester, wrote in a memo to the board, “Excluding a transgender student from a team that does not match the gender listed on the student’s birth records would constitute unlawful discrimination on the basis of gender identity.”

His assessment follows from the passage of the Transgender Rights Law, passed in November 2011. The law, which took effect July 1, prohibits discrimination against transgendered people in the areas of housing, education

M

y mother died at 12:05 a.m. on Sunday, the day of the Lord’s Resurrection, August 5, the feast of the dedication of the basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, also known as Our Lady of the Snows. She was 86 years old, leaving behind 12 children (out of 13 — my sister Nellie died five years ago), 43 grandchildren, and five great grandchildren (six if we count the one on the way).

Last week I discovered among her papers a statement of wishes that said simply: “Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” Among my fondest recollections of her last days is praying the Rosary with the family crowded into my mom’s room at my sister Bernadette’s house, with sisters and sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews joining in leading the Hail Marys, punctuated by tears and sobs, but with my mother radiating peace and joy, praying with a smile on her face, and fully conscious though on morphine for pain.

She had gone to daily Mass whenever she was able throughout her life, and had always prayed the Rosary daily. When she said, “Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death,” she could have added, “If I said it once, I said it a million times.” And her prayer was heard.

She was born in Washington, D.C. in 1925, and grew

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August 31, 2012

School athletic teams face policy shift

and employment.

The bill defines “gender identity” as “a person’s genderrelated identity, appearance or behavior, whether or not that gender-related identity, appearance or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the person’s physiology or assigned sex at birth.”

In order to prove their genderrelated identity, a citizen of the Commonwealth need only show that their identity is “sincerely held.” Opponents say such language is so broad that it is virtually meaningless and can be easily manipulated.

In a July 30 letter to the board, 38 state legislators say they are concerned that the new regulations are “outside the scope of the new law.” Both legislators who opposed and those who helped pass the law signed the letter.

“Because of the physical disparities between males and females, regardless of gender

identity, this policy appears to put females at a distinct disadvantage when competing for positions on varsity athletic teams,” they wrote.

They also bring up practical questions, such as, where will opposite-sex students shower after practice? Critics of the transgender rights law have raised concern that the law could be used to give members of the opposite sex access to single-sex rest rooms and locker rooms, which had caused the legislation to be dubbed the “Bathroom Bill.” Although language that explicitly granted such access was scrapped before its passage, proponents of the bill have continued to push for it.

Prior to the new athletic policy, the board sought the advice of the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders and the Transgender Political Coalition.

There was no public debate and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association was not

consulted.

Maureen Vacca, director of public policy for the Massachusetts Family Institute, told The Anchor that the athletic policy change provides no practical guidance for Massachusetts schools.

“It’s not fair to coaches and school districts. They’ll face discrimination suits, and we don’t have any clear direction for them,” she said.

Her colleague, MFI’s executive vice president Andrew Beckwith, agreed, “It throws this mess to the schools.” Moreover, many schools have not yet been informed of the change.

The Transgender Rights Bill was rammed through the state legislature less than 48 hours before the close of the last legislative session. It was pulled out of committee and put on the fast track for voting on the floor. Most of the allotted hour of debate was taken up by supporters.

A good woman is not hard to find

up in the Capitol Hill neighcal junkie, and served for years borhood, roller-skating as a as precinct chairman of the girl in the 1930s in the founDemocratic party, as if having dation of the U.S. Supreme 13 children were not enough.

Court building that was then I remember going with her in in construction. A real beauty 1960 as a nine-year-old to diswho was also smart, she was tribute Kennedy-for-president the May queen at her parochial literature. school’s May procession when In the 30 years or so beshe was in eighth grade. She tween raising the first and last went to Notre Dame high-school adjacent to Gonzaga, also on Capitol Hill, and upon graduation went to Trinity College, the Catholic women’s

By Dwight Duncan college adjacent to Catholic University.

She met my dad after he was honorably discharged from the Marines of us, my mother never had a and attended Georgetown vacation. The closest she got University after World War II, was when my dad took half and they got married and had, of us camping for a week or as I said, 13 children. I was the two at Cape Hatteras in North oldest boy and second in the Carolina. Then she would only lineup. have to care for six or seven They often talk of her gener- of us. Her Christmas list was ation as the greatest generation. more than 75 people, and that’s I can only say it’s true. My just counting immediate famparents lived through the Great ily!

Depression and the Second My mom was decidedly ProWorld War, and then selflessly Life, and sometimes would go produced the Baby Boomers, with me to the annual March my generation, which sadly for Life in Washington on the became the “Me Generation.” anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

As my brother Doug noted She was always there for me, in his remarks of remembrance and visited me in 1987 on my at her funeral, my mom’s life birthday while I was studying revolved around faith and in Rome. She also accomfamily. In the 1960s, she was panied me to Rome 10 years prefect of the parish sodality at ago for the canonization of St. St. Mary’s in Rockville, Md. Josémaria Escriva. She was 76 at She was also a bit of a politithe time! Among other things,

Judge For Yourself

we attended a Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Mary Major, on whose feast she would die. We celebrated her 80th birthday at Disney World, not because she liked Disney World but because her grandchildren did.

She always had a smile on her face, as countless people attested at her wake and funeral.

She had a storybook happy ending, literally dying with that smile on her face after she had greeted the last of her grandchildren who arrived from London just an hour before. My extended family can sometimes seem like the joke about Irish Alzheimer’s: forgetting everything but the grudges. But around my mother’s deathbed all the family feuds just melted away, hopefully for good.

My sister read excerpts at her funeral from a four-page, single-spaced typewritten letter my mother wrote to my father in June of 1966, recounting her activities that Sunday. Dad was away that summer on some special mission for the National Security Agency. She mainly wrote about their then 12 children, and ended her exhaustive and exhausting account near midnight by writing, “As for me, I am numb with fatigue, but aware that this will pass and is indeed a small price to pay for so many blessings.”

On my flight back from

After six years of battling the bill, opponents said they were deeply disappointed and warned that the law would affect public schools.

“We deemed this as a stealth ‘Bathroom Bill’ from the getgo,” Beckwith said. “The problem is discrimination and gender identity are both terms that are open to wide interpretation.”

The four bishops of Massachusetts submitted testimony in opposition of the bill through James F. Driscoll, executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference.

“Given the destabilizing objective of the campaign for ‘gender self-determination,’ it is not surprising that the bill now before this committee was intentionally drafted broadly,” the testimony said. “An individual would be legally empowered to pose as both a man and a woman at different times or at the same time, and for any length of time, however short in duration.”

Rome last month, I read a wonderful book on Sargent Shriver, the founder of the Peace Corps, written by his son Mark. The book is entitled “A Good Man.” And indeed, Sargent Shriver was both a good and a great man. I thought of Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

And what I thought was that a good woman is not so hard to find.

For my mother was such a good woman, and she was always there for me and the rest of my numerous family. Now that she is no longer physically with us, and even though I’m not married, there are still plenty of good women in my life, most notably my sisters and sisters-in-law (all my five brothers had the good sense to marry someone like my mother). And I am confident that my mother is now in Heaven, where I can talk to her without the interruptions attendant upon using a cellphone.

As she asked, please pray for Eleanor June Hughes Duncan.

Prayer works, it has worked, wonders.

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

Correction In the story about Thomas Healy in the August 17 edition, his last name was incorrectly spelled Healey. The Anchor regrets the error.

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August 31, 2012

The Anchor

I

n many parts of the country students have already returned to classes and begun the age-old routines of class work, homework and testing. I recall as a high school student that one of the books that we were required to master was E. B. White’s “Elements of Style.” In this slim little volume White had enumerated a list of rules which, if followed, would enliven one’s writing style. I remember distinctly rule number one, “Omit needless words.”

In this week’s Gospel passage, Jesus would have us omit needless rules. There appears to be in human nature a tendency to multiply rules and regulations. While this might promote good order in society, does it also lead to making good or virtuous or holy persons? At the time of Jesus, the Pharisees excelled in adding man-made rules to the Commandments that God had given the Israelites. While they perhaps followed these many rules very faithfully,

A pure heart create for me, O God (Ps 51)

they expected ordinary people his parents. to follow their example.

My late pastor, Father Thus they imposed tremenThomas Morrissey, mentioned dous burdens on the people. how as a young newspaper While God had made a covcarrier he was asked by one enant with the Israelites on of his Jewish customers to Mount Sinai and given them come into her house and to the Commandments, there were many other Homily of the Week rules and regulations related to ritual pracTwenty-second Sunday tices, foods, health and in Ordinary Time many other topics.

By Deacon Besides all these rules that are found in Philip E. Bedard the Bible, there was also a whole set of unwritten laws that the Pharilower or raise the thermostat sees followed and imposed because her religion forbade on the people. Some of these her doing that on the Sabbath. were harmless but others, In this Sunday’s Gospel passuch as the right of corban, sage, the Pharisees criticize actually nullified the Comthe Apostles, and indirectly, mandments.

Jesus Himself, for not washFor example, someone ing their hands before eating. who wanted to make a large This was more than a matter donation to the temple would of hygiene, it was a way to simply have to say that maintain ritual cleanliness. this gift was corban, that is Jesus wants us to return to “dedicated” to the temple, the original intent of God the and thereby would not have Father when He brought the Isto provide financial support to raelites out of Egypt and gave

them the Commandments. In the first reading Moses tells the people to be faithful in observing the Commandments and not “add to what I command you nor subtract from it” (Deut 4:2). This is precisely what the Pharisees had done.

Jesus told them that it was not so much external behavior, such as hand washing, that mattered, nor was it the food we eat, but rather the dispositions of the heart that mattered to God. For Jesus’s contemporaries the concept of the heart was much like our idea of the conscience. It represented the seat of a person’s core values. It was from there that all sorts of evil actions, words and thoughts could arise. Jesus tried to show the importance of interior dispositions. “From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness,

envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly” (Mk 7:21-23). A clear example of this teaching can be found in the “Sermon on the Mount” in which Jesus warned, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Mt 5:27,28).

Today, we are beset by the plague of pornography. It clearly destroys that purity of heart called for by Jesus in the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8).

Clearly, our relationship with Jesus leads us to purify our hearts and to bring to our world those graces that come to us from this relationship.

Let us receive the Bread of Life with hearts that are pure and that can love as the Lord wants us to love.

Deacon Bedard serves at St. Jude the Apostle Parish and Morton Hospital and Medical Center in Taunton.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Sept. 1, 1 Cor 1:26-31; Ps 33:12-13,18-21; Mt 25:14-30. Sun. Sept. 2, Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Dt 4:1-2,6-8; Ps 15:2-5; Jas 1:17-18,21b-22,27; Mk 7:1-8,14-15,21-23. Mon. Sept. 3, 1 Cor 2:1-5; Ps 119:97-102; Lk 4:16-30. Tues. Sept. 4, 1 Cor 2:10b-16; Ps 145:8-14; Lk 4:31-37. Wed. Sept. 5, 1 Cor 3:1-9; Ps 33:12-15,20-21; Lk 4:38-44. Thurs. Sept. 6, 1 Cor 3:18-23; Ps 24:1-6; Lk 5:1-11. Fri. Sept. 7, 1 Cor 4:1-5; Ps 37:3-6,27-28,39-40; Lk 5:33-39.

I

n the wake of the Supreme Court’s 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith, a broad, bipartisan coalition quickly formed to restore to federal law a robust understanding of religious freedom, which many believed Smith had severely attenuated. RFRA, as the bill was known, passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a voice vote, was adopted 97-3 by the U.S. Senate, and was signed into law by President Clinton on Nov. 16, 1993; its rapid and overwhelming passage a testimony to the strength of the pro-RFRA coalition.

Could such a coalition be re-assembled in light of various threats to religious freedom in the United States today? One would like to think so, but it’s not an easy case to make.

A distinguished rabbi, asked

Another coalition for religious freedom

some months ago whether been abortion, contraception, the RFRA coalition could be sterilization and marriage. stitched together once more, I would add a third reason suggested, sadly, that it would to the doubters’ skepticism: be like putting Humpty-Dump- the willingness of religious ty together again: “You want intellectuals, including the to know what happened to the Catholic Theological Society RFRA coalition?” he asked a constitutional scholar. “I’ll tell you what happened: gay rights happened. It’s created an irresistible force against an imBy George Weigel movable object.”

A Catholic bishop, a party to the same conversation, agreed, although of America, to sacrifice a rohis explanation for the demise bust understanding of religious of the old RFRA coalition was freedom on the altar of what a bit broader. The protection of they believe to be other social believers’ rights and conscienc- goods, including the expansion es, he suggested, is in direct of the welfare state. conflict with the ideology of the All of these factors sexual revolution. That’s why conspire (in the sense of the flashpoints in the current “work together”) to make it religious freedom battles have very difficult to re-assemble the bipartisan coalition that passed RFRA. Given the positions that the Democratic Party espouses on abortion and the full agenda of the gay insurgency, it’s not easy to see how Democrats sensitive to the dominant ideological and funding currents in their party would join in supporting

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The Catholic Difference

strong religious freedom protections — especially when core Democratic constituencies think that “religious freedom” is a cover for “irrational bigotry” on matters of “reproductive rights” and “gay rights.” Then there are those Republicans who devoutly (or impiously) wish that “the social issues” would simply go away — a political cause far more difficult for them to advance within their camp than the Pro-Life/promarriage-rightly-understood cause among Democrats, but an obstacle to coalitionbuilding nonetheless.

What the difficulties of re-assembling the old RFRA coalition suggest is that there has been a serious erosion of American political culture since the early 1990s — and at the root of that deterioration are profound confusions about the human condition. If everything in the human condition is plastic and malleable — if there are no givens — then claims to “my truth” on which you cannot legitimately impose “your truth” make sense. If, on the other hand,

some things simply are — such as the human dignity of the unborn child or the nature of marriage — then we can learn what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is conducive to human happiness or conducive to human misery, by pondering those givens and trying to discern the deep truths they teach us about ourselves and how we should live: truths that have been illuminated for centuries by biblical religion.

America began with the assertion of deep truths written into the human condition by “Nature, and Nature’s God” (as the Declaration of Independence put it). In an election season likely to be dominated by very practical (and important) questions about the economy, it will be well to keep a deeper, more searching set of questions in mind: Are we still a nation dedicated to certain moral truths? If so, how do we recover an ability to talk about those truths together?

And if not, what have we become?

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

August 31, 2012

Incommunicado

Saturday 25 August 2012 — and waited a few minutes. The Falmouth Inner Harbor — birth wiggles repositioned themanniversary of celebrity chef Rachel Ray, born and raised here on the Upper Cape ecently, dear Reflections of a readers, I spent Parish Priest five days marooned on a desert island. I

By Father Tim speak allegorically. It Goldrick wasn’t an actual desert island but it felt like one. What happened was that my computer crashed. selves, but that was about it. In I opened my laptop one mornone fell swoop, I had been cut ing and instead of instantly off from the civilized world. springing to life, it stared at Had everything I had ever writme blankly. There was nothing ten been lost? Would I henceon the screen but a few ranforth be totally oblivious to the dom wiggles. I tried rebooting comings and goings of my Faceit several times. I opened and book friends? Would I languish closed the cover. I unplugged it forever in the breakdown lane of

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The Ship’s Log

the Information Highway?

In desperation, I checked with the closest “big box” store. The clerk said they employed technicians with the expertise to diagnose the problem. Nothing was said about fixing it. Does anybody fix anything anymore?

Since the store sells brand-new computers by the truckload, my guess was that they wouldn’t be all that eager to repair outdated, broken ones. An expensive new computer was definitely not in the budget. I managed to find an old phone book and looked up the local computer repair shop’s number. You remember phone books. They’re those thick

Motherhood and the culture war

women everywhere. Get a espite the dog days job.” Another added, “I am of August, there have sick to death of what the been some heated arguments Republican party represents, about the foundations of culwar, repression of women, ture — although the particielitism, religious fanaticism, pants may not have recognized destruction of the environment, the import of their rhetoric. and nothing but an artificial, The announcement of Paul superficial value system that Ryan joining the Republican the rest of the world despises. ticket rebooted the hysteria That’s just what we need, two concerning Ann Romney Stepford wives as first and that had previously waned, second ladies.” since now both candidates The venom flowed freely, had well-educated wives who indicating that there is truly chose motherhood. A vocation considered typical for centuries — nay, millennia — can now be categorized as a “red meat” topic, enraging those who scorn the traditional family and

By Genevieve Kineke women’s enduring commitment to it.

One online article a chasm between those who provided a bio for Ryan’s value motherhood and those wife, Janna, relating that she who see it as a degrading form had graduated from Wellesof slavery. Considering the ley — her own mother’s alma fact that every person reading mater — and after attending that piece (and this one!) was law school went to work for carried, borne, washed, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers in fed by a woman who cared for Washington, D.C. According someone other than herself, to some, that education didn’t such diatribes reveal more achieve its obvious purpose of than self-absorbed adolescent entrenching her in a vaunted petulance — they reveal a career, for she subsequently deeper animus that needs to be married and stayed home to explored. raise the couple’s three chilIronically, in the same week dren. that Paul Ryan was chosen In the comment box below there was the noted passing the piece, one woman wrote: of a woman who may provide “Lovely, another upper middle one key to these rants against class female who got the motherhood. Helen Gurley expensive education and does Brown, who died at the age of nothing with it but change 90, was the editor of Cosmodirty diapers. She should have politan magazine from 1965 had her parents give all that until 1996. During her reign, education money to a young during which she worked woman who needed it and non-stop, 12-hour days (she would have really used it. boasted that the only days she She is a disgrace to educated

The Feminine Genius

ever took off were for cosmetic surgery), she shamelessly preached “men, love, work, achievement, fun” in every issue.

Brown glorified uncommitted sex, and was firm in making sure that her readers never encountered references to motherhood. The perfect female counterpart to Hugh Hefner, she prioritized carnal delights — even at the expense of family commitments and professionalism in the workplace. By the end of her career, having enthusiastically promoted decades of debauchery — with her own body a masticated parody of the perennial coquette — she had left an extraordinary influence on the culture.

The collapse of Christian values, of course, cannot be laid solely on the shoulders of those who produced such smut — for they were only serving an existing market. Surely our decline has been a coalescence of personalities, philosophies and events that has steadily led us towards moral anarchy.

In that regard, the coming election is about more than health insurance, the deficit, and national security. It’s just as much a referendum on marriage, motherhood, and the dignity of the human person.

Truly, these are not “superficial value systems,” but the fabric on which our entire culture rests. We ignore the present moral chaos at our peril.

Mrs. Kineke is the author of “The Authentic Catholic Woman,” and can be found online at feminine-genius. com.

publications we used to consult before we were able to simply locate a telephone number online. I called the shop on the top of the list. “Bring it in,” they urged.

The shop was just down the road — but the road in question happened to be Main Street, Falmouth, at high noon on a fine summer’s weekend. Automobiles, bicycles and pedestrians would be everywhere.

It was a journey I had to make. How could I function without my personal computer?

I use my computer all the time.

I check my email several times a day. I do research on my computer. I write my homilies on a computer. I check my spelling on the computer. I transmit my columns for The Anchor on the computer. The prospect of life without a computer sounded as primitive as life without indoor plumbing. There was nothing I could do but buck up and make a foray to the computer repair shop.

The shop was small and the staff was cordial. I lacked the technical language to describe what was wrong with the thing.

All I could report was, “It’s broken.” I doubt if my description of the symptoms was very helpful to them. “OK,” they answered politely. “Do you have your power cord with you?” I didn’t. “You’ll have to drive back home and return with the power cord.” I offered a quick prayer to St. Isidore of Seville, who happens to be the patron saint of computer geeks (I learned this on the Internet).

It said that, after much study, St. Isidore was chosen for the honor due to the fact that the sixth-century saint was proficient at organizing information.

It’s a bit of a stretch but, stretch or not, good St. Isidore came through. “Oh, wait, we do have

an old power cord somewhere in the back room that should work on your computer,” said the clerk.

After a couple of days, there was a telephone call from the shop mentioning the possibility of a broken this and a disconnected that. It all sounded very expensive. I was getting nervous. To make a long story short, all it needed in the end was routine servicing. It took me hours to catch up on my accumulated emails, but who’s complaining?

Wouldn’t you know that on the very day I lost Internet access, the Diocese of Fall River decided to enter the computer age and for the first time ever sent email instead of the usual hardcopy mailing.

I’m old enough to remember life without computers. Back in those days, we wrote papers and talks on a typewriter, perhaps even on a manual one.

Personal notes and letters were always handwritten. Somehow, when you were writing in your own hand, you could put more thought and feeling into what you were communicating. I know several people (including priests) who, even in this day and age, prefer the old ways.

Some of them don’t even own computers. Lacking access to a personal computer means you will have more work to do and that it will take longer to do it.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s such a bad thing.

At any rate, this column is finished and I have met my deadline. With a click of the “send” button, I will now transmit it to The Anchor office computer. Computers, it seems to me, are both a blessing and a curse.

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

10

The Anchor

August 31, 2012

Walking side-by-side in their devotion

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

NEW BEDFORD — There are a number of volunteers who help maintain St. Lawrence Martyr Parish in New Bedford, but none are more dedicated than Karen and William “Bill” Ashworth: “You can’t separate those two,” said Father Marek Chmurski, parish pastor.

“They really show a great devotion and a sense of belonging to the Church,” Father Chmurski continued. “We have many volunteers and form a bond; it’s interesting because we don’t have staff that we pay.

[The Ashworths] do this out of their love for the Church. This is something that is very beautiful; you don’t always see that at every parish.”

Married for 44 years, the Ashworths start their mornings with Mass and end their day kneeling in evening prayer. In between those times, the two New Bedford natives continue to nurture the Catholic seeds planted during their youth.

Even though his father was Protestant, Bill said his father made sure the family went to Mass “even if we went on vacation.” Karen shared her memories of attending Mass with an aunt and a weekly routine that included escorting her grandmother to church.

“My grandmother had had a stroke, so on Sundays we’d load her up in the car and go to Holy Name Parish because it only had a couple of steps to go up,” said Karen, adding her mother was also devout. “In those days you couldn’t go to Communion without going to Confession, so on Saturdays my mother would put us on the bus and send us to St. Kilian’s

Church and Confession, just so sionaries of Charity, who live by Bill and other volunteers, is we could get Communion the across the street, will pull him given out twice a month at the next day.” in; “Yesterday we were talking pantry.

“The examples given by to someone at the church and “We were giving out just these people, like my mother they said, ‘Hey Bill, can you over 50 bags when I started, praying and my grandmother,” come on by?’” said Karen. and the last few times it’s been said Karen, “who almost 80,” said had a ritual of 10 Bill. “There’s this and being a stroke one time we gave person, she couldn’t out 90 bags, and get out. Her evthat was the time eryday ritual was they had the big she would say all lay-off at one of the these Rosaries, and mills. It’s been up in her room she there.” had a shrine to the “It’s amazing,” Blessed Mother. It added Karen, who was just the whole helps out occasionkindness to one ally at the pantry. another, to tell the “They don’t start truth and this type giving out food unof thing, that helped til 10:30 a.m. but me to become who I people will be there am today.” at 7:30. They are so When his daughgrateful. It’s a humter-in-law had a bling experience. baby and needed I’m glad we’re here someone to baby-sit to help them. You so she could return don’t judge them; to teaching, Bill there is such a took his 30-year need.” retirement from A few years ago UPS. After a few items were found in years, family friend the basement of St. Sam Murphy lured Lawrence; it was a Bill over to Holy mix of church items Family-Holy Name that had either been School in New Beddonated or gone ford to do some vol- Anchor living stones — Karen and unused for many unteer maintenance William Ashworth. (Photo by Becky Aubut) years. work. Seven years “A lot of old later, Bill transthings were found ferred his volunin the basement of teer energies to maintaining St. When Bill got his heavy-du- the church because what peoty pickup truck a few years ago, ple would do is instead of usLawrence Martyr Parish.

“Every time something hap- a volunteer at the parish’s food ing what they had and clean it pens at the church, whether it’s pantry asked Bill to come up to up, they’d just buy new,” said plumbing in the rectory or the Taunton for a larger-than-usual Karen. slates are falling off the roof — delivery, and he’s been doing it With no previous experience, if it’s something I can legally ever since. Once a month he’ll Karen successfully brought the fix,” said Bill, “I’m there.” travel to pick up the food that, life back to one of the items Even the Sisters of the Mis- after being shelved and bagged “with a lot of elbow grease and

patience,” she said. That led her to taking on the challenge to bring the shine to not only all those items left languishing in the basement, but the chalices, sconces, and even the brass plates on the doors — nothing escapes “Sister Polish” and her eye for detail.

“Karen brings back the beauty and life in the objects,” said Father Marek.

“It’s an obsession now,” laughs Karen. “I go to another church and [look around] and say, ‘Maybe I should talk to someone,’ and Bill will say, ‘Just keep walking; just keep walking.’”

The retired schoolteacher helps decorate the altars during the seasons, and she works alongside Bill as part of the Garden Club that maintains the grounds at the parish. Laughing throughout the interview and often finishing each other’s sentences, it’s clear that while life has not always been perfect, the couple appreciates all of God’s blessings.

“I had cancer 25 years ago and that changes your outlook on life. Everyone I knew that had cancer at that time has passed away, but not me. I say that God has work for me to do,” said Karen. “Bill is a diabetic and he’s had problems, had a bypass on his leg.

For six months he had an inner ear problem that made him totally nauseated, but now he’s back to being himself. I have great, great faith. God will help you, all you have to do is ask.

You’ve got to believe.”

To submit a Living Stones nominee, send an email with information to fatherwilson@ anchornews.org.

To advertise in The Anchor, contact

Wayne Powers at 508-675-7151 or Email waynepowers@anchornews.org

August 31, 2012

The Anchor

11

La Salette Father Pat hospitalized in France

GRENOBLE, France — La Salette Father Andre “Pat” Patenaude, the “singing priest,” fell ill recently after a visit to India where he contracted pancreatic disease, a terribly painful illness.

He was spending the summer months at the original La Salette Shrine in the French Alps when he was taken ill last month and taken to the hospital in Grenoble. In severe pain, he was diagnosed with the serious infection. Because of the intense pain, a coma is often induced. This was done with Father Pat. He has had two minor surgeries or procedures to remove fluids and relieve pressure. He is being kept “asleep,” partly because he must not eat or drink anything in his present condition. His sister, Rita, who was already in France at La Salette when he fell ill, is by his side as much as possible.

Father Pat is expected to be in a coma for about a month and will probably be hospitalized through October.

It is stressed that no cards are desired at this time. Prayer is requested.

12

August 31, 2012

The Anchor

‘Last Ounce of Courage’ aims to fuel dialogue on religious freedom

Denver, Colo. (CNA) — The upcoming family-friendly film, “Last Ounce of Courage” by director Darrel Campbell, takes the debate surrounding religious freedom and public expression of faith to the big screen.

Campbell said he intends the film to not only address how and why we celebrate Christmas in today’s politically correct society, but also honor the soldiers and veterans who serve our country, “strap on the boots, and go in harm’s way.”

The movie, which will be released September 14 on 1,200 screens nationwide, follows three generations of the fictional Revere family.

Bob Revere, played by veteran actor Marshall Teague, is a decorated war hero and the part-time mayor of a small town. But his life drastically changes when his son Tom goes off to war and is killed.

Adding to his pain, Tom’s young wife — who had just given birth to their son Christian — drifts away from the family in her grief.

After 14 years, however, Christian and his mom decide to come back into the Reveres’ life one December, looking for the family they desperately need and miss.

When he settles into the community, Christian finds himself chastised for bringing a Bible to school and observes Christmas being ignored or secularized when once it was celebrated by locals.

One day, Christian asks his grandfather what his father had died for. When Bob has no quick answer, they both start down a road to find the answers that they had been unconsciously avoiding. Soon, all three generations of Reveres take a stand for their beliefs and end up inspiring an entire town.

“I always wanted to do a film about Christmas time,”

Campbell told CNA on August 22, recalling that the inspiration for the film began four years ago when he received a religious tract titled “Keeping Christ in Christmas.”

Although he realized that it was an “emotional and electric subject matter,” he said he was tired of seeing Christmas “getting pushed into the background in civic life.”

Along with the theme of putting Christ back into Christmas, Campbell said that the film is also “a celebration of those who have given their last full measure of devotion.”

The director’s father was a sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War II and his brother, Campbell’s uncle, lost his life in that same war. Campbell said he wants the film to prompt audiences to ask “What can I do to make sure their sacrifice is not in vain?”

Lead actor Marshall Teague agreed. He told CNA that he hopes that moviegoers ask themselves “What are we willing to do?”

“You start with your first ounce of courage,” he said, explaining that “That first ounce of courage is your voice — speaking up.”

Finding one’s voice allows individuals to publicly say “I believe in this country, I believe in the people, I believe in freedom, I believe in my Church, my religion, my faith,” Teague said. “This country is based on faith, family, and freedom, and that’s what the movie is about.”

“It is very rare for [a] faith based film to be about our country and our people,” he added. “This is really a movie about all of us.”

Campbell said he aimed to make the film in a way that was “ecumenical — in the sense that it’s not Protestant or Catholic, but it is Christian.”

More information on the film can be found at: http://www. alrcnewskitchen.com/looc.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, September 2, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Thomas M. Kocik, Parochial Administrator of St. Anne’s Parish in Fall River

far from normal — Animated characters Courtney, voiced by Anna Kendrick, Norman, voiced

by Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alvin, voiced by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Neil, voiced by Tucker Albrizzi, and Mitch, voiced by Casey Affleck, are seen in the movie “ParaNorman.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Focus)

CNS Movie Capsules NEW YORK (CNS) — The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by CNS. “Hit and Run” (Open Road) Pretentiously droll and ostentatiously vulgar road-trip comedy. Dax Shepard, who wrote the screenplay and co-directed with David Palmer, plays a sensitive former getaway car driver for a group of bank robbers who is now in the witness protection program. When his girlfriend (Kristen Bell) lands a job teaching college, she has just two days to travel the 500 miles to Los Angeles so she can accept. The pair is eventually pursued on their high-speed journey by her possessive ex-boyfriend (Michael Rosenbaum), the ex’s brother (Jess Rowland), a lovelorn gay sheriff’s deputy, a bumbling federal marshal (Tom Arnold) and the thieves (led by Bradley Cooper) with whom Shepard’s character used to work. Bloody violence and gunplay, strong sexual content — including implied aberrant behavior and cohabitation, full male and female nudity and references to rape and homosexual activity — marijuana use, a few instances of profanity, pervasive rough language. The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted.

Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

“ParaNorman” (Focus) This horror-themed animated adventure sees an 11-yearold boy (voice of Kodi SmitMcPhee) — whose ability to communicate with ghosts has

caused him to be shunned and bullied by his unbelieving peers — called on by his eccentric great-uncle (voice of John Goodman) to save their Salem-like hometown from the apocalyptic fulfillment of an 18th-century witch’s (voice of Jodelle Ferland) curse. He’s helped along the way by his best friend (voice of Tucker Albrizzi), his cheerleader sister (voice of Anna Kendrick), the school quarterback (voice of Casey Affleck) and even a reformed bully (voice of Christopher Mintz-Plasse). The basic message of co-directors Sam Fell and Chris Butler’s frequently witty stop-motion celebration of the macabre — that evil acts are often motivated by fear and that the vengeful desire to retaliate in kind only makes things worse — is a valuable one for adults and kids alike.

But Butler’s screenplay, which occasionally dabbles in sexual humor throughout, concludes with the ironic revelation that a seemingly he-man male character has a boyfriend. However brief and however humorously intended, the scene nonetheless clearly sends a signal that such a relationship ought to be as nonchalantly accepted as it is matterof-factly announced. As such, it is grievously out of place in a film directed at children. Acceptance of homosexual acts, some sexual and scatological jokes,

potentially frightening scenes of peril. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults.

The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

“Sparkle” (TriStar) Remake of the 1976 melodrama about a girl trio, set in 1968 Detroit, manages to be both as predictably familiar as your grandmother’s living room and as subtle as a runaway freight train. But the charisma of the performers and the consistently expressed desire of all the principal characters to lead moral lives hold the enterprise together. Director Salim Akil, together with his wife, screenwriter Mara Brock Akil, creates a grittily authentic period club scene with Jordin Sparks in the title role, Carmen Ejogo and Tika Sumpter as her also-singing siblings and Whitney Houston, in her last role, as their embittered mother. Marital violence culminating in a homicide, cocaine use, sexual banter, several racial epithets, a fleeting scatological reference.

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.

August 31, 2012

13

The Anchor

Capuchins to examine challenges of evangelizing secular societies

sage advice — A sign along a highway reinforces concerns as locals prepare for Tropical Storm Isaac in Metairie, La., August 27. On its current track, Isaac was due to slam into the Gulf Coast anywhere between Florida and Louisiana the evening of August 28, or early the next day, the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. (CNS photo/Sean Gardner, Reuters)

HHS revises mandate a third time; foes say it misses the point

Washington D.C. (CNA/ EWTN News) — A slight revision of the federal contraception mandate offers some additional protection for certain religious employers but is not sufficient to ease religious freedom concerns, said a lawyer who is working to challenge the mandate in court.

Hannah Smith, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told CNA on August 27 that the Obama Administration is governing by “sloppy executive fiat” and is failing to address the underlying problem with the controversial mandate.

She explained that for the third time in seven months, the federal government has rewritten the guidelines for the “safe harbor” that offers a one-year reprieve from the mandate to some non-profit religious organizations that object to its demands.

“They’re making it up as they go along,” she said. “They haven’t really thought through these issues carefully.”

The Becket Fund is representing Wheaton College, a Christian liberal arts college in Illinois, in a lawsuit challenging the mandate. The controversial rule requires employers to offer health insurance that covers contraception, sterilization and early abortion drugs, even if doing so violates their consciences.

Wheaton College argued that the mandate violated its religious freedom and filed for a preliminary injunction prevent-

ing its enforcement.

As a result, the federal government changed the safe harbor requirements, allowing Wheaton College to qualify for the temporary delay in the mandate.

Smith observed that the safe harbor, as it had previously been written, did not apply to Wheaton. The Christian college does not object to all forms of contraception, but only to products that cause early abortions, she said.

Initially, the safe harbor did not apply to employers that offered coverage of some contraceptives, she explained, but that regulation has now been changed to include those that accept certain elements of the coverage while objecting to others.

In addition, she said, Wheaton College was originally disqualified from the exemption because it had offered coverage of the products it objected to after February 10, which was the deadline by which employers must discontinue the coverage in order to qualify for the reprieve.

Smith explained that coverage of early abortion drugs ella and Plan B had been “inadvertently and unknowingly included in the plans,” and when administrators discovered it, they immediately began working with the college’s insurance company to remove the coverage. This process was not completed until March.

The federal government has

now decided that because the college had “made efforts” to remove the coverage before February 10, it can qualify for the safe harbor, she said.

But although the new regulation offers some protection to Wheaton College, it is “not a complete victory,” Smith cautioned.

She explained that the safe harbor is merely a 12-month “delay tactic” that will postpone “the inevitable conflict that will arise” between government and religious organizations that object to the mandate.

In addition, she said, Wheaton College is not entirely protected over the next year, because employees can still file private lawsuits trying to force the college to adhere to the mandate.

After the new regulations for the safe harbor were announced, Wheaton’s lawsuit was dismissed as premature in a court decision that pointed to the administration’s promised “accommodation” for religious freedom, she noted.

But the accommodation proposals put forward by the administration “are not satisfactory to religious institutions” and do not adequately address concerns of religious freedom, Smith stated.

She said that the Becket Fund will be carefully assessing options and following possible developments with the administration’s proposed accommodation to determine what further legal action may be necessary.

Rome, Italy (CNA/ EWTN News) — The Capuchin Franciscan religious order is celebrating its General Chapter in Rome this month and is focusing on the challenges of bringing Franciscan spirituality into the secularized life of the northern hemisphere.

According to the Capuchin’s website, some 234 members of the community are meeting August 20 to September 22 at the St. Lawrence of Brindisi Franciscan International School in Rome.

The assembly opened on August 20 with a Mass celebrated by former Minister General Bishop John Corriveau of Nelson, Canada.

The last several days have been devoted to workshop sessions.

In an interview with Vatican Radio, the current Minister General, Father Mauro Johri, said the Capuchins are “totally committed to maintaining our missionary presence in places that are very diverse and difficult.” They are also committed to addressing the new challenges which the Church has presented to them, such as engaging in “the New Evangelization in countries of

the northern hemisphere.”

Father Johri said the Capuchins see themselves first and foremost as seekers of God and witnesses of His truth in today’s world, but also “as sons of St. Francis committed to living in simplicity, at the side of those of who are poor,” both spiritual and materially.

Among the goals the order has for advancing the New Evangelization are strengthening their presence at Capuchin missions and parishes, and improving preaching and the services they provide to those in need.

He also noted that with the opening of the Year of Faith and the Synod of Bishops for the New Evangelization (October 7-28), the Capuchins “wish to make our voice and contribution heard as well.

“But I think the first step — and the general chapter is helping us to do this — is to be evangelized ourselves, that is, to allow ourselves to be reached by the novelty of the Gospel in order to be renewed in our faith and fundamental trust, because only thus will we be credible in inviting others to take this step,” Father Johri said.

Revised and updated ...

2012-2013 Diocese of Fall River Catholic Directory ... NOW SHIPPING !!

Published by The Anchor Publishing Company P.O. Box 7, Fall River, Massachusetts 02722 Please ship _____ directories x $18 each, including shipping and handling. Total Enclosed $_____ NAME ____________________________________________ ADDRESS _________________________________________ CITY _____________________ STATE _______ ZIP _____ Please make checks payable to “Anchor Publishing” For more information, email theanchor@anchonews.org, call 508-675-7151, or order online at www.anchornews.org

14

The Anchor

Wellfleet parish celebrates centennial

A visit to Cape Cod

continued from page one

“Our parishioners are looking forward to celebrating not only the parish centennial, but 100 years of the Catholic faith begun by the work of the Sacred Heart Fathers,” pastor Father Hugh J. McCullough told The Anchor. “We hope to continue our centennial celebration by spiritual events and activities during the year in keeping with the upcoming Year of Faith.”

Mary Rogers, a member of the parish Centennial Committee added, “I have been a part of Our Lady of Lourdes parish’s 100 years for 67 of them, or roughly two-thirds of its history. My earliest summer memories of Wellfleet include dressing up for 8 a.m. Sunday Mass in the center of town. When I moved full time to Wellfleet in 1997, I was happy to become an active year-round member of Our Lady of Lourdes.

I’m glad that significant pieces of the old church were incorporated into the new church on Route 6.

More importantly I am grateful for the continuity of the spiritual community of remarkable people, past and present.”

Those pioneer Catholics on the Outer Cape were first ministered to by priests from Provincetown and Harwich, meeting in private homes.

In 1900, Father Manual C. Ter-

ra, a beloved pastor of St. Peter’s Parish in Provincetown, authorized the purchase of a one-room schoolhouse in Wellfleet to be used as a chapel for the good folks in Wellfleet.

For the price of $59, the faithful finally received their first house of worship. The building was eventually separated into sections and moved to a new location on State Highway. Father Terra named it Our Lady of Lourdes Chapel.

Several priests served the Wellfleet faithful until 1911 when Fall River Bishop Daniel F. Feehan made Our Lady of Lourdes a parish, with churches in Truro, Brewster, and Harwich as mission churches.

Bishop Feehan named Sacred Hearts Father Hilarion Joseph Eikerling as the parish’s first pastor. One of Father Eikerling’s first projects as pastor was to purchase land for a new church building and rectory on Main Street. Construction was initiated in early 1912, and on September 1 of that year, Bishop Feehan dedicated the new Our Lady of Lourdes Church. The rectory was completed in 1913.

The Sacred Hearts Fathers diligently served the faithful of Wellfleet at Our Lady of Lourdes until

August 31, 2012 continued from page one

1987 when the order moved to care for its missions in southern Texas.

Father Bernard Kelly was named as the parish’s first diocesan pastor.

Changing demographics on Cape Cod led to then-Fall River Bishop Sean P. O’Malley, OFM Cap., to change parish boundaries on the Outer Cape, designating three churches to serve the faithful: St. Peter’s in Provincetown, St. Joan of Arc in Orleans, and Our Lady of Lourdes in Wellfleet. It was decided a new Our Lady of Lourdes church building would be constructed to replace the old downtown structure as well as the mission churches in Truro and Eastham.

In November of 2000, the downtown church building closed, with the worship site moving to Our Lady of the Visitation Church in North Eastham.

Construction on the new Our Lady of Lourdes Church began on Dec. 8, 2007. A new 500-seat church and parish hall were dedicated by Bishop Coleman on Mar. 22, 2009.

Don Palladino, parish council president, told The Anchor, “For 100 years Our Lady of Lourdes has been home parish for Catholics on the Outer Cape and a welcoming church for thousands of summer visitors. This anniversary recognizes the role Our Lady of Lourdes has played in the history of our community and serves as the anchor as we look forward to the next centenary.”

In its 100-plus years of ministry, Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Wellfleet has had 15 pastors: Sacred Hearts Fathers Eikerling, Denis Spykers, Arnold Derycke, Egbert Steenbeck, Paul Price, Leo King, Alan Nagle, Benedict Folger, Jude Morgan, Jeremiah Casey, and Fred Myers; Father Kelly, and Fathers William Norton, John Andrews, and Hugh McCullough.

raised in a Protestant family but converted to Roman Catholicism in 1926. Hennessy spoke of her grandmother’s youth and the moments that helped shape who she would become, including her survival of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and witnessing people coming together to help those in need.

Hennessy spoke of her grandmother’s love of reading and being drawn to authors who depicted social conditions in a visceral way.

“She clearly felt compassion for those in need,” said Hennessy.

When Day was 19, she dropped out of college and moved to New York where she found a job as a reporter for The Call, the city’s only socialist daily. She covered rallies and demonstrations, drawing her interviews from people who worked in the labor force. Day would be arrested in 1917 as part of a demonstration at the White House in favor of giving women voting rights, even though she would never vote a day in her life, said Hennessy.

Day had an abortion when she was 22, a decision “that affected her,” for the rest of her life, said Hennessy. Day’s daughter, and Hennessy’s mother, was born in 1926, and it was then Day embraced Catholicism and wrote about her conversion. By 1932, the single mother was supporting herself as a freelance journalist, and upon a return trip from covering the Communist-led Hunger March on Washington D.C. during the height of the Great Depression, she met Peter Maurin, who would ultimately “indoctrinate” Day in Catholic social teaching and his program to change the social order.

This week in

Day and Maurin created The Catholic Worker newspaper in 1933, and also opened the first House of Hospitality in that same year. “A powerful and gifted writer,” said Hennessy, Day would eventually go on to write eight books, more than 350 articles for journals and magazines and more than 1,000 articles for The Catholic Worker newspaper.

Day’s most tangible legacy are the hospitality homes that continue to exist today; more than 130 Catholic Worker communities exist in 32 states and eight foreign countries.

“Those who serve the movement come from many faiths,” said Hennessy, adding that Day admitted that she never knew if the movement would be able to sustain itself in her lifetime, never mind beyond it.

Hennessy briefly shared some of her personal memories of her grandmother, who would visit her family in Vermont. A great “story teller,” Hennessy said that she was 25 when her grandmother died, but Day’s impact on her life has always been felt.

“Most of my lifelong decisions,” said Hennessy, were made under the question, “what would Dorothy Day do?”

Day’s legacy is not without controversy, said Hennessy, but the individuals who benefitted from her grandmother’s devoted stance on helping those in need, regardless of the cost, has helped shape the Catholic landscape.

Day would be the first to say, “Don’t call me a saint,” said Hennessy, but she “started a lay movement to get more participation. To encourage others to be more holy and honest; it’s a lifelong undertaking.”

Diocesan history

10 years ago — The Cape Cod Prayer Group Deanery sponsored an all-day FIRE Rally featuring noted authors, TV personalities, lecturers and evangelists. The event, which began with a Mass celebrated by Bishop Sean P. O’Malley, OFM Cap., was presented by the FIRE Team of the Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio.

FIRE is an acronym for Faith, Intercession, Re25 years ago — Parishioners at Our Lady pentance and Evangelism. of the Cape Parish in Brewster began a unique One year ago — The first of three workshops telephone “prayer line” ministry group that entitled “Singing the Rite Music” designed to help was inspired by an article in the Catholic guide music directors through the new changes to Digest. The purpose of the effort was to re- the Roman Missal was held at the Cathedral of St. ceive emergency prayer petitions from those Mary of the Assumption in Fall River. in need.

50 years ago — Most Reverend James J. Gerrard, D.D., Auxiliary Bishop of the Fall River Diocese, presided at the second week of the annual priests’ retreat held at Cathedral Camp in East Freetown. Father Leo Clifford, O.F.M. was the retreat master and more than 100 diocesan priests were in attendance.

August 31, 2012

15

The Anchor

T

Search and rescue

he frustrating scene has for election or reelection this played out in hundreds of November are justifying this ways in many different genres. senseless, brutal act calling it a You know the one of which right and a choice.

I speak. Where the victim is They’re not hearing the mufbound, gagged and hidden, and fled cries of the unborn whose the hero is mere feet away but fate lies in their hands. These can’t execute a rescue because tiny and not-so-tiny victims can’t the rescuee can’t communicate. defend themselves and tell the I’ve seen it in old westerns, world that they are not just “tissci-fi flicks, crime shows, soap sue.” They’re not a right and a operas, and even cartoons. You choice. want to yell at the protagonist to just open that door or look in that cave.

Most of the time, all ends well and the

By Dave Jolivet poor victim is rescued. Or you can just change the channel.

They can’t tell these “defendUnfortunately, this scene has ers of America’s freedoms” that been repeating itself over and it hurts to be cut into pieces or over this summer, but it’s not in drowned in toxic chemicals. a piece of TV or movie fiction.

They can’t communicate that It’s playing out every day in our they are part of God’s plan. own living rooms via political We are the protagonists in campaign commercials. this story. It’s not a western; not The poor, helpless victims are a sci-fi flick; not a crime drama; bound, gagged and hidden, as and definitely not a cartoon. It’s deceitful rhetoric spews like lava a matter of life and death, and we from an active volcano. have the power to rescue these We hear it every day: “It’s little guys and gals. Or, we can a right.” “It’s a choice.” “It’s refuse to look behind that door or equality.” “It’s what America in that cave. stands for.”

It’s been a summer of disgustNo. Period. Call it what it is, ing political advertising, and it please. It’s abortion. It’s murder. will just get worse this fall. And So many candidates running we can’t change the channel.

My View From the Stands

recognizing a job well done — From left, Mass. Governor Deval Patrick meets Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores Research Director Rolando Oliva, President Juan Sam, and Outreach Director Adrian Ventura.

Mass. governor recognizes group for labor leadership continued from page one

cerned about the intersection of a post-union labor reality on the New Bedford waterfront and the significant, largely undocumented Central American immigrant refugee population of Bristol County since the late 1990s.

Initial organizing with a group based upon indigenous Mayan ethnicity showed progress until the armed federal incursion targeting immigrant workers in March 2007. Workers and local supporters discerned the need for an immigrant worker center that would reach out to all Latino/a workers, following a model used successfully elsewhere in the U.S. The Community Economic Development Center, the UMassDartmouth Labor Education Office, and the Massachusetts Coalition on Occupational Safety and Health collaborated on intensive training sessions with local workers in 2008, which resulted in the nascent group of leaders that has become CCT. CCT leaders bring extensive experience from their own working lives and home cultures. Research director Rolando Oliva has two decades of service with labor and community organizations in El Salvador. Outreach director Adrian Ventura received extensive training in base community and charismatic leadership for the Diocese of Santa Cruz del Quiché in Guatemala.

Executive board member Juana Garcia was separated from her critically ill child during the 2007 federal incursion in New Bedford and has testified on this governmental abuse extensively.

President Juan Sam has a varied work experience locally and will conduct a press conference with the Attorney General’s office

on his recent award of $33,000 in back pay and penalties from a former employer. Along with the other officers from North American community groups, the Central American tradition allows for the inclusion of three vocales, leaders who share their experiences and leadership.

CCT provided valuable leadership for the REAL campaign in speaking from their lived work experiences. As of January of next year, the Commonwealth’s new legislation will ensure that no immigrant worker will begin the day’s labor without knowing the name of their employer, their rate of pay, any safety information in their own language of understanding, and financial adjustments for transportation and safety equipment.

CCT leaders testified of their struggles to preserve human dignity in the shadow economy in which far too many owners and managers prey on immigrant workers. This shameful sector has specialized in not carrying proper insurance for workers, failing to treat those with injuries (which needless to say go unreported), walking away with millions in unpaid overtime, vacation pay, and other wages. The Boston Globe quoted Ventura about his years of trying to obtain the most basic information concerning his employer, the management of the current agency he was dealing with, and pertinent information on the day’s assignment.

CCT has also engaged in local negotiations that defend Bristol County workers. They entered into an agreement with the EDA staffing agency earlier this year that provides for many of the provisions delineated in the

state’s REAL legislation. Local supporters realized the progress here while comparing the past years of workers attempting futile phone calls to fictitious numbers or false offices while trying in vain to recover back pay. Attorneys with the Attorney General’s office and Justice at Work currently work with CCT in the case management of two dozen wage theft cases.

Along with the satisfaction of the successful REAL legislative campaign, CCT received notice over the summer of its renewal of support in the amount of $40,000 from CCHD. In their ongoing monitoring of CCT activities, CCHD and the Diocese of Fall River have concluded that Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores of New Bedford works to promote the dignity of the human person, defend the poor and vulnerable, defend the family living wage (a concern of Catholic Social Teaching since Pope Leo’s Rerum Novarum of 1891), attain institutional change, promote the common good, and work collaboratively in peaceful solidarity.

CCT hosts weekly meetings of the Student Immigration Movement, the undocumented young people who negotiated successfully with the federal government for the Suspension of Deportation Program. Located on Rivet Street near Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in New Bedford, CCT works closely with United Interfaith Action on education and community policing issues and is also supported by the Burgess Urban Fund of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, the Lenny Zakim Fund, the Henry Crapo Foundation, and the Island Foundation.

This Message Sponsored by the Following Business Concern in the Diocese of Fall River Gilbert C. Oliveira Insurance Agency

16

Youth Pages

August 31, 2012

they’re back — Students at St. James-St. John School in New Bedford arrive at school on August 27 for the first day of the 2012-13 school year. big wheels — Tony Sousa, left, a presenting sponsor and owner of Preferred Concrete stands with Jack Weldon, executive director of St. Vincent’s Home in Fall River, during the recent Motorcycle Run to benefit the facility.

Bikers hit the road for St. Vincent’s kids FALL RIVER — On August 19, more than 175 motorcycle enthusiasts and their passengers joined St. Vincent’s Home for the seventh annual Motorcycle Run raising more than $20,000 to benefit children, youth, and families.

The 55-mile Motorcycle Run began at 10 a.m. in Fall River with an escort from the Fall River Police Department as well as additional support at key intersections from the Dartmouth Police Department Traffic Division.

Volunteer road guards from the Viking Riders of Rhode Island

and Wicked Wild Weekend Warriors provided added safety support throughout the route. The Women’s Motorcycle Club, New England Thunder — Taking Women’s Motorcycling By Storm — were well represented with 20 motorcycles participating. The Motorcycle Run wound through the scenic roads of Freetown to the shores of Dartmouth, ending back at St. Vincent’s in Fall River.

St. Vincent’s Motorcycle Run was sponsored by platinum sponsor, Preferred Concrete of

East Freetown. Motorcyclists, their passengers, volunteers and guests enjoyed a cookout at the end of the bike run along with a silent auction and raffle featuring more than 90 items donated by area businesses. Children’s Choice Award trophies for favorite bike, as judged by the youth of St. Vincent’s, were presented to the first, second, and third choice winners at the conclusion of the event. Funds were raised to support programming for the children and youth of St. Vincent’s.

hoops heaven — Bishop Feehan High School’s boys varsity basketball coach of 12 years and 1991 graduate, Matt Freeman, recently concluded his annual youth basketball camp at the Attleboro school. Freeman’s FUN-damental Basketball Camp focused on teaching basic basketball skills while emphasizing fun and sportsmanship. More than 100 campers from the ages of six through 14 participated in individual drills such as ball handling, shooting, passing and games. Freeman’s staff included current high school coaches and players. Coach Matt Freeman with a few of his basketball campers, front from left: Matthew Powers and Eddie Cinelli; second row: Brady Banner, Chris Galligan, coach Freeman, Dylan Capua, and Mason Poirier.

Youth Pages

August 31, 2012

W

hat motivates you? Do you always give it your all in everything you do? Be honest! Are you the type of person who looks for the easy way out or welcomes challenges, the more difficult the better? Do you like cutting corners or are you meticulous in dotting every “i” and crossing every “t”? Do you expect things to be handed to you on a silver platter or are you a go-getter? Sometimes I’m appalled at how people just don’t want to give their full effort in the things they do. Is it laziness?

Is it complacency? Is it the fear of failing? Do you consider yourself an underachiever? Even if you don’t achieve the results you expect, or others expect of you, all that is asked from you is to try your very best and give your full potential. Remember these two words: maximum sacrifice.

We don’t always have good days. Life is about ups and downs. But how we handle each

17

Maximum sacrifice

day’s challenges tells the story challenge alive. I’m grateful and of who we are, from where we blessed to have had my parents’ came and where we’re going. support through it all. I was If you’re still in school, for never alone or abandoned to my example, how are you preparing own tasks, and neither are you. for this year’s classes? Is it goSt. Paul speaks about the ing to be the “same old routine” or are you going to step it up a notch? Are you already wishing it was June or are you welcoming September and all the new challenges it

By Ozzie Pacheco will bring? My friends, to get the maximum out of life, you must give the maximum sacrifice.

When I was a teen-ager, my gifts of the Spirit and how each parents always told me, “Work of us is different, yet all of us hard and study hard — it won’t are members of the same Body. kill you.” I didn’t quite underBut, it’s because of our uniquestand that then, but as I grew ness that we have different gifts in maturity it became clear; according to the grace given to everything I want in life must each of us. Not everyone can involve some sacrifice. I studied have an aptitude in math, excel hard, but didn’t always get the in music or science, or get an A best grades — sometimes I even in history. But God does desire failed. But, I knew I did my best for each of us, His children, and that was enough to keep the to use the gifts He has given

Be Not Afraid

us. Remember, however, God doesn’t look at the things that man looks at — the outward appearance. God looks at the heart.

It is there where God knows that you gave the maximum sacrifice in order to show your maximum love.

I first heard of this story many years ago about a little girl who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her five-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. The little boy took a deep breath saying, “Yes, I’ll do it if it will save my sister.”

As the transfusion pro-

gressed, the little boy lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as did the parents, doctors and nurses at seeing the color returning to the little girl’s cheeks.

Then the little boy’s face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, “Will I start to die right away?”

Although this little boy did not understand that his life was not in danger, he did not hesitate whatsoever in giving his life to save his sister’s. That’s maximum love, the result of maximum sacrifice.

We only need to look at the cross of Christ and learn the true meaning of maximum love given through maximum sacrifice. God wants your very best effort. Don’t worry if you don’t achieve the end result. God won’t hold it against you!

God bless!

Ozzie Pacheco is Faith Formation director at Santo Christo Parish, Fall River.

Philadelphia Archdiocese, foundation sign pact on school management

PHILADELPHIA (CNS) — Philadelphia’s 17 archdiocesan high schools and its four schools for special education are officially under new management.

Under a historic agreement in principle signed by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput and H. Edward Hanway for the Faith in the Future Foundation, strategic and operational control of the 21 schools passes to the foundation effective September 1.

It is believed to be the first time a diocese has given control of a major part of its schools to an independent and essentially lay board.

The announcement and signing took place at a press briefing at St. Hubert High School, which was one of the four high schools recommended for closing in the 2011 report of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Catholic Education, but spared by Archbishop Chaput last February.

Archbishop Chaput said in a statement that the agreement between the archdiocese and foundation “is unlike any agreement that a diocese has achieved with its lay leadership.”

“The willingness of lay leaders with a love for Catholic education to step forward is encouraging. The commitment made by the foundation — a commitment to professional excellence in management, guided by a strong and faithful identity — will serve our high schools and schools of special education well,” the archbishop said.

“We have seen the momentum that the foundation has been able

to generate and we are confident that this agreement will lead to an even stronger school system for the children of the Philadelphia region,” he added.

Under the agreement, which initially is for five years, the archdiocesan Office for Catholic Education, which previously oversaw the schools, will become a division of the Faith in the Future Foundation, reporting directly to the foundation’s CEO. Hanway, a former chairman and CEO of Cigna Corp, will temporarily fill the post until a CEO is hired.

The Office for Catholic Education will continue to focus on curriculum and standards; academic and spiritual development of students; co-curricular and extracurricular programming; and professional development of teachers.

The presidents and principals of the schools affected by the agreement will continue to report to the education office, and the teachers remain employees of the archdiocese.

Direct ownership of the schools themselves will remain with the archdiocese, with the exception of Roman Catholic, Philadelphia’s flagship Catholic high school. The school is operated by the archdiocese but the building owned by the Cahill Trust, established under the will of Roman founder Thomas Cahill, who died in 1878.

While the makeup of the foundation board has not yet been set, and will not be announced until the fall, Hanway estimated it will have about 15 members, with the archbishop appointing only one-

third of them.

Philadelphia Auxiliary Bishop Michael J. Fitzgerald, who oversees Catholic education for the archdiocese, will be a board member.

“The independence of the Catholic secondary system, with the schools of special education, was critical to our ability to more fully address the fund-raising and enrollment needs of our schools,” Hanway said. “With capacity available to educate an additional 15,000 students we intend to grow.”

He called it “a groundbreaking approach to educating our children” and praised Archbishop Chaput and other archdiocesan leaders for being “willing to make such a bold decision in reaching this agreement with the foundation.”

“I am confident that the foundation can and will serve as a model for Catholic education across the nation as we infuse and employ an entrepreneurial approach to managing these 21 schools,” Hanway said.

In Washington, Karen Ristau, president of the National Catholic Educational Association, said the only thing she could think of that comes close to the Philadelphia situation is that of public school districts turning over some of their poor-performing schools to an education management company.

“There’s almost no way” to predict whether the plan will succeed, Ristau said, adding she doesn’t know how many other dioceses would emulate the Philadelphia plan, “but I’m sure everyone will

be watching. I am sure the archbishop weighed the pros and cons in the decision, but for the rest of us, it will be really interesting to see how this goes,” she said.

John Eriksen, director of the schools program for the National Leadership Roundtable for Church Ministry, told Catholic News Service that entering into such an arrangement required “courage and humility.”

Eriksen said that, until he took his new job in July, he had been superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Paterson, N.J., which had a similar arrangement. “We saw some significant short-term gains. We saw some short-term pain as well,” he noted, but “over time, it has worked better and better.”

He said dioceses are trending to the model used by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. “You talk about functionality, you talk about Catholic colleges and universities, which are some of the highest-functioning temporal entities within the Church,” Eriksen added. “Now K through 12 is starting to catch up.”

NCEA’s Ristau told CNS that it’s possible that the Philadelphia plan repeated elsewhere could put the brakes on the ongoing decline in the number Catholic schools and students nationwide.

“We know that the decline has slowed down, and I think we’re going to see a flattening and then a turnaround,” she said. “The rate of closure for schools has really slowed down. We have dioceses that actually went up last year.”

In Philadelphia, Hanway re-

ported registration for the fall class of freshmen in the archdiocese is now at 106 percent of earlier projections.

Whether that is because of the initial efforts of the Faith in the Future Foundation or the publicity surrounding the near-closing of four high schools might be impossible to say.

Registration at 11 of the 17 schools is over projection. At three schools, the incoming freshman class will be the largest in the school.

St. Hubert’s was chosen as the venue for the press briefing, because of the success of its fundraising campaign, which relied mostly on small donors and community support.

Although Hanway declined to put a figure on the expected deficit this year, he estimated it is half of the original estimate because of the increase in enrollment.

“I will say to you stabilizing enrollment is only a first step, the objective is to grow,” Hanway said.

A major part of the foundation’s work will be recruitment, development and fostering innovative programs.

“Our mission is to transform Catholic schools,” Hanway said.

“Good enough isn’t enough. We must be excellent in every facet of our schools.”

While the current agreement focuses just on secondary and special education, Archbishop Chaput and Hanway gave assurances the concerns of elementary schools will be part of the mission of the foundation.

18

The Anchor Work under way to free girl accused of blasphemy

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pakistani institutions and religious leaders are working together for the release of a Christian girl accused of blasphemy and to reduce the risk of Muslim-Christian violence over the incident, said the Pakistani prime minister’s special adviser on minorities.

Paul Bhatti, the Catholic adviser, told the Vatican’s Fides news agency that those working to secure the girl’s release included Muslim leaders.

Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, has reported that the girl, Rimsha Masih, is an 11-year-old with Down syndrome.

She was taken into custody August 18 after allegedly being found with burned pages of the Quran, the Muslim holy book.

Hundreds of families have fled the neighborhood, and the police presence has increased.

Catholic leaders in Pakistan and

human rights activists have said the country’s anti-blasphemy law, which includes offenses against the Quran, has been misused to persecute Christians and other minorities in the country.

Daughter of St. Paul Sister Daniela Baronchelli, who works in Pakistan, told Vatican Radio: “We have been told that the girl cannot respond to the interrogation. They found her with a bag that had parts of a burned Quran inside. They don’t know, however, who gave it to her or where she got it; they don’t know anything.”

Sister Daniela said the angry crowd “wanted to burn her alive because they say it was a great offense against the Quran.”

The unjust use of the anti-blasphemy law “unfortunately is becoming all too common. The fact is that the extremists don’t want the Christians here anymore, so any little thing — true or not — is enough to incite a revolt,” she said.

OAKLAND, Calif. (CNS) — Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, to be installed in October as archbishop of San Francisco, was arrested in San Diego early August 26 for driving under the influence.

The archbishop, a San Diego native, had his mother in the car.

In a statement issued from the Diocese of Oakland, which Archbishop Cordileone has led for the past three years, the prelate apologized “for my error in judgment” and said he felt “shame for the disgrace I have brought upon the Church and myself.”

“I will repay my debt to society and I ask forgiveness from my family and my friends and co-workers at the Diocese of Oakland and the Archdiocese of San Francisco,” he

added. “I pray that God, in His inscrutable wisdom, will bring some good out of this.”

According to the archbishop’s statement, he was driving his mother to her home after dinner at the home of some friends, “along with a priest friend visiting from outside the country.”

Archbishop Cordileone’s mother lives near the campus of San Diego State University, where police had set up a DUI checkpoint.

He admitted in his statement that he was found to be over California’s legal blood alcohol level, which is 0.08 percent.

Mark McCullough, the police officer making the arrest, told the Chronicle that Archbishop Cordileone appeared intoxicated but was amiable.

California archbishop apologizes after drunken driving arrest

Our Lady’s Monthly Message From Medjugorje August 25, 2012

Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina “Dear children! Also today, with hope in the heart, I am praying for you and am thanking the Most High for every one of you who lives my messages with the heart.

Give thanks to God’s love that I can love and lead each of you through my Immaculate Heart also toward conversion.

Open your hearts and decide for holiness, and hope will give birth to joy in your hearts.

“Thank you for having responded to my call.”

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

August 31, 2012

Bishop Stang High School renovations in full swing continued from page one

Work began in June on what Shaughnessy called “the largest renovation project we’ve done since the school was built,” and he praised the efforts of Orion Construction, the general contractor for the $6.5 million project.

“They’ve been outstanding to work with and very professional,” Shaughnessy told The Anchor. “Not only have they been excellent to deal with, but more importantly they have been on schedule.”

The new addition to the Bishop Stang campus was originally built with the school in 1959 as a convent for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, who staffed the diocesan high school until they left in 1976. The building was then converted into office space and a retreat center that recently housed the Family Ministry Office for the Fall River Diocese.

“It’s interesting walking up to it, because you can still feel this building as a convent,” Shaughnessy said. “It’s also housed a lot of diocesan offices, so there are a lot of people throughout the diocese who have an association with this building.”

The entire four-story building has been gutted and a new sprinkler system was installed this past week. Plans were in place to begin putting up the sheetrock walls just after Labor Day. The first floor has been retrofitted to include a series of guidance offices, an executive conference room, the advancement office, the admissions office and the president’s office.

“This is where the buildings will connect,” Shaughnessy said, pointing to the skeletal structure for a ramp to make up for the slight difference in building heights. “We’re also putting in an elevator.”

Shaughnessy explained that the guidance offices that previously used space in the building are now working out of portable classrooms in the main facility and they will move back in when the renovations are complete.

As for the fate of the other existing office spaces that will be moving from the main campus, Shaughnessy said nothing has yet been decided.

“There’s a good possibility that we might add a fitness center for students, but that’s not definite yet,” he said.

The second floor of the new structure is what Shaughnessy called “the epicenter of the new renovation.”

According to Jen Thomas, director of library and technology integration for Bishop Stang High School, the second floor “learning commons” area will include a librarian’s office, a student work-

room with a permanent LCD wall display, a small computer alcove, and a large open space with worktables and bookshelves. The entire area will be Wi-Fi capable so students and staff can connect via laptops and iPads.

“We’re not purchasing any new computers, but we’re strongly considering a one-to-one iPad initiative for the students,” Thomas said. “Our desktop computers are relatively new and are in excellent condition, so we’ll have a bank of them in the learning commons.”

There will also be a couple of closed-in areas that can be used for meetings or study halls.

“Right now I teach in a library space and there’s no door that closes between the study hall and the kids I’m instructing and that’s a challenge,” Thomas said.

A large windowed area that was previously known as the “sun room” at the far end of the second floor is going to be kept pretty much intact.

“This is going to receive new windows and will still very much feel like the old sun room,” Shaughnessy said of the open space. “It will be used for meetings and collaborative work between students and teachers.”

Shaughnessy called the entire second-floor learning commons space the “hub of technology integration for the school.”

“It will be a place where students and teachers will come together to work collaboratively to integrate technology so that our students can develop the skills and be ready for the 21st century,” he said. “Increasingly, employers are saying those are the types of skills they want to see in graduates coming out of college. We’re readying our students for college by giving them those skills now.”

The third floor has been designed to house two new classrooms.

“This will allow us to have a

little bit more classroom space,” Shaughnessy said. “We currently have a few teachers who have to float, so they’ll be able to have their own classrooms, which will be nice.”

The fourth floor has been designated as an art classroom and studio, replete with a new kiln, a digital photography studio, and an art gallery to display student work.

“That floor will not be completed this year, unless we raise the additional money,” Shaughnessy said, adding that students and staff can occupy the first three floors while work on the fourth is being done. “We’re now in the final stages of our capital campaign to raise the additional money for the project.”

According to the Capital Campaign section on the school’s website, another $2.5 million still needs to be raised to complete the Academic Resource Center project.

Despite the fact that enrollment at the 53-year-old Catholic school is down to about 700 students from a peak of more than 800 just five years ago, Shaughnessy is confident the campaign will meet its goal.

“We really don’t have a Cape Cod population anymore — those students are going to Pope John Paul II High School (in Hyannis) — so our enrollment is down but it remains stable,” he said.

As the school’s new president and principal, Shaughnessy is also pleased to usher in the school’s first new renovation project since the athletic fields were completed more than 20 years ago.

“One of the things that we really like about this project is it’s going to serve to integrate this space with our main academic wing,” he said. “Even though we previously used this space for classrooms and offices, it was a separate building. But now it’s becoming one whole entity.”

HARD-HAT AREA — Construction workers install windows into the first-floor space that will soon house the administrative offices for Bishop Stang High School in the school’s new Academic Resource Center. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

August 31, 2012

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese

Around the Diocese 9/1

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

A Day With Mary will be held tomorrow at St. Francis Xavier Church, 125 Main Street in Acushnet. It will include a video presentation, procession and crowning of the Blessed Mother, along with Mass, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and an opportunity for Reconciliation. There is a bookstore available during breaks. For more information call 508-996-8274.

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.

9/6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MASHPEE — Christ the King Parish, Route 151 and Job’s Fishing Road has 8:30 a.m.

Mass every First Friday with special intentions for Respect Life, followed by 24 hours of eucharistic adoration in the Chapel, concluding with Benediction Saturday morning followed immediately by an 8:30 Mass.

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

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

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

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

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

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

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

SEEKONK ­— Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish has eucharistic adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the chapel at 984 Taunton Avenue. For information call 508336-5549.

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

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

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

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

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D. Aurélio Granada Escudeiro, former Bishop of Angra

Ponta Delgada, Azores — D. Aurélio Granada Escudeiro, former Bishop of Angra, died August 26, at the age of 92 at the Casa Sacerdotal in Ponta Delgada, Azores.

He was named Coadjutor Bishop of Angra in March 1974 and became ordinary of the diocese in June 1979. The 37th bishop of Angra, he was succeeded by the current diocesan bishop, D. António de Sousa Braga, in June 1996.

Aurélio Granada Escudeiro was born May 29, 1920 and completed his studies in the seminaries of Gavião, Alcains and Olivais. Ordained to the priesthood in Portalegre, Jan. 17, 1943, he served as professor of Religion and distinguished himself in the support he gave to the work of Catholic Action on the diocesan and national levels.

In April 1991, D. Aurelio received Pope John Paul II during his visit to the islands of Terceira and São Miguel.

D. Aurelio Granada Escudeiro visited the Diocese of Fall River many times. In 1997 he visited in order to attend the Funeral Mass of Msgr. Luiz G. Mendonça. He was also present for the Mass in 2004 commemorating the centennial anniversary of the Diocese of Fall River.

The funeral of D. Aurelio Granada Escudeiro was held August 28 at the Church of St. Joseph in Ponta Delgada.

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks Sept. 1 Rev. Jorge J. de Sousa, Pastor, St. Elizabeth, Fall River, 1985 Sept. 3 Rev. Thomas J. McGee, D.D., Pastor, Sacred Heart, Taunton, 1912 Sept. 4 Rev. Joseph P. Tallon, Pastor, St. Mary, New Bedford, 1864 Rev. John J. Maguire, Founder, St. Peter the Apostle, Provincetown, 1894 Sept. 5 Rev. Napoleon, A. Messier, Pastor, St. Mathieu, Fall River, 1948 Sept. 7 Very Rev. James E. McMahon, V.F. Pastor, Sacred Heart, Oak Bluffs, 1966 Rev. Raymond Pelletier, M.S., La Salette Shrine, North Attleboro, 1984

The Lazarus Ministry of Our Lady of the Cape Parish in Brewster is offering a six-week bereavement support program called “Come Walk With Me” that begins September 6 and runs through October 11 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays. The program meets at the parish center and is designed for people who have experienced the loss of a loved one within the past year. Pre-registration is required. Contact Happy Whitman at 508-3853252 or Eileen Birch at 508-394-0616 for more information.

9/6

“What is healing through Jesus all about? What is real and what is not? Come to the September monthly meeting of the St. Margaret/ St. Mary Women’s Guild at the Knight’s of Columbus Hall in Buzzards Bay on September 6 at 1:30 p.m. Speaking about miracles received from Jesus will be 97-year-old Mary Vieira Rose and her daughter, a retired registered nurse. They will give you contact information for you to evaluate on your own. It is real when they humbly speak of Jesus’s intervention on their behalf with pure honesty.

9/7

Courage, a welcoming support group for Catholics wounded by same-sex attraction who gather to seek God’s wisdom, mercy and love, will next meet on September 7 at 7 p.m. For location information please call Father Richard Wilson at 508-226-1115.

9/8

St. Mark’s Parish on Stanley Street in Attleboro Falls will host its annual fair on September 8 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The day will include a wide variety of activities, music and food, with DJ Nate Adams providing lively music. Food will include hot dogs and hamburgers, doughboys, chowder and clam cakes, pizza, pastries, and ice cream sundaes. There will also be outdoor game booths, a moon walk and train ride. All are welcome to this traditional “end of summer” event.

9/9

The Twentieth Century Catholic Club will begin its new year with a Mass celebrated at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, West Street, Brockton on September 9 at 10 a.m. It will be followed by brunch at the Red Mill Meeting House, Route 123 in Norton at 11:30 a.m. The speaker for the brunch will be M.C. Sullivan, nurse-bioethicist-attorney and director of ethics at Covenant Health Systems. The topic will focus on the proposed legislation appearing on the November ballot concerning end-of-life issues. All are welcome. For more information contact Rosemary Burke at 508-285-4101 or email rosemaryburke5@comcast.net.

9/10

Christ the King Parish, The Commons, Mashpee, will host a “Beginning Again” parish mission on September 10-13. Morning sessions will include Mass with instruction from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. and evening sessions will be from 7 to 8 p.m., with social time to follow in the parish hall. The mission will be presented by Father Kevin MacDonald, C.SS.R., a Redemptorist priest from Woburn. Ordained in 1991, Father MacDonald celebrated his first Mass at Christ the King Parish. He is currently assigned to the Redemptorist Community in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. Transportation and baby-sitting are available. For more information call the parish office at 508-477-7700, extension 10.

9/23

Bishop George W. Coleman will celebrate a special Mass of Thanksgiving for couples observing significant anniversaries (including the first year) during 2012. This celebration will take place on September 23 at 3 p.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River. If you would like an invitation, please consult with your pastor.

9/24

The Mass. Health Curriculum Frameworks are recommendations of the state as to what shoud be taught in public schools with regards to health. Concealed within them is a radical form of sex education that undermines the rights and values of many parents. Learn more about these frameworks at a presentation by Linda Thayer on September 24 at St. Joseph’s Parish, 208 South Main Street in Attleboro at 7 p.m. Thayer taught science in the Boston public schools for more than 30 years. She is on the Pro-Life/Pro-Family subcommittee of the Mass. Catholic Conference. For more information visit www.macatholic.org.

9/29

The Cape and Islands Prayer Group Deanery will host a New Age Conference at Corpus Christi Parish Hall, East Sandwich, on September 29 and 30. Conference speakers Moira Noonan and Susan Brinkmann will compare Catholic teaching with New Age beliefs during Saturday’s sessions and on Sunday will consider the effect of avitar, wicca, vampires and the like on the faith of our youth. There is no charge for the conference. Lunch which will be provided on Saturday for those who preregister. Saturday’s session runs from 9:30 a.m. to 3:40 p.m. Sunday’s session runs from 2 to 4 p.m. For more information or to pre-register, call Pam at 508759-2737 or Pat at 508-349-1641.

10/6

A Healing Mass and blessing with St. André Bessette’s Relic and anointing with St. Joseph Oil will be held at the Father Peyton Center, 500 Washington Street, in Easton on October 6 in French and on October 7 in English from 1 to 4 p.m. both days. St. André was known as the “wonder worker” for healing thousands of the faithful at the St. Joseph Oratory in Montreal. More than two million people visit his shrine each year. St. André’s relic will be available for blessings and veneration. The relic is made up of particles of St. André’s heart and presented in a glass vial. The afternoon will include procession, Rosary prayer, anointing, blessing and Eucharist. For more information call Holy Cross Family Ministries at 508-238-4095 or visit www.familyrosary.org/events.

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August 31, 2012