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Diocese of Fall River, Mass.

F riday , September 27, 2013

Diocesan TV Mass marks 50th anniversary on the airwaves

By Dave Jolivet Anchor Editor

Jeff Kinney, author of the best-selling ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid,’ will speak at St. Mary’s Fund Fall Dinner on October 30 in Westport.

‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ author to speak at Fall Dinner event

FALL RIVER — Jeff Kinney, author of the best-selling “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series, will be the featured speaker at the 19th annual St. Mary’s Education Fund Fall Dinner.

The Fall Dinner will take place on October 30 at White’s of Westport beginning with a 5:30 p.m. reception.

Proceeds from the event benefit the St. Mary’s Education Fund, which provides need-based financial scholarships to students attending Catholic elementary and middle schools as well as the five high schools throughout the Fall River Diocese.

Kinney’s “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series chronicles

year, beginning a Sunday tradition that became 50 years old this NORTH DARTMOUTH month. The broadcast brought — In 1963 the television me- the Catholic Mass into the living dium was becoming more and room of folks who, for one reason more popular in homes across or another, couldn’t attend SunAmerica. New shows were added day Mass at their local parish.

The Mass was televised live to network schedules every year since the 1950s. The class of ’63 from a chapel set up in the New included “The Danny Kay Show,” Bedford Channel 6 studios. In “The Fugitive,” “The Outer Lim- his homily, Bishop Connolly told its,” Julia Child’s “The French viewers, “What we do today for Chef,” and daytime favorites, the first time over the air is his“Let’s Make a Deal,” and “Gen- toric, but it is in the long tradition of elevating hearts and minds of eral Hospital.”

All of these shows were meant men to Almighty God.” This Sunday, on WLNE to entertain Americans in their Channel 6 at 11 a.m., Bishop own living rooms.

Also in 1963, a new broadcast George W. Coleman will celaired on local Channel 6 based in ebrate the 50th anniversary of the Providence/New Bedford. Fall diocesan TV Mass. “I am very River Bishop James L. Connolly pleased that the TV Mass Aposcelebrated the first-ever television tolate has been able to reach the Mass on September 22 of that many home-bound and hospi-

talized who would otherwise be unable to attend Sunday Mass in their parish,” Bishop Coleman told The Anchor. “I am gratified that the televised Mass continues to air today. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many people who through their dedication and generosity have made the diocesan TV Mass Apostolate possible over the past 50 years.”

Msgr. Stephen J. Avila, director of the diocesan TV Apostolate, has been involved with bringing the Mass into local homes for 26 years. “In these years, much has changed, yet much has remained the same,” he told The Anchor. “The changes have been primarily in technology. But what has remained is a locally-produced Mass which beTurn to page 14

Turn to page 14

Silver Rose of Our Lady of Guadalupe set to make first-ever visit to diocese

By Dave Jolivet Anchor Editor

MASHPEE — The rose is made of silver, because it’s one of Mexico’s most precious metals. It’s a symbol of the roses Our Lady of Guadalupe gave to St. Juan Diego as proof of her apparition in December of 1531, and will visit seven parishes in the Fall River Diocese

for the first time, beginning October 4 through October 12.

In December of 1531, a Mexican peasant, Juan Diego, was approached by a young woman who identified herself as Our Lady of Guadalupe, seeking his assistance to have a church built that she may extend her compassion and consolation to the Aztec people through her Son, Jesus.

The man, who later became St. Juan Diego, approached his bishop and told of the lady’s request. Not believing the peasant man, the bishop asked for a sign, which the lady provided in the form of roses she told St. Juan Diego to pick from the Mexican mountainside, even though they were well out of season.

St. Juan Diego brought the roses wrapped in his tilma (robe), and when he let them fall in front of the bishop, the image of Our Lady Guadalupe Turn to page 18

A photo of a TV camera broadcasting the first-ever TV Mass in the Diocese of Fall River shows Bishop James L. Connolly as the celebrant on Sept. 22, 1963. At right is a screen shot of Father Karl C. Bissinger celebrating the TV Mass five decades later. While technology has changed over 50 years, the Mass and the hope it provides Catholic faithful has remained a constant. (Left photo, Anchor file photo; right photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

Father Mauritzen retires from pastoral ministry

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

As someone who answered God’s calling later in life, Father Mauritzen, 75, previously worked in the medical field as a psychiatrist before being ordained on June 8, 1996 by Bishop Séan P. O’Malley, OFM, Cap., in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River.

A native of Illinois and son of the late James and Teresa (Hayes) Mauritzen, Father Mauritzen attended schools in Chatworth and Chelmsford, both in Illinois, before earning his bachelor of science degree in physics and psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana.

After earning his medical degree

WOODS HOLE — After serving the Cape-based parish of St. Joseph for a decade, Father Joseph H. Mauritzen is retiring from active ministry with the Fall River Diocese.

Bishop George W. Coleman last week approved Father Mauritzen’s request to retire as pastor of the Woods Hole parish and appointed Father Arnold R. Medeiros to take over the pastoral duties of St. Joseph Parish while remaining pastor at St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in North Father Joseph H. Falmouth.

Mauritzen

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September 27, 2013 News From the Vatican Pope says focus on morality can obscure Gospel message

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In a lengthy and wideranging interview with one of his Jesuit confreres, Pope Francis spoke with characteristic frankness about the perils of overemphasizing Catholic teaching on sexual ethics; the reasons for his deliberate and consultative governing style; and his highest priority for the Church today.

The pope’s remarks appeared Umbrellas are seen as people shelter themselves from the rain as in an interview with Jesuit FaPope Francis is pictured on a large screen leading the Angelus from ther Antonio Spadaro, editor of the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter’s Square at the Vatithe Italian journal La Civilta can recently. (CNS photo/Giampiero Sposito, Reuters) Cattolica. The interview, conducted in August, was the basis for a 12,000-word article published September 19 in the U.S. Such careerism is scandal- magazine America, and simultaVATICAN CITY (CNS) — Don’t be on the road all the time, ous and “a cancer,” he said. And neously in other Jesuit publicaaloof or deaf to people’s needs; be bishops must serve in a way that tions in other languages. simple, loving and always close is humble, austere and back to According to the editor of by, just like a spouse would be for basics.

America, Jesuit Father Matt The pope emphasized how Malone, Pope Francis personhis wife, Pope Francis told new important it is for bishops to ally reviewed the article and bishops.

Bishops are pastors, not princ- spend time with his priests and approved its publication. es, so always return people’s calls, return their calls.

“We cannot insist only on If time is tight, call the same issues related to abortion, gay listen to parishioners, recognize one’s limitations and sharpen day or the next to set up an ap- marriage and the use of conthat sense of humor, he said re- pointment to talk or meet up lat- traceptive methods,” the pope cently to some 120 newly-ap- er, but never give the impression said in the interview, noting pointed bishops from around the there is never any time for them, that he had been “reprimanded” he said. Otherwise, the priest for failing to speak often about world.

“Your presence (among the may end up thinking, ‘Well, he those topics. “It is not necessary people) isn’t secondary, it’s indis- doesn’t care. He is not a father, to talk about these issues all the pensable,” he said. People want he’s an office manager.’” time.

“Time spent with priests is their bishop to be near, sharing “The dogmatic and moral their hopes, joys, pains and sor- never a waste of time,” he said. teachings of the Church are not Bishops must be “welcoming, all equivalent,” the pope added. rows.

The pope based his talk on walking with your people, with “The Church’s pastoral minwhat St. Peter meant with his affection, mercy, a gentle man- istry cannot be obsessed with words: “Tend the flock of God in ner and paternal firmness, with the transmission of a disjointed humility and discretion, also able multitude of doctrines to be your midst.”

Tending one’s flock, he said, is to recognize your limitations and imposed insistently. all about welcoming people with have a measure of good humor,” “Proclamation in a missionjoy, and then walking and stay- he said. ary style focuses on the essenBeing able to laugh at oneself tials, on the necessary things,” ing with them through thick and and other things “is a grace we he said. “We have to find a new thin.

It’s clearly wrong for a hus- have to ask for.” balance; otherwise even the Make the Church a welcom- moral edifice of the Church band to be searching or pining for women who seemed better ing place by being available and is likely to fall like a house of or richer than his wife, he said. A generous, he said. That way when cards, losing the freshness and bishop, likewise, should remain people come knocking they will fragrance of the Gospel. appreciative and faithful to his experience “the paternity of God “The proposal of the Gospel and will understand how the must be more simple, profound, diocese.

Dioceses need stability, he Church is a good mother” with radiant. It is from this propoopen, loving arms, ready to listen, sition that the moral consesaid.

Staying put and not becom- help and guide people. quences then flow.”

A bishop needs to lead his ing “airport bishops,” who are The pope reaffirmed one of constantly out of town, is good flock in order to show people the his major themes: the need for not only for pastoral governance, way; he needs to be in the middle mercy rather than judgment it also has theological impor- of his flock “in order to strength- when approaching sin. tance. “You are spouses of your en it in unity;” and he needs to “The thing the Church needs community, deeply bonded with bring up the rear so no one is left most today is the ability to heal behind, the pope said. them,” he said. wounds and to warm the hearts He must also keep his ears of the faithful. It needs near“Please, we pastors are not men with a princely mentality, open: listening to the Holy Spir- ness, proximity,” he said. ambitious men, who are mar- it, his people and diocesan boards “The Church sometimes has ried to this Church, waiting for and consultants who are there to locked itself up in small things, another that’s more beautiful or advise their bishop, “promoting a in small-minded rules. The loyal and constructive dialogue.” most important thing is the wealthier.”

Pope: Bishops are pastors, not princes; be humble, loving, return calls

first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you,” the pope said.

“The confessional is not a torture chamber,” he said, “but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better.

“Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists — they have a static and inward-directed view of things,” Pope Francis said. “In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies.”

Pope Francis also spoke extensively about his approach to Church governance.

“Many think that changes and reforms can take place in a short time,” the pope said.

“I believe that we always need time to lay the foundations for real, effective change. And this is the time of discernment.

“Sometimes discernment instead urges us to do precisely what you had at first thought you would do later. And that is what happened to me in recent months,” he added, though without specifying the action in question.

The pope described the evolution of his governing style, starting with his appointment at age 36 as superior of the Argentine province of the Jesuits.

“My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative,” Pope Francis said, adding, “I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.”

Later, as archbishop of Buenos Aires, he adopted another approach, meeting often with his auxiliary bishops.

“I believe that consultation is very important,” the pope said, noting his establishment as pope of the so-called Group of Eight advisory panel of cardinals. “I want to see that this is a real, not ceremonial consultation.”

With respect to the Vatican bureaucracy, whose reform he has made a clear priority of his six-month old pontificate, Pope Francis pointed to the need to devolve more authority to local churches.

Some Vatican offices “run the risk of becoming institutions of censorship,” he said. “It is amazing to see the denunciations for lack of orthodoxy

that come to Rome. I think the cases should be investigated by the local bishops’ conferences, which can get valuable assistance from Rome. These cases, in fact, are much better dealt with locally. The Roman congregations are mediators; they are not middlemen or managers.”

In matters of belief rather than governance, Pope Francis said that the pope and bishops share authority with the laity.

“The Church is the people of God on the journey through history,” he said. “Thinking with the Church, therefore, is my way of being a part of this people. And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief.”

The pope quickly added that “we must be very careful not to think that this ‘infallibilitas’ of all the faithful I am talking about in the light of Vatican II is a form of populism. No; it is the experience of ‘holy mother the hierarchical Church,’ as St. Ignatius called it, the Church as the people of God, pastors and people together.”

Among the other topics the pope addressed in the interview was the challenge of finding a more visible role for women in a Church with an all-male priesthood.

“I am wary of a solution that can be reduced to a kind of ‘female machismo,’ because a woman has a different makeup than a man,” he said.

“The Church cannot be herself without the woman and her role. The woman is essential for the Church. Mary, a woman, is more important than the bishops. I say this because we must not confuse the function with the dignity.”

Pope Francis, whose simple way of celebrating Mass has attracted criticism from traditionalist Catholics, also took up the controversial subject of Liturgy.

Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 decision to lift most restrictions on celebrating the Tridentine Mass “was prudent and motivated by the desire to help people who have this sensitivity,” Pope Francis said. “What is worrying, though, is the risk of the ideologization of the (old Mass), its exploitation.”

The pope also said that the Liturgical reform that followed in the wake of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council is “absolutely irreversible.”

September 27, 2013

The International Church

Pakistani bishops’ head calls church attack ‘shameful act of cowardice’

KARACHI, Pakistan (CNS foregone conclusion that peace & CNA) — The president of is the way to change.”

But already enraged Christhe Pakistan Catholic Bishops’ Conference called the suicide tians took to the streets in cities bomb attack September 22 at across the country to protest the All Saints’ Church in Pesha- attack, with many condemning war a “shameful act of coward- the government and the miliice,” adding that all Christian tants. One Lahore demonstraeducational institutions in the tion demanded the resignation country would be closed Sep- of the provincial official retember 23-25 in mourning and sponsible for providing security to its religious minorities. protest.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi also demanded that government announced comthe Pakistani government take pensation of 500,000 rupees immediate steps to apprehend ($4,750) for the victims’ famithose responsible for the attack lies and three days of mourning and to take measures to protect in the state.

“We condemn the horrible the worship sites of all religious act,” said Victor Azariah, generminorities in Pakistan.

“We condemn this act in al secretary of the Lahore-based National Council strongest terms,” ather than of Churches in Archbishop Coutts said in an emo- Pakistan, which a September 22 tional outburst/re- encompasses all major nonstatement. action we need to the Catholic ChrisThe death toll churches. in the bombing strengthen our efforts tian had reached 85 and initiatives for a “The government by early Septem- long-term response,” should not take ber 23. Authori- he said. “For us it is a it lying down. It should crush the ties expected it to foregone conclusion terrorists, othincrease because that peace is the way erwise they will many of the 150 continue to do the who were injured to change.” same. The nation were in critical has been suffering condition.

Police said two suicide from such dastardly actions for bombers, each wearing more long.”

Azariah expressed relief than 13 pounds of explosives, that media, human rights and detonated themselves following a Sunday service as 600 mem- prominent Muslim groups bers of the Protestant church had joined the chorus of progathered on the church lawn test against the deadly suicide blasts. for food distribution.

Pakistani Prime Minister Jundallah, a group linked to the Pakistani Taliban, claimed Muhammad Nawaz Sharif responsibility for the attack, strongly condemned the bomb saying it was in response to blasts, expressing sorrow and U.S. drone strikes, the latest of shock over the loss of life.

“Terrorists have no religion, which September 22 reportedly killed seven people in the tribal and targeting innocent people is against the teachings of Islam area of North Waziristan.

“Until and unless the drone and all religions,” he said.

In unprepared remarks made strikes are stopped, we will continue to strike wherever at the end of his September 22 we find an opportunity against one-day trip to the city of Canon-Muslims,” said a Jundallah gliari on the Italian island of Sardinia, Pope Francis referred spokesman.

“This tragedy of unprec- to the attack as an act of “hatred edented scale saddens us all,” and war,” saying that violence said a September 23 state- such as this “cannot stand.”

“It serves nothing. Only the ment from Peter Jacob, head of the Catholic bishops’ National path of peace can build a better Commission for Justice and world.”

The lights on the dome of Peace in Pakistan.

“Rather than an emotion- St. Peter’s Basilica were dark on al outburst/reaction we need Sunday night, reportedly out of to strengthen our efforts and remembrance and mourning initiatives for a long-term re- for the victims and their famisponse,” he said. “For us it is a lies.

“R

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September 27, 2013 The Church in the U.S. Washington cardinal urges Catholics to create a ‘civilization of love’

WASHINGTON (CNS) — One day after the tragic shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl celebrated a Mass for consolation and healing in which he prayed for the victims of the rampage and asked God to “heal the wounds in our society so that we can prevent tragedies such as we have just witnessed.”

“We commend to the hands of our merciful and loving God, Who alone can judge human hearts, the souls of all who died yesterday,” Cardinal Wuerl said. “We pray for not only the healing of those who are recovering from this violent attack but also for a greater healing, a healing that touches what is wounded and broken in our world.”

The Washington cardinal was the main celebrant of the Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle.

Several priests concelebrated the midday Liturgy, which was attended by about 250 people.

The Mass was offered, Cardinal Wuerl said, because “we know our prayer will be joined to the great prayer that Jesus offers with us and for us.”

On September 16, just as

the workday began, a gunman went on a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard, killing 12 and injuring at least 14 others. The FBI later identified the shooter as Aaron Alexis, a 34-yearold former naval petty officer

who was a military contract worker. Alexis was killed after a shootout with law enforcement officers.

“Death came suddenly and in an unexpected manner to those at work at the Navy

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dral of St. Matthew, Cardinal Wuerl called on the faithful to recognize that “something is wrong, that sin still persists in our world. “ “Our prayer for healing is offered as well for whatever it is that fostered such a cul-

A woman pauses in front of a pole decorated with flowers, flags and a child’s drawing outside the Navy Yard in Washington, two days after a gunman went on a shooting spree. Authorities said 13 people were killed, including the gunman, and at least eight were injured at the facility, which is the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters. (CNS photo/Jonathan Ernst, Reuters)

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Yard. It is a reminder to all of us that we know not the day nor the hour of death’s visitation,” Cardinal Wuerl said in his homily. “Jesus calls us always to walk in a way that we can go to meet Him when that moment comes.”

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All of the shooting victims were civilian employees at the Navy Yard or military contractors working there.

No active military personnel were killed, but at least one D.C. Metropolitan Police officer and a Navy Yard security guard were among the injured.

The Navy Yard is home to the Naval Sea Systems Command, which includes the headquarters of Navy command staff. The facility oversees the engineering, construction and maintenance of the Navy’s ships, submarines and combat systems.

Early reports had suggested that there were one or two additional gunmen involved in the attack, but later police officials said that Alexis apparently acted alone.

In his homily at the Cathe-

ture of violence, a culture of death,” he said.

“Somehow we need, once again, in our country, in our land, in our nation, to foster that healing that comes only when we recognize there is a right and a wrong, that we are not free to kill,” Cardinal Wuerl said.

He said that the faithful should act as peacemakers and create “a civilization of love.” He said that “we are capable as a people, as a nation, as individuals, to build a civilization of love.”

“The Church, over and over again ... calls us to love one another,” he told the Catholic Standard, newspaper of the Washington Archdiocese. “Love alone can conquer violence. Love alone can bring consolation and heal-

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

ing. Love alone supersedes and is victorious, even over death.”

After the Mass, Ronald Moore said he had to attend because “who would have thought that all this time, while I’m praying for the suffering people of Syria, I would also have to pray for the suffering people in my own backyard.”

He added that attending the Mass and hearing the cardinal’s call for all faithful to pray “makes me feel a little better, like we are all in this together.”

For Arnetta Pena, the Mass was an appropriate place “to beg God to stop this violence.

It’s like the whole world has become one big war zone.”

Tom Malarkey, who served as a lector at the Mass, said the Liturgy “is a start to the healing process.”

“I felt a togetherness here with all the people,” he said.

“We all thought about the people who were killed and the people who lost their loved ones.”

Mass-goer Richard Pacheco said it was appropriate that the cardinal celebrated a Mass for Consolation and Healing in the wake of the Washington Navy Yard shootings. “We pray for their souls. We’re Catholics, that’s the first thing we do. The first thought is for the souls of the departed.”

A former State Department worker, he said the shootings were like deaths in the family for a city with so many government workers. Pacheco said it is important for Catholics, as people of faith and as members of the community, to pray for consolation of surviving family members and friends, and to pray for healing for the community.

Pacheco said Cardinal Wuerl’s message about the importance of allowing God’s love to transform one’s heart, and then to help build a civilization of love and a better world, “is what every Mass is about, and what the prayer of the Church is about. We’re here to love each other.”

He said the tragedy at the Navy Yard — apparently by a mentally ill men with a history of violence — is a reminder to people to reflect on “what have we done in our lives to love each other, and take care of people who have problems?”

The Church in the U.S. Cardinal Dolan reaffirms bishops’ opposition to HHS mandate

September 27, 2013

Washington D.C. (CNA/EWTN News) — As scores of lawsuits against the federal contraception mandate continue to move through the courts, the head of the U.S. bishops’ conference has voiced renewed commitment to defending religious liberty.

“The bishops have made clear their strong, unified commitment to protecting religious freedom,” said Kim Daniels, spokesperson for Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“The HHS mandate restricts the ability of Catholic apostolates to witness to our faith in its fullness,” she told CNA, “a witness that is at the core of their ministry.”

The mandate — issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — requires nearly all employers to

offer health insurance covering free contraception, sterilizations, and some drugs that may cause early abortions.

The policy has sparked serious concerns and led to lawsuits from more than 200 plaintiffs, including religious schools, charities, hospitals and private individuals who do not qualify for the narrow religious exemption included in the mandate but say that facilitating the required products and procedures forces them to violate the teachings of their faith.

Following a recent meeting of the Administrative Committee of the U.S. bishops’ conference, Cardinal Dolan wrote a letter to his fellow bishops throughout the country.

He explained that the conference will continue to fight against the mandate, saying that it “is a fight that we didn’t ask for, and would rather not be

in, but it’s certainly one that we won’t run from.”

Responding to religious freedom concerns over the mandate, the Obama Administration instituted a series of delays and revisions, creating an “accommodation” for some religious employers to have the objectionable products provided indirectly to their employees through a third-party insurer.

According to the administration, contraceptives and similar products can be provided for free because of the “tremendous health benefits” they provide women and the reduced costs that will result from having fewer children. Critics have questioned this premise, however, arguing that the products will ultimately have a cost that will likely be passed on to the objecting employer through increased insurance premiums.

Cardinal Dolan voiced

Denver archbishop: Syrian martyrs are ‘model of courage’

Des Moines, Iowa (CNA/EWTN News) — Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila of Denver has said that modern Syrian Catholics killed for their faith offer a “model of courage that we need to emulate.”

“The natural consequence of their belief in Jesus and His Church was for them to give public witness to it, even if it meant death,” Archbishop Aquila said in a recent address to the knights and ladies of the northern lieutenancy of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

A Catholic lay institution that assists the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and supports Christians in the Holy Land, the order was holding its annual meeting in Des Moines.

The Syrian civil war, which has been ongoing for more than two years, is a source of particular concern for Christians in the Holy Land.

It is being fought by rebels including secularists and Islamists, who are trying to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad. More than 100,000 people have died in the war, and there are an estimated two million Syrian refugees in nearby countries, most of them in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.

Additionally, more than four million Syrians are believed to have been internally displaced by the war.

Archbishop Aquila ex-

plained that Christians recently martyred in Syria were willing to die for their faith “because it was not just something they felt was right at the moment; it was integral to their identity and they believed it was the truth.”

The archbishop recounted the September 7 attack on the Syrian town of Ma’loula, when Islamist rebels affiliated with al-Qaeda and al Nusra Front entered houses in the town and reportedly began to deface any sacred images they discovered in homes.

In one house of three Greek Catholic men and one woman, the rebels “demanded that everyone present convert to Islam or face death.”

“Sarkis el Zakhm, the grandson, responded: ‘I am a Christian and if you want to kill me because I am a Christian, do it.’ Sarkis, together with the two other men in the house, was killed in cold blood,” Archbishop Aquila said. “Somehow, the woman was only injured and miraculously survived.”

The archbishop said that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had called for the current Year of Faith because faith is no longer a guaranteed part of society.

He wondered whether society can understand the “sacrifice” Sarkis made.

“Does our culture honor courageous faith like his?” he asked. “Western society finds

any faith-rooted sacrifice like his almost incomprehensible because our culture is so focused on self-promotion and self-satisfaction.”

Murdered Catholics, he said, “offer their lives as Jesus offered His on the cross — all for love of Jesus and in faithful witness to Him and the Church.”

Archbishop Aquila noted that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had stressed the importance of evangelization in the Year of Faith.

Faith “makes us fruitful, because it expands our hearts in hope and enables us to bear life-giving witness,” Pope Emeritus Benedict had said in his apostolic letter “Porta Fidei.”

Pope Francis has also emphasized that faith is “a gift not reserved for a few but offered with generosity.”

“It is a gift that one cannot keep to oneself, but it is to be shared. If we want to keep it only to ourselves, we will become isolated, sterile and sick Christians,” he said in his message for 2013 World Mission Sunday.

Denver’s archbishop said the Year of Faith is a time of “grace and renewal” that must lead Catholics to “courageously” share their joy and faith.

He said Catholics should take inspiration from “the example of our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted and giving their lives for the faith.”

concern over the D.C.-based Catholic Health Association’s “hurried acceptance of the accommodation, which was, I’m afraid, untimely and unhelpful.”

He said that he appreciated the organization’s “great expertise in their ministry of healing, but as they have been the first to say, they do not represent the Magisterium of the Church.”

“Even in their document stating that they could live with the ‘accommodation’ they remarked that we bishops, along with others, have wider concerns than they do,” he explained.

The bishops’ conference did not immediately respond to the finalized version of the mandate, saying instead that they would take time to morally and legally analyze the 110-page document.

After doing so, the bishop stated that the final version had “only minor changes” and was still plagued by the same basic problems as the original version.

In his letter, Cardinal Dolan highlighted these problems, noting that the exemption included in the mandate is based on a narrow definition of “religious employers” as houses of worship and their affiliated groups, leaving religious service ministries to be given “secondclass treatment” under the lesser provisions of the accommodation, which he labeled inadequate.

At the same time, he observed, the revised mandate fails to give “any relief at all to for-profit businesses run by so many of our faithful in the pews.”

The cardinal noted that

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“Catholic Church in America has long been a leader in providing affordable health care, and in advocating for policies that advance that goal,” noting that Catholic religious Brothers and Sisters have been at the forefront of providing health care to those who need it.

“Yet, instead of spending our time, energy, and treasure on increasing access to health care, as we have done for many decades,” he continued, “we’re now forced to spend those resources on determining how to respond to recently enacted government regulations that restrict and burden our religious freedom.”

The mandate dampens the ability of these ministries to witness through their services, a central part of the Catholic mission, Cardinal Dolan said, stressing the bishops are continuing to work through venues including Congress and the courts “to develop avenues of response that would both preserve our strong unity and protect our consciences.”

Mixed rulings on lawsuits challenging the mandate have led some observers to suggest that the Supreme Court may soon decide rule on the regulation.

Further discussion on how to address the contraception mandate will take place at the bishops’ fall plenary assembly this November in Baltimore, Cardinal Dolan stated.

“We are united in our resolve to continue to defend our right to live by our faith, and our duty to serve the poor, heal the sick, keep our apostolates strong and faithful, and insure our people,” he affirmed.

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September 27, 2013

Anchor Editorial

The pope’s message to our world

As almost everyone is aware of by now, the text of an extensive interview Pope Francis had with a Jesuit magazine was released late last week, causing an incredible amount of coverage in the secular media. On page two of this edition we have a summary of the interview and Father Landry, on the page facing this one, puts into context what the Holy Father was saying.

Pope Francis stresses the need to get out the Good News of Christ’s death and Resurrection, which offers us healing from the injuries which sin (our own and those of others) has inflicted upon our bodies and souls. Father Landry notes in his column how often people in need of the healing that Christ can give them in the Church do not come forward because they believe that the reception that they will receive is not that of the father from the parable of the Prodigal Son, but that of the older brother. The pope is quite aware that people have received that type of “reception” and has criticized it often in his daily Mass homilies.

The Sunday before last, when the Gospel was that of the Prodigal Son, Pope Francis reminded us that “each of us is the son who has wasted his freedom following false idols, the illusions of happiness, and has lost everything. But God does not forget us, the Father never abandons us. He is a patient Father, He always awaits us!

God respects our freedom, but remains faithful. And when we return to Him, He welcomes us as children, in His house, because He never stops, not even for a moment, to wait with love. And His heart is rejoicing for every child who comes back.”

We often think that our sins are nothing, but other people’s sins are huge. Thus, we become like the older brother. Pope Francis asked his listeners, “What is the danger? It is that we assume ourselves to be just and we judge others. We judge God, because we think He should punish sinners, condemning them to death, instead of forgiving. So yes, we are in danger of remaining out of the Father’s house! Just like the older brother in the parable, who instead of being happy because his brother is back, he gets angry with his father who welcomed him and celebrates. If in our hearts there is no mercy, no joy of forgiveness, then we are not in communion with God, even if we observe all the precepts, because it is love that saves, not only the practice of the precepts.”

What Pope Francis said in the last paragraph is a very strong condemnation of being like the older brother, saying that if we have that type of attitude we are risking our own salvation, since we don’t want to go into the Father’s house if the prodigal son is being welcomed home into it. The Holy Father’s message is not something

he invented “out of thin air.” Jesus Himself gave a similar message to the workers in the vineyard who complained because those who came to work at the 11th hour were being paid the same daily wage as those who had labored from sunrise. “Take what is yours and go” (Mt 20:14) Jesus told them.

The Lord asked those complainers, “What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Am I not free to do as I wish with My own money? Are you envious because I am generous? Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Mt 20:14-16).

Flying home from Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis again brought up the Prodigal Son. “When the Prodigal Son returned home, I don’t think his father told him: ‘You, sit down and listen: What did you do with the money?’ No! He celebrated! Then, perhaps, when the son was ready to speak, he spoke. The Church has to do this, when there is someone … not only wait for them, but go out and find them! That is what mercy is.” The message that the pope gave the Jesuit magazine dovetails with this impromptu statement on the plane: We Catholics need to be searching for all souls with love. Our message of Reconciliation does ultimately result in helping people to change their behavior, but if we think that by beginning with condemnations we are going to win people over, the sad results of the last several decades show that approach does not seem to be working for most people.

What people need from us Catholics is “the look of love” (pace Dusty Springfield), of which the Holy Father spoke last Saturday, when he preached about the call of the public sinner, from his tax collector’s post to become an Apostle. “That gaze overtook him completely, it changed his life. We say he was converted. He changed his life. ‘As soon as he felt that gaze in his heart, he got up and followed Him.’ This is true: Jesus’ gaze always lifts us up. It is a look that always lifts us up, and never leaves you in your place, never lets us down, never humiliates. It invites you to get up — a look that brings you to grow, to move forward, that encourages you, because [the One Who looks upon you] loves you. The gaze makes you feel that He loves you. This gives the courage to follow Him: ‘And he got up and followed Him.’” People need that type of look from us, whether it be in a conversation about the pope’s latest statement or when we’re sharing a table with them at Christmas or Thanksgiving or when we’re looking at them from across a seeming divide in a parish discussion. The more we embody that look (realizing that we needed and still need to be forgiven), the more we can help people encounter Christ and come to the freedom that He alone can give.

Pope Francis’ weekly Angelus address and prayer Dear brothers and sisters, Before concluding this celebration, I greet in particular my brother bishops of Sardinia, whom I thank.

Here, at the feet of Our Lady, I would like to thank each and every one of you, dear faithful, priests, religious, public officials and in a special way those who worked together to organize this visit. Above all I would like to entrust you to Mary, Our Lady of Bonaria. But at this moment I think of all the Marian shrines of Sardinia:

your land has a strong connection with Mary, a connection that you express in your devotion and in your culture.

Always be true sons of Mary and the Church, and show it with your life, following the example of the saints!

In this regard, we recall that yesterday, in Bergamo, Tommaso Acerbis da Olera, a Capuchin friar, who lived between the 16th and 17th centuries, was beatified. We give thanks for this witness of humility and charity of Christ!

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Now let us recite the prayer of the Angelus together.

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

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

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

Hail Mary...

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

Hail Mary...

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

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

Bonaria in Cagliari, Sardinia, September 22. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) Amen.

September 27, 2013

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Anchor Columnists What in God’s name is Pope Francis doing?

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hat was the tone of about 100 emails I found waiting for me as I returned to my hotel room at about 11 p.m. last Thursday night in Lourdes, where I was leading a parish pilgrimage of 48 to France. I had just returned from the famous Massabielle grotto and was planning to pack my bags and hit the sack since our departure Mass was going to be at 2:15 a.m.

I decided quickly to check my email in case there was anything pressing from the parish back home. That’s when the barrage of messages from parishioners, journalists, fellow priests and even non-Catholic friends awakened me to the interview the pope had given to Jesuit publications and to the headlines it was making across the world.

I then knew I wouldn’t be getting any sleep before the Mass! I downloaded the interview and began to read it to see if the substance matched the media hype. It didn’t take me long to see that the sensational headlines were distorting the pope’s message.

But I also saw why many faithful Catholics were disturbed. Some of the pope’s words seemed to match the stunning headlines that he really believed that many Catholics were “obsessed” about gays, abortion and contraception

and should speak much less wounds. And you have to start about these topics. from the ground up.”

At a time when Church The most fundamental thing teachings on family and huthe Church needs to do, he man life are being attacked insists, is care for the wounds by aggressive secularists, his that people have, injuries that own stated reticence on these are often at the roots of other topics seemed to be suggesting sinful choices. Until those that rather than mounting a vigorous defense, good Catholics should wave the white flag.

Putting Into But when one reads the Deep the pope’s comments within the context of

By Father the whole interview, Roger J. Landry one readily sees that Pope Francis is not abandoning his duty to call all people to turn away lesions are addressed, most from sin and believe in the people are not going to be Gospel. Rather he’s calling to open to a conversation about seek a more effective means to much else, especially how their bring everyone, especially those moral behavior in other areas most in need, to conversion may be wounding them even and mercy. further. For that whole process “I see clearly,” the pope said of conversion to begin, people in the interview, “that the thing need to perceive the Church the Church needs most today as a hospital where people can is the ability to heal wounds find compassion and healing. and to warm the hearts of the Behind the pope’s remarks faithful; it needs nearness, is his clear assessment that proximity. I see the Church there are many who are deeply as a field hospital after battle. wounded in their relationship It is useless to ask a seriously with the Church; who feel that injured person if he has high the Church extends its arms to cholesterol and about the level stone them for their sins rather of his blood sugars! You have than embrace them for salvato heal his wounds. Then we tion; who think that Catholic can talk about everything else. leaders and faithful look at Heal the wounds. Heal the them as if they’re bearing

invisible scarlet letters because of the irregular situations or past actions; who sense that their sins are hated more than they’re loved; in short, who feel judged, rather than accepted.

Many in these situations believe that those in the Church relate to them more as the older brother than the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. We know that the worst sin of the Prodigal Son was not the life of debauchery but treating the father as if he were dead or basically a slave owner.

Likewise the first and biggest wound that needs to be healed is not a particular sinful behavior but a person’s overall relationship to God and to His family, the Church.

For these reasons, many who desperately need the means of forgiveness and salvation Christ has entrusted to His Church don’t come to receive it, because they think the hospital of the Church is closed to them or that the cost of care is too high.

That’s the wound that Pope Francis is trying to address.

He’s trying to get people to come to the hospital, receive help for the wounds they’re aware of, and eventually to be restored to full health.

He’s calling all Catholics to be “ministers of mercy above all,” to “take responsibility for people and accompany them like the Good Samaritan, who washes, cleans and raises up his neighbor. This is pure Gospel.

God is greater than sin.”

The pope says that “laxists” and “rigorists” in the Church lack this mercy, because “neither of them really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands so that he leaves it to the Commandment.

The loose minister washes his hands by simply saying, ‘This is not a sin.’”

As Christ’s prime minister of mercy, the pope is not pretending that sin isn’t sin, but remembering that God is greater than sin.

He’s trying to lead the Church not to ignore but to go deeper than particular sins to the real root of the wounds alienating people from God. And then he is warmly trying to reintroduce them to the saving love of the Divine Physician he himself has so often gratefully received — and to the hospital the Divine Physician founded to continue His life-saving work.

Anchor columnist Father Landry is pastor of St. Bernadette Parish in Fall River. His email address is fatherlandry@ catholicpreaching.com.

NEW ORLEANS (CNS) — Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, O.F.M., Cap., one of eight cardinals appointed

by Pope Francis to advise him on possible reforms of the Roman Curia, said recently he has received extensive feedback from cardinals and archbishops in the U.S. and Canada in preparation for an October 1-3 meeting with the pope.

In New Orleans to celebrate Mass and preach at the Louisiana Priests’ Convention, Cardinal O’Malley said he did not know what to expect as a result of the gathering in Rome.

Cardinal O’Malley said the group of eight cardinals will meet first among themselves at the end of September and then with Pope Francis, before accompanying the pontiff to Assisi October 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi.

Asked what his expectations were for the cardinals’ deliberations, Cardinal O’Malley smiled and said: “I don’t know.

Obviously, there’s been many

surprises in the last few months, and I think there’ll be more of the same.”

Cardinal O’Malley said he was “very surprised and honored” when Pope Francis asked him and the other cardinals in April to offer their feedback on the curia. “It’s something new in the Church, and it is, I think, an opportunity for the Holy Father to have more input from the entire Church.”

Pope Francis established the so-called G-8 in April, giving it a mandate to advise him in the “government of the Universal Church” and his reform of the Roman Curia, the Church’s central administration at the Vatican.

The Boston prelate said several of the cardinals on the panel had a preliminary meeting at World Youth Day in Brazil in July, and “we have been in correspondence with each other and with the Holy Father. Different cardinals have done different things to try and solicit ideas from a larger group.”

Cardinal O’Malley said he has met personally with the cardinals of the U.S. and written letters to the archbishops of the U.S. and Canada, various groups of religious and other individuals asking for any suggestions or feedback.

He said he wrote to the archbishops because “usually archbishops have been bishops in more than one diocese and have been bishops for a while.”

Analyzing the feedback, Cardinal O’Malley said “there were a lot of things that were similar. There was a certain pattern in the suggestions that came back. I think that will help to indicate the strength of interest in those areas.”

“I think for some time people have wanted to have more communication between the Holy See and the Church in different parts of the world, the bishops’ conferences and the cardinals,” he continued.

“The Holy Father, I think, has picked up on that and is trying to underscore the catholicity of

the Church.”

Cardinal O’Malley said he has been amazed at the way in which Pope Francis seems to have captured the world’s imagination in the six months since his election.

“I think he has been able to change the conversation about the Church in a wonderful way in his very direct way of communicating his desire to be close to people,” Cardinal O’Malley said. “All of that has made a big impression. Of course, his emphasis on the social Gospel of the Church has been a wonderful contribution to the Church in the world today.”

Cardinal O’Malley said he was struck by the pope’s first trip to Lampedusa, where he threw a wreath in the water to honor thousands of refugees who had died seeking a better life. The southern Mediterranean island of Lampedusa is a major entry point into Italy for undocumented migrants from Africa.

“He talked about the danger of the ‘globalization of indifference,’” the cardinal said. “This is a man who is not indifferent to people’s sufferings and wants the Church to be a Church that reaches out.”

In his homily at a Mass at St. Louis Cathedral with 350 Louisiana priests, Cardinal O’Malley spoke about Pope Francis’ exhortation during a chrism Mass homily that priests, shepherds of their flock, “should have the smell of sheep.”

“In my life as a priest and a bishop, I think that’s the most quoted phrase from any pope,” Cardinal O’Malley said. “And, certainly, World Youth Day was probably the largest event in the history of our hemisphere, and it was just a great success.

The Holy Father’s preaching is always so accessible.

“I think he touched the lives of young people, and being from Latin America, where half the Church resides, his presence there was a great grace.”

Curia meeting seen as way to give pope more input from ‘entire Church’

8

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he excitement that filled the world — not just the “Catholic world” when the 266th and current pope of the Roman Catholic Church, was elected on 13 March 2013, is still in evidence. Pope Francis seems to have really listened to the Word of God that we read this weekend.

The story of Lazarus and Dives speaks to the real world of today. Indeed someone has risen from the dead, the Lord Jesus, the Christ. He is a real dead Man Who has come back from the dead and must be listened to.

How interesting that Pope Francis began his papacy early on washing the feet of juvenile detainees and there are so many other details that highlight his very real commitment to, and putting into practice, our Catholic social doctrine.

Pope Benedict XVI taught that “love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential as the ministry of the Sacra-

September 27, 2013

Listen to God’s Word and put it into practice ments and preaching of the tradition and teaching.

Gospel.” This preferential As a Jesuit and as a Latin option for the poor and American bishop, Pope vulnerable includes all who Francis knows this well but are marginalized in society, better still lives it couraincluding unborn children, geously and generously. persons with disabilities, We, too, are called by the elderly and terminally Jesus’ parable and other ill, and victims of injustice and oppresHomily of the Week sion.

The phrase “opTwenty-sixth Sunday tion for the poor” in Ordinary Time was used by Father Pedro Arrupe,

By Father superior general of Marc C. Bergeron the Society of Jesus ( Jesuits) in 1968 in a letter to the Jesuits teachings like the 25th of Latin America. chapter of Matthew’s GosThe principle was arpel to live in this style of ticulated by the Catholic life. We are invited to wash bishops of Latin America one another’s feet. Our care (CELAM) at the influenfor one another must be tial conferences in Medellin real and must be a lived out and Puebla, as well as by part of our faith commitseveral popes, particularly ment.

Pope John Paul II. Unfortunately controPope John Paul II’s enversy has surrounded the cyclical “Centesimus Annus” idea of a preferential option (1991) elaborated on the for the poor and it has been principle. used by those who advocate Certainly the teaching “Liberation Theology.” This is well-grounded in the misguided approach sought Scriptures and in Church to use Marxist ideology

and class hostility to bring about desired change. We have moved beyond that mistake.

Early on in his papacy Pope Francis spoke to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican. He shows he cannot be captured by political categories.

He transcends them.

As Jesus transcended all categories, reaching out to sinners — and all are sinners — but also, asking them not to sin.

Loving the sinner, but not the sin.

Pope Francis transcends all categories. Ceaselessly reminding all of us that our destiny transcends all worldly categories that we are made for eternity, not just for time.

Perhaps it is time that we should all say that there are not “conservative” and “liberal” or even “traditional” and “orthodox” Catholics at all, just simply “Catholics” in a universal

Church, stretching backward to the first days of the Church and forward to the end of the world in time, and global in space, unable to be described rightly by secular categories.

Pope Francis, powerfully, set his course, transcending the “left” and the “right” and pointing all of us toward higher things.

That was articulated in the first, great “programmatic” discourse of his pontificate and many times since.

Let this be the program for our lives. We want to be good Catholics. We want to listen to God’s Word and put it into practice.

Father Bergeron was ordained to the priesthood 42 years ago on Dec. 5, 1970 (Bishop James L. Connolly’s last ordination). He has served as a parish priest in New Bedford and Fall River and is currently the pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in the north end of New Bedford. He is also the Ecumenical and Interfaith Off icer of the Diocese of Fall River.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Sept. 28, Zec 2:5-9,14-15a; (Ps) Jer 31:10-13; Lk 9:43b-45. Sun. Sept. 29, Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Am 6:1a,4-7; Ps 146:7-10; 1 Tm 6:11-16; Lk 16:19-31. Mon. Sept. 30, Zec 8:1-8; Ps 102:16-23,29; Lk 9:46-50. Tues. Oct. 1, Zec 8:20-23; Ps 87:1-7; Lk 9:51-56. Wed. Oct. 2, Neh 2:1-8; Ps 137:1-6; Mt 18:1-5,10. Thurs. Oct. 3, Neh 8:1-4a,5-6,7b-12; Ps 19:8-11; Lk 10:1-12. Fri. Oct. 4, Bar 1:15-22; Ps 79:1-5,8-9; Lk 10:13-16.

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o one knows when pious Lithuanians first erected crosses of all sizes on a hill about seven miles north of the city of Siauliai; it may have been after an abortive 1831 uprising against Russian rule over the small Baltic country. Oftentimes, the bodies of Lithuanian patriots killed during that rebellion, and a similar revolt in 1863, could not be found. So their families planted crosses in their memory on a small mound that was eventually covered with memorials. During the country’s brief moment of independence between the First and Second World Wars, citizens of a free Lithuania continued to plant crosses near Siauliai, as the Hill of Crosses became a pilgrimage center.

I first became aware of this remarkable place in the late 1970s, when I began to take an interest in the Catholic Church’s struggle for religious freedom in Lithuania, then a “republic” of the Soviet Union.

That struggle was led by some remarkable men and women,

The land of crosses

pressed the Soviet authorities including two priests who did time in the Gulag labor camps, to release Lithuanian Catholic prisoners of conscience, engiFather Sigitas Tamkevicius, neered a Congressional resoluS.J., and Father Alfonsas tion in support of Lithuanian Svarinskas, and a clandestine independence and religious nun, Nijole Sadunaite, whose freedom in 1987, the 600th small book, “A Radiance in the Gulag,” remains a moving testament to courage forged by Catholic devotion. The resistance Church in Lithuania produced the longest-running,

By George Weigel unbroken underground publication in the history of the USSR, “The Chronicle of the Catholic anniversary of Lithuania’s Baptism, and marked that event Church in Lithuania,” which with a public reception in the was typed, copy by copy, on capitol that was broadcast to manual typewriters, secretly Lithuania on Radio Liberty. distributed in Lithuania, and By the time the Soviet Union then smuggled abroad, where imploded — Lithuania leading it was translated into English

by Brooklyn-based Lithuanian the way with its 1990 declaration of independence — Father Catholic Religious Aid. Tamkevicius, Father Svarinskas, In the mid-1980s, working and Sister Nijole were free, with my friend Congressman John Miller, I helped organize a and the Church was widely recognized as a major factor in Lithuanian Catholic Religious Lithuania’s successful struggle Freedom Caucus in the U.S. to maintain its national identity House of Representatives. The caucus’s bipartisan membership and cultural integrity.

The Catholic Difference

Throughout the difficult years, I was fascinated by the Hill of Crosses. Time after time, the Soviets took down the crosses, bulldozing the site on several occasions. And each time the crosses, large and small, went back up — a dogged display of religious conviction and political courage that embodied a small, beleaguered nation’s refusal to kowtow to atheistic propaganda and totalitarian power.

Sigitas Tamkevicius has been the archbishop of Kaunas since 1996; Alfonsas Svarinskas, now a monsignor, is retired but still feisty and active; Sister Nijole continues to radiate the joy of consecrated life in Vilnius. It was wonderful to see each of them during a recent visit I made to Lithuania to help the Church celebrate the 20th anniversary of John Paul II’s 1993 visit. There were numerous events commemorating that epic pastoral pilgrimage: in the parliament, in the Vilnius cathedral, at universities

in Vilnius and Kaunas, and at the great Marian shrine at Siluva. I hope that, through these events, Lithuanian Catholicism looked back in such a way that the path forward, to the free and virtuous society to which John Paul II called Lithuania, came into clearer focus. From a personal point of view, however, the most moving moment in a week of commemorations was my visit to the Hill of Crosses.

Some count 100,000 crosses there now; the exact count makes no difference. At Siauliai, in what John Paul II called the “land of crosses,” the tradition of looking at history, and our lives, through the prism of the cross and its mystery of redemptive suffering continues. I planted a small cross in memory of the martyrs for religious freedom who lie in unmarked graves across Siberia, and prayed for those who defend the first freedom today.

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

September 27, 2013

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ver since St. Paul gave us an account of his conversion on the road to Damascus in the first-century Acts of the Apostles, and St. Augustine memorialized his own conversion to Christianity in 387 in his “Confessions,” spiritual autobiography has been an exceedingly rich genre of Christian literature. One thinks, for example, of the “Life of St. Teresa of Avila,” or the “Story of a Soul of St. Therese of Lisieux.” In English, of course, there is the classic spiritual memoir of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman entitled “Apologia pro Vita Sua.” Since I love history and biography, I must admit I’m a sucker for this type of literature.

Joseph Pearce, an Englishborn writer and since 2012 writer-in-residence and visiting professor of Humanities at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack, N.H., has just published an impressive account of his spiritual journey from being a skinhead racist anti-Catholic in the 1970s, a person twice imprisoned for

I

n 1988, Pope John Paul II wrote “Mulieris Dignitatem” (“On the Dignity and Vocation of Women”) to synthesize and build on what the Church had already taught on the subject. Near the beginning, he quoted Pope Paul VI, who said: “Within Christianity, more than in any other religion, and since its very beginning, women have had a special dignity, of which the New Testament shows us many important aspects; it is evident that women are meant to form part of the living and working structure of Christianity in so prominent a manner that perhaps not all their potentialities have yet been made clear.” Far from segregating women to the private spheres of life, ignoring their myriad gifts, or devolving into a bland unisex view of the faith, John Paul II wanted to explore what, exactly, constitutes the “feminine genius” that is only now beginning to be fully appreciated.

That document is now being feted on its 25th anniversary, and the Daughters of St. Paul has published a new edition for which I was asked to provide commentary and discussion questions. It was

Anchor Columnists Joseph Pearce’s race with the devil nationalist party opposed to a his vitriolic hate-filled publicatolerant, multi-racial society. He tions, to becoming a convinced participated in street brawls and Catholic in 1989 and going on anti-Catholic demonstrations to write leading biographies in northern Ireland, among of Catholic literary figures like other thuggish activities.

G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire But he was a voracious readBelloc. Indeed, his 1999 work “Literary Converts” tells the conversion story of a number of writers who became Roman Catholics, including Newman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Oscar

By Dwight G. Duncan Wilde, Ronald Knox, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and J. R. R. er, and when he was sentenced Tolkien. to solitary confinement in There is a certain inevitabilprison he used the time to read ity about this distinguished voluminously, and fell in love writer turning his considerable with the work of G. K. Chesstory-telling skills to his own life’s story. His compelling per- terton, an English literary giant who had converted to Catholisonal narrative, entitled “Race cism and, along with his fellow with the Devil: My Journey Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc, from Racial Hatred to Ratiohad espoused a political phinal Love” (Charlotte, N.C., St. losophy known as distributism, Benedict Press 2013), tells the a way of living Catholic social story of a young man born in teaching on the importance of England in 1961, who by the the principle of subsidiarity and time he is 16, establishes Bulldog, a newspaper of the Nation- the value of local initiative and control. al Front organization, a white

Judge For Yourself

Like C. S. Lewis, he was attracted to the radiantly joyful outlook of Chesterton, and when he discovered Lewis’ instantaneous appreciation of Chesterton, Lewis’ assessment resonated with his own experience: Lewis had written: “Liking an author may be as involuntary and improbable as falling in love. I did not need to accept what Chesterton said in order to enjoy it. His humour was of the kind which I like best. Moreover, strange as it may seem, I liked him for his goodness. I can attribute this taste to myself freely (even at that age) because it was a liking for goodness which had nothing to do with any attempt to be good myself. It was a matter of taste: I feel the ‘charm’ of goodness as a man feels the charm of a woman he has no intention of marrying.

In reading Chesterton I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound

Revisiting an important apostolic letter

pope was writing to a world indeed a privilege, for it allowed me to revisit a beloved as of yet unfamiliar with hook-ups, sexting, cyber-bulwork and see how it held up lying, homosexual advocacy, in the intervening years.

My first reaction in reread- Internet porn, chemical aboring the document was that of wistfulness. I remember when it was first released — so shortly after my own conversion to the faith! At

By Genevieve Kineke the time, I was trying to get my bearings in the Church and tions, reality TV, and “brave shortly thereafter began publishing a quarterly journal new families.” We were, to a great degree, ignorant of for women dedicated to the where all the “freedoms” we same topic. In the 1990s, it remained difficult to find reli- demanded were leading.

But the Church wasn’t. able catechesis — as opposed Just as Paul VI had already to novelties and creative predicted with laser-like anomalies — for one must remember that there was still precision where widespread acceptance of contracepno universal Catechism and tion would lead, John Paul no Internet.

II reminded us that when The wistfulness, though, we choose sin, we obscure concerns the slippery slope our likeness to God, and by that has allowed most of choosing “non-likeness” we Western society to decline degrade ourselves and leave precipitously since then. ourselves open to the tragic While sexual promiscuity was already rampant in 1988, consequences. And those very consequences are arrayed marital breakups were danbefore us — in Technicolor, gerously high, and abortions around the clock. scandalously commonplace, Whereas women may have the popular culture had not chafed against the demands yet sunk to the levels of depravity that face us today. The of motherhood over the last

The Feminine Genius

century, that discomfort has been distilled into outright hostility towards conventional family life in the last couple of decades. Contraception is now considered a human right, abortion liberation, and sexual identity an individualized means of self-expression.

However mild the climate by comparison when this apostolic letter was written, the urgency before us compels us to study, pray, and hold fast to the truths that will ultimately conquer these lies.

The re-issue of this document is a God-send, and I

9 atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.”

Comments Pearce on this passage from Lewis: “I had fallen in love with the wit and wisdom of Chesterton and had fallen under the charm of his humor and humility. Like Lewis, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young atheist cannot be too careful of his reading, nor can a young racist anti-Catholic. In reading Chesterton I was undermining my own most dearly held prejudices. I realize now what I had no way of realizing then, that it was the combination of Chesterton’s eminently rational mind and his transparently virtuous heart that had captured and captivated me. It was the presence of goodness, the light of sanctity shining forth in the darkness, the life of love that can kill all hatred.”

It’s an amazing conversion story, and one that must be read to be believed.

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

cannot impress upon readers how important its wisdom.

Commentary aside, this prescient apostolic letter will provide the premise for excellent conversations about the status of our culture, for “at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women imbued with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling.”

“On the Dignity and Vocation of Women: Anniversary Edition” is available from the Daughters of St. Paul, found online at store.pauline.org.

Anchor columnist Mrs. Kineke writes from Rhode Island.

10

September 27, 2013

Siblings reunite decades later through CSS

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series on adoption services provided by the Diocese of Fall River’s Catholic Social Services. Part one ran in last week’s edition.

FALL RIVER — It all started with a phone call.

Earlier this year Phyllis Habib, the adoption social worker at Catholic Social Services in Fall River, received a phone call — not from an expectant mother wanting to place her baby for adoption, but from a woman who had been adopted and was looking for her biological family.

“Because [CSS] had been doing adoptions since 1928, we have these mountains of files in the basement,” said Habib, who rolled up her sleeves and went “mountain climbing” to retrieve the woman’s file.

The woman’s file showed that the birth mother had been widowed with two young children when she became pregnant. Habib was able to track down the oldest sibling, a brother, and called him.

“The way I do it, I’m careful,” explained Habib. “I don’t reveal anything over the phone or in a letter; I explain how I’m a ‘search specialist’ from

Catholic Social Services and I’d like to speak to you about a personal matter.”

Habib asked the man if he was the son of the woman listed in the CSS adoption file, and after he confirmed that he was, she then asked if he knew the best way to get in touch with her.

“He said no, because his mother was dead. So I then said, ‘Were you aware of the fact that your mother placed a baby up for adoption?’” recalled Habib. The man said no, and that’s when Habib let him know of a half-sister who was looking to have contact with her biological family.

As the information began to register, said Habib, the man’s immediate response was, “I want to meet her,” she said.

“There’s always dead silence as the truth is sinking in,” added Habib. “All of these calls, you feel so privileged to be a witness to this process.”

Arrangements were quickly made and two days later, at the CSS offices, Habib introduced the woman to her older half-brother. Tears were shed, photos shared, and lots of hugging and talking among those who were there — including the man’s wife, who had accompanied her husband, and

the woman’s adopted mother, who was fully supportive of the woman’s search for her biological family.

Because out-of-wedlock pregnancies were such a taboo decades ago, the key element of adoption was its secrecy. When the adoption is revealed, the reactions of family members differ.

“Different families have different ideas about adoptions, searches and reunions,” said Habib, and with the family still coming to grips over the newness of their situation, “it’s important that we respect the family’s wishes for privacy because this is such a private matter. It affects other people other than the ones doing the reunion.”

And though they want to tell their story, the siblings are still absorbing the news — including the sister down in Florida, who jokingly said she is adjusting to being the middle child and not the youngest — so everyone interviewed requested to be referred to by only his or her first name for the article.

The meeting of his half-sister helped Jim fill in the blanks of childhood memories, blanks he wasn’t even aware existed until he began to talk to his half-sister, Robin, about their

mother.

“When she was pregnant with Robin, I was told she had bursitis and was sick,” said Jim, who was only in kindergarten at the time. “We didn’t see her for a long period of time after my dad died; we spent most of that year with our relatives on my father’s side.”

Jan was even younger, and both siblings recall spending weekends with their mom but spending each week with family while their mother was at work; “That went on for a long time,” said Jim. After a few years, Jim and Jan went back to living with their mother full-time, oblivious to the fact their mom had ever given birth. Meanwhile, Robin, adopted at just over two weeks old, was told at 10 years old that she was adopted.

“I didn’t have much of a reaction. I was already settled; I had my mother and father.

It didn’t faze me at all,” said Robin. “I didn’t care that I was adopted, but I think as I got older and into high school, [I felt] I didn’t belong anywhere.

I always knew of my brother and sister because my mother didn’t keep anything from me.

I had an adopted brother but he went into the service and made a career out of it, so he

wasn’t around a lot. When you know you have a biological brother and sister, it’s different.”

Initially Robin started looking off and on in the 1980s, when she was in her late 20s and early 30s, waiting well after her 18th birthday because she didn’t want to hurt the feelings of her adopted parents, she said.

“When I checked, Catholic Social Services said that no one was looking for you,” said Robin and as years passed and the Internet became entrenched in every day life, Robin used it as another tool to reach out. “I put my name online in an adoption thing because I thought they knew about me.”

A few months ago, Robin made the resolution to “try one more time” and reached out to Habib at CSS in March, getting the necessary paperwork but hesitating for almost two months to fill it out. “I was like, do I want to do this again and not know anything, and be disappointed?”

When Jim heard the message from Habib left on his answering machine, he didn’t know what to make of a woman calling from Catholic Social Turn to page 13

11

September 27, 2013

American among wave of papal appointments, confirmations

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — Pope Francis made several key decisions in establishing his curia, appointing new officials and confirming others in their positions in the Vatican.

The series of announcements includes the confirmation of top officials in key departments and the return of an American to the upper ranks of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

It has been more than six months since Pope Francis announced he was temporarily confirming Vatican officials in their positions, taking “some time for reflection, prayer and dialogue, before any definitive nominations or confirmations.”

On September 21, some of those major decisions were made. Most notably, Pope Francis has confirmed confidence in German Archbishop Gerhard Mueller as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, and titular Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer as the department’s secretary.

The doctrine department, like the traditionally power-

ful secretariat of state, is a key resource for the popes in governing, leading and protecting the Catholic Church not only in Rome, but throughout the world.

The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples’ leadership also remained intact. Italian Cardinal Fernando Filoni continues as prefect. The highest-ranking Chinese official in the curia, Archbishop Savio Hon TaiFai, will remain secretary, and Archbishop Protase Rugambwa, adjunct secretary.

These decisions curb speculation in Italian media as to possible shake-ups in both departments.

In addition to the confirmations, Pope Francis made a series of major appointments. The lifetime Vatican diplomat and Archbishop Beniamino Stella is the new prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, taking the place of fellow-Italian Cardinal Mauro Piacenza.

Archbishop Celso Mora Iruzubieta has been confirmed as secretary of the same department while Bishop Jorge Carol Patron Wong has been named its secretary

Ellie and Gil L’Heureux, parishioners of St. Stanislaus Parish in Fall River, receive congratulations from Bishop George W. Coleman at last week’s special Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral recognizing significant wedding anniversaries this year. The L’Heureuxs were married 60 years on September 26. Eighty-five couples were invited to this year’s celebration. (Photo by Father John Ozug)

for seminaries.

The outgoing Cardinal Piacenza will go on to replace the retiring Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro as the Penitentiary Major of the Apostolic Penitentiary.

Titular Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, formerly secretary of the Congregation for Bishops, has been appointed secretary general of the Synod of Bishops.

In a further development, Pope Francis created a position for Archbishop Joseph Augustine “Gus” di Noia.

He now joins the leadership of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith as its adjunct secretary.

The American prelate has years of experience working in the Roman Curia. He began serving as under-secretary for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in 2002 and was appointed secretary for the Congregation for Divine Worship in 2009.

At the same time, he was consecrated as the Titular Archbishop of Oregon City.

In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named him vice president of the Ecclesia Dei Pontifical Commission, which has led efforts to bring the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X back into the Catholic Church.

Di Noia was born in New York and joined the Dominicans of the Eastern Province of St. Joseph where he was ordained in 1970. He is a respected theologian who was asked to serve on the International Theological Commission, a group tasked with

helping the Holy See examine doctrinal questions, from 1997-2002.

Pope Francis’ appointments also include Italian Archbishop Giuseppe Sciacca, adjunct secretary of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, as a consultor to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

And Msgr. Giampier Gloder becomes president of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy and given special

responsibilities in the secretary of state. He will be given the title of archbishop.

Titular Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, formerly secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, has been named apostolic nuncio to Germany.

The curial changes come just weeks before Pope Francis will meet with a group of eight Cardinals from October 1-3 to advise him on possible changes to the governing structures of the Church.

12

September 27, 2013

‘Migrants and Refugees:Towards a Better World’ — Pope Francis Dear brothers and sisters, Our societies are experiencing, in an unprecedented way, processes of mutual interdependence and interaction on the global level. While not lacking problematic or negative elements, these processes are aimed at improving the living conditions of the human family, not only economically, but politically and culturally as well. Each individual is a part of humanity and, with the entire family of peoples, shares the hope of a better future.

This consideration inspired the theme I have chosen for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees this year: “Migrants and Refugees: Towards a Better World.”

In our changing world, the growing phenomenon of human mobility emerges, to use the words of Pope Benedict XVI, as a “sign of the times” (Message for the 2006 World Day of Migrants and Refugees). While it is true that migrations often reveal failures and shortcomings on the part of states and the international community, they also point to the aspiration of humanity to enjoy a unity marked by respect for differences, by attitudes of acceptance and hospitality which enable an equitable sharing of the world’s goods, and by the protection and the advancement of the dignity and centrality of each human being.

From the Christian standpoint, the reality of migration, like other human realities, points to the tension between the beauty of Creation, marked by Grace and the Redemption, and the mystery of sin. Solidarity, acceptance, and signs of fraternity and understanding exist side by side with rejection, discrimination, trafficking and exploitation, suffering and death. Particularly disturbing are those situations where migration is not only involuntary, but actually set in motion by various forms of human trafficking and enslavement. Nowadays, “slave labour” is common coin! Yet despite the problems, risks and difficulties to be faced, great numbers of migrants and refugees continue to be inspired by confidence and hope; in their hearts they long for a better future, not only for themselves but for their families and those closest to them.

What is involved in the creation of “a better world”?

The expression does not allude naively to abstract notions or unattainable ideals; rather, it aims at an authentic and integral development, at efforts to provide dignified living conditions for everyone, at finding just responses to the needs of individuals and families, and at ensuring that God’s gift of Creation is respected, safeguarded and cultivated. The Venerable Paul VI described the aspirations of people today in this way: “to secure a sure food supply, cures for diseases and steady employment … to exercise greater personal responsibility; to do more, to learn more, and have more, in order to be more” (“Populorum Progressio,” 6).

Our hearts do desire something “more.” Beyond greater knowledge or possessions, they want to “be” more. Development cannot be reduced to economic growth alone, often attained without a thought for the poor and the vulnerable. A better world will come about only if attention is first paid to individuals; if human promotion is integral, taking account of every dimension of the person, including the spiritual; if no one is neglected, including the poor, the sick, prisoners, the needy and the stranger (Mt 25:31-46); if we can prove capable of leaving behind a throwaway culture and embracing one of encounter and acceptance.

Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity. They are children, women and men who leave or who are forced to leave their homes for various reasons, who share a legitimate desire for knowing and having, but above all for being more. The sheer number of people migrating from one continent to another, or shifting places within their own countries and geographical areas, is striking.

Contemporary movements of migration represent the largest movement of individuals, if not of peoples, in history.

As the Church accompanies migrants and refugees on their journey, she seeks to understand the causes of migration, but she also works to overcome its negative effects, and to maximize its positive influence on the communities of origin, transit and destination.

While encouraging the development of a better world, we cannot remain silent about the scandal of poverty in its

various forms. Violence, exploitation, discrimination, marginalization, restrictive approaches to fundamental freedoms, whether of individuals or of groups: these are some of the chief elements of poverty which need to be overcome. Often these are precisely the elements which mark migratory movements, thus linking migration to poverty. Fleeing from situations of extreme poverty or persecution in the hope of a better future, or simply to save their own lives, millions of persons choose to migrate. Despite their hopes and expectations, they often encounter mistrust, rejection and exclusion, to say nothing of tragedies and disasters which offend their human dignity.

The reality of migration, given its new dimensions in our age of globalization, needs to be approached and managed in a new, equitable and effective manner; more than anything, this calls for international cooperation and a spirit of profound solidarity and compassion. Cooperation at different levels is critical, including the broad adoption of policies and rules aimed at protecting and promoting the human person.

Pope Benedict XVI sketched the parameters of such policies, stating that they “should set out from close collaboration between the migrants’ countries of origin and their countries of destination; they should be accompanied by adequate international norms able to coordinate different legislative systems with a view to safeguarding the needs and rights of individual migrants and their families, and at the same time, those of the host countries” (“Caritas in Veritate,” 62). Working together for a better world requires that countries help one another, in a spirit of willingness and trust, without raising insurmountable barriers. A good synergy can be a source of encouragement to government leaders as they confront socioeconomic imbalances and an unregulated globalization, which are among some of the causes of migration movements in which individuals are more victims than protagonists. No country can single-handedly face the difficulties associated with this phenomenon, which is now so widespread that it affects

every continent in the twofold movement of immigration and emigration.

It must also be emphasized that such cooperation begins with the efforts of each country to create better economic and social conditions at home, so that emigration will not be the only option left for those who seek peace, justice, security and full respect of their human dignity. The creation of opportunities for employment in the local economies will also avoid the separation of families and ensure that individuals and groups enjoy conditions of stability and serenity.

Finally, in considering the situation of migrants and refugees, I would point to yet another element in building a better world, namely, the elimination of prejudices and presuppositions in the approach to migration. Not infrequently, the arrival of migrants, displaced persons, asylum-seekers and refugees gives rise to suspicion and hostility. There is a fear that society will become less secure, that identity and culture will be lost, that competition for jobs will become stiffer and even that criminal activity will increase. The communications media have a role of great responsibility in this regard: it is up to them, in fact, to break down stereotypes and to offer correct information in reporting the errors of a few as well as the honesty, rectitude and goodness of the majority. A change of attitude towards migrants and refugees is needed on the part of everyone, moving away from attitudes of defensiveness and fear, indifference and marginalization — all typical of a throwaway culture — towards attitudes based on a culture of encounter, the only culture capable of building a better, more just and fraternal world. The communications media are themselves called to embrace this “conversion of attitudes” and to promote this change in the way migrants and refugees are treated.

I think of how even the Holy Family of Nazareth experienced initial rejection: Mary “gave birth to her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Lk 2:7). Jesus, Mary and Joseph knew what it meant to leave their own country and become migrants:

threatened by Herod’s lust for power, they were forced to take flight and seek refuge in Egypt (Mt 2:13-14). But the maternal heart of Mary and the compassionate heart of Joseph, the protector of the Holy Family, never doubted that God would always be with them. Through their intercession, may that same firm certainty dwell in the heart of every migrant and refugee.

The Church, responding to Christ’s command to “go and make disciples of all nations,” is called to be the People of God which embraces all peoples and brings to them the proclamation of the Gospel, for the face of each person bears the mark of the Face of Christ! Here we find the deepest foundation of the dignity of the human person, which must always be respected and safeguarded. It is less the criteria of efficiency, productivity, social class, or ethnic or religious belonging which ground that personal dignity, so much as the fact of being created in God’s Own image and likeness (Gen 1:26-27) and, even more so, being children of God. Every human being is a child of God! He or she bears the image of Christ!

We ourselves need to see, and then to enable others to see, that migrants and refugees do not only represent a problem to be solved, but are brothers and sisters to be welcomed, respected and loved. They are an occasion that Providence gives us to help build a more just society, a more perfect democracy, a more united country, a more fraternal world and a more open and evangelical Christian community. Migration can offer possibilities for a New Evangelization, open vistas for the growth of a new humanity foreshadowed in the Paschal Mystery: a humanity for which every foreign country is a homeland and every homeland is a foreign country.

Dear migrants and refugees! Never lose the hope that you too are facing a more secure future, that on your journey you will encounter an outstretched hand, and that you can experience fraternal solidarity and the warmth of friendship! To all of you, and to those who have devoted their lives and their efforts to helping you, I give the assurance of my prayers and I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing.

13

September 27, 2013

Pope condemns abortion as product of ‘throwaway culture’

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Lord, Who in His human flesh sensitivity in welcoming a new In his strongest public words to experienced the indifference life is lost, other forms of weldate on the subject of abortion, and solitude to which we often come useful to social life will Pope Francis affirmed the sa- condemn the poorest, whether dry up. Welcoming life temcredness of unborn human life in developing countries or in pers moral energies and makes and linked its defense to the wealthy societies,” he said. people capable of helping each pursuit of social justice.

“Every unborn child, though other.”

“In all its phases and at every unjustly condemned to be Pope Francis told the physiage, human life is always sacred aborted, has the Face of the cians that they faced a “paraand always of quality. And not Lord, Who even before His doxical situation” in their proas a matter of faith, but of reafessional lives, because son and science!” the even as medical scin the fragile human being each ence discovers new pope said recently to a one of us is invited to recognize cures for disease, the gathering of Catholic gynecologists. the Face of the Lord, Who in His human “health care profesPope Francis char- flesh experienced the indifference and soli- sions are sometimes acterized abortion as not to respect tude to which we often condemn the poor- induced a product of a “widelife itself.” spread mentality of est, whether in developing countries or in The pope charprofit, the ‘throwaway wealthy societies,” he said. acterized this paraculture,’ which has dox as part of a more today enslaved the widespread “cultural hearts and minds of so many.” birth, and then as soon as He disorientation” in which rising That mentality, he said, “calls was born, experienced the re- individualism parallels a growfor the elimination of human jection of the world,” he said. ing disrespect for life. beings, above all if they are “And every old person, even “Even as persons are acphysically or socially weaker. if infirm and at the end of his corded new rights, at times Our response to that mentality days, carries with him the Face only presumed rights, life as is a decisive and unhesitating of Christ. They must not be the primary value and primor‘yes’ to life.” dial right of every man is not thrown away!”

The pope grouped togethQuoting “Caritas in Veritate” always protected,” he said. er unborn children, the aged the social encyclical by Pope The pope told the gynecoloand the poor as among the Benedict XVI, Pope Francis gists that they had a responmost vulnerable people whom connected the protection of sibility to make known the Christians are called especially unborn life with the promotion “transcendent dimension, the to love. imprint of God’s creative work, of social justice.

“In the fragile human be“Openness to life is at the in human life from the first ining each one of us is invited center of true development,” stant of conception. And this is to recognize the Face of the he said. “If personal and social a commitment of New Evangelization that often requires going against the tide, paying a personal price. The Lord counts on you, too, to spread the Gospel of life.”

Pope Francis’ remarks came one day after the publication of an interview in which he warned that obsessing on certain moral teachings, including abortion, could undermine the Church’s efforts to preach the Gospel.

Pope Francis has brought up the topic of abortion during his pontificate, specifically speaking about the need to welcome people back to the Church so as to reconcile after an abortion.

In his May 25 daily Mass homily, Vatican radio reported that he said, “Look at this girl who had the courage to carry Sunday, September 29, 11:00 a.m. her pregnancy to term” and not to have an abortion. “What does she find? A closed door,” as do so many. This is not good Celebrant is pastoral zeal, it distances peoBishop George W. Coleman ple from the Lord and does of the Diocese of Fall River not open doors. So when we take this path, we are not doing good to people, the People of God.”

“I

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6

Father Mauritzen retires continued from page one

from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Dr. Mauritzen interned at the Orange County General Hospital in Orange, Cal., and did a residency in psychiatry at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Earning board certification as a psychiatrist in 1969, he was chief psychiatrist at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., and chief of staff at Alameda County Medical Clinic in Livermore, Cal. He also directed and owned a psychiatric clinic in Livermore between 1972 and 1991.

Father Mauritzen began his studies for the priesthood in 1991, entering Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., where he remained until being assigned to St. Lawrence Martyr Parish in New Bedford.

Prior to becoming pastor at St. Joseph’s Parish in Woods Hole in 2003, his other diocesan assignments included stints at St. Mary’s Parish in South Dartmouth; St. Pius X Parish

in South Yarmouth; and St. Joan of Arc Parish in Orleans.

He also previously served as chaplain for Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River and Falmouth Hospital.

In a 2010 interview with The Anchor, Father Mauritzen expressed his great joy at being able to serve his Cape Cod parishioners.

“We’re jammed from midJune until the Sunday before Labor Day with seasonal residents and tourists until they head home when school opens,” he said.

With an estimated 200 families registered year-round in the parish, Father Mauritzen said he always looked forward to welcoming summer visitors to his congregation.

“They are all happy and always in a good mood — and also very generous — and they all come up to receive the Eucharist,” Father Mauritzen said. “I’m nicely busy summers as a pastor of a Catholic church.”

Siblings unite through CSS continued from page 10

Services, but after encouragement from his wife, called Habib back.

“I was shocked and surprised at the same time,” said Jim after hearing the news.

“I didn’t hesitate, I wanted to meet her. It was a pleasant surprise to find she was local, but it could have been Timbuktu — I would have gotten there somehow to meet her.”

When Jim called Jan in Florida, he broke the news as only a big brother could; “I was like, ‘Guess what?’”

“I was thrilled,” said Jan over the phone from her home in Florida about the news that she and her brother had a sister.

“I feel badly that I’m in Florida and they’re in Massachusetts, but we’ll get together.”

The timing of the revelation is through God’s grace, said Jim, stating if he had found out about Robin while in his teen years, the news would probably have been harder to digest. The heartbreak for Robin is the unfortunate passing of her biological mother before she could meet her, but according to Jim, Robin “looks just like our mother,” he said.

The reunion also gave Robin closure and answered the question of why no one was looking for her.

“I couldn’t understand because I knew they were older than me, how could they have not known she was pregnant?” said Robin. “That’s when I was younger, as you get older you realize that anyone can hide a pregnancy.”

From what information they have gathered, Jim said he thinks Robin’s father is also deceased. Now two months later, the reunion is still in its infancy as the siblings continue to nurture their relationship, maintaining contact by phone, text messages and meeting together, including having Robin accompany Jim and his wife to celebrate Jim’s birthday. A face-to-face meeting with Jan is also in the works.

Robin’s adopted father passed away a few years ago and with her adopted brother not in constant contact, Robin’s mother felt that though Robin’s children and grandchildren keep her busy, she was afraid that after she passed, Robin wouldn’t have a support system of familial peers.

“She needed somebody. I’m 87 and won’t be here much longer,” said Robin’s adopted mom, “and when I go, she’ll have her children but it’s not the same. She needed somebody and now she’s got somebody.”

14

September 27, 2013

‘Wimpy Kid’ author to speak at Fall Dinner continued from page one

the growing pains of middleschool student and selfdescribed weakling Greg Heffley as uniquely revealed through words and drawings recorded by Greg in his diary.

The series has proven phenomenally-popular with more than 85 million copies in print in 44 languages around the world. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” was first released in print in April 2007 and quickly became a New York Times No. 1 bestseller.

“Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules” followed in January 2008, and also reached the New York Times top spot.

The series has won Favorite Book at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards three times. The much-anticipated eighth installment of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” entitled “Hard Luck,” will be released this November.

Kinney has been twice voted Author of the Year at the Children’s Choice Book Awards and in 2009 Time magazine named him one of its 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Born in Maryland just outside Washington, D.C., Kinney attended Bishop McNamara High School there and then the University of Maryland where he ran a comic strip in the campus paper.

After college he tried but was not able to get the strip syndicated. He came up with the idea for “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” in 1998 and worked on it for six years before it debuted online on Funbrain.com in daily installments. To date, the online version has more than 80 million visits and is typically read by some 70,000 kids a day. In 2006, he signed a multi-book deal with publisher Harry N. Abrams to turn “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” into a print series.

In 2007, Kinney also created Poptropica.com, a virtual world for kids, for which he continues to serve as creative and editorial director.

Kinney lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two sons.

The annual St. Mary’s Fall Dinner is one of two principle yearly fund-raisers to support the St. Mary’s Education Fund, which has since its inception in the early 1990s provided financial help to more than 8,000 students

at Catholic elementary and middle schools in the diocese. In 2012-2013 school alone, 699 students received $546,000 in tuition aid from the fund; for the current academic year, some 1,100 students have sought St. Mary’s Education Fund assistance.

Paul M. Lenahan, who is executive vice president of Bristol County Savings Bank Financial Advisory Services and a parishioner of St. Mark Parish in Attleboro Falls, is chairing the Fall Dinner for a second time. He has been a strong supporter of the dinner for many years, previously leading committee efforts in the greater Attleboro area to promote the event.

“Our bank is committed to being an active, vibrant part of the community and we believe that education is the key to success,” Lenahan explained.

“I know that many children and families want to pursue a Catholic education but cannot afford the tuition cost.

That’s where the St. Mary’s Education Fund makes a difference; it can help make it happen. The fund enables young people to pursue their dreams to attend a Catholic elementary, middle school or high school here in Southeastern Massachusetts and on the Cape.”

The Fall Dinner will include a reception and extensive multi-course meal followed by a brief program and guest speaker Kinney’s presentation.

Lenahan and committees in four areas of the diocese are now reaching out to businesses and individuals to extend an invitation to sponsor a table or purchase a ticket for the Fall Dinner in support of tuition assistance.

In the Attleboro area, Lenahan is heading the committee’s efforts. Leading the other area committees are, in Fall River, Nicholas M. Christ; in New Bedford, James Kalife and Carl W. Taber; and in Taunton, Harold J. Rose Jr. and Michael J. Tabak.

Those interested in supporting the Fall Dinner or obtaining more information on the St. Mary’s Education Fund, should contact Lenahan, any area committee chairman, or Jim Campbell at the Diocesan Development Off ice at 508-675-1311.

Diocesan TV Mass marks 50th anniversary on the airwaves continued from page one

cause of the commitment of the many of the priests in the diocese and their parish communities, has kept the Mass local, home-grown and familiar to the many homebound and infirmed people who tune us in each week.”

John E. Kearns Jr., diocesan director of Communications has been working with the production of the TV Mass for 27 years, scheduling celebrants and making arrangements to ensure coordination among all involved parties, including Channel 6; Clicknet TV, the present production company; the musicians for the Mass; Manny Medeiros, who oversees the Bishop Stang High School Chapel in North Dartmouth where the Masses are taped; and others. “And come each Mass taping session, I guess I’ve earned my stripes as a production technician as well, working the audio board during the TV Mass productions,” Kearns told The Anchor.

The diocesan TV Mass is the oldest running program on Channel 6. “Every Sunday for the past 50 years WLNE-TV/ ABC6 has been proud to provide the Diocese of Fall River’s weekly Mass as a service to those who can not attend,” said Chris Tzianabos, the station’s vice president and general manager. “The Mass is very much a part of the station’s heritage. Providing programming that serves the needs of our southern New England neighbors is very important to us.

We look forward to continuing the tradition that viewers have come to rely on week after week.”

The Mass is funded primarily through the national Catholic Communications Campaign each January and the local Catholic Charities Appeal.

James Campbell, diocesan director of Development, of which the Catholic Charities Appeal is a part said, “In this age of mass media and instant communication, it is important for the Church’s message of Good News and kinship with Jesus to be available to all of the faithful in a multitude of forms. The Catholic Charities Appeal is proud to partner with the priests, laity and technicians who bring the message of love and forgiveness into the homes of those who watch each week.

“We consider the ability to share the wisdom of Scripture and the communal sharing of the Body and Blood of our Lord to be an important ministry, especially on behalf of those who cannot attend services in their parish. Our thanks go out to all our

donors for their steadfast support of the appeal and the good works, like the TV Mass that are funded through their generosity.”

In the early days, the Mass was taped in the Channel 6 studios in New Bedford. It was also taped at St. Julie Billiart Church in North Dartmouth and now finds a home at the Bishop Stang chapel.

The Sisters of the Resurrection, who staffed the St. Saviour Day Nursery in New Bedford were sacristans for the Mass, providing fresh linens, and setting up the chalices, ciborium, and Liturgical books. “The Sisters were a tremendous assistance,” added Msgr. Avila. “Music was provided

by Miss Margaret Sullivan who was never known to have missed a taping and continued serving as music director until 1993, and for many years flowers were donated each week by the Furtado family of Family Florist of New Bedford.”

Technologies changed through the years, and in 2012 Channel 6 informed the diocese it could no longer provide production services for the TV Mass, but would still broadcast it. “Bishop Coleman remained very dedicated to the apostolate and a production company, Clicknet TV of Fairhaven, owned and operated

by John Methia, was hired to produce the Mass and make it ready for airing,” said Msgr. Avila.

“With the company’s use of the latest technology, the Mass is now broadcast in high definition and then posted online. It is also closed-captioned for the hearing impaired.”

The TV Mass has been a Sunday staple for thousands of faithful across the Diocese of Fall River and beyond. For five decades, the Liturgy on the airwaves connected shut-ins with their fellow brothers and sisters in the faith in churches from the Attleboros through Cape Cod and the Islands.

“I enjoy contributing to the TV Mass and realize it is an important ministry,” said Kearns.

“Every so often I’ll be reminded just how significant it is for some viewers. I’ll hear a story from someone relaying how either that person or perhaps a parent watched it so faithfully during a time when attending Mass at church was not possible usually because of illness or difficulty in getting out of their living quarters. Bringing the Mass to them via TV kept them connected to their faith; it was a source comfort and offered a sense of remaining part of a community of faith.

“A couple once made a donation to the TV Mass in memory of their mothers who had both passed away during the same summer. Their accompanying note said both mothers in their separate homes watched the Mass each week when they could no longer get to their own parish and insisted that any visitors sit and watch it with them. With the donation, they wanted the diocese to know ‘that the Television Mass Apostolate plays a valuable role in the prayer life of many Catholics.’”

Msgr. Avila shared that there have been some very memorable moments in his 26-year involvement with the TV Mass. “I would think the most memorable was the live broadcast of the Mass celebrated by then-Bishop Sean O’Malley on the visit of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta in June 1995 at St. Lawrence Martyr Church in New Bedford,” he said. “The Channel 6 production team did an extraordinary job in providing the live feed for many local networks. It was a wonderful day for the diocese, the Church and the city of New Bedford and the TV Mass enabled so many to enter into the experience and pray with our Catholic faith community.”

“I’m honored to direct and co-executive produce the weekly Masses as well as bring a celebration of Christmas and Easter Mass to the homes of the diocese,” John Methia, executive producer/director Clicknet TV told The Anchor. “I remember fondly broadcasting the bishop installations as well as the Mother Teresa’s visit to New Bedford.

The Mother Teresa visit was history making as it was the first local broadcast to run on all three television stations simultaneously and I’m proud to say that presentation won an Emmy Award.

Ironically I was an altar boy on the early Masses that originated from WTEV’s County Street New Bedford studios celebrated

by Father John Hogan.”

“The TV Mass has broadcast many beautiful and inspiring Masses for Christmas and Easter, celebrated by the ordinary at the time, including Bishop James L. Connolly, Bishop (now Archbishop) Daniel A. Cronin, Bishop (now Cardinal) Sean O’Malley and Bishop George W. Coleman,” added Msgr. Avila.

To help the TV Mass Apostolate to continue its valuable ministry, donations can be sent to TV Mass Apostolate, P.O. Box 7, Fall River, Mass. 02722.

15

September 27, 2013

There will soon be frost on the pumpkin; on the homeless, too

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Bishop George W. Coleman congratulates Holy Cross Father John Denning, the newly-named president at Stonehill College, at a recent inauguration ceremony on the Easton school’s campus. Father Denning is Stonehill’s 10th president. (Photo by Nicki Pardo)

Father Richard Gribble, C.S.C. earns Stonehill teaching award

EASTON — Father Richard Gribble, C.S.C., a member of the Congregation of Holy Cross, was recently named the recipient of Stonehill College’s 2013 Louise F. Hegarty Award for Excellence in Teaching. The surprise announcement came during the college’s Presidential Inauguration and Convocation ceremony September 20.

The award is given annually to a full-time faculty member whose teaching has had a marked influence on the lives of Stonehill students. Father Gribble, a professor of Religious Studies, began teaching at the college in 1995. He has written more than 20 books on American Church history and spiri-

tuality. In addition to teaching, he is actively involved with local parish ministries as well as campus activities such as the Team Faculty Advisor and Community Associate Programs.

Stonehill President Father John Denning, C.S.C., praised Father Gribble in his inaugural address to the Stonehill community.

“Father Gribble embodies the charism of the Congregation of Holy Cross. An educator in the faith, he is a gifted and talented teacher, a diligent and tireless researcher and scholar. He is also a man who gives generously of himself outside the classroom,” said President Father Denning.

“It truly is a well-deserved

recognition of Father Gribble’s commitment to Catholic higher education, our students and the mission of Stonehill College,” he added.

Citing statements made by students who nominated Father Gribble, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs Joseph Favazza, who presented the award, said “(He) always encourages his students to try their best, and he makes the classroom a warm and welcoming place.”

An anonymous student said, “Father Gribble is always exceptionally prepared for class and willing to go above and beyond the expectations of a professor.”

Father Richard Gribble, C.S.C., right, receives congratulations from Stonehill College provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, Dr. Joseph Favazza, after being awarded the Louise F. Hegarty Award for Excellence in Teaching at Stonehill College in Easton, during a ceremony at which Father John Denning, C.S.C., was inaugurated as the school’s 10th president.

y poor spouse has seems to be, I imagine the sumalready had it up to mer months are less taxing on her eyeballs with hearing that these poor brothers and sisters autumn is my favorite season. of ours.

You see, Denise is a daughter of When the chill of autumn the summer. causes us to shiver, all we have Every time I chatter about to do is throw on a sweater or this great weather and all that sweatshirt and bump the thergoes with it, she cringes, longing mostat up a degree or two. for the lazy, crazy, hazy days of When the chill of autumn summer. Like Nat King Cole hits the homeless, there’s not (lyrics by Charles Tobias and much they can do about it. music by Hans Carste), Denise, As we nibble on every food too, wishes that summer could product known to man, now always be here. with a pumpkin flavoring, the But I’m not alone. Emilie homeless would appreciate anydigs fall as does her beau, Danny, thing, regardless of the flavor. and I’m quite certain that Igor As the weather cools, more prefers this season as well, except dilemmas face the homeless. for when she goes out to do her The body shivers to keep warm. thing and steps on the hundreds As the body shivers, calories are of acorns strewn across the lawn burned — calories that a hungry that make her look like she’s person doesn’t have much of. on an episode of “Dancing With the Stars” when she walks across them.

This is, after all the season

By Dave Jolivet of the pumpkin muffin. And pumpkin pies; and pumpkin donuts, lattes, I love autumn, but not everycoffees, milk shakes, Pop-Tarts, one does — and I don’t mean beer, liqueur, candles, and air Denise. This year, as I tuck away fresheners. the summer T-shirts and shorts I’ve seen some of the new and break out the corduroys fall pumpkin line for 2014 and and sweaters, I’m going to it includes some other interestgather up those items that for ing pumpkin products: Planters some reason have grown too Peanuts has released a pumpkin- small for me since last year, or spiced almond, joining other that I simply don’t wear that products like pumpkin oatmeal, often, and donate them to an cream cheese, English mufagency that can find the right fins, and marshmallows. Even home for them. long-time favorite staples like When I gnaw at a pumpEggos and Pringles have jumped kin item, I’ll remind myself to aboard the pumpkin hay ride. periodically put aside some food As if that weren’t enough, stuffs for that same agency. And the weather, too, brings a smile I think it would be a nice idea to to my face at this time of year. I include some pumpkin-flavored like sleeping with the windows items as well. open and waking up in the And when autumn comes morning all snuggled up in my around, winter can’t be too far pumpkin sheets and pillow cases behind — making things even (OK maybe a slight exaggeramore difficult for our homeless tion here), and looking out the brothers and sisters. window and feeling the chill in There are so many in our the air. It’s so refreshing to indiocese who already do so much hale a great big gulp of freshness, for the poor. Maybe if more of that’s not saturated with water us join them, we can make a big droplets caused by nasty humid- dent in the misery of hundreds ity. It’s so refreshing that I can of children and adults who suffer overlook the lung-full of pollen I quietly and out of sight. Let’s also sucked in. break the cliche of “out of sight, For me, everything about out of mind.” autumn pleases me. There’s goIt’s a cozy time of year. Let’s ing to be a frost on the pumpkin spread that coziness around. soon, and I love it — except That could be as sweet as a for one thing. A frost on the pumpkin Pop-Tart! pumpkin also means a frost on Anchor columnist Dave the homeless.

Jolivet can be reached at As difficult as being homeless davejolivet@anchornews.org.

My View From the Stands

16

Youth Pages

In its 12th year, the Timothy J. Cotter Scholarship Fund has awarded more than $50,000 to students attending Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River. Given in memory of Timothy J. Cotter, who was president of BankFive from 1983 to 1998, this scholarship fund has made it possible for many students to receive a Catholic education. Cotter believed very much in Catholic education since having been educated through the parochial school system himself, he felt a huge obligation to want to help others. This year’s recipients are, from left with Mrs. Cotter (seated): Sarah Cabral, Jacob Schnurr, Hannah Lopes, William Medeiros and Christopher Myron, principal.

September 27, 2013

Students from Holy Family-Holy Name School in New Bedford recently conducted an NFL Kickoff Food Drive. All the food collected was donated to the St. Lawrence Church food pantry in New Bedford.

It may have been raining on the first day of school at St. Pius X School in South Yarmouth, but inside you could feel the warmth from all the students’ smiles.

The pre-school students attending a monthly Audubon Program at Holy Trinity in West Harwich, recently enjoyed discovering sea creatures.

Newly-elected officers of the Class of 2014 at Holy Name School in Fall River and their advisers are, from left: Brittany Juszkiewicz; Chhavee Nhean, secretary; Angela Brillantes, president; Lilian Perry, vice president; Maille O’Brien, treasurer; and Maxine Bonneau.

Students in grade five and pre-kindergarten at St. James-St. John School in New Bedford recently shared special time together.

Youth Pages

September 27, 2013

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17

God will not fail you

ave you ever found yourself in the middle of trouble, problems, circumstances beyond your control, or all alone with no help from anywhere or anyone? I believe it’s safe to say that all of us have at one time or another.

None of us is really exempt from any of these unfortunate events. Do you think you are exempt? Don’t play the fools’ game! Just because you believe you’re doing God’s will doesn’t mean that the enemy will never send trouble your way.

Doing God’s will faithfully means He will not let you fail.

In other words, God’s got your back!

Job says, “Man born of woman is short-lived and full of trouble” ( Job 14:1). But isn’t it good to know that when trouble comes, when Satan and chaos come your way and when the enemy comes like a thief in the night, that the Lord will be your guide and protector? God will not let you fail; He’s got your back! “I bless the Lord Who counsels me; even at night my heart

I’m reminded of the chilexhorts me. I keep the Lord always before me; with Him at dren of Israel when they had my right hand, I shall never be come to what seemed like the end of their journey on the shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, my soul rejoices; my body banks of Jordan and Moses told them to go on ahead … also dwells secure, for You will alone, without their leader. not abandon my soul” (Ps. 16: They must have wondered 7-10).

School has begun. New challenges await you. You’ve met old friends and are now making new ones. You’re hitting the ground running;

By Ozzie Pacheco learning new things, studying for exams, have projects to finish, schedules to keep, what would happen to them commitments to uphold, and next. Fear and anxiety set in. are finding time for sports, But Moses said to them, “Be leisure and even your jobs. strong and steadfast; have no All of these things can cause fear or dread of them, for it much anxiety, fear and even is the Lord, your God, Who pain. How do you handle all marches with you; He will this? How do you keep a step never fail you or forsake you” ahead in order to minimize problems? At times it may feel (Dt 31:6). In other words, God is saying, “I got your back!” like you’re heading in many Life is full of change. Many different directions, some of of us don’t like changes. We’d them unknown and foreign to you. But, you keep going. Why rather have things the same as they always have been. But, we is that?

know that’s not realistic. Life is always presenting us with variables. There is, thankfully, one constant in life — God’s love for us! That may be hard for some to understand. But, look at it this way (my method of teaching very young children what God’s love is like); take a rock, any rock, and place it on your desk.

Leave it there, day in and day out, and when you question or doubt God’s love for you, look at the rock. You’ll notice it hasn’t changed — it’s the same shape, same color, same texture, same everything!

That’s God’s love — the same as it has always been from the very beginning no matter how much we have changed. His love for us is unmoved. God will not fail you!

This past summer I was relaxing on the beach and enjoying a favorite pastime — people watching. I was surprised and comforted by some of the things I saw. Among

them was an elderly woman’s umbrella had collapsed and she didn’t have the strength to upright it. A young man rushed to her aid. For that moment, the young man did not fail the elderly woman; he had her back! I’m often asked in catechism classes, “How do we really show our love for God?” My answer: “By how we show our love for others.” If God’s got our back, then we should also have each other’s back!

But, so many times we look everywhere for other people to have our back. And as you may have discovered, some people will fade away when the fire gets too hot. Even family and friends will forsake you when times get hard. But the Lord says, “I will never forsake you or abandon you” (Heb 13:5).

It’s good to know that God will not fail you and that He’s got your back … always! Continue on your journey. You are not walking alone. God bless!

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

WASHINGTON (CNS) — University of Colorado Boulder senior Summer Swisher said she was shocked at how quickly the flooding in the city of Boulder intensified while she was attending Mass around 5:10 p.m. September 12.

“Within 45 minutes, all of the roads were flooded,” Swisher said. “Me and my friends trudged home through shin-high water.”

Swisher, a member of the university’s chapter of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, known as FOCUS, said she and her roommates chose to evacuate their home for about 12 hours as a safety precaution. She said she and the other women carried a few days’ worth of clothes, her

cellphone and computer, books and Rosaries with them.

“We were confronted with the thought (as we packed), ‘Are we too materialistic?’” Swisher said, laughing.

Swisher said one of her friends was able to transport them to safety in a pickup truck. “(By then) the water was up to middoor on the 4x4 truck,” she said.

Swisher said the roof of the home she shares with six other women was damaged, however, there was no flooding. She said she lives near Bear Creek, where there was extensive flooding.

Swisher said her front door will not close.

“The door swelled,” she said.

“It absorbed water.”

“Nobody thought it would get as bad as it did,” Coates said. He added that there was no damage to his home from floodwater, although many homes on surrounding streets had more extensive damage.

“We had just a few leaks,” he said. “The streets above us and below us were pretty much rivers.”

Coates said his friends’ homes were also flooded. “A lot of my friends had a couple feet of water in their basements,” he said.

Josh Santo, team director for FOCUS at University of Colorado Boulder, said students in the group will be assisting families who have had major flooding to their homes.

Be Not Afraid

University of Colorado student shocked at how quickly floodwaters rose

A couple walks across railroad tracks covered by flood debris in Longmont, Colo. (CNS photo/Rick Wilking, Reuters)

Swisher said several people came to her home to stay. She said many of her friends had homes that were badly affected, with at least three inches of floodwater on the inside.

“All of the homes around us in our neighborhood were flooded,” she told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview.

Swisher said she and her roommates did not lose any of their possessions. She said she was initially worried about her car when the flooding started. “I had left it a few blocks away,” she noted.

Swisher said the University of Colorado Boulder canceled classes September 12 and 13. She said many buildings on campus were flooded. Swisher said professors have helped accommodate students who were unable to attend classes because of the flooding.

Swisher said her family in Fort Collins, Colo., and Loveland, Colo., was not affected by the floods. She said her parents, however, are unable to visit her because all of the main highways around Boulder have been closed.

Junior John Coates said he was with friends in downtown Boulder when the flooding began the evening of September 12.

18

September 27, 2013

Silver Rose of Our Lady of Guadalupe makes first visit to diocese continued from page one

was imprinted on the tilma, convincing the bishop of its origin.

In 1999, Pope John Paul II named Our Lady of Guadalupe as patroness of the Americas, including the U.S. and Canada.

The Silver Rose was created for the Knights of Columbus, continuing a tradition started in Mexico in 1960 by the Columbian Squires, the official youth organization of the Knights.

Since her apparition in 1531, Our Lady of Guadalupe has extended her loving care to the Mexican people and the Squires chose to begin a tradition of the “Running of the Rose,” where they would accompany a rose throughout Mexico, ending up at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe on her feast day, December 12. Because the first rose was real, it soon deteriorated, so a bronze rose was created for future “Running of the Rose,” days, and then a silver one was introduced.

Since then, the tradition has expanded into the United States and Canada. Today, there are five Silver Roses. Four of the roses begin the journey in Canada, making their way through five Canadian provinces and 38 of the United States and ending up at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico on her December 12 feast day.

The fifth rose began its inaugural trek on April 28 in

Maine. Since, it has traveled through New Hampshire, Vermont, and is now in Massachusetts, where it has made stops in the Dioceses of Springfield and Worcester and is now in the Boston Archdiocese.

“We received the Silver Rose from Vermont on September 1 in Greenfield,” Massachusetts State Deputy Peter Healy told The Anchor. “It is meaningful because it is a Pro-Life program and an opportunity for the Knights of Columbus and all Pro-Life Catholics to show their faith.

“So far we are encouraged with the participation of this event and look forward to doing this next year.”

At each stop, the rose is displayed with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and there are Masses, Benedictions, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosaries and other prayers. “The single silver rose symbolizes one life,” said Knight Arthur Whittemore of Raynham, one of the men responsible for the rose during its Fall River Diocese visit. “What better way to show the love and respect we have for our Blessed Mother, who loves and respects all life, from conception to natural death.”

Whittemore told The Anchor that he received great cooperation from the pastors of the parishes where the rose will appear in the diocese. “The

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pearance in Mexico stands as a had a very moving ceremony symbol of the unity to which we with the Knights there and from Massachusetts,” said Whitare called as children of God. pastors chose what type of cer“When Juan Diego found temore. “It should be another emony will accompany the visit the roses on the hill in Tepeyac wonderful ceremony when it’s by the rose and the image of in the middle of winter, he knew handed on to our brothers and Our Lady of Guadalupe. We’re something special was happen- sisters in Rhode Island.” hoping to encourage as many ing. I hope that the Silver Rose After the La Salette ceremopeople as possible to come and of Guadalupe traveling among ny, the rose will be transferred pray for life. We’ll be announc- us will alert us that something to Knights from neighboring ing the sites in parish bulle- special is happening in our Rhode Island for a tour there, tins in areas near the church at communities. That although before ending up in the state which it will appear.” we come from different parts of Connecticut, where the final The decision to include and speak different languages, New England visit will be at St. the New England area for we are all wrapped in the same Mary’s Church in New Haven, the first time came from Su- tilma of Our Lady’s protection the birthplace of the Knights of preme Knight Carl Anderson. and love as brothers and sisters Columbus by Father Michael “The ‘Running of the Rose’ of her Son, Jesus.”

McGivney in 1882. is a perfect program for the “It’s an honor to assist Arthur From there, the Silver Rose Knights of Columbus,” he will journey to St. Mary’s in helping to set up the visits in said. “Through it we honor Church (783 Dartmouth the Fall River Diocese,” Knight not only Our Lady of Guada- Street) in South Dartmouth on John J. Kourtz Sr. of St. Ann lupe and express the unity of October 8 for a 7 p.m. adora- Council 10289 in Raynham told the order, but also affirm the tion and prayer service; October The Anchor. “It’s been an amazing order’s dedication to the sanc- 9, St. Julie Billiart Church (494 effort to ensure that the Silver tity of human life. It is to the Slocum Road) in North Dart- Rose is presented properly so Blessed Mother that we turn mouth for a 7 p.m. adoration that everyone can feel honored to to in prayer as we work to end and prayer service; October 10, take part in the visit and to honor the culture of death that grips St. Ann’s Church (660 North the patroness of the Americas, our society. As we think in Main Street) in Raynham, for Our Lady of Guadalupe.” terms of ‘One Life, One Rose,’ a 7 a.m. Mass and Rosary; and “We hope to have many peoit is most important that we October 11, St. Mary’s Church ple come out and see the Silturn to Our Lady of Guada- (330 Pratt Street) in Mansfield, ver Rose and participate in the lupe who made known her for a 6 p.m. prayer service, Ro- Masses, prayers services, adorawill through Juan Diego and sary and Benediction. tions and Benedictions,” added the miracle of the roses.”

The rose’s final destination Whittemore. “If we can change The rose will first visit Christ in the Fall River Diocese is the one person’s attitude about the King Parish in Mashpee National Shrine of Our Lady abortion, it will all be worth it. ( Job Fishing Road) on Octo- of La Salette in Attleboro (947 It’s in God’s hands. We’re only ber 4 at a 7 a.m. Rosary and Park Street). There, the rose and the instruments to bring it here.”

Mass. “I said yes to this because portrait will be in attendance at For more information on the Knights of Columbus are a prayer service, adoration, and the Running of the Rose visit wonderful men who serve the Rosary beginning at 2 p.m. runningoftherose.org. For visit community and the Church “When the rose came from information, contact any of the so well,” pastor Msgr. Daniel Vermont to Massachusetts, we parishes listed in this feature.

F. Hoye told The Anchor. “If it was important to them, it was important to the parish.”

St. Mary’s Cathedral (372 Second Street) in Fall River will be the next stop on October 6 for the 8 and 10 a.m.

Masses and the 12:30 p.m.

Mass, the latter of which will be in Spanish.

On October 7, the Silver Rose will travel to Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish at St. James Church (233 County Street) in New Bedford for a 7 p.m.

Mass and prayer service. “We were honored to receive in our church the Silver Rose of Guadalupe from the Knights of Columbus to support the great work done by them in our diocese and around the country,” pastor Father Craig A. Pregana told The Anchor. “Their unconditional support for human life and vocations is a great tribute to their ministry.

“Our Lady of Guadalupe has a special place in our parish because it bears her name and A statue of St. Juan Diego depicts him displaying the tilma bearing also because of the symbol that the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the roses she gave him to she is for the Americas. Her ap- prove her apparition to the Bishop-elect Fray Juan de Zumarraga.

(Photo from www.kofc11372.org/silver-rose)

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September 27, 2013

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

Evening prayer and Benediction is held Monday through Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

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

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

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

Mass.

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

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

Use the Chapel entrance on the side of the church.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recitation of the Rosary for peace is prayed Monday through Saturday at 7:30 a.m. prior to the 8 a.m. Mass.

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

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

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

Diocese looks at possibly opening cause for Chesterton’s sainthood

MANCHESTER, England (CNS) — The bishop of Northampton, England, has appointed a priest to investigate the possibility of opening the cause for sainthood of G.K. Chesterton, a British journalist and author of the early 20th century.

A statement released September 19 by the diocese in central England said that the decision to investigate the cause followed numerous approaches from devotees of Chesterton, including many from the United States.

Father John Udris, spiritual director at St. Mary’s College, Oscott, a seminary in Birmingham, will lead the effort, the statement said.

The appointment represents the first step in a long process that could result in the eventual canonization of a man who created the famous “Father Brown” literary figure.

Chesterton was born in London in 1874 and died of heart failure in 1936 at the age of 62 in Beaconsfield, north of the city, and within the Diocese of Northampton.

Baptized an Anglican, he became a Catholic in 1922 and wrote acclaimed religious

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks Sept. 29 Rev. J.A. Payan, Founder, St. Mathieu, Fall River, 1899 Rev. Roman Chwaliszewski, OFM Conv., Pastor, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, New Bedford, 2012 Sept. 30 Rev. John J. Griffin, Pastor, St. Paul, Taunton, 1963 Rev. George Taraska, OFM Conv., Parochial Vicar, Holy Rosary, Taunton, 1993 Oct. 1 Most. Rev. William O. Brady, S.T.D., Archbishop of St. Paul, 1961 Oct. 2 Rev. Joseph E. Sutula, Pastor, St. Casimir, New Bedford, 1961 Rev. Rene R. Levesque, Pastor, Blessed Sacrament, Fall River, 1999 Rev. Msgr. Stanislaus T. Sypek, 2011 Oct. 3 Rev. Msgr. Arthur G. Considine, Retired Pastor, St. Mary, South Dartmouth, 1991

books such as “Orthodoxy” and “The Everlasting Man.” Chesterton wrote 80 books as well as hundreds of short

stories, essays, poems and several plays. His works continue to enjoy universal appeal and popularity.

Around the Diocese An eight-week Holy Spirit Seminar will be held in the church hall of St. George Parish, 12 Highland Avenue in Westport, on Tuesday mornings at 10 a.m. October 1 - 29 and November 5 - 19. It will feature video presentations by Dr. Ralph Martin, Peter Herbeck, Sister Ann Shields of Renewal Ministries, and Patti Mansfield and David Managan, who were at the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Duquesnes University in 1967. All are welcome. For more information call 508-992-5402.

The Fall River Area Men’s First Friday Club will meet on October 4 at the Chapel of St. Mary’s Cathedral, 327 Second Street in Fall River. Following the 6 p.m. Mass celebrated by Father John Ozug, Rector of the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption. A hot meal catered by White’s of Westport will be served in the school hall across the street. The guest speaker is Deacon Peter Cote, whose primary duty is pastoral care at the Catholic Memorial Home. Members and guests are welcome. For more information contact Norman Valiquette at 508-672-8174.

A concert and dinner featuring Marty Rotella performing contemporary Christian music will be held at St. Joseph-St. Therese Parish, 51 Duncan Street in New Bedford, on October 5 beginning at 7 p.m. in the church hall. The performance is co-sponsored by the parish and the Men of the Sacred Hearts. For tickets or more information call 508-995-5235.

A Day with Mary will be held October 5 at Our Lady of Grace Church, 569 Sanford Road in Westport, from 7:50 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. It will include a video presentation, procession and crowning of the Blessed Mother with Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Please bring a bag lunch. There will be an opportunity for Reconciliation and a bookstore will be available. For more information call 508-996-8274.

The second annual Harvest Fair will be held October 5 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the grounds of St. Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis. There will be food booths, work from local crafters, a kids’ corner, a White Elephant area, a native pumpkin sale and a silent auction. There will be something for all ages to do and eat. Crafters who would like to participate should contact Germaine at 508-775-9017 for more information on reserving tables.

Celebrate the beautiful feast of Our Lady of the Rosary by praying at the Outdoor Rosary Walk at the Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street in North Easton on October 7 beginning at 11:30 a.m. Gather with the group to pray the Rosary and then attend Mass following at noon. For more info visit www.

FamilyRosary.org/Events or call Holy Cross Family Ministries at 508-238-4095.

The Cape and Islands Prayer Group Deanery will present a retreat on October 9 and 10 at the Sacred Hearts Retreat Center in Wareham. Sister Claire Bouchard, SSCC, will be the presenter for the retreat’s theme: “Pray, Hope, Don’t Worry.” Retreat hours will be 6:30 to 10 p.m. on Wednesday; 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, with Mass at 11 a.m. There are options for one or two days. To register or for further information call 508-759-2737.

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September 27, 2013

Pope Emeritus Benedict challenges atheist, says he never hid abuse cases

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In a letter to an atheist Italian mathematician, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI defended his own handling of allegations of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy and politely criticized the logician’s total reliance on scientific facts for meaning.

“I never sought to conceal these things,” the pope said of cases of clerical abuse, and lamented the scholar depicting the Church as the only place where such “deviation” and “filth” occur.

The publication of the Pope Emeritus Benedict’s comments September 24 to an atheist scholar came the same month a written letter by Pope Francis to an Italian journalist concerning dialogue with nonbelievers was published. Both letters were published, with the two popes’ permission, by the Italian daily La Repubblica.

The paper released long excerpts of Pope Emeritus Benedict’s original 11-page response to Piergiorgio Odifreddi, a prolific science writer who authored

the book, “Dear Pope, I Write to You” in 2011. The book, presented as a letter to Pope Emeritus Benedict, proposes the superiority of a worldview in which belief should stem only from things that can be understood and empirically known over worldviews that include belief in things that cannot be fully understood or known.

The pope’s response, dated August 30, thanked Odifreddi for seeking to juxtapose his ideas against the pope’s own writings “and, thus, with my faith.”

Pope Emeritus Benedict, who has long engaged in dialogue with nonbelievers, most notably with his “Courtyard of the Gentiles” initiative and his 2011 Assisi gathering, said he appreciated Odifreddi’s efforts to engage in a frank and open dialogue with the Catholic faith.

However, Pope Emeritus Benedict said he met “with deep dismay” Odifreddi’s unspecified comments about the clerical abuse scandals.

Pope Emeritus Benedict, who was the first pontiff to meet

Just as it is wrong “to be silent about the evil in the Church,” it is wrong to remain silent about the good, holy and loving service the Church has offered, he said. with abuse victims, had spoken Pope Emeritus Benedict said out forcefully against “the filth” he read Odifreddi’s book “with in the Church, clarified Church pleasure and benefit.” laws to expedite cases, and manHowever, he also offered dated bishops’ conferences put some sharp criticisms against in place stringent norms against Odifreddi’s arguments as well as abuse, among a number of other his neglect of and lack of explainitiatives. nation for very real and observIn his letter, Pope Emeritus able phenomena such as love, Benedict said he never tried to liberty and evil. cover up allegations.

Pope Emeritus Benedict said “That the power of evil seeps it was curious that someone like all the way into the inner world Odifreddi, who considers theolof the faith is a source of sufferogy to be nothing but “science ing for us.” Not only must the fiction,” would even consider the Church bear the burden of this pope’s works as “worthy of such evil, but it also must “do everya detailed discussion.” thing possible so that such cases Pope Emeritus Benedict said never repeat themselves,” he one of the things the two men wrote. have in common is a belief in a While there “is no reason to First Cause to the universe, only find solace in the fact that, acOdifreddi replaces God with cording to research by sociolo“nature” as the origin. gists, the percentage of priests “But the question remains, guilty of these crimes is no who or what is this nature,” the higher than those present in pope asked. other similar professional fields,” Nowhere does the scholar ofneither should people “ostensifer a definition, making “it apbly present this deviation as if pear, therefore, as an irrational it were filth pertaining only to divinity that explains nothing.”

Catholicism,” Pope Emeritus Concerning Odifreddi’s “reliBenedict wrote. gion of mathematics,” the pope said nowhere does this belief system consider three major human realities: “freedom, love and evil.”

“I’m amazed that with just one stroke you eliminate freedom, which has existed and is the fundamental principle of the modern era.”

“Whatever neurobiology says or doesn’t say about freedom, this is present as a decisive reality in the actual unfolding of our history, and it must be taken into consideration.”

Odifreddi’s religion of mathematics also lacks any thought or discussion about love and evil, too, Pope Emeritus Benedict said.

“A religion that neglects these fundamental questions remains empty,” he said.

Pope Emeritus Benedict,

who has also long-supported the compatibility of faith and science as both being dedicated to the truth, underlined that the task of theology is to keep religion and reason closely connected.

One without the other will lead to certain dangerous “pathologies” in either religion or reason, he said.

Pope Emeritus Benedict said science fiction exists in many areas of science, especially in some theories about the beginning and end of the world.

“I would define (Odifreddi’s thoughts on this) as science fiction in the good sense of the word — they are views and forecasts in order to reach real understanding, but they are, in fact, only (products of ) imagination with which we try to get closer to reality.”

Pope Emeritus Benedict also gave Odifreddi some recommended readings to address the mathematician’s doubts about being able to know anything for certain about the historical figure of Jesus.

Just because there is shoddy research out there “doesn’t compromise the importance of serious historical research,” which has brought real and certain knowledge about the figure of Jesus, Pope Emeritus Benedict said.

He said “historical-critical exegesis is necessary for faith, which doesn’t propose myths” out of historical figures and events, but demands a history that is based on truth and facts, and presents such findings with scientific rigor.

“All of my efforts have been aimed at showing how the Jesus described in the Gospels is also the real historical Jesus; that it is history that has really taken place,” Pope Emeritus Benedict said, referring to his writings on Jesus of Nazareth.

Pope Emeritus Benedict ended his letter admitting he may have been harsh in some of his criticisms, but that “frankness is part of dialogue.”

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