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Diocese of Fall River, Mass.

F riday , October 11, 2013

Diocese prepares to welcome new permanent deacons into the fold

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

FALL RIVER — Tomorrow at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in Fall River, 15 men will be ordained as permanent deacons for the Diocese of Fall River by His Excellency, the Most Reverend Bishop George W. Coleman, D.D., S.T.L.,

Bishop George W. Coleman, right, and Father John Denning, CSC, president of Stonehill College, blessed the newly-opened facility for My Brother’s Keeper in North Dartmouth last week. This marks the second location for the 25-year-old Easton-based ministry that provides furniture to needy families in the area.

(Photo by J. Kiely Jr.)

My Brother’s Keeper expands with second facility in North Dartmouth

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

NORTH DARTMOUTH — My Brother’s Keeper, a Catholic ministry based in Easton that delivers furniture free-of-charge to families in need, has expanded its outreach by opening a second facility in North Dartmouth to provide more direct services to Fall River and the greater

South Coast area.

The ministry officially opened and commemorated the new site earlier this month with a blessing and open house at the 9,000-square-foot leased facility. Bishop George W. Coleman, bishop of the Fall River Diocese, blessed and dedicated the new Dartmouth location along with Father John Denning, CSC, president of

Cape Cod Habitat for Humanity: Building homes, fulfilling dreams

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

YARMOUTH — Rome may not have been built in a day, but the good people of Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod took on the task of building a home in only five days.

“They started a little before seven in the morning on Monday, and we had a certificate of occupancy by five o’clock on Friday,” said Victoria Goldsmith, executive director for Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod. The “Blitz Build” as it’s called, is unique from the traditional habitat homes built by the group. Being built in five days cannot be done with

the customary slew of volunteers whose “day job” often consist of everything but construction. The Blitz Build is done by numerous construction professionals who gather together to apply their expertise into a concerted effort into erecting a home within a short amount of time. More than 200 companies and individuals contributed time, money or both to the effort that was overseen by Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Cape Cod. “We are really appreciative of the Home Builder’s Association for really building a house for Habitat and fully funding it,” said Goldsmith.

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Stonehill College.

According to Erich Miller, president of the My Brother’s Keeper apostolate, the inspiration for the ministry came from Christ’s Words in the Gospel of St. Matthew, specifically chapter five, verse 15.

“Christ talks about letting your light shine … and not putting your lamp under a basTurn to page 14

Bishop of Fall River.

These men comprise the eighth class to be ordained as permanent deacons for the diocese. All 15 are married and come from various walks of life, representing all five deaneries in the diocese.

“These are men who have Turn to page 15

The role of a permanent deacon is vital in Church’s everyday ministry

By Dave Jolivet Anchor Editor

FALL RIVER — Tomorrow, 15 well-trained and faith-filled men will be ordained by Bishop George W. Coleman as permanent deacons for the Diocese of Fall River, culminating an intense five-year period of discernment and preparation. This will be the eighth class of permanent deacons to be ordained in the diocese.

Last week, Msgr. John J. Oliveira, diocesan director of the Permanent Diaconate wrote in his monthly Anchor column, “The deacon is not a glorified altar boy, nor is he the pastor,” referring to the role of a permanent deacon.

Currently there nearly 60 permanent deacons serving in parishes across the diocese, yet there are some people who still don’t know their purpose or their importance in Church ministry.

“The role of these well-trained and well-prepared men is to assist the bishop where the bishop feels they can best serve the local Church community,” Msgr.

Oliveira told The Anchor.

The Permanent Diaconate played an important role in early Church history, with the Apostles ordaining the first seven deacons: Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas. Stephen was stoned to Turn to page 18

More than 30 members of the Home Builders and Remodelers Association volunteered 2,500 hours and more than 35 members donated materials to construct the “Blitz Build,” a Habitat home built in five days in Orleans, part of a five-home initiative by Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod in that town.

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News From the Vatican

October 11, 2013

Pope, cardinal advisers looking at major overhaul of Roman Curia

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis and his international Council of Cardinals are laying out plans to completely overhaul the Roman Curia, underlining its role of “service to the Universal Church and the local churches,” the Vatican spokesman said.

As the pope and the eight cardinals he named to advise him were about to begin the final session of their October 1-3 meeting, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the spokesman, said the role and responsibilities of the Vatican secretary of state, the revamping of the world Synod of Bishops, and the Vatican’s attention to the role and responsibility of laity also were major themes of discussion.

Father Lombardi said the group’s agenda was partially dictated by the pope’s own timetable. Pope Francis has named Archbishop Pietro Parolin to be his secretary of state and has given him an October 15 start date, so it made sense to discuss how the pope and cardinals see his role in a renewed curia.

Under the terms of Blessed John Paul II’s constitution “Pastor Bonus,” a 1988 reform of the curia, the secretariat of state includes two sections: One section deals with foreign relations and the other deals with internal Church matters. “Pastor Bonus” said the secretariat was to “foster relations” with other curia offices and “coordinate their work.”

Father Lombardi said the pope and the cardinals emphasized the role of the secretariat of state as “the secretariat of the pope,” and said the discussions included “the hypothesis of a new figure — the ‘moderator of the curia’” to ensure greater communication and cooperation among the curia offices.

The discussions, Father Lombardi said, are going clearly in the direction of an apostolic constitution to replace “Pastor Bonus,” and not simply “cosmetic retouches or marginal modifications” of the 1988 document.

Possible changes to the organization of the world Synod of Bishops, which has been a periodic gathering of bishops from around the world to discuss a specific theme of Church life, were moved to the top of the meeting’s agenda because the synod council met at the Vatican October 7-8, the spokesman said.

Father Lombardi said the pope is expected to decide the theme for the next synod “in the coming days.”

The eight cardinals — six of whom currently serve as diocesan bishops — brought to the meeting with the pope suggestions they received from Church leaders around the world. One of the topics mentioned most often, Father Lombardi said, was concern for the role of the laity in the Church and the world.

The pope and his cardinal advisers talked about “how to ensure that this dimension of the Church’s reality is more adequately and effectively recognized and followed in the governance of the Church,” Father Lombardi said.

The vast majority of the Catholic Church’s 1.2 billion members are lay people, the spokesman said. Their activities and needs are followed by the Pontifical Council for the Laity, which is “very active,” he said, but does not have the profile or authority of a Vatican congregation, such as those for bishops, for priests and for religious.

Pope Francis has asked his eight cardinal advisers for counsel on the Vatican’s finances, as well, Father Lombardi said, but the theme was not treated in depth at the October meeting because Pope Francis also appointed several special commissions to look into specific aspects of the Vatican’s finances, budgeting process and the Vatican bank and those commissions are still at work.

At the end of their meeting, council members announced they would hold their second meeting with the pope December 3-5, and they planned to meet again at the Vatican in February “so that the work of the council, especially in this initial phase, can proceed quickly,” Father Lombardi said.

The eight members, who represent six continents, are: Cardinals Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, retired archbishop of Santiago, Chile; Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, India; Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, Germany; Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Congo; Sean P. O’Malley of Boston; George Pell of Sydney; Giuseppe Bertello, president of the commission governing Vatican City State; and Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Pope Francis blesses a disabled person during his visit at the Serafico Institute in Assisi, Italy. The pontiff was making his first pilgrimage as pope to the birthplace of his papal namesake. (CNS photo/Gian Matteo Crocchioni, pool via Reuters)

Pope, in Assisi, calls on Church to renounce ‘spirit of the world’

ASSISI, Italy (CNS) — Making his first pilgrimage as pope to the birthplace of his papal namesake, Pope Francis called on the whole Church to imitate St. Francis of Assisi, embracing poverty and stripping itself of the “spirit of world.”

“A Christian cannot coexist with the spirit of the world,” he said. Worldliness “leads us to vanity, arrogance, pride. And this is an idol, it is not of God.” The pope spoke October 4, the feast of St. Francis, in the “stripping room” of the Assisi archbishop’s residence, where the saint shed himself of his rich clothes and embraced a life of poverty.

“This is a good occasion for inviting the Church to strip itself,” the pope said, adding that he directed his invitation not merely to the hierarchy but all the Church’s members, and that he sought renunciation of spiritual complacency as well as material riches.

“It is so sad to find a worldly Christian, who thinks he enjoys the security of the faith and of the world. One can’t have it both ways.”

Pope Francis’ talk in the archbishop’s residence, one of six addresses he was scheduled to deliver during his daylong visit to Assisi, was to a group of poor people receiving assistance from local Catholic charities.

“Many of you have been stripped by this savage world, which doesn’t provide work, which doesn’t help, to which it makes no difference that children die of hunger,” he said.

The pope mourned the African immigrants killed in the previous day’s sinking of a boat

near the southern Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, where in July he made his first trip as pope outside Rome.

“It doesn’t matter (to the world) that people must flee slavery and hunger in search of liberty. With how much pain, so often, we see that they find death,” he said. “This is a day of weeping. The spirit of the world does these things.”

As he often does, the pope set aside his prepared remarks and spoke entirely off the cuff.

He did the same thing earlier in the morning, when he addressed a group of disabled children and young people and their caregivers at a Church-run rehabilitation center, the first of a dozen stops on his tightly packed schedule.

Pope Francis spent about 45 minutes prior to his talk personally greeting the young patients, many of whom were confined to wheelchairs. Throughout his visit, the room resounded with their cries and moans.

“We are among the wounds of Jesus,” the pope said. “Jesus is hidden in these kids, in these children, in these people. On the altar we adore the Flesh of Jesus, in them we find the wounds of Jesus.”

The pope noted that Jesus’ Body after the resurrection was unblemished except for the five wounds He had received during His crucifixion.

“He wanted to preserve only the wounds, and He took them with Him into Heaven,” the pope said. “We treat the wounds of Jesus here and He, in Heaven, shows us His wounds and tells all of us, all of us: ‘I am waiting for you.’”

In the pope’s undelivered remarks at the rehabilitation center he called for more “works of the culture of welcome, works animated above all by profound Christian love, love for Christ crucified, for the Flesh of Christ.”

The pope’s morning in Assisi culminated in a Mass he celebrated in the square outside the Basilica of St. Francis.

In his homily, the pope disputed what he characterized as popular misconceptions of St. Francis and his legacy.

“Many people, when they think of St. Francis, think of peace,” he said. “Very few people, however, go deeper.

“What is the peace which Francis received, experienced and lived, and which he passes on to us?” the pope asked. “It is the peace of Christ, which is born of the greatest love of all, the love of the cross.”

He later added: “Franciscan peace is not something saccharine. Hardly. That is not the real St. Francis. Nor is it a kind of pantheistic harmony with the forces of the cosmos. That is not Franciscan either; it is a notion some people have invented.”

Celebrating St. Francis’ love for all creation, the pope said that the saint “bears witness that man is called to safeguard man, that man is at the center of creation, where God the Creator wanted him.”

Pope Francis also paid tribute to his namesake as a “man of harmony and peace” and drew attention to those “who are suffering and who are dying because of violence, terrorism or war, in the Holy Land, so dear to St. Francis, in Syria, throughout the Middle East and everywhere in the world.”

October 11, 2013

The International Church

Interfaith hospital on Turkish border helps Syrians save themselves

KILIS, Turkey (CNS) — Ali Ahmad was walking with his young son one evening after dark. It was after they had fled Aleppo, Syria, and begun their lives as refugees in southern Turkey. It was a clear, starry night.

“He looks up at the stars and he says, ‘Dada, are they coming to bomb us?’ I, I....” Ahmad could not finish the sentence. Even if his English was better, how could a father explain that his son is afraid of the stars?

“All of us Syrians, we need psychologists. All of us. We have seen our houses destroyed, all kinds of things,” Ahmad said over lunch with the staff at Malteser International’s new joint project with the International Blue Crescent Relief and Development Foundation in Kilis.

The two international aid organizations — one German Catholic and the other Turkish Muslim — have come together to launch a 28-bed mobile hospital in the border town where locals say the normal population of 88,000 has nearly doubled with the influx of refugees.

Ahmad is head nurse at the mobile hospital, which officially opened September 13. The doctors, nurses and support staff at the new hospital are all Syrian. They all left Syria reluctantly, fleeing the fighting that began in 2011. They saw the hospitals where they worked bombed, homes where they lived destroyed and sniper fire in Aleppo picking off one or two random civilians per day.

The trauma of seeing their country torn apart by a war they see as neither necessary nor resolvable has hit their children hardest. “We adults, we can cope 80 percent,” said Syrian English teacher and translator Ole Nasser.

The grown-ups can fall back on their roles as teachers, doctors, husbands, wives, mothers and fathers. But the children have no mask to hide behind, she said. Few of them can imagine a future when images of destruction, randomness and death make up so much of their childhood experience, Nasser said.

Nasser’s former high school students from Aleppo have taken Syrian school exams in Kilis, and many are hoping to gain admission to universities in Turkey and other countries. She is proud of their achievements and their courage in pushing forward. She knows that, for the younger children, there is no easy path to anything like a normal life.

But the mobile hospital is a first step — a first, small contribution to a new

Syria for the doctors and nurses. The new facility also will take some pressure off the local public hospital, which is struggling to handle a crush of patients, including people suffering extreme stress, hypertension, complications from untreated chronic conditions such as diabetes, as well as war wounded.

The mobile hospital is equipped and designed to travel. It can run off a generator or any source of electricity it finds.

The high-tech container-treatment room includes a system for filtering the air. The four ambulances are well enough equipped that doctors could perform surgery in them if necessary.

But it all sits in a landscaped courtyard, hooked up to city electricity and water. As far as Kilis is concerned, the city now has a new annex to its hospital.

The Syrian doctors want to be in Syria now. They want to treat Syria’s wounds.

“If I were a general surgeon I never would have left,” said Dr. Mahmoud Mustafa, an ophthalmologist.

The Malteser-IBC hospital is in a neighborhood not far from downtown Kilis, flanked by a couple of feeding stations that also offer social services to refugees living in town. The 40,000 refugees renting rooms in the city are the majority. Another 20,000 refugees live in the first Kilis camp and an additional 13,000 in a newer camp. A very large site is being prepared for a third camp just north of Kilis.

A recent influx of refugees overwhelmed the official camps and resulted in Syrians sleeping in city parks. Turkish authorities and NGOs worked quickly to find places for the refugees, but locals claim they still find refugees sleeping all over the city.

The Malteser effort in Kilis goes beyond the hospital.

The agency supports psycho-social work — counseling for traumatized refugees — and a school, again staffed by Syrians.

Everything they do is designed to be “part of any new Syria,” said Anja Simic, the Malteser program coordinator in Kilis.

“We’re not saving anybody. We’re helping Syrians to save themselves,” she said.

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October 11, 2013 The Church in the U.S. Catholic women urged to serve Church, world as ‘a common voice’

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (CNS) — Catholic women must “join together in a common voice” and be “an instrument for unified action” in service to the Catholic Church and the world, said the president of the National Council of Catholic Women.

“There are 34 million Catholic women in the United States today,” said Rebecca Woodhull in an address to the NCCW annual convention in Fort Lauderdale. “We are one by virtue of our Baptism.”

“We must ‘Be the Voice of Catholic Women: Confidence, Hope and Joy’ — the theme for this convention — and fulfill our mission to ‘support, empower and educate women to better serve the Church and the world,’” she said.

NCCW was founded by the U.S. bishops’ conference in March 1920. There are currently more than 3,000 affiliated parish organizations representing hundreds of thousands of Catholic women responding with Gospel values at the local level; advocating for issues at the local, state and national levels; supporting one another, united in prayer.

Its recent Fort Lauderdale convention drew 470 women and 44 priests. Also in attendance were Bishop James V. Johnston of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Mo., who is NCCW’s episcopal liaison, and Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski, who celebrated the closing Mass.

“Who you are and what you do plays a great role for our Catholic Church,” said Bishop Johnston. “You are the preservers and defenders of the tables — the family table that is threatened by the currents of life today and the Lord’s table — (and of ) the life of the family of Christ

especially when we gather together for Sunday Mass.”

Recalling Pope Francis’ challenge to the bishops at World Youth Day 2013, Bishop Johnston explained that the same applied to the women — that their “pastoral projects and programs would not be as fruitful as the creativity of love.”

“It is only after an encoun-

Lady,” said Edward Sri, vice president of mission and outreach and professor of theology and Scripture at Augustine Institute in Denver. “It is beautiful to see the women of NCCW living out their love across the nation.”

Sri delivered the opening keynote address, focusing on the humanness of Mary, and also conducted a working ses-

‘greatly troubled at what was said.’ Mary had a fundamental disposition to be in dialogue with God. She experienced fear, but was open and responded, ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord.’”

Sri continued illustrating Mary’s very human responses in Scripture from the Nativity through the wedding feast at Cana where she encouraged

Attending the recent National Council of Catholic Women annual convention, held in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., from the Fall River Diocesan Council of Catholic Women were, from left: Fran Brezinkski, presidentelect; Virginia Wade, past president and newly-installed Boston Province director representing the Fall River, Maine and New Hampshire dioceses; and Madeleine Lavoie, vice president. The theme of this year’s event was, “Be the Voice of Catholic Women: Confidence, Hope and Joy.”

ter with the love of God that everything else flows,” Bishop Johnston said. “I challenge you to always have in mind the ‘creativity of love.’”

The work of NCCW focuses on three major areas — spirituality, leadership and service — and a jam-packed convention program addressed those areas with keynote speeches and working sessions.

“My work is rooted in a deep love for Jesus and Our

sion, “The Heart of a Woman: John Paul II’s Insights on Women, Their Marriages and Their Relationships.”

Using personal anecdotes and analogies, Sri made the theological practical.

“It’s scary to step out,” Sri said, “I remember my youngest daughter clinging to a chair while attempting to take her first steps. I was there encouraging her, but she had to let go and step out. The Lord often calls us to step out into the unknown. The first mention we have of Mary in Luke’s Gospel is that she was

Jesus to begin His mission and finally the march to the cross.

“Mary saw her life as doing the will of God,” Sri said.

“She was so in love with God, she only wanted to do God’s will and she remained faithful.

She repeated her f iat over and over again. We have to keep saying yes.”

Kirsten Mele, president of the Council of Catholic Women at St. Olaf Parish in Bountiful, Utah, said afterward: “When I think of Mary, I don’t think of her as being human and having those emotions typical of human behav-

ior, but how could she not?”

“It’s good to know the different aspects, the perspectives of what Mary went through as a mother — there’s so much more,” added the married mother of three children ranging in age from 1116. Mele is a part-time school psychologist.

Shirley Hermes also joined her local NCCW affiliate as a young mother immediately after a family relocation in 1971. She has served as president at the parish, deanery, vicariate and diocesan levels for the Archdiocese of Chicago and is now a widow with six children, 18 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

“We always put Mary on a pedestal,” Hermes said, “but Dr. Sri brought to us her humanness. We have to make those same hard decisions and we watch our loved ones die.

Especially in this group, when you listen to the women’s stories, you realize that we’re just thoroughly modern Marys!”

In an interview with Catholic News Service, Sri explained, “I don’t know how devoted I am to Mary, but I know Mary has been very devoted to me. My mother prayed the Rosary and I grew up in that environment. In recent years, I’ve been drawn to Mary’s humanness — she’s a woman we can relate to and learn a lot from. The same is true of Blessed John Paul II’s ‘Theology of the Body.’ At the heart is love and relationship — not just the theology of Marriage, but how to live it.”

Joan Galles, NCCW province director from Portland, Ore., concurred. “I thought his presentation was a kindly and enlightened guideline.

NCCW is very much in favor of traditional Marriage and his talk related to how women view Marriage. I felt comfortable about what he had to say.”

October 11, 2013

The Church in the U.S.

A furloughed federal employee holds a sign on the steps to the U.S. Capitol in Washington after the U.S. Government shutdown. This is the first time the government has shut down in nearly 18 years. (CNS photo/Larry Downing, Reuters)

Some faith-based contractors using own funds during federal shutdown

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Social Security, food stamp and Medicare benefits continued, but the federal government shutdown over a congressional budget impasse was putting other aid and nutrition programs at risk and forcing some faithbased contractors to use their own funds to keep them operating.

On the second day of the partial shutdown that began October 1 with the start of the fiscal year, President Barack Obama had summoned congressional leaders to the White House to work on an agreement to get federal agencies functioning again.

While the visuals of closed national monuments and parks kept those effects in the forefront of the news, around the country thousands of organizations with less picturesque venues were digging into reserves to continue to provide Head Start programs or food vouchers for children.

The Women, Infants and Children nutrition program, or WIC, which gives vouchers for baby formula and food to poor pregnant women and families, was closed to new applicants in Utah, while in Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, program managers said they could keep it going on reserves for a few weeks, perhaps.

Head Start, the preschool program, also was subject to mixed responses by jurisdiction, depending upon the exact date at which their vouchers from the government expire. Grants are

issued for Head Start on a staggered basis throughout the year.

Some Head Start programs were initially able to remain open, but they anticipated having to close if the shutdown went on for very long.

A statement from the National Head Start Association said October 1 that 19,000 children were left without classes as 23 programs in 11 states closed.

The statement by Yasmina Vinci, the executive director, said the shutdown comes on the heels of “devastating sequester cuts which closed windows of opportunity for more than 57,000 at-risk children who lost their Head Start slots.”

The statement told of a Head Start program in Massachusetts that was forced by the sequester to start their school year a month later than normal, opening September 30, only to face possible closure again the next day because their funding stopped.

“This abdication of responsibility by Congress and leaders in Washington has further displaced the at-risk children already reeling from sequester,” Vinci’s statement said. “Government shutdown is one cut atop an already deep wound.”

In Kansas, the Wichita Eagle newspaper reported that shelters for homeless families and for battered women and children, a foster grandparent program and a “Marriage for Keeps” program for struggling families, which are run by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Wichita, would remain open for now, with the

diocese picking up the costs normally covered by federal grants.

Johnny Young, director of Migration and Refugee Services for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Catholic News Service that federal contracts to help resettle refugees and provide other assistance to immigrants were held up by the government freeze.

Work for those beneficiaries doesn’t stop, however, said Young. “We have targets given by the different government offices involved.”

Although there’s no money coming in, MRS will use funds from the USCCB to continue to provide services, he said.

“Because of the generosity of American Catholics, we can do that,” Young said, adding that such subsidies could go on for perhaps a couple of months.

On October 2, a long list of Catholic and other Christian leaders signed onto a statement decrying the shutdown.

“As Christians and citizens, we are appalled that elected officials are pursuing an extreme ideological agenda at the expense of the working poor and vulnerable families,” said the statement released by the organization Faith in Public Life.

“We especially challenge those members of Congress who call themselves Pro-Life to cease their political posturing on Capitol Hill. Shutting down the government in a futile effort to defund or delay the Affordable Care Act will hurt low-income pregnant women and infants

who receive vital nutrition support,” it said, referring to WIC. “There is nothing ‘Pro-Life’ or Christian about taking food away from pregnant women and babies. It is hypocritical and shameful for those who tout their commitment to family values to show such callous indifference,” they said.

The statement noted that the shutdown will hurt seniors who receive Meals on Wheels as well as federal employees who will “be locked out of their workplaces without pay as bills pile up. This failure of political leadership and responsible governance exposes our nation’s misplaced values.

“Struggling families, seniors and pregnant women don’t deserve to be victims of a manufactured crisis in Washington,” the statement concluded.

Signers included two former ambassadors to the Holy See, Thomas Melady and Miguel Diaz; leaders of the Sisters of

5 Mercy of the Americas and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men; representatives of several Franciscan organizations and many Jesuit institutions.

Others included: the Rev. Jim Wallis, director of Sojourners; Franciscan Sister Margaret Carney, president of St. Bonaventure University and chairman of the board of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities; faculty members of two dozen universities both Catholic and of other denominations; Timothy Collins, retired director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development; and Francis X. Doyle, retired associate general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

A day earlier, three U.S. bishops who chair USCCB committees, as well as Bread for the World, representing 33 interfaith religious leaders, released statements decrying the effects of the shutdown on the poor.

Being Pro-Life ‘requires us to be heroes,’ Cardinal Dolan tells group

NEW YORK (CNS) — New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan told a group gathered recently for the Human Life Foundation’s annual awards dinner that “being Pro-Life requires us to be heroes.”

“Everyone here this evening supporting life is a hero” he said at the event held at the Union League Club in midtown Manhattan.

The foundation presented its 2013 Great Defenders of Life Award to a married couple, Eric and Susanne Metaxas, for their outstanding service to the ProLife movement.

Eric Metaxas is the author of the best-selling books “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy” and “Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery.”

He also is the founder and host of Socrates in the City, an ecumenical discussion forum that encourages busy professionals in New York City to think about “life, God and other small topics” and the creator of “Veggie Tales,” a children’s television series that relates biblical stories and moral lessons through the use of animated vegetable characters.

Susanne Metaxas is the president and CEO of the Midtown Pregnancy Support Center, offering unwed and impoverished mothers support so they can keep their babies. The center has received a number of Human Life Foundation “baby-saving” grants throughout the years.

Under Susanne’s guidance, the center has seen an increasing

number of clients seeking its support, said Maria Maffucci, foundation director and the daughter of its founder, Jim McFadden.

“Eric and Susanne represent both arms of our foundation — the educational advocacy for life through words and reasoned arguments, and charitable, practical help offered to mothers and babies,” said Colleen Barry, a foundation volunteer.

Eric Metaxas, tongue-incheek, took official “objection” to the fact that he had to share his award with his wife, claiming it was a sign of creeping political correctness to honor both of them simultaneously.

After the laughter died down, he praised his wife’s work with young mothers at the Midtown Pregnancy Support Center and the Human Life Foundation’s commitment to safeguarding the lives of children, the elderly and the disabled in the U.S. and around the world.

The foundation supports pregnancy centers throughout the world. “Just as the good Samaritan promised to return to the man he found on the road, tonight, the Human Life Review promises to defend not only the unborn among us, but the millions of children yet to be conceived and the millions of parents yet to become pregnant,” said Nicholas di Iorio, master of ceremonies for the recent event.

The foundation publishes Human Life Review, a quarterly academic journal devoted to life issues.

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October 11, 2013

Anchor Editorial

‘The greatest love of all’

Back in the 1980s Whitney Houston had a hit with the song, “The Greatest Love of All,” in which she sang that “learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.” Given how that poor woman died, it seems that she had a hard time living out the words that had brought her millions, but not happiness.

In reality, we Christians know that what Whitney sang was not true, although we do need to love ourselves and without an appropriate love of oneself we cannot love God and love our neighbor correctly ( Jesus Himself ordered us to love our neighbors as ourselves, so if we can’t love the person in the mirror, how can we love the mirror-maker?).

Throughout this edition of The Anchor we see beautiful examples of people loving God and loving their neighbor at the same time — from the people volunteering in the expanding My Brother’s Keeper program (a name which comes from turning around the words of the first murderer, Cain, who asked God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” when God asked him where was Abel. The Christian realizes that we are our brother’s keeper, in the loving sense of the term), to the people on Cape Cod working together to provide homes via Habitat for Humanity, to the deacon candidates who will be serving God at the altar and through works of charity, to the stories of love and service shared on page nine (local and international).

Each of us has a particular calling (vocation) from God which requires love of God and love of neighbor. We read on pages 10 and 11 about the cloistered nuns who will be adoring Our Lord and helping us with their prayers 24 hours a day, while on page 17 there is an invitation from laity to other laity to assist their priests by offering a day of fasting. Right above that invitation, Father Frederici offers us helpful hints about what we need to do spiritually so that our love is not just a bunch of good intentions, but is actually rooted in a love relationship with God, Who always helps us to love our neighbor (even when it is difficult).

This past Tuesday at daily Mass (Lk 10:38-42) we heard about two sisters, Mary and Martha, who had Jesus over to their home in Bethany. Martha thought that she was “her sister’s keeper,” not in terms of helping her sister out, but in terms of judging her because Mary was spending time listening to Jesus, while Martha was kept busy with all the tasks of hospitality. To be able to get to be ac-

tive people who truly are hospitable, we need to begin with a Mary-like attitude of prayer, which will then allow God to direct our Martha-like activities of service.

Pope Francis, preaching about the visit to Bethany, said that the “better part” which Mary had chosen was “that of prayer, that of the contemplation of Jesus. To the eyes of [Martha], this was time lost, it even seemed, perhaps, a bit of a fantasy: gazing upon the Lord as if she were an awestruck child. But who wants that? The Lord. ‘This is the better part,’ because Mary heard the Lord and prayed with her heart. And the Lord tells us: ‘The first task in life is this: prayer.’ But not the prayer of words, like a parrot; but the prayer of the heart: gazing on the Lord, hearing the Lord, asking the Lord. We know that prayer works miracles.”

On page two we read about Pope Francis’ visit to Assisi and about how he interacted with so many people there who are the outcasts of our society. He did not put himself above them, but tried to imitate the example of Christ, Who is one with us in our suffering and lowliness. The Holy Father reminded us that the root of this suffering is evil — whether it be those types of evil which victimize people directly or those types of evil which are more subtle, which have caused “ripple effects” in our world (from the fall of our first parents until now) resulting in suffering and death.

The report from the pope’s visit to a home for handicapped children noted, “Throughout his visit, the room resounded with their cries and moans.” These sounds moved the pope’s heart. Our editor’s (Dave Jolivet) heart was moved by what he read on three (see page nine for his comments). We cannot let our hearts just be moved, be they by things we experience directly with our own senses or by things about which we become aware via the news media. As Dave wrote, Pope Francis is not just requesting that we do something about the various forms of evil and suffering in our world. He is ordering us to act. We need to remember what Jesus told us last Sunday — that when we have done everything we were supposed to do, we should not expect some big payoff. Instead, Jesus said that we should say to ourselves, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do” (Lk 17:10).

May we do what we need to do by imitating the greatest Love of all, Jesus Christ.

Pope Francis’ weekly Angelus address and prayer Dear brothers and sisters, hello!

First of all I want to thank God for the day I spent at Assisi on Friday. Understand that this was the first time that I went to Assisi and it was a great gift to make this pilgrimage on the feast on St. Francis. I thank the people of Assisi for their warm reception. Many thanks!

Today the Gospel reading begins this way: “At that time the Apostles said to the Lord: ‘Increase our faith!’” (Lk 17:5-6). I think that all of us can make this request our own. We, like

the Apostles, also say to Jesus: “Increase our faith!” Yes, Lord, our faith is small, our faith is weak, fragile, but we offer it to You just as it is, so that You will make it grow.

It seems to me that it would be good for all of us to repeat this together: “Lord, increase our faith!” Shall we do it? Everyone: Lord, increase our faith! Lord, increase our faith! Lord, increase our faith! Make it grow!

And the Lord, how does He answer? He replies: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree: ‘Be OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER

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uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you” (Lk 17:6). The mustard seed is very small, but Jesus says that it is enough to have a faith like this, small, but true, sincere to do things that are humanly impossible, unthinkable. And it is true!

We all know people who are simple, humble, but with an incredibly strong faith, who truly move mountains!

Think, for example, of certain mammas and papas who face very hard situations; or certain sick people, even gravely sick people, who convey serenity to those who visit them. These people, precisely because of their faith, do not boast about what they do, rather, as Jesus asks in the Gospel, they say: “We are useless servants. We have done what we were supposed to do” (Lk 17:10). How many people among us have this strong, humble faith and do so much good?

In this month of October, which is especially dedicated to the missions, we think of many missionaries, men and women, who have overcome all sorts of obstacles to

spread the Gospel. They have truly given their life; as St. Paul says to Timothy: “Do not be ashamed to bear witness to our Lord, nor to me, in prison for Him; but with the power of God, suffer with me for the Gospel” (2 Tim 1:8). But this is meant for everyone: each one of us, in his everyday life, can bear witness to Christ, with the power of God, the power of faith, the small faith that we have, which, nevertheless, is strong! With this strength bear witness to Jesus Christ, be Christians with your life, with our witness!

And where do we get this strength from? We get it from God in prayer. Prayer is the breath of faith: in a relationship of trust, in a relationship of love, dialogue cannot be lacking, and prayer is a dialogue of the soul with God. October is also the month of the Rosary, and on this first Sunday it is a tradition to recite the Supplication to Our Lady of Pompeii, the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Holy Rosary. Let us join spiritually in this act of confidence in our Mother, and we receive

from her hands the beads of the Rosary: the Rosary is a school of prayer; the Rosary is a school of faith!

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 same Christ Our Lord. Amen.

October 11, 2013

O

ctober is Respect Life Month and it’s important for us to confront directly the enormous confusion that has been spread, mainly by the secular media, about what Pope Francis is saying about the Church’s promotion and defense of human life.

In press reports about a lengthy interview Pope Francis gave September 19 to Jesuit publications across the world, the impression was given that Pope Francis was saying there are too many Catholics “obsessed” with the issues of abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception and that we should just stop talking much about them.

That, of course, is what certain secularists would want the Church to stop doing.

But that is a total misinterpretation of what Pope Francis is calling the Church to do.

What the Holy Father is stressing needs to occur is that our conversation on these topics and others needs to take place within the context of Jesus’ will to save, His desire to show mercy, His hunger to embrace us with love no matter what we’ve done, His passion to bind our wounds and help us to heal. Pope Francis has suggested that sometimes Catholics and others can get so “obsessed” with the evils around us that we can lose perspective that Jesus came to bring good out of evil and turn

P

Anchor Columnists Pope Francis and the Gospel of Life even our sins into “happy faults” “All too often, as we know from that convince us that His mercy is experience, people do not choose always greater than our misery. If life, they do not accept the ‘Gospel we focus on the evil without the of Life’ but let themselves be led Lord’s mercy, we risk turning away by ideologies and ways of thinking from the “field hospital” that Pope that block life, that do not respect Francis says the Church needs to life, because they are dictated by be for many of those who need selfishness, self-interest, profit, Christ’s healing the most. power and pleasure, and not by The day after the September 19 interview, Pope Francis gave one of the most beautiful testimoPutting Into nies in the history of the the Deep papacy to the beauty of human life and the evil of abortion.

By Father Even though his adRoger J. Landry dress to members of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations is the formal teaching of love, by concern for the good of the pope and therefore much more others. It is the idea that rejecting significant than a hundred off-the- God, the message of Christ, the cuff interviews, it hasn’t gotten one Gospel of Life, will somehow lead one-thousandth of the attention to freedom, to complete human that the interview has. fulfillment. As a result, the living Likewise, there hasn’t been God is replaced by fleeting human much attention to Pope Francis’ idols that offer the intoxication of mixing with 40,000 Pro-Lifers in a flash of freedom, but in the end May during Italy’s March for Life, bring new forms of slavery and to whom he said, “Keep the attendeath.” tion of everyone on the important Similarly few have pondered issue of respect for human life from the significance of his September the moment of conception!”

3 phone call to Anna Romero, Few people, moreover, seem to a 35-year-old Italian pregnant remember how “obsessed” Pope woman who had written him after Francis himself was in a June her boyfriend informed her he was 16 homily in which he declared, married and pressured her to have

an abortion. The pope telephoned, said that she was “brave and strong” for refusing the abortion and reminded her that her child is a “gift of God” and a “sign of Divine Providence.” He even offered to Baptize her baby.

But his most powerful statement of all came in his September 20 speech to Catholic doctors when he called life “the primordial right of every human being.”

He emphatically summoned us to recognize Jesus in the unborn: “Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, Who even before He was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection.”

Because every child bears Jesus’ image and likeness, each of us has a “mandate,” he continued, to “be witnesses and diffusers of the ‘Culture of Life.’ It’s not enough for us to be personally opposed to abortion, but we must give testimony and spread the message of life.

He stressed that “being Catholic entails a greater responsibility” even if it “requires going against the tide and paying for it personally.” He underlined, “The Lord is counting on you to spread the

7 ‘Gospel of Life.”

He reminded all of us that human life, even “its initial stage … is sacred. At each phase and at every age, it is always valuable. There is no human life more sacred than another, just as there is no human life qualitatively more significant than another.”

The life of the mother, in other words, is not more sacred than the life of her son or daughter in the womb, even at its earliest stages. The life of Prince William and Princess Kate’s son before birth is not more significant before God’s eyes than the boy or girl growing in the womb of a teen-age single mom in an inner city housing complex.

He made crystal clear that “concern for human life in its totality” is a “real priority for the Church’s magisterium, especially for the most defenseless; that is, the disabled, the sick, the unborn, children, the elderly, those whose lives are most defenseless.”

Anyone who claims, therefore, that Pope Francis is trying to decrease the Church’s witness to life is either ignorant of what he himself is doing and reiterating as a “real priority” or intentionally trying to deceive.

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

The ethics of donating money to charitable foundations

rivate foundations and non-profit groups are frequently involved in advocating for particular causes, ranging from cancer research to protecting the environment. Some of these foundations rely almost exclusively on charitable donations to carry out their promotional work. Potential donors seeking to support these causes face the challenge of exercising “due diligence,” so that their funds are properly utilized and not misdirected or otherwise targeted by the organization to support immoral projects.

An example of the need for this due diligence can be seen in the case of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which promotes scientific research to cure type one diabetes. The ethical concern arises because this organization has gone on record in support of a highly unethical form of research, namely, human embryonic stem-cell research. Similarly, we may need to consider whether it is appropriate to support the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s Race for a Cure, which seeks to promote breast cancer research and awareness. One of the rarelydiscussed problems with the Komen Foundation’s activities is that some of the money they raise may be used to promote morally objectionable activities that run

with their funds. counter to their mission of fightKomen’s support for the aboring breast cancer: some of Kotion provider may stem from the men’s funds are made available to fact that Komen’s founder, Nancy Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the U.S., even Brinker, is a long-time promoter though abortion of a woman’s first of Planned Parenthood, havpregnancy has been shown to cor- ing served as an advisory board member for the organization’s relate with an elevated incidence of breast cancer. More than 28 different studies over a period of 45 years have shown abortion to be a significant risk factor for breast cancer.

In fiscal year 2009,

By Father Tad Komen affiliates contribPacholczyk uted around $730,000 to programs sponsored by Planned Parenthood, and in fiscal year 2010, they contribut- Texas affiliate. John Hammarley, a spokesman for Komen, indied about $569,000. In January of 2012, the Susan G. Komen Foun- cated that about 20 of Komen’s 122 affiliates are responsible for dation courageously decided that the money that goes to Planned it would discontinue its financial Parenthood and has claimed that support of Planned Parenthood. those funds are used only for In the media fire storm that breast cancer treatment, educaensued, Komen experienced the tion, or screening programs that backlash reserved for those who dare to cross the pro-abortion lob- happen to be affiliated with the by. After little more than 24 hours, abortion group.

Planned Parenthood, however, the Komen Foundation withered is not licensed to provide screenunder the pressure, reversed itself, ing beyond level one breast exand assured the public it would aminations — the same exam that continue to make funds availcan be done by a woman in her able to Planned Parenthood. This shower, or in any clinic or physibacksliding solidified the beliefs cian’s office. They do not even of many donors that the Komen perform mammograms. Even if Foundation could not be trusted

Making Sense Out of Bioethics

they did provide serious breast cancer screening, it would still remain a financial fact of life that an organization that receives money for Project A can divert other funds in its budget to Project B. Every dime that Komen provides to Planned Parenthood allows a different dime to be freed up for overhead, supplies, equipment and personnel to perform abortions.

When foundations have a generally sound list of activities, but promote an intrinsically immoral activity as well (e.g. abortion, human embryonic stem-cell research, contraception, etc.), one must consider the serious matter of the fungibility of donated funds. If we engage in fund raising for such organizations, even if they assure us that specified funds will only be used for activities with an ethical profile, it can end up being little more than a shell game. In this sense, there is a real danger that our fund-raising activities will not only engender scandal, but may even contribute to the perpetuation of grave evils like abortion and human embryonic stem-cell research.

Our fund-raising initiatives need to be carefully directed towards foundations and organiza-

tions without such connections to intrinsically immoral actions. Donors who are concerned about the use of funds by Komen may wish to consider alternative groups such as the National Breast Cancer Foundation, an organization that funds mammograms, or the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, which offers information on avoidable risks including abortion. The Iacocca Family Foundation, to consider another example, promotes cuttingedge diabetes research without supporting human embryonic stem-cell research. Some smaller, local organizations may also have suitable profiles for us to be able to support their work unreservedly. A determined decision to redirect our fund-raising energies can also have a powerful practical impact, serving to evangelize and provide witness, as organizations become aware of the reasons why such efforts are being channeled away from them.

Anchor columnist Father Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard.

He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, and serves as the director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. See www.ncbcenter.org.

8

“T

hen one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.

He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not 10 made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then He said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’”

The only leper who came back to give thanks to God was the Samaritan, a foreigner. That was a poor reflection on the other nine. Hey, didn’t their mothers teach them to say “thank you”?

When we have given someone something, or done something for somebody, don’t we like

October 11, 2013

Never forget to be grateful

to hear those two words think about how we reof gratitude? Don’t we late to God, our Church, cringe when we think of other people, even our or even come across an family. A Christian’s livingrate? Where did they ing is a sign of gratitude. get their manners?

For us Christians, giving Early lessons in the thanks is a way of living. family can be lessons for a lifetime.

From family, I Homily of the Week learned (you did Twenty-eighth Sunday too) a prime lesson in Ordinary Time for giving thanks.

It seems like

By Father yesterday when Thomas L. Rita mommy (RIP) would say, “Tommy, say thank you … be grateful … don’t At Holy Mass we are all ever forget to say, thank familiar with the initial you. If somebody gives words of the Eucharisyou something, don’t be tic Preface: “It is truly bashful. Again and again, right and just, our duty say, ‘thank you’ and mean and our salvation, always it when you say it. If and everywhere to give you can’t say it to them You thanks, Lord.” For us personally, then, Tommy, Christians, giving thanks is write a thank you note to a way of living. Holy Euthem.” charist means thanksgiving This week’s Gospel and the Holy Eucharist is reading is a call for us to the “source and summit of

the Christian life.”

It might be helpful for us to remember a few things that we have, things we received from someone else. The precious gift of life, God is its Author. The wonderful gift of faith and the gift of salvation offered to me by Christ. I consider this my ticket to Heaven. How could I not be thankful to the Lord for the gift of my family and friends?

I hope I never take them for granted. And, lest I forget, when I have fallen flat on my face, doesn’t the Good Lord continue to offer me His infinite mercy and forgiveness?

Perhaps during our lives we take a lot for granted.

Maybe that’s natural, we say. But let us never forget to be grateful.

We should be gracious enough to take a pause and remember all the folks who have crossed our paths over the years (I’ve got nearly 70). A prayer of gratitude and petition for them seems the least that we can do to give them thanks for the many blessings received from them.

Words are words.

Sometimes we don’t know what to say. Words don’t capture or express one’s heartfelt emotions.

Those two words — thank you — are simple yet superb, uplifting and humbling. Indeed, in the lessons of living, the reasons and the list for which to be grateful goes on, it will always go on.

Yes, Lord, “We do well always and everywhere to give You thanks.”

Father Rita is pastor of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish in Seekonk.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Oct 12, Jl 4:12-21; Ps 97:1-2,5-6,11-12; Lk 11:27-28. Sun. Oct. 13, Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2 Kgs 5:14-17; Ps 98:1-4; 2 Tm 2:8-13; Lk 17:11-19. Mon. Oct. 14, Rom 1:1-7; Ps 98:1-4; Lk 11:29-32. Tues. Oct. 15, Rom 1:16-25; Ps 19:2-5; Lk 11:37-41. Wed. Oct. 16, Rom 2:1-11; Ps 62:2-3,6-7,9; Lk 11:42-46. Thurs. Oct. 17, Rom 3:21-30; Ps 130:1-6; Lk 11:47-54. Fri. Oct. 18, 2 Tm 4:10-17b; Ps 145:10-13ab,1718; Lk 10:1-9.

F

rom his present location in the communion of saints, Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., who died in 1967, is probably indifferent to the various ways his work on Catholicism and American democracy is misconstrued in the 21st century. But those who think that Murray still has something to teach Catholics about the American experiment in ordered liberty must regret that Murray’s thinking continues to be misrepresented in some Catholic quarters and misapplied in others.

The most recent example of the latter came in the September 23 issue of America, in an article titled “Murray’s Mistake” by my friend Dr. Michael Baxter. As I understand Baxter’s argument, it goes something like this: 1) Murray urged American Catholics to more active involvement in public life because Catholics still “got” the ensemble of truths on which American democracy rested, while the old Protestant mainline and secular America had long since abandoned that foundational

Misreading Murray, yet again

ous fractures in ecclesial unity. moral consensus. 2) Catholics did what Murray suggested. 3) There were Catholic disagreements about what racial justice Catholic unity in the United required in the 1950s; aside States has subsequently from the excommunication of fractured because of political a few recalcitrant segregationdifferences. ists, there was no fracture of I’m not buying.

I don’t doubt that ecclesial unity in the Church in America has fractured in ways that no one could anticipate when Vatican II convened in 1962. But

By George Weigel to blame that current disarray on differences of political opinion ecclesial unity. (and on Murray) would seem What may appear to be to ignore the obvious hispolitically-induced fractures in torical fact that Catholics the unity of the Church in the were bitterly divided over United States today are the political questions in the past, result of something else: too but without the fractures in many Catholics in the United ecclesial unity that Baxter States, including prominent and I regret today. Catholics public figures, have ceased to fought on both sides of the believe and profess “all that Civil War; but unlike other the Holy Catholic Church Christian communities, the believes, teaches and professes Catholic Church didn’t split to be revealed by God” (which into northern and southern branches. There were Catholic is what converts confess when America Firsters and Catholic they enter into full communion with the Catholic interventionists before World War II; but there were no seri- Church). That dissonance is

The Catholic Difference

why unity within the Church in the United States is so fragile these days.

Vatican II never, ever taught that Catholic faith is a do-ityourself thing. Yet too many Catholics in America learned from the council (or its alleged “spirit”) that Catholicism is something other than an embrace of Christ, Who is truth, and the truths authoritatively taught by Christ’s Church: truths that are then embodied in a Gospel-centered way of life that touches family, culture, society and politics. The fractures in the Church that Baxter rightly deplores have far less to do with Obamacare or Syria policy than they do with the fact that a notinsignificant number of U.S. Catholics deny to be true what the Gospel and the Church authoritatively teach to be true.

My friend Baxter is certainly right that it is much harder to live an integrally Catholic public life in the United

States today than it was 50 some years ago, when Murray wrote “We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition.” And it may be that, in the decades ahead, Catholics of integrity will go into active opposition to American culture and society in unprecedented ways.

That possibility cannot be excluded. But the unity of the Church in the U.S. will not be recomposed by a retreat into micro-communities that, as Baxter suggests, reject the modern nation-state; John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and their successors in future generations are not going to follow the late Dorothy Day and Michael Baxter into the desert.

And in any case, fractured unity can only be recomposed by recommitment to “all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and professes to be revealed by God.” George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

October 11, 2013

I

n an April 24, 2005 homily, Pope Benedict XVI said, “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ.” This week I wished to share one such experience from my life where I directly felt God’s embrace of peace and love.

There was one more day to summer vacation and my plans were to spend it as they say, “doing nothing.” As I exited the building, I glanced over towards my car. The parking lot was nearly empty, but this car was pulling in very close to mine. I felt strongly as if I were watching that driver hit my car.

“What would you do if that driver hit it?” was the question that came to my mind. I said, “Lord that is not how I wish to spend my day tomorrow.” I was greatly relieved to watch the car back up and see space between it and my car. As I continued

I

Anchor Columnists Dare to be different

toward my car, I chastised From somewhere deep inside, I myself for my imaginings and told her I’d see about just getting foolishness. my car fixed so as to minimize As I put my package into the further damage. We held hands car, I noticed that there was a for a moment before she left with nasty white and blue scrape along her friends. She was going to the passenger side panel. The have knee surgery soon. We each plastic piece was still attached said that we’d pray for the other. to the car, but dislodged. My As I drove home, I had some forensics students would tell you that blue paint on my car was “Locard’s Wrestling with God Exchange” principle in Holding on for action, but all I could see was that my last sumHis blessing mer vacation day would be spent taking care of

By Dr. Helen Flavin this mess! I was angry.

As I turned to where that driver finally parked her qualms. What if she had hit a car, I heard these two elderly person? Further, I didn’t want this ladies saying, “She is our friend. ugly mark on the front of my car.

She works at the church. She Immediately I thought of the would never just drive away.” As parable of the rich fool and God’s I walked through eight empty answer to him, “You fool, this parking spaces I thought, “Lord, night your life will be demanded what a waste! This accident didn’t of you; and the things you have have to happen.” prepared, to whom will they beI got to the other car and a bit long?” (Lk 12:20). I thought OK to my surprise I heard compasLord, I agree — people are more sion not anger in my response. important.

As we exchanged information, I Friday, I visited a body shop realized she was an octogenarian. where they verified the dam-

Twinkle, twinkle little star

’ve done it. I think many months since he was elected, of us have. We see a has brought to the forefront commercial on TV about the the plights of thousands of our poor, the abused, those with brothers and sisters around the diseases, even animals in dire world. straits, and we guiltily hit the When Jesus walked the earth remote to change the channel. and evangelized to the locals, The simple gesture does not He spoke of things to which make the problem go away ... the common folk could relate; for those involved. For me, it’s just a matter of minutes and then my mind is onto something else.

As an editor of a Catholic newspaper,

By Dave Jolivet I often have to read stories in this publication that I really wish weren’t necessary. farming, shepherding, even This is one of those weeks. paying taxes.

On page three of this edition Pope Francis has walked the is a story about Syrian refugees. walk and talked the talk in Jesus’ The opening paragraph is a sandals more than any teacher I heartbreaker, especially for a have ever heard. parent. “Ali Ahmad was walking He talks to us in a language with his young son one evening we understand. He speaks after dark. It was after they simply, and forthrightly. There’s had fled Aleppo, Syria, and no need to keep a dictionary begun their lives as refugees in handy to translate his message. southern Turkey. It was a clear, When he speaks of the poor, starry night. He looks up at he says it plainly and simply. the stars and he says, ‘Dada, are When he speaks of the lonely, they coming to bomb us?’ ‘I, I....’ he says it plainly and simply.

Ahmad could not finish the When he speaks of the need for sentence.” all Christians to think a little I cannot begin to imagine less of ourselves and a little more one of my pups ever being about those in need, he says it so afraid that the stars in the plainly and simply. sky pose a threat in their little Plainly and simply, yet so minds. profoundly.

Pope Francis, in the short six Before Pope Francis opened

My View From the Stands

my eyes more than they have been, I might have read about Ali Ahmad and his son, felt a twinge of sadness for them, and moved on. But now, I can’t get the pair our of my mind.

I don’t know what it’s like to be so afraid, so displaced, so poor, so sick, so alone, or in such a pathetic state as are so many of my brothers and sisters around the world.

And I don’t want to know.

I also don’t want them to be in the situation they face daily.

The Holy Father asks all of us to do what we can for them. That’s not just lip service. He means it. It’s not a request, it’s an obligation we inherited as soon as we decided to adhere to Christ’s teachings.

“What can I do to help those so far away?” was my mantra to eschew the guilt. Pope Francis puts it simply and plainly — pray, fast, give alms, be less selfish and more selfless.

The commercials will keep airing. The stories will continue to be published. But our gentle, loving pope won’t let us change the channel or turn the page.

Not until Ali Ahmed’s son can look at the stars at night and not be afraid of them, but maybe even make a wish.

Anchor columnist Dave Jolivet can be contacted at davejolivet@anchornews.org.

9

age was cosmetic and seemed genuinely surprised when I said, “No, I do not wish to make any money off the accident.” I said to God, “Lord, please help me because if he asks me what planet I am from, I will get really angry.” As I explained other nearby imperfections were not a result of the accident, the repairman looked into my eyes. He said, “You really are honest.

I’ll tell you what I’m going to do for you. Come

by Monday; I will fix it for free.” Did he say free? I offered to pay for the work. He said, “nope.” I said that in exchange for the repairs, I’d tutor his kids in science. I left with God’s gift of the remainder of my day free from worry.

Monday, he did fix my car for free. Are you ready for the really stunning part? Some years before I had taught his older son! I smiled as I remembered some of the challenging days with that child when I chose to spend some personal time after school to encourage him to grow towards being a responsible young man.

“As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Pet 4:10). Although the works were separated by time, the repairman and I had freely shared the gifts God gave us. In

contrast to society’s expectations, we each had the courage to dare to be different and the result was wonderful. Daring to be different began with the early Christians and the choice to continue with this is ours each day. Today, as I look at my car and see just the minor scratches that remain, I feel amazement and wonder at what God can accomplish when we let Him. Have you read the poem “A Bit of God”? The author looks at people and how through their daily actions they reflect God’s helpfulness, thoughtfulness, consideration, compassion and patience. The last line, “Yes, I saw a bit of God in all these people today, and now I’m wondering did anyone see a bit of God in me?” is our reflection for evening prayer this week. Why? Because each time our honest answer is yes, then we have brought God’s love to another and in our own way worked to make this a better world.

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

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10

October 11, 2013

With new French convent, nuns hope for Eucharistic Adoration, 24/7 SAINT-LOUP-SUR-AUJON, France (CNS) — The moment a monstrance bearing the Blessed Sacrament was fixed high over an altar in a convent church in a remote French valley, a nun stepped forward to start the process of Eucharistic Adoration — one the Sisters hope will continue day and night, week after week and year after year.

Mother Marie Xavier McMonagle thus began the perpetual adoration of the “Tyburn Nuns,” an order of enclosed contemplative Benedictine nuns

established to worship the “Eucharistic Heart of Jesus.”

In so doing, she also closed a day of ceremonies to install the order’s newest community, situated near Dijon, France.

This community, the 12th to be established in less than a century, has eight members, each of whom will spend a minimum one hour a day in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.

Sometimes they will be assisted by lay Catholics.

A founding charism of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre is the un-

ceasing Eucharistic Adoration, which continues round-theclock when the community is large enough for its members to physically and mentally sustain such prayer.

At present there seems to be no shortage of women expressing an interest in such devotion because the opening of the convent September 29 represents the latest expansion of a female religious order which — like the Nashville Dominicans in the U.S. — is growing rapidly while others decline.

Mother Marie Adele Gar-

nier founded the order in Paris in 1898, and it had a rocky start.

Initially, its members were struck by unseen blows and showered with altar breads, among a range of terrifying supernatural attacks they attributed to the devil.

France’s Law of Associations, which forbade the existence of religious groups unregistered by the state, eventually caused them to move to London. In 1903 the nuns established a convent close to the site of the Tyburn gallows, where at least 105 Catholics were martyred during the Reformation.

After World War II, the Tyburn Nuns, as they were known, expanded to Ireland, Australia and Peru and, since 1993, have opened communities in Scotland, Ecuador, Colombia, Italy and New Zealand.

The French convent opened less than a year after the nuns began building a religious house in Nigeria, their first in Africa, which is expected to be fully completed, with a novitiate, by 2015.

Of more than 90 professed Sisters and some 30 novices, about half are from Australia and New Zealand, including the mother general, but new houses in Latin America are creating increased interest in vocations.

The rate of growth has not gone unnoticed in Rome, and last year, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, agreed to preside over the launch of a spiritual biography of Mother Adele.

Blessed John Paul II had earlier invited the nuns to Rome to open a convent there to pray for the popes, and Pope Francis was so pleased with the French convent that he sent the nuns a golden chalice that had belonged to Pope Gregory XVI. Pope Gregory was pontiff in 1838, the year when Mother Adele was born just 25 miles away from Saint-Loup.

Pope Francis “wanted us to have it, and he himself has celebrated Mass with it,” Mother McMonagle told Catholic News Service in an interview at the Saint-Loup convent. “We will be remembering the pope every time we use it.”

The nuns see a deeper significance in their new convent than simply sustained growth. For them, it heralds a sort of homecoming more than a century after they were driven from the land of their foundress.

The eight nuns forming the new community come from around the world: Ireland, France, Peru, Ecuador, Australia and New Zealand.

In welcoming the nuns, Bishop Philippe Gueneley of Langres, who had written to the mother general requesting their presence in his diocese last November, paid tribute to their openness to the will of God. “You are building a community that is shining forth in charity,” he said.

In her address, Mother McMonagle explained that the bishop invited the nuns to France after Pope Benedict XVI Continued on page 11

October 11, 2013 Continued from page 10

told the French bishops, on their last “ad limina” visit to Rome last November, that they should treasure such monastic communities because they enriched not only the Church but the whole of society.

The convent at Saint-Loup was providential, she said, because the writings of Mother Adele, a mystic, revealed that she believed she had been followed several times by a “loup” (French for wolf ) after her nightly adoration of the Eucharist when she worked in the region as a governess. Because the wolf did not attack her, Mother Adele came to believe it was protecting her.

“On our arrival, one of the first pieces of news we heard was that there was a wolf wandering around this and neighboring villages,” Mother McMonagle said.

“And so I see in this a sign that our mother foundress wants us to be here — in Saint-Loup — and nowhere else,” she told the audience.

The local French community has welcomed the Tyburn nuns, perhaps none more than the family of 12-year-old Anais Wagner, who became critically ill with a congenital heart disease the same month that Bishop Gueneley asked the nuns to come to his diocese.

Doctors said that without a heart transplant she would die, but thought that finding a match for a child of her age would be practically impossible.

Anais was fitted with a temporary mechanical heart, and the Sisters of La Sagesse, who were vacating the Saint-Loup convent building because of declining numbers, organized prayers for Mother Adele’s intercession.

In July, a donor heart was found and successfully transplanted.

Anais has made a full recovery, and she attended the inauguration of the Saint-Loup community.

11

12

October 11, 2013

Author Tom Clancy dies at age 66; was supporter of Catholic education BALTIMORE (CNS) — Even after Tom Clancy became an international best-selling novelist whose fans included the likes of President Ronald Reagan, the Baltimore-born writer never forgot the role his hometown Catholic education played in giving him the tools to his success.

“My Catholic education taught me the value of thinking for myself,” Clancy said in a 1990 radio ad promoting Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Clancy, best known for works including “The Hunt for Red October” and “Clear and Present Danger,” died October 1 at age 66 after a brief illness at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

His death was confirmed October 2 by his publisher, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, but the cause of death has not been given.

Clancy grew up in Baltimore and was a graduate of the former St. Matthew School in Northwood, Loyola Blakefield in Towson and what is now Loyola University Maryland.

More than 100 million copies of his novels are in print and all 17 of them have reached No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list, including “Threat Vector,” which was released last December. His upcoming book, “Command Authority,” is set for publication December 3.

Four of his books, “The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriot Games,” “Clear and Present Danger” and “The Sum of All Fears” were made into movies. A fifth movie, “Jack Ryan: Shadow One,” based on the hero of many of his novels, Jack Ryan, will be released this Christmas.

His first novel, “The Hunt for Red October,” written in 1984, was given as a Christmas gift to Reagan who quipped at a dinner that he was losing sleep because he couldn’t put the book down — a statement Clancy said helped make his book a best-seller.

Clancy became a minority owner of the Baltimore

Orioles and was co-founder of a video game company called Red Storm Entertainment In an interview with Catholic News Service in the mid-1990s, Clancy said Catholic schools taught him the same values that were being touted by thenSpeaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

“God and country and family,” Clancy said. “All the stuff that should be ordinary, but isn’t.”

Catholic educators, including the School Sisters of Notre Dame and the Jesuits, also imparted a very important lesson for his line of work, he said: “I try real hard to make my deadlines.”

Clancy’s Catholic background was evident in some of the plotlines of his works.

“Red Rabbit” is based on a fictional letter from Pope John Paul II to the communist government of Poland in which the pope threatens to resign the papacy and return to Poland to be with his people.

“The main characters in all my books try to get the right thing done, act with the proper motives, not to violate their own integrity,” Clancy told CNS. Nick Alexopulos, media relations manager for Loyola University Maryland, said in an October 2 statement that the Loyola community was “saddened”

by Clancy’s death. Clancy graduated from Loyola in 1969.

“Mr. Clancy was a prolific author with a passion for storytelling that engaged people all over the world,” Alexopulos said. “He truly embodied the creativity we inspire our students and alumni to bring to their personal and professional lives, and we are proud to call him a member of the Loyola University Maryland family. Our prayers are with his family, friends, and classmates at this difficult time and in the days to come.”

Clancy’s first marriage ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 14 years, Alexandra Llewellyn, and five children.

Ben Affleck stars in a scene from the movie “Runner Runner.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Fox)

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

“Don Jon” (Relativity) Joseph Gordon-Levitt writes, directs and stars in this comedy about an Italian Catholic bartender in suburban New Jersey whose addiction to pornography threatens to undermine his budding romance with the woman of his dreams (Scarlett Johansson). Despite perceptible good intentions — limited moral guidance is provided by an earthy older woman ( Julianne Moore) the protagonist meets in night school — wrongheaded values, a surfeit of obscene images and, above all, a contemptuous treatment of confession combine to torpedo the proceedings. Lost in the wreckage is a potentially respectable message about the need to renounce at least the worst excesses of objectifying lust. Sacrilegious humor, pervasive graphic sexual content, frequent profane expressions, some of them blasphemous, relentless rough and crude language. The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted.

Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

“Runner Runner” (Fox) Slick but forgettable cautionary tale in which a ruined Wall Street executive-turned-

graduate student ( Justin Timberlake) is recruited by a charismatic online-gambling tycoon (Ben Affleck) to help administer the mogul’s burgeoning, Costa Rica-based betting empire. As the lad becomes increasingly disillusioned with his new mentor’s shady ways, an FBI agent (Anthony Mackie) pressures him to collect incriminating evidence, while love comes calling in the person of the offshore company’s fetching number two (Gemma Arterton). A decadent lifestyle is part of the lure by which our hero is seduced, and the frank portrayal of some of

its details, together with the steadily recurring vulgarities that pepper the dialogue, makes director Brad Furman’s otherwise acceptable drama too seamy for a wide audience. Brief but disturbing action violence, fleeting graphic images of group sex, rear nudity, pervasive rough and crude language. The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, October 13, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Karl C. Bissinger, secretary to Bishop George W. Coleman, and diocesan director of Vocations

13

October 11, 2013

The Richards Family were the beneficiaries of a Blitz Build, a home built in five days in Orleans, part of a five-home initiative by Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod. The couple, who have two small children and worked the equivalent of two-and-a-half jobs to make ends meet, grew up on the Cape and thanks to Habitat, will now be able to raise their children on Cape Cod.

Cape Habitat for Humanity: Building homes, fulfilling dreams continued from page one

“All the labor was contributed with, I’ll say, about 90 percent of the supplies were contributed and then they did fundraisers and solicited donations to help pay for supplies. It was really a huge contribution by people in the trade [industry].

It was a great week.”

A total of 10 homes on the Cape are in various stages of construction; two homes in Mashpee are well underway, the siding is up on the home in Centerville and the walls are ready to be raised for two houses in Falmouth.

The recently-completed Blitz home, located on 8 Bevan Way in Orleans, is part

of a five-home initiative by Habitat after purchasing the land and dividing it into five lots. Habitat had a number of applicants for the five houses on Bevan Way, with 23 families meeting the criteria to become homeowners; all eligible families were entered into a lottery and the Richards Family chose the Blitz build site for their new home.

“We have this very strict ‘sweat equity’ standard, but there was no way [the Richards] could get their 500 hours in before the house was completed,” said Goldsmith.

“We decided that if they have at least 60 percent of their

This week in

50 years ago — Catholic Boy Scouts and leaders of the Massasoit Council which included the Fall River area took part in the third annual Boy Scout Retreat held at Camp Noquochoke in Westport.

25 years ago — Bishop Daniel A. Cronin blessed and dedicated the new church building for St. John Neumann Parish in East Freetown. Father George E. Harrison, then-pastor of St. John Neumann Parish, concelebrated Mass with the bishop.

sweat equity completed, they would be able to move in with an occupancy agreement and rent until they complete their sweat equity.”

The Richards are the perfect example of why Habitat for Humanity’s mission to provide affordable housing is so important. The couple grew up on the Cape, have two small children, worked the equivalent of two-anda-half full-time jobs between the two of them, and were paying more than 50 percent of their income for rent, “so they really saw this as a lastditch effort to be able to stay on Cape Cod,” said Gold-

diocesan history

10 years ago — The diocesan Office of Religious Education prepared to hold its annual Fall Religious Education Convention at Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River. Bishop George W. Coleman was the principal celebrant at the Mass.

One year ago — Parishioners of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford prepared to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their historic church’s dedication with a special Mass celebrated by Bishop George W. Coleman and former pastors.

smith.

Goldsmith said the couple has embraced all the requirements laid out by Habitat in order to become homeowners, including putting in a tremendous amount of the sweat equity in a short amount of time; “They have been awesome. Up until now we’ve had construction on two homes in Mashpee and one in Centerville, and they have more than 400 hours in sweat equity completing other people’s homes. They’ve been great to work with,” she said.

The Richards will complete their sweat equity by being a good neighbor and taking part in the construction of the remaining four homes of the Bevan Way subdivision. The foundations have been laid for three other houses, with the wall-raising scheduled in early November for 2 Bevan Way, a traditional build, and 4 Bevan Way, which is the Apostles Build. The label “Apostles Build” refers to the sponsorship of that particular home by a parish or multiple parishes joining together to fully fund and build a house for a local family.

Numbers 6 and 9 Bevan Way will see the walls raised in March because “it got later in the season and the complexity of the infrastructure,” said Goldsmith, caused a gap between the construction of the homes.

“One issue that is emerging on the Cape, and probably other rural areas, is the site the towns donated early on were on developed roads and you just had to drive in and there was your lot,” explained Goldsmith. “Now almost everything that we have the op-

portunity to build on, we have to put in a road, bring utilities in,” which causes minor delays in the schedule.

And though the five homes on Bevan Way will be creating a new neighborhood, four out of the five families already knew each other, said Goldsmith, with the fifth family quickly enveloped into the fold. Affordable housing is difficult for many who live on the Cape; the result of the Cape economy being driven more by tourists and retirees. Those working the jobs in the lower paying sectors of service, hospitality and some parts of healthcare and construction, often have to struggle to keep a roof over their heads and often in less desirable housing.

There is also a clause put in during the sale of each home with a “deed rider” that keeps each Habitat home to be sold as affordable housing in perpetuity. No speculators can capitalize on the program; home owners can get their principal back after a sale, but each sale “pays it forward” to others who would otherwise be shut out of the real estate market on the Cape.

“I think the great thing about Habitat and the reason why people get so excited is yes, they’re purchasing a house for a lower price, but on the flip side, because of the very high cost of housing on the Cape, the homes will always be sold as affordable housing,” said Goldsmith.

“It’s self-perpetuating.”

For more information on Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod, go to www. habitatcapecod.org.

14

October 11, 2013

My Brothers’ Keeper expands to North Dartmouth facility continued from page one

ket but, rather, to put it on a stand,” Miller told The Anchor.

“We first started talking about (opening a second location) back in 2009. We have watched how profoundly My Brother’s Keeper has been touching lives through our Easton facility — the lives of those we serve and the lives of volunteers who come to us as part of our work.

And we thought if we stayed in Easton and never tried to expand into a new community, then it would be like putting our lamp under a basket.”

The Dartmouth branch of My Brother’s Keeper and its three-person staff will be managed by Josh Smith. Smith began volunteering at My Brother’s Keeper in 2000 while attending Stonehill College and he joined the ministry’s staff in 2007.

“I lived in Fall River for a time, so I know there’s a tremendous amount of need down here and I’m very excited to be able to extend our service area to help these struggling families,” Smith told The Anchor.

“We are really going to be providing an unduplicated service and there aren’t many options for families with limited sav-

ings when they’re moving into a new apartment and can’t afford new furniture. We’re going to have a real opportunity to lift these families up in Christ’s name.”

My Brother’s Keeper picks up gently-used residential furniture — no drop-offs are allowed at either location — and then the items are cleaned and delivered to needy families in the area. All donations are tax-deductible and no donated items are ever sold. All furniture is delivered free-of-charge to local families in need.

The ministry’s mission is simple: “To bring the love and hope of Jesus Christ to those we serve.” Anyone living in the service area is eligible to receive help, regardless of religion.

“That makes us unique — the fact that we have no prerequisites for service,” Smith said.

“When you have families that are doing well and then someone gets laid off, you may not qualify for certain guidelines for (public) assistance. With us, we help anyone with no questions asked. It gives us a chance to accomplish our mission, which is much more than just delivering furniture — it’s

about bringing Christ’s hope and love to them. By helping people with no questions asked, it’s no longer just a transaction.

It becomes a chance to really connect with the family.”

As a Christian ministry, a symbol of Christ accompanies all deliveries. As a gift at each furniture delivery, for example, My Brother’s Keeper offers a crucifix with the message, “We’re just the delivery people … this is the Man Who sent you the furniture.” Families receiving help are free to accept or decline the cross.

“As we go into people’s homes we try to serve with dignity and respect and we always serve in Christ’s name, giving a symbol of Christ at the end of every delivery,” Miller said.

“We really try to draw people to God … at a time when they may be in the greatest need.”

At the start, the new facility will exclusively service Dartmouth and communities to the west, including Fall River and the East Bay of Rhode Island.

In 2014, after a sufficient volunteer corps has been established, the charity will then extend services into New Bedford and other communities to the east.

“We certainly have plans to do more in the future, we just need a little time to get our feet on the ground first,” Miller said. “One of the core principles with this expansion is that we did not want to do anything that would harm the good work we’re doing in Easton … and we didn’t want to take on too much, too fast. We have a long history of serving families in Fall River at Christmas and

we love where we are because we’re very close to routes 195 and 24.”

The new location is sectioned off into departments — not unlike a retail store — with areas designated for the different types of furniture, household items, electronics and appliances. There’s also space set aside for furniture repair, loading docks, offices, rest rooms and a prayer room.

The facility is located on five acres in Dartmouth, but the charity does not release its address to the public in order to discourage anonymous furniture drop-offs.

My Brother’s Keeper in Dartmouth currently needs help in two ways: with volunteers and donations of residential furniture.

Volunteers are needed to assist with furniture pickups and deliveries; to help clean furniture and appliances; to do carpentry and light furniture repair work; to test electrical items; to sort linens and household items; to cut and sew fabric; to assemble box springs; and to do building maintenance.

Furniture items needed include couches, loveseats and chairs; coffee tables, end tables and lamps; twin-, full- and queen-sized mattresses and box springs; dressers and night stands; kitchen tables and chairs; refrigerators and microwaves.

“We have people of all ages and all backgrounds helping us,” Smith said. “You don’t necessarily have to be able to move a refrigerator to a second floor — we have a lot of ways people can help. We can always use people with different skills and talents.”

The Dartmouth location will rely heavily on volunteers, similar to the charity’s Easton facility, which hosts about 3,000 volunteers each year, including several hundred students.

“I first got involved with My Brother’s Keeper 12 years ago as a freshman,” Smith added.

“Now I’m on the other side and I’ll be able to provide the same learning opportunities to students who will be coming to serve with us.”

Noting that he plans to reach out to area middle schools, high schools and colleges for assistance, Smith said volunteering for My Brother’s Keeper can be a “real eye-opening experience” for students.

“It really can have a tremendous impact on their lives and give them a chance to live out their faith,” he said. “And they can see first-hand the fruit of their efforts … which is what

I think makes this place special. It’s not just that they’re volunteering, but they also get to meet the families they serve.

It can be very powerful to hear the stories of what they’re going through.”

“My Brother’s Keeper provides the opportunity to serve the poor to hundreds of students from some 60 high schools and numerous colleges — about 150 students each year from Stonehill College alone,” said co-founder Jim Orcutt. “In serving the poor, if we are able to touch the heart of only one young man or woman … Christ may well yet be able to change the world.”

The opening of the Dartmouth facility is just the second of three milestones for the organization this year.

My Brother’s Keeper previously celebrated its 25th anniversary last March. Co-founders Jim and Terry Orcutt began the ministry’s work in the cellar of their Taunton home on Mar. 21, 1988 before moving to its present base of operations on property adjacent to Stonehill College and Holy Cross Family Ministries in Easton.

“Twenty-five years ago, My Brother’s Keeper began spreading the Good News of God’s love and hope to the people of Taunton and Brockton,” said co-founder Terry Orcutt. “Over these many years our mission has widened to some 34 towns and cities. With the opening of the Dartmouth facility we now expand our efforts to spread Christ’s love and hope to 50 communities in the Diocese of Fall River and the Archdiocese of Boston.”

By December, the charity anticipates making its 100,000th delivery to a family in need.

“It’s really been a big year for us,” Miller said. “Based on our history of deliveries, we know in the days leading up to Christmas that we will be making our 100,000th delivery.”

With a new second location up and running and nearly 100,000 deliveries under its belt, it begs the question of whether further sites are on the horizon for My Brother’s Keeper.

“I would never rule anything out when God is in charge,” Miller said. “All things are possible with God.” For more information about volunteer opportunities, call 774-305-4577. To inquire about furniture delivery for a family in need, call 774-305-4590. More information about My Brother’s Keeper can also be found at www.mybrotherskeeper.org.

15

October 11, 2013

Bruce Baxter

Eduardo Borges

Brendan Brides

Robert Craig

Timothy Flaherty

Ralph Guerra

Paul Harney

Gary John

Paul Levesque

Frank Lucca

Thomas McMahon

David Murphy

Gary Porter

Lawrence St. Pierre

Wilfred Ricky Varieur

Class of 2013

Diocese to welcome new permanent deacons to fold continued from page one

gone through five years of training to become (deacons) and I am confident they are well-prepared to serve,” said Msgr.

John J. Oliveira, director of the Permanent Diaconate Office for the diocese.

“They will be able to assist the bishop in his work of evangelization. Hopefully they will be of great assistance to the priests and parishes throughout the diocese.”

Noting that the last diaconate ordination took place in 2007, Msgr. Oliveira said the newly-ordained deacons will be of great help in serving their assigned parishes and pastors.

“This is a good-sized class with (candidates) coming from all areas of the diocese,” he said.

“I’ve wanted to be a deacon for a long time; I’d say I’ve been thinking about it for at least 10 years,” said Eduardo Moniz Borges of New Bedford, a parishioner of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in the city.

“During Mass, when the deacons were present, I always thought it was a beautiful way to serve God.” A property manager and building designer whose wife and children are also active in their parish, Borges said it made sense for him to enter the diaconate program.

“I had a priest ask me if I had ever considered becoming a deacon,” Borges said. “I also had a deacon in my parish who became my mentor. He approached me and convinced me that I would be a good deacon. Those are the seeds that were planted and made me seriously think about (the vocation).”

Gary Alan Porter of North Attleboro, a parishioner of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Attleboro, said it was “a lot of things” that led him to consider becoming a permanent deacon.

“It wasn’t one individual thing. It was something that developed over a number of years,” Porter said. “One of the guys that used to be here in the diocese —

he’s now in the Providence, R.I. diocese — used to be a deacon in our parish. He came to do some work at our house and I knew he was a deacon. I started asking a few questions and one thing led to another and he started sharing his story and it got me really interested.”

After further urging from his thenpastor, Father Richard Degagne, Porter said he decided to enter the program five years ago.

“The more I heard, the more I liked about it,” he said. “Between the faculty they have and Msgr. Oliveira being so welcoming, it was just a great fit. I’ve really been blessed by the whole thing.”

Raised in the Episcopalian faith by Protestant parents, Porter said he converted to Catholicism after meeting a Catholic priest while serving in the military.

“There was a mess-up in my housing assignment — but I think God had a hand in this,” he said. “I ended up living for three months with the base chaplain, Father Mike Brophy. Father Brophy was very kind and very patient and answered all my questions. I just walked away from that thinking: ‘That’s it. I’ve got to change.’ It was truly a blessing for me.

Meeting him changed my life.”

Like Porter, Timothy Edward Flaherty of Westport, a parishioner of St. Stanislaus Parish in Fall River, said there were a couple of priests who first planted the seed for his vocation.

“The first was back in 2002,” Flaherty said. “I wasn’t really ready at the time but I discerned about it and then in 2007 another pastor approached me and said they were starting up another class and told me I should really think about signing up for it. I talked to my wife and family about it … and they thought it would be a good idea so I put my application in.”

“I don’t believe it was my idea,” said Thomas John McMahon of Rehoboth, a parishioner of Our Lady Queen of Mar-

tyrs Parish in Seekonk. “I personally believe I have been called to do the work of a deacon. I think that’s what God wants me to do. I believe He’s given me the talent and the skills to be able to serve Him. And with the training the diocese has given me, it’s come to fruition.”

Paul Joseph Harney of East Falmouth, a parishioner of Christ the King Parish in Mashpee, remembers first discerning a calling when he was still in his early 20s.

“I just got caught up with life and kept putting it off,” Harney said. “I got married, had two kids and then probably about eight years ago, Deacon (Frank) Fantasia spoke at a Knights of Columbus breakfast and as he was speaking and describing the diaconate, my wife gently elbowed me and suggested it was something I look into.”

After his talk, Harney said Deacon Fantasia sealed the deal by coming over to him and shaking his hand.

“He said: ‘You know, I was speaking to you,’” Harney said. “We had no prior conversation about the diaconate, so it was funny how that just worked out. I think that’s the power of the Holy Spirit, really.”

While none of the candidates yet know where they will be assigned to serve, they all expressed great joy at beginning their ministry.

“I think the two things that I’m most looking forward to (celebrating) are Weddings and Baptisms,” Porter said.

“As a parent and as someone who just got back from his son’s Wedding, I look forward to being a part of other people’s lives and helping them to experience some of that same joy.”

Porter said he hopes “to take some of the burden off (diocesan priests) who are working so hard.”

“That really is something we should do and need to do and it’s something I want to do,” he added.

“I’m looking forward to working spiritually with lay people, because I can really empathize with the struggles of mothers and fathers and what they’re going through trying to raise children — I have

two teen-agers myself,” Flaherty agreed.

“Just working with them to bring God into their lives and help them through these everyday hurdles that we all face — that’s what I’m most looking forward to.”

McMahon said he looks forward to assisting his assigned parish priest “in any way possible.”

“If we can take any of the additional burdens off the shoulders of the priest in order to help them out — whether simply by helping out at Mass or performing Baptisms or Weddings — then I’m all for it,” he said. “I know that to whom much is given, much is expected; and I know a lot will be expected (of me).”

While Harney looks forward to celebrating Marriages and Baptisms, he also anticipates assisting with wakes and burial services in his assigned parish.

“It’s an opportunity to grieve with the family and represent the Church in those very sad times,” he said. “It’s easy to be on the joyous side of things. I also did my practicum at the Falmouth Hospital and I remember a deacon telling me I would get more out of hospital ministry than what I put into it and that was true.”

All the members of this year’s diaconate class praised the training that led them to this joyous day and, in particular, the teachers who prepared them.

“We are really blessed with some of the priests in this diocese who give up the time for us to do the teaching,” McMahon said. “They are just fantastic.”

“Most of them are younger priests — men in their early 30s and 40s — and these were some of the most brilliant men I have ever encountered in my life,” Flaherty agreed. “I was just blown away by how brilliant and enthusiastic they were about the faith.”

“I always think about the phrase: ‘You don’t know that you didn’t know it,’” Harney added. “I wish every Catholic could get an exposure to this (training) — to learn just how rich our tradition is, and how beautiful the Church is.”

Borges admitted he’s “excited and a Continued on page 17

16

Youth Pages

Students from St. James-St. John School in New Bedford celebrated their first school Mass of the year with the entire student body and choir joining them.

Students at St. Joseph School in Fairhaven recently studied the science of tornadoes, including the location of Tornado Alley, safety measures, the anatomy of a twister, and the phases and categories tornadoes are classified under. All students in grades one through eight created their own tornadoes in recycled water bottles. Here fifth-graders display their creations.

Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River recently held its 2013 Alumni Golf Tournament at the Acoaxet Club in Westport. Sixty golfers took part in the event that supports the Thomas P. Keyes Scholarship which has benefited Bishop Connolly students over the past 22 years. From left: Principal Christopher Myron; Todd Hibbert, assistant boys soccer coach (third from left); tournament student volunteers; and Curtis Hibbert, Connolly boys soccer coach and student parent.

October 11, 2013

Students from All Saints Catholic School in New Bedford recently gathered with excitement outside St. Mary’s Rectory to wish Msgr. John J. Oliveira a happy birthday with a song and handmade cards.

Tom Neville, Class of 1981, left, recently presented Ceirra Greene, second from left, and Kayla Hathaway, juniors at Coyle and Cassidy High School in Taunton, with a scholarship in memory of his late brother Tim Neville, Class of 1973. The young ladies embody many of the attributes of the late Neville. The students received a monetary scholarship that will be used to further their education at Coyle and Cassidy. The annual fund-raiser for the Tim Neville Scholarship remains a very important and successful event in perpetuating Tim’s memory and his love for Coyle and Cassidy. With them are Bob Gay principal, and Doug Ross, Class of 1981.

The Boston Globe announced Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro as the winner for the Division 3 High School Scholastic Nason Award for the 15th time in 16 years. With a 76 percent winning record of 226-63-8, the Shamrocks won the most games of any Catholic co-educational high school in Eastern Massachusetts. There were 1,239 team members on 45 teams in 25 sports. The captains of Feehan sports teams pose with director of Athletics Paul O’Boy (center) holding Feehan’s 15th Nason Athletic Award.

October 11, 2013

O

n my Facebook profile is a famous quote from St. Augustine: “Love God and do what you will.”

Boy, do I like Augustine.

When I first heard this line I was in the seminary and it struck me in a powerful way.

The simplicity of it left me speechless. That’s all I need to do? The Scriptures basically tell us, yup, that’s it.

Yet, the very simple is perhaps the most difficult. If we reflect on this quote for any length of time, we discover not only the beauty of its simplicity but the challenge as well. If we truly love God, we seek to be closer to Him, to be in communion with Him. If we spend time and energy on this relationship, we begin to be transformed by His love and, in many respects do not realize it but we begin to naturally live the Gospel values.

When we truly love God what we will is what God wills.

One of the challenges of this union with God is changing our behaviors that focus

Youth Pages The focus always remains Jesus living this simple message are on ourselves. In our converalso … well, simple. One does sion, we will need to face our not need to have a Ph.D. in weaknesses, temptations and theology to be a holy person. sins. Yet, at these moments It does not require 20 hours a we need to hear the voice of day on one’s knees before the Jesus: “Go, and from now on Blessed Sacrament. It is about sin no more.”

God does not condemn the individual, but He doesn’t condone the sin. Scripture scholars call this “righteous judgment.” The actions of the Pharisees and

By Father scribes in the Gospels David C. Frederici are often not righteous judgment, but simply integrating simple spiritual judgmental. Righteousness is found in God and can only be practices into our lives.

What are some of the ways lived by us if we are connected we can do this? The simplest to Him. The challenge of the and most important thing Gospel is not to be judgmenwe do: go to Mass. This is tal of ourselves or of others, the most Sacred action of the but to walk in the ways of Church each and every day. It righteousness. is our opportunity to encounThat has been Pope Franter the Lord in the most direct cis’ basic message that has and intimate way possible. We gotten everybody so excited.

However, his words, while also are able to nourish the seeds of faith within our hearts, not simple, are just as challengonly with His Word, but His ing as Augustine’s. The good very Body and Blood. news is that the means of

Be Not Afraid

Diocese to welcome new permanent deacons to fold continued from page 15

little nervous” about tomorrow’s ordination.

“I think that’s normal,” he said. “But having 15 new deacons is going to be a great help to the diocese.”

“I have been so busy this past month, I haven’t had the time to get nervous or get too excited,” Flaherty said. “I’ve just been sticking with my daily prayer routine and Mass and haven’t been thinking too much about it because I think if I do, I might get really nervous.”

“I’m going through a whole range of emotions, to be honest with you,” added McMahon.

“I’m excited in anticipation of the idea that I’ll be ordained … but I’m very much looking to what comes after it — how I can help and how the role of the deacon can help the parish in its ministries thereafter. That hasn’t been completely revealed (to me) yet, so I’m looking forward to finding that out.”

“Here it is, this is the day,” Harney said. “For me, it’s not the end of formation — the formation will continue — it’s really just the beginning. And it’s a very important beginning for all of us.”

The other candidates to be ordained tomorrow include, in alphabetical order: • Bruce John Baxter of Sand-

wich, a parishioner of Corpus Christi Parish in East Sandwich.

“I felt the call of God to make a deeper lifetime commitment to serve Him and His Church,” he said of his ordination.

• Brendan William Brides of Sandwich, a parishioner at Christ the King Parish in Mashpee. “Ordination is an opportunity to affirm my commitment to the Church and the people of God,” he said of his ordination.

• Robert MacLeod Craig of Taunton, a parishioner of Holy Family Parish in East Taunton.

“In ordination, we enter into and receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders, thereby gaining the Sacramental grace to serve and protect the treasures of the Church,” he said of his ordination.

• Ralph Joseph Guerra of Plymouth, a parishioner of St. Margaret’s Parish in Buzzards Bay. “It’s the beginning of service to my God willingly as He wants it,” he said of his ordination.

• Gary Michael John of Fall River, a parishioner of Holy Trinity Parish in Fall River.

“I am truly humbled by the thought of my service to God and our bishop,” he said of his ordination.

• Paul Raymond Levesque of Assonet, a parishioner of St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet.

“It is an opportunity to answer God’s call to serve the Church by spreading His Word, the truth, by teaching, nurturing and ministering to His people within the Church and community,” he said of his ordination.

• Frank Ralph Lucca of Swansea, a parishioner of St. Dominic’s Parish in Swansea.

“Ordination will be that extraordinary moment when I will make promises that will define the rest of my life — to be whom God has ordained me to be — a deacon, called to serve Him by serving His Church,” he said of his ordination.

• David C. Murphy of Wareham, a parishioner of St. Patrick’s Parish in Wareham. “To me, ordination means a continuation in a journey of faith and service that God has been calling me to, for the benefit of all His children,” he said of his ordination.

• Lawrence St. Pierre of Attleboro, a parishioner of St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Attleboro.

“It is an opportunity to serve others,” he said of his ordination.

• Dr. Wilfred Ricky Varieur of Pawtucket, R.I., a parishioner of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Parish in Pawtucket, R.I. “It’s a meager attempt to pay the unpayable debt,” he said of his ordination.

Daily prayer. I don’t mean reading prayers, or saying prayers (although this could be part of it). Rather, blocking out 10 or 15 minutes and sitting in the quiet and listening.

Taking some time (and this is where we can borrow other’s words or prayers) to thank God for being God, for the blessings in our lives, for the concerns and needs we or others have. But make sure a chunk of that time is spent in quiet ... listening. It is possible to have 10-15 minutes. How often do we seek to fill up time with a video game, phone call or texting conversation because we don’t have anything else to do?

Read the Scriptures. You can read it cover to cover (not in one sitting), jump around, read the daily Mass readings, whatever. Read the Scriptures.

Slowly. Read the commentary at the bottom of the page. This is the story of our family of faith. It is the Living Word of

17 God. The lessons it contains will give us the wisdom and advice we need to deal with some of the issues we face each day.

The saints. These are our heroes in living the faith. They dealt with many of the same struggles and doubts that we do. They offer us the inspiration and advice we need to live the life we seek, to be authentic to ourselves and live the simplicity of the Gospel in a seemingly overcomplicated world.

Augustine’s words may inspire us. Pope Francis may motivate us. We must remember though that the focus of their words and lives are Jesus Christ. Their example challenges us to have the same focus and then do as He asks.

Sounds simple enough.

Anchor columnist Father Frederici is pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Pocasset and diocesan director of Campus Ministry and Chaplain at UMass Dartmouth and Cape Cod Community College.

October 19 is Lay Fast Day for Priests ATTLEBORO — On October 19, the eighth global Lay Fast Day for Priests will take place. Thousands of lay people from around the globe, in 64 countries to date, will dedicate a day of fasting and praying for our priests — past, present and future.

Blessed John Paul II said that prayer combined with sacrifice is “the most powerful force in human history.” The day of fast begins at dawn and ends at 3 p.m., the hour of the Lord’s death: the hour of power. Participants can fast from food or Internet or television or cigarettes — anything which will allow them to offer up a personal suffering for priests.

This annual event started in 2006 in Attleboro as a prayer intention for priests in the midst of the clerical abuse scandal. In the first year, about 200 souls gathered at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette to pray for priests. Since then support for the Lay Fast has mushroomed across the globe through a network of contacts and extensive promotion on social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Each year, lay people from every continent participate. In Africa, a CCD class in Namibia fasted from water for the day and offered up this sacrifice for priests. In the Middle East,

participants write to pledge to fast but ask for anonymity due to fear of reprisals from the governing bodies in their countries. In the U.S., parishes across the country are planning a day of Eucharistic Adoration ending at 3 p.m. with Benediction and a Rosary or Divine Mercy Chaplet for priests.

Orders of enclosed nuns have committed to spend the day of the fast in dedicated prayer for priests.

The Lay Fast has the support of cardinals and bishops across the globe and this year a letter giving details of the Lay Fast has been sent to Pope Francis requesting his blessing on the day.

Year after year, the numbers of participants has steadily and quietly grown. It has tapped into the vast reserves of love and appreciation which the laity feel for priests and in its humble wake, is the hope that priests feel the deep spiritual blessings and care so many thousands pray will be theirs.

Locally, as in all previous years, the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro will hold a 3 p.m. closing service which will include the Divine Mercy Chaplet, Benediction and Eucharistic procession. All are most welcome to attend.

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October 11, 2013

Role of Permanent Diaconate is important in Church mission

that the Liturgy has its consequences in the world with all its continued from page one needs. death for preaching the Gospel. coming a permanent deacon. ular Marriage, getting children “I personally would like to see Around the fifth century, the “Many of these men are Baptized, and getting children more deacons in administration number of permanent deacons Married and have families, so back into Faith Formation pro- as well, serving the Church by began to decline. The role was their commitments include the grams. In a way, they can have a freeing pastors from the burdens restored in the Roman Catholic Church, their families, and also greater impact than a priest when of administering the physical Church by Vatican II. their regular jobs,” said Msgr. in their own environments.” plant of the parish, and heading In its Dogmatic Constitution Oliveira. “It’s an adjustment for Father Lacroix also said he has diocesan homeless shelters and on the Church (Lumen Gentium), them, but they know they’re be- the privilege, for the first time, to other charitable agencies.” the permanent deacon’s role and ing prepared to serve the diocese vest one of the deacon candidates Father Karl C. Bissinger nature was described as follows: once they are ordained, without tomorrow, Bruce Baxter. “It’s a taught the men a year-long “At a lower level of the hierarchy neglecting their other responsi- great honor to be able to do so,” Scripture course on the Old Tesare deacons, upon whom hands bilities.” he added. tament. “I felt honored to be able are imposed ‘not unto the priestDuring the candidates’ four Father Roger J. Landry taught to put my licentiate in Biblical hood, but unto a ministry of ser- years of preparation, they were apologetics and moral theology Theology to good use by introvice.’ For strengthened by Sac- taught by priests and one deacon during the men’s training. “It was ducing these men to the riches ramental grace, in communion from the diocese. “We’re very a great experience for me to see of the Word of God,” he said. with the bishop and his group of fortunate to have very dedicated the men grow in their absorbtion “I understood that, as preachers, priests, they serve the People of men teaching the candidates,” of Catholic theology and in their they would need to have a deep God in the ministry of the Lit- said Msgr. Oliveira. “They all ability to communicate it to oth- knowledge and love of the Bible. urgy, of the Word, and of char- have advanced degrees in theol- ers,” he told The Anchor. “I can’t My hope was to help them get ity. It is the duty of the deacon, to ogy.” wait to see these men ordained: started and to instill in them a the extent that he has been auOne of those teachers is Fa- like their predecessors, they will desire to be life-long students of thorized by competent authority, ther Daniel W. Lacroix, who enrich the life of the entire dio- the Sacred Scriptures. to administer Baptism solemnly, led a session on the Sacraments. cese and be an enormous help “On a personal level, I found to be custodian and dispenser “This is such a good group of 15 to Bishop Coleman and to the the candidates to be admirable of the Eucharist, to assist at and men,” he told The Anchor. “They priests in our service to the peo- men who were animated by their bless Marriages in the name of are ordained as clergy, with the ple of God.” Catholic faith and in love with the Church, to bring Viaticum to opportunity of evangelization.

Father Landry said the first Christ and the Church. They the dying, to read Sacred Scrip- They are very much involved in deacons were ordained “to were filled with a great enthusiture to the faithful, to instruct the secular world, and can serve spearhead the Church’s char- asm, dedication, and joy, which and exhort the people, to preside as a type of ‘welcoming com- ity toward widows, so that the inspired me.” at the worship and prayer of the mittee,’ to the Church in their Apostles could dedicate themResponsible for the class on faithful, to administer Sacramen- environments. Many are married selves to praying and preaching the Sacred Liturgy was Msgr. tals, and to officiate at funeral with families and jobs, so they are the Gospel.” He said that sense Gerard P. O’Connor. “The perand burial services. Deacons are rubbing elbows with people ev- of charity continues with to- manent diaconate has a key role dedicated to duties of charity and ery where; on the soccer field, in day’s permanent deacons. “This in the urgent missionary work administration.” the work place, at the PTA. They service of charity remains the of the New Evangelization,” he “The permanent deacon can are in contact with fallen Catho- fundamental duty of a deacon, said. “Permanent deacons are an be a very big help,” continued lics and can act as a bridge for the but the forms of charity are not important part of the Church’s Msgr. Oliveira, who teaches unchurched to gently lead them just through material assistance mission. homiletics to the deacon candi- back to the community. to the poor, but also spiritual as“I had the pleasure to teach dates during their four years of “I can’t tell you the number of sistance to the entire people of our current class Sacred Liturformation, following their one individuals a permanent deacon God through sharing the Word gy which is important because year of discernment about be- had a hand in validating an irreg- of God and the Sacraments, es- whatever other ministry they will pecially the Eucharist, with oth- be involved with they will always ers.” be at the service of the altar in Presenting the topics of fun- parishes. damental, dogmatic and Sac“The Church tells us that the ramental theology was Father Holy Eucharist is the ‘source and Thomas M. Kocik. “For many summit of the Christian life’ and centuries before the Second therefore a deacon’s ministry at Vatican Council, the diacon- the altar is essentially a participaate was a transitional office on tion in the most important activthe way to priestly ordination,” ity of the Church.

In 2012, The Anchor spent nearly he said. But after Vatican II re“The deacon in a very clear $2,000 in postage change fees! stored the permanent diaconate, way shows us the link between The Post Office charges The Anchor 70 cents for notifica“many lifelong Catholics were the Liturgy and the works of tion of a subscriber’s change of address. Please help us baffled when non-seminarian charity, especially the care of the reduce these expenses by notifying us immediately when deacons began appearing in poor.” you plan to move. their parishes,” he told The AnLeading the class on the New Please Print Your New Address Below chor. “Today permanent dea- Testament was Father Jay Mello. cons are a familiar feature of the “The permanent diaconate is a NAME: Church’s ministry of Word and one of those roles in the Church Sacrament.”

STREET ADDRESS: that is still largely misunderHe added that while the dea- stood, even though it has been CITY, STATE, ZIP: cons serve in a wide variety of restored in the Church since the settings, they are most often seen time following the Second VatiNEW PARISH: at Mass. What’s rarely seen by can Council. those in the pews is their service “There are opposite extremes MOVING DATE: of charity. “The deacon’s primary that are both inaccurate when it ministry, however, is in the ser- comes to the role of the deacon.

Please attach your Anchor address label so we can update vice of charity, such as caring for Some would want to over simyour record immediately. the sick, the poor, the elderly or plify the identity of the deacon the imprisoned,” he said. “His to something that resembles an Clip and mail form to: The Anchor, work outside the sanctuary, done exalted altar server, forgetting P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA 02722 for the love of God, reminds us that they are ordained members

Money is flying out the window

of the Church. Others would want to over-emphasize the role to something that resembles a minor priest.

“It is in this role of minister of charity that we find the primary identity of the deacon. Yes, all of the Baptized are called to be charitable and care for those who are less fortunate or are in need, but the deacon does so in a formal sense because he was ordained to preach the Gospel.”

Father David Pignato, currently on the faculty at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, was responsible for the Church history and patristics (Fathers of the early Church) program of the formation process.

While a major role of a permanent deacon stresses charitable works, their ordination also gives them a great privilege. “The Church considers deacons to be ‘custodians and dispensers of the Eucharist,’ Father Pignato told The Anchor. “This means that they have a very important responsibility to assist at the altar of sacrifice during the Mass and also to bring the Eucharist to the sick and home-bound. Deacons should think of themselves and should be thought of by others as such ‘custodians’ of the Eucharist, since it falls to them to help make sure the Eucharist is handled and treated with the love and reverence that Our Lord deserves.”

Also participating in the training sessions was Deacon Maurice Ouellette, who presented the topic on Marriage and family life.

Msgr. Oliveira’s assistant director of Vocations is Deacon Frank Fantasia.

For five years, this eighth class of the Permanent Diaconate, and their families, have prepared their minds, souls and hearts, to be of service to the ultimate Servant, Jesus Christ. The misconception of they’re being “glorified altar boys,” couldn’t be more of a misconception, for they are continuing a tradition of service begun with the men who walked, ate, and lived with the Savior.

Candidates’ wives attend all of the initial meetings and over the five-year period were offered retreat days. They could also attend the classroom sessions if they chose. Families participated in services marking the candidates’ various stages, i.e. candidacy, and installation into the ministry of lector and acolyte.

“I am inspired by the dedication, spirituality, generosity, love of God, love of the Church, and love of the People of God, these men and their families have displayed,” said Msgr. Oliveira. “I look and pray for an opportunity for more men to be of service to our diocese as permanent deacons in the future.”

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October 11, 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.

Sister Andrea Levesque, SSJ

HOLYOKE — Sister Andrea Levesque (Sister St. George), 94, beloved member of the Sisters of St. Joseph, died in Mont Marie Health Care Center, Holyoke, on October 1.

A native of Fall River, she was the daughter of George and Maria (Ledoux) Levesque.

Sister Andrea graduated from Jesus Marie Academy, Fall River and entered the Sisters of St. Joseph in Fall River in 1934.

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Fall River and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield merged in 1974.

She earned a B.A. and a M.Ed. degree from Rivier College in Nashua, N.H. Sister Andrea ministered in the Fall River Diocese as a teacher at St. Jean Baptiste School and at St. Joseph Prep and as secretary-treasurer of St. Joseph Montessori School, Fall River and in St. Joseph School, New Bedford. She also taught in St. Joseph High School, Conway, Ark.; St. Peter High School, Worcester; and Cathedral High School, Springfield. She served as mistress of novices

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks Oct. 12 Rev. Felician Plichta, OFM Conv., Parochial Vicar, Corpus Christi, East Sandwich, Former Pastor Holy Cross, Fall River, 1999 Rev. David I. Walsh. MM, Maryknoll Missioner, 1999 Oct. 13 Rev. David I. Walsh, M.M., Maryknoll Missioner, 1999 Rev. James J. Doyle, C.S.C., Holy Cross Residence, North Dartmouth, 2002 Rev. J. Marc Hebert, Holy Cross Residence, North Dartmouth, C.S.C., 2006 Oct. 14 Rev. Dennis M. Lowney, Assistant, Sacred Heart, Taunton, 1918 Rev. Msgr. Edward B. Booth, Retired Pastor, St. Mary, North Attleboro, 1972 Rev. Frederick G. Furey, SS.CC. Former Pastor, Our lady of Assumption, New Bedford, 1999 Rev. Andre P. Jussaume, Pastor, St. Louis de France, Swansea, 2003 Oct. 15 Rev. Msgr. Raymond T. Considine, PA, Retired Pastor, St. William, Fall River, 1996 Oct. 16 Rev. Raymond M. Drouin, O.P., Former Pastor, St. Anne, Fall River, 1987 Oct. 17 Rev. Gerald E. Lachance, M.Afr., 1984

for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Fall River for 16 years and also as director of Education for the community.

She joined the staff of Mont Marie, Holyoke in 1991 and retired in 1999. In addition to her Sisters in community, she is survived by several nephews and nieces.

She was predeceased by her five siblings.

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated in Mont Marie Chapel October 4, with burial at Mont Marie Cemetery.

Memorial Contributions may be made to the Sisters of St. Joseph, Mont Marie, 34 Lower Westfield Road, Holyoke, Mass., 01040-2739.

Arrangements were entrusted to the Sampson Family Chapels.

Around the Diocese St. Vincent de Paul Parish, 71 Linden Street in Attleboro, will honor Our Lady of Fatima tomorrow, the eve of the day of her last apparition (October 13) beginning with a special Mass at 6:30 p.m., celebrated by Father Manuel Ferreira. After the Mass there will be a candlelight procession around the neighborhood as the Rosary is prayed.

Benediction will follow.

On Columbus Day, October 14, the diocese will have its annual Peace Procession and Mass, beginning with a candlelight procession at 6 p.m. from St. Mary’s Cathedral to St. Anne’s Church, followed by a five-language Rosary and Mass celebrated by Bishop George W. Coleman. All are invited to participate.

All are invited to join in prayer for “Building a New Culture of Life” on October 17 beginning at 1 p.m. in St. Jude’s Chapel of Christ the King Parish in Mashpee. Prayers will consist of four mysteries of the Rosary with brief meditations on each.

On October 18, at 5 p.m. at St. Anne’s Shrine, Fall River, Dom Alcuin Reid, a Benedictine monk, deacon and renowned Liturgical scholar will give a brief talk on how to improve your spiritual diet by mining the treasures of the Church’s sacred Liturgy. Vespers for the Feast of St. Luke will immediately follow.

Cancer Treatment and Care Updates, a comprehensive seminar in diagnosis and treatment of cancer, will be held at White’s of Westport on October 19 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. This program is co-sponsored by the Fall River Diocesan Council of Catholic Nurses and the Department of Professional Practice, Research and Development at Saint Anne’s Hospital. For more information or to register, call 508 678-2373.

St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street in Buzzards Bay, is celebrating St. Faustina’s Feast Day (October 5) and the 75th anniversary of her death on October 20 beginning with Divine Mercy Devotion at 3 p.m., followed by dinner at 4 p.m. and a benefit concert with three-time Grammy nominee Marty Rotella at 5:30 p.m. All proceeds benefit the parish St. Vincent de Paul Society. Call 508-295-8952 for tickets and more information.

A traditional Latin solemn high Mass (1962 Missal) will be celebrated at St. Anne’s Church in Fall River on October 20 at 6:30 p.m. The ordinary of the Mass will be the “Missa de Angelis” (Mass VIII); the propers are for the 22nd Sunday After Pentecost. Latin-English booklets will be provided. For more information, visit www.StAnneShrine.com.

A Healing Mass will be celebrated on October 24 at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1359 Acushnet Avenue in New Bedford, beginning at 6:30 p.m. It will include Benediction and healing prayers. At 5:15 p.m. there will be a holy hour including the Rosary. For more information call 508-993-1691 or visit www.saintanthonynewbedford.com.

A series of sessions on the topic of “Apologetics: Defending the Faith and Debunking Myths about the Church” will be presented on Thursdays now through December 12 in the parish center of Holy Name Church, 850 Pearce Street in Fall River. Sessions are from 6:30 to 8:15 p.m. Classes are intended for “beginners” and “seasoned pros” in the Catholic faith and all are welcome. For more information or to register call 508-678-7532 or email faithformation@holynamefr.com.

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October 11, 2013

Msgr. John J. Oliveira, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford, blessed a variety of pets last weekend in commemoration of the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the saint who expressed a special love for all of God’s creatures. Despite a light rainfall, the annual blessing drew a sizeable group of parishioners with dogs and cats in tow.

(Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

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

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