Anchor 08.13.10

Diocese of Fall River

The Anchor

F riday , August 13, 2010

Sisters of Charity of Quebec to leave after 119 years of service

By Deacon James N. Dunbar

NEW BEDFORD — When Sisters Gilberte Masson and Monique Lesage of the Sisters of Charity of Quebec return to the motherhouse in Canada in September, they will leave behind a rich heritage of dedicated service to orphans and the aged and infirm that began in 1891 when their congregation arrived in the Fall River Diocese.

The first of the “Grey Nuns,” arrived in what is now the Diocese of Fall River in 1891, staffing St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Fall River.

“We are the last of many Sisters of Charity of Quebec who before us worked at the Sacred Heart Home on Summer Street in the 93 years

since the first contingent came to the home in 1917,” said Sister Masson. For Sister Monique and me, there is a lot of emotion. We will miss those we served and worked with.”

Sister Monique is 74, “and I will be 81 next week,” reported Sister Masson.

“I was at Mount St. Joseph School in Fall River when it closed in 1986, and I was assigned to the Sacred Heart Home. There was a total of 24 of us Sisters serving at the home at the time, and we numbered more during some years, but the numbers have dwindled,” she added.

Turn to page 18

ACTING OUT — Participants in the recent five-week children’s summer camp run by the Missionary Sisters of Charity stage a play about the life of Blessed Mother Teresa, the foundress of the order and candidate for sainthood, at their convent house and shelter in New Bedford. The summer camp has been held every summer since the Sisters began working in the diocese in 1992 and this year drew 46 participants. (Photo by Edwin Aldorando)

Missionary Sisters of Charity prepare to celebrate Blessed Mother Teresa’s 100th birthday

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff “Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.” — Blessed Mother Teresa NEW BEDFORD — Superior Sister Maria Aloka and Sister Maria Chandra began thumbing through the pages of the new special commemorative edition of Time magazine celebrating the 100th birthday of their foundress,

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and immediately recognized some familiar faces and places in the photos.

Unlike most people whose eyes would be drawn to the famous flanking the diminutive nun in the blue-and-white habit — people like Princess Diana, President Ronald Reagan, or even Pope John Paul II — the Sisters were drawn to the very same

people Mother Teresa sought to help.

It soon became clear these women were not only inspired to their vocation by their famous Mother Superior, but they had literally walked in her footsteps by serving many of the same “poorest of the poor” in locations all over the world.

Like their foundress, there’s Turn to page 15

Pair of New Bedford parishes join forces to enlighten youth, adults in the faith

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

ADIEU — Sister Gilberte Masson and Sister Monique Lesage pose in front of a statue of St. Marie Marguerite D’Youville, the foundress of the Sisters of Charity and first Canadian elevated to sainthood, inside the Sacred Heart Nursing Home in New Bedford. The Sisters will be leaving the diocesan extended care facility and returning to their motherhouse in Canada after many years of dedicated service. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

NEW BEDFORD — In what could very well become an increasing trend in dioceses across the country, two New Bedford parishes are teaming-up to provide the best possible Religious Education for their young and adult members.

St. Joseph-St. Therese and St. Mary’s parishes will join forces this fall with the creation of a Faith Formation program serving more than 350 young faithful from the two parishes.

“With the closing of both parish schools and the beginning of a new model of education at All Saints Catholic School, Father Philip N. Hamel, pastor of St. Joseph-St. Therese Parish, felt it was time to begin a new effort at Faith Formation for the young people of the area who do not attend Catholic school,” said St. Mary’s pastor, Msgr.

John J. Oliveira.

“The mission of our Faith Formation efforts at both parishes is three-fold,” he told The

Anchor. “One, the Catholic education of our students in parochial schools; two, the youngsters who don’t attend a Catholic school; and three, our adult Faith Formation process.

“The joint-effort Faith Formation program will be for youth and adults.”

Msgr. Oliveira said that with dwindling numbers of students in the parish Religious Education classes, it made sense to join efforts with St. Joseph-St. Turn to page 18

“We must use every technological means at our disposal to even the playing field. We must blog the truth, podcast it, ‘friend’ it on Facebook and ‘retweet’ it.

We must inhabit the digital con-

tinent and become as familiar with its terrain as the first Jesuit missionaries who mapped the new world,” Thomas Peters told fellow Catholic bloggers at the Turn to page 12

Local conference helps Catholics evangelize online

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent

BRAINTREE — In the digital age, following in the footsteps of Jesus’ disciples means evangelizing a new, virtual continent.

News From the Vatican

2

August 13, 2010

Vatican condemns use of embryonic stem cells in tests on human patients VATICAN CITY — The Vatican condemned the recent decision

by U.S. regulators to begin using embryonic stem cells in clinical tests on human patients.

The destruction of human embryos involved in such research amounts to “the sacrifice of human beings” and is to be condemned, said the president emeritus of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Bishop Elio Sgreccia.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave final approval for a clinical trial of embryonic stem cells as a treatment for patients with spinal-cord injuries, making the United States the first country to allow the testing of such cells on human beings.

Geron Corp., the U.S. company which won the FDA approval, plans to perform tests on a small group of patients paralyzed by a spinal cord injury.

The company had won FDA approval early last year, but after mice treated with the cells developed spinal cysts, the government put the clinical trials on hold amid concerns

over the safety of the procedure.

The new government-approved trials aim to test the therapy’s safety on humans as well as its effectiveness.

In a July 31 interview with Vatican Radio, Bishop Sgreccia said science itself recognizes the human embryo “is a human being in the making.”

Destroying embryos “receives a completely negative judgment” from an ethical point of view, no matter what justifications are given for their use, he said.

The Italian bishop said embryonic stem cells have not been proven to be effective in therapies. He said embryonic stem cells are “totipotent,” that is, they tend to reproduce a whole organism or individual, but not specialized cells.

However, even if there were positive results from the use of such cells, “morally it would still be a crime,” he said.

The Church supports research and therapies that utilize adult stem cells and stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood.

teen fans — Young people cheer as they hold a banner prior to Pope Benedict XVI’s general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican recently. Some 53,000 altar servers, most from the pope’s native Germany, attended the audience. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Altar servers bring Jesus closer to the people, pope says at audience

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VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI thanked tens of thousands of young altar servers for their important service to the Church and urged them to “jealously safeguard” their friendship with Jesus.

“Tell your peers about the gift of this friendship with joy, with enthusiasm and without fear,” he said.

The pope was flown to the Vatican by helicopter to give his first general audience since beginning his summer vacation July 7 at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome.

More than 80,000 pilgrims cheered and waved at the sky as an Italian military helicopter carrying the pope circled over St. Peter’s Square.

The pilgrims in the square and along the top of the colonnade included more than 53,000 female and male altar servers, mostly from the pope’s native Germany, but also from 16 other European countries.

The altar servers were taking part in a two-day pilgrimage to Rome organized by the European-based association “Coetus Internationalis Ministrantium,” which was celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Upon his arrival in the square, the pope was presented with a white pilgrim bandana, which he wore draped over his shoulders; he said the gift reminded him of his own years as a young altar server.

He told the altar servers, aged

14-25, that they were very fortunate to be able to take part in the mystery of the Eucharist.

The Eucharist “is a precious good, a priceless treasure and the Bread of Life” with which Jesus nourishes and sustains his flock, giving people the love and strength they need in their daily lives.

By assisting priests at the altar, the servers help bring Jesus closer to the people and make him ever more present in the world, the pope said in German.

Dedicating their time and hearts to God will bring altar servers “true joy and more complete happiness,” he said.

As part of the international pilgrimage, a four-and-a-half ton, 16-foot-tall bronze statue of St. Tarcisius, the patron saint of altar servers, was temporarily placed in St. Peter’s Square.

The statue made a two-year pilgrimage of its own, traveling from Switzerland to Hun-

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gary and finally to Rome. It was moved August 5 to its final destination outside the Catacombs of St. Callistus, where the young third-century saint is believed to have been buried.

According to tradition, the young man, who was perhaps an acolyte or a deacon, was killed by a mob while defending the Eucharist he was carrying to prisoners and the homebound.

Pope Benedict said the young martyr exemplifies “the deep love and great veneration that we should have toward the Eucharist.”

While martyrdom will probably not be asked of most young people in Europe today, he said, Jesus is calling everyone to be faithful “to the little things, to everyday duties and to witnessing his love by going to church” and spending time with people who help deepen your faith.

OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER Vol. 54, No. 30

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August 13, 2010

The International Church

3

Traditionalist Anglicans split over response to invention of women bishops

By Simon Caldwell Catholic News Service LONDON — A group of traditionalist Anglican bishops has admitted that Anglo-Catholic clergy are sharply divided over how to respond to the ordination of women as bishops.

Fifteen bishops belonging to Forward in Faith, the largest Anglo-Catholic group in the Church of England, admitted that the Anglo-Catholic faction of the church could not decide collectively what course of action to take.

They said members faced a range of options in response to the mid-July vote by the General Synod, the church’s national assembly, to create women bishops by 2014 without meeting demands of objectors.

Describing themselves as bishops “united in our belief that the Church of England is mistaken in its actions” they wrote to more than 1,300 Anglo-Catholic priests and deacons who, in June 2008, registered their opposition to women bishops in an open letter to Anglican leaders.

The bishops’ letter, posted July 31 on the website of Forward in Faith, which has 10,000 members, said it was inevitable that many traditionalists, including some bishops, would take up Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of a personal ordinariate within the Catholic Church. That offer was

contained in the pope’s November apostolic constitution “Anglicanorum coetibus.”

Under this arrangement Anglicans can be received into the Catholic Church as a group while retaining their distinctive patrimony and liturgical practices, including married priests.

An application for an English ordinariate, which would resemble a military diocese in structure, has yet to be made by a mainstream Anglican group in the U.K. But the bishops said some Anglicans were already resolved “to join the ordinariate as the place where they can find a home in which to live and proclaim their Christian faith, in communion with the Holy Father, yet retaining something of the blessings they have known and experienced in the Anglican tradition.”

They said: “Of course the ordinariate is a new thing, and not all of us are trailblazers or can imagine what it might be like. Some will undoubtedly want to wait and see how that initiative develops before making a decision.

“Yet others will make their individual submission and find their future as Roman Catholics,” they said.

Some Anglo-Catholics, the bishops added, would remain in the Church of England “perhaps even reluctantly because of per-

Prisoner releases, ongoing talks with Castro give Cardinal Ortega hope WASHINGTON (CNS) — The release of the first 20 of 52 political prisoners the Cuban government has promised to set free is a hopeful sign for the country, said Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino.

While the government’s release of prisoners certainly is popular in Cuba, where dissatisfaction with the economy and other issues has been growing, Cardinal Ortega told Catholic News Service that the main benefit to the Castro government has been improved foreign relations. Cuba’s treatment of political opponents has long been a key element in the nearly 50-year U.S. economic embargo of the nation.

Cardinal Ortega was in Washington to accept the “Gaudium et Spes” Award from the Knights of Columbus. It is the fraternal organization’s highest honor.

The cardinal said Cubans have been especially grateful to the Catholic Church for its role in the prisoner releases. He said that as he went out to buy something for his trip to the U.S., “many, many people stopped me on the street, saying ‘thank you, Cardinal.’”

He said before he and the president of the Cuban bishops’ conference, Archbishop Dionisio Garcia

Ibanez of Santiago met with President Raul Castro in May, tensions in Havana were threatening to become as volatile as they were around the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Then, at a time of economic downturn, the government opened the port of Mariel to all who wanted to leave Cuba, and boats from the United States quickly arrived to help them.

About 125,000 Cubans ultimately resettled in the United States as a result of the Mariel releases.

After a follow-up meeting with Castro in July, the cardinal announced that Castro had promised to release a group of prisoners who had been held since a 2003 crackdown on political opposition.

Beyond their economic struggles, the cardinal said a high priority for most Cubans is that they have better means of communicating within the country and beyond. While people are allowed to use the Internet, for example, it’s quite costly and runs poorly because of inadequate infrastructure, he said.

“To communicate easily with their relatives and to be able to go to the U.S. for visits and then return to Cuba,” that’s what people want, the cardinal said.

sonal circumstances, family loyalties, even financial necessity, but with a deep sense of unease about the long-term future, an unease that is surely well-founded.”

They said such worshippers “cannot currently imagine themselves being anywhere else but within the Church of England.”

The clergy’s 2008 open letter to Anglican Archbishops Rowan Williams of Canterbury and John Sentamu of York asked the church to make “generous and coherent provision for us” if the synod pressed ahead with plans to ordain women as bishops.

The signatories had sought episcopal visitors, or “flying bishops,” to minister to their members, the synod rejected this in favor of women bishops agreeing to make alternative arrangements for traditionalists through a code of practice.

In their letter, the traditionalist bishops said that “those of us unable in good conscience to accept that any particular church has the authority to admit women to the episcopate” were now facing “grave times.”

They said that the legislation, if ratified in its current form in

2012, would not allow the AngloCatholic tradition to “grow and flourish.”

The bishops also warned clergy against infighting.

“It would be a sad and destructive thing indeed if we allowed our unhappiness and wondering to drift into unguarded or uncharitable criticism of those who, in good conscience, take a different path from our own,” they said.

“We must assume the best motives in one another, and where there are partings let them be with tears and the best wishes of godspeed,” the bishops said.

The Church in the U.S.

4

August 13, 2010

Catholic leaders decry California judge’s ruling on same-sex marriage WASHINGTON (CNS) — Saying that marriage between a man and a woman “is the bedrock of any society,” Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, denounced the decision of a federal judge to overturn a California voterbacked initiative that essentially banned same-sex marriage.

“The misuse of law to change the nature of marriage undermines the common good,” he said. “It is tragic that a federal judge would overturn the clear and expressed will of the people in their support for the institution of marriage. No court of civil law has the authority to reach into areas of human experience that nature itself has defined.”

The 2008 voter initiative, known as Proposition 8, was approved by voters by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent. In overriding a May 2008 California Supreme Court ruling that enlarged the definition of state-sanctioned marriage to include all couples, the initiative defined state-sanctioned marriage as limited to a man and a woman.

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Ky, chairman of the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage, echoed Cardinal George’s sentiment.

“Citizens of this nation have uniformly voted to uphold the understanding of marriage as a union of one man and one woman in every jurisdiction where the issue has been on the ballot,” Archbishop Kurtz said in a statement released by the USCCB. “This understanding is neither irrational nor unlawful.

“Marriage is more fundamental and essential to the well-being of society than perhaps any other institution. It is simply unimaginable that the court could now claim a conflict between marriage and the Constitution,” he said.

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ence also weighed in on the case, calling U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision a disappointment.

“That the judge should find marriage — civilization’s long-standing public policy — irrational and discriminatory does a great injustice to the institution itself and ultimately will further encourage the disintegration of mother-father families,” said Edward E. Dolejsi, the conference’s executive director. “Homosexuals certainly have every right to the love, companionship and support of another person, but the courts do not have a right to distort the meaning of marriage.”

Proponents of the initiative said they planned to appeal the decision

by Walker, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

In his decision, Walker said, “Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.”

Walker granted a motion from Proposition 8 supporters to stay the decision pending a further hearing.

His decision followed a two-week trial in January.

The chief attorney for the leading organization that supported the initiative said Walker’s action “short circuits the democratic process.”

“But this is not the end of our fight to uphold the will of the people for traditional marriage, as we now begin an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,” attorney Andy Pugno of ProtectMarriage. com said in a statement.

“It is disturbing that the trial court, in order to strike down Proposition 8, has literally accused the majority of California voters of having ill and discriminatory intent when casting their votes for Prop 8,” he said. “But the reality is that Prop 8 was simply about restoring and strengthening the traditional definition of marriage as the unique relationship of a man and a woman, for the benefit of children, families and society.”

celebrating a special knight — Cardinals and bishops flank Supreme Knight Carl Anderson, standing behind the podium, during the States Dinner at the Knights of Columbus 128th Supreme Convention in Washington. The Knights presented its highest honor, the Gaudium et Spes Award, to Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino, left of Anderson. (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec)

Archbishop Wuerl urges Knights to be ‘champions of new evangelization’

By Richard Szczepanowski Catholic News Service WASHINGTON — Knights of Columbus are called to evangelize, to be charitable and to serve as instruments of God’s love, Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl said August 3 at a Mass opening the Catholic fraternal organization’s 128th annual supreme convention.

“We are to be heralds of the Gospel of life — from conception to natural death; witnesses to the splendor of truth — that there is an objective right and wrong; ministers of the sacrament of charity,” Archbishop Wuerl said in his homily.

More than 4,000 Knights of Columbus and members of their families packed the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for the Mass.

“In quiet contradiction to all of the other lifestyles, options and

opinions, we are to be champions of the new evangelization,” Archbishop Wuerl said. “(We are) empowered to be, through our words and deeds, through our proclamation and acts of charity, a sign — a living sign, visible sign and effective sign — of the risen Christ present in our world.”

He reminded the Knights that “God’s love made manifest in Christ is supposed to be reflected, shared in our care for one another.

We are our brother’s keeper.”

“The very origins of our order are rooted in the recognition that we are called to exercise a ministry of service and charity,” Archbishop Wuerl said.

The Knights were meeting August 3-5 in Washington. The Mass — concelebrated by eight cardinals, more than 70 bishops and more than 120 priests — was the official start of the annual gathering.

The U.S. cardinals at the Mass included Cardinals William W. Baum and Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishops of Washington; Edmund C. Szoka, a retired Vatican official and former archbishop of Detroit; Francis E. George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Justin Rigali of Philadelphia; and Sean P. O’Malley of Boston. Also at the Mass were Cardinals Jaime Ortega Alamino of Havana and Gaudencio Rosales of Manila, Philippines.

Knights came from throughout the country and as far away as Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic and Poland.

Archbishop Wuerl told the Knights and their family members to be “children of the God who is love and who calls us to manifest our love for him and our love for

others.”

Referring to Pope Benedict XVI’s recent creation of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, Archbishop Wuerl asked the Knights to manifest Christ’s love to the “highly secular culture in which we live, with its focus almost entirely limited on material things and overly and overtly individualistic.”

“All around us are those who need to hear all over again — maybe for the first time with true appreciation — that Jesus is Lord, that the risen Lord is with us today, and that his Gospel is the path of both truth and life everlasting,” he said.

Christopher Kernan, the general program director for the Florida state council of the Knights of Columbus, said Archbishop Wuerl’s call for the Knights to evangelize is something that he can relate to personally.

“I was out of the Church for 35 years. When I came back, I found in the Knights a group of men who had shared a common religion,” Kernan told the Catholic Standard, newspaper of the Washington Archdiocese. “If you become an active member of the Knights of Columbus, you can’t help but become more active in the Church.

And when you have a deeper faith, you naturally reach out to others.”

John Winfrey, the provincial marshal for Maryland’s Calvert province, said it was appropriate to open the convention with Mass at the national shrine.

“We gather in Mary’s home to show our dedication to the Church and to Mary, the queen of the Knights,” he said. “Pope John Paul II called us ‘the strong right arm of the Church,’ and that is a title we hold dear.”

August 13, 2010

5

The Church in the U.S.

Theology of the body combats secularist threats, Cardinal Rigali says BLUE BELL, Pa. (CNS) — The theology of the body outlined 30 years ago by Pope John Paul II helps the world combat threats to the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of marriage, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia said at a national conference.

The cardinal celebrated Mass July 30 for about 450 people at the National Theology of the Body Congress, held July 28-30 at Normandy Farm in Blue Bell. Participants came from 11 countries and 111 U.S. dioceses, while others who did not travel to Pennsylvania could see the keynote addresses livestreamed on the Internet.

In his homily, Cardinal Rigali said the theology of the body represents “God’s plan for humanity,” in which “authentic love, always and everywhere, takes the form of a gift of self, modeled on Christ’s gift of himself to his Father.”

He said society today has reinterpreted human sexuality as “the absolute right to satisfy every craving.”

“Embracing consumerism, materialism, individualism, entitlement autonomy, relativism and hedonism, the one thing that the abiding secularistic culture appears unable to tolerate is religion,” Cardinal Rigali said.

“The secularistic culture ... has paved the way for numerous errors and distortions resulting in promiscuity, cohabitation, divorce, contraception, direct sterilization, adultery, abortion, domestic violence, sexual abuse and the attempt to deconstruct marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” he added.

He urged participants to continue the congress with “a campaign of human and cat-

echetical formation,” in order that “the next generation can continue to access and comprehend it.”

The congress was sponsored by the Theology of the Body Institute, based in Exton.

In addition to Cardinal Rigali, keynote speakers included Father Brian Bransfield, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis; Dr. Janet Smith, one of the nation’s leading experts on Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae; Helen Alvaré, associate professor of law at George Mason University and an adviser to the Pontifical Council for the Laity; Dr. Michael Waldstein, the translator of the 129 catechetical lectures that comprise the Theology of the Body; and Father Roger Landry, executive editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.

Maria Stumpf, director of operations and programming for the institute, said she hoped the congress would serve as an impetus for evangelization at the parish level across the region, nation and abroad.

“This was an action-packed program,” she told The Catholic Standard & Times, newspaper of the Philadelphia Archdiocese. “We are hoping people leave invigorated, renewed and passionate for this. We hope they become vehicles in the service of the Holy Spirit to do the work of spreading this message.

“Now that they have gained new knowledge, it is hoped that they will talk about it with a renewed Spirit-filled and heart-filled desire to come together with others to share,” Stumpf added. “After all, this conference is about sharing this important gift with others.”

remembered in D.C. — A statue of Cardinal James Gibbons is situated in a small public plaza in Washington. The son of Irish immigrants, Cardinal Gibbons served as archbishop of Baltimore from 1877 until his death in 1921. He wrote the popular treatise “The Faith of Our Fathers,” a defense of the Catholic faith. (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec)

help is on the way — A woman carries a 10-year-old girl in Leogane, Haiti.

The girl lost both her legs when the orphanage she was living in collapsed in the January 12 earthquake. The Knights of Columbus announced they will provide prosthetic limbs and therapy over the next two years for approximately 800 children. (CNS file photo/Paul Jeffrey)

Knights to supply prosthetics to Haitian children injured in earthquake WASHINGTON (CNS) — The estimated 800 Haitian children who lost an arm or a leg because of the country’s violent earthquake January 12 will get prosthetic limbs and therapy courtesy of the Knights of Columbus.

The effort, called Hope for Haiti’s Children, was first announced by Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson as he gave his annual report during the organization’s convention in Washington.

Estimated to cost at least $1 million, the Knights are partnering with the University of Miami’s Project Medishare for Haiti to make the prosthetic devices available.

Each child will receive three prosthetics and all necessary therapy during the two-year

period.

Earlier this year, the Knights teamed up with the California-based American Wheelchair Mission to deliver more than 1,000 wheelchairs to Haiti for people who suffered crushing injuries in the quake. The wheelchairs were donated to patients at a field hospital at the Port-au-Prince airport operated by the University of Miami.

The Knights also plan to deliver another 1,000 wheelchairs over the next several months.

“Each and every one of these children will receive a new start in life thanks to the Knights of Columbus,” Anderson told the convention delegates.

6

The Anchor

Judge Walker’s new marital and Constitutional order If pictures are said to be worth a thousand words, political cartoons are often far more visually voluble. In the immediate aftermath of Federal District Judge Vaughan R. Walker’s outrageous August 4 decision in San Francisco declaring unconstitutional California’s 2008 Proposition 8 — which formally enshrined marriage as the union of one man and one woman — two cartoons summed it up. The first one featured the calligraphic initial words of the Constitution, “We the People …” crossed out and replaced by the cursive words, “I, Judge Walker ….” The second presented the author of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, seated at a table in Philadelphia as he was drafting our nation’s foundational document. One of the founding fathers surrounding him is pointing at the parchment underneath Madison’s feathered pen and declaring, “Let’s put gay marriage here, between abortion and socialized medicine.” Both cartoons make the same essential point: that modern judges, like Judge Walker, are inventing “constitutional rights” that not only are absent from the text of the Constitution and its amendments but would be totally opposed to what the founding fathers and amenders intended and enshrined.

Judge Walker’s concoction of a right to same-sex marriage did not come as a surprise to those who had been following the court case closely, because it was well-known he had an enormous conflict of interest and had demonstrated throughout a strong bias toward those trying to overturn Prop 8. The San Francisco Chronicle had noted in February that it was an “open secret” that Walker was gay and a recent Los Angeles Times article quoted his legal colleagues who said that the judge normally attends bar functions with a male physician as his amorous companion. The apparent fact that Walker is gay does not preclude that he could have been an impartial judge over this case, but the fact that he apparently has a regular male partner and may be in a long-term relationship raises the legitimate question of whether he might himself have any personal interest in entering into a same-sex marriage in California or in ending what he might believe is a bias in favor of heterosexual love and unions; if such a case, federal law requires that a judge should recuse himself lest “his impartiality might be reasonably questioned” because he has an interest “that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding” (28 USC § 455).

His inequitable and brazen pretrial and trial conduct gave substance to these concerns and harbingered his eventual outlandish judicial opinion. As Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has detailed, Judge Walker’s skewed umpiring began when he surprised even the lawyers trying to overturn Prop 8 by saying that he did not want to hear only the legal issues involved in the case, but the putative “factual issues” about attitudes relative to same-sex relationships, marriage, and the subjective motivations of the more than seven million California voters who supported Prop 8. In order to pull that off, he ordered the proponents of Prop 8 — and not their opponents — to turn over all their donor lists, emails, and other internal communications. The financial and personal harassment donors and supporters of Prop 8 had already suffered has been welldocumented; this court-mandated discovery was bound only to make that worse. Three Clinton appointees on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals summarily overturned this violation of the rights of political speech and free association, but Judge Walker wasn’t finished. Next, violating clear federal court guidelines, he made the decision to televise the trial, despite the legitimate arguments that it would lead to further abuse and harassment witnesses in favor of Prop 8. That decision was stayed by the Supreme Court, which sternly reprimanded Walker for his lack of impartiality.

Summing up Judge Walker’s conduct, Whelan concluded, “Walker’s entire course of conduct in the anti-Prop 8 case has reflected a manifest design to turn the lawsuit into a high-profile, culturetransforming, history-making, Scopes-style show trial of Prop 8’s sponsors. Walker’s actions, taken together, have only one sensible explanation: that Walker has been hell-bent from the outset to use the case to advance the cause of same-sex marriage.”

In the August 4, 138-page opinion that concluded the trial, Judge Walker not only overturned the will of the people of California with regard to marriage, but declared that all such opposition to the marriage of those of the same sex lacks any rational basis at all. For years, those with same-sex attractions have labeled any opposition to the gay lifestyle as “homophobia,” which means literally an “irrational fear” (phobia) of the persons or behavior of those with same-sex inclinations; no rational basis for opposition to same-sex behavior will even be considered. Judge Walker’s decision is an attempt to put that prejudiced idea into legalese.

His bias was on full display in a section called “credibility determinations” in which he weighed the believability of those giving testimony on either side. He found those who testified in favor of same-sex marriage “experts” who were “amply qualified to offer opinion testimony on the subjects identified.” Those opposed, he said, had opinions that were “unreliable and entitled essentially to no weight.”

When he got to the “findings of fact,” he routinely stipulated and interpreted things in the most favorable light for those advancing same-sex marriage and called them “facts.” Here are examples of many of his facts and findings, which you are urged to read slowly and consider individually: “homosexual conduct and attraction are constitutionally protected”; “no meaningful differences exist between same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples”; “gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage”; the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage is an “artifact of a time” that “has passed”; same-sex unions “encompass the historical purpose and form of marriage”; marriage has nothing essentially to do with opposite-sex relationships or the procreation or education of children from that union, but is only “the state recognition and approval of a couple’s choice to live with each other, to remain committed to one another and to form a household based on their own feelings about one another and to join in an economic partnership and support one another and any dependents”; “allowing same-sex couples to marry has at least a neutral, if not a positive, effect on the institution of marriage” and “will not affect the number of opposite-sex couples who marry, divorce, cohabit, have children outside of marriage or otherwise affect the stability of opposite-sex marriages”; “the gender of a child’s parent is not a fact in a child’s adjustment,” “children do not need to be raised by a male parent and a female parent to be well-adjusted,” and “the genetic relationship between a parent and a child is not related to a child’s adjustment outcomes”; “that the majority of California voters supported Proposition 8 is irrelevant”; and “religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians.”

This last “fact” has been viewed by some legal experts as an attempt to establish grounds eventually for declaring that Christian teaching about same-sex activity — and, with it, any opposition to same-sex activity — is in fact maleficent and needs to be constitutionally curbed. As “evidence” for presenting this “fact,” Judge Walker gives these legal interpretations credibility. He quotes, presumably as an uncontested example of the harm, the Vatican’s 2003 document, “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons,” signed by the future Pope Benedict XVI, which reiterates the Church’s teaching that “homosexual acts go against the natural moral law” and that the homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered.”

He also quotes “expert” witness Gary Segura, who testified, “Religion is the chief obstacle for gay and lesbian political progress,” a progress that it would be unsurprising to find that Judge Walker and other eisegetical judges may consider inexorable and “constitutionally mandated.”

The dangers posed by Judge Walker’s decision, therefore, go beyond what constitutes marriage and family and what understanding of marriage and family needs to be promoted and protected for individual flourishing and the common good. They include perils to religious freedom as well as to the fundamental underpinnings of our constitutional republic, when the opinion of one conflicted judge fabricating constitutional violations takes on greater weight than the vote of seven million of his fellow citizens. It cannot be overturned on appeal fast enough.

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August 13, 2010

A deeper look

hen our Lord said to Simon sent by Bishop George W. Coleman to Peter, “put into the deep,” the Pontifical North American College, Peter’s immediate response was to resist the American seminary in Rome. I was and explain to Christ that he and the ordained by Bishop Coleman in July others had been fishing all night and that 2007 and then returned to Rome that fall they had caught nothing. Peter’s response to complete my studies. When I returned appears to indicate that he had totally exfrom Rome, I was assigned to serve as the hausted all efforts. Fishing was something chaplain of Bishop Stang High School in common to Peter, something that he had North Dartmouth as well as at St. Julie done everyday of his life, and perhaps so Billiart Parish. Just recently I was given a familiar with that he began to overlook new assignment as a parochial vicar at St. what was before his very eyes. Perhaps Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth. it had become so common that he wasn’t Over the course of the next several able to see the majesty of God that was months I will be presenting a deeper right in front of him. look into the pillars of holiness, these We all know what happens next. “everyday things” of our Catholic faith Because Peter is willing to listen to our that some of us have overlooked or from Lord, to place his trust in him and follow which some of us may have fallen away. the request to “put out into the deep,” he I will examine things such as the celcatches so many fish that he is in need of ebration of the Mass, the frequent and his fellow fishermen to help bring in the worthy reception of the sacraments, and nets that are at the point of breaking. the life and mission of the Church. My The point is that when we are willing goal is to reawaken our appreciation for to “put into the the beauty of deep,” to folour Catholic low our Lord faith by asking Putting Into in a radical questions that the Deep way, and to allow us to place our trust “put into the

By Father in him, he will deep” and work trementhus grow into Jay Mello dously in our more faithlives. ful and holy The problem is that we often resemble disciples.

Simon Peter. Often we have become so Growing in holiness and becoming familiar with the “everyday things” of our better disciples constitute the fundamenfaith, that they have become common, tal goal of the Church for each believer. It casual and in certain cases lacking in the is the goal that was given to us by Christ awe-inspiring experiences of the sacred himself — our Lord tells us that we are and majestic presence of God. “to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is In the past several years this column, perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Throughout the “Putting Into the Deep” has focused on centuries, the Church has understood this the lives and example of those men and “perfection” to holiness in the following women who have gone deeper into the way: All Christians in any state or walk of mysteries of our faith and have allowed life are called to be holy, called to the perthe Lord to work in their lives. These fection of charity (Lumen Gentium, 40). examples of everyday men and women But what does it mean “to be holy?” who have lived saintly lives serve as a Does it mean that we follow the Comtremendous reminder to us of two things: mandments? Does it mean that we live first, that God is continually calling us to out the beatitudes? Does it mean that we “put into the deep,” to plumb the depths pray a lot and have great trust in the Lord, of our Catholic faith and to become saints even in the midst of struggle? We could ourselves; and second, that like Simon certainly answer “yes” to all of these Peter, we can sometimes grow lukewarm questions and be correct, but there is still in our practice of the faith and often need more to the answer of what it means to be to have the sacred mysteries reawakened holy. For starters, it all depends on one’s in our lives. place within the Church Christ founded.

I am grateful to Father Roger Landry For example, the way in which a priest for giving me the opportunity to take over strives to be holy is lived out in a way this weekly series which he has authored very different from the way a married of for the past several years. I have known man or woman would seek out holiness.

Father Landry since I was in high school “Putting into the deep” is our attempt and he was assigned to my home parish to find God and to sanctify the ordinary (SS. Peter and Paul, Fall River) when he things of our daily lives. Whether we was a seminarian. I know that as execuare ordained or lay members of Christ’s tive editor of The Anchor he has extreme- Church, we need to grow in our spiritual ly high standards and I hope to be able to life, especially through prayer, self-denial meet them in this weekly endeavor. and our daily work. We can’t do this if we After making the decision to enter are unaware of or have forgotten the esseminary formation, I was sent by thensential elements of what it means to be a Bishop Sean O’Malley to study at the Roman Catholic. Regardless of what state Franciscan University in Steubenville, of life we may find ourselves — single, Ohio. I was privileged to take a number married or ordained, young or old, we are of classes with Dr. Scott Hahn and Dr. all called to be holy. We are all called to Regis Martin, whom you may know “put into the deep.” from their appearances on EWTN. Upon Father Mello is a parochial vicar at my graduation from Steubenville, I was St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth.

August 13, 2010

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Newman and development of doctrine: ‘Deep in history’

f there’s one teaching with which John Henry Newman is most associated, it’s what’s called the “development of doctrine.”

Many Catholics through the ages have assumed that all Church doctrines, like Mary’s Immaculate Conception, papal infallibility, and indulgences, were handed on from the Apostles in exactly the same form they had received them. This was the case for many at least prior to Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, “Dei Verbum,” which seems to have been influenced by Newman.

Well-read in early Church history, Newman wrote, “The Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this. And Protestantism has ever felt it so. I do not mean that every writer on the Protestant side has felt it; for it was the fashion … as a rhetorical argument against Rome, to appeal to past ages, or to some of them; but Protestantism, as a whole, feels it, and has felt it. This is shown in the determination … of dispensing with historical Christianity altogether, and of forming a Christianity from the Bible alone: men never would have put [history] aside, unless they had despaired of it…. To be

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The Anchor deep in history is to cease to be a … is also the original instrument Protestant.” of their conversion. … This Image Simultaneously, though, Newit is which both creates faith, and man knew enough about Christian then rewards it.” history to see that points of CathoThe “idea” is that Christ lic doctrine weren’t always explic- includes his Body the Church itly affirmed. This led the original in space and time (see Acts Protestant reformers to claim such 9:14); what Newman calls the doctrines were, at best, “novelChurch’s “acting self,” embodied ties” and, at worst, contradictions in her good “deeds,” “principles,” of Scripture. Newman once believed this as passionately as anyone.

The Enduring How did he resolve Importance of this dilemma?

Newman’s acquainCardinal Newman tance, the historian Dr. Peter J. Mango Lord Acton, supposedly asserted that it was Newman who taught the British to think “historically.” “liturgies, rites, ceremonies, and Newman highlighted the process customs … events, disputes, by which people come to believe movements, and all those other something, describing something phenomena which are comprised of this process for individuals, under the name of history,” as but also for how this happens for an institution or “body of men.” whole groups of people.

The first Christians “were a living It begins with an “idea.” Christ, body … thousands of zealous, he wrote, “is found among His energetic men, who preached, preachers, to have imprinted the disputed … and conversed from Image or Idea of himself in the year’s end to year’s end.” minds of His subjects individuThe fact that it’s in disputally; and that Image, apprehended ing that we come to know the and worshipped in individual truth was something the ancient minds, becomes a principle of as- Greeks, and medieval Church sociation, and a real bond of those doctors, knew. Still, Christians subjects with one another. … That hadn’t considered it to be a way Image, which is their moral life we come to know basic Christian

teachings. If Christians disputed, it often was assumed that this was to know more about a truth people already believed — or because something people had always believed was under attack. The idea that it was by disputing that we discover an explicit dogma of faith was somewhat new. As an example Newman again turned to the Arians, those who had denied that Christ is God. There are dead-giveaways that show that the first Christians believed Christ was God. “The Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1); when Thomas exclaims, “My Lord, and my God!” (John 20:28); or when Revelation applies the title “Alpha and the Omega” to God and Christ (1:8, 21:6, and 22:13).

Yet the Arians pointed out other lines which were less clear, such as when Christ said, “The Father is greater than I,” (John 14:28), and, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Luke 18:18). Early Christian writers, moreover, stressed the Son’s subordination to God the Father, not his equality with him. During and after Protestant Reformation those embracing Arianism included the scientist Miguel Servetus, physicist Sir

Isaac Newton, poet John Milton, and philosopher John Locke. All knew Scripture well. There was an Arian community in Transylvania (then part of Hungary).

Unitarians, Seventh Day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses find Arianism in Scripture.

Church authorities had to determine which Scripture passages qualify, “contextualize,” or explain other Scripture passages. Throw in that we’re translating from ancient languages, Newman said, and things get serious. Add that the books of the Bible were written by different authors over millennia, and it gets worse. Everything leads to the conclusion that “the mass of men” cannot “contemplate Scripture without imparting to it their own coloring which they themselves have received in the course of their education.”

“Dispute” alone couldn’t do the job. Something more was needed: the teaching authority of the Church.

Dr. Mango, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Cardinal Newman, teaches philosophy at the Thornwood Center for Higher Studies as well as at the Archdiocese of New York’s St. John Neumann Pre-Theology Program and Institute for Religious Studies. This is the ninth in a 10-part series.

When the kids grow up and find out about the test tubes

hen I do presentations on in-vitro fertilization, audience members sometimes ask whether test tube babies experience psychological problems as they grow up.

Although they clearly face elevated health risks for a number of diseases and physical disorders, the psychological effects on these children have not been thoroughly studied.

Nevertheless, children born from other, closely related technologies, like anonymous sperm donation, are starting to be tracked, and researchers are finding that these children face significant difficulties in dealing with their feelings and emotions as they grow older.

They oftentimes struggle with their own sense of dignity and identity, with their need for a father, and with a desire to understand their family connection.

A recent online article in Slate Magazine entitled, “The Sperm Donor Kids Are Not Really Alright” describes one such study and includes some thought-provoking personal testimony from a British writer named Christine Whipp.

Whipp, herself conceived by anonymous sperm donation, expresses the feelings that

some donor offspring have of comments following the Slate being, in the pointed words of Magazine article: the article, a “freak of nature” “The confusion I felt growor a “lab experiment.” She ing up was not your normal puts it this way: “My existence run of the mill confusion. I owed almost nothing to the didn’t even begin to underserendipitous nature of normal stand the inner turmoil I felt human reproduction, where until I found out about my babies are the natural progresbeginnings. My suggestion to sion of mutually fulfilling adult relationships, but rather represented a verbal contract, a financial transaction and a cold, clinical harnessing of medical technolBy Father Tad ogy.”

Pacholczyk A growing number of children born this way instinctively sense how that “cold, clinical harnessing you would be that before you of technology” can never quite start giving suggestions to measure up to the warmth and others about how to live in a commitment embodied in the mixed family, come to know life-giving marital embrace what it’s like to be a child who of a mother and a father. The knows something is wrong absent father who donates but you just don’t know why. sperm anonymously, the Know you’re different … but financial exchanges involved, you just don’t know why. Live and the depersonalized labora- with a question mark over your tory environment surrounding head every day of your life and their origins imply an element not be able to put words to that of being “used.” It can be question.” difficult for such children to Another young person in put into words what they are the same situation poignantly really feeling and experienccomments: ing, as a young man named “I am a product of sperm Craig emphasizes in his online donation and I can tell you

Making Sense Out of Bioethics

that I always hated growing up without a dad. I can’t tell my mom how I feel because I said something to her when I was little and she got very hurt and upset and tried to explain to me that a lot of kids grow up without dads and kinda went into all of this women can do this and women can do that and most women really don’t need a man and blah blah blah. So I now keep all of my feelings to myself. I can tell you that for as much as I love her, inwards I still hate her for doing this to me and thinking that she had a right to decide if I needed a dad or not.”

All children deserve to have a mother and a father as they grow up. We should never intentionally choose to set up situations where a child will be conceived in a manner that deprives him or her of a parent. Every child, moreover, is entitled to the full respect of being conceived and brought into the world only though the marital acts of committed parents, through the intimate, loving embrace of husband and wife, not in petri dishes and test tubes.

Because awareness of our own human roots is critical to our sense of personal identity, and because of our vulnerable “sense of self” as humans, we have a particular responsibility to avoid creating a subclass of those who have “different origins” from the rest of us.

It ought to come as no surprise that subtle psychological burdens may be placed upon children born from donor sperm as they subjectively struggle with broken or absent relationships, and experience a sense of being a “commodity” or an “object” because of how they were created. These dark and morally troubling aspects of modern reproductive technologies need to be more fully acknowledged and discussed in our society, as they unleash powerful forces that profoundly affect the future of the human beings who are thereby brought into the world.

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

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o many people are “assumed” into heaven these days that it’s instructive, on the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, to consider what makes Mary’s Assumption unique, definitive and promising for all of us.

Assumptions into heaven these days of those recently departed are, of course, actions only of the mind. We assume, because of the goodness (always a relative term for human beings) of those we love dearly, that they are when they die immediately with God. These assumptions often seem to suggest the elevation of body and soul to heaven. As a deacon and hospital chaplain, I often hear expressions like “He’s now playing shortstop on God’s team” or “She’s in a better place” or “He’s now with his mother and father.” The whole person is often assumed to be in heaven, not only his soul, which is an assumption of the boldest kind, one to which Scripture and tradition suggests only Elijah, Enoch and Mary have been entitled.

Humanly speaking, it’s understandable why we assume our deceased relatives and friends are in heaven: it’s a consoling thought, and we naturally seek comfort when our hearts are breaking at the loss of a loved one. Nonetheless, we must realize, even at a time like this,

August 13, 2010

The Anchor

Mary’s Assumption and our assumption ception kept her free from the that mere human beings cannot “corruption of the grave”; that assume other human beings into the tradition of the Church, in heaven, regardless of their desire its doctrinal authority and in the or need to do so and regardless faith of the Christian people, has of the perceived goodness of been consistent belief in Mary’s the dearly departed. Many of Assumption; that her Assumpthe poor souls in Purgatory may tion was in keeping with the have no one to pray for them “dignity of the Mother of the because they’ve been wrongfully “assumed into heaven.”

Man’s redemption did not come about by Homily of the Week an action of the human The Solemnity of mind; we are redeemed the Assumption by the hand of God, through the death and

By Deacon resurrection of his Son, David Pepin our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, only God assumes one into heaven, Word Incarnate”; and that Jesus not one’s own goodness or the willed, out of a son’s love for his wishful thinking of one’s relamother, that she should be where tives and friends. he is and as he is in heaven, Now, let’s consider why God a whole person with a body assumed Mary into heaven, and soul. Pope Pius articulates body and soul, and what that several other reasons for Mary’s means for us. Pope Pius XII, in Assumption, citing Scripture the Apostolic Constitution “Muand the Fathers of the Church nificentissimus Deus” (subtitled, and other Church doctrine.

“Defining the Dogma of the AsThe reason he gives that I sumption”), given to the faithful find most compelling is that on Nov. 1, 1950, proclaimed the Mary is the new Eve, something dogma that Mary “was assumed the Church has believed for body and soul into heavenly centuries. In my own words, I’ll glory.” In this beautifully written try to explain the significance document, he explains the reaof seeing Mary as the new Eve. sons for this proclamation.

As Eve presented Adam the fruit There’s only room to elaboof the Tree of the Knowledge of rate on one of his arguments Good and Evil, Mary presented here. However, some others are the Christ, the new Adam (as St. that Mary’s Immaculate Con-

Paul calls him), with herself, her own flesh and blood, immaculate, free from original sin and personal sin.

When Adam ate of the fruit Eve gave him, he separated himself from God. When God took Mary’s flesh and blood that she gave him (“Be it done to me according to Thy Word”), God became man, Jesus Christ; and through his death and resurrection, Jesus reconciled God with man.

Eve, because she shared perfectly the flesh and blood of Adam, having been born from his side, shared perfectly in his sin and its consequences of sickness, suffering, and death.

Mary, because she shared in the flesh and blood of Christ (his humanity) who had taken his human body and human soul from her, shares perfectly in Christ’s redemption of that humanity and in its redemption’s consequences — reunion with God, body and soul.

Like Eve, we her children have shared the miseries our separation from God has visited upon us. However, like Mary, we her children, by Jesus’ donation from the cross (“Behold your mother”) and by our baptism, become also “full of grace”— not to Mary’s degree but certainly to the great degree

that the Godhead — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — comes to live within us.

As Mary’s children, the new Eve’s children, our new mother’s children, we become, like Mary, the Ark of the Covenant, for we carry within us the promise and the reality of heaven, God’s very life within us. Nowhere is this more evident than at Mass after having received the Eucharist, which is the delectable fruit of our baptism, the fruit of the Tree of Life, the fruit of the cross of Christ. God is within and throughout us, his flesh and blood, soul and divinity intermingling with our humanity.

This fruit is the antidote to the poisonous fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is the fruit of Mary’s womb, and when we eat of it in the Eucharist, we become like Mary, having the Lord within us.

Through Mary, who carried the Christ to us in her womb so that we may also bear him within us, we have the realistic, fleshand-blood, eucharistic hope that Mary’s Assumption into heaven may one day be our own.

Deacon Pepin and his wife Joan have three children and four grandchildren. He is assigned to St. Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet and is a chaplain at Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Aug. 14, Ez 18: 1-10,13b,30-32; Ps 51:12-15,18-19; Mt 19:13-15. Sun. Aug. 15, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Rv 11:19a;12:1-6a,10ab; Ps 45:10-12,16; 1 Cor 15:20-27; Lk 1:39-56. Mon. Aug. 16, Ez 24:15-23; (Ps) Dt 32:18-21; Mt 19:16-22. Tues. Aug. 17, Ez 28:1-10; (Ps) Dt 32:26-28,30,35cd-36b; Mt 19:23-30. Wed. Aug. 18, Ez 34:1-11; Ps 23:1-6; Mt 20:1-16. Thur. Aug. 19, Ez 36:23-28; Ps 51:18-19; Mt 22:1-14. Fri. Aug. 20, Ez 37:1-14; Ps 107:2-9; Mt 22:34-40.

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y home is a 45-minute drive from Gettysburg National Military Park, a site I’ve visited many times, never without some emotion. The nature of that emotion crystallized for me a few years ago when I took some Australian friends on an audio tour of the battlefield with the help of Father Scott Newman, pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Greenville, S.C., who drove the other car in our small motorcade. (That Father Newman styled his vehicle the “CSS Greenville” will tell you something about his approach to what some folks in his part of the country still tend to call the War of Northern Aggression.)

In any event, when we stood at the center of Cemetery Ridge, a few yards from where “Lo” Armistead had fallen during Pickett’s Charge, Father Newman brought the whole meaning of Gettysburg into focus for our guests, and for me, when he remarked to the Australians, “This is where America was made.”

I think that’s right. If Get-

What Gettysburg means tysburg was the pivot of the tion may also have taken place Civil War, and if the Civil War at Gettysburg, at least in symchanged the country from “the bolic terms, on July 4, 1913: the United States are …” to “the last Independence Day before United States is …” (as Amerimy mother was born. That glorica’s Homer, Shelby Foote, often ous Fourth witnessed a “Great pointed out), then the United Reunion” of the living veterans States as we know it was forged on July 1-3, 1863, outside a small crossroads town in Pennsylvania. Yes, it took another century for the promise of “the United States is

By George Weigel …” to be vindicated by the moral revolution that produced the civil rights revolution. And yes, the promof Gettysburg, 54,000 of whom ise of equality remains to be helped each other walk across secured for today’s endangered Culp’s Hill, navigate Devil’s members of the American comDen, cross over the Roundmunity: the unborn, the radically tops — and re-enact Pickett’s handicapped, the “burdensome Charge, often on crutches and in elderly.” But that fact — that wheelchairs. As the veterans of democracy is an ongoing experi- Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia ment in a people’s capacity to slowly and painfully made their live freedom nobly — does not way up Cemetery Ridge to the change the fact that Gettysburg Bloody Angle and the “High was the pivot.

Water Mark” of the ConfedThe pivot between the Civil eracy, their former antagonists War and the civil rights revoluof the Army of the Potomac

The Catholic Difference

— “those people,” as Robert E. Lee called them—waited, as they had a half-century before.

This time, however, the men of the grey and the men of the blue embraced, commingling tears rather than blood.

A day later, two Civil War veterans, one from the South and one from the North, walked through the town of Gettysburg together, bought a hatchet together in a hardware store, re-ascended Cemetery Ridge together, and buried the hatchet together at the Bloody Angle: a story of which I was recently reminded by an article on the Great Reunion in Drexel University’s online magazine, The Smart Set. The same story had occurred to me more than once over the past 20 years, principally when European colleagues blamed this or that outburst of (often-vicious) ethnic violence in the Balkans, the Caucusus, or wherever on animosities dating from three, four,

or five centuries before. When I mentioned, in such conversations, that Americans had once fought history’s most sanguinary civil war but had forged out of that bloodletting a new sense of commonality, the Old World colleagues would often look at me with a certain pity, as if here was another example of American callowness.

The colleagues were wrong.

The reconciliation that took place between the Civil War and the civil rights revolution was not an indicator of historical insouciance, nor was the Great Reunion of 1913 a moment in a long collapse into cultural decadence. From the cauldron that was Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863, was born a drama of moral growth and national maturation that sets an example for the world — and for future generations of Americans.

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

August 13, 2010

Too much chlorine in the gene pool?

Saturday 7 August 2010 — emerges. You find reoccurring Three-Mile River, North Dighton family characteristics. The same — the Hatfield-McCoy family first names pop up repeatedly. feud erupts at Tug Fork River Professions and trades also reon the Kentucky/West Virginia peat from generation to generaborder (1882) tion. ne summer afternoon, years ago, I strolled downtown to the New Bedford Public Reflections of a Library. That was the day Parish Priest I discovered the family history room. I was never

By Father Tim the same again.

Goldrick I compare genealogy to a big jig-saw puzzle, except the pieces are your ancesThe best place for me to start tors. Sometimes you get an easy my family research was with me. match; sometimes you just can’t People leave paper trails. Follow figure out where a particular your own trail. You never know piece fits. You set it aside for what new information might another time. Family history is surface. Obviously, I already a puzzle you never finish. As knew my date and place of birth, you go along, though, a pattern but I found a hospital record

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The Anchor

The Ship’s Log

stating the exact time I entered this world. I was born an earlymorning person. I am still.

Next, interview your living relatives. Begin with the eldest.

They have the best stories. I found it useful to prepare questions in advance and then tape-record the answers. In every family, there are stories that nobody wants to tell. There are skeletons in the closet. The truth is veneered with legend.

For example, one of my Victorian ancestors, a young man gainfully employed as a contractor, picked up and moved, leaving behind his wife and minor children. Why? “Oh, greatgreat grandfather developed asthma and his doctor ordered him to move to Arizona.” Re-

Of minutemen, Mass, and me

the phone), but often indefinitely t 3:45 p.m. I bravely neglect things of more lasting steered the minivan out importance (enjoying a phoneof our driveway and headed free, family dinner). north to Lexington, in the greater The situation brought to mind Boston metro area. Yes, that a similarly absurd choice I had Lexington. The Lexington of made earlier that day. Back in Paul Revere’s ride, the birthlate spring I had scheduled my place of the American Revoluteen-agers’ mid-summer, orthtion where on April 19, 1775, someone fired what Ralph Waldo Emerson famously characterized as the “shot heard round the world.” A shot so powerful that it ignited our war for indepenBy Heidi Bratton dence and fanned the flames of worldwide, governmental change. odontic appointments for seven In short, I was headed to the in the morning, so that after the military epicenter of the modern appointments we could still get world. to the beach before my two-year I was not braving two hours old would need an afternoon of rush hour traffic to visit Minnap. Unfortunately, the appointute Man National Park, however, ments took nearly two hours nor to pay my respects to everyinstead of the usual 20 minutes. thing that Lexington represents.

By the time we drove away No, I was headed to a Lexington from orthodontist’s office, it was soccer field for my daughter’s nearly nine o’clock. game that evening. As I exited Now, the road from the the highway, I found myself orthodontic office to my house heading straight for the park. runs straight toward our church, Before reaching it, I turned left where daily Mass would be startand headed to the soccer field ing at nine o’clock. Through no instead. Waiting for the game to begin, I had to laugh at the absur- careful planning, I found myself headed straight toward the one dity of my situation. place that morning where I could I have lived in New England meet “Him who takes away the for more than 18 years, and have sins of the world.” In short, I was wanted to visit this historically headed to where the spiritual important place all along, but epicenter of all human history have never found the time to would be celebrated that morndo so. How absurd was it that I ing. would finally get to this hub of So what did I do? I pulled a history not by careful planning, U-turn and headed to the grocery but by docilely following my store instead. The forecast said child’s soccer schedule into rush that it was going to be in the hour traffic? It was an example 100s by noon, so I decided of how, as legitimately busy peothat we urgently needed some ple, we habitually jump to take Popsicles for the beach (We were care of urgent things (answering

Home Grown Faith

still going to the beach), and Gatorade for the soccer game in Lexington. Looking back, I have to laugh. I chose to purchase popsicles and Gatorade over partaking of the Eucharist? How absurd!

Now, I know it’s not realistic for me, nor for most busy parents, to get to Mass every day, but if I can routinely schedule things like orthodontic appointments at 7 a.m. and driving to soccer games during rush hour traffic, then why not recurrent daily Mass? Really, why not?

Minute Man National Park is still one among the many, equally awesome historical sites I want to visit, but here is where my parallel experiences of getting there and getting to daily Mass break down. Being in communion with God is not just one among many equal things to which I should aspire. Regular communion with God, whether it be at Mass or during a set time of prayer at home, should to be the spiritual epicenter of my entire earthly existence.

If I could get this straight, no turning left, right, or making a U-turn from it, is it possible that the shot of grace I would receive could reignite my spiritual life and perhaps even fan worldwide flames of spiritual renewal? I know. I know. It’s an absurd and grandiose thought. Right up there with a rag-tag group of Minutemen thinking they could defeat the entire British Empire.

Heidi is an author, photographer, and full-time mother. She and her husband raise their six children in Falmouth. homegrownfaith@gmail.com.

ally? Alone? Without his family?

Something doesn’t make sense.

Then there’s the case of my great, great granduncle Huey who “drowned in a canoe accident as a young man.” Actually, according to old records, he was committed to Taunton State Hospital for attempting unsuccessfully to murder his mother, my great grandmother — three times. (Every family has its ups and downs.)

I’m not at all interested in tracing my lineage back to the King of Sweden or the Emperor of Brazil. It’s snobbery. I once found myself at a high tea hosted by the president of Harvard University. The social and academic elite were trying to outdo each other by mentioning exotic places to which they had traveled and dropping the names of prominent individuals to whom they were related. “Bor-ring,” as the kids say. One pretentious matron mentioned to me that she was a direct descendant of John Harvard himself. I retorted that it was indeed fortuitous that the two of us should happen to meet, as my ancestor is the very man who went to London and hired John Harvard for the job. She took her cucumber and cream cheese sandwich and flitted over to another guest. By the way, I was not making that fact up.

Not only do I come from a long line of ministers, but also a long line of rogues. The rogues are far more interesting. I’ve already told you about dear aunty Lizzie Borden, but there are other accused murderers in my family tree.

Take for example my Quaker ancestor Thomas Cornell of Portsmouth, R.I. He was charged with setting his mother on fire.

The Widow Rebecca (Briggs) Cornell lived with her adult son Thomas and his family on the old homestead. Some say Thomas resented his long-lived

mother (aged 73) for inadvertently delaying his inheritance.

People back then had the good sense to die before the age of 40.

One evening, as Thomas, his wife Sarah, and their two children were eating their evening bowl of porridge, grandma was in another room. Somehow there was a fire. Somehow nothing in the house caught fire except grandma. Somehow nobody smelled smoke; nobody heard screams. The body of Rebecca was found in a smoldering heap by her young grandson Edward.

There was a visible wound. This was a colonial era “Who Done It?” Where are the forensic investigators when you need them?

There was no hard evidence against Thomas. He was nevertheless convicted of murder based on what was then acceptable in a court of law — “spectral evidence.” Spectral evidence was a legal procedure notoriously used in the Salem witch trials. Rebecca’s brother, John Briggs, testified that the ghost of Rebecca appeared in a dream and named her very own son as the murderer. Thomas was sentenced to hang for matricide. Thomas’s last request, they say, was to be buried in the family plot with his mother. Request denied. Thomas was buried in a ditch by the side of the road.

Thomas Cornell was my 10th great grandfather. Murders and ghosts and hangings — oh my.

When the TV series “Roots” came out, my brother Ev teased that our family history could not be so elegantly referred to. He suggested “Weeds.”

With genes like mine, dear readers, it’s amazing I turned out so well. Oh, wait.

Father Goldrick is pastor of St. Nicholas of Myra Parish in North Dighton.

10

The Anchor

August 13, 2010

For busy parish teen-ager, there’s always time for God

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

NEW BEDFORD — While many teen-agers today find themselves inundated with school and extra-curricular activities, Melissa Cieto still makes a point of putting time aside for God. “Giving an hour back out of my busy schedule to God every weekend is a no brainer,” Cieto said. “He’s already done so much for me in my life.”

That Cieto faithfully attends Mass at her home parish of St. Mary’s in New Bedford every Sunday may not be that exceptional. That she also participates in several parish activities while studying at Bishop Stang High School is certainly noteworthy.

Cieto is one of the senior altar servers at St. Mary’s Parish, a role that often makes her the de facto leader of the group.

“I’ve been an altar server for six years now, so I help train many of the younger ones coming in,” Cieto said.

“And I always try to get others to join me. I even ask some of my second-graders if they want to be altar servers.”

The “second-graders” Cieto referred to are members of her parish Faith Formation class. For the past three years now, she’s also been responsible for preparing students to receive first holy Communion in the parish — a responsibility she doesn’t take lightly.

of the parish council.

“I love the opportunity to vitalized.

“Msgr. Oliveira asked me “Right now we have very work with the children and to serve on the parish council low membership,” Cieto said. help them grow in their faith,” Cieto said. “I learn a lot from “But we’re hoping with the as the youth representative,” them, too. They are very new consolidated All Saints Cieto said. “We meet on a regular basis to make strong in their faith and decisions and discuss it’s very inspiring to see important financial isthem anxiously waitsues — things that have ing to attend class every an impact on the parSunday.” ish. As the youth repWith the recent conresentative, I’m there solidation of the pato voice my opinion on rochial schools at St. behalf of other young Mary’s and neighboring parishioners.”

St. Joseph-St. Therese “She’s an outstandParish, Cieto noted they ing Christian woman will also be combining who lives an exemplary their Faith Formation Christian life and exclasses this fall and she presses that in her many expects to have a much parish activities,” Msgr. larger second-grade Oliveira said. class.

As far back as she “We’re looking forcan remember, Cieto ward to getting new stusaid her faith and the dents in — it should be Church were always at a great year,” she said. the center of her life.

As she’s about to She can remember goenter her fourth year ing to Mass every Sunof teaching, Cieto said day with her parents the experience has also and grandmother and helped her realize her attending parochial future career path.

Anchor person of the week — Melissa school at St. Mary’s.

“I’m planning on go- Cieto.

Good grades and a ing to college to study natural ability to lead led elementary education,” she said. “I love working with Elementary School we can to Bishop Stang High School, children and with my experi- drum up some new members where she’s about to enter her senior year and recently was ence teaching Faith Formation and get them to join.”

She also serves as an ex- named editor-in-chief of the classes, I’ve come to realize it’s what I want to do for the traordinary minister of holy student newspaper, The Stang Communion and often assists Script. rest of my life.”

“It’s a big responsibility, Then there’s the parish with parish retreats.

Recently her pastor, Msgr. but a lot of fun,” she said of youth group — an organization Cieto has been active John J. Oliveira, invited her to the student newspaper which with and would like to see re- become the youngest member is published quarterly. “It turned out to be a really great experience. It was definitely a challenge this year, because our coordinator was out for a while, but we held it down and worked really well as a team.

I love journalism and I loved the experience of working as a feature reporter and photographer for the newspaper. For me, it was a really big honor to be given the title of editor-

in-chief.”

But even with added school and extra-curricular responsibilities, Cieto still finds time for her home parish — and for God. “I feel it’s really important to stay active in your community — especially your parish community,” Cieto said.

“It’s always been a top priority for me. There was never any question as to whether I would be going to church or not every weekend. I never really thought about it — it’s just something I felt I needed to do. I hope what I do for the Church has an influence on others and inspires them to get involved, too.”

When asked why so few other teen-agers seem to be active in their parishes, Cieto said they just need to volunteer.

“Definitely try to approach your parish priest and maybe your parish council and ask if they need help,” she said.

“There are so many parishes out there like St. Mary’s where they really want you to get involved — just ask. It doesn’t hurt to ask.”

Citing her selection as The Anchor’s Person of the Week as a “humbling experience” that she “won’t forget,” Cieto said she never expected to be singled out for her parish work.

“I just love giving back to my Church and it’s made my faith so much stronger,” she said. “It’s really encouraging and inspiring to always know you have a parish family you can rely on that will be there for you through thick and thin.

And it definitely makes it all the better when you’re in the presence of God.” To n o m i n a t e a p e r son, send an email to: Fa t h e r R o g e r L a n d r y @ anchornews.org.

August 13, 2010

The Anchor

11

Pilgrim-hikers find time for inner reflection along Way of St. James

By Russell F. Evans Catholic News Service

TOULOUSE, France — With sore feet and stiff shoulders, Dominic Jacques entered Toulouse’s St. Sernin Basilica like so many before him: wearing a heavy pack on his back, a white scallop shell on his side, and a look of wonder on his face.

In his hands was a credential, a passport for pilgrims on the trail to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The worn and folded pamphlet contained page after page of colorful stamps from all the places he has been during his three-week long pilgrimage to one of Catholicism’s holiest sites.

The Apostle St. James the Greater — Santiago in Spanish, St. Jacques in French — evangelized the Iberian Peninsula, and his remains can be found in Santiago de Compostela. The Way of St. James, or Camino de Santiago, is actually multiple routes leading to the city that welcomes Catholics like Jacques from all over the world.

The Way of St. James originally was intended as a substitute for Catholics unable to complete the pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the Crusades.

In modern times, thousands of people each year have made the pilgrimage wearing the white scallop shell that has become synonymous with the trail.

Jacques, 36, grew up as an altar boy and avid hiker in the suburbs around Montreal. The experienced hiker has completed the nearly 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail and the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, both in the United States. He never considered hiking the Way of St. James until this year.

With a big smile and a thick French-Canadian accent, Jacques told Catholic News Service: “This year I wanted to hike the Pacific Crest Trail again. I’m here not by my own will, but because I opened my mind and listened to something beyond my willingness.”

He began his journey in Claviere, Italy, roughly 1,000 miles from Santiago de Compostela.

Sacred places such as St. Sernin Basilica provided the background for his spiritual quest.

While other Romanesque basilicas in Europe were torn down during the last millennium in favor of the Gothic style, much of St. Sernin is original. It was built between the 11th and 12th centuries to honor the martyred St. Saturninus — Sernin is the French name for Toulouse’s first bishop.

Made of red brick and white stone, the basilica rises sharply

over clay-tiled houses just north miles by bike — receive a ple- James. He explained that among of the city center. With an ex- nary indulgence. To mark the the famous site along the route, ceptionally high vaulted nave, holy year, Pope Benedict XVI a great community has formed. a five-tiered spire and a radiat- will visit Santiago de Compos“Upon leaving his homeland, ing apse, St. Sernin is one of the tela November 6 as part of a the pilgrim finds a spiritual largest Romanesque community that tranchurches in the scends time because it world. exceeds the borders,” Arriving during he said. “The pilgrim the Middle Ages, pilwho shares his jourgrims such as Jacques ney with pilgrims of would have spent the all countries clearly night at the basilica, discovers on his joursleeping above the ney a celestial city apse on the floor of that accompanies him the church’s curling and supports him.” ambulatory.

Jacques has exDown the street, perienced this cain the shadow of St. maraderie firsthand. on the way — Pilgrims walk the Way of St. James Sernin, La Petite Au- in Villafranca Montes de Oca, near the town of Burgos, He met a number of berge de Compos- Spain, recently. (CNS photo/Felix Ordonez, Reuters) new friends along the telle, one of countroute and, as he enless hostels along the tered Toulouse, was Way of St. James, provides shel- two-day visit to Spain. hiking with two other pilgrims. ter to pilgrims. In a room full Father Vincent Gallois, a “Most people, they want to of wooden bunks and diverse priest at St. Sernin, said places do something (where) they’re languages, Jacques showed his such as his basilica play an es- going to realize themselves by companions a recent purchase: sential role on the Way of St. hiking in the fraternity with “They’re the Asics GT2150: breathable, ultralight, with support for the arch. They are running shoes, but for hiking on the road, they’re perfect.”

For Jacques and other pilgrims making the journey to Santiago de Compostela, 2010 marks a holy year.

This occurs when the feast of St. James, July 25, falls on a Sunday.

Those who make the journey in 2010 — a minimum of 62 miles on foot or 124

other people, in friendship with other hikers,” he said.

Artur Bury, a 30-year-old Swiss Catholic of Polish descent, said he viewed the Way of St. James as an evolving spiritual experience.

“It’s not like you have 30 minutes sitting and someone tells you something; you have all the time to think on the Camino,” he said.

With more than 800 miles to his destination, Jacques told CNS, “By hiking, I make sense of my life.”

Bury echoed his sentiment.

“Sometimes you get to a point in your life where you have to choose,” he told CNS. “For me, I’m very happy to do the Camino, to find out which direction I will continue my life.”

“Hiking or walking is more about a spiritual thing that you discover for yourself,” he added.

12

The Anchor

CNS Movie Capsules NEW YORK (CNS) — The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” (Warner Bros.)

Entertaining and inventive 3-D spy adventure — seamless blending live action, puppetry, and computer animation — in which rogue feline agent Kitty Galore (voice of Bette Midler) threatens to make the world her “personal scratching post” by unleashing the “Call of the Wild,” a screech that serves as a weapon of mass destruction. Led by Diggs (voice of James Marsden), a police K-9 German shepherd who hates cats, and Catherine (voice of Christina Applegate), a feline agent who puts her nine lives on the line, the covert pet intelligence agencies DOG and MEOWS must put differences aside and work together to bring Kitty down. Plenty of excitement, gizmos and cuteas-a-button moments will charm and enthrall the youngsters, while their parents will enjoy the inside jokes referencing James Bond films. The Catholic News Service classification is A-I — general patronage.

“Charlie St. Cloud” (Universal) After losing his younger brother (Charlie Tahan) in a car accident for which he was indirectly responsible, a gifted sailboat racer (Zac Efron), racked by guilt and grief, becomes the caretaker of the cemetery where his sibling rests, on the edge of which, briefly each evening, he is mysteriously able to see and communicate with the lad. But his reclusiveness is challenged

when a high school classmate and fellow sailor (Amanda Crew) returns to town and captures his heart. Though unusually spiritual and even explicitly religious, director Burr Steers’ melancholy parable, adapted from Ben Sherwood’s best-selling 2004 novel, “The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud,” never quite jells, despite Efron’s sensitive portrayal of his isolated, ethereal character, while the script romanticizes the premature consummation of the scarred youth’s potentially life-altering love. Nongraphic premarital sexual activity, a few instances of sexual humor, at least one use of profanity, a couple of crude terms and six crass remarks. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults.

“Dinner for Schmucks” (Paramount) To score a promotion, a financial analyst (Paul Rudd) must bring a suitable guest to the titular meal organized by his boss (Bruce Greenwood) as a competition to see which corporate hotshot can produce the most amusing idiot as a target for secret ridicule, so his accidental meeting with a bizarrely naive and nerdy IRS agent (Steve Carell) seems like a godsend until his victim’s well-intentioned bumbling begins to ruin both his career and his relationship with his live-in girlfriend (Stephanie Szostak). Though its underlying message is one of sensitivity and respect, director Jay Roach’s comedy, adapted from Francis Veber’s 1998 French feature “Le Diner de Cons,” showcases numerous wayward riffs on topics such as adultery, casual sex and venereal disease. Shadowy rear and partial nudity, cohabitation, much sexual and brief irreverent humor, a couple of uses of profanity, at least one use of the F-word, six crude terms. The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, August 15 at 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Jeffrey Cabral, on the staff of the diocesan Tribunal Office in Fall River

August 13, 2010

cyber faith — Attendees at the recent Catholic New Media Celebration in Braintree eagerly dove into the digital age of evangelization. (Photo by George Martell/The Catholic Media Group)

Local conference helps Catholics evangelize online continued from page one

Catholic New Media Celebration on August 7.

Peters runs the popular online publication American Papist, a blog that is nearing its five millionth visit.

The third annual conference took place at the Archdiocese of Boston’s new Pastoral Center. The event was run by the Star Quest Production Network, a multimedia organization that specializes in the production of audio and video programs that are faithful to Catholic Church teaching.

Father Roderick Vonhogen, founder of Star Quest, led the opening prayer, asking God to help those gathered be the “digital witnesses of tomorrow.” In addition to founding the network, he helped Vatican Radio establish its online audio files, called podcasts. He also has a blog, records podcasts and writes a column for a Catholic newspaper in his home country, the Netherlands.

Father Vonhogen said Catholics must use new media in a way that makes the message of the Good News appealing. Podcasters need to talk about topics people care about. Father Vonhogen has talked about “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter.” He told the podcasters that if they get too caught up in what they want to say, “You know who you’re going to reach?

Your mom.”

The conference’s presentations were sprinkled with lighthearted moments and times when the presenters joked and teased their fellow new media aficionados. They also interviewed each other, took photos, shot video and recorded sound in order to post the different media online.

Organizers streamed live video of the conference on the web.

Throughout the day, participants used all sorts of electronic gadgets to take notes or update their websites. Father Robert

Reed, director of Boston-based CatholicTV since 2005, observed during his keynote that he and the rest of the crowd measure pretty high on the “geek meter.”

Father Reed encouraged participants to use the many tools available in the digital age to communicate Christ’s message, something the Church has “not been terribly effective at” over the past 50 years. The Church needs to reclaim its role as the “great communicator,” he added.

The second keynote speaker, Lino Rulli, urged those gathered to be creative, take risks and ruffle feathers along the way.

He said the media they produce should be different; otherwise it should not be called “new.”

Rulli, who runs a podcast called “Lino at Large” and a radio show called “The Catholic Guy,” won three Emmy Awards for his work in television earlier in his career.

Rulli added that they must be authentic in order for their listeners to relate. As an example, he confessed that he does not enjoy the sacrament of reconciliation.

“I hate going to confession. I don’t like to talk about my sins,” he said. “I like leaving. I like being absolved.”

Inge Loots, a blogger and conference attendee from the Netherlands, told The Anchor that from her own experience, Catholics need to communicate the joys of the faith. Loots was an atheist who read Catholic blogs, saw many complaints and thought, “Why on earth would people be Catholic?” She converted after discovering the work of Father Vonhogen.

When Catholics use the Internet to vent, she said, “You’re projecting this image that you’re part of a horrible organization.”

The faithful need to take the extra time to explain that the reason they are angry comes out of

seeing a perversion of something they love.

Loots was one of nine international participants. The other more than 150 attendees came from 26 states. Nearly 40 came from the Bay State.

Tyrone Gonsalves and his wife Suzanne, from Holy Family Parish in East Taunton, began blogging for a variety of different reasons. They have a family blog to update their loved ones and each also has a separate blog. Tyrone said he hopes his online work helps others “find their own voice and their own passion.”

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, who has his own blog, closed the conference, thanking the attendees for using media to spread the Gospel message. “It’s a wonderful way to communicate the Good News and tell people about how much God loves us,” he said.

Thomas Peters said that in addition to communicating the faith, Catholics should use the web for activism. Though the number of faithful Catholics is relatively small, as a unified voice they can make a huge difference. He gave the example of a highly offensive advertisement put out by Kayak, a website for finding inexpensive plane tickets.

“It depicted two young repressed nuns who were apparently counting the days before they could escape their convent, and break out their tiny bikinis on a Caribbean beach,” he said.

He and those who follow his blog went to the company’s “virtual turf” and calmly explained why they would no longer use the service. Kayak pulled the ad that same day.

“Organizations listen to unified, numerous, principled criticism,” he said. “We need Catholics to live their faith, love their faith and be proud of it in public.”

W

e like to think of some things separately.

Autobiography is not philosophy, philosophy is not theology, theology is not mysticism, and mysticism is not poetry. As John Paul II noted, however, “The Confessions of St. Augustine” is all of these things at once; in being all of these things simultaneously, Augustine shows us that G.K. Chesterton was right when he said there really is no such thing as a different subject. Even so, because we do tend to think of these things separately, if we discuss St. Augustine of Hippo as a writer — and a “literary” sort of writer at that — we risk reduction. We risk losing sight of the fact that he is one of the Latin Church fathers, that he was a bishop with a significant apostolate, and that he has inspired century after century of continental philosophy.

Nevertheless, it is unmistakable that his autobiography is a document of tremendous literary influence even in the secular world. “The Confessions of St. Augustine” is the progenitor of all contemporary autobiography and memoir, and is the earliest

The honest confession of a confessor

antecedent for the interiority and to eat.”

Suddenly, with little prior exfocus on character development ample, man’s inward experience that would later become Shakespeare’s dramaturgical hallmark, became the subject of literary interest. At the same time as it and even later still, define the is presented as a unique naremerging genre of the novel. rative form, living the interior His writing was remarklife is presented as a theologiable for that interiority specifical method for divine ascent. cally, as it mapped the life of The turn inward is a turn away his mind and soul journeying from heresy to faith.

Modeled as a series of letters between Augustine and God it is paradoxically intimate and reverent and reads like a sensational diary,

By Jennifer Pierce plotting each sensation and insight, like rising and falling points on a from sin and toward the God graph: “And so it was that, in a flash who made us. “God, you have made us for yourself,” Augusof perception, I reached that tine writes, “and our hearts are which is. I saw and understood restless till they find their rest in your invisible nature through you.” After “The Confessions,” those things which are created. one man’s interior experience Yet I could not keep my eyes could stand as a work of art that fixed and my weakness pushed would — as Horace said all art me back and returned me to my should — teach us and please ordinary state. I retained only us, an example and model that the memory of something I would consequently dominate loved and desired, as if it were (one might even say define) a delicious food, which I could Western literature. smell but was not yet allowed

On Great Catholic Writers

Church aid workers slowly reaching Pakistanis affected by recent floods BANGALORE, India (CNS) — Church aid workers in Pakistan were trying to reach hundreds of thousands of people displaced and rendered homeless by the rain and floods that had claimed more than 1,200 lives in Pakistan’s mountainous northwestern region.

“The biggest challenge before us is how to (get) relief to the needy. Bridges have collapsed and roads have been washed out,” Carolyn Fanelli, CRS acting country representative in Pakistan, told Catholic News Service in a recent telephone interview.

Eric Dayal, national coordinator for disaster management of Caritas Pakistan, said his agency was faced with the same difficulty.

“Access to the affected people is the biggest problem confronting us now,” he told Catholic News Service. “Most of the roads in the affected (area) are gone and even telephone links are broken.

With electric supply also disrupted, communication remains a big headache.”

Fanelli said CRS was in touch with its 40 staff in the field through satellite phones, even though in the most devastated areas they had vacated their offices.

She quoted staffers as saying that the Karakoram Highway passing through Besham is “like a river.”

From Besham, Fanelli said,

13

The Anchor

August 13, 2010

CRS staff reported they had already cleared land and purchased building material for a school for the victims of the 2005 earthquake that claimed nearly 100,000 lives.

“But, now everything has been washed away,” she said.

Fanelli said the unprecedented rains in the mountainous region have had a crippling impact on the people, who “have no roof and are struggling in the open without food or even drinking water.”

“Our immediate concern is to reach shelter and hygiene kits to these affected people,” she said, noting that the initial aid donation would help 20,000, and more aid would be sent after assessments from field workers.

Dayal said that Caritas Pakistan already moved tent material to be distributed through Multan Diocese and plans to take care of around 2,500 families in emergency response. He warned about the potential for epidemics if people did not get aid, including clean water.

Mehmood Senior, a field engineer for CRS in Besham, reported that staffers walked along muddy roads blocked by landslides and had to cross a temporary bridge made of electrical utility poles to reach some of the villages.

In an effort to get food from the market in Besham, Mehmood said, “People are coming toward

Besham from different affected areas after continuously walking through dangerous and irregular hilly areas for eight to 10 hours.”

Pakistan’s government said recently that it has already deployed more than 30,000 troops to rescue marooned people and to deliver aid to them.

With more than a million people already affected by the floods and meteorologists predicting heavy rains in the monsoon season, aid workers fear tougher times ahead.

What is it that pleases the world so about “The Confessions,” drawing believers and non-believers to it, as a secular scripture? Augustine’s candid, emotional ardor is magnetic.

Desirous inquiries ascend vertically from the text like burning incense: “Who will help me to let you enter my heart and intoxicate me so that I can forget my misfortunes and embrace my one and only good, yourself?

What are you to me?

Alas, in your mercy, Lord God, tell me what you are to me! Speak to my soul and tell me that you are my salvation!”

Augustine makes us voyeurs more than readers, peering in at and overhearing his interior private yearnings as they lead him both to sin and to spiritual ecstasy as two sides of the same coin, reminding us that “concupiscence,” the formal word for our tendency toward sin, literally means the yearning of the soul for good. The honest confession of a confessor draws us into his world, as we learn that the fires in his

heart that made him so ripe for sin, also made him ripe for conversion, making us hopeful, redeeming the darkest corners of our own interior life with the possibility of a similar conversion.

This is the great optimism of the Christian tradition in it’s earliest literary form: all that we long for, all that we seek shall be found within the one who made us and first planted that desire within us. Augustine concludes his work with that great breath of optimism by paraphrasing the Gospel of Matthew: “But you, the Good which is in need of no other good, are always at rest because you are your own rest.

How can one man teach another man to understand this? What angel will teach an angel? What angel will teach a man? This must be asked of you, sought in you, knocked for at you. So, so shall it be received, so shall it be found, so shall it be opened.

Amen.”

Jennifer Pierce, Ph.D. is a parishioner of Corpus Christi in East Sandwich, where she lives with her husband Jim and two daughters.

The Catholic Response

14

August 13, 2010

Archbishop opposes release of abuser who formerly taught at Catholic school BALTIMORE (CNS) — Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien is joining survivors of sexual abuse in opposing the possible release of John J. Merzbacher, a former teacher at Catholic Community School in Baltimore who is serving four life terms for child rape.

Judge Andre M. Davis, a federal appeals court judge, issued an opinion July 30 stating that the Baltimore Circuit Court must give Merzbacher the opportunity to accept a 10-year plea deal that Davis said should have been offered in 1994. Accepting the deal would result in Merzbacher’s release since he has already served 15 years in prison.

In an August 3 email to The Catholic Review, Raquel M. Guillory, a spokeswoman for the Maryland attorney general’s office, said her office will appeal the ruling.

In a July 30 statement, the Archdiocese of Baltimore noted that Archbishop O’Brien wrote to Davis in 2008 urging him to deny a request for Merzbacher’s release. In that letter, the archbishop asked the judge to “consider the destructive consequences that a ruling in favor of Merzbacher will have on many individuals.”

“The substance of his actions, whether he was convicted by a jury or pleads guilty as he now seeks, remains the same — abhorrent and criminal,” Archbishop O’Brien wrote, “and justifies the judgment and sentence already rendered.”

The archbishop said Merzbacher’s release would have an “enormous impact” on victims and their families.

“To nullify the jury’s guilty verdict and prior judge’s sentence would be a great injustice to those who risked much and received some measure of justice from Merzbacher’s original criminal trial process,” Archbishop O’Brien said.

Elizabeth Murphy, one of Merzbacher’s victims, told The Catholic Review, Baltimore’s archdiocesan newspaper, that it is “terribly difficult” to realize that Merzbacher may be released.

“My childhood cannot be restored,” she said. “There is nothing more that John Merzbacher can take from me except for my life, which he has threatened to do. I’m not so much worried about that as what it means for children today. This is about protecting children today.”

Murphy is trying to get out the message that Merzbacher is “a very violent serial child rapist.”

Regina Spatarella, Murphy’s niece, has started an online petition — www.ipetitions.com/ petition/merzbacherbehindbars — to keep Merzbacher behind bars. More than 560 people have

signed it.

Murphy, who has met with Archbishop O’Brien, is encouraged that the archbishop is opposing Merzbacher’s release.

The archdiocese has been in communication with Merzbacher’s victims for many years “to promote their healing and to pro-

This week in

vide spiritual support,” according to the archdiocesan statement.

“This communication continues, even as we re-extend an offer of counseling assistance to those who were victims of John Merzbacher and who now may be re-traumatized by today’s court ruling,” the statement said.

Diocesan history

50 years ago — The second freshman class at the newly-dedicated Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth enrolled 258 students for the new academic year, bringing the school’s total to 453, slightly surpassing the anticipated capacity of the school.

10 years ago — Bishop Sean P. O’Malley, OFM Cap., celebrated Mass at the Sacred Heart Home in New Bedford on the occasion of the opening of its new Saint Joseph Unit for the treatment of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

25 years ago — Hundreds attended the second annual “Evening on Cape Cod with Bishop Daniel A. Cronin,” sponsored by the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women and held at the Sheraton-Regal Inn in Hyannis.

The event was a fund-raiser to benefit various diocesan charities.

One year ago — In response to their successful spring program, Christ the King Parish in Mashpee added several fall sessions to their Catholics Returning Home program — a series of five weekly 90-minute meetings for those who have drifted way from the Church.

August 13, 2010

MOTHER’S MISSIONARIES — Members of the Missionary Sisters of Charity, the order founded

by Blessed Mother Teresa, currently working in the Fall River Diocese include, from left, Sister Maria Carmelina, Superior Sister Maria Aloka, Sister Maria Cecilann, Sister Maria Chandra and Sister Maria Perrine. The five nuns reside within a convent house and shelter in New Bedford.

(Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

Sisters set to remember Blessed Mother Teresa continued from page one

also something very humble and yet joyful about the five Missionary Sisters of Charity who currently reside within the quaint grey convent and shelter house directly across from the towering, brick-faced St. Lawrence Martyr Church on County Street in New Bedford.

The Sisters have been quietly going about their work here in the Fall River Diocese from that same unassuming location since 1992, but they generally don’t seek or get much attention for their efforts save for those few hectic days in 1995 when Mother Teresa herself came to visit and stayed with her nuns, drawing throngs of people to the small church parking lot across the street.

While none of the five Sisters were working in the diocese at the time, two of them did have their own separate experiences with Blessed Mother Teresa over the years.

“I met Mother Teresa in South India in 1971, when I first joined the order,” said Sister Aloka. “She was always very loving and giving, and she shared with everyone. She never made a distinction between religions — she would help anyone who needed it.”

Sister Aloka, who has been working in the diocese for the past three-and-a-half years, recalled how when she first had a calling to her vocation, she knew she wanted to work with the poor — and no one was more dedicated to that effort than Mother Teresa.

“She inspired me,” Sister Aloka said. “I remembered hearing about Mother Teresa and how she was dedicated to working with the poor. I knew that’s what God wanted me to do.”

Sister Maria Chandra, on

15

The Anchor

the other hand, not only had the privilege of working alongside Mother Teresa for several years in Calcutta, but also was there when she died on Sept. 5, 1997.

“I remember we heard everyone running towards Mother’s room and we heard she was not feeling well,” Sister Chandra said. “I saw her lying in her bed and she was out of breath and had difficulty breathing. We were trying to do whatever we could to help her.”

Sister Chandra explained how poor the electrical service was in Calcutta and how they needed a regular alternating current line and a backup direct current line to keep the medical equipment operating.

“Those two lines never went off at the same time before, but that particular night they were both off,” she said. “We were trying to keep the oxygen going for her.”

As Mother Teresa’s health continued to decline, Sister Chandra recalled how she and her fellow nuns surrounded their Mother Superior’s bed and kept a prayerful vigil.

“Near the end, she looked at the crucifix on the wall and touched Jesus’ feet and said: ‘Jesus, I love you,’” she said. “Many of the Sisters were around her praying, and we were holding her feet and squeezing them to let her know we were all there. At last, Jesus came to take her and we saw the heart monitor flat-line.”

Sister Chandra said she thought Mother Teresa knew God was ready to call her home.

Not only had she stepped down as head of her order the previous March, but also when celebrating her final birthday on August 26 of that year, she gave away personal

gifts and tokens to many of her Sisters.

“She called each of us in that morning and she gave me a few of her writings for my family,” Sister Chandra said. “Maybe she knew and was finishing up her work.”

Dressed in the same familiar blue-and-white sari habits as their foundress, it’s not surprising that one of the words the Sisters use most often to describe their beloved Mother Teresa is “simple.”

“I think it was Mother Teresa’s example that made me want to join the Missionaries of Charity,” said Sister Maria Carmelina, who just celebrated 25 years with the order and has been working in the diocese for the past six years.

“I didn’t know much about her because where I came from, we didn’t have any newspapers or things like that. But I heard from others how she would take care of the poor children.”

Although she had applied to two other orders, Sister Carmelina kept thinking about Mother Teresa and her work.

“There was something that drew me to Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity,” Sister Carmelina said. “At the time I just knew I wanted to work with poor people, and everyone told me Mother Teresa was the one doing that work.”

“I was really attracted by the simplicity and humbleness of her ways,” agreed Sister Maria Perrine who just arrived in New Bedford in June but is a 17-year veteran of the order. “The priests in our church told me about her work and I felt compelled to join.”

Many of the Sisters also cited Mother Teresa’s own story of how Christ called her to “come be my light” to those living in darkness

around the world as a compelling reason why they joined the Missionaries of Charity.

“I knew I wanted to be a missionary and I read in a newspaper about Mother Teresa and all the work she did, so that’s what convinced me to join her order in 1985,” said Sister Maria Cecilann, who has been working in the diocese for the past four years.

While examples of the “poorest of the poor” might not be as obvious here in the Fall River Diocese as they are in places like Calcutta, the Missionaries of Charity have kept busy ministering to the spiritually and materially poor throughout the New Bedford area. Their work extends to visiting poor and needy families in the area; sponsoring a prison ministry at the Dartmouth House of Correction; and sponsoring an annual five-week summer camp for children that includes Bible study and educational field trips.

The most recent summer camp concluded last week with the staging of a play, appropriately titled “Come Be My Light,” at the Missionary Sisters’ convent house in which the children enacted scenes from the life of Mother Teresa.

“There were 46 children in this session,” Sister Perrine said. “We put on a play about Mother Teresa and then had a picnic outside.”

To commemorate Blessed Mother Teresa’s 100th birthday on August 26, a Mass will take place at 9 a.m. at St. Lawrence Martyr Church with Bishop George W. Coleman celebrating. Following the Mass, there will be a screening of the film “Mother Teresa: The Legacy” in the auditorium of Holy Family-Holy Name School along with an informal party with cake. All are welcome to attend.

Because Blessed Mother Teresa’s feast day — September 5, the day of her death — falls this year on a Sunday, the Sisters said they will also have a Mass the day be-

fore, on September 4 at 10 a.m. at St. Lawrence Martyr Church, to mark the occasion.

It’s clear that even now — 100 years after her birth, 60 years after she founded the Missionaries of Charity, and just 13 years after her death — Mother Teresa’s work and lasting legacy will continue to live on.

“Mother Teresa’s work continues because it is God’s work,” Sister Aloka said. “Even though she has died, someone else will take over because it’s what Jesus wants.”

“Mother Teresa wanted us all to see Jesus in each person we helped,” Sister Chandra added.

“Her first preference was to help the poor. She felt when she was helping the poor, she was helping Jesus … and everybody always felt that Mother Teresa loved them the most.”

MOTHERLY LOVE — A shrine dedicated to Blessed Mother Teresa, the foundress of the Missionary Sisters of Charity, located within the order’s convent house and shelter in New Bedford includes a holy relic from the woman destined for sainthood and who once visited and stayed within the very same location. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

Shrine of The Little Flower of Jesus JUBILEE CHURCH & SHRINE

17th Annual Feast Day Celebration First Shrine To St. Theresa In America

Sunday, August 15, 2010 Rain or Shine

10:30 AM ~ Prayers at Holy Stairs 11:15 AM ~ Stations of the Cross 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM ~ Lunch 1:00 PM ~ Concert 1:30 PM ~ Outdoor Living Rosary 2:45 PM ~ Procession with St. Theresa 3:00 PM ~ Chaplet of Divine Mercy Solemn Feast Mass - Celebrant: Father John Randall (Pastor Emeritus of St. Charles Borromeo Church, Providence, R.I.) Blessing with St. Theresa’s Relic ~ Continuous video showing of St. Theresa’s life ~

• Gift Shop • Food & Refreshments • Canopy - Covered benches at outdoor altar • Bus Groups welcome • Priests are invited to concelebrate the Feast Mass • Bring Chairs and umbrellas for the sun

For information please call (401) 568-0575 • (401) 568-8280 E-mail: shiirl@cox.net www.SaintTheresaShrine.com

Shrine is located at intersection of Rt. 102 and Rt. 7 in Nasonville (Burrillville), R.I. (near Wright’s Farm Restaurant)

Youth Pages

16

August 13, 2010

At national Jamboree, Scouts explore faith as well as outdoors

having a blast — Young children and teens performed for families and friends at the closing event of a Vacation Bible School at St. Nicholas of Myra Parish in North Dighton. The theme of the week was “African Safari,” entitled “Baobab Blast.” An eightfoot baobab tree was constructed in the lobby of the Pastoral Life Center as a rendezvous point for the various small groups. Many youth and adults volunteered. The event, coordinated by Greg Bettencourt, Faith Formation director, received rave reviews from kids and parents.

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

My Father’s House

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Msgr. John B. Brady says he got his vocation at the 1950 National Scout Jamboree.

Sixty years later, the priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, a chaplain with the National Catholic Committee on Scouting, was one of more than 20 priests and deacons serving as chaplains at the Boy Scouts’ 2010 national Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill, Va. — and he ran into a seminarian who said he found his vocation at the 2005 Jamboree.

As more than 30,000 Boy Scouts and Venturers — who include girls — gathered for the Jamboree marking the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America, chaplains of all different faiths were there to help guide them, discern what God wants of them and encourage them spiritually. Besides rafting, rappelling, swimming, canoeing and a host of other outdoor activities, the Scouts could work on their Duty to God patch.

“The Boy Scouts take seriously their Scout oath that the Scout is reverent,” said Bishop Gerald A. Gettelfinger of Evansville, Ind., bishop liaison to the National Catholic Committee on Scouting. “They not only talk the talk, they walk the walk.”

For a month before the Jamboree, Bishop Gettelfinger, 74, served as a chaplain at the Boy Scout ranch Philmont, in northern New Mexico. This was his sixth year of spending several

weeks there, keeping in touch with his staff back home via email and phone.

Many people at Philmont and at Fort A.P. Hill remarked that they had never seen a bishop as a chaplain, he said, noting that boys “get to see a priest in a different way than they do when he is at the altar.”

At the Jamboree, the bishop wore his Philmont chaplain shirt and hat as he worked the booth for the National Catholic Committee on Scouting. But August 1 he donned vestments as the principal celebrant for a Mass concelebrated with three other bishops, a bishop-designate, and more than two dozen priests and deacons. More than 15,000 Scouts and leaders attended.

“When these kids stood there or sat there on the grass — the last jamboree it rained for two hours, and nobody moved — it’s an incredible witness of faith,” the bishop said.

“They are our future. But they are the present and they can give witness to their peers,” he said.

“It’s powerful.”

The bishop said he was not naive, and he realized that the young people at the Mass would probably have gaps in their faith.

But he said they had the “seeds of faith ... and they will grow.”

The bishop said the chaplain corps has helped the Boy Scouts in times of emergencies, such as at the 2005 Jamboree when four adults leaders were electrocuted.

“Our priests do wonderful

work there, I can guarantee that,” he said.

Msgr. Brady said one of the things the Scouts must do to earn their Duty to God patch is visit with a chaplain.

“We get people of every faith coming, not just Catholic,” he said, noting that the chaplains represent multiple faiths — as do the patches.

He said he tells the Scouts that duty to God “means they should have a personal relationship with God” — talk to him and read the Bible or Quran.

He said that, as a boy, he attended the first national Jamboree on the Mall in Washington in 1937. World War II delayed subsequent Jamborees, and he did not attend again until 1950.

At that time, he said, he was a senior at Georgetown University in Washington and was Scoutmaster of his parish troop — one of whose members attended the Jamboree in Valley Forge, Pa. While the young Brady was visiting his Scout, a priest from New York noticed the Scoutmaster’s ROTC uniform and encouraged him not to join the military, but to enter the seminary.

He said the priest sent him to a young seminarian — Walter Sullivan, later bishop of the Diocese of Richmond — who took him on a tour of St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore.

“I’m a priest today because I attended the 1950 Jamboree,” he said.

P.O. Box 22, 39 North Moodus Rd. Moodus, CT 06469 . 860-873-1581 Website: www.myfathershouse.com Email: jz1mfh@gmail.com

NEW! COMMUNION BREAKFAST & BIBLE STUDY The 4th Saturday of the Month Begins August 28, 2010 Topic: Influence of Women in the Bible Presenter: Fr. Martin Jones Each Study will begin with Registration at 8:30 a.m. and Breakfast at 8:45 a.m. followed by TALK - - SHARING - - MASS Each month will cover a different topic Cost $20 COME ALL & BRING SOME FRIENDS!!!

For more information call Joanie or Dorothy (860) 873-1906 Jan. 3-12, 2011 ­HOLY LAND PILGRIMAGE - Come join Fr. Bill, Spiritual Dir., and Mary Alice, Group Leader, and walk in the Footsteps of Jesus in the Holy Land. For more information call: Mark Boston at Educational Opportunities (863) 648-0383 or MFH (860) 873-8767. * EVERY WEEKLY HOLY SPIRIT BREAKFAST: Join

THURSDAY 10:00 am - 2:00 pm

us to give praise and glory to the Holy Spirit with Mass @ 11:30 am, lunch and study of Our Lady’s Messages to Anne, the Lay Apostle with George & Madeline Rosenbaum.

* EVERY 1ST SUNDAY Catholic 12-STEP Healing Program with

(after the 1:30 Mass) 3:00-4:30 PM

* EVERY 3rd FRIDAY 6:30 pm

Fr. Bill & his team. Each Meeting will include teaching, sharing & prayers for Healing; open to everyone (not just AA).

12-Step Bible Study with Gary Agnew & MFH team, call 860-873-1906 for details.

* EVERY 2nd ST. MONICA’S PRAYER GROUP to pray

THURSDAY for our children, family, and loved ones before 7:30-8:30 pm the Blessed Sacrament.

Check out our website at www.myfathershouse.com for upcoming Parish Missions

scouts’ honor — Bishop Gettelfinger from Evansville, Ill., is shown with Troop 109 Norton Boy Scouts Andrew Sharples and Andrew Forte. The boys are parishioners of St. Mary’s Parish, North Attleboro. Bishop Gettlefinger presided over an outdoor Mass at the 2010 Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree in Ft. A.P. Hill, Va. Sharples and Forte were proud to be ushers at Mass and pose with the bishop. In order to participate, they had to walk 45 minutes from their subcamp at 6 a.m. to be at the Mass site by 7 a.m to prepare to assist at the 9 a.m Mass.

I

t’s August. The sun is still hot and there are several days left in this summer to enjoy the beach while catching those back to school sales. But as yet another summer quickly wraps up, I cannot help but think of the song “Summer Nights” from one of my favorite movies, 1978’s “Grease.”

Summer lovin’, had me a blast.

Summer lovin’, happened so fast.

I met a girl crazy for me.

Met a boy cute as can be.

For teens and college students, summer doesn’t just mean finding that job to help pay for school in the fall semester. It means exploring new relationships and finding that great summer love.

However, like summer jobs, summer relationships are often times a June to September romance. Over the summer I have read many status updates (the wonders of Facebook) of “so-and-so is now in a relationship with such-and-such”

17

Youth Pages

August 13, 2010

Summer lovin’

to “so-and-so is now in a with. relationship with such-andSo what is true love? such and it’s complicated,” Is it the elderly couple to “so-and-so is now single.”

I saw dancing a couple of This is neither a positive nor a weeks ago who had such love negative for these relationship in their eyes as they danced experiences shape who we to songs from the 50s and become as adults.

60s? The testament to their As teens and college students are in the midst of those June to September romances, all is right with the world (perhaps it’s

By Crystal Medeiros even a little rosier), everyone is happy and carefree. And then September hits them like a school bus love resonated on the dance when routines are once again floor as everyone watched adhered to and the freedom the wife hold her husband’s and carefree joys of summer portable oxygen tank so they begin to slip away. Do some could enjoy several dances of these summer relationships together. “Now that’s love,” carry through the school year? could be heard among the Of course they do. But for the crowd as they danced until ones that don’t, then it probmidnight, never tiring — or ably wasn’t true love to begin at least never showing it. That

Be Not Afraid

is a witness to a great love, to a true love. It is a tribute to their marriage and life they shared together.

We can all experience true love regardless if we are currently in a relationship, married or single. The true love we are all invited to is the true love God has for all of us. His love knows no bounds and is truly beyond all human comprehension.

As humans we try to label God’s love in our words. It is often compared to the love shared between a parent and a child along with many other analogies and metaphors.

But God’s love stretches far beyond our humanity and is truly incomprehensible. That is the beauty of his love for us. Race, creed, ethnicity, age, nor political affiliation have any bearing on God’s immense love for us. For his

love is a glorious mystery that extends far beyond the JuneSeptember summer romance — it is not even solely of this earth. God’s love is eternal and ever-lasting and any love we experience in relationships with others cannot hold a candle (or millions for that matter) to him.

If we allow him to, God’s love can radiate through us. I saw some of that radiated that night a couple of weeks ago with that couple who have been so blessed to find each other.

Even if our “dreams are ripped at the seams” and we do not have that special someone in our lives to carry that oxygen tank for us while we dance, then he will gladly step in and guide us through the next dance.

Crystal is assistant director for Youth & Young Adult Ministry for the diocese. She can be contacted at cmedeiros@ dfrcec.com.

Theology on Tap marks 30 years of young adults and the Lord

By Daniel P. Smith Catholic News Service CHICAGO — At a Champaign pizzeria in the spring of 1981, a youthful Tim Leeming pulled Father Jack Wall into a private conversation and offered an impromptu confession.

“Father, I’m doing well here at school academically and socially, but I don’t know why I’m doing the things I’m doing and it seems to me that my faith should be a resource,” the University of Illinois student told the priest.

That modest, innocent conversation set in motion a whirlwind of events that would spark a young adult ministry revolution — first in the Chicago area, then the nation and now the world.

When Father Wall and his colleagues from St. James returned to the Arlington Heights parish from their campus visit, the group sat down to establish a forum for the deep-rooted questions young adults such as Leeming had. Father Wall’s team proposed a summer program — five evenings on five spiritual themes — hoping the series would help draw young adults closer to God. Someone casually tossed out the title “Theology on Tap,” a name that survives today as the program enters its 30th year in the Archdiocese of Chicago and introduces itself to the worldwide stage.

When Theology on Tap hosted its first event at St. James Parish in June 1981, 200 college-age guests attended. Immediately, the organizers noted the series’ promise and, even more, the introspective, spiritual elements it inspired.

“We could see right away that this was touching a need. The room was filled with an amazing balance of social energy and theological input,” Father Wall said.

Theology on Tap surged forward in the summer of 1981. On the program’s second night, more than 400 attended. The question then became: Now what?

In the summer of 1982, Father Wall and his colleagues asked the series’ original five speakers to present at five new archdiocesan locations, thereby sending Theology on Tap’s first ripple in the

young adult stream.

“The best ideas have a simplicity to them and Theology on Tap is like that. It was adaptable and readily replicable and people jumped on board,” Father Wall said.

Father John Cusick, one of Theology on Tap’s original five speakers, noted the program’s energetic response and impact with an oft-overlooked group. He and his staff, including longtime associate Kate DeVries, began crafting a more formal program and inviting other dioceses to repli-

cate the series.

In 1994, the Diocese of Joliet ran Theology on Tap. Later, the dioceses of Rockford, Gary, Ind., and Madison, Wis., and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee adopted the program. Father Cusick’s office, meanwhile, assembled a manual detailing best practices and presented a program to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002. Regularly, the Chicago office was answering calls from other dioceses eager to establish Theology on Tap. By late 2003, Theology on Tap

what’s on tap? — Maciej Karaban plays volleyball with other young adults before a Theology on Tap meeting at St. Thomas Becket Church in Mt. Prospect, Ill., July 25. Theology on Tap, informal get-togethers aimed at Catholic young adults, is heading into its 30th year. The gatherings began in Chicago in 1981 and can be found in many U.S. dioceses. (Karen Callaway/Catholic New World)

had outgrown its modest Chicago office and its even more ambitious vision. Father Cusick met with Renew International, an established faith formation organization based in New Jersey, to discuss folding Theology on Tap into their expansive outreach efforts, a partnership realized on Jan. 1, 2007.

Despite the program’s expansion into 48 states and seven countries, however, Theology on Tap remains a staple of Chicago’s young-adult office. Heading into its 30th year, 215 area sites have hosted nearly 4,200 programs.

“We love it and want it to go on forever,” DeVries said.

Theology on Tap takes place in the Diocese of Fall River on Cape Cod as well as in Attleboro, one Tuesday per month from 6:308:30 p.m.

“The program keeps growing precisely because there is a spiritual hunger in our young adults and an absence of places to feed that hunger in today’s world.

Theology on Tap is the answer to this,” DeVries said.

Involved in ministry work during her high school and college years, Cynthia Kogol felt a faith void when she graduated from Loyola University. Struggling to find any spiritually rooted program that addressed her concerns as she entered a new phase in life, her parish priest directed her to Theology on Tap in 2009.

“It’s rewarding to be able to share my faith with others and gain a different perspective on issues, such as Mass and prayer,” the 27-year-old LaGrange resident said.

18

The Anchor

August 13, 2010

Sisters of Charity of Quebec leave after 119 years in diocese

N.B. parishes join Faith Formation efforts

continued from page one

continued from page one

“Our going home comes just as we are celebrating the 171st anniversary of our founding in Quebec, Canada, by Mother Marcelle Mallet, a Montreal native, in 1849.”

She recalls that the nursing home duties are in line with what her congregation had been founded for.

Mother Mallet, an orphan, was a member of the Grey Nuns of Montreal. They had been founded in 1737 by Mother Margaret D’Youville, who was canonized in 1990.

When Bishop Turgeon of Montreal asked the Grey Nuns in 1849 to staff an orphanage and provide for the poor in Quebec City, Sister Mallet volunteered.

However, the congregation she founded that same year was dedicated more to the sick and the abandoned elderly.

When the Sisters of Charity of Quebec came to New Bedford in 1917, it was at the request of Father Omer Valois, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in New Bedford, and with the blessing of Bishop Daniel F. Feehan.

The Sisters were asked to staff a parochial boarding house for young girls who worked in area factories in the Whaling City.

That caused a flap with the Quebec motherhouse, because the work was not within the congregation’s guidelines, which focused on taking care of the infirm elderly and the sick.

In October 1920, the first elderly facility was built in New Bedford.

A wing was added the following

Revised and updated ...

year on what is currently the Sacred Heart Nursing Home. The Sisters of Charity of Quebec staffed it.

“I entered the congregation in my native Quebec in 1947 when I was 18,” Sister Masson said. “My first assignment was in Lowell, where for 20 years I cared for children before coming to Fall River.”

Unlike many of their predecessors who were trained nurses and became head of nurses at the home, Sister Monique, who also hails from Quebec, received little training in nursing duties. Sister Masson received none.

“I did everything as a Sister,” Sister Masson said when asked what her duties involved. “Besides caring for children, on another assignment for many years I worked in the laundry room. In later years I worked with the patients in pastoral care and in those years I became very close to so many of them and their families.”

Msgr. Edmund J. Fitzgerald, director of Diocesan Health Facilities, said Sisters Masson and Lesage “will truly be missed because they had become so much a part of Sacred Heart Nursing Home, are well known and loved by residents and their families, and we are grateful for their many services in pastoral care ministry.”

Sister Dorothy Scesny, a member of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is director of Pastoral Care at the home, said the Sisters leaving “will be a tremendous loss to not only our nearly 400 residents at the SaOrder Ear Comple ly!!!

Sellou te t La Year!!! st

2010-2011 Diocese of Fall River Catholic Directory ... shipping soon Published by The Anchor Publishing Company P.O. Box 7, Fall River, Massachusetts 02722 Please ship _____ directories x $18 each, including shipping and handling. Total Enclosed $_____ NAME ____________________________________________ ADDRESS _________________________________________ CITY _____________________ STATE _______ ZIP _____ Please make checks payable to “Anchor Publishing” For more information, email theanchor@anchonews.org, call 508-675-7151, or order online at www.anchornews.org

cred Heart Home here on Summer Street, and families and the staff, but to the entire community of New Bedford, where, for so many years they played a very significant role.”

She added, “They deserve years of good health in retirement, but I will miss them very much.”

Manuel Benevides, who has been administrator of Sacred Heart Home for a year, said the two nuns “will be sorely missed because they have been a vital source of support for the staff, and have become so much an integral part of the daily life of our residents. The nuns not only brought holy Communion to our residents, but spent much time praying with them, and inspiring them; and being present at wake services and funerals to console family members as well, in what has been their very wide ministry.”

Although the Sisters of Charity came to the diocese during World War I, it wasn’t until September 1998 that they officially became part of the Fall River Diocese’s healthcare system, Benevides reported.

He said the Sacred Heart Home currently serves 197 residents, “which is just about our limit.”

The two Sisters have been part of the approximately 260-member staff at the home comprised of nurses, nurses aides, housekeepers, kitchen and dietary workers that man three shifts daily, Benevides said.

What will life be for the two nuns when they return to the motherhouse?

While it will be a change of location, “we will never, never forget those we came to know and work alongside and those we cared for,” Sister Monique stated.

“And we won’t be alone, although the mother house is a massive building,” Sister Masson noted.

“While there are approximately 500 nuns in residence there, only 32 are members of the Sisters of Charity of Quebec,” she reported.

“I am told there are several other congregations, among which are the White Sisters of Africa, the Augustinian Sisters, and a cloistered group as well.”

A fall reception for the Sisters is planned by the Fall River Diocese.

Therese which is situated less than a mile from St. Mary’s in the Whaling City’s north end.

“By combining our programs, we’ll be able to offer our students more in the formation of their faith lives,” said Msgr.

Oliveira. “We’ll have more volunteers from both parishes to work with us and it will be beneficial to all. In fact, we’re hoping this can be a model for other parishes in similar circumstances to follow.”

“We have to be pro-active when it comes to Pastoral Planning,” Father Hamel told The Anchor. “We must look to the future and it makes perfect sense for us to share our resources with our neighboring friends.”

The parishes had already collaborated on confirmation retreats and held confirmation ceremonies together. “These are all kids who live in the same neighborhood and go to school together,” added Father Hamel.

“It should be very good for them.”

The new program will be led by former St. Mary’s School principal, Cathy LaCroix.

“Cathy has a great deal of experience with education and Faith Formation,” said Msgr. Oliveira.

“We felt she would be the perfect person to get this going.”

“When I let Msgr. Oliveira know I wouldn’t be returning as principal at St. Mary’s, he asked if I would be interested in this position,” LaCroix told The Anchor. “I’ve always been interested in something like this.

I worked a great deal with Religious Education as a principal, a teacher, and as a Religious Education instructor. I’m very excited about this venture.

“We’ll have 350 students representing 200 families, and we’ll be utilizing teachers from both parishes. That’s a great resource. And Father Hamel and Msgr. Oliveira want to be involved in the classroom, and I intend to teach as well, focusing on the various liturgical seasons.”

Plans are well under way for the program which will begin

next month. LaCroix will be assisted by Sue Richard and Edward Mello, both of whom previously exercised this role in their respective parishes.

“We’re meeting with our teachers and coordinating our student registration coming up very soon,” said LaCroix, who is currently completing a course in certification for this ministry with Notre Dame University.

“Ten years ago, when I was teaching Religious Education, the classes were twice the size as they were last year,” she said.

“With both parishes working together, we’ll be able to do more with a larger enrollment and more resources, such as projects, retreats and gatherings.

Plus, we’ll have many good helpers — great people who have been long-time volunteers in both parishes.”

The new program will be located at the St. Mary’s Pastoral Center, the former St. Mary’s School, which has parking and educational formation tools.

“This will also spare St. Joseph-St. Therese the expense of maintaining their former school for a few hours use each week,” said Msgr. Oliveira. The newlyformed All Saints Elementary School will also utilize the former St. Mary’s School building.

“St. Mary’s Parish will host the Faith Formation office while both parishes will share the costs of the Faith Formation director and coordinators.

“I think other parishes in similar situations should look at this method,” said Father Hamel. “They would be missing a great opportunity if they didn’t at least give it some thought. It may be one program, but there are elements from each parish involved and that’s important.”

In a true show of cooperation from both parishes, the pastors have coordinated Sunday Mass times to allow children from both parishes to attend Mass and their Faith Formation classes.

“This is the best way to go to enhance the role of Religious Education in both parishes,” added Msgr. Oliveira.

Pope says summer should include time for quiet, prayer CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) — Summer vacation should include time for quiet and prayer, Pope Benedict XVI told a boisterous crowd at his summer villa south of Rome.

The pope welcomed hundreds of pilgrims to the courtyard of the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo August 8, two days after he had made an unannounced visit to a mountain shrine and visited two cardinals who were staying nearby.

In his Angelus address, Pope Benedict commented on the day’s Gospel reading in which Jesus tells his disciples, “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”

The message of the Gospel, he said, is that the expectation of the coming of God’s kingdom must inspire Christians to “live a more intense life, full of good works.”

Storing up riches in heaven rather than on earth “is a call to use things without selfishness or a thirst to possess or dominate,” the pope said.

The blessings people have been given should be used with attention to others according to “the logic of love,” he said.

“Today’s Gospel reminds us that by God’s goodness much has been given to us and much will be required of us,” he said.

“During these quiet days of summer, let us thank the Lord for the many blessings we have received and draw ever closer to him in prayer, in fidelity to his

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks Aug. 17 Rev. Cornelius O’Connor, Former Pastor, Holy Trinity, Harwich Center, 1882 Rev. Msgr. Maurice Souza, Retired Pastor, St. Anthony, East Falmouth, 1996 Aug. 18 Rev. Msgr. William H. Dolan, Retired Pastor, Holy Family, East Taunton, 1977 Aug. 20 Rev. Bernard H. Unsworth, Retired Pastor, St. Mary, New Bedford, 1982 Rev. Thomas Cantwell, SSJ, Retired, St. Joseph’s Seminary, Washington, 1983 Aug. 21 Most Rev. Lawrence S. McMahon, Bishop of Hartford, Former Pastor, St. Lawrence, New Bedford, 1893 Aug. 22 Rev. Msgr. Manuel J. Teixeira, Pastor, St. Anthony, Taunton, 1962 Rev. William R. Jordan, Pastor, St. Louis, Fall River, 1972 Rev. Msgr. Joseph C. Canty, USN Retired Chaplain, Retired Pastor, St. Paul, Taunton, 1980 Msgr. John F. Denehy, USAF Retired Chaplain, 2003

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commandment of love and in communion with his body, the church,” the pope told the pilgrims.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told reporters that Pope Benedict left Castel Gandolfo August 6 for a morning drive to visit the little shrine of Our Lady of the Needy on Mount Serra Secca in central Italy.

After visiting the shrine, he and his private secretary and members of his security detail

drove to the town of Carsoli, where they had lunch with retired Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini at a convent in the town.

In the afternoon, they drove to Rocca di Mezzo in Abruzzo to visit Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, who is vacationing in the town.

Father Lombardi said the pope visited the church of San Leucio, which was damaged in the earthquake that struck Abruzzo in 2009.

Around the Diocese 8/14

Holy Family-Holy Name School in New Bedford will sponsor its third annual Jazz Night to benefit the educational programs at the school tomorrow night beginning at 7 p.m. at the Wamsutta Club in New Bedford. Entertainment will be provided by Jackie Santos and Friends featuring Juanetta Jackson with special guest Stan Strickland. There will be light pub fare served. For more information call 508-993-3547 or email cfelix@hfhm.org.

8/14

Father Herbert Nichols will be preaching a novena to the Blessed Virgin Mary each night at 6:30 p.m. at St. Kilian’s Church, 306 Ashley Boulevard, New Bedford from August 14-22. Each night he will cover the message Mary has given in nine distinct Marian apparitions.

All are welcome.

8/16

Summer Vacation Bible School for kindergarten through grade five students will be held at Holy Cross Church, 225 Purchase Street, South Easton, August 16-20 from 9 a.m. to noon. Registration forms are available at the parish office or online at www.holycrosseaston.org. For more information call 508-238-2235.

8/19

The 21st annual Christ the King Cocktail Party to benefit Christ the King Parish, Mashpee, will be held August 19 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Coonamessett Inn, Falmouth, and hosted by Bill and Linda Zammer. Tickets are now available at the parish office. For more information call 508-477-7700.

8/21

The United Nations Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of Fatima will be at St. Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford for public veneration from 7:15 a.m. through 5:30 p.m. on August 21 and from 5:45 a.m. through 11:30 a.m. on August 22.

8/23

A Holy Hour, sponsored by the Pro-Life Prayer Groups of Holy Trinity and Holy Redeemer Parishes will be August 23 at 1 p.m. at Holy Trinity Church, Route 28, West Harwich. The rosary will be followed by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. All are invited. Bring a friend to pray for an end to abortion.

8/26

An open meeting of the Divorced and Separated Support Group will be held August 26 at 7 p.m. at St. Julie Billiart Parish, Slocum Road, North Dartmouth. For more information call 508-6782828 or 508-993-0589.

8/30

A Sung High Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite will be celebrated on August 30 at 7 p.m. at St. Rose of Lima Church in Rochester, 282 Vaughan Hill Road, to mark the feast of St. Rose of Lima, the patron saint of the Church. All are welcome.

9/9

The Lazarus Ministry of Our Lady of the Cape Parish in Brewster is offering a six-week bereavement support program called “Come Walk With Me” that begins September 9 and runs through October 14 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The program meets at the parish center and is designed for people who have experienced the loss of a loved one within the past year. Pre-registration is required. Contact Happy Whitman at 508-3853252 or Eileen Birch at 508-394-0616 for additional information.

9/19

The Legion of Mary will have a Day of Recollection on September 19 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Cathedral Camp Retreat Center, East Freetown. The day is open to members and nonmembers and will include a talk by Father Joseph Medio, formerly of New Bedford now serving the Archdiocese of Boston. For reservations call 508995-2354.

9/21

Adoption by Choice, an adoption and pregnancy counseling program of Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Fall River, will hold an information session for those interested in domestic newborn or international adoptions on September 21 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Catholic Social Services, 1600 Bay Street, Fall River. Please call 508-6744681 or visit www.cssdioc.org to register or for more information.

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese Acushnet — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Mondays and Wednesdays 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Fridays 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Saturdays 8 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays end with Evening Prayer and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.; Saturdays end with Benediction at 2:45 p.m.

ATTLEBORO — St. Joseph Church holds eucharistic adoration in the Adoration Chapel located at the (south) side entrance at 208 South Main Street, Sunday through Thursday from 6 a.m. to midnight, with overnight adoration on Friday and Saturday only.

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 following the 11 a.m. Mass until 7:45 a.m. on the First Saturday of the month, concluding with Benediction and Mass.

Buzzards Bay — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street, every first Friday after the 8 a.m. Mass and ending the following day before the 8 a.m. Mass.

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

EAST TAUNTON — Eucharistic adoration takes place First Fridays at Holy Family Church, 370 Middleboro Avenue, following the 8:30 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 8 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 — St. Anthony of the Desert Church, 300 North Eastern Avenue, has eucharistic adoration Mondays and Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and on the first Sunday of the month from noon to 4 p.m.

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

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

HYANNIS — A Holy Hour with eucharistic adoration will take place each First Friday at St. Francis Xavier Church, 21 Cross Street, beginning at 4 p.m.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

OSTERVILLE — Eucharistic adoration takes place at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, 76 Wianno Avenue on First Fridays following the 8 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 5 p.m. The Divine Mercy Chaplet is prayed at 4:45 p.m.; on the third Friday of the month from 1 p.m. to Benediction at 5 p.m.; and for the Year For Priests, the second Thursday of the month from 1 p.m. to Benediction at 5 p.m.

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

WAREHAM — Adoration with opportunities for private and formal prayer is offered on the First Friday of each month from 8:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. at St. Patrick’s Church, High Street. The Prayer Schedule is as follows: 7:30 a.m. the rosary; 8 a.m. Mass; 8:30 a.m. exposition and Morning Prayer; 12 p.m. the Angelus; 3 p.m. Divine Mercy Chaplet; 5:30 p.m. Evening Prayer; 7 p.m. sacrament of confession; 8 p.m. Benediction.

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

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

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August 13, 2010

A midsummer’s nightmare

t was in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” that Puck uttered the famous phrase, “What fools these mortals be.” It’s amazing that a character named after a three-inch, round rubber disk on an ice rink can be so wise and profound.

Nowhere is Puck’s proclamation more evident than on the golf course. The mere mortals are not those who can afford to traverse the links several times a week, or even daily for that matter. No, no. These individuals can actually hone their skills.

They’re not quite in the god category, but they’re far from

By Dave Jolivet mere mortals.

The foolish mortals are us duffers who get out once every couple of weeks. The golfers who figure out what they are doing wrong on the 16th or 17th hole. The problem is we only have one or two holes to actually swing the way we’re supposed to, but by that time, we’re too exhausted to execute correctly.

Then, by the time we’re able to get back on the course, we’ve forgotten what we were doing wrong, automatically resorting back to our slices, hooks, and shanks. We hit it fat, we hit it thin, and we always launch the ever-popular “worm burner,” the tee shot that can roll anywhere from five to 100 yards — usually five.

And the cycle begins anew. By the time we reach the 16th tee, we’ve got it right.

But ....

We are the mortals who go out there thinking, “Today, I break 100.” That’s

for 18 holes, not nine. What fools these mortals be.

That’s why folks like me enjoyed the performance put on by Tiger Woods at last week’s Firestone CC in Akron, Ohio. On the golf course, Woods is no mere mortal. He’s a golf god. That’s why it was so sweet to see him morph into “one of us.”

He finished the tournament 18 over par. He sliced, shanked, hooked, hit it fat and hit it thin. He even, out of sheer frustration, rushed a chip shot in the final round — much like this foolish mortal does.

I don’t know what’s going on in his private life, nor do I want to know.

And I don’t like to see people struggle, but this was golf, not a life-anddeath situation. I enjoyed watching Tiger, and Phil Mickelson for that matter, fall to earth and become foolish mortals.

And I’m not the only one. All week long, folks in the print media and on radio have also shared their amusement at seeing Tiger play like us duffers.

It happens so rarely that regular sports fans get the chance to be on an even keel with true athletes. That’s why I always tell the story of when I once placed ahead of two-time Boston Marathonwinner Johnny Kelley in a 10-K race in Fairhaven. But it’s always Emilie who brings me back to mortal-dom when she reminds me that I was in my 30s at the time and Johnny was in his 80s.

I tell her that’s on a “need to know” basis. It’s just a foolish little “mortal” sin.

My View From the Stands