Anchor 06.11.10

Diocese of Fall River

The Anchor

F riday , June 11, 2010

Diocesan clergy reflect upon blessings of the Year For Priests

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

DIGITAL DOGMA — Father Jay Finelli, pastor of Holy Ghost Parish in Tiverton, R.I., has been hosting his own weekly Catholic podcast called iPadre since 2005 from a small computerized studio in his rectory. Father Finelli is a strong proponent of using new technology to spread the Gospel. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

Local priest a leader in electronic evangelization

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff TIVERTON, R.I. — In the beginning there was the iMac. Then came the iPod. Just when the iPhone seemed to fulfill everyone’s technological needs, the iPad was introduced earlier this year.

And then there is iPadre.

No, it’s not another brainchild of Steve Jobs or an Apple patented product; rather, it is a weekly podcast hosted by Father Jay Finelli, pastor of Holy Ghost Parish in

Tiverton, R.I. An early adopter and longtime proponent of using digital and computer technology in evangelization, Father Finelli first began producing the half-hour Catholic “podcast” — an audio program that can be accessed and downloaded via the Internet and played back on digital MP3 players — five years ago from a makeshift studio in his rectory.

“I usually record them on SunTurn to page three

Catholic hospitals and the defense of life

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent

BOSTON — Pressure within the medical community to use abortion as therapy resulted in an ethics committee at an Arizona Catholic hospital approving the procedure. Catholic physicians told The Anchor that this “solution” was neither morally nor medically sound.

The abortion occurred in November of last year at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. Details about the medi-

cal condition of the mother, who was 11 weeks pregnant, were scarce. Hospital representatives said the abortion was necessary to save the woman’s life because she had pulmonary hypertension — a condition where blood pressure builds in the lung arteries and leads to pressure building up on the right side of the heart. It can lead to sudden death due to heart failure or blood clots in the lungs.

Pregnancy further strains the heart because the mother’s intervascuTurn to page 12

EAST SANDWICH — In Acts, shortly before his death, St. Paul told some of the faithful, “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the Church of God, which he bought with his own Blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.” Nearly 2,000 years later, wolves indeed attack the Church in many ways.

The past year has been a tumultuous time in the Church’s history, with more new revelations of the sexual abuse of minors by priests across the globe — wolves in shepherd’s clothing. Pope Benedict XVI, no doubt inspired by the Holy Spirit, called for a Year For Priests beginning last June 19 and ending today.

For the past year faithful Catholics all over the world were asked to pray for the priests serving Christ’s Church today, to keep them strong and steadfast in their duties in leading the sheep away from the dangerous wolves.

Across the Diocese of Fall River, people have held holy hours for priests and future vocations to the priesthood; celebrations of their parish priests; and many have written notes of thanks and en-

Father Paul E. Canuel

couragement to scores of diocesan priests.

The prayers and good wishes from the pope all the way to the laity have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated by priests in the diocese.

Father Marcel H. Bouchard, currently pastor of Corpus Christi Parish in East Sandwich, but bound for St. Mary/Our Lady of the Isle Parish on Nantucket, was the coordinator for Year For Priests activities in the diocese. He told The Anchor, “This past year was a great opportunity to reflect on the gift of the priesthood for myself and my brother priests. I found that faithful Catholics across the diocese responded so positively this past year to the good priests who give so much to serve them.

“I believe that priests need the faithful and the faithful need the priests and I’ve found this past year a greater awareness of that in people.”

Father Bouchard said that two particular avenues of communication that benefited him and his brother priests were the video presentations on the Year For Priests website, and the weekly Year For Priests reflections by diocesan priests that appeared in The Anchor. “It was a great opportunity to let people know who we are and what we are all about,” he said. “It let the faithful see us on Turn to page 15

Father Robert C. Donovan

Father James H. Morse

Retirement of three pastors is announced

By Deacon James N. Dunbar FALL RIVER — Three pastors, whose combined priestly service amounts to more than 121 years, will be retiring, it was announced by Bishop George W. Coleman.

They are Father Paul E. Canuel, pastor of St. MaryOur Lady of the Isle Parish in Nantucket, effective June 30;

Father Robert C. Donovan, pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Pocasset, effective June 30; and Father James H. Morse, pastor of the former St. Stephen’s Parish in Attleboro, effective May 23.

Father Canuel Father Canuel, 70, was born in Fall River. He graduated from St. Michael’s School in

Swansea, and the former Msgr.

Prevost High School in Fall River, then attended Assumption College in Worcester before entering St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore.

Following ordination on May 21, 1966 by Bishop James L. Connolly in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River, he served Turn to page 18

News From the Vatican

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June 11, 2010

Pope asks Catholics in Cyprus to be witnesses of God’s love NICOSIA, Cyprus (CNS) — The Catholic minority in Cyprus and the Christian minority in the Middle East are called to be witnesses of God’s love, of hope in the face of suffering and of a tenacious commitment to dialogue for peace, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Celebrating Mass in a sports stadium, the pope in his homily said “We are called to reach out to those in need, generously sharing our earthly goods with those less fortunate than ourselves. And we are called to proclaim unceasingly the death and resurrection of the Lord,” the pope told an estimated 10,000 people who came from several countries.

One of them, Violet Saldanha, 45, was singing in the choir. Coming from Mumbai, India, she has been working as a housekeeper in Cyprus for 10 years and said the Church nourishes her faith, gives her support and is a place to socialize.

The Latin-rite choir was just a tiny part of the program put on for the pope; hundreds of children from four-year-olds to teen-agers danced for the pope and a Maronite choir sang traditional hymns as well as mournful folk songs.

The sad songs reflect the fact that many of Cyprus’ Maronite villages were on the northern part of the island, which has been under the control of Turkish Cypriots since 1974.

Thousands of troops from Turkey are stationed in the North.

Elena Solo is from one of the northern villages, Ayia Marina.

While Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots cross over the U.N.patrolled buffer zone with relative ease, Ayia Marina and some other villages are off limits.

“We are not allowed to go inside the village, not even to visit the church. There are Turkish troops there,” Solo said.

Still, she said, the situation is the result of a political problem between Cyprus and Turkey, not a religious problem, and it does not prevent Greek and Turkish Cypriots from working together and even being friends.

In his introductory remarks,

The Anchor www.anchornews.org

Pope Benedict greeted the Maronite Catholics, giving special mention to Ayia Marina and three other villages once inhabited by the Maronites who fled south after the 1974 tensions.

The pope said the fact that Catholics were such a small minority on the island gave them the opportunity each day to foster good relations with other Christians and with Muslims.

“Only by patient work can mutual trust be built, the burden of history overcome, and the political and cultural differences between peoples become a motive to work for deeper understanding,” he said.

The pope also held an unscheduled meeting with the grand sheik of a Muslim spiritual movement from northern Cyprus. Sheik Mehmet Nazim Adil, 88, head of a Sufi confraternity -- an organization dedicated to the practice and study of Islamic mysticism -- met with the pope outside the Vatican nunciature in Nicosia.

During his visit to Cyprus, Pope Benedict stayed at the nunciature, located in the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone separating the South from the North. Most of Cyprus’ Muslims live in the North, which is controlled by Turkish Cypriots, supported by troops from Turkey.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters that Suicmez had called to say he was on his way and “we waited as long as we could.”

Sheik Nazim was seated on a chair on the street leading from the nunciature to the church where the pope was about to celebrate Mass.

The sheik told the pope, “I’m sorry. I’m very old, so I sat to wait,” the spokesman said.

The pope responded, “I’m old, too.”

The sheik asked the pope to pray for him and the pope responded that they should pray for each other, the spokesman said.

The two embraced at the end of the meeting, which lasted three — to — four minutes, the spokesman said. “It was brief and very beautiful.”

OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER Vol. 54, No. 23

Member: Catholic Press Association, Catholic News Service

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

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PUBLISHER - Most Reverend George W. Coleman EXECUTIVE EDITOR Father Roger J. Landry fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.org EDITOR David B. Jolivet davejolivet@anchornews.org NEWS EDITOR Deacon James N. Dunbar jimdunbar@anchornews.org OFFICE MANAGER Mary Chase m arychase@anchornews.org ADVERTISING Wayne R. Powers waynepowers@anchornews.org REPORTER Kenneth J. Souza k ensouza@anchornews.org Send Letters to the Editor to: fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.org PoStmaSters send address changes to The Anchor, P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA 02722.

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iconic gesture — Pope Benedict XVI receives a gift from a Maronite cleric during a ceremony at St. Maron Catholic School in Nicosia, Cyprus. (CNS photo/Yiorgos Karahalis, Reuters)

Pope leaves Cyprus praying for peace on the divided island, Middle East LARNACA, Cyprus — Pope Benedict XVI left Cyprus praying for peace on the divided island and throughout the Middle East and encouraging Catholics and Orthodox to continue their journey toward full reconciliation.

“Let us all redouble our efforts to build a real and lasting peace for all the peoples of the region,” he said June 6 during a farewell ceremony at the airport.

The pope arrived in Cyprus June 4, blessing an olive tree as a pledge of his prayers for peace on the island, which has been divided between the Greek Cypriots in the South and Turkish Cypriots in the North since 1974.

Addressing President Demetris Christofias at the departure ceremony, the pope said that “having stayed these past nights at the apostolic nunciature, which happens to be in the United Nations buffer zone, I have seen for myself something of the sad division of the island, as well as learning of the loss of a significant part of a cultural heritage which belongs to all humanity.”

Meeting with members of Cyprus’ tiny Catholic communities in the morning June 5, celebrating Mass that evening with Church workers and celebrating Mass June 6 in a sports stadium, the pope said they can be a force for good in the region and in the world by strengthening their bonds of affection for one another, building unity with other Christians and respectfully working with followers of other religions.

“We are called to overcome our differences, to bring peace and reconciliation where there is conflict, to offer the world a message of hope,” the pope said in his homily June 6 in Nicosia’s Eleftheria sports arenato to an estimated 10,000 people from Cyprus and throughout the Middle East.

The Vatican estimates there are about 25,000 Catholics in Cy-

prus. Most belong to the Maronite Church; the Latin-rite Catholic community is composed of a tiny group of Cypriot Catholics and several thousand foreign workers, particularly from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and India.

The pope’s meeting June 5 with Catholics at the St. Maron School brought together representatives from all the Catholic communities, including Filipino, Sri Lankan and Indian domestic workers.

Maronite Archbishop Youssef Soueif of Cyprus asked the pope, “Help us return to our villages. Remember Cyprus in your prayers.

Our villages are beautiful spaces where we preserve our identity, our particularity in the spirit of openness toward everyone.”

The pope urged the Catholics of Cyprus “to help create such mutual trust between Christians and nonChristians as a basis for building lasting peace and harmony between peoples of different religions, political regions and cultural backgrounds.”

After the event at the school, the pope was the guest of Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostomos II, head of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus.

Before visiting the Orthodox museum and joining the archbishop for lunch, the pope praised the Cypriot leader for his role in supporting dialogue and peaceful coexistence.

At the evening Mass June 5 with priests, nuns, seminarians and

parish leaders at the Church of the Holy Cross, the pope focused on the theme of the cross and of suffering transformed by love.

The cross, he said, “is indeed an instrument of torture, suffering and defeat, but at the same time it expresses the complete transformation, the definitive reversal of these evils; that is what makes it the most eloquent symbol of hope that the world has ever seen.”

On the eve of presenting the working document for the special Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, set for October 10-24 at the Vatican, Pope Benedict said he wanted to remember the many priests and religious in the Middle East “currently experiencing a particular call to conform their lives to the mystery of Christ’s cross.”

“I reiterate my personal appeal for an urgent and concerted international effort to resolve the ongoing tensions in the Middle East, especially in the Holy Land, before such conflicts lead to greater bloodshed, the Pope said June 6 at the end of the Mass in the sports arena.

Many Christian families are leaving the region because of the violence and tensions there, and sometimes priests and religious are tempted to do likewise, he said.

“Their presence alone is an eloquent expression of the Gospel of peace” and of the Church’s ongoing commitment to dialogue, the pope said.

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The Anchor

June 11, 2010

Local priest a leader in electronic evangelization continued from page one

day nights and do them once a week,” Father Finelli said. “They are typically half-hour shows, but some go longer. The great thing about podcasting is there’s no time limit. I could go on for two hours if I wanted to … but I think most people don’t want to listen to two hours.”

While some shows are inspired

by Mass readings or his weekly homilies, others are simply based on whatever topic comes to mind.

“I had an idea a few weeks ago about how the Catholic Church develops doctrine — because so many people think the pope goes into his closet and decides to pull out a new doctrine like the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of Mary,” Father Finelli said.

“People really don’t understand what it’s all about.”

As someone who first realized the potential for using computers and the Internet to spread the Gospel nearly 20 years ago, Father Finelli is pleased the Church is finally acknowledging and embracing tools like online blogs, podcasts and social network sites like Facebook and Twitter to connect with Catholics everywhere.

“The possibilities are endless — we just have to embrace the new technology,” he said. “I think the reluctance has been that priests and bishops have been afraid of what’s going to happen if we put something ‘out there’ on the Internet. Well, what’s going to happen is people are going to listen. It’s just like Pope John Paul II said: ‘Be not afraid.’

“New technology is a door to get people back into the Church.

And if they’re not comfortable coming back right now, they’ll at least listen. Once you build that community, that connection, they realize we’re approachable. We’re reaching people ‘out there.’”

In a message delivered for the 43rd World Communications Day on May 24, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged the use of new technology to spread Jesus’ message, saying: “The accessibility of

mobile telephones and computers, combined with the global reach and penetration of the Internet, has opened up a range of means of communication that permits the almost instantaneous communication of words and images across enormous distances and to some of the most isolated corners of the world. Young people, in particular, have grasped the enormous capacity of the new media to foster connectedness, communication and understanding between individuals and communities.

“It falls, in particular, to young people, who have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication, to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent.’ Be sure to announce the Gospel to your contemporaries with enthusiasm.”

“Sometimes people think of technology as an enemy — but it’s not,” Father Finelli said. “If you look at the history of the Catholic Church, the Church was always at the forefront of new media — from publishing the first books in monasteries to the Vatican starting one of the first television stations.”

Father Finelli’s own fascination with digital technology began while he was studying theology at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, when he purchased his first Apple computer.

“We didn’t even have Internet access at the time,” he said. “When I graduated in 1991, the Internet was still small. Within four years everything exploded and I started designing a personal webpage, then went from a parish website to designing a website for The Rhode Island Catholic — which was still The Providence Visitor at the time.”

While others were “surfing the Internet” looking for friends or buying novelty items on eBay, Father Finelli said he spent hours teaching himself HTML, the coding language used to develop websites.

“I built the Providence dioc-

Diocese of Fall River

OFFICIAL

His Excellency, the Most Reverend George W. Coleman, Bishop of Fall River, has accepted the request to retire of: Rev. James H. Morse, Pastor of St. Stephen Parish, Attleboro.

Effective May 23, 2010 Rev. Paul E. Canuel, Pastor of St. Mary-Our Lady of the Isle Parish, Nantucket.

Rev. Robert C. Donovan, Pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish, Pocasset.

Effective June 30, 2010

esan website back then, and when I started everyone looked at me like I was crazy,” he said. “They thought the Internet was a fad — like the CB radio — and it was going to disappear. But it grew and it really became a valuable tool.”

Over the next decade as Father Finelli watched the growth in popularity of “blogs” (web logs), social networking sites and podcasts, he sensed a new calling.

“The natural progression for me was podcasting, because I always wanted to do some type of radio or television program,” he said. “Before it wasn’t financially possible or feasible, but now all you need is a computer and you can talk to the whole world.”

Having just been named pastor at Holy Ghost Parish two years earlier, however, Father Finelli was initially reluctant to take on the weekly chore.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to get involved with the new technology, because I thought it was going to take a lot of my time,” he said.

“But now it’s become so easy that anyone with a basic knowledge of computers can do their own podcast.”

Since starting the iPadre podcast in 2005, Father Finelli said he’s tracked more than 560,000 downloads. Visitors to his website and podcast links have also been tracked to many countries outside the United States, including the United Kingdom, Hungary, Italy and the Philippines.

“That’s a lot of people listening,” he said. “So of that if I

touched just a handful of people, it was all worth my time and effort.”

Recently, the iPadre podcast took another step in its evolution.

Father Finelli flips open what looks like a thin, black notebook to reveal Apple’s newest gadget — the coveted iPad — that displays a full-screen image of his iPadre logo. Touching the dove at the center of the logo calls up a menu of his recent podcasts, with a detailed description of each.

“A company designed an iPadre application for the iPad and iPhone, free-of-charge,” he said.

“If people want to listen to any episode of my show, they can access it or connect to a link for my website. In the future, it will offer extras including a video tour of my studio.”

A few quick taps on the touchscreen of the iPad, and Father Finelli shows off another digital advancement he claims will greatly assist all priests in their ministry.

“It’s an application called iBreviaryPro that was designed by an Italian priest,” he said. “I was on vacation last week and all I took with me was my iPad — I had all my prayers with me. I can see something like the iPad replacing the Sacramentary or the Roman Missal at some point.”

In fact, Father Finelli’s latest pet project is converting the old Roman Ritual — a preference of many priests today — into an electronic book format, or eBook, so that it can be used on the iPad. He’ll also be attending and actively involved in the third annual

Catholic New Media Celebration to be held in Boston August 7 starting at 9 a.m. at the Pastoral Center for the Archdiocese of Boston.

“It covers podcasting, blogging, cable television — any form of new technology,” he said. “The conference is open to everyone and it’s ideal for people who want to learn about blogging or podcasting or building a parish website. It will offer something for everyone — from the novice to the professional.”

Father Finelli said this third annual convocation and Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley’s recent appointment of a new secretary for Catholic Media for the Archdiocese of Boston are two prime examples of how the Church is embracing technology and following the directives of Pope Benedict’s message.

“A lot of people look at the Church today and say we’re disconnected,” he said. “But are we?

Take a look at my Facebook account and I have 3,400 friends. I don’t know each one of them personally, but I know many of them.

Sometimes I will get an email from someone asking for advice or that I pray for them. So that’s not just someone ‘out there’ — we’re connected. And that’s what the pope wants. He wants us to be connected to one another.”

Father Finelli’s podcasts can be accessed free online at www. ipadre.net and also via the iTunes store. To register for the Catholic New Media Celebration in Boston, visit www.celebration.sqpn. com.

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The Church in the U.S.

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June 11, 2010

U.S. canonist to be first lay consultant to top Vatican court WASHINGTON (CNS) — Edward N. Peters, who has held the Edmund Cardinal Szoka chair in faculty development at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit since 2005, is the first layperson to serve as a referendary, or consultant, to the Church’s highest court, the Apostolic Signature. His appointment was announced May 22.

Peters, a St. Louis native, has written five books and scores of articles and reviews on canon law. He also runs the blog www.canonlaw. info, which is designed to inform a wider audience about Church laws.

“The more Catholics at all levels in the Church understand their canonical rights and duties, the more effectively they can partake in the mission of the Church,” he writes on the website.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from St. Louis University, a civil law degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia School of Law and a licentiate and doctorate in canon law from The Catholic University of America in Washington.

Peters and his wife, Angela, have six children.

He discussed his new work in an interview by email with Catholic News Service in late May. Asked what his work would involved, he said, “Referendaries to the Apostolic Signatura are specially designated consultants, about 12 in number, who, when called upon to do so by its prefect (Archbishop Raymond Burke), provide advanced canonical research and/ or expert opinions on issues being treated by the dicastery.

But maybe we should back up and clarify what the Signatura itself is. Basically, the Signatura is an ecclesiastical court that, subject only to the pope, has authority over several important areas of the church’s legal system. Besides being the highest tribunal for a wide variety of administrative issues, the Signatura handles unusual canoni-

cal questions concerning, say, the Roman Rota or other offices of the Holy See and, beyond that, it broadly safeguards the administration of justice in the Church around the world.

He talked about his selection and why he thinks he was chosen.

“I am also the only American referendary and, it seems, the only one with a graduate degree in Anglo-American common law, so I hope to be able to offer some insights from an important legal tradition with which the Church has to reckon besides the great civil tradition which is based on Roman law.

“The work that modern referendaries perform would draw on the kind of canonical training and experience I have acquired. Also, because referendaries offer only consultative opinions to the Signatura and do not exercise jurisdiction over the matters presented to them, technical questions about the lay exercise of ecclesiastical power are not raised. Finally, because I was fortunate in being able to practice canon law for a number of years before going into teaching full time, I have some sense of the practical side of issues that church law must address.

“Some things I do to stay abreast of canonistics generally are, for example, to read afresh 10 or 20 canons every day (a sort of canonist’s version of “lectio divina”), to collect and annotate canonical advisory opinions and convention papers, and to make sure that I always have two or three good books on law or theology going at any given time.”

As for his expertise, he said, “I know that some of my canonical work has made a difference for the better in the administration of ecclesiastical justice. I recognize that fact and I thank God for it. But I know that those accomplishments were either his gifts outright or, at most, came from my cooperation with what were ultimately his gifts.

NO DAY AT THE BEACH — Workers contracted by British Petroleum scrape oil from a beach in Port Fourchon, La., after it was inundated by the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon rig. (CNS photo/ Lee Celano, Reuters)

BP gives $1 million to Archdiocese of New Orleans for oil spill relief B y Peter Finney Jr .

C atholic N ews Service NEW ORLEANS — As millions of gallons of oil from an offshore rig explosion fouled hundreds of square miles in the Gulf of Mexico and advanced toward the Louisiana coastline, New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond thanked BP for $1 million in emergency relief funds.

The grant will allow local Church relief agencies to provide emergency food, financial and counseling assistance to needy fishing families.

BP, which operated the oil platform that exploded April 20 and killed 11 workers, earmarked $750,000 to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans for direct assistance such as gift cards to local grocery stores, case man-

agement and counseling, and $250,000 to Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana for emergency food boxes.

The grant was announced at a May 18 news conference outside the headquarters of St. Bernard Parish, a civil jurisdiction equivalent to a county.

In response to the catastrophe, Catholic Charities has opened five emergency centers at local churches to distribute the financial aid and offer counseling to fishing families.

The sites are located in areas with large concentrations of fishermen: St. Bernard Church in the civil entity of St. Bernard, St. Thomas Church in Pointe a la Hache, St. Patrick Church in Port Sulphur, St. Anthony Church in Lafitte and Mary Queen of Vietnam Church in New Orleans East.

The $1 million grant will help fund outreach services for three months, and the program is likely to be extended if the impact of the oil spill grows, as almost everyone expects.

In thanking BP for its financial commitment, Archbishop Aymond asked for prayers that the oil will not destroy the local fishing industry, largely populated by small families who have made their living on the water for generations.

“We know that the people of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Grand Isle and New Orleans East are people who persevere and have been through so many difficult and challenging times and have borne this cross before,” Archbishop Ay-

mond said. “We’re grateful for the gift because we want to be in the front lines and continue in the front lines for a longer period of time.”

St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro said the uncertainty of the eventual impact on fishing families was the toughest thing for them to handle.

“We have an undefined universe we’re dealing with,” Taffaro said. “Until that universe is defined, we’re continuing to have to make scenario guesses as to what we would have to do and how bad it will be or how much of an impact it will have on various people and aspects of our community.”

Father Gerard Stapleton, pastor of St. Patrick Church in Port Sulphur, said he wished he could tell his parishioners who are commercial fishermen that the oil disaster won’t be yet another life-changing event — as Hurricane Katrina was in 2005. But, he can’t.

“No one actually knows,” Father Stapleton told the Clarion Herald, newspaper of the New Orleans Archdiocese.

“Are we looking at a month, three months, six months, 12 months or five years? What’s the effect on the land going to be? These fishermen basically have one trade in life, and that’s fishing. That’s where we enter into the area of uncertainty.”

Since the beginning of May, nearly 5,000 individuals in the south Louisiana fishing community have benefited from emergency assistance from Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

June 11, 2010

The Church in the U.S.

5

Archbishop urges Congress not to repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy

civil rights march — More than 12,000 march in downtown Phoenix on their way to the Arizona Capitol recently, protesting SB 1070, the state’s tough new immigration law. Marchers carrying signs, banners and flags from the United States and Mexico filled a five-mile stretch in central Phoenix, demanding that the federal government refuse to cooperate with Arizona authorities trying to enforce the law. (CNS photo/J.D. Long-Garcia, Catholic Sun)

Arizona rallies draw thousands of opponents, supporters of new law

By J.D. Long-Garcia Catholic News Service PHOENIX — Two May 29 rallies in Arizona, one against the state’s tough new immigration law and one in support of it, drew thousands of participants to Phoenix and Tempe.

Opponents marched through the streets of downtown Phoenix to a rally at the state Capitol in an event organizers dubbed “Alto Arizona,” or “Stop Arizona,” hoping the demonstration would encourage the federal government to declare as unconstitutional the bill Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law April 23.

More than 4,500 supporters, some traveling from Texas, Georgia and Washington, turned out for the “Stand With Arizona” event in Tempe organized by the Dallas Tea Party group.

S.B. 1070, which takes effect at the end of July, has drawn much criticism from immigrant rights advocates, who claim the bill would lead to racial profiling. In response, the Arizona State Legislature drastically limited its scope April 30.

The revised law now states that law enforcement “may not consider race, color or national origin,” striking the key word “solely” that many of the bill’s opponents took issue with.

Despite the amendments, the law still makes being in the United States illegally a crime in Arizona and requires local law enforcement to make a “reasonable attempt” to determine legal status during any lawful “stop, detention or arrest.”

Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, along with the other Catholic bishops of Arizona, made several joint statements opposing S.B. 1070 through the Arizona Catholic Conference, the public

policy arm of the state’s three dioceses. The first such statement came out in February.

More recently, the bishops called on Brewer to veto the measure. Then, after the law was signed, Bishop Olmsted addressed the challenge of the tough immigration law in a May 20 column in the diocesan newspaper.

“While civil authority certainly has the right and duty to regulate immigration into our country, and all people have the duty to obey the law, the fact that our current immigration system is broken and in need of reform is abundantly clear,” he wrote.

“No one’s dignity is served well by our current system,” the bishop wrote. “The need for humane and effective immigration reform on the national level has become painfully clear once again.”

For weeks, opponents of the law have maintained a vigil at the Capitol. The vigil will continue, according Maria Uribe.

If recent polls are anything to go by, the thousands who showed up at Tempe Diablo Stadium in support of the law are in the majority — nationally.

But the showstopper was Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who spoke at the end of the four-hour event.

“When the law takes effect, this sheriff will enforce it,” he said, to cheers. While many of the law’s critics say it will lead to racial profiling, Arpaio expressed his confidence in law enforcement. Officers and deputies would not racially profile, he said.

He said he’d have room for those they arrest in the Tent City detention center.

“I’m stacking those tents up,” Arpaio said. “I will always have room.”

“It gives us the authority to enforce the laws already on the books,” he said of S.B. 1070.

The event was, at least in part, a response to some national leaders who have called for boycotts of Arizona to protest the law.

Gina Loudon, a political analyst and founder of the St. Louis Tea Party, organized a “buycott” of Arizona to counter the boycott and generate support for business in the state.

“America, this is our Alamo,” she said to the crowd. “We are going to defeat their boycotts with our buycott.”

About 68 percent of Americans oppose boycotts of Arizona, according to a recent poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services has urged Congress not to repeal the policy banning gays from openly serving in the military.

“Sacrificing the moral beliefs of individuals” in response to “merely political considerations is neither just nor prudent especially for the armed forces at a time of war,” he said in a statement posted June 1 on the archdiocese’s website.

He said Catholic military chaplains have expressed concern about the possible repeal of the 1993 legislation widely known as “don’t ask, don’t tell” and have requested guidance about what to do if it is lifted.

The archbishop said the effect “has the potential of being enormous and overwhelming” and stressed that “nothing should be changed until there is certainty that morale will not suffer.”

On May 27 the House of Representatives endorsed an amendment that would repeal the ban in a 234-194 vote. In a closed session, the Senate Armed Services Committee endorsed the proposal, but the measure still faces a vote in the full Senate.

The proposal to lift the ban is attached to a Department of Defense spending bill. If passed, it would not go into effect until the Pentagon completes a study, expected in December, on the ramifications of such a policy change and until the president, secretary of Defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that the ban’s repeal would not impact the military’s ability to fight.

In the June 1 statement, the archbishop reiterated Church teaching on homosexuality as defined by the “Catechism of the Catholic

Church.” According to the catechism, “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” but homosexuals must be “accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”

The catechism also says “homosexual persons are called to chastity” and should “gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.”

In light of this teaching, he said Catholic chaplains “must show compassion for persons with a homosexual orientation, but can never condone — even silently — homosexual behavior.”

He said those in the military “with a homosexual orientation can expect respect and treatment worthy of their human dignity.”

“However, unions between individuals of the same gender resembling marriage will not be accepted or blessed by Catholic chaplains.”

He also noted that “no restrictions or limitations on the teaching of Catholic morality can be accepted” and that “First Amendment rights regarding the free exercise of religion must be respected.”

He said a repeal of the law — which prohibits homosexual activity in the military but eliminates sexual orientation as grounds for dismissal — might have “a negative effect on the role of the chaplain not only in the pulpit, but also in the classroom, in the barracks and in the office.”

The archbishop, noting that gays already serve in the military, questioned if the repeal would “authorize these individuals to engage in activities considered immoral not only by the Catholic Church, but also by many other religious groups” and if it would cause changes in living conditions.

6

The Anchor The first step in the renewal of the Church

Today the Year For Priests comes to a close. In the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict is offering Mass with several thousand concelebrating priests joined by the prayers and gratitude of most of the 440,000 priests throughout the world. Today’s concluding Mass, like the inauguration of the priestly year last June, takes place fittingly on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is traditionally the World Day of Prayer for priestly sanctification. The priesthood, as St. John Vianney used to say, is “the love of the heart of Jesus.” In order for priests effectively to radiate that divine love in their frail humanity, however, they must be holy.

That’s what the Year For Priests has been about. The goal of the year was not a 51-week pep rally full of appreciation dinners and tributes for often under appreciated clergy. It wasn’t merely to be an opportunity for priests and faithful alike to reflect on the priestly calling. It was to try to help each and every priest to seek — with renewed zeal and the prayerful support of the people of God — to become the holy priest God intends him to be.

Pope Benedict repeatedly emphasized this point. When he surprised the world by announcing a Year For Priests last March, he said that the purpose of the year would be “to encourage priests in their striving for the spiritual perfection on which, above all, the effectiveness of their ministry depends.” He elaborated on what that “striving for spiritual perfection” looks like in several homilies, talks and addresses throughout the year. He said the year was convened “to help priests first of all — and with them all of God’s people — to rediscover and reinvigorate their awareness of the extraordinary and indispensable gift of grace that the ordained ministry is for him who receives it, for the whole Church, and for the world, which would be lost without the real presence of Christ.” That rediscovery happens above all in prayer, the pope said, and therefore the Year For Priests is meant to be a “favorable opportunity to grow in intimacy with Jesus, who counts on us, his ministers, to spread and to consolidate his kingdom, to radiate his love, his truth.” That friendship with Jesus leads a priest outward, to make a total commitment of himself in Christ to spread his kingdom of truth and love. The Year For Priests, therefore, is supposed to “contribute to the promotion of an interior commitment on the part of all priests to a more powerful and incisive evangelical witness in the world today.”

All of this is to say that the ultimate goal of the Year For Priests is the renewal of the whole Church. This, however, cannot occur without a prior interior renewal of the clergy, as they rediscover and reinvigorate their true priestly identity, grow in intimacy with Jesus, and together with Jesus seek to bring the whole world into true friendship with Christ.

This connection between the sanctification of the clergy and the sanctification of God’s people evokes the insights of one of the great 20th-century spiritual writers whom Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has said in other places had a big impact on his own priestly spirituality. In the classic work “The Soul of the Apostolate,” Dom Jean Baptiste Chautard, a French Cistercian abbot, wrote, “If the priest is a saint, the people will be fervent; if the priest is pious, the people will at least be decent. But if the priest is only decent, the people will be godless. The spiritual generation is always one degree less intense in its life than those who beget it in Christ.” Dom Chautard didn’t even want to raise the subject of priests not being decent, such as happens when priests violate elementary human, Christian and priestly goodness and abuse young people entrusted to their care, or when they cheat on their vocations with women, men or porn, or when they otherwise live according to the flesh rather than according to the Holy Spirit. Dom Chautard’s point, however, is clear and amply attested by Church history: for the Church as a whole to live up to its call to be the salt, light and leaven of the human race, the priests must lead the way, preaching more by their witness than their words about the lofty standard to which Christ calls us all. The ordained priesthood exists, as the Second Vatican Council stressed, to serve the common priesthood of the all the baptized and to help them offer their whole lives, with Christ, in love to God the Father.

This is obviously much harder to achieve if priests are not uniting their entire lives to Christ’s, if they are seeking to be served rather than to serve and give their lives with Christ as a ransom to save the lives of others (Mt 20:28).

So the first point on which to evaluate the fruits of the Year For Priests is to see whether priests have been renewed and reinvigorated in the pursuit of the holiness that ought morally to correspond to the sacrament of holy orders. This work of “striving for the spiritual perfection on which, above all, the effectiveness of their ministry depends” is obviously not the task of a year but of a whole priestly life, but should have received an infusion of grace, prayers and effort this year.

The second point of examination would be to determine whether the faithful has grown in appreciation to God for the gift and mystery of the ordained priesthood throughout this year and whether they have been led to pray for and desire genuinely holy priests to serve them, now and in the future. The present crisis in the quantity and quality of priestly vocations is tied to a larger crisis of faith that the Holy Father also recognized was in need of renewal during this priestly year.

To have been successful, this Year For Priests should have led Catholics truly to desire priests like St. John Vianney, for example, who will spend all night in church praying for their conversion, prioritize the sacrament of confession, preach for an hour each Sunday if they have to in order to bring them to conversion and holiness, call them to do God’s will rather than their own and put God above work, money and pleasure, fight against their vices with resolute determination and unambiguous language, and summon them not just to do the minimum but to seek to become perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect. Do Catholics as a whole prefer priests like this or rather those who, for example, will not remind them of those parts of the Gospel that are most difficult for them to embrace, leave them where they are rather than call them to conversion and sanctity of life, be satisfied with their remaining good rather than great, get them out of Mass as soon as possible, be great company and excellent Macarena dancers, and who, in short, behave much more according to human standards than divine? Pope Benedict’s concentration on St. John Vianney has been a means by which to focus the attention not just of the priests but of the faithful on a priest’s real priorities so as to help faithful and priests alike to value them accordingly.

With regard to the future, we need to examine how much we are praying and working for holy priests in the future. We cannot ignore the sad reality that in this Year For Priests, the Diocese of Fall River will not celebrate a priestly ordination, that our diocese presently has fewer than 10 seminarians from all 90 of the parishes of the diocese, and that the July Quo Vadis Days camp for teen-age boys — an initiative of the Diocesan Vocations Office to encourage boys to think about priestly vocations — has up until now received applications from boys in just six parishes.

All of these are clarion signs of how much more the families, parishes and priests throughout the diocese need to do to pray for and foster priestly vocations as one concrete resolution flowing from the Year For Priests.

As the “love of the heart of Jesus,” the priesthood deserves to be met with the love of the heart of every faithful Catholic. This past year was a good start. Since Jesus’ love will continue, so must our response.

June 11, 2010

Death and glory

Approaching his death, St. Paul wrote to his 11 a.m., but, like Pope John Paul II at the Easspiritual son, St. Timothy, “I have fought the ter Angelus the Sunday before he died, no one good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept could hear him and everyone could see that the the faith.” Those words could easily sum up the end was near. That night, as he was shivering in earthly valedictory of St. John Vianney, whose bed despite the stifling summer heat, he asked faith moved him to continue fighting heroically his housekeeper to send for his confessor, Father for souls with tremendous urgency and stamina Louis Beau, pastor of Jassans. until his last breath.

Father Vianney had once preached, “How Despite his growing frailty and the request sweet it is to die if one has lived on the cross!” of many of his friends to slow down, the love of After his confession, he put that truth on display.

God and others continued to push him to give Earlier in his life, he had repeatedly stated that all he had left. The last year of his life was his he wanted to have at least two years in a monasbusiest, as Ars was inundated with the largest tery before he died to weep over his “poor life” crowds ever. More than 100,000 pilgrims came and prepare himself for death. That wish was in 1858, and they did not allow the pastor any re- never granted, but his cruciform existence until spite. Even though missionary priests were now the end gave him a chance to make prayer and available in the church to hear the confessions of reparations with his whole body and soul. Even those who might be in a hurry, the vast majority on his deathbed, he told one of the religious who of pilgrims chose to wait six days for five min- was keeping vigil not to bother swatting away utes with Father Vianney. the flies attracted to his sweaty face. Mortified to The future patron saint of priests didn’t mind the end, he said, “Leave me with my poor flies. the work. He said to those who wanted him to The only vexatious thing is sin.” slow down, “If a priest were to die in conseEveryone wanted to come to see him before quence of his labors and sufferings for the glory his transitus. Penitents came to confess at his of God and the salvation of souls, it wouldn’t be a bedside and various priests, religious, lay friends bad thing!” To those who noted the obvious, that and parishioners came to ask him for his final four decades of barely any sleep had taken a toll, blessing. Although he could no longer speak, he he said, “We shall rest in the next world!” Even would lovingly raise his hand in Benediction. though his growing weakness made it harder Once word began to spread that he was in his for him to maintain his sprint toward the finish agony, people started swarming from everyline, his desire for where such that others kept him it was no longer going. One day possible for evwhen his aches eryone to enter and pains could the presbytery. not be hidden, he In order to satiscandidly admitfy their demands ted, “This mornfor a final blessBy Father ing I would have ing and prayer, Roger J. Landry liked to stay in every so often bed, but I didn’t a bell would be hesitate to get up: rung from the the salvation of souls is so important!” bedroom; as the crowd fell to its knees outside Some things did change. At the insistence the rectory, Father Vianney, with assistance, of his curate, Father Toccanier, he agreed to would make the priestly sign of the cross. pray his breviary sitting down, rather than On August 2, he asked Father Beau to bring on his knees as he had done since he was a him viaticum and anoint him. As the young priest seminarian. His preaching changed as well, brought Jesus from the tabernacle to the church, because his voice had grown so frail that he the church bells were rung. Father Vianney becould barely be heard from the pulpit. His gan to weep copiously. When asked why he was homilies remained eloquent, however, thanks crying, he indicated it was both tears of sadness to his body language of copious tears and and joy. “It is sad,” he whispered, “to receive regular loving gestures referring everyone to holy Communion for the last time!” He added, Jesus in the tabernacle. however, “How kind the good God is! When With humility and a sense of humor, he was we are no longer able to go to him, he himself aware he was pushing himself to the limit. “The comes to us!” When the Blessed Sacrament was sinners will end up by killing the poor sinner,” brought into his room, he valiantly raised himhe joked to Father Toccanier. One morning he self to a sitting posture and folded his hands in collapsed four times on the short walk to the prayer to receive the One who had always been church. Some nights he would return to the rec- the center and supreme love of his life. Bishop tory after a hard day’s work, barely be able to Langalerie arrived later that night and kept vigil get his fatigued frame into a chair, and exclaim, with the priests, religious and close friends until “This is laughable!” He would add, with an hon- at 2 a.m. on August 4, St. John Vianney passed est smile, “I can do no more!” into the arms of the Lord.

On several occasions he gave evidence that News soon spread through all of France he had received a divine premonition about that the Curé of Ars had died. His wake lasted a when he would die. After the Easter season, he continuous 48 hours, after which his coffin was met all those who had made their Easter duties taken to the square in front of the church. There and lamented, referring to the seven members of Bishop Langalerie preached about him on the the village of 650 who hadn’t confessed and re- theme generally taken from the rite of beatificeived holy Communion, “There are still some cation, “Well done, good and faithful servant. sinners in the parish. It’s necessary for me to go Enter into the joy of your Lord” (Mt 25:21). His so that another may convert them!” They took requiem Mass, attended by 300 priests and reliit as a farewell. To a benefactor who gave him gious, took place in the tiny church immediately something to be used for the Corpus Christi pro- afterward. cession, he thanked him and said, “I shall not His cause for canonization was begun in use it twice!” To a penitent who had come to see 1862. It went along expeditiously by the stanhim every year but who, because of her infir- dards of the time. Pope Pius X, like Father Vianmity told him she would probably never see him ney originally a parish priest, beatified him on again, he replied, “Yes, my child, we shall meet Jan. 8, 1905 and Pope Pius XI canonized him on again in three weeks’ time!” She had no idea May 31, 1925. Four years later, Pius XI named what he was talking about, but three weeks later him the patron saint of parish priests. When his both of them had died and were in the presence body was exhumed, it was discovered he was of the Lord. To another penitent, he confided, “I incorrupt. His intact heart was removed and, as have only a few days to live,” asked her to run a palpable sign of how his priesthood beat with some errands for him, and told him she would the love of the heart of Jesus, now often travels return in time for his funeral. the world — as it came to Boston in 2006 — in On July 29, he arose at one in the morning to order to inspire priests and faithful to love like head to the confessional, but when he got there, he did. he couldn’t breathe because of a burning fever.

Father Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of He insisted on trying to preach the catechism at Padua Parish in New Bedford.

Putting Into the Deep

June 11, 2010

I

have always believed that the seeds of priestly vocations are revealed not just in a general desire to give one’s life in the service of others — the starting point for some priestly vocations programs — but in the hunger a boy or young man has to be able to give not himself but Jesus: specifically Jesus’ Body and Blood in the Eucharist, his mercy in the sacrament of penance, and, in short, his salvation in everything a priest does.

I was first awakened to a priestly vocation when I was four.

At daily Mass with my mother and my twin brother, I carefully watched our pastor, Father Jon Cantwell, devoutly pronounce the words of consecration. With a four-year-old’s sense of wonder, I was fascinated that God had come down from heaven to earth and was in our Church. I wished that I was tall enough to be able to climb up on top of the altar to peer into the chalice, because I wanted to see what Jesus’ blood looked like.

Then I beheld Father Cantwell, who was 70 but frail, gingerly maneuver his way down the marble steps of the sanctuary to give Jesus to those who were fortunately old enough to be able to receive him. I remember saying to myself, “The priest must be the luckiest man in the whole world — capable of holding God in his fingertips and giving him to others.”

I then watched Father Cantwell bring the ciborium to the tabernacle, located on the side altar in front of the pew where we were kneeling. He put the ciborium

I

n a recent article entitled “How We Created the First Synthetic Cell,” Dr. J. Craig Venter waxes broadly about how his research team succeeded in constructing a bacterial cell out of its component parts. The story, which has captured the imagination of the media, appears to be a jaw-dropping breakthrough: “Scientists have created artificial life in a laboratory!” Such headlines evoke images of a Frankenstein creation, a Jurassic Park monster, or an alien life form. But in the final analysis, the scientific achievement of Venter and his team, although notable, is considerably less dramatic.

The term “synthetic cell” suggests that they constructed the entire cell, brick by brick, molecule by molecule, from the ground up. What they really did was create a synthetic genome (a chemically manufactured copy of all the genes of a bacterium).

This gigantic piece of DNA (a chromosome that happens to be the longest string of DNA ever assembled in the laboratory) was then placed inside another bacterium. Venter’s group, rather than creating bacterial life out of nonliving matter, instead achieved the impressive technical feat of

7

The Anchor

The luckiest man in the world

The priests at my home parish behind the veil, struggled to genuof St. Michael’s in Lowell also fosflect, shut the golden tabernacle tered my vocation, by encouraging door and returned to the altar. My eyes, however, remained transfixed me to become an altar boy, then a lector, then an extraordinary minison Jesus behind the door. I prayed ter of holy Communion. The most silently and simply, “Jesus, make me a priest so that I can give you to formative experience of all was working afternoons and weekends others like Father Cantwell!” in the rectory from eighth to twelfth Over the course of the next 25 grades. The pastor, Father Paul years, which I’ve always looked Bailey, became like a second father at as my extended time of priestly to me and a genuine Christian preparation, that desire to beSocrates, questioning my answers, come a priest in order to bring Christ to others never left me. Growing up, I also naturally developed many Year For Priests other aspirations — to Vocational Reflection become a husband and father, a catcher for the Red Sox, a professional boxer and tennis player, a

By Father medical doctor, an actor, a Roger J. Landry Pro-Life political kingmaker, a professor and more. Whenever in my more maguiding me to the truth, teaching ture moments I pondered about the me what a priest does and why, and future, however, I would confess introducing me to Catholic periodito myself and others that I believed cals as well as to so many priests God had already given me a strong and gifted lay Catholics. The priestly identity, which I took as a rectory was always full of good sign of a vocation. priests and future priests who demMy priestly identity and vocaonstrated for me that the priestly tion were nourished tremendously life was fun, personally rewarding, at my first seminary: home. My and could do so much good. Father earliest memory is praying the E. Paul Sullivan became a close rosary as a family, which all six family friend and tennis adversary. of us did every night until I went Father Leonard O’Malley always away to college. There were many encouraged me in my desire to do occasions when I would have more for the parish and trained me preferred to have continued playing how to do those things well. sports rather than praying, but I’m One other greatly formative so grateful, retrospectively, that my experience was at Harvard College. parents taught me that God comes I remember a Jesuit priest friend first. joking that my brother Scot and I

were going to Harvard “to lose the faith.” The first time I encountered blatant anti-Catholicism was a few weeks into my freshmen year when my roommate had some upperclass friends over. They hated what they mistakenly believed the Church to be: an oppressor of women because it opposed abortion and a persecutor of gays because it taught that same-sex activity is wrong. I had many late night debates with these bright students. I learned from those tete-a-tetes how great the need was for the Church to be able to refute such errors and how much I personally needed to grow in faith and in my knowledge of apologetics and Church history in order to be a part of the solution. A great help in this regard was my finding and frequenting an off-campus Catholic study center called Elmbrook, run by priests and laymen in Opus Dei. There I began to receive formation in a daily plan of life geared not only to intellectual nourishment but to sanctifying my studies and whole young existence. The priests there, Father Dave Cavanagh and Father Sal Ferigle, became my spiritual directors, inspired me and greatly helped my discernment.

Looking back after nearly 11 years a priest, I rejoice at having been privileged, nearly 6,000 times, to celebrate Mass, including inside the empty tomb in Jerusalem; to have been able, like Father Cantwell, to give Christ, happiness

incarnate, to so many communicants; to have been able with joy to pronounce the words “I absolve you from your sins” to tens of thousands of faith-filled people, one by one; to have anointed so many, including at death’s door, and prepared them for God’s imminent visitation; to have celebrated hundreds of weddings and baptisms, including, as priests say, many “good ones”; to have preached retreats to lay people, seminarians and even brother priests; to have led several pilgrimages with great people; and to have walked with so many on the narrow road leading to the heavenly Jerusalem.

There have been many surprises along the way. I would have never thought on the day of my ordination that I would have ministered so much in Portuguese, which I have really grown to love; that I would have spent so much of my priesthood as a writer and an editor; that I would have never been assigned to teach in a seminary, which others in charge of my formation had always told me to expect; and that I would have become pastor, so young, of St. Anthony of Padua, which, even as a seminarian, I called “one of the most unbelievably beautiful Churches in the country.” But God is full of surprises. I anticipate more surprises are in store!

Father Landry, ordained in 1999, is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford and executive editor of The Anchor.

This is the final installment of the Year For Priests series.

Overselling the synthetic cell own place in the universe...” converting one type of bacterium Natalie Angier of the New York into another when the new DNA Times, meanwhile, is more meawas introduced. Venter himself, sured and precise in summarizing notwithstanding his previous attempts at self-promotion, stressed: Venter’s work: “Every cell is a microcosm of “We definitely have not created life from scratch because we used life, and neither the Venter team a recipient cell to boot up the syn- nor anybody else has come close to recreating the cell from scratch. thetic chromosome.” His accomplishment, then, was to produce a large synthetic genome, not “synthetic life” itself.

Nevertheless, a number of commentators have managed to miss the

By Father Tad point. Bioethicist Art CaPacholczyk plan, writing on the Scientific American website, If anything, the new report undersuggests that Venter’s “synthetic scores how dependent biologists cell” dispels the notion that life remain on its encapsulated power. “is sacred, special, ineffable and Bonnie L. Bassler, a microbibeyond human understanding.” ologist at Princeton, said, ‘They Faye Flam muses in a similar started with a known genome, vein in the Philadelphia Inquirer: a set of genes that nature had “What’s shocking about the new given us, and they had to put their organism isn’t that it breaches genome into a live cell with all the a boundary between inanimate complex goo and ingredients to matter and life, but that it shows that no such boundary exists. Life make the thing go.’”

The Vatican newspaper is chemistry.” Her article gets L’Osservatore Romano, while even more outlandish when she noting how Venter’s work is an suggests that chemicals “have the impressive example of cuttingpower to assemble themselves into organisms — even complicat- edge genetic engineering, also ed ones that can contemplate their stressed that the researchers who

Making Sense Out of Bioethics

created the cell had not created life, just “replaced one of its motors.”

Even though Venter’s work does not fundamentally alter our understanding of life itself, it does challenge us to reflect on our increasing technical ability to manipulate life and to dominate it. The arrogant suggestion that man should “create life” and the accompanying Promethean quest for power and fame through such endeavors should raise some alarm bells. Reducing life, even though it is non-human life, to merely another quantity that we control, exploit, and subject to market forces is to coarsen our sensibilities towards an important measure of our own being. In every living organism, whether humble bacterium, plant or animal, we encounter a faint glimmer of our own delicate life.

Professor Erwin Chargaff, who did pioneering work on the molecular structure of DNA, once commented in his rather biting style on the modern, almost condescending scientific attitude toward life: “Because life is a mystery and

will remain so, because we still can’t say what life is, we need to be very careful. If we could find a way to turn off the element of self-interest, then there would be no problem. But our era is so appalling that, if [Sir Isaac] Newton were alive today, he’d have taken out a patent on gravity and we’d have to pay to walk around. One should not impose all the conventions of a market economy on the questions of life.”

Even as our ability to manipulate biological life in the laboratory continues to grow, the principle of life itself remains elusive and beyond our grasp. Living beings, with all their structure and complexity, should never cease to impress us and inspire us with a certain awe, so that even in our bated eagerness to harness their powers, we might avoid reducing life itself to a mere commodity or raw material for our biotechnical prowess to conquer.

Father Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, and serves as the director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. See www.ncbcenter.org

8

T

he young rabbinical student questioned his teacher, a wise rabbi, on what the prophet Jeremiah wrote: “The Lord will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts.”

Why upon their hearts, rather than within their hearts?

The reason, the rabbi said, is because until the heart is broken the word of God cannot fully enter in.

In today’s Gospel Jesus has been invited to the house of Simon the Pharisee where he is afforded none of the attention usually shown an invited guest. While there, a woman well known as a “sinner” crashes the party.

Jesus has touched her life and made her whole. It is she who performs for Jesus the basic act of common courtesy as her tears wash the dust from his feet her hair dries them.

The difference in the hearts of Simon and the

June 11, 2010

The Anchor

Law or Spirit

woman are obvious. Simon, before him as she kneels by accident of birth and before Jesus. Her encounposition, projects by his ter with God has led to a words and actions an attitude convergence wherein past of superiority. It is an atsorrow and new-found joy titude reflective of an all too come together in a perfect common condition wherein storm. Her tears pour out social position makes one special, while Homily of the Week those lacking prestige and standings make Eleventh Sunday them among the marin Ordinary Time ginal.

We sense in Simon

By Deacon a smugness, a vanity John J. Fitzpatrick that comes with his living to the letter of the law. He tithes, attends the as her once-broken heart temple gatherings and pays brings conversions from strict observance to the many fear to peace, from doubt to religious traditions of the faith, from guilt to forgivetime. His condescending treatness, from disillusionment to ment of others precludes him hope. from seeing Jesus, or anyone She has encountered what else without status, like the Father John Shea refers to woman right in front of him. in his book, “An Experience He is comfortable. His heart is Named Spirit,” as a moshielded, not yet broken. ment that — although they Simon lacks the intensity occur within the every day or compassion of the woman confines of human living —

takes on a deeper meaning.

They demand a hearing. It may be the death of a loved one, the touch of a friend, the unexpected arrival of blessing, the sudden advent of curse. But whatever it is, we sense we have undergone something that has touched upon the normally dormant but always present relationship to God. That is what has happened to the “sinful woman.” That is what has most probably happened to us at one of those memorable “moments” when our heart, or more explicitly our soul, is laid open — as for example at the death of a loved one. It is then our soul that calls us in to the dimension of Spirit where the soul resides and values are developed.

Too often, though, because of the busyness and relative comforts of our material world, we find

ourselves back to the “same old, same old” and unintentionally falling into the same place as our Pharisee, Simon. We live only to the accepted letter of the law.

We go to church, revere the sacraments, contribute our envelopes, and participate in parish functions on occasion.

We forget those times of “moment,” though when our soul cried out to us and we knew what was real. We forget that by accident of birth or position, we have a place of privilege when compared to others. We have a capability to make a difference especially to the “least of these.”

We cannot take our blessings and graces for granted, content and feeling justified living our lives only to the “letter of the law.”

Deacon Fitzpatrick and his wife Janice reside in East Taunton and are assigned to Holy Family Parish.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. June 12, The Immaculate Heart of Mary, 1 Kgs 19:19-21; Ps 16:1b-2a, 5,7-10. Sun. June 13, Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2 Sm 12:7-10,13; Ps 32:1-2,5,7,11; Gal 2:16,19-21; Lk 7:36-8:3 or 7:36-50. Mon. June 14, 1 Kgs 21:1-16; Ps 5:2-3b,4b-7; Mt 5:38-42. Tues. June 15, 1 Kgs 21:17-19; Ps 51:3-6b,11,16; Mt 5:43-48. Wed. June 16, 2 Kgs 2:1,6-14; Ps 31:20-21,24; Mt 6:1-6,16-18. Thur. June 17, Sir 48:1-14; Ps 97:1-7; Mt 6:7-15. Fri. June 18, 2 Kgs 11:1-4,9-18,20; Ps 132:11-14, 17-18; Mt 6:19-23.

Q

uietly but often forcefully, senior Churchmen speak of Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the archbishop of Quebec City and thus the Primate of Canada, as papabile: a man-with-themakings-of-a-pope. The thought would doubtless elicit a groan or a laugh — perhaps both — from the 66-year-old Canadian theologian: no man with his wits about him wants to shoulder the burdens of the papacy, and Cardinal Ouellet is a man of high intelligence. Still, it should be noted that the Canadian cardinal recently demonstrated one of the qualities required of 21st century popes: a willingness to confront the increasingly aggressive secularism of the North Atlantic world with reason,

Courage in Quebec

conviction and courage. went bonkers.

Several weeks ago, Cardinal Parti Quebecois leader Ouellet spoke to a Canadian Pauline Marois declared herself Pro-Life rally, praised the pres“completely outraged” by ent Canadian administration for Cardinal Ouellet’s remarks. The not including abortion-funding very minister whose federal in its G8 global maternal health proposals, deplored the lack of legal restrictions on abortion in Canada, and reaffirmed the Church’s ancient conviction,

By George Weigel recorded in the earliest sub-apostolic literature, that abortion is a grave government department would injustice whatever the circumrun the Harper Government’s stances. Pretty standard stuff, maternal health care initiative that, although said, I’m sure, in the Third World — which with Marc Ouellet’s usual passion and elegance. But the com- Ouellet explicitly supported — condemned the cardinal’s mentariat and the politicians comments as “unacceptable.”

Patrick Lagace, columnist for Montreal’s La Presse, then vented his secularist spleen at the thought that there might be some role for religiouslyinformed moral judgment in public life: “We’re all going to die. Cardinal Ouellet will die someday.

I hope he dies from a long and painful illness. …Yes, [what] I’ve just written is vicious. But Marc Ouellet is an extremist. And in the debate against religious extremists, every shot is fair game.”

Just to be clear on what’s being claimed here: to articu-

The Catholic Difference

late publicly a biological fact recognized by embryology textbooks — that human life begins at conception — and then to draw two logical moral conclusions from that fact — that the product of conception is an innocent life that deserves the protection of the law, and that abortion is the taking of that innocent life — is to be an “extremist”: or even worse, a “religious extremist” of the sort whose minions throw acid into the faces of little girls wanting to learn how to read.

The Quebec National Assembly quickly got into the act, unanimously affirming the so-called “right to choose.” But again, it was not the thought of back-alley abortions with coat-hangers but another great bugaboo that horrified some Quebecois legislators. “What we’re seeing here is the rise of the religious right in Canada,” fretted a Parti Quebecois legislator, Carole Poirier. Such are the phantoms that haunt the secularist mind: Marc Cardinal Ouellet, a mild-mannered intellectual and pastor, is really a French-speaking version of Pat Robertson, determined to force women into sexual peonage and likely to claim that volcanic eruptions in Iceland are divine retribution for Nordic unbelief.

Cardinal Ouellet backed down not an inch (or, to be precise in Canadian terms, not a centimeter). Rather, he returned service with brio, suggesting that those determined to foist state-funded abortion on Third World countries were guilty of “neocolonialism” and asking whether the smug secularists of Quebec were not themselves living in an “underdeveloped country,” morally speaking, as they evinced so little regard for the dignity of the human person.

I have no idea what the Holy Spirit has in mind for Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s future. But I do know that Quebec — once one of the most vibrantly Catholic parts of North America; now arguably the most religiously arid space between Baffin Island and Tierra del Fuego — is immensely blessed to have as its chief shepherd a man of solid Catholic faith, genuine piety, well-honed intelligence and deep compassion. Perhaps one day the commentariat and the politicians of La Belle Province will figure that out. That might be one small step toward their reclaiming a lost patrimony that is religious and cultural, not just linguistic.

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

June 11, 2010

Friday 11 June 2010 — at home in Old Dighton Village — Friday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time miss the old category “Sundays after Pentecost.” “Sundays in Ordinary Time” sounds so lackluster. There is nothing ordinary about the Holy Spirit working day in and day out in the Church.

Among the traditional symbols for the Holy Spirit, my favorite is the wind. As the Scriptures say, you don’t know whence the wind comes or where it goes. The Spirit is a holy hurricane. Like a mighty wind, it can unexpectedly blow you away.

I was myself recently surprised by the Spirit. It was at a parish day of prayer held at the Dominican Sisters’ Convent here in town. The location is only a couple of miles from where I live on busy County Road, but it’s a world apart. The convent is located in a sylvan setting. From the front porch, you look out over farms and fields to the banks of the Taunton River. In addition to the lovely rural location, the convent chapel is out of this world in its simple beauty.

The occasion of a parish day of prayer for adults was precipitated by the success of our pre-confirmation youth retreats. The adults were saying, “We don’t know what a retreat is, but we have seen what happened with the kids.

We want one of these days ourselves.” One man, a former Marine, commented, “The word ‘retreat’ is not in my vocabulary. Marines do not retreat. But whatever a retreat is, I want one.” As a result, the Ministry Team planned a parish retreat for adults.

Our parish could not afford to hire some famous retreat director. Out of necessity, we decided this would be a do-ityourself retreat. We would call upon our own parishioners, friends and neighbors as presenters. One parishioner, with much experience in retreat work, later declared that these were the best presenters he had ever heard. Maybe this is because he knew them all personally.

The day was open to all parish adults. We sent out personal invitations to parishioners we figured might be at a place where they would welcome a day of prayer. The objec-

I

I

n high schools nowadays one finds a bit of everything.

Though Catholic, attending high school I encountered different religious perspectives. For example, one friend made me aware of Fundamentalist accusations that Catholic teaching grows not out of Scripture but out of the Middle Ages.

Still, I made an act of faith in Catholicism, and then I discovered John Henry Newman. Newman’s work “An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” — as well as the writings of Vatican II that he influenced — made me an intellectual “convert.”

St. Genesius, St. Jason, St. Natalie — each has been called a “patron saint of converts.” Yet few people remember their names.

There’s St. Augustine, a selfconfessed sex addict who sneered at Church teaching, first from a Gnostic, then from an agnostic, point of view prior to conversion.

There have been many “St. Augustines” over the past 150 years. Someone who got the ball rolling this side of the Atlantic was Orestes Brownson. Following his conversion, an avalanche of new Catholics swept into the Church in the mid-1960s. A second conversion movement commenced under Pope John Paul the Great. On the other side of the Atlantic, another

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The Anchor

Hang on to your hat

tive was to provide occasion for a personal experience of the faith. The hope was that, if it worked, the participants would be like leaven in the parish. Their enthusiasm would serve to build up the faith community spiritually.

Approximately 30 people accepted the invitation. Of course, some of the “pillars of the Church” signed up immediately (nothing wrong with that) but so did other parishio-

The Ship’s Log Reflections of a Parish Priest

By Father Tim Goldrick ners who were ready to go to a deeper level of faith. It was, as they say, an eclectic group of adults. I was surprised.

The participants hit it off immediately. There was none of the social reticence one might expect. Whether someone was well-known or unknown made no difference whatsoever.

They all acted like old friends; although I knew some had

Participants of the recent St. Nicholas of Myra Parish Day of Prayer. (Photo by Nancy Brown)

never met. I was surprised.

The day itself included rather traditional activities — four presentations, small-group discussion, celebration of Mass, the opportunity for the sacrament of penance, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, both formal and informal prayer, personal sharing, the ancient ritual of the laying on of hands, and quiet time. It proved very effective. I was surprised.

During the event, the emotions of the group ranged from heart-felt tears to spontaneous laughter. The day was relaxed, not tightly structured, but we ran right on time. I was surprised.

The parish Supper Club provided lunch. A caterer came in with supper. The food was delicious and ample. After supper, the day of prayer was over. People lingered for some time at the table, just enjoying each other’s company. In this day and age, when everyone is rushing here and there, I was surprised.

A few participants had to come and go and one or two needed to leave early. No problem. Do what you have to do.

We understand. I myself briefly had to leave twice in order to walk the greyhounds.

We had never done a parish retreat here before that I know of. It was a most wonderful day. People “got it.” This bodes well for the future. I’m convinced the future of the Church involves touching more hearts with the message of the Gospel. For me, the most effective way to do this is by sharing together a religious experience, an encounter with God. Retreats are one such tool.

There is really no reason in the world why parishes cannot conduct their own retreats or days of prayer. You don’t have to search the world for a guru. There are dynamic spiritual speakers sitting right next to you in church. All you have to do is notice them and call them forward. Just step back.

The Holy Spirit will do the rest. Whatever you do, though, be sure to hang on to your hat.

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

Patron saint of converts?

Being a convinced Christian conversion movement began with didn’t make Newman a Catholic; someone Brownson sometimes on the contrary, he became more strongly criticized: Newman. convinced than ever the pope was John Henry Newman was the Anti-Christ. Newman wrote born in 1801, the eldest of six. His poetry commemorating the St. mother’s family fled to England Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, in from France centuries earlier which the Huguenots from whom following the “St. Bartholomew’s he was descended were murdered.

Day Massacre” of thousands of He considered it “a religious duty” Protestants there. John Henry read not only to dissuade Protestants the Bible and the novels of Sir from entertaining Catholicism, but Walter Scott, author of “Ivanhoe.”

But he was also challenged by “freethinkers,” such as Thomas Paine, The Enduring who wrote “Common Sense” during the AmeriImportance of can Revolution. John Cardinal Newman Henry enjoyed hiking, Dr. Peter J. Mango dancing, music, acting, public speaking — and writing.

Age 15, he studied at Oxford. to “keep aloof ... from all Roman Due to Britain’s wars with NapoCatholics who came with the inleon, the bank where John Henry’s tention of opening negotiations for father worked failed. When he the union of the churches.” learned of this, John Henry sufWhat upset Newman’s worldfered a nervous breakdown. His view were the teachings and strucfather died shortly after. ture of the early Church, eventually Newman experienced an leading Newman to abandon the Evangelical conversion. One “low church” Calvinism he had often hears of such conversions taken for granted. in America beginning in the early Another factor in Newman’s 1800s. A parallel Evangelical conversion may have been touring movement existed in England in continental Europe — which could the 19th century. Newman never have a surprising effect on tourquestioned this turn to Christ, even ists. Studying with French nuns, after entering the Catholic Church. Thomas Jefferson’s daughter Anne

wished to become one herself.

(Her father stormed into the convent and dragged her out.) William Fennimore Cooper, author of such Leatherstocking tales as “The Last of the Mohicans,” was moved upon entering St. Peter’s Basilica — until he saw altar boys chatting behind a praying priest’s back.

Longfellow, who wrote America’s epic “Evangeline,” wrote poems on Catholic themes after living in Europe. So did England’s Lord Tennyson. Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of “The Scarlet Letter,” was so altered after visiting Rome, he had to defend himself from accusations he’d become Catholic.

(His daughter Rose, who accompanied her father to Rome as a girl, later founded the Hawthorne Dominicans.)

Newman called Rome “the most wonderful place on earth,” but he termed Catholicism “polytheistic, degrading and idolatrous,” something from which one must flee “as a pestilence.” Yet it would become one of Newman’s pet themes to point out that it is by reflecting on our experiences, over time, that we reach our ultimate conclusions.

Newman was a leader of the “Oxford Movement,” defending belief in England’s bishops as

successors to Christ’s Apostles, insisting his was a “middle way” between a Protestantism and Catholicism. As his terror grew that Catholicism could be true, he suffered “an ‘encircling gloom’ deepening into mental agony.”

Newman went off with disciples to pray at nearby Littlemore, where he composed “An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,” the introduction to which remains worth the price of the book.

In 1845 Newman was received into the Church by Passionist priest Dominico Barberi. The event is commemorated by a sculpture at Blessed Dominic Barberi Church in Littlemore, realized by Faith Tolkien (daughter-in-law of J.R.R. Tolkien). Newman described this as coming into port after a rough sea, and that “my happiness on that score remains to this day without interruption.”

We’ll examine the consequences of that happiness in future parts of this series.

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

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By Deacon James N. Dunbar

The Anchor

June 11, 2010

There are many ministries in the life of Beatrice Pereira

TAUNTON — If you think you’re busy doing God’s work, you might want to calibrate your schedule — or even compare it — to that of Beatrice Pereira of St. Anthony’s Parish here.

It’s an easy pun to call her a “Busy Bea” but in reality it’s most fitting for this 63-year-old whose daily life centers around her Church and her parish.

Her many hats might be marked with logos such as catechist, youth minister, greeter, lector, sacristan, extraordinary minister of holy Communion, choir, rosary guild, St. Vincent de Paul, Rainbows, and visiting nurse, to name the most prominent.

“Yes, usually it’s a long day, but I feel I’m blessed to be able to do the things I love doing, which mostly is reaching out to people,” she told The Anchor.

But a quick look at the “long day” she puts in, really stretches out into a “long week.”

Every morning, very early, Bea Pereira visits the parish to view the checklist and make sure sufficient extraordinary ministers of holy Communion will be available to carry Jesus as the Eucharist to patients at Morton Hospital that day.

Then it’s off to work and travel as a certified nursing assistant of the Southeastern Massachusetts Visiting Nurses Association that can take her to the homebound, to those confined to the hospital, or to duty at the Day Care Center in Raynham.

“I work five or six days a week as a nursing assistant and after

work I bring Communion to those preparation a joy for me,” she am usually assigned to read at the 5 p.m. Mass on Saturdays,” she in the Morton Hospital,” she said. said.

But with all she does she ad- said.

“Because there are four of us Then came membership in the involved daily it means each of mits it is at St. Anthony’s in TaunRosary Sodality of which subus ministers to an average of 10 ton that she feels at home. sequently she became the and sometimes as many president.

In a wider scope as 20 patients. I think it she joined the Diocesan is a very special ministry Council of Catholic Wombecause we get to know en and is currently chairsome of them very well. man of its Church ComFrequently those we bring mittee.

Communion aren’t there Bea Pereira said she the next time we come, likes to sing and so is also a for several reasons. Some member of the parish choir. have left to go home or to Her love of people led her a nursing home. And others to be named the parish’s have died, and we rememMinister of Hospitality. ber them with fondness and But there’s more. Once prayers. I think that is very a week she volunteers at much a part of being an exthe St. Vincent de Paul traordinary minister of holy Store.

And leaving no stone Communion.” unturned she is a catechist, Working with chaplains who, from fall through is also an enjoyable part of spring, teaches sixth-gradPereira’s life. ers every Sunday after the “Father Edward A. 9 a.m.

Mass.

Murphy, the chaplain at “These young people Morton, and his assistant, have so much faith and I’m Deacon Philip E. Bedard, inspired by how much they are wonderful in how they Anchor person of the week — Beatrice do for the Church,” she serve and minister, and they Pereira. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza) stated. are so very understanding “Beatrice is a most imand inspirational to all of pressive image of dedication and “I grew up in Boston’s North us, and our relationship with them commitment to the Church and makes for a truly happy and holy End in a Catholic family, and I community,” said Father Henry experience,” said Pereira. “And met and married James Pereira, S. Arruda, her pastor at St. Anwho was a member of St. Anthothat is a blessing in itself.” thony’s.

She’s also taken on preparing ny’s, and so I’ve been here since “There isn’t a need she bethe altar and sacred vessels and 1976,” she explained. comes aware of that she doesn’t It was after her husband died vestments for Sunday’s afternoon attend to,” he reported. “She is alMass at the hospital celebrated by in 1992 that Bea Pereira felt the ways on the go, never stops, humthe chaplain. “Knowing how the nudge of an inspiration to become bly always putting others first.

Mass is so important in the lives more active in her parish.

And she does it with a beautiful “There was an opportunity to of the patients on various levels smile.” of illnesses and care makes such became a lector and I took it and I Stepping outside the “parish box” Pereira is a committed volunteer in the Rainbow Program

at Our Lady of Lourdes School in Taunton, a grief support program for students.

“It’s wonderful to be a friend, a companion to a young student for eight weeks in the fall and eight weeks in the spring semesters, spending an hour a week with him or her in the school setting, not as a teacher, but just as a caring friend to listen to what they have to say and perhaps keep them on track,” she noted.

What sparks such outstanding motivation?

“It came from my upbringing, especially my loving Buonasaro family,” she explained.

“Family played a very special part in my life. My mother died when I was 18 months old, and I was adopted by my grandparents, who came from Sicily. They attended Mass daily, and of course they took me along. I grew up in the faith of the Church and saw Catholics who reached out to everyone.

“We lived opposite the Old North Church made famous in the ‘Ride of Paul Revere,’ and anyone in need who came knocking on its door, and frequently our door — whether they were Catholics or Protestants or whatever faith denomination — was never turned away,” Pereira recalled.

“I think that pattern of reaching out has always been an essential part of me, and I feel very blessed indeed to be given this gift from God at this time of my life, and also that I am able to make use of it,” she told The Anchor.

To nominate a Person of the Week, send an email message to: FatherRogerLandry@anchornews.org

June 11, 2010

There’s still time to make a difference.

Send your donation to: Catholic Charities Appeal Office, P.O. Box 1470, Fall River, MA 02722

The Anchor

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12

The Anchor

June 11, 2010

Catholic hospitals and the defense of life continued from page one

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lar blood volume increases 30-50 percent. For this reason it is recommended that women with this disease do not become pregnant.

Officials at Catholic Healthcare West, a hospital system that includes St. Joseph’s, wrote in a letter to Phoenix’s Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, “If there had been a way to save the pregnancy and still prevent the death of the mother, we would have done it. We are convinced there was not.”

Kathleen Raviele, an OBGYN in Atlanta and the 2008 president of the Catholic Medical Association (CMA), told The Anchor, “Today she would have had a 75 percent chance of making it through the postpartum period. The baby had a zero percent chance with having an abortion.”

“We are never, never justified no matter what the woman’s condition is in directly killing the child to save the mother,” she said. “For a Catholic hospital and a Catholic ethics committee to have decided that this was justified is against the ethical religious directives.”

The “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, say abortion is “never permitted.” The directives clarify that operations, treatments and medications aimed at a cure for a pregnant woman are permissible even if they could unintentionally harm or even kill her child.

The directives should be followed at every Catholic hospital.

A link to the document can be found on the website for Caritas Christi Health Care, which includes Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River.

According to Canon law, any person who procures an abortion or makes the procuring of an abortion possible is automatically excommunicated. For this reason, Bishop Olmsted announced that a member of St. Joseph’s ethics committee had placed herself outside the Church.

Mercy Sister Margaret Mary McBride was reassigned from her position as vice president of mission integration at the hospital and may not participate in the sacraments unless the excommunication is lifted.

Furthermore, a woman religious who has been excommunicated by participating in abortion must be dismissed from religious life “unless her superior decides that dismissal is not completely necessary and that correction of the member, restitution of justice and reparation of scandal can be resolved sufficiently in another way,” the diocesan website said.

According to the diocese, Sister Margaret admitted to Bishop Olmstead that she “gave her consent that the abortion was a morally good and allowable act according to Church teaching.”

In a May 14 statement, the bishop said, “Every Catholic institution is obliged to defend human life at all its stages; from conception to natural death. This obligation is also placed upon every Catholic individual.”

“We always must remember that when a difficult medical situation involves a pregnant woman, there are two patients in need of treatment and care, not merely one. The unborn child’s life is just as sacred as the mother’s life, and neither life can be preferred over the other,” he continued. “An unborn child is not a disease.”

Dr. Dominic Pedulla, a Catholic cardiologist based in Oklahoma City, told The Anchor that pulmonary hypertension is “severe,” adding that most people die within five years of diagnosis.

He stressed that advances in medicine have made it much more treatable during pregnancy. The mother can take blood thinners to prevent clotting.

Chemicals called vasodilators can be used to drop the blood pressure in her lungs and the heart, and a seriously ill patient can have her blood pressure closely monitored in a hospital.

Most pregnant women survive.

The period with the most risk is postpartum when the woman’s fluids quickly return to their pre-pregnancy level.

Pedulla questioned the decision to abort the woman’s child at 11 weeks. “What’s odd in this case is that it’s hard for me to believe that she was in a life threatening condition in the very first trimester unless she was already that way before she became pregnant.”

If that were the case, the woman’s condition would continue to

be severe whether she were pregnant or not. Her mortality would remain “extremely high,” and the disease itself was not cured, he said.

“I think the lay public may have the false notion that this woman’s life was saved,” he added. “The most important logical fallacy that I encounter in medicine is that abortion is going to help a woman medically.”

What’s more, abortion can worsen pulmonary hypertension.

“Some of the recognized complications of induced abortion are — of all things — pulmonary.”

The “solution” of abortion in such cases depends on the misconception that abortion suddenly returns a woman to her pre-pregnancy condition. A violent end to pregnancy is not the same as not being pregnant in the first place, he said.

The best option in this case is to accept the woman’s pregnant condition and commit to monitoring and treating the pulmonary hypertension. The baby can be delivered if the mother’s condition deteriorates, and data show that vaginal delivery is safer for her as surgery leads to increased blood loss.

John Brehany, the chief ethics consultant for CMA, said “There’s tremendous pressure in medicine to counsel abortion.”

He said that the Arizona case was not an emergency, adding, “The very operation was to dismember and kill the child.”

Because the Church holds life to be sacred, Catholic hospitals should excel at saving babies and their mothers, he said.

“How well are they prepared as a Catholic hospital? Are they ready to be better than anyone else in the region at saving babies like this?” he said. “If you start with the premise that you’re not going to perform the abortion, you have a lot more incentive to work somebody through.”

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

Celebrant is Msgr. Thomas J. Harrington, retired priest of the Diocese of Fall River

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The Anchor

June 11, 2010

Evangelization: In with the ‘new,’ while keeping the old VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Even as the Vatican prepares to add an agency to promote “new evangelization,” the traditional forms of “old evangelization” — missionary outreach in non-Christian lands — are alive and well around the world.

More than one-third of local Catholic communities today are still in “mission territory,” a geographical area that includes about three-fourths of the world’s population. That explains why evangelization experts at the Vatican say the task of bringing the Gospel to nonChristians has barely begun.

The Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization has yet to be officially announced, but it is expected to focus on the task of reevangelization among traditionally Christian populations, for example in Europe and North America.

Pope Benedict XVI spelled out the rationale for the new agency during his recent trip to Portugal, saying the Church’s missionary map today is not only geographical but also anthropological, made up of cultural and social categories

of people who have largely drifted away from the Gospel.

With the continuing mobility and mixing of cultures and populations, along with the explosion of global communications, it’s easy to see why the Vatican might be paying less attention to national boundaries in its missionary strategies.

But geography still matters in many parts of the world, said Msgr.

John E. Kozar, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States.

“By virtue of geographic limitations and history, there are still some peoples that have never experienced any contact with Christ or the Catholic faith. Examples of this might be in the deep jungle areas of Brazil, in Papua New Guinea, in isolated mountainous areas of Malaysia, and other lands,” Msgr.

Kozar said.

He added that in some countries that lived for generations under communism, there are many people today who have never known Christ. The Church’s outreach to them, too, would be “the old form of evangelization”: announcing the

Gospel for the first time, he said.

At the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the Vatican department responsible for missionary work, officials said traditional missionary activity remains the model in most parts of the developing world. But even here, things are changing — sometimes rapidly.

“In a world where populations are so mixed, territory is no longer the main thing,” Archbishop Robert Sarah, secretary of the congregation, told Catholic News Service.

The missionary assignments have therefore changed. Many missionaries used to be sent to a country — usually to remote areas — where they learned the local language and immersed themselves in the culture, often remaining for life.

Now they are more likely to work in cities and move from country to country.

Missionary formation now focuses in part on dealing with typical urban problems such as lack of housing, broken families, street children and migration. Missionaries are trained to work with the mass

Media must help people’s hearts to be touched by Christ, pope says VATICAN CITY — If Catholic communicators are to use new media effectively, they must use it in ways that touch people’s hearts and draw them to living faith communities, Pope Benedict XVI said in a long-distance greeting to people gathered for a media convention in New Orleans.

During his general audience in St. Peter’s Square June 2, the pope read his message to those attending the Catholic Media Convention June 2-4. The convention is an annual joint gathering of the Catholic Press Association and the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals.

The 2010 meeting focused on the theme “Spreading the Good News — Byte by Byte,” which “highlights the extraordinary potential of the new media to bring the message of Christ and the teaching of his

Church to the attention of a wider public,” the pope said.

“If your mission is to be truly effective — if the words you proclaim are to touch hearts, engage people’s freedom and change their lives — you must draw them into an encounter with persons and communities who witness to the grace of Christ by their faith and their lives,” he said.

The pope said he hoped conference participants would come away with renewed enthusiasm for the Gospel.

Before imparting his apostolic blessing to the media professionals, the pope said that despite the many challenges facing Catholic communicators today, “never forget the promise of Christ, ‘I am with you always, to the close of the age.’”

During his main audience talk, the pope focused on St.

Thomas Aquinas, whose life and writings “have always been revered as an outstanding model for theologians.”

At a time when it was thought that “faith should surrender itself before reason,” St. Thomas believed there was a natural harmony between faith and reason, the pope said.

The saint “created a new synthesis” between faith and reason, which influenced cultures for centuries afterward; he taught that faith that is opposed to rationality was not true faith, and that reason that was not compatible with faith was not real reason.

During the audience, Pope Benedict also asked for prayers for his trip to Cyprus June 4-6. He said he hoped the visit would bear much “spiritual fruit for the dear Christian communities in the Middle East.”

media and new technology, and to promote regional cooperation.

Especially with increasing urbanization in poorer countries, all of this makes sense. But there is a risk, too, Archbishop Sarah said, because missionaries on shorter assignments have less connection with local or tribal cultures, and are sometimes seen as “tourists.”

He quoted one African cardinal who joked, “Missionaries were once very willing to go out into the bush. Now they want a big house near the airport.”

The decline in the numbers of priests in traditionally missionary religious orders has also had an impact, Archbishop Sarah said. The days when the Vatican could send out a vast army of foreign missionaries into non-Christian lands are over.

“We try to favor a South-toSouth cooperation, for example priests from one African region evangelizing in another part of the continent. We can do this today because we have plenty of new priests and seminarians in missionary countries — there are more than 4,500 seminarians in Nigeria alone,” he said.

The cost of missionary work continues to rise, but the Pontifical Mission Societies, which finance specific evangelization programs, operate on an amazingly tight budget. The amount distributed annually for projects in the more than 1,200 mission-dependent Church

jurisdictions in the developing world is about $150 million — less than this year’s payroll for the New York Yankees.

In recent times, collecting the money has become more difficult for a variety of reasons, including the worldwide economic crisis.

Msgr. Kozar said another factor is “the tendency of people to respond to spontaneous crises” but to sometimes lose sight of the everyday needs of the universal Church.

As the Vatican turns greater attention to evangelization in First World countries, missionary territories may be a source of personnel. Archbishop Sarah noted that Church communities in Africa and Asia are already beginning to send missionaries to work in Europe.

They are finding, however, that “reevangelizing” is not an easy task, he said.

“When Europeans went to Africa, they found a very religious people, open to God and to the Gospel.

But the same isn’t true when a missionary comes to Europe today,” the archbishop said.

He added that while globalization and the communications explosion has made it more likely that non-Christians have a superficial knowledge of Christianity, that’s never enough. Real conversion happens not by hearing about Christ on TV or radio, or visiting websites, but with a “real personal encounter,” and for that you need a missionary, he said.

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

June 25-27, 2010

CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER & HEALING RETREAT with Fr. Melvin Doucette. The author of ‘The Art of Contemplative Prayer.’

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 THURSDAY 10:00 am - 2:00 pm

WEEKLY HOLY SPIRIT BREAKFAST: Join 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) Fr. Bill & his team. Each Meeting will include 3:00-4:30 PM teaching, sharing & prayers for Healing; open to everyone (not just AA).

* EVERY 3rd FRIDAY 12-Step Bible Study with Gary Agnew & 6:30 pm 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.

* EVERY 1st MONTHLY DISCIPLESHIP/PATRICIAN THURSDAY Meeting - MEN & WOMEN. Why not join us 7:00-9:00 pm this month?

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

The Catholic Response

14

June 11, 2010

Cardinal vows continued action on ‘long-lasting’ impact of sex abuse

By Catholic News Service CHICAGO — In an audiotaped message to Catholics of the Chicago Archdiocese, Cardinal Francis E. George acknowledged the “long-lasting and often devastating” impact of sexual abuse and pledged continued efforts to ensure the safety of children.

“Mistakes have been made here and elsewhere, even as we have learned much and tried to integrate our learning into an ever-expanding healing environment,” the cardinal said in a brief message distributed to all parishes for use at Masses at the discretion of each celebrant.

He also said he was convinced that before and during his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI has been “always clear in his resolve that the priesthood must be purified of any sexual predators and that prayers for the victims should be part of our lives.”

The cardinal said the message was prompted by recent reports “of the sexual abuse of young people by priests and bishops” and had been encouraged “by those whom I have recently consulted, including the Council of Priests, the Archdiocesan Women’s Committee, the wives of the deacons ordained just last week and many others.”

Cardinal George, who also is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he has met with “dozens of adult survivors of sexual abuse and sometimes also with members of their families.”

“I have tried to listen and have offered apologies, but the primary concern that all victims share is that no one else be abused as they were,” he said.

He outlined several steps taken by the archdiocese “so that all children will be safe”:

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— mandatory training for bishops, priests, deacons, teachers, youth ministers and volunteers who are in frequent contact with children to watch for signs of abuse; — training in schools and Religious Education programs to show children “how to recognize and report any advance that makes them uncomfortable”; — reporting to civil law enforcement authorities in every case of sexual abuse of a minor, “no matter when it is said to have taken place”; — removal from ministry of all priests “against whom an allegation of sexual abuse of a child has been sustained.”

Saying that victims of sexual abuse “have frequently blamed themselves or have felt alone and shamed,” Cardinal George expressed gratitude “to the groups that have assured victims that they are not the only ones who were abused.”

He also said a healing garden adjacent to Holy Family Church in Chicago was in the planning stages, “with involvement by the victims/survivors.”

“It promises to be a help for achieving personal peace and reconciliation and will be one means of assuring that this crisis will have a permanent impact on pastoral life,” the cardinal said.

Cardinal George concluded his message by noting that Catholics “believe that God can bring good out of evil.”

“He can heal victims and grant forgiveness to those who repent of the crime of sexual abuse or any other sin,” he said. “We stand before the mystery of God’s inner life today and we pray that the love that is God’s nature may be more fully shared among us now.”

Diocesan history

50 years ago — Eight major contractors submitted bids for the proposed $2.5 million Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro, with a goal of a September 1961 opening set

by Bishop James L. Connolly. It came as the diocese awarded diplomas to 635 graduates of 10 Catholic schools.

10 years ago — As he ordained five new priests for the diocese, Bishop Sean P. O’Malley urged them to follow the example of newly beatified Father Padre Pio, “saying Mass and hearing confessions every day. For the confessional is the throne of God’s mercy on earth, for it puts people in contact with God’s love.”

25 years ago — Facing declining membership in religious congregations, and their ministries uncertain following Vatican Council II reforms, Bishop Daniel A. Cronin set meetings to dialogue about transitions with members of religious communities across the diocese.

One year ago — Thirty-one families in the diocese impacted by the economic downturn and homeless, were given shelter, supplied with food and given home-cooked meals at local churches through the combined efforts of St. Vincent de Paul chapters from a group of Catholic parishes in Somerset.

praying for victims — Msgr. Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s chief prosecutor of clerical sexual abuse, kneels during a eucharistic prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican recently. (CNS photo/Isabella Bonotto, Catholic Press Photo)

Praying with students, Vatican official says abusers face special hell VATICAN CITY — Praying with a group of students preparing for ministry in the Church, the Vatican’s chief prosecutor of clerical sex abuse cases said there is a special place in hell for priests who abuse children.

Msgr. Charles Scicluna, an official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, offered a long meditation May 29 during a prayer service organized by the students to pray for Pope Benedict XVI, for the victims of clerical sex abuse and for the conversion of the abusers.

Mary M. Nolan, a 25-year-old philosophy student at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome, said the scandal “makes me grieve, which is natural. But I have hope that God has a plan and he needs us to open ourselves to him in prayer.

That’s what this is about.”

Nolan, who is from South Bend, Ind., and several other lay students and seminarians from the United States, England and Ireland organized the service on their own. The fact that Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, and Msgr. Scicluna signed on to be part of the service “was just chance,” she said.

“For us, it was important that this be a grass-roots thing,” she said.

More than 200 people — including dozens of seminarians, a few Vatican officials and staff members of the English, Irish and U.S. seminaries in Rome — gathered at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica for one hour of silent eucharistic adoration and for the prayer service.

The intercessions, written by the students, asked God’s blessings for the pope and for the victims of abuse at the hands of men or women of the Church.

They also prayed for “clergy and religious who have abused children,” that they would face the truth

of what they did, recognize its impact on the victims and the Church and accept the need for justice to be done.

Msgr. Scicluna said participants had gathered to “echo the love, the care and the concern that the Church — the bride of Christ — always has had for children and for the weak.”

Reflecting on Jesus’ comments about welcoming children and about having a child-like faith, he said the child is the “icon of the disciple who wants to be ‘great’ in the kingdom of heaven.”

“How arid the earth and how sad the world become when this beautiful image, this holy icon is trampled, shattered, sullied, abused, destroyed,” he said.

Quoting St. Gregory the Great, he said that a priest, who “either by word or example, destroys others,” would face a particular torment in hell.

“But the Lord, who does not desire the loss of his servants and does not want the eternal death of his creatures, immediately gives the remedy for the condemnation, the medicine for the illness, the relief for the danger of eternal damnation,” he said.

“His are the strong words of the divine surgeon who cuts to heal, amputates to restore health, prunes so that the vine would bear much fruit,” Msgr. Scicluna said.

The Vatican official also denounced the sins that have been caused by “the arrogance, the insatiable ambition, the abuse of power and the injustice of those who would profit from ministry to make a career.”

To combat abuse in the Church, he said, all Catholics must devote themselves to “Jesus in the Eucharist, fire of love,” and allow themselves to be purified and transformed by the Holy Spirit.

June 11, 2010

Diocesan clergy reflect on blessings of Year For Priests continued from page one

a human level, and it gave them insights on the life and heart of the priest.

“I’m sure this was the work of the Holy Spirit when Pope Benedict called for the Year For Priests at this time. It was wonderful timing, especially during a period when the secular press portrays the priesthood in a bad light. The faithful have seen past that and have a greater awareness of the goodness of the priesthood.”

Father Albert J. Ryan resides at the Cardinal Medeiros Residence for retired priests in Fall River. He has been a priest for more than half a century, and found this past year very fruitful for him and his brother priests.

“I’ve wanted to be a priest since I was seven years old,” he told The Anchor. “I love being a priest. It wasn’t my choice: it’s Christ himself who calls us. I feel this past year people have a greater awareness of what being a good priest is. It all starts with priests being good shepherds and living a prayerful life.

“This past year has been saturated with sexual abuse scandals, and some people only see what they want to see. I was once told that as a priest I must ‘hang on to my faith with both hands.’ I’ve served as a military chaplain, a prison chaplain and a fire chaplain, and I’ve seen all kinds of things, but this is the life I love and the life Christ has called me to live. This year people got to see the priesthood from the inside, and have seen through all the negativity.”

Father Henry S. Arruda, pastor of St. Anthony’s Parish in Taunton, saw the Year For Priests as “A year of grace. I was so glad when Pope Benedict announced it. It came at a proper time, when it was needed most.

“I think this year gave priests the time for beautiful reflections on their own priesthood, and it was good for the laity because it helped them see the goodness of priests instead of all the bad. It was a revelation to them.”

Father Arruda mentioned that he received many notes from parishioners who were “thankful to God for the gift of the priesthood.” He added that through the year his parishioners consistently prayed for all priests and religious.

Father George E. Harrison, currently pastor of Holy Name Parish in Fall River, said “All the priest does is slip in for Christ.

He provides communication with God for his faithful parishioners.”

He said the Year For Priests,

15

The Anchor

“helped remind people of the gift of the priesthood, and also gave the priests the opportunity to reflect on the nature of what priests are. Priests are meant to lay down their lives for their people. Focusing on St. John Vianney reminded me of the rewards and the costs of living a truly priestly life.”

Father Harrison was most grateful to his parishioners for all they did for priests during the past year. “We had many holy hours for priests, and at every Mass we had in the past year, together we prayed for the sanctity of all priests. I believe it strengthened the faith of the laity, and it allowed people to articulate what most priests are, men who serve the Church and its members.”

Father Robert A. Oliveira told The Anchor this past year displayed a great outpouring of love and appreciation for the priesthood from his parishioners at Holy Name of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in New Bedford.

“The people really took this year to heart,” he said. “We had a wonderful celebration of the priesthood with a catered dinner and a dance, which we haven’t had in a while.

“The parishioners also invited former pastors from Holy Name and Sacred Heart parishes, and three or four of them spoke about what the priesthood meant to them. We also had a former New Bedford fire chief attend and he shared what fire chaplains meant to him and his men. It was a great night, and affirmed what a great gift to me the priesthood has been.”

Father Oliveira mentioned that the past scandals are real and the faithful acknowledge that fact and it is heartbreaking for them, but this year gave them

the chance to focus on the good.

“The parishioners set up a calendar and prayed for a priest in the diocese every day of the year, and the young children each had an ‘adopted’ priest that they prayed for all year. This parish and the former parishes that merged have always had a strong affection for their priests, and that has been a blessing for me.”

Father Craig A. Pregana is pastor of the diocesan mission in Guaimaca, Honduras. Representing the true catholic nature of the Church, Father Pregana shared his thoughts on the Year For Priests nearly 2,000 miles from the Fall River Diocese.

“The Year for Priests declared by the Holy Father has been a year to reflect personally on the priestly ministry of Christ that I’ve been gifted to share,” he wrote in an email to The Anchor. “This special year for priests came at a time in my life when I was celebrating 20 years of priestly ministry. It has been a year to reflect on the different ministries in which I’ve served: parish ministry, high school chaplain, university chaplain, vocation ministry, and now in the Diocesan Mission in Honduras. God has richly blessed me with a wide variety of opportunities to put into practice the mission of the priest: to preach the word and celebrate the sacraments.

“At this particular time in my ministry, the Mission in Honduras has helped bring into focus the centrality of the Eucharist and the sacrament of reconciliation, as in the life of St. John Vianney, the patron of diocesan priests. In the aldeas, or villages, people generally gather for Mass about once a month or every two months and want to go to con-

fession before Mass. Given the number of aldeas, the majority of my time is spent travelling to the villages to celebrate Mass and the sacraments. The parishioners and this special year have helped me to appreciate the gift of the Eucharist for them, and for me.

“My hope is that the desire to serve at the altar will continue to grow in my life. The devotion of the parishioners enlivens my faith and animates my desire to celebrate the sacraments with them and for them. The Holy Father has blessed us with a special time for reflection on our lives as priests, on the ministry of St. John Vianney, and on the priesthood of Jesus Christ that we share.”

Father Tad Pacholczyk is a priest of the Fall River Diocese and the director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. He told The Anchor, “During the Year For Priests, I sensed a strengthening of the bond between priests and those they minister to, and I appreciated the efforts of so many who went out of their way to express their gratitude for the essential spiritual work that priests do.”

All of the priests who responded to the Anchor request for comments on what the Year For Priests meant to them have heartfelt memories of how their parishioners and those in whom they came in contact with treated them with respect and love.

And all expressed a hope that

the mutual affection between the priest and the laity will continue and strengthen through the years, especially during this turbulent period in Church history.

Father Pacholczyk also expressed another desire that “one of the fruits of the Year For Priests will be an expanded emphasis on encouraging new vocations to priesthood, and in particular, that parents will be open and proactive in encouraging their own sons to consider such a beautiful and rewarding way of life.”

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16

Youth Pages

history in the making — Fifth graders at Holy Name School in Fall River demonstrated their talents as well as their knowledge of early China by creating a variety of board games. The students reviewed their learning by developing questions, designing, testing, and modifying a game board. They then transferred their idea to a finished model. Many were 3D and included clay pieces and replicas of the Great Wall and Silk Road.

where credit is due — Bishop Stang High School, North Dartmouth, recently held the Matt Benoit Memorial Dodgeball Tournament. The event was organized by Senior Angelique Benoit, Matt’s sister, aided by Student Council and the entire Benoit Family and many friends. Eight teams participated and more than $800 was raised for the Matt Benoit Scholarship Fund. Pictured are the champs hamming it up.

June 11, 2010

safety first — National AAA Poster Contest Winner Monique Desrochers, a seventh-grader at St. Mary-Sacred Heart School, North Attleboro, presents her poster with Jeannine Souza, the school’s nurse. Desrochers, was the second-place winner in the annual AAA Traffic Safety Poster Contest. For her efforts, she received a plaque and a $200 Visa card from AAA National that was matched with a $200 check from AAA of Southern New England. Her artwork, promoting pet safety when traveling, will be used in AAA’s promotional and traffic safety educational materials.

great achievement — The 99th Coyle and Cassidy High School Honors Night was held recently at the Taunton school. Students from all grades were honored for their academic achievements, community involvements and school-orientated contributions. The night concluded with the awarding of the prestigious “Man and Woman of the Year Award.” This award, presented annually by Louise Scanlon, center, in honor of her late husband Joe, is given to a graduating young man and woman who truly embodies the many attributes that make a Coyle and Cassidy graduate special. This year’s recipients were Michael Gedeon and Kaitlyn Kowalski.

good sports — Bishop Feehan High School, Attleboro, Principal Bill Runey, rear, recently presided over nine Division I scholar-athletes as they signed on to play sports for eight different colleges in the fall. From left is Jennifer Thomas, Brown University — track & field; Anisa Arsenault, Fordham University — track & field; Samuel Dodge, Harvard University — baseball; Patrick Sullivan, University of Notre Dame — swimming; Jeffrey Thomas, Boston University — swimming; Ryan Younis, Lafayette College — swimming; Erin Murphy, Providence College — track & field; Kendra Cheng, Boston University — swimming; and Siobhan Devoy, Colgate University — swimming.

June 11, 2010

I

t’s been quite a month.

This time of year is very busy for all of us. With school coming to a close and other family and school activities, things can get a little crazy.

For my wife, Kris, in her roles at Case High School, she is heavily involved with senior activities and I am fortunate to participate in many of these activities also. Last night was the culminating activity for the senior class where seniors were honored for their outstanding academic achievement. This year’s senior class turned the tables a bit on Kris by honoring her with a yearbook dedication.

In her acceptance talk, fighting through tears of happiness, she thanked her senior class for honoring her. In typical style, she also wanted to honor them with some words of wisdom — the same words of wisdom that we shared with our daughters after their graduation. And so she read, Dr. Seuss’ “Oh the Places You Will Go” to them. In the typical sing-songy rhyme, the good doctor points out many of the important lessons of what will follow as many of them venture on in life. In this simple little parable of life, much can be learned. It’s all about going out and finding

17

Youth Pages So ... Get on your way!

ultimately, you make each your way in life, weathering difficulties, being in charge of decision.

Sometimes you’ll choose and taking responsibility for your life and how it turns out. the right way and sometimes the wrong way. Through it There are many lessons to be all, however, I hope the adults learned from this book. She and friends in your life will shared those lessons with her be there for you. You will, of seniors last night. course, head down a wrong I’d like to share that story path or two (we all do) and with you here once again — you’ll occasionally find some adding some thoughts for you not so good streets. to reflect on as some of you “With your head full of make the important transition to the next phase of your life. My hope is that by perhaps reflecting on some of the words of Dr. Seuss, it may make that transition easier.

By Frank Lucca It begins... “…You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go You can steer yourself down any not-so-good street.” any direction you choose.

As you transition on to the You’re on your own. And next phase of your life, you you know what you know. will attempt to do your best And you are the guy who’ll but it won’t always be easy. decide where to go.”

“Except when you don’t.

Of course, we hope you Because, sometimes, you know that you are the one won’t.” that will choose the direction Try hard as you may to of your life. Life is choice. avoid those bumps you’ll hit You can let it happen to you some along the road. You’ll or you can experience it on be tested and tempted as you your own terms. We parents only hope that we’ve instilled move through these years toward adulthood. the values that will act as “You will come to a place signposts along the way. But

Be Not Afraid

where the streets are not marked.

Some windows are lighted.

But mostly they’re darked.”

You may even lose your way and end up ‘in a useless place.’

“And if you go in, should you turn left or right... or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?”

The road may be frightening and long and you may not want to go on. You may yearn for the “old” days when everything seemed to be much more simple. Ultimately, however, you will learn to cope with life’s ups and downs, and that “slumps, lurches, and waiting places happen” to every Tom, Dick, and Mary.

Sometimes, because of the road you choose, you may feel that you are going it alone. Take those times of aloneness to really learn about yourself.

“All alone.

Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.

On and on you will hike and I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.”

Remember, that with prayer and with Jesus by your side, even though that thought may now seem the least cool thing to think about, you will be able to get through. Remember, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that you and God together cannot get through.

Just keep that one thought in your mind.

“And will you succeed?

Yes. You will, indeed.

Kid, you will move mountains.”

So as you move on, remember that “a million miles begins with a step or two.”

Take one step at a time. Don’t be in a rush to get to the finish line. Enjoy the scenes along the way. Stay faithful, be caring and loving and enjoy these days of your youth.

A happy transition to all who are moving on.

“You’ll get through it OK. Today is your day.

Your mountain is waiting.

So get on your way.”

Frank Lucca is a youth minister at St. Dominic’s Parish in Swansea. He is chairman and director of the YES! Retreat and director of the Christian Leadership Institute (CLI). He is a husband and a father of two daughters and a Dr. Seuss fan. Quotes from Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, the Places You’ll Go,” 1990.

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pius award for the pious — Fifty-four young adults from across the Diocese of Fall River recently received the St. Pius X Youth Award from Bishop George W. Coleman, center, at a ceremony at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River. Named after Pope St. Pius X the founder of the Diocese of Fall River, the award symbolizes his great devotion to youth. The tradition was begun by then Bishop Sean O’Malley in 2002, to recognize the commitment and selflessness of diocesan teens towards Christ, his Church, and the local parish communities. One individual was added to the list of winners since The Anchor went to press on May 14. He is Samuel Bombaugh from St. Patrick Parish in Falmouth.

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18

The Anchor

June 11, 2010

Early to bed — missing the finals Retirement of three priests announced

I

am now firmly entrenched in that phenomenon common to post 50-year-olds of hitting the sack shortly after supper.

Granted we don’t have supper at 5 p.m. — it’s more like 7:30, but it’s still pretty darn early.

A few weeks back, Denise, Emilie and I went to a Sugarland concert in Mansfield. They didn’t hit the stage until 9 p.m. — my bed time. Luckily, the backup bands kept me awake and alert, and by the time Sugarland hit the

My View From the Stands

By Dave Jolivet stage I was back in my 20s.

Why do I bring this up? Because I can’t watch the CelticsLakers NBA finals. The games either start at my bed time, or shortly before.

The morning after each game, I lie awake in bed and wonder if I should click on Comcast Sports to check the results.

All through the night, I ponder the results. I’m not quite sure if I’m half awake, or half asleep, but when I fully awake in the morning I’ve convinced myself that I know the results. Being the eternal pessimist that I am, I usually have the premonition of a

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What better gift to give in 2010?

Lakers’ win.

I grab the remote, hesitate for a minute or two, then press the on button like I’m setting off a charge of TNT. Sometimes I hear the explosion — a loss, and sometimes I’m overcome with relief — a win.

The last time the Celts were in the finals, in 2008 vs. L.A., I watched the entire title-clinching game. I had no choice. I was in a hotel room at a Disney resort in Orlando wide awake with a kidney stone attack. It was like watching the game while being elbowed in the kidney by K.G. the entire time.

When they won, I jumped up and raised my arms in victory, then doubled over in pain — several times. I looked like an exerciser in a Richard Simmons’ video.

I’m not thrilled at learning the game results hours after the fact, but I’ll take that over watching the game with a bolder in one of my organs.

Next year, I think I’m going to lobby AARP to have all sports championships begin at 7 p.m.

Age should have its privileges, and one of those should be that I’m not in lala land when the Cs are in LA LA land.

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continued from page one

at Blessed Sacrament and Immaculate Conception parishes in Fall River; St. Patrick’s in Wareham, and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Seekonk.

In October of 1975 he joined the Missionary Society of St. James the Apostle to serve the Quechua Indians in Peru, where he ministered to fishermen and farmers for six years.

Returning in September 1982, he was assigned briefly to St. Stephen’s in Attleboro before being assigned to St. Jacques in Taunton. He was named pastor of St. Joseph’s in Attleboro in 1983.

In 1992, Father Canuel was named diocesan coordinator of the Hispanic Apostolate, and the following year served as pastor at the former St. Hedwig’s, and Our Lady of Guadalupe in New Bedford.

In 2000 he was assigned pastoral duties at two mission parishes of the Diocese of Fall River in the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa, at Aurica and Guaimaca, Honduras.

In June 2007 he was transferred from St. Rose of Lima in Guaimaca to become pastor of St. Mary-Our Lady of the Isle Parish in Nantucket.

In his other diocesan assignments he served two terms on the Presbyteral Council.

“I’m looking forward to retiring and living at the Cardinal Medeiros Residence in Fall River and like other priests there, going out to serve parishes on the weekends. Perhaps a priest who speaks Spanish is needed somewhere,” he told The Anchor.

What might be his first retirement gift is already in the room he’s picked out.

“It’s a brick from the old Blessed Sacrament Church, where I was baptized and served my first assignment as a priest. It is a gift from diocesan Seminarian Jason Brilhante,” he said.

“It will be a new and different path for me. I’ve always liked traveling and being a missionary, and since a kid I’ve liked camping and being outdoors,” he added.

He said he’s also looking forward to making a return visit to Honduras and St. Rose of Lima Parish when it celebrates its upcoming 10th anniversary.

He’s also excited about visiting Peru and renewing acquaintances with those he served as a missionary.

“It’ll be only a visit, so don’t send my Anchor newspaper down there,” he said, laughing.

As for celebrating his retirement, he reported, “I’m in the

dark. I only know it will be at St. Mary-Our Lady of the Isle, but they’re keeping everything from me … it’s a mystery.”

Father Donovan Father Donovan, 68, who hails from Boston, graduated from Newman Preparatory School in Boston in 1960 and studied for the priesthood at St. Philip Neri School for delayed vocations, St. John’s Seminary in Brighton and St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore.

He was ordained to the priesthood on Dec. 5, 1970 in St. Mary’s Cathedral by Bishop Connolly.

He has been a parochial vicar at Corpus Christi in East Sandwich, Holy Name in Fall River, St. John the Evangelist in Attleboro, St. Francis Xavier in Hyannis and St. Patrick’s in Wareham.

In 1989 Father Donovan was named pastor of St. Joseph’s Parish in North Dighton, and went on sabbatical in July 1990.

Returning in June 1991, he was named pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Pocasset, where he has since served.

Other diocesan appointments include moderator of the Attleboro Chapter of the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women, moderator of Catholic Nurses, Pre-Cana moderator and liaison to the Cape Cod Council of Churches.

Although currently in a physical rehabilitation program at the Catholic Memorial Home in Fall River, Father Donovan gave the visiting Anchor a hearty welcome last week.

“Come and sit down,” Father Donovan said cheerfully during lunch in the cafeteria.

“I’ve been sick for a while and this is my walker … Johnny Walker,” he punned. “But I’m feeling well and looking forward to retirement — it’s very acceptable — and being at the Cardinal Medeiros Residence with a most fraternal group,” he said smiling.

“I have my room reserved and waiting,” he added.

He said he’s also looking forward happily to a June 27 Mass and reception at St. John the Evangelist marking his retirement, hosted by Msgr. Ronald A. Tosti, himself retired.

“I’ll be the preacher,” he reported. “I’ve been pastor at St. John’s for 20 years and a priest for 40 years. I have a large family — six sisters and a brother — and they’re all coming to the celebration, and it should be a good time.”

Father Morse Father Morse, 71, had been pastor of St. Stephen’s in Attle-

boro since May 16, 2001, until May 16 of this year when it was merged with St. Mary’s in Seekonk to form the new Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish in Seekonk.

A native of Providence, R.I., he graduated from St. Raphael’s Academy in Pawtucket, and studied for the priesthood at St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomsfield, Conn., and St. John’s Seminary in Brighton.

He was ordained a priest on May 20, 1967 by Bishop James L. Connolly in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River.

He served as a parochial vicar at St. Mary’s Cathedral, St. John the Evangelist in Attleboro, and Holy Name in New Bedford, before being granted leave to work initially in the Generest II retreat program under the aegis of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

He earned a master’s degree in education from the University of North Carolina in 1970, and from 1975 to 1980 he was associate director and then director of the Ministry to Priests programs at Notre Dame University and St. Paul’s in Washington, D.C., as well as in Australia, England, Scotland and Canada.

Father Morse received a doctorate in psychology from Oxford University in 2000; served at Our Lady of Victory in Centerville that same year; and the following year was named pastor at St. Stephen’s.

Other diocesan appointments include supervising the preparation of videos for use in Catholic hospitals, teaching at Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro, and as assistant director of the Attleboro Area CYO. “I’m working out of boxes right now,” Father Morse said in a telephone interview. “There’s 43 years of items involved.”

He said he will be spending the next few months and the summer at his sister’s home in Westerly, R.I., “sorting things out and seeing where the Spirit will lead me,” he said.

“But I plan to help out parishes in the Fall River Diocese.

As a matter of fact, Father Thomas L. Rita, pastor of the new Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, has sort of locked me in to helping him there, and so I will be renewing acquaintances with some of the parishioners I have come to know so well.

After that, I’ll figure out what comes next.”

As for a retirement celebration, “it was held April 25, with a Mass at St. Stephen’s and a reception following,” he reported.

Charities Appeal reaches $3M FALL RIVER — As the 69th annual Catholic Charities Appeal entered its final two weeks, the totals reported from the 91 parishes had reached the $3 million dollar mark. With some parishes beginning to exceed their previous year’s totals, cautious optimism was filtering into the Appeal’s central office.

“There are no guarantees of surpassing our overall total of last year, but parishes have to exceed their individual totals if we’re going to achieve the overall goal,” said Mike Donly diocesan director of Development.

“That’s obviously the most important step and it’s beginning to happen,” he added. “It’s quite amazing actually, to watch them strive to surpass last year’s total and then echo our hopes that they intend to promote giving among their parishioners until the very end of the Appeal on June 22.

We couldn’t make it if parishes stopped and were satisfied once they reached their previous year’s total. Our goal is not just to beat last year’s amount, it’s to raise as much as we can to address as much of the need as possible.”

Since its inception in 1942, the annual Catholic Charities Appeal in the Diocese of Fall River has literally touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children regardless of race, creed, nationality, gender, or economic status. The true focus of the Appeal effort has been to lessen the suffering of

In Your Prayers

Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks June 14 Rev. Msgr. George E. Sullivan, Retired Pastor, St. Joseph, Fall River, 1980 Rev. Msgr. Joseph A. Cournoyer, Retired Pastor, St. Michael, Swansea, 1982 Rev. James H. Coughlin, S.J., Fairfield University, Fairfield, Conn., 1992 Rev. Justin J. Quinn, Chaplain, Madonna Manor, North Attleboro, Former Pastor, Immaculate Conception, Fall River, 1996 June 16 Rev. James McDermott, Pastor, St. Patrick, Somerset, 1975 June 18 Most Rev. William B. Tyler, First Bishop of Hartford, Founder of the Sandwich Mission, 1849 Rev. James M. Coffey, P.R., Pastor, St. Mary, Taunton, 1935 Rev. Declan Daly, SS.CC., Associate Pastor, St. Joseph, Fairhaven, 1984 Rev. Henri Laporte, O.P., Former Pastor, St. Anne, Fall River, 1992 June 19 Rev. Hormisdas Deslauriers, Founder, St. Anthony, New Bedford, 1916 June 20 Rt. Rev. Msgr. James Coyle, P.R., LL.D., Pastor, St. Mary, Taunton, 1931

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June 11, 2010

those who turn to the Church during their time of need. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” has always been the underlying theme of this phenomenal effort. Whether it be those who are “poor in spirit,” or those “poor in mind and body,” all of the poor need to be ministered to if the Gospel message is to be followed.

As Bishop Coleman said in his Appeal message, “Through your support and generosity, you can help make the love of God truly visible in someone’s life.”

Through the dedication of those in the agencies and apostolates funded by the Appeal who work tirelessly to fulfill the needs of those they minister to, those whose gifts support this wonderful work are actually ministering to these people themselves.

The love of God truly visible in someone’s life because of the

thoughtfulness and generosity of diocesan faithful donors. To quote Pope Benedict; ‘The love of God is revealed in our responsibility for others.’”

“We have great hope for the success of the Appeal as we do each year because we have great faith in our parishioners,” concluded Donly. “I can’t imagine people being aware of the need and the great effort the agencies put forth to minister to those who need our assistance, and them not sacrificing as much as they can to ease the suffering of the thousands of men, women, and children who have nowhere else to turn.”

Donations to the Appeal can be sent to the Catholic Charities Appeal Office, P.O. Box 1470, Fall River, Mass. 02722; dropped off at any parish in the diocese; or made on the Appeal website: www.frdioc-catholiccharities.org

Around the Diocese 6/11

St. Stanislaus Parish, 36 Rockland Street, Fall River, will host its Polish Festival tonight from 5 to 9 p.m., tomorrow from 5 to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. For more information visit www.SaintStansFestival.com.

6/13

St. Joseph-St. Therese School, New Bedford, will hold a “Farewell Open House” Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Join them for refreshments as they celebrate the history of the school with photos, trophies and artifacts. Come walk the halls and reminisce.

6/14

The third Summer Catholic Reflections series begins June 14 at Christ the King Parish, Mashpee, with Father James Martin, SJ, speaking at 7 p.m. on “Laughing with the Saints: Joy, Humor and Laughter in Spiritual Life.” Subsequent talks are scheduled for July 7 with Pheme Perkins, and on August 4 with Professor Ernest Collamati. The series is sponsored by St. Anthony’s Parish, East Falmouth; Our Lady of Victory Parish, Centerville; and Christ the King Parish, Mashpee. Information and directions are available at www.christthekingparish.com.

6/19

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, North Front Street, New Bedford, will hold its annual two-day Polish Festival beginning at 11 a.m. on June 19. The event is held rain or shine under big tents with plenty of entertainment, food and games until 8 p.m. A Polka Mass will kick things off on June 20 at 11 a.m. and the festival will continue until 5 p.m. that day. For more information call 508-992-9378.

6/19

The third annual Walk for Life will be held June 19 in Capron Park, Attleboro beginning at 10 a.m. Registration forms are available at local parishes. All proceeds will benefit a resource center in Attleboro for women with an unplanned pregnancy.

6/25

St. Vincent’s Home, Fall River, will host its second annual KickOff to Summer Celebration at the Battleship Massachusetts in Battleship Cove, Fall River, on June 25 from 6 to 10 p.m. The event will include a cocktail reception with music provided by the Compaq Big Band and a live auction hosted by Billy Costa of “The TV Diner.” For more information call 508-235-3228 or visit www.stvincentshome.org.

6/26

COURAGE, a welcoming support group for Catholics wounded by same-sex attraction who gather to seek God’s wisdom, mercy and love, will next meet on June 26 at 7 p.m. For location information call Father Richard Wilson at 508-992-9408.

6/27

The Cathedral Youth Choir will perform “Table for Five ... Thousand!” by Allen Pote and Tom Long on June 27 at 3 p.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Fall River. The musical tells the Gospel miracle of Jesus feeding so many with a few loaves and fishes, and lasts about 40 minutes. A free will offering will be accepted to benefit relief efforts in Haiti.

6/27

Holy Family-Holy Name School, 91 Summer Street, New Bedford, will hold its Msgr. Thomas J. Harrington Open Golf Tournament on June 27 at the Acushnet River Golf Course. Proceeds will benefit the education programs at the school. For registration and more information call 508-993-3547 or visit www.hfhm.org.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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 508-336-5549.

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 — Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament takes place every First Friday at Annunciation of the Lord Church, 31 First Street, immediately following the 8 a.m.

Mass and continues throughout the day. Confessions are heard from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m., concluding with recitation of the rosary and Benediction at 6:30 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 — Beginning in May, 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. 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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June 11, 2010

La Salette to host first annual Irish Pilgrimage Day

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

ATTLEBORO — The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette is adding one more ethnic pilgrimage day to its already vast array. On Sunday, the Shrine will host the first annual Irish Pilgrimage Day. The idea was the brainchild of La Salette Father John P. Sullivan, codirector of Ethnic Ministries. In a letter from Father Sullivan promoting the event, he said, “For the first time at La Salette Shrine, we are offering a pilgrimage to people of Irish descent” who live in the Boston Archdiocese and the Fall River and Providence dioceses. “The focus will be on strengthening the importance of the family.”

The event is themed, “Rediscovering the Treasure of Our Irish Family Roots.”

In March, Father Sullivan teamed with Shrine director La Salette Father Andre Patenaude, and John Murphy of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in New Bedford to plan the event. Arriving unannounced at the planning session was Holy Cross Father John Phalen, president of Holy Cross Family Ministries in North Easton.

“Father Phalen wanted to be a part of this event,” Murphy told The Anchor. “He wanted to bring in the aspect of the rosary, the saints, and the life of Servant of God Father Patrick Peyton, noted for his famous promise, ‘The family

that prays together, stays together.’”

The day, which begins at 9 a.m., and concludes at approximately 5:30 p.m., will include Irish singers and musicians, a talk by radio host Seamus Mulligan of WROL in Quincy, a presentation from Father Sullivan on his family’s Irish heritage, a holy hour with the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and an outdoor Mass concelebrated by guest, Father Joseph Raeke of Boston, Father Phalen, and Fathers George E. Harrison and Brian Harrington of the Fall River Diocese.

Holy Cross Family Ministries will present two 45-minute sessions for children up to age 12, presented

by Beth Mahoney, mission director at HCFM, and Ann Marie Melanson, mission assistant. The morning session will teach the children to make rosaries that they will be able to keep and use to pray with their families. The afternoon session will help the children become acquainted with the lives of some Irish saints, including SS. Patrick, Bridget, Colmkille, Brendan, and Finbar.

Father Phalen will give a presentation of the famed “Rosary Priest,” Father Peyton, whose sainthood cause is currently underway, and on Our Lady of Knock.

The event will also include a Family Rosary Procession at the Rosary Pond where pilgrims will carry the image of the Blessed Mother.

Scheduled to perform at the pilgrimage day is Noel Henry’s Irish Showband, that includes his brothers, Deacon Matthew Henry and Tom Henry. Other scheduled performers include the Irish-American group Margaret Dalton’s Erin’s Melody, the Andy Healey Band, and singers Frank Smith and Michael Maloney. All will perform Irish spiritual music.

A light lunch will be available, or guests can bring a bag lunch. The event will be held rain or shine.

La Salette Shrine is located at 947 Park Street in Attleboro. For a complete list of the schedule of events, visit the website lasalette-shrine.org, and click on “Calendar of Events,” next “Pilgrimages,” and finally on “Irish Pilgrimage Day.” Murphy told The Anchor he hopes this will become an annual event. Everyone is invited to attend.