Anchor 11.26.10

Diocese of Fall River

The Anchor

F riday , November 26, 2010

Mass. bishops promote Baby Safe Haven

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent

BOSTON — The four bishops of Massachusetts want every pregnant woman unable to care for her child to know that there is hope. Commonwealth law allows mothers to surrender their newborns with no questions asked.

The Baby Safe Haven Law, passed in 2004, was designed to prevent tragedies like the case in East Boston this past September when a desperate teen-age mother threw her baby from a second

floor window. Neighbors found the boy in an alley, steps away from a fire station. He received medical attention for hypothermia and skull fractures and is now in state custody. His mother has been charged with assault and battery on a child.

The mother did not know about the law, which would have allowed her to turn her child over to a trained staff member at a hospital, police station or fire station up to seven days after his birth without fear of prosecuTurn to page 18 PULLING STRINGS — Ten students and two alumni from Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth participated in a “ground shaking” ceremony last week at the former convent of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur adjacent to the school on Slocum Road. The four-story facility that previously housed the Family Life Center of the Fall River Diocese is about to be renovated as the high school’s new academic resource center. Those who assisted in pulling down the main entrance handrail included students Grace Carroll, Corey Krajewski, Conor Gay, Sarina Pontes, Lorenzo Dube, Will Shepard, Robert Ruginis, Charles Armstrong, Hannah Harrington, and Molly Harrington; along with alumni and capital campaign co-chairmen Michael Harrington and Maureen Sylvia Armstrong. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

True meaning of Advent not lost on parishes, ministries across the diocese

a sign of hope — This Baby Safe Haven is at a fire station in Fall River. In Massachusetts, the Safe Haven Law provides a safe, affordable, confidential alternative to abortion or infant abandonment. (Photo by Dave Jolivet)

BINGO struggles to stay A-L-I-V-E

By Rebecca Aubut Anchor Staff

WESTPORT — Bingo, once the ubiquitous game played in almost every church hall as parish and school fund-raisers, has been gradually waning. Yet for the few parishes that have successfully maintained their weekly bingo, the game continues to bring in much-needed revenue.

At Our Lady of Grace Parish in Westport, the game that more than

30 years ago initially funded the transportation for area students to attend Catholic schools has morphed into an exciting nail-biter event that has participants vying for monetary prizes that can go as high as $3,000.

“It’s amazing,” said Father Horace J. Travassos. “I think the last week we had 265 people there, and it has gone up to 300 sometimes. That’s a lot of people.”

The caveat, of course, is the prize Turn to page 14

By Dave Jolivet, Editor

een candy goes on clearance, retailers are rigging FALL RIVER — It happens every year; howev- up lights, trees, wreaths, and Santas, while adverer, it’s becoming progressively worse as time goes tising Christmas sales and specials. Store music on. The beautiful and peaceful seasons of waiting systems play an endless stream of seasonal music, for the birth of Our Lord, and then the actual event, and customers are welcomed into a winter wonder are increasingly tainted by a secular and capitalistic land of sights, sounds, and savings. mind-set. What should be one There is at least one local of the holiest and most joyful radio station that began playparts of the Church calendar ing Christmas music every First sunday has become a non-stop barday, around-the-clock several of advent rage of commercials, sales, weeks ago. Even by secular TV specials, and “Christmas standards, Santa’s Macy’s apcarol” radio marathons. pearance on Thanksgiving has Years ago the bombardlost its magic. ment usually began at the Fortunately, parishes, minend of the annual Macy’s istries, and diocesan faithful Thanksgiving Parade in New can cut through the secular York City, when Santa Claus blitz, and concentrate on the would make his first seasonal true meaning of the Advent appearance at the end of the and Christmas seasons. gala.

The Advent season is a peToday, as soon as Hallow- Nov. 28, 2010 Turn to page five

Parish bulletins as a communications tool

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

FALL RIVER — Despite the increased use of so-called “new media” tools such as email, blogs and social networking websites to evangelize people and keep Catholics well-informed, the traditional weekly

parish bulletin remains an important and effective mode of communication that is still going strong.

“Parishioners still pick up the bulletins every week,” said Father Michael Nagle, pastor of Good Shepherd Parish on Martha’s Vineyard. “I find it’s still

the best way to communicate and it’s pretty effective in getting the message out.”

While most parishes in the Fall River Diocese have expanded into cyberspace with frequently updated websites and even the occasional FaceTurn to page 12

2

News From the Vatican

November 26, 2010

In new book, pope addresses sex abuse, condoms, possible resignation ROME (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI’s book-length interview is certain to spark global attention, and not only for his comments suggesting that condom use might be acceptable in some circumstances.

In the 219-page book, “Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times,” the German pontiff spoke candidly on the clerical sex abuse scandal, relations with Islam, papal resignation and the “threatening catastrophe” facing humanity.

The wide-ranging interview was conducted by German writer Peter Seewald, who posed questions in six one-hour sessions last summer.

The book was released November 23 at the Vatican, but ample excerpts were published three days earlier by the Vatican newspaper.

The book reveals a less formal side of the pope, as he responds simply and directly on topics as diverse as the joy of sex and the ban on burqas. Much of the conversation focuses on the pope’s call for a global “examination of conscience” in the face of economic disparity, environmental disasters and moral slippage.

The pope repeatedly emphasized that the Church’s role in a largely broken world is not to impose a “burden” of moral rules but to open the doors to God. Even before the book’s release, media attention centered on the pope’s remarks on condoms in AIDS prevention. While repeating his view that condoms cannot

be the only answer to the AIDS epidemic, the pope allowed that in some specific cases — for example, that of male prostitutes — use of a condom could be a step toward taking moral responsibility for one’s actions.

An entire chapter and parts of others were dedicated to the clerical sex abuse scandal. The pope called it “a great crisis” that left him “stunned by how wretched the Church is, by how much her members fail to follow Christ.”

“It was really almost like the crater of a volcano, out of which suddenly a tremendous cloud of filth came, darkening and soiling everything, so that above all the priesthood suddenly seemed to be a place of shame,” he said.

He expressed optimism about the Church’s recovery from the scandal, saying God continues to raise up Catholic saints. But he also said he understands why some Catholics, particularly victims, have responded by leaving the Church in protest.

“It is difficult for them to keep believing that the Church is a source of good, that she communicates the light of Christ, that she helps people in life — I can understand that,” he said.

The pope said media coverage of the abuse scandal was partly motivated by a desire to discredit the Church. But he added that the Church must be “grateful for every disclosure” and said the media could not have reported in this

way “had there not been evil in the Church.”

The pope pointed to the Church’s new rules and policies on sex abuse, but he appeared to acknowledge that more might have been done. He noted that in 2002, the Vatican and U.S. bishops established strict norms to curb sex abuse in U.S. dioceses.

“Would it have been Rome’s duty, then, to say to all the countries expressly: Find out whether you are in the same situation? Maybe we should have done that,” he said.

The pope said that in responding to sex abuse allegations against the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, the late Mexican Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, “unfortunately we addressed these things very slowly and late.” The allegations were eventually substantiated and the order has been placed under Vatican leadership for a period of reform.

Pope Benedict said Father Maciel remains for him “a mysterious figure,” one who lived an immoral and twisted life but who built up his religious order with dynamism — a “false prophet” who nevertheless had a “positive effect.” As for the future of the Legionaries, the pope said it was basically sound but needed corrections that do not destroy the enthusiasm of its members.

The pope was asked if he considered resigning in the face of such burdens as the sex abuse crisis. He responded: “When the danger is

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI created 24 new cardinals, including two from the United States, and called them to be strong in spreading and defending the faith and promoting peace and tranquility within the Church.

Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington and Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Vatican’s supreme court, joined other new cardinals from 13 countries in formally professing their Catholic faith and fidelity to the pope.

After the oath, all but one of the new cardinals knelt before the pope to receive a red biretta, a three-cornered red hat, which the pope said, “signifies that you must be ready to act with strength, to the point of shedding blood, to increase the Christian faith, for the peace and tranquility of the people of God and for the freedom and growth of the holy Roman Church.”

Cardinal Antonios Naguib, the Catholic Coptic patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt, received a new patriarch’s hat with a thin red trim added to the traditional black veil.

The pope also assigned the new cardinals a “titular church” in Rome, making them members of the Rome diocesan clergy, which

is what the Church’s first cardinals were. Cardinal Burke’s titular church is St. Agatha of the Goths; Cardinal Wuerl’s is St. Peter in Chains, the church famous for hosting Michelangelo’s statue of Moses.

The consistory to create new cardinals took the form of a prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica. With the exception of the pope’s homily and the prayers of the faithful, the service was in Latin.

At the end of the service, the College of Cardinals numbered a record 203 members, with 121 cardinals under the age of 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope. With the induction of Cardinals Wuerl and Burke into the College of Cardinals, the United States has 18 cardinals, 13 of whom are under the age of 80.

Only Italy has more cardinals.

With 10 new cardinals, Italy has a total of 48 members of the college, 25 of whom are under 80.

In his homily, Pope Benedict said he chose as cardinals “pastors who govern important diocesan communities with zeal, prelates in charge of dicasteries of the Roman Curia or who have served the Church and the Holy See with ex-

emplary fidelity.”

The Gospel reading used for the prayer service was St. Mark’s account of the disciples vying for a place of honor with Jesus, and Jesus telling them, “Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.”

Pope Benedict told the new cardinal’s that Jesus’ “style of living became the basis of new relationships within the Christian community and of a new way of exercising authority.”

Even after Jesus explained to the disciples that following him would involve suffering, they demonstrated that they had “expectations and plans for greatness, authority and honor in the eyes of the world,” the pope said.

Jesus was patient with them, he said, but he also made it clear that to be his disciples they must be totally obedient to God and follow “this road that passes through humiliation, suffering and death for love.”

Meeting reporters after the consistory, Cardinal Wuerl said it was “a glorious day” with the basilica filled with people from around the world, showing the universality of the Church.

Pope creates new cardinals, tells them authority means service

great one must not run away. For that reason, now is certainly not the time to resign.” But he added that if a pope is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of the papacy, he has a right and perhaps an obligation to resign.

The pope spoke candidly of his age and health, saying his schedule of meetings and trips “really overtaxes an 83-year-old man.”

“I trust that our dear Lord will give me as much strength as I need to be able to do what is necessary.

But I also notice that my forces are diminishing,” he said.

The pope laughed when Seewald suggested that he looked good enough to be a fitness trainer, and said he has to conserve energy during his busy days. Asked whether he uses an exercise bicycle a doctor had given him, the pope replied: “No, I don’t get to it at all — and don’t need it at the moment, thank God.” He said he spends his free time reading, praying and sometimes watching DVDs — typically with religious themes — with members of the papal household.

Much of the book dealt with the pope’s strategy for presenting the Church’s message in a largely skeptical world. The essential problem today, he said, is that the prevailing model of economic and social progress that leaves out God, and thus omits the ethical aspect.

Impending climactic disaster actually provides an opportunity to evangelize and promote moral decisions, he said. The problem, though, is that populations and countries seem unwilling to make sacrifices — which is where the Church can make a difference, he said.

It is urgent to “bring the question about God back into the center,” he said. “The important thing today is to see that God exists, that God matters to us and that he answers us.”

He said the Church can do this only if its own members live the faith in their daily lives. He said that simple task should be the priority today, rather than embarking on major initiatives like a third Vatican Council.

The pope said the Church’s

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task is threatened by a “new intolerance” that would limit religious expression in the name of non-discrimination, for example in banning the display of crucifixes in public schools, or in condemning specific Church teachings.

“When, for example, in the name of non-discrimination, people try to force the Catholic Church to change her position on homosexuality or the ordination of women, then that means she is no longer allowed to live out her own identity,” he said.

In that regard, the pope said other religions face similar pressures.

He said, for example, that he saw no reason for Western countries to ban the burqa, the Islamic veil, as long as it is worn voluntarily.

On other topics, Pope Benedict had this to say: — He defended the 1968 encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” which taught that artificial contraception in marriage is morally wrong, but said the Church needs to find ways to help people live the teaching and show tolerance to those who have problems with it.

The pope noted that the Church accepts natural regulation of conception. He said that method presupposes that couples take time for each other, and is far different from taking a pill “so that I can jump into bed with a random acquaintance.” In general, he said, the Church has to return to the “genuinely Christian attitude” of joy, as well as discipline and responsibility, in sexuality.

— He said dialogue with Muslims has improved during his pontificate, in part because Muslim scholars accept that Islam needs to clarify its relation to violence and its relation to reason.

— The pope took issue with critics of the wartime policies of Pope Pius XII, saying that he “saved more Jews than anyone else” by quietly opening doors to Church institutions.

— He said he began distributing Communion on the tongue during papal Masses not because he was opposed to Communion in the hand, but to “send a signal” about respect for the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER Vol. 54, No. 45

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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Send address changes to P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA, call or use email address

PUBLISHER - Most Reverend George W. Coleman EXECUTIVE EDITOR Father Roger J. Landry fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.org EDITOR David B. Jolivet davejolivet@anchornews.org OFFICE MANAGER Mary Chase m arychase@anchornews.org ADVERTISING Wayne R. Powers waynepowers@anchornews.org REPORTER Kenneth J. Souza kensouza@anchornews.org REPORTER Rebecca Aubut beckyaubut@anchornews.org Send Letters to the Editor to: fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.org

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November 26, 2010

The International Church

3

Vatican disturbed by reports China forcing bishops to attend ordination

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican is disturbed by reports from mainland China that government officials are forcing bishops to attend an illicit episcopal ordination.

“If these reports are true, then the Holy See would consider such actions as grave violations of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience,” said a recent statement from Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman.

“It would also consider such an ordination as illicit and damaging to the constructive relations that have been developing in recent times between the People’s Republic of China and the Holy See,” the statement said.

Father Lombardi confirmed that Father Joseph Guo Jincai, scheduled to be ordained bishop of Chengde November 20, did not have the approval of Pope Benedict XVI to be ordained a bishop.

He said the Vatican, “keen to develop positive relations with China,” had contacted Chinese authorities to make its position on the ordination clear.

In recent years, a Chinese diocese’s priests, nuns and laypeople have elected their new bishop, and most of those elected have applied to the Holy See for approval. If such approval was given, it often was announced at the episcopal ordination.

China requires that the bishops be approved by the government-sanctioned Bishops’ Con-

ference of the Catholic Church in China, which the Vatican does not recognize.

Anthony Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the governmentsanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, told the Asian church news agency UCA News in 2009 that papal approval would not be a factor for the bishops’ conference determining a candidate’s suitability.

“Since China and the Vatican do not have diplomatic ties and normal communication channels, we will endorse the qualified candidate just as in the past,” he said. He added that it is up to the local diocese to ask the Vatican to approve the bishop candidate if the diocese wishes to do so.

UCA News reported November 18 that at least four bishops of Hebei province and Bishop Paul Pei Junmin of Liaoning were on the list of prelates scheduled to attend the Chengde ordination.

Bishop Pei, 41, who earned master’s degrees in theology and biblical studies at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., was in Inner Mongolia’s Chifeng Diocese November 18 to ordain new priests.

“Religious officials of Liaoning have arrived there to escort him to Chengde, probably tomorrow,” a source told UCA News.

Catholics in Hebei told UCA News they hoped the outside world would know the difficult

By Rita Fitch Catholic News Service

the similarities and respecting the differences of both religions while continuing a genuine dialogue, said a statement issued November 16 at the Vatican.

The statement was drawn up by Vatican and Iranian participants at the end of their recent meeting.

Participants said religious believers, like all citizens, have a role to play in society, particularly in promoting the common good.

They also called for an approach to educating the young that promotes “the search for truth, spiritual values and promotion of knowledge.”

The meeting was led by Mohammad Baqer Khorramshad, president of the Iranian Islamic center, and Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

The Vatican and the Iranian Muslim scholars have been engaged in dialogue since 1994; the next meeting will be in Rome in 2012.

Defend common values, say delegates at Vatican, Iranian meeting

VATICAN CITY — Christians and Muslims must cooperate in responding to modern challenges and in promoting moral values, said a statement by members of a Catholic-Muslim dialogue sponsored by the Vatican and Iran.

At the end of a meeting in Tehran, the participants said it is necessary “to cooperate in answering modern challenges, promoting moral values, justice and peace and protecting the family, environment and natural resources.”

Members of the dialogue sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and Iran’s governmentrelated Center for Interreligious Dialogue of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization also called for respect for religious freedom.

The focus of the meeting, “Religion and Society Today: Christian and Muslim Perspectives,” aimed at highlighting

situation of the bishops, and they asked for people’s prayers for them.

China requires bishops to register with the government, but many believe this forces them to operate within certain limits. A 2007 letter from Pope Benedict to Chinese Catholics emphasized that some aspects of the patriotic association were incompatible with Church teaching and said the Holy See “leaves the decision to the individual bishop,” having consulted his priests, “to weigh and to evaluate the possible consequences” of joining the association.

Many of China’s older bishops spent time in prison during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution and found the strength to resist government pressures once China began allowing Catholics to practice their faith in the early 1980s, said people familiar with the situation of the Catholic Church in China.

But the new generation of bishops — most of whom are in their late 30s and early 40s — find it more difficult to resist.

Several young bishops have indicated they realized the pressures they would face when they accepted the job, and at least one

indicated to Catholic News Service that it was his way of bearing Jesus’ cross.

Media reports in 2006 indicated some young bishops already recognized by both the Holy See and Chinese religious authorities were tricked into participating in the ordination of a new bishop not approved by authorities in Rome. Several of the ordaining bishops were invited to attend a meeting about Church properties in one city and instead were driven to Xuzhou for the ordination.

One young bishop called his secretary to come pick him up and managed to escape.

4

The Church in the U.S.

Bishops wrap up fall assembly, pass agreement on baptism

BALTIMORE (CNS) — The 2010 fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was devoted primarily to internal matters — the election of new conference leaders, discussion of how their own statements should be produced, budgetary and structural questions and information about how they can better integrate new media into diocesan structures.

They also affirmed an historic agreement to recognize baptisms in four Protestant church communities.

Public sessions made up the first two days of the assembly, with the bishops spending the remainder of the meeting in executive session.

The last public action the bishops took was a nearly unanimous vote to approve the preparation of a brief policy statement on assisted suicide, which they will debate and vote on at their spring assembly in June.

Before the afternoon vote Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on ProLife Activities, outlined the “increasingly urgent threat” posed by the wider use of assisted suicide in the United States.

New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan was elected USCCB president.

In other voting, the bishops also chose treasurer Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., as vice

president and Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston, W.Va., as treasurer. They also selected chairmen-elect for six

committees. Archbishop Kurtz and Bishop Bransfield took office at the conclusion of the meeting, while the chairmen-elect were to be in charge their committees beginning in November 2011.

They chose Msgr. Ronny E. Jenkins, as USCCB general secretary.

A priest of the Diocese of Austin, Texas, Msgr. Jenkins will succeed Msgr. David Malloy at the close of the bishops’ spring assembly in June.

76 Wianno Avenue, Osterville, MA 02655 Sat., 4 December 2010 ~ 508-428-2011

7:50 am Annex: Story of Fatima Video.

9:00 am

Church: Procession of Our Lady. Angelus. Crowning Ceremony. Sung Litany of Loreto. The Five Joyful Mysteries.

10:00 am

Mass of Our Lady: Main Celebrant and Preacher: Fr. Joshua Mary, FI; Consecration of Parish to Our Lady by Fr. Philip Davignon.

11:10 am Annex: Lunch break (please bring bag lunch). Bookstore will be open.

12:10 pm Exposition and Procession of the Blessed Sacrament.

12:30 pm Sermon on Our Lady by Fr. Maximilian Mary, FI. Silent Adoration.

Meditations of the Passion of Our Lord.

1:35 pm Annex: Break. Bookstore will be open.

1:55 pm 2:50 pm

The other candidate for general secretary was Msgr. David Kagan, vicar general of the Diocese of Rockford, Ill.

Church (USA), Reformed Church in America and United Church of Christ.

Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory

a good start — Members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pray before the start of the second day of their annual fall meeting in Baltimore. (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec)

Our Lady of the Assumption Church

1:10 pm

November 26, 2010

The Five Glorious Mysteries. Act of Consecration. Benediction.

Procession of Our Lady.

2:55 pm Enrollment in the Brown Scapular and Conferment of

Miraculous Medal.

- Confessions available throughout the day - Finish approx 3:10 pm Wheelchair accessible SELECTION OF VENUES FOR 2010 & 2011: Saturday, 1 Jan 2011 Our Lady’s Chapel, New Bedford, MA Saturday, 7, May 2011 Corpus Christi Church, E. Sandwich, MA Saturday, 4 Jun 2011 St. Killian’s Church, New Bedford, MA Saturday, 2 July 2011 St. Lawrence Martyr, New Bedford, MA

In other action, the bishops, by a 204-11 vote, affirmed the “Common Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism.” It was drawn up over the past six years by a team of scholars from the CatholicReformed dialogue group, made up of representatives of the USCCB, Christian Reformed Church in North America, Presbyterian

of Atlanta, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, called the bishops’ vote “a milestone on the ecumenical journey.”

The bishops approved a $180 million balanced budget for the USCCB in 2011, but they refused to agree to an increase in the assessment on dioceses to fund the

conference’s work in 2012.

The bishops also agreed, with little discussion, to an extension of the conference planning cycle for one year to provide time for evaluation of the 2007 conference reorganization and a revised policy on the issuance of USCCB statements and publications. The extension was approved 218-9 and the new guidelines on statements and publications by a vote of 219-3.

Five USCCB offices — Catholic Education, National Collections, Pro-Life Activities, Justice, Peace and Human Development, and Migration and Refugee Services — had requested exceptions to plans submitted earlier, and the Committee on Priorities and Plans had approved them.

The bishops approved changes for the first four offices a 214-15 vote and then in a separate vote, after some discussion, approved the changes for MRS. The bishops heard reports on preparations for World Youth Day in Spain in August 2011; the need for the bishops to embrace social media to effectively evangelize the “digital continent”; and the work of the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage to promote traditional marriage in the face of legislative efforts to legalize same-sex marriage.

Survey says dioceses getting the hang of new media

BALTIMORE (CNS) — Dioceses are getting the hang of a multiplatform media universe, according to the results of a survey conducted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office of Communications.

The increase in media awareness is at least evident in those dioceses that responded to the survey.

Of 189 U.S. diocesan communications offices surveyed, 89 returned the questionnaire.

Among those dioceses that completed the survey, “there is great variation in the use of new media,” said the executive summary of the report, “Survey of Diocesan Media Usage,” which was dated October 2010. The dioceses were queried earlier in the fall.

“Some are just entering new media, others are immersed in it,” the executive summary said. “Therefore, diocesan needs related to new media will also vary widely.”

Of the 89 dioceses that returned the survey — although not every diocese answered every question — 70 said they posted audio files on the diocesan website, and 72 said they provided video files.

Fifty-one dioceses reported they had a “corporate presence” on Facebook, while 37 said they had such a presence on Twitter and 33 on YouTube. In each instance, it was a majority of dioceses answer-

ing the question.

By a 6-to-1 margin, dioceses do not use social media for fund raising, although one diocese said it was using a mobile phone app for fund raising.

Forty dioceses said they have staff “monitor references to the diocese and have a response plan for when a viral campaign impacts the diocese.”

In another sign of web savvy, 22 dioceses said they were using social media to improve search engine results, which would put diocesan websites higher in the list of potential websites to be visited by web surfers looking up keywords on Google, Bing, Ask and similar sites.

A majority of dioceses said they had social media guidelines in place for diocesan and parish personnel — 44 said they do, 34 do not — but dioceses by a nearly 3-to-1 margin (59-20) said they did not provide training in the use of social media to diocesan or parish personnel.

“There is a strong desire to learn more about new media, as respondents requested training in numerous areas,” the executive summary said. “Deepening the use of new media also requires additional resources. The most frequent request is not for additional dollars but for staff who are trained in the use of new media.”

It added, “The next step in the effective use of new media is for diocesan leadership to commit to more sophisticated use of these technologies and the training and resources they will require.”

Traffic to diocesan websites is varied. Two dioceses reported more than 100,000 unique visitors a month. The other 41 dioceses reported an average of 14,498 visitors a month. And 17 said they didn’t have information on how many visitors came to their site.

Close to two-thirds of those dioceses responding said they offer different websites for the diocesan newspaper and for the diocese itself, “which raises the question of how well integrated they are,” the summary said.

Dioceses have not yet tapped electronic readers such as Kindle or the iPad. Only a third of those answering make their publications available electronically, and more than 90 percent of those offer those publications as PDFs, an abbreviation for “portable document format,” which allows for the exchange of electronic documents across systems and platforms.

Ten percent of the dioceses responding said they operated a radio station; the stations average 22,038 listeners. Six percent operated TV stations, with average viewership of 28,068.

November 26, 2010

Clergy, parishes, know true meaning of Advent continued from page one

riod of hopeful anticipation and waiting ... waiting for the coming of the promised Messiah. That’s why most diocesan churches refrain from any Christmas decorations prior to the Christmas Vigil, at which time the season of joy and celebration begins for the following days of the Christmas season.

According to “How to Celebrate Advent,” a brochure by Amy Welborne, published by Our Sunday Visitor, “During these four weeks [of Advent], we’re invited to contemplate the richness of God’s gift to us in Christ, as we, along with the entire Church: “Wait. We remember humanity waiting for the coming of the savior. We wait and pray for the second coming of Jesus as our Lord and judge.

“Convert. We examine our lives and listen to the call of John the Baptist, to make the ways of our hearts ready for forgiveness and love.

“Hope. We remember how God has fulfilled his promises in the grace and salvation through Jesus, and we pray and celebrate in hope for ourselves and for all God has made.”

Priests in the Fall River Diocese are gathering next Thursday for an “Advent Day of Prayer,” at St. Julie Billiart Church in North Dartmouth. Themed “Maintaining Passionate Commitment to Ministry,” the day, according to Father Mark Hession, pastor of Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville and diocesan director of Continuing Education and Formation of Clergy, is held so that “our diocesan priests gather with their bishop to be renewed and reinforced to remain passionate about the mission of being a priest — that of sharing in Christ’s priesthood.”

The presenter is Augustinian Father Raymond Dlugos, vice president for Mission and Ministry at Merrimack College.

“Priests of the Church, like everyone else, have the invitation at Advent to deepen their own ongoing conversion, made real in the Eucharist,” added Father Hession. “The priests and people wait in joyful hope for the coming of Christ into their lives. Through the sacraments, preaching, teaching, and spiritual direction, priests show the mercy of God, the light of the world ... very much an Advent theme.”

At the diocese’s eastern-most parish in Provincetown, Father Henry Dahl, pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Parish told The Anchor that for Advent, each of his parishioners is given the “Little Blue Book” of Advent and Christmas reflections, published by the Diocese of Saginaw, Mich. “The books provide daily six-minute reflections on the Gospels,” said Father Dahl. “It provides people with the opportunity to step back from the busyness of the season and meditate on the time of preparation and waiting for Christmas.”

Father Dahl said his parish also has the traditional Advent Wreath, and an Advent Tree where parishioners can provide gifts for the needy at Christmas.

At St. Francis of Assisi Parish in New Bedford, the concept of giving, rather than receiving, is prevalent. Much like when the Magi traveled a great distance, in ea-

5

The Anchor ger anticipation of paying homage to the newborn Messiah and giving him gifts, the parish Women’s League prepares a list of local people who would benefit from a visit and gifts at Christmas time. “It’s about giving of themselves,” said pastor Father Kevin Harrington.

Another parish Advent project is collecting gifts for a parishioner, or someone connected with the parish who is presently serving overseas in the military. “We feel it’s important for these people to feel connected and that we’re thinking of them this time of year,” said Father Harrington.

Last year, the parish sent gifts to a service man and his peers overseas. “The soldier came back and surprised us with a visit later on,” said Father Harrington.

“He spoke to the parishioners and thanked them. He told them how much their kindness meant to him and his fellow soldiers.

It was a very emotional day.”

The St. Francis parishioners also bring fruit to church that will later be donated to the needy.

The retired priests at the Cardinal Medeiros residence in Fall River try to make the Advent season come alive with a massive Advent scene, complete with towns and villages, villagers, shepherds, animals, and a traveling Mary and Joseph.

“Mary and Joseph begin their journey at the beginning of Advent at the far end of the display that measures 15 feet by six feet,” said Msgr. Thomas J. Harrington.

“Each day they move closer and closer toward the town of Bethlehem. Along the way they encounter people and scenes reminiscent of when the original Holy Family made its way toward Bethlehem.

“By the time Christmas comes, the couple has made a home in the manger, situated high above the display in a prominent place. It’s a beautiful, gradual unfolding of Advent into the Christmas story.”

“I Hear the Prophet Calling,” a contemporary Advent cantata by Pepper Choplin, will be presented by the Cathedral Youth and Adult Choirs on December 5 at 3 p.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River.

Instead of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” those attending the Advent concert will hear true “seasonal songs” such as, “I Hear the Prophet Calling,” “The People Who Walk in Darkness,” “I Hear a Mother Singing,” “I Hear the Shepherds Calling,” and “A Star Rising in the East.”

In Swansea, at St. Louis de France Parish, an Advent Centering Prayer Group will host weekly Centering Prayer gatherings using a Lectio Divina format. The group will meet in the Family Room of the main church at 6:15 p.m., every Monday in Advent, through December 20.

Holy Cross Family Ministries is hosting a series of Advent radio shows on AM 1530-WVBF. The shows will air on Saturday and Sunday mornings from 8 to 8:30 a.m.

November 27 and 28 will feature “Beginning Advent with Prayer” hosted by Father David Marcham of Holy Cross Family Ministries; December 11 and 12: “Reflections of Advent” hosted by Father John Phalen, CSC, president of Holy

Cross Family Ministries; and December 18 and 19: “Families and Christmas,” again hosted by Father David Marcham.

They will also offer a “Christmas Novena of Masses” from December 18 through 26. The public is welcome to attend the Masses each weekday at noon in the chapel of the Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street, North Easton.

This week in

50 years ago — Plans were finalized for construction of a 70-room retreat house at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro, with the project to begin the following spring. The retreat house would be located off Park Street on the north end of the shrine grounds in order to provide complete isolation and tranquility for the retreatants.

25 years ago — Members of the Taunton District of the St. Vincent de Paul Society collected much-needed clothing to be sent to families within the Diocese of Brownsville, Tex., in the aftermath of an extreme cold spell.

All are welcome to send prayer petitions which will be place on the altar. Send petitions to: Father Peyton Center, Attention — Christmas Novena, 518 Washington Street, North Easton, 02356.

Other Advent events can be found in parish bulletins across the diocese for those interested in keeping the “Reason for the Season,” of Advent and Christmas.

Diocesan history

10 years ago — Bishop Sean O’Malley, OFM Cap., dedicated and blessed the new 22,000-squarefoot Father Patrick Peyton Center, a pilgrimage and visitors’ center and new international headquarters for Holy Cross Family Ministries, in North Easton on property adjacent to Stonehill College.

One year ago — Bishop George W. Coleman informed parishioners that he had formally accepted the recommendation of their combined parish task force to join St. Mary’s Church in Seekonk and St. Stephen’s Church in Attleboro to create the new Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish in Seekonk.

6

The Anchor The Church and condoms

Last weekend, headlines focused on how Pope Benedict was apparently changing the Church’s teachings about the immorality of the use of condoms. The comments, excerpted from a book length interview of the pope with journalist Peter Seewald (see page two), led many news outlets, like The New York Times, to claim that this was “the first Vatican exception to a long-held policy condemning condom use.” Many Catholics were confused. The controversy revealed widespread misunderstandings of the Church’s teachings with regard to the use of contraception. It’s therefore worthwhile to read what Pope Benedict said in context and then to make some important clarifications.

Seewald asked Pope Benedict about his March 2009 comments on how the epidemic of AIDS in some African countries “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.” After stressing how the Church is “second to none” in caring for AIDS patients, Benedict replied, “In my remarks I was not making a general statement about condom issue, but merely said — and this is what caused such great offense — that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease. As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen.” He noted that even the secular experts have recognized that condoms are not enough, as seen in their “so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work.”

He turned to what the focus on the pseudo-solution of condoms implies. “The sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.”

It’s in that context of trying to help those afflicted by or addicted to banalized notions of sex that the pope said his headline-grabbing words. “There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.” In response to Seewald’s immediate follow-up conclusion that “the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms,” the pope said, “She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.”

To understand how Pope Benedict’s words do not constitute an “exception” or a “change” in the Church’s teachings on condom use, we first need to understand that teaching more precisely.

In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI condemned the use of contraception specifically in the context of conjugal relations; the use of contraception within marriage intentionally to separate the unitive and procreative dimensions of the conjugal act, he said, turns an action that is supposed to be intrinsically good and loving into something sinful. The pope was not addressing the context of the use of condoms, the pill or other types of contraception in acts that are already immoral, such as fornication, adultery, homosexual relations, marital or extra-marital rape, or prostitution; in these cases, the question becomes whether the use of contraception “compounds” or aggravates the already evil act.

Sound moral theologians have different opinions on this question and the Vatican has never definitively pronounced on it. Those who argue that contraceptive use aggravates the sin of extra-marital sex say, among other things, that it instills a greater selfishness on the part of those engaging in the action and introduces a greater banalization of the action by eliminating its intrinsically fruitful potential; those who argue the opposite position state that it may eliminate some of the consequences of the evil action, such as teen-agers’ conceiving a child in a context without a married mother and father.

Those in the latter camp, however, have another question to answer, whether it would be prudent to recommend condom use to those who can’t be persuaded to give up the immoral behavior in the first place. For example, if a teen-age boy struggling with chastity asks a priest or parent if he should use a condom to engage in sexual relations with his girlfriend, the first response should be to try to dissuade him from engaging in the sinful behavior. If the appeal is unsuccessful, then the question becomes whether recommending against the use of a condom would actually help the boy refrain from the sexual activity out of fear of pregnancy; if it wouldn’t, then those in the latter camp say it would be possible to recommend the use of a condom to prevent some of the consequences of the fornication, like extra-marital pregnancy or the transmission of venereal diseases. This wouldn’t make the deceptively-labelled “safe-sex” morally good, but would try to mitigate the damage of the evil action.

These distinctions are important to understand the pope’s example of a male prostitute’s using a condom. This is a situation that is obviously extra-marital and already immoral — and likely homosexual as well, in which case a condom obviously wouldn’t be dissociating the unitive and procreative dimensions of the sexual act. Presuming that the prostitute wouldn’t give up the behavior, the question becomes one of prudence, trying to eliminate the possible damage of the man’s immoral act and inch him toward conversion and genuine concern for himself and others. Pope Benedict suggests that the use of a condom might be a “first step in the direction of a moralization” with the prostitute’s beginning to get concerned about receiving or passing on diseases to his clients. It wouldn’t make moral his immoral act of prostitution, but this “assumption of responsibility” might be the beginning of a “humanization” of his interpersonal behavior that could eventually lead to his deciding to refrain from it altogether.

Pope Benedict in his response also states that, while in an individual case the use of a condom in an immoral circumstance may open someone up toward moral progress, at the general level, the promotion of condoms is “not a real or moral solution” to the problem of AIDS. Dr. Edward Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Center at the Harvard Center for Population and Development,” has repeatedly affirmed, in defense of the pope, that there is no evidence that the promotion and ubiquitous availability of condoms have decreased HIV infection rates in Africa. Multiple studies have shown that the only programs that have been successful have encouraged a change in behavior in reducing the number of sexual partners, and the promotion of condoms generally has led to the opposite result, a promiscuous expansion of the number of sexual partners. This is why many non-ideological AIDS experts in Africa are now promoting the ABC plan to which the pope alluded, focusing on abstinence before marriage, monogamous fidelity within marriage, and condom use only when people have determined to be reckless, in order to lessen the consequences of that reckless behavior.

The pope doesn’t specifically address the question of whether it would be moral for a married couple to use a condom to engage in sexual activity when one of the spouses has AIDS. The answer, however, should be obvious: it is absolutely incompatible with love and “making love” for one with AIDS to risk passing on a fatal disease to a loved one by engaging in sexual activity with or without a condom (since the condom may fail). In the tragic and not uncommon context of marital rape in Africa, when husbands with AIDS insist on their supposed “marital rights” to sexual activity with their uninfected wife, the wife’s insistence on her husband’s using a condom while he forces himself upon her would not be sinful on her part since we would not be dealing with a genuine conjugal act.

The solution to the problem of AIDS transmission, the pope said, lies ultimately in remedying the “banalization of sexuality” with its “humanization,” which is what the Church’s teaching on sexual morality has always sought to emphasize. That teaching needs to be better known, lived and proclaimed.

November 26, 2010

‘And the Word became flesh … Why?’

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person of the most Holy Trinity, was ven though we have another sent by the Father for a specific purpose month of 2010, this coming — to reconcile us back to God. This weekend the Church begins a new reveals a great point for our reflection. liturgical year. On Sunday we begin the holy season of Advent. These four weeks When most of us think of Jesus’ act of reconciling us to God, we immediately mark the sacred season of preparation think of the Cross, not the baby Jesus in and anticipation for the celebration of the manger. This teaching of the Church the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ.

This season is meant to remind us of the makes a clear connection between that which is done on the Cross in Jerusalem deepest yearning of our souls, a deep and that which happened in a stable in spiritual yearning for peace and happiness that is fulfilled only by the presence Bethlehem.

The holy season of Advent calls us as of God in our lives.

As we wait with eager expectation for Christians to ponder the mystery of our salvation. From the moment that sin enthis great celebration of Christmas, this is an opportunity for us to start anew and tered the world and our relationship with God was compromised, God desired to to turn over to our Lord all the things bring us back to himself, to reconcile us in our lives that we selfishly put ahead with himself. Jesus Christ is the fulfillof him. Similar to the season of Lent, ment of that plan.

Advent is an occasion to examine our Advent invites us to look back relationship with our Lord and to make throughout the centuries where God was the necessary changes or improvements preparing for the moment when his Son where needed. would come into the world. During that Our Advent preparation is marked time, the people of God struggled on in by our vigilance. It is time in which we darkness, but always with a glimmer of keep our eyes fixed on the Lord and the graces and blessings that he wants to be- hope, a hope that there was something more, that stow upon us. there was a Pope Benedict purpose to all explained the Putting Into of this. purpose of the Deep As faithful Advent three believers, we years ago, have the faith “The believer

By Father to know that is therefore alJay Mello God came to ways vigilant, us through inspired by the no merit of our own. His entering the intimate hope of encountering the Lord, world and reconciling us back to God as Psalm 130 says: ‘I wait for the Lord, was motivated purely out of his love for my soul waits, and in his word I hope; us. Prayerfully meditating on his birth my soul waits for the Lord more than in Bethlehem, his life in Nazareth and watchmen for the daybreak’” (Angelus, his death and resurrection in Jerusalem, First Sunday of Advent, December 2, Advent reminds us that God loves us so 2007). much that he sent his only Son. The coming of Christ — the Word Advent is a time of waiting with made Flesh — is one of the central truths faithful expectation for him who is to of the Christian faith. We reverence the come. Christians are preparing for the virginal birth of our savior as second celebration of that day when our God only to the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday. This is why when we are became one of us, when in all humility the almighty and all powerful God at Mass professing the Creed, we bow emptied himself of everything divine during the words: “For us men and our salvation he was conceived by the power and took on the poverty of our human condition, being born in a stable among of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin animals and shepherds.

Mary and became man.” But have you Advent reminds us of the time of eaever wondered or asked why? Why did ger expectation that the people of God the Son of God become man? had for the coming of a savior. It also The “Catechism of the Catholic reminds us of his second coming at the Church” identifies four reasons why end of time. And yet, between his first the “Word became flesh.” Throughout coming in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago these four weeks of Advent preparaand his eventual return in glory at the tion for Christmas, I would like to end of time, there is another, the third reflect upon these four reasons. When coming of Christ — the miraculous sacChristmas morning comes, in addition ramental reality that takes place each to our heart’s being filled with the joy time we celebrate the Eucharist. In the of Christ’s birth, may our minds also be Eucharist we are able to experience the filled with the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ and why he chose to “dwell love that God has for us. It is the same love that moved him to become incaramong us.” nate and the love by which he remains The “Catechism” (457) lists as the present among us in the Eucharist. first of four reasons for the Incarnation Waiting with eager expectation for that “The Word became flesh in order to the coming of Jesus Christ who reconsave us by reconciling us with God, who ‘loved us and sent his Son to be the expia- ciles us back to God, this is the meantion for our sins’ (1 Jn 4, 10). ‘The Father ing of Advent. We pray throughout this season of Advent that our hearts may has sent his Son as the savior of the grow in joyful expectation for the comworld’ (1 Jn 4, 14), and ‘he was revealed ing of Christ who took on human flesh to take away sins’” (1 Jn 3, 5). to reconcile us back to God. There certainly seems to be a lot Father Mello is a parochial vicar at packed into that paragraph. The main St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth. point is this: Jesus Christ, the second

November 26, 2010

Q: Many priests recommend the faithful to have confession at least once year, as in the second precept of the Church (“Catechism” No. 2042, “You shall confess your sins at least once a year”).

But I heard a priest say that this is not necessary unless there are grave sins, as in Canon 989, “All the faithful who have reached the age of discretion are bound faithfully to confess their grave sins at least once a year.” Theoretically, one consequence of this assertion is that after first confession (before first Communion), there would be no more need to receive this sacrament unless there are grave sins. Practically, some faithful do not receive this sacrament for many years because “they did not commit any grave sins.” Catechism No. 1457 also refers to the above canon (“after having attained the age of discretion, each of the faithful is bound by an obligation faithfully to confess serious sins at least once a year”). Here, it points out that confession is obligatory only for grave sins. As you know, Canon 989 has a juridical obligation. However, Catechism No. 2041 points out the obligatory character of the five precepts of the Church too. My personal interpretation is that there

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t least since the 1960s, the Church and churchmen, politicians, teachers, writers and pundits have aspired to be “relevant.” Often, this translates into being merely engaging, amusing and entertaining.

Truth, if not a casualty, is at best an unintended sideeffect.

Twenty-five years ago Neil Postman published a cultural broadside entitled, “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.”

The book claims that television and the electronic media have transformed discourse to the point of trivialization and irrationality. Now everyone has attention deficit disorder. As opposed to logical sustained argument that used to thrive in a culture of the printed word, we now have sound-bites, emoting, and fleeting images. Whatever entertains the most wins.

Whatever.

This tendency affects politics, news, the arts, even

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The Anchor

Annual confessions

a year regards serious sins. On is no contradiction if we can the supposition that a person distinguish a “juridical” has not committed any serious obligation of the Canon 989, sins, this canon would not apand a “pastoral” obligation ply to them. of the second precept. I comIn this light, Catechism pletely support the urging of No. 1457 quotes Canon 989 regular and frequent confesbecause it is dealing with the sions. But strictly speaking, need to confess one’s serious is the second precept obligatory only if there are grave sins? — G.M., Hong Kong A: I believe that this conundrum can be resolved by looking at the contexts.

By Father First of all, Canon Edward McNamara 989 builds directly upon the previous canon 988: sins before receiving Com“Can. 988 §1. A member munion. of the Christian faithful is Catechism No. 2042, even obliged to confess in kind and though it refers to Canon 989 number all grave sins comin the footnote, deals with its mitted after baptism and not topic under the title of man’s yet remitted directly through the keys of the Church nor ac- vocation and his life in the knowledged in individual con- Spirit. As our correspondent points out, the Catechism fession, of which the person considers fulfilling the second has knowledge after diligent precept as a minimal requireexamination of conscience. ment of spiritual growth. “§2. It is recommended to Because of this, the secthe Christian faithful that they ond precept does not mention also confess venial sins.” “serious or mortal sin” and Thus, Canon 989 indicates obliges whether serious sin that the maximum time for is present or not. By doing fulfilling the obligation of so, Catechism No. 2042 says 988.1 is a year. For this reason, several expert commenta- that the annual confession “ensures preparation for the tors on canon law hold that, effectively, Canon 989’s strict Eucharist by the reception of the sacrament of reconciliaobligation of confessing once

Liturgical Q&A

tion, which continues Baptism’s work of conversion and forgiveness.” Here, reconciliation is not seen just as the obligatory means of being shriven of mortal sin but as one of the habitual and even necessary means of spiritual progress.

The Compendium to the Catechism also makes no mention of the need for serious sin. Thus, No. 432.2 formulates the precept as: “To confess one’s sins, receiving the sacrament of Reconciliation at least once each year.”

By doing this, both the Catechism and its Compendium descend from the ethereal spheres of canonical theory to the reality of the Christian life.

The idea that the annual canonical obligation to confess obliges only in the case of serious sins is fine on paper, but the experience of many directors of souls is that it is rare for someone to avoid any serious sin over a period of one or more years.

Indeed, when serious sin is avoided over the course of years, it almost always occurs in souls who regularly and frequently confess their venial sins and make use of the sacrament of reconciliation in order to grow in their deli-

The limits of relevance

religion. Recently, Garry another writer and popular Wills, the writer and popuhistorian. In a recent article in lar historian, was asked his Forbes magazine, he wrote: thoughts about Pope Benedict “Whom would you call the XVI by the New York Times. world’s best salesman? At His reply: “I think he’s irrelevant.” Because being relevant is relative to something, the reporter asked a follow-up, “Irrelevant to what?” Wills specified, “To religion; to

By Dwight Duncan the Gospel.”

It seems remarkable that someone who calls himself a Catholic would so marginalize present I would nominate the pope. We are not called Pope Benedict XVI.” SpeakRoman Catholic for nothing, ing of the pope’s successful after all. “You are Peter, and visit to Great Britain, he said: upon this rock I will build my “somehow the pope came Church,” said Jesus. “Whatacross as a man of warm ever you bind on earth will be benevolence and gentle holibound in heaven, and whatness. When he smiled, it was a ever you loose on earth will blessing. He gave the impresbe loosed in heaven.” “He sion that he meant every word who hears you, hears me.” he said and that his words This hardly makes the pope were worth thinking about and irrelevant to religion and the remembering.”

Gospel.

“Sincerity, of course, is Wills’ view is clearly not the essence of good salesthe view of Paul Johnson, manship. Yet the secret of

Judge For Yourself

the pope’s success was that he was not selling. He was giving. He was introducing a great many people to a world with which they are unfamiliar and reassuring others that their world is still there, brighter and more welcoming than ever.” Far from being irrelevant to religion and the Gospel, the pope is its greatest promoter.

I think Paul Johnson has it right. Garry Wills, on this point at least, is, well, irrelevant. One of the striking teachings of Jesus is that oftentimes criticisms that we make of others are truer of ourselves.

Wills thinks Pope Benedict is irrelevant because Pope Benedict doesn’t agree with him about the various issues confronting the Church. But Benedict is pope, not Garry.

It’s what God wills, not what Garry wills. Wills is perhaps projecting his own idle-spectator status onto the pope.

I’m reminded of a piece

cacy of conscience and love for God. Such souls are also likely to practice other means of spiritual progress such as regular prayer, frequent Communion, and charitable service.

We also need to remember that the obligation does not fall upon those who are unable to fulfill it due to age, infirmity or some other good reason.

Perhaps the difficulty stems from having diluted the concept of mortal or serious sin, so that it is no longer perceived. At times, sin is reduced to violations of the Sixth Commandment.

We pastors need to remind our faithful, and ourselves, that the deadly sins are seven (pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony and sloth) and that each poisons the soul in its own way.

Finally, the obligation to annual confession aids us in combating the sin of presumption before God’s judgment.

Father Edward McNamara is a Legionary of Christ and professor of Liturgy at Regina Apostolorum University in Rome. His column appears weekly at zenit.org. To submit questions, email liturgy@ zenit.org. Please put the word “Liturgy” in the subject field.

The text should include your initials, your city and state.

by the modernist writer Gertrude Stein, who before she died in 1946 wrote a short reflection on the atomic bomb. “They asked me what I thought of the atomic bomb. I said I had not been able to take any interest in it.” Amusing. But whether she was able to take an interest in it is, of course, irrelevant to the sad fact of the atomic bomb. I’m sure the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were (and still are) interested in it. It is a (horrifying) fact, regardless of whether we think about it or don’t think about it.

Facts are facts; truth is truth, regardless of the fickle fashions of the moment.

Popes preach the Gospel “in season and out of season,” like St. Paul. Sometimes we like what they say; sometimes we don’t. Truth is what matters. Relevance is in the eye of the beholder.

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

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hat strong words we hear in the readings this Sunday. The vision of Isaiah on the peace the Messiah will bring: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their swords into pruning hooks.”

Then the very words of St. Paul that forced the crisis and later the conversion in the life of St. Augustine: “Let us throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Finally Jesus telling us of the sudden and irrevocable call of the elect. How to make sense of it all?

Advent is a strange season, filled with paradox. It’s “officially” penitential — note the violet vestments and the lack of the Gloria on the Sundays — but we can’t help but be joyful. It’s supposed to be all about preparing for Christmas, but at least for this first week, Our Lord is still talking about the big surprise: the return of the Son of Man at

November 26, 2010

The Anchor

Come, Lord Jesus

the end of time — which may be was taught by the monastic writtomorrow or in a million years. ers and especially St. Bernard The winter days grow shorter of Clairvaux. He held that there and colder and the ground freezare really three Advents — three es, but we’re singing Rorate comings of the Lord. He came caeli desuper, about the spring in time, in Bethlehem. He will rains which will bring forth a flower from the root of Jesse.

The word Advent Homily of the Week means a “coming First Sunday towards.” But does of Advent it refer to the coming of Jesus as a babe in

By Father Andrew Bethlehem or to his Johnson, O.C.S.O second coming? The answer, of course, is both. They’re mutually come at the end of time in necessary because they illumimajesty as king. And thirdly, nate each other. The first coming he comes to us, moment by in weakness will be fulfilled by moment, in our own hearts. The the second coming in majesty. first is history, which we comBut that’s not enough; there’s memorate each year with joyful a third coming as well, which thanks on Christmas Day. The involves every believer: the Adlast lies hidden in the unknown vent of Jesus in our hearts. This future. But the middle coming is ancient and beautiful doctrine

to each one of us personally. It lies between the other two like a road on which we travel from the first coming to the last. In the first, Christ was our redemption.

In the last, he will be our judgment and then, by his mercy, our eternal life.

In the middle coming, he is our rest and consolation on our way.

How do we know this is true, that there is indeed a middle coming, constant and personal, as real as the other two?

Because the Lord himself said, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him.”

He’s telling us that he comes to us every day through the faith and love which make us his own.

The moment of eucharistic

sacrifice is a coming unlike any other. It may seem impersonal since it is sacramental and formal; it must be so, since it is an ecclesial and communal act.

But it is intimately connected to our own personal encounter with the Lord who comes. St. Bernard wrote, “Feed on goodness, and your soul will delight in its richness. Remember to eat your bread or your heart will wither away. Fill your soul with richness and strength.” The richness and strength he refers to can only come from the bread of the Eucharist which is no longer bread but life itself.

It’s a simple fact: if we love and nourish the coming of the Lord in our lives, he will love and nourish us when he comes. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Father Johnson is a parochial vicar at Our Lady of Assumption Parish in Osterville.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Nov. 27, Rv 22:1-7; Ps 95:1-7b; Lk 21:34-36. Sun. Nov. 28, First Sunday of Advent, Is 2:1-5; Ps 122:1-9; Rom 13:11-14; Mt 24:37-44.

Mon. Nov. 29, Is 4:2-6; Mt 8:5-11. Tues. Nov. 30, Rom 10:9-18; Mt 4:18-22. Wed. Dec. 1, Is 25:6-10a; Mt 15:29-37. Thur. Dec. 2, Is 26:1-6; Mt 7:21,24-27. Fri. Dec. 3, Is 29:17-24; Mt 8:27-31.

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he murder of more than 50 Catholics by jihadists during Sunday Mass in Baghdad on October 31 is the latest in a series of outrages committed against Christians by Islamist fanatics throughout the world: Egypt, Gaza, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Sudan and on the list goes. The timing of the attack on Baghdad’s Syriac Catholic cathedral was striking, however, for it came shortly after the conclusion in Rome of a special Synod on the Middle East. During the synod, very little was said about Islamist persecution of Christians; indeed, every effort

No more appeasement of radical Islam

and cultural prejudice (the latter was bent to show the Catholic Church sympathetic to Muslim partially explaining the former).

But unless Christians begin to grievances, especially with push back against those who, regard to the politics of the Middle East.

This strategy of appeasement has always struck me as unwise.

The al Qaeda-affiliated jihadists’ answer to the synod — the Baghdad murders — has now

By George Weigel proven the strategy deadly. Appeasement must stop.

I quite understand like the Baghdad murderers, that Christians in the Islamic describe their churches as “dirty world are tiny minorities, places of the infidel that have burdened by economic distress long been used as a base to fight Islam,” jihadists and other radical Islamists will simply roll over them, en route to rendering anything deemed an “Islamic land” Christian-free. What might a strategy of resistance to this implacable persecution look like?

It would begin with the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI quickly and forcefully condemned the murderers of Baghdad; no one should doubt the pope’s commitment to the survival of Christians in Muslim-dominated lands and to combating the anti-Semitism that often goes hand-in-glove with Islamic Christophobia. Yet in the Vatican Secretariat of State, the default positions vis-à-vis militant Islam are unhappily reminiscent of Vatican diplomacy’s default positions vis-à-vis communism

The Catholic Difference

during the last 25 years of the Cold War: try to reach political accommodations with Islamic states; foreswear forceful public condemnation of Islamist and jihadist ideology; look for interlocutors with whom to discuss co-existence among Islamic intellectuals. Such a strategy did not work in the Cold War, as I demonstrate in “The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II — The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy.” And it will not work with jihadist Islam, which in many respects is a more ruthlessly determined foe than the late-bureaucratic communism of the 1970s and 1980s.

So strategic re-set is required in Rome. And it might well begin with a steady campaign of public condemnations of Islamist depredations against Christians throughout the world.

The Vatican bureaucracy and local Catholic leaders in the Middle East must also reexamine the assumption — widely bruited at the recent synod — that resolving the Israel-Palestine issue through a two-state solution will solve every other issue between militant Islam and Christianity.

It won’t. Moreover, a viable two-state solution, which every reasonable person supports, is not on the short-term horizon (although important steps are

being taken to build the infrastructure of civil society on the West Bank). Meanwhile, Islamist depredations against Christians in the Holy Land are a present reality. Christian leaders whose people are being murdered by jihadists and other Islamist fanatics ought to stop blaming their precarious situation on the State of Israel and put the blame where it belongs: with Muslim intolerance.

The key theme to be stressed in all this is religious freedom, which is precisely what Benedict XVI emphasized at the conclusion of his homily at the Middle East synod’s final Mass.

As Father Raymond de Souza pointed out after the Baghdad massacres, “Christians have been in Iraq from the earliest centuries, long before there was an Iraq or, one might note, there was Islam.” Christians do not live in majority-Muslim lands by sufferance but by right.

They should say so, and their co-religionists should say so. It would be helpful if the United States government would say so and would name the jihadist perpetrators of murder for who they are. But while we await that (unlikely?) change, we in the Church can summon the courage to confront, without illusions, what has become a lethal problem.

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

Sic transit gloria mundi

Friday 26 November 2010 the fact that one of their broth— Old Dighton Village — The ers has finally died, but rather Month of the Holy Dead draws that one of their own has been to a close have never, dear readers, attended a funeral for a Trappist Reflections of a (Cistercian) monk, but Parish Priest I understand it goes something like this.

By Father Tim Notification of the Goldrick death of a monk is made with the tolling of the monastery bell. In some places, born into eternal life. He has the bell rings once for each run the race. He has finished year of life. When the monks in the course. the field or workshop or some The body of the deceased other place in the monastery monk is prepared for burial by complex hear the bell, they brother monks. He is dressed in pause to pray for the intentions his monastic habit and placed of their deceased brother. In on a plain wooden pallet in the some monasteries, they sing an center aisle of the monastery “Alleluia.” This is not due to chapel. Trappists do not ordi-

I

T

9

The Anchor

November 26, 2010

The Ship’s Log

narily use coffins or caskets.

Neither is the body normally embalmed.

When everything is ready, the monks gather in the chapel. The deceased monk’s face is ceremoniously covered with his monastic cowl.

The Paschal candle burns bright at the head of the body. Perhaps a simple flower arrangement is also set in place. Keeping with traditional protocol, if the monk had been ordained to holy orders, his head is towards the altar. If the monk was not ordained, the feet are placed toward the altar. This is the orientation the deceased assumed at holy Mass.

A 24-hour prayer vigil be-

Mary and the Muslims — part II

ly, Muslims are completely at o continue our compeace with the virginal conparison between the ception of Jesus, accepting Muslim and Christian unthis remarkable dimension derstanding of the Blessed without dispute, but although Mother, we now come to the the event was clearly miracuAnnunciation, when the Anlous, an important element gel Gabriel invited Mary to was missing. become the mother of Jesus.

According to MuhamThe Qur’anic account placmad’s account, she said: es Mary in the care of her “‘My Lord! How can I have guardian Zachariah, which a child when no mortal hath is fine, given that he was a touched me?’ He said: ‘So (it kinsman and it is natural — given the Islamic understanding of the role of women — that she had to be in the care of someone.

Zachariah’s conversation with an angel is also recorded in

By Genevieve Kineke the Qur’an, including the short time in which he was left siwill be). Allah created what lent, but without the implied he will. If he decreeth a thing, chastisement for his disbehe saith unto it only, Be! And lief. (The details are disjointit is’” (Qur’an 3, 47). ed and confusing; only with This is where the Islamic a Christian familiarity with view departs radically from Scripture are they even comthe Christian view — which prehensible.) hinges on Mary’s consent: What becomes problemat“Behold, I am the handmaid ic is Mary’s own subsequent of the Lord; let it be to me conversation with the angel, according to your word” (Lk. which is long and complex — 1:38). To remove Mary’s fiat complete with all the details from salvation history alof Jesus’ life arrayed before lows God’s will to become her (referencing the apocmanifest without her free asryphal gospels of Thomas, sent.

James, and Mary which were Christians firmly believe circulating even after their that the exchange between rejection by the Christian the Angel Gabriel and Our Magisterium centuries earLady reveals God’s respectlier). ful interaction with his But what comes next is creatures. It is an article of key: “And she who was our faith that one cannot be chaste, therefore we breathed forced to be good, for coerinto her (something) of our cion undermines the freedom Spirit and made her and her that lies at the heart of our son a token for (all) peoples” human dignity. Just as Jesus (Qur’an 21, 91). Interesting-

The Feminine Genius

freely chose to assume flesh and to suffer on our behalf, each human person is invited into a relationship with God and to collaborate with the grace he provides.

John Paul II writes in Mulieris Dignitatem: “With her fiat, Mary becomes the authentic subject of that union with God which was realized in the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, who is of one substance with the Father. All of God’s action in human history at all times respects the free will of the human ‘I.’ And such was the case with the Annunciation at Nazareth” (MD, 4).

God’s perfect plan to intervene in human history depended on Mary’s cooperation. Much has been made in art and literature of the moment of anticipation that hinged on her response to the angel’s invitation. We know that the key to the fall of the angels before the creation of the world, and the fall of our first parents in the garden was their ability to say no to the will of God. As tragic as these events were for all who followed, only when there is a distinct possibility that consent will be refused will an assent find its true value.

That is the essence of our freedom, an element sorely missing in Islam.

Mrs. Kineke is the author of “The Authentic Catholic Woman” (Servant Books) and editor of the Feminine Genius channel at catholicexchange.com.

gins. Monks chant the psalms around the clock. The body is never left unattended, but is rather wrapped in love and prayer.

About a month before I entered the seminary to begin my studies for the priesthood, I took a few days vacation.

One night, at dusk, I went for a stroll. I noticed that the lights in the village church were on and inquired of a man standing on the front steps, dressed in a tuxedo and smoking a cigarette, what was happening. He told me that the parish priest had died and that his body was being waked in the church.

I entered the building to pay my respects. It was not a good experience.

Six yellowish beeswax candles in black metal stands flanked the open casket.

The church was completely deserted. I was overcome with sadness. This priest had dedicated his life to God and to God’s people, as best he could.

I prayed for some time, asking “Is this how priesthood ends?

Is priesthood what I want? Do I really intend to enter the seminary?” In the end, with the help of God, I followed through with my plans. I pray still for that priest’s soul.

A wake and funeral in a monastic setting is an entirely different matter. Once the allnight vigil is completed, the entire community gathers for the celebration of the Mass of Christian Burial. Following the Prayers of Commendation, the monks accompany the body in procession to a grave prepared in the community cemetery.

The grave is often dug by hand.

There is no concrete liner (unless required by local statute) but only the natural earth.

Ashes to ashes; dust to dust.

The cemetery is usually located nearby, preferably within

view of the monastic enclosure. The location reminds the monks of the eventuality of their own deaths every time they look out the window.

Prayers are offered at the gravesite and the body is returned to the earth. It is the Rite of Christian Burial properly celebrated and with all the solemnity those rites engender.

The passing of a monk sounds to me like a beautiful thing — so simple, so human, so grace-filled, so loving, and so respectful.

After the Prayer of Committal, the monks take up shovels and fill in the grave of their brother. A very plain grave marker is sometimes erected.

In some monasteries, a fresh grave is dug immediately afterwards to await the next interment. The open grave serves as a reminder to the living.

Not only have the Trappist monks been modeling how to have a truly dignified and solemn Catholic burial, but some monasteries in the United States even provide what we need to have our own simple funeral. At New Melleray Abbey, in Peosta, Iowa, for example, hand-made wooden caskets crafted by the monks start at $1,000. It’s not necessary to have the fanciest casket or the most elaborate funeral to properly honor a loved one.

Before today’s elaborate embalming methods (popularized at the death of Abraham Lincoln), expensive caskets and concrete vaults, families held wakes at home and buried their dead in plain wooden caskets, sometimes on their own farm.

Maybe Trappist monks have the right idea. Sic transit gloria mundi — so passes the glory of the world.

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

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10

The Anchor

November 26, 2010

Devoted parishioner recognizes everything is a gift from God

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

REHOBOTH — It was difficult for Arthur A. Gareau to stand outside Four Women, Inc. in Attleboro that first morning nearly three years ago and watch as parents drove their teen-aged daughters to put their unborn grandchildren to death.

“I started to feel helpless and I had to reassure myself, knowing that God will win in the end and he will take care of all this someday,” Gareau said. “Just knowing that made it easier to stand there. I also started to wave to all the cars passing by, holding up my simple sign that says ‘Pray to end abortion.’”

Gareau has become one of the familiar faces who has faithfully participated in all five of the recent 40 Days for Life campaign efforts outside the lone abortion clinic still operating within the Fall River Diocese; in fact, save for a few days at the very beginning, he has consistently been outside the clinic for the first two hours every morning at 6 a.m.

“I first talked to 40 Days for Life co-organizer Steve Marcotte back when I thought we would be there 24-hours-a-day and I told him if he needed someone for the overnight hours, I’d be there,” Gareau said. “When we decided we didn’t need someone there in the middle of the night, I learned that a woman was planning to be there at 6 a.m. and no one was going to be with her, so I said ‘that’s my spot.’

I’ve been showing up there ev-

ery morning and have been out think that killing their child or at Bishop Feehan High School there between 6 and 8 for each grandchild is the answer,” he and she sometimes stands outcampaign.” said. “I really think part of it is side with us at the 40 Days for “He would happily stand they don’t know the truth. They Life,” he said. “My family is outside the clinic during those don’t know there’s a beating involved with all kinds of parearly-morning hours which are heart after three weeks. They ish activities. We pretty much the most difficult to fill,” Mar- don’t realize that God created do it all. The parish is our socotte said. “Art has an incred- that little child. cial life, with everything from ible, genuine attitude that he “I can just picture God shak- the Knights of Columbus to shares with many who are on ing his head and asking, ‘What CCD where I teach eighththeir way to work. He’s one of are they doing?’” grade students. I’m also an a kind, that’s for sure.” extraordinary minister of But as far as Gareau holy Communion.” is concerned, standing Father Brian J. Haroutside the clinic and rington, pastor of Our expressing his support Lady of Mount Carmel for life isn’t any type Parish, concurred that the of heroic effort. It’s just family is very faithful and common sense. he considers Gareau a de“I’m one of the few voted husband and father people who is there evand “a good man.” eryday and that’s OK It’s that strong familwith me, because I’m ial bond and support that not there to break reGareau said allows him to cords,” he said. “I want participate in important efto be an example to othforts like 40 Days for Life. ers. That’s not bragging.

“It’s great when your But I’m just an amateur family stands behind you,” compared to some of he said. “I could not stand the people who have there morning after mornbeen going there every ing if I didn’t have a wife Thursday and Saturday and daughter who supfor more than 10 years port me. I’m not there in to pray the rosary. I the morning when they have a lot of catching up get ready for school, so it to do. Those people are Anchor person of the week — Arthur A. means my wife has to do my heroes.” all the driving and they Gareau.

As a father with two both wave to me when they daughters and someone go by in the morning.” who says he respects all gifts A faithful member of Our Gareau was also excited when from God, Gareau said he could Lady of Mount Carmel Parish he and his wife were asked to never comprehend how things in Seekonk since 1980, Gareau serve as chaperones to their could be so bad that people lives in Rehoboth with his wife daughter Courtney and her classwould want to abandon another Debra and daughter Courtney. mates at Bishop Feehan High life, especially that of a relative. His older daughter Jaclyn is School on a trip to the national “It’s a sad world we live in away at college.

March for Life in Washington, when parents and grandparents “Courtney is a sophomore D.C. back in January of this year.

“The fantastic thing was to see these kids give witness to others,” he said. “It was a powerful thing to see them band together, and these kids knew why they were there. They were just spirit-filled.”

Asked to explain why he devotes so much time and effort to the Pro-Life cause, Gareau gets a little emotional before responding.

“I recognize that anything good I have in life is a gift from God,” he said. “I know God is real. I know he loves me. I know if I do the right thing, he’ll take care of me at the end of my life.

But I don’t do it for the reward, I do it out of gratitude. I thank the Lord for a wonderful life here on earth and I try to give back to him.”

And he plans to continue to stand outside that clinic on Emory Street in Attleboro.

“You can count on me to be standing there 40 days in a row, every morning at 6 a.m.,” he said. “Changing the law won’t work. We have to change hearts by just making people aware.

I’m not a hero, but I’m hoping people will at least stop and think: ‘That guy is there again. It’s 6:15 in the morning, doesn’t he have anything better to do?’ And I hope when they see my determination, they’ll understand there’s a certain resolve that goes with it because it’s important to me.”

To submit a Person of the Week nominee, send an email with information to fatherrogerlandry@anchornews. org.

November 26, 2010

You are invited!

to Father Pat’s Christmas Concerts and to enjoy the spirit of his new album “Simply Christmas”

November 25th – January 2nd 2011 TUESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY AT 3:00 & 7:00PM (NO CONCERT SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4TH)

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The Anchor

11

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The Anchor

Expanding parish bulletins as a communications tool continued from page one

book page, these computerbased tools tend to leave older parishioners who aren’t technologically savvy out of the loop.

“Older parishioners don’t use our website,” said Father James W. Fahey, pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in North Easton. “Many quite proudly say they don’t have a computer and don’t even think about it.”

As a means of bridging this gap while answering Pope Benedict XVI’s recent call for new and improved evangelization tools, the Pilot Media Group — an offshoot of The Pilot, the official Catholic newspaper for the Archdiocese of Boston — recently acquired Parish Communication Solu-

The Anchor provides a weekly wealth of Catholic information.

This would make a perfect gift this season.

tions, Inc., a bulletin publishing company, in the hopes of providing better options to local parishes.

“We need to find people wherever they are, whether it be online, whether it be through traditional tools like the newspaper, or through the parish bulletins,” said Antonio Enrique, editor of The Pilot and president of Pilot Media Group. “Our focus is to find everyone and bring them to Christ or help those who are already coming to Church to be better-educated about their faith. The bulletin will provide pastors a tool to do that.”

While parish websites seem to provide a variety of interchangeable formats and styles to complement the message,

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the majority of printed bulletins have remained static and unchanged over the years.

“Most of the parishes in New England have bulletins that look about the same way that they did 30 to 40 years ago,” wrote Scot Landry, Secretary for Catholic Media of the Archdiocese of Boston in the October 29 edition of The Pilot. “They are typically four-page booklets, with a standard cover that looks the same each week and only two pages for information on parish events and messages from the pastor. These bulletins have limited ability to take rich graphics, photos and longer columns. Some pastors have stated that parishioners often neglect to pick up these bulletins because they look the same from week to week and have limited information.”

“We want to help parishes print a bulletin that will have extended content, with more

November 26, 2010 pages, and also to make it more interesting by allowing more color than current bulletins have,” Enrique added. “It would also allow parishes to change the cover — to have a different color cover every week, to signify this is a new bulletin and there may be different content inside than what you read last week.”

Father Fahey said he has noticed that although his parishioners pick up the bulk of the 400 bulletins printed each week, he’s not sure they always read them.

“We recently had an event that we publicized in the bulletin and there was a very small percentage of parishioners who knew about it even though it was in the bulletin for weeks,” he said.

According to Enrique, their new expanded bulletins can also accommodate special pages for children and additional stewardship information to supplement the content provided by the parish itself.

“We can provide a children’s page so they may want to bring the bulletin home because they want to color this beautiful picture,” he said. “We can also provide stewardship material — timely messages from the pope or U.S. bishops. So there will be content for all the ages, for anyone who attends Church.”

Father Edward Correia, pastor St. Michael Parish in Fall River, said although they use the parish website to announce important news and events, he still relies heavily on the bulletin to communicate to parishioners.

“The value for me of a bulletin is that I don’t do announcements at Mass,” he said. “I just encourage people to read the bulletin, rather than make announcements at the end of Mass as they’re preparing to go. I tell them anything that is of importance will be included in the bulletin.”

Since St. Michael’s is a bilingual parish, Father Correia said he also prints all the weekly bulletin announcements in English and Portuguese.

“Some parishes do a bulletin in each language, but we print only one,” he said.

In order to encourage more people to read the printed bulletin, some pastors have even stopped making announcements near the end of Mass.

“By parishioners’ request, I no longer read anything that’s in the bulletin,” Father Fahey said.

“I used to read announcements at the end of Mass, but they told me, ‘I can read it myself.’”

“We pass the bulletins out at the end of Mass so people won’t read them during Mass,” Father Correia added. “This way even if people don’t read it, they are getting a bulletin placed in their hand as they leave Mass.”

Enrique said he hopes their new model for expanded eight-, 12- or 16-page bulletins with full color will enhance this important communication tool for parishes.

“I think this will certainly bring more attention to the parish bulletin,” he said. “The pastors we’ve worked with have reported that people are certainly noticing the new bulletins.”

Even in this modern age of emails, breaking Twitter updates and instant text messages, there’s still a place for the printed word.

“Our biggest group of parishioners is the older people who prefer the printed bulletin,” Father Nagle said. “There’s still something satisfying about reading the print edition.”

For more information about Pilot Bulletins, call 617779-3770 or visit http://www. pilotbulletins.net.

November 26, 2010

T

wo weeks ago, we looked at the claims presented by Professors Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their recent book “The Grand Design.” They postulate that quantum theory predicts the “multiverse,” the idea that ours is just one of many universes that appeared simultaneously out of nothing, each with its own and different laws of nature. This “M-theory” means, they conclude, that the beginning of our universe was governed by the laws of science and does not need to have been set in motion by some god or being, however named or described.

It is important to note how the Hawking Group has cleverly planted a defense of their hypothesis by conceding in advance that by this world’s laws of nature, it may not be plausible. They suggest, however, that we’ve got to think “outside the box” and imagine multiple universes wherein each one has its own and different natural laws, including time, space, and whatever else an “imagined” universe could have as its properties and constants.

In “The Grand Design,” Hawking uses the example of several goldfish swimming in a glass goldfish bowl. Reality as seen by the goldfish is entirely different from the reality as seen by those who are outside looking in. The suggestion is that you can’t possibly challenge their hypotheses and conclusions concerning the universe unless or until you can step outside of your own universe into a different universe and see for yourself. The “Mtheory” adherents claim they are functioning a different and higher intellectual plane than the rest of us, in a place and with a perspective that theists ascribe to God. Reaction to “The Grand Design” was swift. Within 10 days of its September 7 publication, Pope Benedict XVI commented to interfaith leaders in England on how the natural sciences “cannot satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart, they cannot fully explain to us our origin and our destiny, why and for what purpose we exist, nor indeed can they provide us with an exhaustive answer to the question: ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’”

Although the Holy Father did not mention Stephen Hawking or anyone else by name, his reference to “something rather than nothing” clearly challenges the fundamental premise upon which the

13

The Anchor

Responding to Hawking’s Godless universe

“M-theory” is premised. how occurred, wasn’t that a This view was echoed by “beginning” in and of itself?

Father Robert Spitzer S.J., Who, then, caused this “sponPh.D., the former president of taneous creation”? The answer Gonzaga University. He stated is, of course, the same as for that Hawking’s dismissal of the question of who caused the God in favor of physics reflects Big Bang theory of creation of fundamental confusions about relevant recent popularity. It’s the Christian concept of God as worth noting that the originator the creator of the physical universe and the laws of physics that apply to it. Father Spitzer pointed out that the reality of God’s creation is necessarily implied

By James T. Grady

by Hawking when he assumes the existence of a “beginning” in his assertion about the universe’s of the Big Bang theory in 1929 coming from nothing. was Msgr. George Lamaitre, a In his just released book en- Roman Catholic priest and that titled “New Proofs for the Exon Nov. 22, 1951 at a meeting istence of God,” Father Spitzer of the Pontifical Academy of wrote that “when the logical Sciences, Pope Pius XII deand metaphysical necessity of clared that the Big Bang theory an efficient cause, the demonwas consistent with the Cathostrable absence of a material lic concept of creation. one, and the proof that there Brother Guy Consolmagno, was an absolute beginning to S.J., an astronomer at the Vatiany universe or multiverse can Observatory, recently obare all conjoined with the fact served on EWTN that Hawking that our universe exists and its overlooks the fact that all of conditions are fine-tuned imthe physical preconditions for a measurably beyond the capacuniverse to unfold — whether ity of any mindless process, by “spontaneous creation” or the scientific evidence points otherwise, gravity, space, elecinexorably toward transcentricity, and so forth — would dent intelligent agency as the also have had to have existed. most plausible, if not the only Without these preconditions reasonable explanation.” from a creator there could be Thus, even assuming the no “spontaneous creation.” “spontaneous creation” someBrother Consolmagno con-

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cluded, “God is the reason why existence itself exists.”

The greatest theoretical physicist of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, in talking about what he described as his religion, made a point about scientific humility that Hawking once saw but now seems to miss. “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind,” Einstein said.

Twenty years ago, Hawking himself expressed a similar view in his best selling book, “A Brief History of Time,” when he declared, “The initial state of the universe must have been very carefully chosen indeed if the hot big bang model was correct right back to the beginning of time. It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.”

He concluded that work

with his now famous observation: “If we find the answer to [a unified theory of space and time], it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God.” Hawking’s latest “something out of nothing” hypothesis seems to neglect that fundamental point.

So the question remains: Should we continue to believe in the tradition of a providential design and an efficient cause, being a God as the creator of our universe, or believe that science has “proven” that creation could have and did arise spontaneously?

I’d suggest that the answer is all around us. Take a moment to go outside on a clear night and look toward the sky and all the stars shining brightly above and ask yourself: Could all of this be just “something from nothing”?

James T. Grady is a retired lawyer and a former visiting scholar at Harvard Law School. He and his wife Sheila live in Marion and are parishioners at St. Anthony’s Parish in Mattapoisett. This is the second of a two-part series.

14

The Anchor

BINGO struggles to stay A-L-I-V-E continued from page one

money is contingent on the number of participants who come in to play.

For Fran Pimental, her childhood parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in New Bedford reformatted their game when Pimental became the person in charge two years ago.

“When I came on as the person in charge, bingo was not making money at that point,” said Pimental. “We were relying solely on

g tin a r leb ur e C O th

3Y4ear

the money from the food sales and charity game tickets. We had somebody from the state come in and reformat things with us so that we are making some money.”

Pimental is still struggling to increase the number of people who come in to play after seeing a 30 percent drop.

“We’re managing to keep it afloat,” she said. “We’re not los-

ing money but we are not making a lot either. When the numbers are bigger, the prizes are bigger.”

Father Travassos acknowledged that it takes those numbers to pull off bigger prizes.

“I think the reason why our bingo is doing so well is we give excellent prizes. There is a $3,000 prize that is there every week, but you have to get it in so many numbers.

November 26, 2010 As a result, more and more people come to win,” said Travassos.

It is not just the number of people who come in to play that makes bingo successful, either: you need volunteers to oversee each game.

With some of her steadfast volunteers ready to retire, Pimental has been busy recruiting new helpers.

Father Travassos is also one who appreciates good leadership to make the bingo games effective.

“It wasn’t enticing people to come. I know I’ve heard from some of the priests who have said they can’t get the workers,” he said. “Now we don’t have people standing in line to volunteer for bingo, but recently I got three new workers. If you don’t have the workers, you can’t do it.”

At Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth, their bingo games help supplement financial aid for students, and parents are a huge support system that the school’s president, Theresa Dougall, can rely on to keep the games going. Though there has been a slight decline in recent years, last year the school was able to raise $150,000, said Dougall.

“I think the economy has played a role,” said Dougall. “People are not spending as much as they did on recreational activities, and I think bingo comes under that category. Our numbers have gone down but it’s still worth the effort, and it is effort to have people trained and run the bingo.”

Bingo provides fun with other people, a social event that people from all walks of life can enjoy together, said Dougall.

“The reason it’s good for us is it reaches a different constituency than we usually ask support from,” said Dougall. “These are people that are a help to the school and that we usually wouldn’t go to

for other fund-raisers. It’s tapping a whole other audience. It’s good for the school, in that respect, and it allows these people to feel like they’re having fun and at the same time they are helping some of our students attend Bishop Stang.”

Father Travassos said often people who come to play bingo are not churchgoers but may see a priest and unburden themselves, something he has experienced firsthand.

“The critics say it’s gambling,” said Father Travassos. “I suppose it is, but it’s more of a community gathering. The people want to play bingo but they don’t just come when it starts. Our bingo starts at quarter of seven but by quarter of four, a lot of people are here. Some to have their supper or play cards with their friends; it creates in every parish a little community gathering.”

Pimental’s late father helped run the bingo, and now Pimental is willing to work hard to keep the doors open.

“I will keep it going to keep my church active, to keep people coming into the building, and as along I can have enough people to keep my numbers in the black,” she said. “You want to keep your church open and alive. You don’t want to close things down, you want to add things to it, not take things away. If we close bingo, what do we do to replace it?”

“It would be great if people gave enough in their donations to the parish every Sunday, but these days and the way bills are, bingo is a wonderful help,” said Father Travassos. “People are not going to give 10 percent of their earnings, a lot of people take offense to that; we are not accustomed to that around here. We need bingo; it’s a supplement but not an end in itself. We don’t have bingo just to entertain the people, we are keeping things going in the church.”

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, November 28 at 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is La Salette Father Andre (Fr. Pat) Patenaude, director of the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro

November 26, 2010

How would Jesus vote?

I am writing to commend you on the excellent editorial on voting with a Catholic Conscience (October 29).

Often I hear Catholics say, “I am a liberal Catholic.” For me, I am a Catholic and I belong to the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ. When I vote, I think of the “worn out” statement, “What would Jesus Do?” I can never imagine Jesus voting for a pro-abortion candidate. Thank you for your clarity.

Margaret Dittami Sandwich Paying tribute to a life It has always been a pleasure to read The Ships Log. I must, however, take issue with Father Goldrick and his October 29 article on funeral eulogies. It was my privilege for some six years to have been an Arimathean at some 70 or more funerals and, as I age, I’ll attend many more. At not one of these did I ever hear an inappropriate post-communion “eulogy.” While I certainly agree that the primary purpose of a Catholic funeral is to recommend the deceased’s soul to God, I firmly believe there is a secondary purpose.

The friends and family are grieving, and most of the attendees are present to console them and to pay tribute to the life of the one who died. It is very important to have someone, a family member and/or friend, to express this. What matters if it takes five more minutes? We are paying tribute to a life! Unfortunately, from personal experience, I know full well how consoling such “eulogies” can be.

Leonard F. Smith, M.D. Centerville Look into the mirror I was appalled by some of the statements and conclusions reached in the November 12 article on Catholic funerals in the diocese. Heaven help me, but it misses the big picture. Statements like “a by-product of the decline in people going to church,” or “traditionally older people have stayed faithful to their religious practices whereas younger generations have let it go,” say it all.

Attendance at Mass is dominated by older people, and young families with young children. The teen-age crowd, however, or the single 2030s crowd is not represented. Nor are the 40s adults, whose children are grown. What has happened you ask? Look into the mirror!

We have inherited an era that was as bad as the Crusades, or the time prior to the Protestant Reformation.

Our era has pedophile priests and brothers. We have not gone forward.

Bring back Pope John XXIII. Robert A. Toto North Attleboro Our ability to assist loved ones In the November 12 issue of The Anchor there was an article on the decline of the number of funeral Masses in the diocese. It was noteworthy for the fact that it did not give the reasons for the importance of a funeral Mass for

15

The Anchor

Our readers respond

the person who died.

In the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, every Catholic child could have told you this very important information. We were taught about mortal sin and its consequences; purgatory and God’s goodness to allow us to make up for the sins we had committed. Confession and the value of God’s forgiveness; the temporal punishment due to sin, etc. Our ability to assist our loved ones who are detained in the flames of purgatory by the offering of Masses for their relief and release as well as our prayers puts an obligation of loyalty on us.

Praying for the repose of their souls has a value that celebrating their life does not have.

Perhaps it would be a very good thing for you to run an article explaining these things to fill out the education of the people of the diocese.

“Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Bill and Jean Smith Dennis

We must defend Christians Thank you for your November 12 editorial “The courage to combat violence done in the name of Islam,” which I read on The Anchor website.

How little the world today recognizes and addresses this issue! Thank you for clarifying a Christian’s duty to others who are in danger. Long have I thought that the “world” and even some in religion want a God/ Jesus who only turns the cheek. It’s called ignorance and ignoring what is right in front of us. Jesus, however, always confronted and never backed down from any injustice.

He was neither afraid nor indifferent to the gross sufferings taking place all about him. And so it is now. It is we who have it wrong, not him. He wasn’t called a mighty warrior for nothing. I pray for our present blind government to defend the rights of Christians under attack.

Lucille Hadden Washington, D.C. Justifiable outrage over anti-Christian violence Thank you for your November 12 editorial entitled “The courage to combat violence done in the name of Islam,” that I read on your website. I, too, am appalled to what has and is happening to our brothers and sisters in the Middle East countries and the lack of outrage regarding this senseless violence taking place.

It is a Christian duty to aid those who are in need. You have!

Malcolm Judbag Cape Town, South Africa A rational voice Once in a great while we have the pleasure of reading a column such as the one by Claire McManus in the November 5 issue. She is a rational voice amidst all the distortions. Thank you.

Edward McDonagh Cumberland, R.I. Glenn Beck and Social Justice Claire McManus’ article “Social justice spreads Christ’s grace” in the November 5 edition distorts Glenn

Beck’s message regarding social justice.

Glenn Beck claims that the government has co-opted the Church’s teaching on “social justice” to further its own partisan policies.

President Obama uses his belief in “collective salvation” to further his stance on social justice; as Catholics, we know it is only our own faith and good works that will be judged.

Nancy Pelosi has insisted that pastors preach from the pulpit to pass Cap and Trade, saying our government policies need to be a symbol of Christ’s message; if that were true, why is abortion still legal? Mr. Beck references Pope Benedict XVI’s own words: “Whenever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.”

Glenn Beck spreads an uplifting message of faith, hope, and charity.

He tells us that the world’s problems are so complex that only God is able to solve them. He begs us to pray for God’s help. He wants us to get back to our Churches and to read the Bible. Beck challenges each of us to share the blessings we’ve received from God with our neighbor voluntarily. Beck encourages us to give our neighbor a coat if he needs one; he doesn’t think you should be made to give your coat to the government, which then will decide who gets your coat.

It seems the government continues to deceive many into believing that the Church’s “social justice” is consistent with the government’s secular definition. So perhaps Glenn Beck is right. God has given me ears to hear and if I hear my parish preaching the government’s false notion of social justice, I will “run out” and find another that preaches Jesus’ truth.

Kathy Hill Mansfield Social justice, not socialism I do not agree with the article written by Claire McManus on social justice on November 5. I am a practicing Catholic and I do take many of Glenn Beck’s statements seriously. We should be charitable with our money and contribute to the Church, the poor, the sick, and the homeless. This is also advocated by Glenn Beck. Those of us, however, who have spent our lives working, educating our children, and following the teachings of our Church should not be told by anyone that what we have left of our wealth should be re-distributed for the global needs of all people. To me that is socialism, not social justice.

Constance Brown North Falmouth Where social justice begins Claire McManus’ piece on social justice (November 5) is something we all need to be exposed to on a regular basis. Her statement that “the grace we receive from the Eucharist becomes who we are, and what we can share with others,” is what Catholic social justice is all about. It also doesn’t conflict with

what Glenn Beck speaks of when he talks about social justice. True social justice comes from the Body of Christ, each of us, not from Caesar. Mr. Beck says “run” if you’re being told that social justice comes from government, when one that takes from some, or all, and gives to whomever they decide is worthy.

We contribute to social justice as the body of Christ when we decide to give of our time talents and/or treasure, whether directly or indirectly.

A government will never substitute for that as it doesn’t have a heart, soul or conscience and cannot receive grace.

Mike Aiello Forestdale, Mass.

St. Paul’s social justice Social justice as practiced by progressives is not the Christian social justice described by Claire McManus’ November 5 article.

The first type of social justice — referred to by Glenn Beck — is the transfer of wealth from those who work to those who refuse to work, leading to generations of people supported not by work but by taxes.

True Christian social justice is what was described by St. Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians, heard at Masses on November 1314: “When we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat. … Such people we instruct and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and to eat their own food.” The old proverb is still valid: give a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime.

Are we better off for the outrageous welfare programs in our country?

My father was a social worker in a small Midwestern country. In his office for 37 years, there were three people, himself, a secretary and a caseworker. He visited families on relief, distributed surplus food, handled country adoptions and assisted in finding work. As we grew up, nearly every Christmas and throughout the year, we had a child in our family home who had nowhere else to go. My father retired in 1970. Now, for the same small country, there are six departments with nearly 50 employees handling a population that is only 20 percent greater than when my dad was there. Is this social justice? This is the insanity that Glenn Beck is talking about. I’m sure that Ms. McManus means well, but we aren’t doing our children a service by perpetuating generational dependence.

Joe Greer Plainville, Mass.

Not the best term to use With regard to Claire McManus’ November 5 article, I do not believe that “social justice” is the best term to use when talking about providing aid to those in need. The term has been confiscated by socialism. Their interpretation of the words “social justice” by many today implies equal distribution to all — taking from those who have and distributing it evenly among all people.

We are all created equal in that we are all afforded the same opportunity to exercise our free will.

However, we are all created uniquely different: no two of us are alike and that applies to all of creation. In our uniqueness can be found people of great and extraordinary talents, some with average talents, some with great work ethics and some in need of help. How can one apply the words “social justice” in the light of our God-given differences?

Perhaps we should use “social awareness” or “social needs awareness.”

Lillian Heffernan Falmouth The true elements of Catholic social justice I suspect that Glenn Beck would heartily agree with the excellent November 5 article by Claire McManus, as do I. The Catholic version of ‘social justice” is a comforting and loving concept, but a far cry from the more worldly view that is often present in many other main line denominations and from the destructive version referred to

by Beck. Nationally and internationally we have a fusion of social justice, human rights commissions and political correctness. As such, this fusion has resulted in a worldwide effort to enforce abortion, birth control, homosexuality and child sex education from Altoona to Zaire. Acting from various NGO offices in the UN, they help force many poor nations to accept these things under pain of withheld financial aid. Across our country, the false social justice “conglomerate” promotes Planned Parenthood clinics and literature as well as graphic homosexual sex education into our schools; endorses gay marriage, suppresses free speech and attacks Christianity under the umbrella of political correctness. They talk of caring for the poor by helping them abort their children, yet rarely offer any concrete aid in the form of food or housing. Many aspects of the “Green Movement,” a first cousin to the above named fusion, prides itself on adoration of the created rather than the Creator. Sadly, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development seems to fall into this category with the recent story from Chicago that attempted reform had been thwarted by those trying to remake Catholic social injustice according to this secularist understanding. Ousted Chicago CCHD Director Rey Flores told Life Site News on November 12, “It’s sad that the unborn and the innocent poor must suffer because of our misunderstanding of what true social Catholic justice is, as Jesus Christ taught us. We must never sacrifice our Catholic faith and values for secular humanitarian causes.”

Good advice. Claire McManus cites the many fruitful ways true social justice is demonstrated within our parishes and our diocese: a message the rest of society would do well to emulate.

Patricia Stebbins East Sandwich

16

Youth Pages

anchors aweigh — Kindergarten students at St. Joseph School in Fairhaven celebrate Veteran’s Day with Patriotic songs and a visit from a retired veteran who served in the U.S Navy.

honoring our vets — Students at St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro held a program in honor of our country’s veterans. Beginning with the kindergarten class leading the school in the Pledge of Allegiance, other classes recited poems, shared photos of artwork through a slide show leading the school in singing “America the Beautiful.” The first and second grade accompanied the singing with sign language. A touching and moving video was also shown to the students. Pictured is the fifth-grade class reciting its poem accompanied by the art work they created.

religion 101 — Students from grades two through four from St. Mary-Sacred Heart School in North Attleboro spent an afternoon in church with Father David Costa, director of the school, learning about the parts of the Mass, the various priestly vestments, and feast days as well as the history of the Sacred Heart Church building itself.

Throughout the “show and tell” session, students asked a variety of questions and viewed a variety of religious items including an empty monstrance, the religious vessel that holds the Body of Christ for Catholics to adore.

November 26, 2010

live biographies — Fifth-grade students at Holy Name School in Fall River recently wrote a biography on people who were important in their lives. Here, Lilian Perry and Mary Mahoney-Pacheco, dressed as their grandmother and grandfather, respectively present their biographies to their class.

into the light — William Smith recently was awarded the Light of Christ emblem badge. He is pictured with his pastor, Father JonPaul Gallant of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus in South Attleboro following the Mass at which Smith received the award.

righting a wrong — Bishop Feehan High School, Attleboro, students Meghan Hoell and Elizabeth Shokunbi recently participated in the Massachusetts Youth Activation Council Conference at the Yawkey Special Olympics Complex in Marlboro. One hundred students with and without disabilities from across the state met to educate, motivate, and plan activities and events to promote respect for people with disabilities. From left, Hoell, Principal Bill Runey, and Shokunbi.

Youth Pages

November 26, 2010

P

arents and teen-agers need to get on the same page and find common ground when it comes to matters of talking about sex, love and relationships. Teen-agers want to hear from their parents about these issues. And parents have a far greater influence on their children’s decision-making regarding these issues than they might think. In a time when society makes parents feel increasingly out of control — fearful that they have lost the battle for their children’s hearts and minds to peers and popular culture — it is vital for parents to know that their children want to hear from them, and that they can make a real difference.

Did you know that families, and particularly parents, have

Finding common ground

a strong influence on whether — mom and dad. It’s hard to their teen-agers become pregteach that your faith is impornant or cause a pregnancy? Did tant when you yourself don’t you know that teens who are practice it. Without parental close to their parents are more support for the faith, teen-agers likely to remain sexually abstinent? A close relationship between parent and child is based on honesty and the parents’ attitudes and values about these same social issues. But

By Ozzie Pacheco that’s not all. What about their relationship with God? In ministry to the young, are finding a lesser and lesser I often ask teen-agers why need for God in their lives. An they don’t participate at Mass hour per week of faith formaregularly. Often the response tion class is not going to solve is silence. But sometimes it’s this problem. But a change in because their parents don’t go attitude will. to Mass. So they follow in the Here are “ten tips” for footsteps of their first teachers parents to help their children on matters of sex, love and relationships: 1. Be clear about your own sexual values and attitudes. their “holiday wishes” and giving Communicating with your them hope for a brighter future. children about sex, love, and The home strongly relies on relationships is often more sucthe kindness and deep commit- cessful when you are certain in ment of private donors, local busi- your own mind about these isnesses, and companies to meet sues. Be certain, however, that the children’s needs … needs these values and attitudes have that are often outside of state their roots in the moral teachfunding and budget constraints. ings of our Catholic faith.

2. Talk with your children You can make the holidays brighter — and the year ahead early and often about sex, and brighter for the children and be specific. Initiate the conyouth for whom St. Vincent’s versation and make sure it is a provides a range of services dialogue, not a monologue. by participating in the Holiday Wishes initiative. Your generosity will ensure that the children and youth in the care of the home this Christmas will have their wishes fulfilled and will have hope for a brighter tomorrow.

St. Vincent’s invites you to partner with them to make this holiday season festive, joyous, and healing for the children. Contact Melissa Dick at 508-235-3228 to inquire how you can donate holiday gifts, as well as contributions to support youth-related activities and programs throughout the year.

Be Not Afraid

St. Vincent’s Home seeks holiday gift donations

Fall River — St. Vincent’s Home is asking for help to give a child a gift this holiday season by donating Christmas presents and financial contributions for the children’s Holiday Wishes. More than 100 children and youth between the ages of four and 21 at St. Vincent’s — and another 50 children and their families who receive services from St. Vincent’s in their own communities — will wake up on Christmas morning with expectations of seeing brightly wrapped packages and gifts about which they have dreamed for some time.

You can make certain that every youngster in the care of St. Vincent’s has a gift to open on Christmas morning.

You can even choose specific items from the children’s “Wish Lists” during the Holiday Wishes initiative throughout November and December.

The Holiday Wishes Initiative offers crucial support for the children and youth in St. Vincent’s residential and community-based programs by fulfilling

17

The Anchor is always pleased to run news and photos about our diocesan youth.

If schools or parish Religious Education programs, have newsworthy stories and photos they would like to share with our readers, send them to: schools@anchornews.org

3. Supervise and monitor your children by establishing rules, curfews, and standards of expected behavior, preferably through an open process of family discussion.

4. Know your children’s friends and their families; welcome your children’s friends into your home and talk to them openly.

5. Discourage early, frequent, and steady dating. Group activities among young people are fine, but allowing teens to begin steady, one-on-one dating before age 16 can lead to trouble.

6. Take a strong stand against your daughter dating a boy significantly older than she is, and don’t allow your son to develop an intense relationship with a girl much younger than he is. The power difference between younger girls and older boys or men can lead girls into risky situations.

7. Help your teen-agers to have options for the future that are more attractive than early pregnancy and parenthood.

Help them set meaningful goals for the future, talk to them about what it takes to make future plans come true, and help them reach their goals.

8. Failing at school is often the first sign of trouble; let your kids know that you value

education highly. Put those words into practice and help them with their learning and study habits. After all, you are their most valued teachers.

9. Be media literate — know what your kids are watching, reading, and listening to. Remember, you can always turn the TV off, cancel subscriptions, and place certain movies off limits. You may not be able to fully control what your children see and hear, but you can certainly make your views known.

10. These first nine tips work best when they are part of strong, close relationships with your children that are built from an early age. Express love and affection clearly and often, listen carefully to what your children say, make time and spend time with your children engaged in activities that they like, be supportive and interested in what interests them, and help them build self-esteem.

Remember, it’s never too late to improve a relationship with a child or teen-ager.

Your effort in building this common ground is an invitation to dialogue, a dialogue that’s rooted in faith and discussed openly. This will help in bringing back the need for God. Ozzie Pacheco is Faith Formation director at Santo Christo Parish, Fall River.

18

The Anchor

Deacons from throughout New England meet in Hyannis HYANNIS — The Region One Assembly for deacons, candidates and their wives was held on November 13 at the Hyannis Hotel and Conference Center. This annual gathering was held for the first time in the Diocese of Fall River.

The National Association of Diaconate Directors meets regionally throughout the year and sponsors an assembly each year. Region One includes all the dioceses of New England and Albany.

Msgr. John J. Oliveira, diocesan director of the Diaconate, is a member of this group. Deacon Frank Fantasia, assistant to the director for Candidate Formation and Deacon Art LaChance, assistant to the director for Continuing Formation, are also members. Msgr. Oliveira was the celebrant of the Mass concluding the assembly.

This year’s keynote speaker was Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. He spoke on “The Ethics of Life.” A priest of the Diocese

of Fall River, he is director of Education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia and directs the Center’s National Certification Program in Health Care Ethics. Father Pacholczyk gave two presentations in the morning.

The afternoon session was dedicated to workshops revolving around the keynote address.

Deacon Arthur Miller from the Archdiocese of Hartford reflected on “Promoting Life in the Streets.” Deacon Michael Oles, from the Diocese of Bridgeport spoke on “One Life at a Time.”

The third workshop was directed

by Deacon Donald Higby, M.D., from the Diocese of Springfield.

He addressed “End of Life Care” and was able to discuss practical applications and cases related to the morning presentation.

Those attending received CEU credits toward their annual formation requirements.

November 26, 2010

Mass. bishops promote Baby Safe Haven continued from page one

tion. No information is required, though in most cases it is volunteered. Her situation reminded advocates of the law that education continues to be imperative.

Already the law has been extremely effective. In the four years that it took to pass the law, 13 babies were abandoned, six of whom died. Only two deadly abandonments have occurred since its implementation, the last of which happened more than four years ago. Under the law, 14 babies have been safely surrendered.

Massachusetts was the 46th state to implement such a law, which are now on the books in all 50 states.

A November 8 statement from the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the bishops’ public policy arm, said that greater awareness of the law could save the lives of more children.

“Some newborn babies die as a result of being left unattended in an alley, dumpster or other undesirable location.

Other unborn babies die in the wombs of desperate mothers.

In both cases, the mothers are left alone to wrestle with their own unmet medical and emotional needs. In Massachusetts the Safe Haven Law provides a safe, affordable, confidential alternative to abortion and infant abandonment,” it read.

The bishops encouraged all Catholics to inform their families and friends, post notices in public spaces and share information via social networking websites. A sample notice can be found on their website, www.macathconf.org.

MCC interim executive director Gerald D’Avolio told The Anchor that the bishops hope to raise greater awareness by getting information to parishes and parochial schools.

He called the East Boston abandonment a “rude awakening” and said that in a moment of despair the mother did the “most unthinkable.”

“This is the beginning of life. We should want to save it, not destroy it,” he said.

The Catholic Church should play a major role in promoting this law because of its steady focus on the dignity of all human persons, he added.

Marian Desrosiers, director of the Fall River Diocese’s Pro-Life Apostolate, echoed that sentiment, telling The Anchor that the Church has always been a staunch defender of life.

“We foremost have an obligation to do all that we can to defend and protect the life of the innocent, and also to help women,” she said.

Some women in these situations need medical attention and could be afraid to seek it out of fear of prosecution. The hope is that both they and their children will be protected.

Michael Morrisey, founder of Baby Safe Haven New England, told The Anchor that if the mother receives help, her child will too.

“If you get the information to the mother and you make sure that she’s taken care of and making proper decisions, you’re always going to take care of the baby,” he said.

Baby Safe Haven New England helped pass laws to protect newborns in the region.

They now work to educate everyone about the laws, and they are currently pushing for an amendment to the Massachusetts law that would allow 911 responders to be designated safe havens. That is already part of the laws in New Hampshire and Vermont.

“It’s real simple, 911. Just pick up the cell phone, and every kid has one. It makes every single square inch of Massachusetts a safe haven site,” he said.

Morrisey said that advocacy of the law must be constant because there are always more women moving into the state

and more girls coming of age.

It is especially challenging to reach three groups of women: young girls, women addicted to drugs and newcomers to the state, who include college students and immigrants.

The woman from East Boston falls in that last category.

She moved from El Salvador six weeks before the birth.

Morrisey said it would have been “almost impossible to get the information to her.”

Morrisey stressed that it is important to educate everyone, especially the young, who respond best to communication from their peers. “I can see how interconnected kids are,” he said, referring to all the media teens use to keep in touch.

Three years ago, Baby Safe Haven gained a teen-age spokesperson. Renee Marcou of Wilmington, Mass. is a recording artist who sang the National Anthem at the October 17 Patriots game. She has been a guest on broadcast news stations and radio programs on a variety of stations, some of which were in high schools.

Morrisey said she has done “everything from punk rock to sports talk.”

Many of her appearances have been put online with the hope of reaching more young people. The videos have collectively received 250,000 hits.

In a video of Marcou’s visit to WBSM 1420 AM in New Bedford, posted online by Baby Safe Haven on November 12, she called the provision “a very powerful law for women.”

“I think it’s great for women, men, everybody to know that there’s another option out there, and you don’t have to abandon your baby. There are places and people who will take in your newborn,” she said.

For more information, visit www.babysafehaven.com.

Women seeking help should call 1-866-814-SAFE.

The Anchor

November 26, 2010

Mass. bishops urge support of START treaty

The following letter from the four Mass. bishops to Senator John Kerry and Senator Scott Brown was recently sent to the Senators’ Washington offices, urging Senate ratification before the end of the year of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the U.S. and Russia to further reduce the stockpiles of nuclear weapons in each country.

Dear Senator Kerry and Senator Brown: As the four Roman Catholic Ordinaries in Massachusetts, we write in support of Senate ratification this year of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the United States and the Russian Federation. START was signed on April 8, 2010 and recently approved by a bipartisan vote of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Roman Catholic Church worldwide has long been concerned about the threat of nuclear weapons and our support for their elimination is based on our deep commitment to preserving human life and dignity. The Holy See and the United States Bishops continue to promote the twin and interrelated goals of nuclear disarmament and non- proliferation. We are not technical experts, but as teachers and pastors we offer our moral direction and encouragement with the hope that, with your backing, the treaty will be ratified by the Senate. We

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks Nov. 29 Rev. Thomas H. Shahan, Former Pastor, St. Mary, Taunton, 1902 Rev. Francis A. McCarthy, Pastor, St. Patrick, Somerset, 1965 Nov. 30 Rev, William J McCoomb, Pastor, Immaculate Conception, North Easton, 1895 Dec. 1 Rev. Phillipe Ross, Chaplain, Sacred Heart Home, New Bedford, 1958 Rev. Edward J. Gorman, Retired Pastor, St. Patrick, Somerset, 1964 Dec. 2 Rev. Arthur Savoie, Pastor, St. Hyacinth, New Bedford, 1917 Rev. Dennis W. Harrington, Assistant, St. Mary, Taunton, 1958 Rev. Stanislaus Basinski, Former Pastor, Holy Rosary, Taunton, 1970 Dec. 3 Rev. John W. McCarthy, P.R., Pastor, Sacred Heart, Fall River, 1926 Dec. 4 Rev. Patrick Byrne, Pastor, St. Mary, New Bedford, 1844 Rev. Charles Ouellette, Assistant, St. Jacques, Taunton, 1945 Rev. Edward C. Duffy, Pastor, St. Francis Xavier, Hyannis, 1994 Dec. 5 Rev. Eugene J. Boutin, Manchester Diocese, 1986 Rev. Coleman Conley, SS.CC., Chaplain, Sacred Heart Home, New Bedford, 1990

truly believe that this step is critical to making our world safer.

If you have any specific questions, please contact the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office of International Justice and Peace which is monitoring the ratification process: (Director) Steve Colecchi; (p) 202-5413196; (f) 202-541-3339; (email) scolecchi@usccb.org.

Thank you in advance for your attention to our concerns. Sincerely, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archdiocese of Boston Bishop George W. Coleman, Diocese of Fall River Bishop Timothy A. McDowell, Diocese of Springfield Bishop Robert J. McManus, Diocese of Worcester

Around the Diocese 11/26

The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, 947 Park Street (Route 118), Attleboro will host its Christmas Bazaar today and tomorrow from noon to 9 p.m. and again Sunday from noon to 8 p.m. For more information call 508-222-5410 or 508-236-9033.

19 Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese Acushnet — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Mondays, Tuesdays, 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, Tuesdays, 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, concluding with Benediction and Mass.

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

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

EAST TAUNTON — Eucharistic adoration takes place First Fridays at Holy Family Church, 370 Middleboro Avenue, following the 8:30 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 8 p.m.

Our Lady of Grace Parish, 569 Sanford Road, Westport, will host its 24th annual Christmas Bazaar tomorrow and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. both days.

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

An Advent festival and fair, designed for adults and children of all ages to keep “Christ in Christmas,” will be held at St. Francis Xavier Parish, 21 Cross Street, Hyannis on Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. in the hall of the prep school. For more information call 508-775-1628.

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.

11/29

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.

11/27 11/28

An Advent Centering Prayer Group at St. Louis de France Parish, Swansea, will host weekly Centering Prayer gatherings using a Lectio Divina format. The group will meet in the Family Room of the main church at 6:15 p.m., every Monday in Advent, November 29 through December 20. Prayer begins promptly at 6:30 p.m. For more information, contact Charles R Demers at forums4ami@gmail.com or 508-264-5823.

12/3

There will be an Advent night of recollection on December 3 from 6-8 p.m. at St. Francis Xavier Parish, Main Street, Acushnet. Msgr. Gerard O’Connor and Fathers Andrew Johnson, Jay Mello and Roger Landry will give talks on imitating the virtues of certain great Jesuit saints. Mass and confessions will be offered. All are welcome.

12/3

The Fall River Area Men’s First Friday Club will meet December 3, at the Parish of the Good Shepherd, 1598 South Main Street, Fall River. Following the 6 p.m Mass celebrated by Father Freddie Babiczuk, pastor, we will have a hot meal in the church hall. John J. Sbrega, Ph.D., president of Bristol Community College, will be the guest speaker. Any gentleman wishing to attend may do so. For information call 508-672-8174.

12/3

ECHO of Cape Cod retreat weekend for boys will be held at the Craigville Conference Center, Centerville, December 3-5 for high school sophomores, juniors and seniors. For more information or applications, visit www. echoofcapecod.org.

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

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

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

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

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

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

12/4

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.

12/4

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.

Christ the King Catholic Women’s Club will host its annual Christmas Bazaar in the hall of Christ the King Parish, Mashpee Commons, Mashpee, on December 4 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event will feature a raffle, jewelry, white elephant table, children’s shopping room, bakery and treats table, food and much more.

A “Festival of Lights Walk” will take place at La Salette Shrine, 947 Park Street (Route 118), Attleboro on December 4 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. There is a choice of an 11- or five-kilometer (6.8- or 3.1-mile route) and both trails are rated easy walks. The walk is sponsored by the Walk ‘n’ Mass Volkssport Club. For more information call 508-222-1152.

12/4

COURAGE, a welcoming support group for Catholics wounded by samesex attraction who gather to seek God’s wisdom, mercy and love, will next meet on December 4 at 7 p.m. For location information, please call Father Richard Wilson at 508-992-9408.

12/4

A Day with Mary will take place on December 4 from 8 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. at Our Lady of Assumption Parish, 76 Wianno Avenue, Osterville. It will include a video instruction, a procession and crowning of the Blessed Mother along with Mass, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and an opportunity for reconciliation.

For more information call 508-984-1823.

12/5

“I Hear the Prophet Calling,” a contemporary Advent cantata by Pepper Choplin, will be presented by the Cathedral Youth and Adult Choirs on December 5 at 3 p.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Fall River. All are welcome and a freewill offering for the church’s Organ Fund will be gratefully accepted.

12/5

The annual “Deacon Joseph Stanley Mass of Hope and Remembrance for Our Children” will be celebrated at Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville December 5 at 11:30 a.m. Deacon Stanley and his wife Estelle, who lost a child at a young age, were the “founding parents” of this annual Mass for bereaved parents who have experienced the loss of a child in pregnancy, infancy, sudden death, illness, accident, murder or suicide. For more information call 508-775-5744.

12/8

Public adoration of the Blessed Sacrament to celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary will take place in the chapel of the Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street, Easton on December 8 beginning with rosary prayer at 9 a.m. Mass will follow at noon.

NORTH DIGHTON — Eucharistic adoration takes place every First Friday at St. Nicholas of Myra Church, 499 Spring Street following the 8 a.m. Mass, ending with Benediction at 6 p.m.

The rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 7:30 to 8 a.m.

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

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

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

WAREHAM — Adoration with opportunities for private and formal prayer is offered on the First Friday of each month from 8:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. at St. Patrick’s Church, High Street.

The Prayer Schedule is as follows: 7:30 a.m. the rosary; 8 a.m. Mass; 8:30 a.m. exposition and Morning Prayer; 12 p.m. the Angelus; 3 p.m. Divine Mercy Chaplet; 5:30 p.m. Evening Prayer; 7 p.m. sacrament of confession; 8 p.m. Benediction.

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

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

20

I

t’s ironic that just a few weeks after I wrote about being “height-challenged” because of my French-Canadian heritage, I witnessed one of the greatest plays by a group of “height-challenged” gridders at last week’s New England Patriots game.

Maybe it was with the help of St. André.

Pats’ running back Danny Woodhead, a man I can see eyeto-eye with, literally, received the ball at the 36-yard line from quarterback Tom Brady (seemingly twice his size). Woodhead, one of the smallest, if not the

The Anchor

November 26, 2010

He’s just doing his job

smallest running back in the Patriots’ heart-stopping win over National Football League, began their AFC rivals. his journey through the IndianapWoodhead made several other olis Colts’ defense. A zig here, and a zag there, and Woodhead found himself along the right sideline with several Colts still between him and the goal line. Up stepped Patriots’ receivers Wes Welker and

By Dave Jolivet Deion Branch, two of the smallest receivers in the NFL. The pair cleared the way for Woodhead to find paydirt runs, most where he was seemwith nary a finger laid on him. ingly stopped by the much bigger The touchdown was critical in the Colt defenders, but with a wiggle

My View From the Stands

and waggle, he always picked up an additional two, three, four, and five yards.

Since the Patriots picked up Woodhead, a cast-out of the New York Jets, he’s been earning extra yards on a regular basis. Go Danny boy.

In fact Welker also scored at TD during the game. When all was said and done, I seemed to sit a little taller when the Patriots outlasted Indy. I was proud of my sub-six-foot heritage.

In his post-game press conference, Woodhead was asked if he “remembered that play.” With a quizzical look on his face at the absurdity of the question he responded, “Yeah, I didn’t black out or anything.” After the press corps chuckled at the response, Woodhead was quick to give credit to his teammates for getting him to the end zone.

No bravado. No chest pounding. No me, me, me responses. It was very refreshing.

Later he was asked how he, despite his small stature, manages to evade certain tackles. His response was simple and to the point. “I just go out and do my job.”

It’s no coincidence that Welker and Branch have that same attitude. Being little men in a big man’s game, the trio has adopted a solid work ethic. Nothing’s been handed to them along the way. In fact they’ve had to prove

countless sceptics wrong that they could make it in the NFL. These three, along with Red Sox “little man” Dustin Pedroia should be inspirations and role models for boys and girls who, like me, were last in line when it came time for handing out body height.

And speaking of last Sunday’s game, Denise and I were watching and were dumbfounded at the amount of car commercials during the broadcast. “Here’s hoping you find a nice surprise in your driveway this holiday season,” was the mantra of one commercial that appeared time after time. I won’t mention the make, but its logo is a peace sign with one spoke missing.

We mentioned to one another that we were not members of that target audience. Or many others during the broadcast. I guess football is a sport for the very well-to-do. But Denise put it best when she said, “The ones who could afford one of those in the driveway are all at the game, not at home watching.”

It baffles me to think someone could get a “holiday gift” that costs more than many people in this country make in a year.

I felt much more at ease when commercials for pizza and video games aired. That’s more my speed ... and my price range. I guess they have to throw a bone to the little people once in a while.

But after watching Danny Woodhead between commercials, I felt privileged.

committed to the poor — Janine Carreiro, executive director of Brockton Interfaith Community in Brockton, was the recipient of the 2010 Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award, sponsored by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the anti-poverty program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. She was at a reception during the bishops’ annual Fall General Assembly in Baltimore. Carreiro, 29, grew up in Our Lady of Fatima Parish (now St. Francis of Assisi) in Swansea.

“Janine’s commitment to the poor has taken her around the world and deeply into her own community,” said Bishop Roger Morin of Biloxi, Miss., chairman of the bishops’ CCHD subcommittee. “Her commitment is rooted in her Catholic faith, and her work exemplifies what Pope Benedict calls the ‘institutional path’ of charity, something at the heart of the Church’s mission.” Here Carreiro receives the award from Auxiliary Bishop John Dooer of the Boston Archdiocese.