Anchor 10.29.10

The Anchor Diocese of Fall River

F riday , October 29, 2010

Pregnant women in crisis met with love

B y Christine M. Williams A nchor C orrespondent

FALL RIVER — Crisis pregnancy centers serve on the front lines battling the culture of death with love. The staff at these centers encounter women at a pivotal moment in their lives and listen to their fears and concerns.

“We meet women and couples where they are, with the love of Christ,” said Daryl Breda, director of A Woman’s Concern in Fall River.

This year, the theme for Respect Life Month is “The Measure of Love is to Love Without Measure.” Loving the

women who walk through the office door is an integral part of the center’s ministry.

“It’s all about loving on them,” Breda told The Anchor.

“It’s loving them and listening to them, hearing them out and supporting them in their difficulties in whatever way we can. I think our services are best described as pro-woman, life-affirming.”

A Woman’s Concern has six locations, two of which — Fall River and Hyannis — are in the Diocese of Fall River. The ministry as a whole has seen 75 babies born in 2010. Breda, Turn to page 12 rich tradition — During this past July’s annual three-day gathering, the Sisters of St. Dorothy’s 100-year anniversary was marked by a private celebration with members coming from Texas and New York for a special Mass at Mount Saint Joseph’s in Taunton. Here a group of Sisters gather together on the stairs of the Villa Fatima Convent for a group photo.

Sisters of St. Dorothy celebrate 100 years in the United States

By Rebecca Aubut Anchor Staff

PORTABLE PILGRIM QUEEN— This triptych shrine known as the Pilgrim Queen of the Family has inspired dozens of families in the Attleboro area to host monthly recitations of the rosary on a rotating basis for nearly four years. The growing devotion to the rosary is helping to inspire families to pray together in their homes.

Pilgrim Queen of the Family inspires family prayer through the rosary

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

ATTLEBORO — For nearly four years, a group of devoted families in the Attleboro area has been living Servant of God Father Patrick Peyton’s famous adage “the family that prays together, stays together,” by coming together each month to pray the rosary before a traveling shrine known as the Pilgrim Queen of the Family.

“It’s really a great opportunity to bring the family together,” said

Shawn Seybert of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Attleboro.

“We all seem so crazy-busy that during this time we make it a priority to sit down and pray together because she’s there. It’s not overwhelming, but yet it has a way of permeating your family life.”

“I think it has strengthened us as a family,” agreed fellow St. John the Evangelist parishioner Jim Castro. “It’s nice to have that anchor during the month to set aside Turn to page 20

Mass. bishops statement on electing civic leaders, and their opposition to Question 2 on Tuesday’s election ballot — page 14

FALL RIVER — In 1809, St. Paula Frassinetti was born in Genoa, Italy. Paula heard the divine call and at the tender age of 19, found herself working alongside her brother, Father Giuseppe, at his parish in Quinto, Italy. Every Sunday Paula and a group of six young women would take long walks together, with Paula taking the lead and speaking about God. On Aug. 12, 1834, in the sanctuary of San Martino in Albaro, the seven young women dedicated their lives to God. Living in poverty in Quinto, the women opened a school for poor children. A priest, learning of Paula’s apostolic

zeal, asked her to assume the responsibility for the pious work named after St. Dorothy, and the Sisters of St. Dorothy was born.

Active all over the world, 100 years ago the Sisters of St. Dorothy took root in the United States, a cause for celebration among the small number of Sisters who have pledged a lifetime to serving God, along with continuing the educational mission of their predecessor.

In fact, it was another young girl, this time during the 1950s while living on Staten Island, N. Y., who was inspired by the Sisters during her years as an elementary student.

“I had the Sisters of St. Dorothy in grammar Turn to page 13

Five to receive St. Thomas More Award at annual Red Mass on November 7

By John E. Kearns Jr. Office of Communications

FALL RIVER — Bishop George W. Coleman will be principal celebrant of the annual Red Mass in the Fall River Diocese at 3 p.m. November 7 at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River.

A long-standing tradition in the Church, the Red Mass is sponsored each year by the diocese to invoke God’s guidance and strength on those who work to provide justice in the legal

system. Judges, attorneys and court personnel are invited to attend.

Homilist for the Red Mass will be Holy Cross Father Mark T. Cregan, president of Stonehill College in North Easton and a practicing attorney.

In keeping with a tradition in this diocese, the Red Mass will conclude with the presentation of the St. Thomas More Award to members of the area legal community to recognize dedicated service.

Selected for the honor this year are, as distinguished jurists, retired Judge Antone S. Aguiar Jr. of Swansea and retired Judge John H. O’Neil of Fall River, both former First Justices of the Fall River District Court; as distinguished attorney, Bruce Gilmore of Barnstable; as distinguished court employee, Gladys Fermino of New Bedford, recently retired Operations Supervisor of the New Bedford District Court; Turn to page 18

News From the Vatican

2

October 29, 2010

Peace is possible in Middle East, says pope at synod’s closing Mass

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Closing the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, Pope Benedict XVI said, “We must never resign ourselves to the absence of peace.”

“Peace is possible. Peace is urgent,” the pope said October 24 during his homily at the Mass closing the two-week synod.

Peace is what will stop Christians from emigrating, he said.

Pope Benedict also urged Christians to promote respect for freedom of religion and conscience, “one of the fundamental human rights that each state should always respect.”

Synod members released a message October 23 to their own faithful, their government leaders, Catholics around the world, the international community and to all people of goodwill.

The Vatican also released the 44 propositions adopted by synod members as recommendations for Pope Benedict to consider in writing his post-synodal apostolic exhortation.

Although the bishops said the main point of the synod was to find pastoral responses to the challenges facing their people, they said the biggest challenges are caused by political and social injustice and war and conflict.

“We have taken account of the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the whole region, especially on the Palestinians who

are suffering the consequences of the Israeli occupation: the lack of freedom of movement, the wall of separation and the military checkpoints, the political prisoners, the demolition of homes, the disturbance of socioeconomic life and the thousands of refugees,” they said in one of the strongest sentences in the message.

They called for continued Catholic-Jewish dialogue, condemned anti-Semitism and antiJudaism and affirmed Israel’s right to live at peace within its “internationally recognized borders.”

Although relations between Christians and Jews in the region often are colored by IsraeliPalestinian tensions, the bishops said the Catholic Church affirms the Old Testament — the Hebrew Scriptures — is the word of God and that God’s promises to the Jewish people, beginning with Abraham, are still valid.

However, they said, “recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable. On the contrary, recourse to religion must lead every person to see the face of God in others.”

Addressing the synod’s final news conference October 23, Melkite Bishop Cyrille S. Bustros of Newton, Mass., said, “For us Christians, you can no longer

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speak of a land promised to the Jewish people,” because Christ’s coming into the world demonstrated that God’s chosen people are all men and women and that their promised land would be the kingdom of God established throughout the world.

The bishops’ point in criticizing some people’s use of Scripture was intended to say “one cannot use the theme of the Promised Land to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the expatriation of Palestinians,” Bishop Bustros said.

In their message, the bishops expressed particular concern over the future of Jerusalem, particularly given Israeli “unilateral initiatives” that threaten the composition and demographic profile of the city through construction and buying up the property of Christians and other Arabs.

They also offered words of support for the suffering Iraqi people, Christians and Muslims, and for those forced to flee the country.

The synod members said they talked extensively about Christian-Muslim relations and about the fact that they both are longstanding citizens of the same countries and should be working together for the good of all.

“We say to our Muslim fellow-citizens: We are brothers and sisters; God wishes us to be together, united by one faith in God and by the dual commandment of love of God and neighbor,” they said.

But Christians must be given their full rights as citizens and the future peace and prosperity of the region require civil societies built “on the basis of citizenship, religious freedom and freedom of conscience.”

Throughout the synod, members said that while religious freedom and freedom of worship are recognized in most of the region’s constitutions, freedom of conscience — particularly the freedom to change religious affiliation — is not respected in many places.

The synod propositions called for educating Christians in the beliefs of their Muslim and Jewish neighbors and for strengthening dialogue programs that would help the region’s people “accept one another in spite of their differences, working to build a new society in which fanaticism and extremism have no place.”

Much of the synod’s discussion focused on the fact that many Christians are emigrating because of ongoing conflicts, a lack of security and equality and a lack of economic opportunities at home.

They praised those who have

remained despite hardship and thanked them for their contributions to Church and society.

While they did not call on emigrants to return home, they did ask them to consider it eventually and to think twice before selling their property in their homelands.

Several bishops had told the synod that Christians selling off their property was turning previously Christian-Muslim neighborhoods and towns into totally Muslim areas.

One of the synod propositions said, “We exhort our faithful and our Church communities not to give in to the temptation to sell off their real estate,” and they pledged to set up micro-finance and other projects to help people retain their property and make it prosper.

The synod members affirmed their commitment to efforts to promote full Christian unity and promised to strengthen cooperative efforts with other Christian churches in the region because “we share the same journey” and unity is necessary for effectively sharing the Gospel.

The bishops at the synod also recognized their own failures in not promoting greater communion between Catholics of different rites, with other Christians and with the Jewish and Muslim majorities of their homelands.

And they told their lay faithful, “We have not done everything possible to confirm you in your faith and to give you the spiritual nourishment you need in your difficulties.”

All Christians, including the bishops, are called to conversion, they said.

The propositions called for creation of a “commission of cooperation” between Church leaders of different rites, the sharing of material resources and establishment of a program to share priests.

They also echoed a repeated call in the synod for the pope to study ways to expand the jurisdiction of Eastern Catholic patriarchs and major archbishops to allow them greater power in providing for their faithful who live outside the traditional territory of their Churches and to consider dropping restrictions on ordaining married men to the priesthood outside the traditional homeland of the particular Church.

Maronite Archbishop Joseph Soueif of Cyprus told reporters, “The synod is not a medical prescription or a cure” for the problems Christians face in the Middle East, “it’s a journey that is just beginning” and will have to be implemented by the region’s Catholics.

final gathering — Prelates attend the closing Mass of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican October 24.

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October 29, 2010

The International Church

3

Anglican bishop announces he will resign, join Catholic ordinariate

LONDON (CNS) — The bishop who leads the largest Anglo-Catholic group in the Church of England said he plans to resign by the end of the year and join a personal ordinariate when it is established in England and Wales.

“I am not retiring, I am resigning,” Bishop John Broadhurst of Fulham told a meeting of Forward in Faith, the traditionalist group of which he is chairman.

He added to applause that he expects to “enter the ordinariate.”

Bishop Broadhurst told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview that he was “absolutely, absolutely” certain that a personal ordinariate would soon come into existence in England but did not know exactly when.

Pope Benedict XVI established the mechanisms to create personal ordinariates last November through his apostolic constitution “Anglicanorum Coetibus” (“Groups of Anglicans”) in response to

repeated requests for a means of group reception from disaffected Anglican bishops around the world.

The structures will resemble military dioceses and allow former Anglican communities to retain their distinctive patrimony and practices, including married priests.

“If the pope makes you an offer, you can’t ignore it,” Bishop Broadhurst told CNS. He decided to enter the Catholic faith after the General Synod of the Church of England voted in July to ordain women as bishops by 2014 without provisions to satisfy Anglicans who objected.

“The Church of England has been saying to conservative Anglicans like me that ‘we can’t give you jurisdiction and living space because it wouldn’t be catholic,’ but Rome has said ‘we can give you that.’ It is very interesting,” he said.

The bishop’s announcement came two weeks after St. Peter’s Parish in Folke-

Poland’s bishops warn against law allowing in-vitro fertilization

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) — Poland’s Catholic bishops have warned government leaders and legislators not to back a law allowing in-vitro fertilization, adding that the practice resembled Nazi-era eugenics.

“The in-vitro method incurs huge human costs — the birth of one child requires in each case the death, in various stages of the medical procedure, of many living beings,” the bishops’ conference president, Archbishop Jozef Michalik, said in a letter to Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, political party leaders and legislators.

“While sympathizing with families suffering infertility, we voice acknowledgment for all those who, despite personal drama, seek to stay faithful to the principles of Christian ethics and are open to accepting children through adoption,” the letter said.

It was published amid controversy over a planned debate in Poland’s Sejm, or lower house, on several draft laws to regulate in-vitro fertilization for the first time.

The bishops’ letter said research showed the procedure endangered children conceived in this manner by weakening immune systems and causing genetic illnesses. It said the process had “incalculable social consequences” because it created multiple mothers and anonymous donors of genetic material, some of whom demanded alimony payments.

“Separating procreation from the marriage act always has bad social effects and is especially unfavorable to children coming into the world,” said the letter, cosigned by Archbishop Henryk Hoser, who heads the Polish Church’s bioethics team, and Bishop Kazimierz Gorny, chairman of the bishops’ Family Affairs Council.

“In-vitro fertilization is the younger sister of eugenics, the so-called medical procedure which has the worst associations from not-distant history. The fertilization procedure outside the womb means ‘selecting’ embryos and putting them to death. It’s a question of eliminat-

ing the weakest human embryos, which are diagnosed as unsuitable — in other words, ‘selective eugenics,’” it said.

Legislators will vote again in late October for several alternative drafts, one banning in-vitro fertilization outright and another allowing the freezing and selecting of embryos.

In their letter, the bishops said some drafts conflicted with “objective scientific conditions,” as well as with the “unambiguous moral injunctions flowing from the Ten Commandments and Gospel.”

They added that legalized in-vitro fertilization would mean “inevitably redefining fatherhood, motherhood and marital fidelity” and “undermining the foundations of social life” and said Poland urgently needed “programs for treating infertility” instead.

Archbishop Hoser told the Polish Press Agency that the Church would only accept a law that banned or “largely restricted” in-vitro fertilization and warned that politicians voting for the procedure would face excommunication.

He added that the October awarding of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Medicine to British IVF pioneer Robert Edwards was like giving a technology prize to the inventor of atomic bombs.

“You can’t obtain a pregnancy at the cost of the life of many other children,” Archbishop Hoser said. “If members of Parliament know what they’re doing and want such a situation to occur, and if they don’t act to limit such a law’s harmfulness, then in my view they are automatically outside the Church community.”

Polish government spokesman Pawel Gras told the popular Radio Zet that the archbishop’s remarks were an attempt “to pressure and blackmail lawmakers.”

“Judging by the reaction of MPs, I think the bishops will have achieved exactly the opposite of what they intended,” Gras said. “They will not succeed in trying to block the work on IVF — on the contrary, the work will be speeded up and the bill will probably pass this year.”

stone, within the Anglican Archdiocese of Canterbury, became the first to vote to join a future ordinariate. Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury is the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Several Anglican organizations have reacted to mounting speculation of many more conversions by announcing in a statement that they can amend the church’s legislation on women bishops to protect the rights of objectors.

They believe they can force the Church of England to recognize the newly established Society of St. Wilfrid and St. Hilda as an Anglican equivalent of the Catholic ordinariate that would offset the many possible defections to the Catholic Church.

The society will be nearly identical in structure to a Catholic ordinariate, having no women priests or bishops, and its members will be served by their own bishop rather than the local diocesan bishop.

Anglican Father Simon Killwick, chairman of the Catholic Group in General Synod, told CNS in a telephone interview that new elections to the synod meant there was enough support to stop women bishops unless the new society is formally adopted.

“There are a number of people who, whatever the General Synod does, will join the ordinariate, and the bishop of Fulham is one of them,” he said.

“But I think the majority of AngloCatholics are looking to remain within the

Church of England and (for) appropriate changes to be made for them to do so,” he said. “This (society) has the potential to make it possible to remain.

“There would be strong similarities (to the ordinariate), but we would be in communion with the worldwide Anglican Communion,” he added.

Recent elections to the synod’s House of Laity and the House of Clergy mean that they no longer have the two-thirds majorities needed to push through women bishops without approving the new structure, too, he explained.

The synod’s House of Bishops “is clearly going to have to amend the legislation” on women bishops “or it won’t go through,” he said.

A spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales told CNS that no timetable had been agreed on for the establishment of an ordinariate.

He said the bishops were awaiting confirmation from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that there was sufficient interest in the ordinariate before it could be set up.

“Until the CDF has informed the bishops there is no timetable that anybody can give on this,” said the spokesman.

“I am assuming that there will be enough people interested to make it happen,” he added. “But that is only an assumption because we don’t know the numbers yet.”

4

The Church in the U.S.

October 29, 2010

Pope names 24 new cardinals, including two from United States

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI named 24 new cardinals, including two from the United States: Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, head of the Vatican’s highest tribunal, and Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington.

The pope announced the names at the end of his weekly general audience October 20 and said he would formally install the cardinals during a special consistory at the Vatican November 20.

“The universality of the Church is reflected in the list of new cardinals. In fact, they come from various parts of the world and fulfill different tasks in the service of the Holy See or in direct contact with the people of God as fathers and pastors of particular churches,” the pope said.

The new cardinals come from 13 countries on five continents, and their number included 10 Italians. The pope named 10 Roman Curia officials — a higher number than expected — along with 10 residential archbishops and four prelates over the age of 80. One unusual aspect of the pope’s list was that two of the residential archbishops were retired.

The November ceremony will mark the third time Pope Benedict has created cardinals since his election in April 2005. After the consistory, he will have appointed about 40 percent of the cardinals currently under the age of 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope.

The elevation of Cardinal-designates Burke and Wuerl will bring the number of

U.S. cardinals to 18. Of that number, 13 are voting-age — matching a historically high number for the United States.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York was not on the list of new cardinals; his retired predecessor in New York, Cardinal Edward M. Egan, is still under 80, and tradition generally holds against two voting-age cardinals from the same diocese.

The consistory will leave the College of Cardinals with 203 members, a new record. Of those, 121 will be under age 80, one more than a numerical limit of 120 that has often been waived. Seven cardinals will turn 80 over the next six months.

Pope Benedict’s latest appointments left geographical balances relatively unchanged among voting members of the College of Cardinals, although it bolstered the European presence, which will have 62 of the 121 potential cardinal electors.

The new voting-age cardinals included 11 from Europe, two from Latin America, two from North America, four from Africa and one from Asia.

Eight of the under-80 cardinals named were Italians, leaving Italy with 25 voting-age cardinals, by far the largest number from a single country. Italy will have 48 cardinals overall.

Ten of the new cardinals are Roman Curia officials, which means that Roman Curia elector cardinals would number 37, about 30 percent of the total.

Cardinal-designate Burke, 62, is pre-

fect of the Vatican’s highest tribunal, the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature. While the court’s work is generally shrouded in secrecy, when it comes to moral and political issues — especially abortion and same-sex marriage — Cardinal-designate Burke has been one of the most outspoken U.S. bishops.

Before the November 2008 U.S. presidential election, he said the Democratic Party “risks transforming itself definitively into a ‘party of death.’”

In 2004, he was the first U.S. bishop to say publicly that he would withhold Communion from Catholic politicians with voting records that contradicted Church teaching on fundamental moral issues.

He was serving as archbishop of St. Louis when Pope Benedict named him head of the Apostolic Signature in 2008.

Cardinal-designate Wuerl, 69, is known for his commitment to promoting Catholic religious education and Catholic schools. As head of the archdiocese that includes the U.S. capital, he also has been a leader in defending Catholic values in public life.

The pope named three Africans as cardinals, including Coptic Patriarch Antonios Naguib of Alexandria, Egypt, who has been in the spotlight recently as the recording secretary for the October 10-24 Synod of Bishops for the Middle East.

Also named were Congolese Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, 71, a biblical scholar and activist in justice and peace issues; Guinean Archbishop Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, 65; and retired Zambian Archbishop Medardo Joseph Mazombwe, 79, who has helped mediate political disputes in his country.

The pope named a single Asian, a former collaborator in the Roman Curia: Sri Lankan Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don of Colombo, 62. He was formerly a secretary of the Vatican’s worship congregation.

In Latin America, the pope named Bra-

zilian Archbishop Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Aparecida, 73, as well as Ecuadorean Archbishop Raul Eduardo Vela Chiriboga, 76, who retired as archbishop of Quito in September.

European residential archbishops among the new cardinals included Italian Archbishop Paolo Romeo of Palermo, 72, Polish Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw, 60, and German Archbishop Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, 57.

In addition to Cardinal-designates Burke and Sarah, the Roman Curia officials named included Italian Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes; Italian Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy; Swiss Archbishop Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity; Italian Archbishop Fortunato Baldelli, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican tribunal; and Italian Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, who was recently named as an interim leader of the Legionaries of Christ while the order undergoes a reorganization.

“I ask you to pray for the new cardinals, asking the intercession of the most holy mother of God so they fruitfully fulfill their ministry in the Church,” the pope said.

The pope named four cardinals who are over the age of 80, prelates he said were “distinguished for their generosity and dedication in service of the Church.”

They included Italian Bishop Elio Sgreccia, retired president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, 82, who for years was one of the Vatican’s chief experts on bioethical issues. The others were Spanish Archbishop Jose Manuel Estepa Llaurens, former military ordinary of Spain, 84; German Msgr. Walter Brandmuller, retired president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, 81; and Italian Msgr. Domenico Bartolucci, retired director of the Sistine Chapel Choir, 93.

new cardinals — Cardinal-designate Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature at the Vatican, right, talks with Cardinaldesignate Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, before a session of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East at the Vatican. Both men were named cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

October 29, 2010

5

The Anchor

Pope tells seminarians abuse crisis cannot discredit priestly mission

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In a letter to the world’s seminarians, Pope Benedict XVI said that in the face of widespread religious indifference and the recent moral failings of clergy, the world needs priests and pastors who can serve God and bring God to others.

The pope encouraged seminarians to overcome any doubts about the value of the priesthood and priestly celibacy that may have been prompted by priests who “disfigured” their ministry by sexually abusing children. He said that “even the most reprehensible abuse cannot discredit the priestly mission.”

The papal letter, released at the Vatican October 18, was an unexpected postscript to the Year For Priests, which ended in June.

The text began on a remarkably personal note, with the pope recalling the development of his own vocation during World War II. “When in December 1944 I was drafted for military service, the company commander asked each of us what we planned to do in the future. I answered that I wanted to become a Catholic priest. The lieutenant replied: ‘Then you ought to look for something else. In the new Germany priests are no longer needed,’” the pope recalled.

“I knew that this ‘new Germany’ was already coming to an end, and that, after the enormous

devastation which that madness had brought upon the country, priests would be needed more than ever,” he wrote.

Today, he said, many people are no longer aware of God and instead seek escape in euphoria and violence. The priesthood is again viewed as outmoded, yet priestly ministry is crucial in helping people see God’s presence in the world, he said.

The pope said the sex abuse scandal shed a light on the need for the seminary to help form “the right balance of heart and mind, reason and feeling, body and soul” among future priests.

“This also involves the integration of sexuality into the whole personality,” he said.

“When it is not integrated within the person, sexuality becomes banal and destructive.”

“Recently we have seen with great dismay that some priests disfigured their ministry by sexually abusing children and young people. Instead of guiding people to greater human maturity and setting them an example, their abusive behavior caused great damage for which we feel profound shame and regret,” he said.

“As a result of all this, many people, perhaps even some of you, might ask whether it is good to become a priest; whether the choice of celibacy makes any sense as a truly human way of life. Yet even the most reprehen-

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sible abuse cannot discredit the priestly mission, which remains great and pure,” he said.

He expressed gratitude for the many exemplary priests who demonstrate that ordained ministers can live a life of celibacy and give witness to an “authentic, pure and mature humanity.”

At the same time, he said that in the wake of sex abuse cases, the Church must be “all the more watchful and attentive” in evaluating vocations.

Growth in human maturity was one of several elements the pope underlined in priestly formation. The others were: — Developing a personal relationship with Christ. The priest is first and foremost a “man of God,” the pope said, and added: “For us, God is not some ab-

stract hypothesis; he is not some stranger who left the scene after the ‘big bang.’ God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.”

In that sense, he said, the priest “is not the leader of a sort of association whose membership he tried to maintain and expand. He is God’s messenger to his people.”

— Dedication to the Eucharist and to knowing and understanding the Church’s liturgy.

— The importance of the sacrament of penance in their lives, which can help priests resist the “coarsening of our souls” and develop a tolerance toward the failings of others.

— Appreciation for popular piety which, although it tends toward the irrational, cannot be dismissed and is indeed “one of

the Church’s great treasures.”

— The seminary as a place of study. The pope said today’s priest must be familiar with Scripture, the writings of Church fathers, the teachings of the councils, canon law and the various branches of theology.

— The seminary as community. Because priestly vocations today arise in very disparate situations — after secular professions, in Catholic lay movements, following deep personal conversions — candidates for the priesthood “often live on very different spiritual continents.” It is important that the seminary draw such experiences together, advancing “above and beyond differences of spirituality,” he said.

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The Anchor Voting with a truly informed Catholic conscience

Several state bishops’ conferences, including the four Massachusetts bishops who comprise the Massachusetts Catholic Conference (see page 14), have published letters or guides to the Catholic faithful about next week’s elections. Following upon the 2007 document of the U.S. bishops as a whole, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” they have all sought to form the consciences of Catholics so that they may vote morally in accordance with the truths that God has revealed.

There is always a need for conscience formation not only because mistaken notions of what the conscience is are ubiquitous — many confuse it with feelings of guilt or pleasure or with their opinions about the way things ought to be — but also because relativism has led many to believe that there are no moral absolutes and the contemporary misunderstanding of freedom with respect to God’s law has led to widespread erroneous judgments of conscience. Especially in the area of politics, Catholic voters and elected officials are often no longer hearing God’s voice whispering within as an imperative but rather are hearing their own preferences and giving them godlike status.

For these reasons, the bishops have published these statements giving the faithful the relevant principles of the moral law to apply to the particular circumstances in each election to make a judgment about whom God is calling them to support.

While the statements of the bishops’ conferences all mention on the formation of the conscience in general, a Catholic’s moral duty to vote, and the various aspects of the moral law that the conscientious Catholic voter will consider, the unspoken, chief aim of all these declarations is to help Catholics discern their moral responsibilities with regard to intrinsically evil actions — especially abortion — and the candidates who support them.

The Massachusetts bishops wrote, “Deciding which candidate in any particular race offers the best opportunity to take us in the right direction is not an easy task. Yet there is a measuring rod by which all electoral choices must be evaluated: Will my vote enhance human dignity? Certain moral and social issues are fundamentally important, since human rights are at stake and must be protected to help democracy to flourish in a way that benefits every citizen. These include the defense of the sanctity of life, the family based on marriage between a man and a woman, religious freedom, and the well-being of the poor. As shifts in societal challenges are inevitable, it is also vital to determine from election to election which human rights face the greatest threat at the time of voting.”

Bishops in Michigan, Minnesota and New York all emphasized that the willful destruction of innocent human life is the greatest threat to human dignity. The bishops of the Empire State stressed, “We Catholics are called to look at politics as we are called to look at everything – through the lens of our faith .... The inalienable right to life of every innocent human person outweighs other concerns where Catholics may use prudential judgment, such as how best to meet the needs of the poor or to increase access to health care for all. The right to life is the right through which all others flow. To the extent candidates reject this fundamental right by supporting an objective evil, such as legal abortion, euthanasia or embryonic stem-cell research, Catholics should consider them less acceptable for public office.”

The bishops of Kansas asked whether all public policy issues should be equally important to Catholics. “No,” they responded emphatically. “While most political issues have a moral dimension, there are a select number of issues currently being debated that directly involve matters of intrinsic moral evil: abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and samesex marriage. The unique gravity of these issues does not diminish the importance of other concerns, but it does require that Catholics give them precedence. As Cardinal Ratzinger explained before he became Pope Benedict XVI: ‘Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia .... There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.’”

That citation from Cardinal Ratzinger points to the source that gives the clearest formation to Catholic consciences. In 2004, the U.S. bishops asked the future Pope Benedict for advice on the question of whether Catholics in good conscience can vote for those who support intrinsically evil actions like abortion and whether, if they do, they are still worthy to receive holy Communion. He responded with his typical clarity. “A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy Communion if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia,” he wrote in a letter to the bishops. Formal cooperation means to share the bad will or intention of the other committing the sin; in this case, it would mean that one agrees with the candidate’s support of abortion.

This would be seriously sinful and would make one unworthy to receive holy Communion.

Then Cardinal Ratzinger continued, “When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

Cardinal Ratzinger didn’t specify what could be “proportionate” to the sin of abortion, but in the case of an election between two otherwise eligible candidates, one who supports abortion and one who opposes it — like is occurring in several of the Congressional elections in the Commonwealth on Tuesday — a faithful Catholic who wants to support the former would have to have, not just any reasons, but reasons that would morally outweigh the evil done by the candidate’s advancing of the cause of the destruction of innocent human life. It would be hard to imagine that sharing a candidate’s party affiliation, or economic ideas, or even philosophical approach to bigger or smaller government would suffice to prevent an evil greater than the evil of abortion the candidate is advancing.

Archbishop Chaput of Denver said that “proportionate reasons” would have to be those sufficient to justify one’s action before an aborted child or Christ in the next life. We could also think of another image. The reasons would be have to be so grave as to persuade an African-American or a Jew to vote for the same candidate in the same election if he were, respectively, also firmly racist or anti-Semitic. Catholics need to be at least as much against abortion in their practical political decisions as African-Americans are against racism and Jews against anti-Semitism. This does not mean that Catholics are morally required to be “one issue voters,” but highlights the fact that for conscientious Catholics, abortion can never remain “one issue among others,” just like racism is never merely an issue for African-Americans or anti-semitism is never just a policy position for Jews.

How we vote is a sign of what we value most. When we pull the curtain of the ballot box behind us, it is similar to closing in back of us the curtain of the confessional: we stand hidden before God and confess who we are and what we prioritize. Sometimes our choice may seem to be between apples and oranges, between two good candidates who vary simply on prudential implementation of sound principles. At other times, especially in contemporary circumstances when some candidates proudly support intrinsic evils, the choice can be one basically between Christ and Barabbas.

Whom we judge in conscience to support and why are moral decisions that express and form our character, and for which one day we, too, will be voted upon by God.

October 29, 2010

Being trained in the ‘School of Prayer’ part I

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n the Gospel, our Lord was apever anew from the lips of the Divine proached by his disciples with the Master himself, like the first disciples” request, “Lord, teach us how to pray.”

(NMI, 32).

(Luke 11:1). In response to this request, For most of us the greatest challenge in our Lord taught the first community of developing a strong prayer life is actually his disciples how we are to communicate making the time to pray. Frequently we with the Lord and creator of the universe, can find things that keep us occupied or someone we can’t see, someone whose we can procrastinate and never get around voice we can’t hear audibly, yet someone to prayer, even though our intentions for with whom we are called to be in relawanting to do so are very good. Making tionship. Jesus taught his first disciples time for prayer is something that each of the “Our Father.” us must confront in our individual lives.

As we continue to examine ways Going back to the passage from St. in which we can “put into the deep” in Luke’s Gospel quoted above, notice the regards to those elements of our faith disciples didn’t ask about how to make that may have become common, we can time for prayer, they begged our Lord to certainly not avoid the issue of prayer, teach them “how” to pray. After we get especially the most familiar of all prayers past the first hurdle of actually making — the Lord’s Prayer. time for prayer, the next challenge is actuIn celebration of the great Jubilee year ally finding the words that best commu2000, Pope John Paul II wrote a letter nicate to our Lord what is going on inside entitled, “Novo Millennio Ineunte” (At our heart. And this is fundamentally what the beginning of a new millennium). In prayer is, “the lifting up of our hearts and that letter, John Paul II set forth a vision minds to God,” as St. John Damascene for us to follow as Catholics. In speaking explained (CCC 2559). specifically about prayer, our Holy Father In response to this request, our Lord said, “Christian teaches us the communities greatest of all Putting Into must become prayers, the genuine “Our Father.” the Deep ‘schools of In this prayer, prayer,’ where Jesus gives

By Father the meeting us more than Jay Mello with Christ is just another expressed not prayer; he also just in implorteaches us ing help but also in thanksgiving, praise, how to communicate with our Father in adoration, contemplation, listening and heaven. ardent devotion, until the heart truly ‘falls As is the case with memorized in love’” (NMI, 33). prayers, we can often mumble them Even though we are over a decade off without taking time to internalize into this new millennium, it is nonethethe words we are actually saying. For less good for us continually to reflect on example, do we really mean it when we these words of the pope and from it gain a pray “thy will be done” (as opposed to “new impetus in Christian living, making my will)? Do we think about the grudges it an opportunity which inspires our jourthat we hold when we pray “forgive us ney of faith. Conscious of the risen Lord’s our trespasses, as we forgive others?” presence among us, we ask ourselves The “Catechism” says, “Jesus does not today the same question put to Peter in give us a formula to repeat mechanically.

Jerusalem immediately after his Pentecost As in every vocal prayer, it is through the speech: ‘What must we do?’” (NMI, 29). Word of God that the Holy Spirit teaches John Paul II said that it “is not therethe children of God to pray to their Father. fore a matter of inventing new programs.

Jesus not only gives us the words of our The program already exists: it is the plan filial prayer; at the same time he gives us found in the Gospel and in the living trathe Spirit by whom these words become in dition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, us “spirit and life.” Even more, the proof it has its center in Christ himself, who is and possibility of our child-like prayer is to be known, loved and imitated” (NMI, that the Father “sent the Spirit of his Son 29). into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”

The gift of our faith and the gift of our (CCC 2766). individual parishes bring with it a great In a recent Sunday Angelus address responsibility that must shape the whole from his summer residence, our Holy of Christian life: it is our own holiness — Father Pope Benedict XVI explained “This is the will of God, your sanctificathat the Lord’s Prayer “also accepts and tion” (1 Thess 4:3). It is a responsibility expresses human material and spiritual that concerns not only certain Christians; needs: ‘Give us each day our daily bread; rather “all the Christian faithful, of and forgive us our sins’” (Lk 11: 3-4). It whatever state or rank, are called to the is precisely because of the needs and diffullness of the Christian life and to the ficulties of everyday life that Jesus exhorts perfection of charity” (Lumen Gentium, us forcefully: “I tell you, ask, and it will be 40). given you; seek, and you will find; knock, John Paul II beautifully explained that and it will be opened to you. For every one “this training in holiness calls for a Chris- who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, tian life distinguished above all in the art and to him who knocks it will be opened” of prayer. But we well know that prayer (Angelus, Sunday, 25 July 2010). cannot be taken for granted. We have to Father Mello is a parochial vicar at learn how to pray, as if learning this art St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth.

October 29, 2010

Q: A friend of mine told me that according to the Scriptures a woman should cover her head in the presence of Our Lord (holy Eucharist/during Mass).

In our churches this is not practiced. Can you please write and tell me as to how and when the practice of women covering their heads came to an end, or is it that we are doing something that is not proper? — J.M., Doha, Qatar A: The Scripture text referred to is probably 1 Corinthians 11:4-16: “Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered brings shame upon his head.

But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved. For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil. A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; nor was man created for woman, but woman for man; for this reason a woman should have

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just finished reading Erika Bachiochi’s new anthology “Women, Sex, and the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching” (Pauline Books and Media, 2010), which is a much-needed answer, written by a number of gifted women, to feminist claims that the Church and its teachings are antisex and anti-women. It’s written in an accessible way and available at a reasonable price: $19.95.

Full disclosure: A number of the authors, Erika Bachiochi, the editor herself; Laura Garcia, author of the introductory chapter on authentic freedom and equality in difference; and the male co-author of the chapter on Church teaching on infertility treatment, Dr. Paul Carpentier, are friends of mine. I wouldn’t hold that against them, but neither does it affect my judgment that this book would make a perfect stocking-stuffer — and not just for women. As Jesuit Father Paul McNellis blurbed on the back cover, “It should be required reading for every son, brother, fiancee, husband, father, seminarian, and priest.” (That about covers the male universe.)

The book deals with the controversial subjects of abortion, pre-marital sex, marriage, contraception, infertility, the male priesthood, the relationship be-

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Head coverings for women

them. a sign of authority on her head, Likewise, liturgical norms tell because of the angels. Woman is bishops to keep their skullcaps on not independent of man or man during some of the prayers during of woman in the Lord. For just as Mass, and they may use the mitre woman came from man, so man while preaching, without falling is born of woman; but all things under St. Paul’s injunction that are from God. this practice brings shame upon “Judge for yourselves: is it his head. The norms, however, do proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his hair long it is a disgrace to him, whereas if a woman has long hair it is her glory,

By Father because long hair has Edward McNamara been given (her) for a covering? But if anyone is inclined to be arguask him to remove his head covmentative, we do not have such ering for the Eucharistic Prayer a custom, nor do the churches of and when the Blessed Sacrament God.” is exposed.

A full treatment of this text is Apart from bishops, and some beyond the scope of this column. canons, custom still dictates that But we may say that this pasall other men should uncover sage contains some elements that their heads in church except for have perennial theological value outdoor Masses. and others that reflect transitory During St. Paul’s time it was social mores that apply only to considered modest for a woman the specific time and place of the to cover her head, and he was Corinthians. underscoring this point for their For example, during the presence in the liturgical assemcourse of history there were times bly. when it was common for men, This custom was considered and even clerics, to wear their normative and was enshrined in hair long; and none felt that St. Canon 1262.2 of the 1917 Code Paul’s words considering the of Canon Law alongside the practice a disgrace applied to

recommendation that men and women be separated in church and that men go bareheaded. This canon was dropped from the new Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1983, but the practice had already begun to fall into disuse from about the beginning of the 1970s. Even though no longer legally binding, the custom is still widely practiced in some countries, especially in Asia. It has been generally abandoned in most Western countries even though women, unlike men, may still wear hats and veils to Mass if they choose.

Sociological factors might also have been involved. The greater emphasis on the equality of man and woman tended to downplay elements that stressed their differences.

Likewise, for the first time in centuries, not donning a hat outdoors, especially for men, ceased being considered as bad manners, whereas up to a few years beforehand it was deemed unseemly to go around hatless.

This general dropping of head covering by both sexes may also have influenced the disappearance of the religious custom.

Some have claimed that the new Code of Canon Law did not

repeal the former obligation to wear hats and veils, but simply did not mention it.

Although some canonists might accept this hypothesis, it is not the most probable interpretation as it is unlikely that the legislator would have left the faithful in doubt as to the existence of an obligation. By no longer mentioning the custom, the legislator removed it from the realm of obligation while leaving intact the possibility of its remaining as a custom in some places or contexts.

The principal reason why St. Paul mandated women to cover their heads was to foment modesty during the liturgy, especially because in the cultural context of the time a woman who did not cover her head conveyed a message of impropriety.

Since modesty is the primary reason, a woman is free to cover her head for the sake of modesty, or simply out of respect for longstanding custom.

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.

tween Catholic sexual and social is the actual living out of these teaching, male/female equality in guideposts on the highway of life, difference, and balancing work guardrails that help us live happy and family. The teachings of the and ultimately fulfilling lives. For Catholic Church, as articulated by that, people need to see them as the popes, Vatican II and the bishpositive and true, and recognize ops and bishops conference, are them as necessary expressions of generally well-known, but usually perceived in the media and in the university as a series of negative commands, “Thou shalt nots,” that stifle human and indeed female

By Dwight Duncan freedom. A number of prominent feminist voices are quoted to that effect.

For example, Rosemary Radford everybody’s vocation to love and Ruether writes, “Only by remedy- be loved. ing these views of sexuality and That is where these women’s women can progress be made on voices are indispensable. They developing more adequate teachspeak from a layperson’s perspecings that will liberalize Church tive, and they are convincing policies on celibacy, divorce, witnesses. The editor, for example, homosexuality, contraception, and explains that “As a young child abortion.” and a teen, I both witnessed and We are accustomed, of course, then lived a life diametrically opto hearing the Catholic hierarchy, posed to Catholic Church teaching pope and bishops, reiterate these on sex and marriage. Concentratteachings. In that regard, we are ing on Women’s Studies early in fortunate to have in Pope Benedict college, I identified with a radical XVI, and locally in Cardinal Sean feminist contingent and was O’Malley, articulate and thoughtadamantly anti-Catholic.” Her ful, positive and indeed inspiring, “long and painful road” back to preachers and teachers on these Catholicism was “borne of experiand other subjects rooted in the ences and insights ... confirmed by Gospel. What is needed, though, intense intellectual study.”

They speak from their experience, answering the older feminist critique head-on and with piercing honesty. Far from being antiwomen and anti-sex, the Church has a rich and positive understanding of women and sex. Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth and the Mother of God, is our greatest saint, more exalted even than the angels.

Marriage is a sacrament in which men and women are equal partners for life.

Sex within marriage, the conjugal and nuptial act, is truly sacramental, expressive of the intimate union of Christ and the Church.

Even priestly ordination, the sacrament whereby only men are allowed to share in Christ’s ministerial priesthood, is sacramental and thus symbolic of Jesus Christ as a sign or “icon.” As Sister Sara Butler says, “The priest ... is not just the bearer of certain functions; he also participates in the sacramental sign that refers believers to events or mysteries in the economy of salvation. If only a male can be ordained to the priesthood, his sexual identity clearly must have some relevance for the constitution of the ‘sign.’

The fact that ‘the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14) as a male is taken

to be theologically significant ...

Christ identifies himself as the bridegroom and establishes the New Covenant in his blood, laying down his life for love of the Church, his bride (Eph 5:25).”

This is a far cry from Samuel Johnson’s remark to James Boswell, who recorded: “I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: ‘Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.’” It may well be that women can preach as well as men, but they cannot represent Jesus Christ sacramentally: Jesus, though he was God, was a real man and thus really male.

Read this book, and you will realize that we are on the verge of a new sexual revolution that celebrates women and men in their radical equality as well as their sexual difference, and views sex not as a meaningless form of recreation akin to binging on Cheetos (which I realize has its attractions), but rather as something sacred and holy.

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

Liturgical Q&A

Women on the verge of a new sexual revolution

Judge For Yourself

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his weekend we hear the Gospel story of Zacchaeus. We all know the story: the short guy who has to climb a tree to see Jesus, the tax collector whom nobody likes so he keeps his distance, the one whom Jesus calls down from the tree so that he can stay at his house.

In an odd way I can identify with this man. No, I’m not short. I’m the opposite; I’m quite tall. In grade school they always made me sit in the last row in classroom, as far away as possible. And we tall people know instinctively how to duck when necessary, or how difficult it can be getting in and out of those compact cars.

Never mind that. For many years I worked as a certified public accountant.

Who likes doing income taxes? Admit it, CPAs and

October 29, 2010

The Anchor

Always a glimmer of hope in everyone

their dark suits and green I’m sure that this man, in visors can get a bum rap and his everyday life, had to do have been somewhat stereothings that weren’t popular, typed. weren’t kind and benevoAnd so too, I guess, was lent. I’m sure there were Zacchaeus stereotyped; the times when the power got despised and wealthy tax to his head and he had made collector who everyone had labeled a sinner. The one who Homily of the Week was not welcomed Thirty-first Sunday by others because of in Ordinary Time preconceptions. The one who didn’t feel

By Deacon like he belonged.

Dennis G. O’Connell Could it be, however, that Zacchaeus some pretty poor decisions. was simply misguided and Yet, it appears he knew the misjudged? Misinterpreted by difference between right others and, maybe, misjudged and wrong when he says, by himself? We don’t know.

“If I have extorted anyone.”

We catch a glimmer of That’s the same as Zacchaehope in Zacchaeus. When he us wondering if he had uninfinally meets Jesus, he says tentionally been so unkind to to him, “If I have extorted anyone that he had to make anyone, I will repay them amends. Unkind to others four times.” Please note and, maybe, to himself. the “if.” Maybe Zacchaeus Obviously this man has wasn’t that bad after all.

a passion, a desire to find the truth. An internal need to seek the fullness of life.

Zacchaeus, the one who was willing to run ahead and “climb a tree” to catch a glimpse of the one who he had only heard about. The one who was willing to take that extra step needed to just see Jesus. This desire which leads him to that fullness of life.

Haven’t we all felt like Zacchaeus at one time or another? Misguided by something or someone and led along the wrong path. Misjudging ourselves and feeling unworthy, uninvited, and unwelcome.

Yet, despite that undeserving emotion that we may occasionally have, there’s always that glimmer of hope in our hearts that we can be guided in the right direction.

So often we seek redemption but aren’t really sure how to go about it. Sometimes we may feel distant from God and don’t know how to reconnect. Or, unfortunately, we may even wonder what others will think if we totally convert out hearts to God. We need to take that extra step. Encountering Jesus does not solely depend upon our goodness of life; our acts of charity and good deeds.

Encountering Jesus depends upon our hearing him call us down from the proverbial tree and going to meet him.

Some will say that Luke kept the “worst of the worst” sinner that Jesus encounters before entering Jerusalem for last. I’m not so sure. There’s always the glimmer of hope in everyone.

Deacon O’Connell serves at Corpus Christi Parish in East Sandwich.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Oct. 30, Phil 1:18b-26; Ps 42:2-3,5cdef; Lk 14:1,7-11. Sun. Oct. 31, Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Wis 11:22-12:2; Ps 145:1-2,8-11,13-14; 2 Thes 1:11-2:2; Lk 19:1-10. Mon. Nov. 1, All Saints Day, Rv 7:2-4,9-14; Ps 24:1bc-4b,5-6; 1 Jn 3:1-3; Mt 5:1-12a. Tues. Nov. 2, All Souls Day, Wis 3:1-9; Ps 23:1-6; Rom 5:5-11 or 6:3-9; Jn 6:37-40 or 1011-1016. Wed. Nov. 3, Phil 2:12-18; Ps 27:1,4,13-14; Lk 14:25-33. Thur. Nov. 4, Phil 3:3-8a; Ps 105:2-7; Lk 15:1-10. Fri. Nov. 5, Phil 3:17-4:1; Ps 122:1-5; Lk 16:1-8.

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espite the world’s fascination with All Things Papal, there isn’t much out there about papal humor.

Which is, in a sense, entirely understandable: it takes a certain breadth of imagination, shall we say, to imagine Gregory XVI or Pius XI telling a joke (much less telling one on himself). Blessed John XXIII is an exception, as he was in many other ways, and two of his wisecracks have been widely circulated. In one, the pope is asked how many people work at the Vatican, to which

Papal humor

Freedom, the Last Years, the the pontiff replies, “About Legacy” (Doubleday), adds the half.” In the other, the pope Polish pope to the short list of visits the Convent of the Holy papal humorists, where he cerSpirit, where the somewhat flustered nun in charge greets him by saying, “Welcome, Your Holiness, I am the superior of the Holy Spirit,” to which John responds, “Congratulations, Sister;

By George Weigel I am merely the vicar of Jesus Christ.”

I hope that the pubtainly deserves a roster spot. lication of my new book, “The John Paul II’s humor, as I End and the Beginning: Pope experienced it, tended toward John Paul II—The Victory of the ironic: not in the postmodern sense, in which irony is the short road to cynicism, but in the more venerable sense of irony as a recognition that we’re not in charge of our own lives, and that we play the fool if we try to control everything.

Thus one of my favorite John Paul II stories involves the late pope turning the skirmishing fire of his humor on himself and his office.

The distinguished Polish actor Jerzy Stuhr was in Rome at one point during John Paul’s pontificate, and the pope invited him to dinner in the papal apartment. When they were seated at the table, the pope asked Stuhr what had brought him to Rome, and Stuhr replied that he was playing in a production of Adam Mickiewicz’s

The Catholic Difference

“Forefather’s Eve.” The pope spoke about the importance of this drama in Polish history — “Forefather’s Eve” was considered such an emotionally inflammatory evocation of Polish nationalism that its performance was banned in the Russianand Prussian-occupied parts of partitioned Poland during the 19th century—and then asked Stuhr what role he was taking in the Roman production of Mickiewicz’s classic. Stuhr replied, “Your Holiness, I regret to report that I am Satan.” To which the pope, on reflection, said, “Well, none of us gets to choose our roles, do we?”

On another occasion, John Paul II turned his own humor against that unhappy attempt at humor known as the Polish joke: in this case, the habit that Germans had, in the 1970s, of calling shabby goods, shoddy work, or any kind of foul-up “polnische Wirtschaft” — “Polish business.”

In the wake of the Banco Ambrosiano scandal of the early 1980s, in which the Vatican bank was embroiled, the pope summoned several cardinals known to be knowledgeable about finance to the Vatican to sort through the wreckage.

After spending the morning

listening to a tale of corruption, incompetence, bureaucratic self-preservation, and general stupidity, John Paul decided it was time for lunch. As he was walking with the cardinals toward the meal, he spotted the German Joachim Meisner, cardinal archbishop of Cologne, and walked up beside him: “Tell me, Eminence,” John Paul said, with that signature twinkle in his eye, “do you think we have some polnische Wirtschaft in the Vatican finances?” As Cardinal Meisner told me years later, his jaw dropped and he was “speechless.” Later, after lunch, several of his brother cardinals asked Meisner what the pope had said. “It can’t be translated,” was the German’s discrete reply.

A great Christian thinker once noted that joy is the infallible sign of God’s presence. If a robust sense of humor is an expression of a fundamentally joyful stance toward life — a stance founded on faith in God’s ultimate triumph over what so often seems to be the world’s tragedy — then the humor of John Paul II is yet another reason to recognize in him a life of heroic virtue.

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

Getting in the last word

Friday 29 October 2010 treasure we have in the rites — At home in The Dightons — with which the Church celfinal weekend of October ebrates the life and death of a his Tuesday, November 2, the Church worldwide celebrates the ComReflections of a memoration of all the Parish Priest Faithful Departed (All Souls Day). It has never

By Father Tim been a holy day of obGoldrick ligation, but I will join in the remembrance of the dead. I’ve already placed Catholic; praising God for the a blank book in the baptismal gift of that life, recommending area. The book is lighted by his or her soul to our all-loving the glow of the paschal candle. God, and asking God’s forPeople have been inscribing giveness for any sins commitnames of the dead. At Mass, I ted through human weakness. will chant the names of parishObituaries are filled with ioners who have died since last announcements of abbreviAll Souls Day. ated funeral home and graveConsider, dear readers, the side services. For a growing

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October 29, 2010

The Ship’s Log

What if?

and prudence was confused hat if the tide of imwith cowardice or weakness? morality around us continued to rise, so that even What if they refused to consider the ends of man, teachthe usual fragments of faith ing that the material world we count on as quiet touchwas all that mattered? stones also disappeared?

What if the social strucWhat if the voices for divertures were rearranged so that sity and choice continued to vice was coddled and virtue stress that there are no moral drew scorn, so that children absolutes by which different were led to believe that they options should be weighed? alone were the measure of What if financial difficultheir universe and pleasure ties caused most institutions was considered the most to gauge their programs by worthy aspiration? What if bottom line costs instead of authentic need or their impact on human dignity? What if the mechanization of health care allowed end-of-life decisions to be painless, antiseptic and efficient

By Genevieve Kineke — and totally out of our hands?

What if the ability the only accepted spiritual to speak out is curtailed and references allowed in the pointed discussions become public square were devoid of muted by fears of social doctrine or dogma? ostracism? What if language “For the time will come becomes so stilted that basic when they will not endure definitions are replaced with sound doctrine; but wanting pejorative twists, and once to have their ears tickled, mundane, descriptive words they will accumulate for were rejected as hateful? themselves teachers in acWhat if moral leaders cordance to their own desires lost the ability to lead acand will turn away their ears cording to enduring truths from the truth and will turn that reflect the natural law aside to myths” (2 Tim 4:3and the revealed wisdom of 4). No doubt Christians have countless generations? What referred to St. Paul’s words if contemporary truisms countless times over the were less true than “–isms,” centuries, wondering if their prioritizing self-interest over the harsh demands of charity, generation could be matched in audacious errors. Many and comfort over the call to presently see the same, while serve the greater good? wringing their hands over What if the educational the disintegration of beloved systems at all levels rejected institutions and the unravelthe collaboration of ethics ing of previously widelyand science, so that everyheld precepts. thing possible was realized

The Feminine Genius

number of Catholics, there is no funeral Mass at all. Some would blame it on the high cost of dying, but, truth be told, a Church stole fee for a funeral Mass is minimal (about $100 or so) — less than some floral pieces. I suspect the funeral Mass of many faithful Catholics is omitted because the adult children have disengaged from the faith.

This can be signaled by the phrase “at the convenience of the family.” When is death and burial ever convenient?

It’s always best to make written stipulation of your funeral wishes, keeping your plans safely with other important papers such as your proxy

St. Paul spoke firmly about what should be done in such times. “But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Tim 4:5). So there you have it. No matter how the shards and chunks of Christendom seem to be falling around us, we don the helmet of faith and carry on.

Our baptismal call mandates that we work in season and out, no matter how the work is received.

For women, this work will consist primarily in loving. We cannot cling to sentiment in bestowing it, but should be guided by the Angelic Doctor, who reminded us that love seeks the good of the other for his own sake. Rather simple — yet perennially difficult, given our defects, the many competing demands and such rampant confusion all around us.

And yet we love anyway — within marriage, within the families that spring from nuptial love, within the communities to which we’re called, within the Mystical Body of Christ that nourishes us in turn, that we may continue our ministry.

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8). When we love, we hold to that faith — let the answer be yes.

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

health care and last will and testament. Let your family know where the papers are, just in case.

A priest of the Diocese of Fall River is expected to have his own funeral wishes on file in the chancery. There is even a convenient form provided.

It includes such questions as who will preach your funeral homily, do you have any requested hymns, do you have a preference for a funeral director, and where do you plan to be buried? There is a separate form on which to list your life’s work. The latter is kept in The Anchor office to expedite the writing of your obituary.

I notice on my funeral planning sheet there is no question concerning whom I have chosen to deliver the eulogy.

This is due to the simple fact that there is no eulogy at a Mass of Christian Burial. We gather at Mass not to praise the deceased, but rather to praise God for the gift of a life lived in faith. For those decreasing numbers of families who do arrange funeral Masses for their loved-ones, many expect something that is outside our Catholic tradition. “The Catholic Order of Christian Funerals” makes only one passing reference to a eulogy, and that is to forbid it.

When a funeral director phones to arrange a Mass of Christian Burial, I must read between the lines. There is sometimes an addendum. The phrase “the family requests”is often a red alert. “Oh, by the way, Father, the family has chosen four people to deliver the eulogies at the funeral Mass. After Communion, a five-year-old granddaughter will read a poem she composed for the occasion. A dear, dear family friend will then sing a medley of musical tributes, accompanied by her cousin on the zither. When they finish their performance, pigeons will be released from the choir loft.” I think it’s out of control.

What “the family wants” is one thing. What I am willing and able to provide within the parameters of Catholic spirituality and ritual may be quite another.

There is a place in the Catholic liturgy for “a member or friend of the family to speak in remembrance of the deceased,” but sometimes the “words of remembrance” morph into a eulogy. It can take almost as long as the funeral Mass itself. Sometimes a queue of speakers forms. Sometimes the saintly qualities of the deceased are so numerous you begin to wonder if they have the wrong person in the casket.

A funeral is not an elevation to sainthood. Sometimes there are things said that are more than I or anyone else needs to know. What really makes me cringe at a funeral are comedy routines, inappropriate stories, and unacceptable innuendos.

Once I received a note stating that I seemed fidgety during a particular “eulogy.” Here I was thinking I was wearing my poker face. Perhaps the best place for a eulogy is at the wake.

On the day of baptism, a baby is greeted at the church door. The casket is greeted at the same door, using the symbols of baptism. The brief (perhaps three to five minutes) “words of remembrance” should be about how the deceased tried to live the faith into which he or she was baptized. Anything else seems inappropriate, but I’m sure mine isn’t the last word on the matter.

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

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The Anchor

By Rebecca Aubut Anchor Staff

MANSFIELD — While growing up in Boston, it was easy to know where to find Jeff Cahill most mornings.

“I grew up going to Mass everyday, from third grade on; my family would go to the seven o’clock Mass,” he said of his daily attendance at St. Andrew’s Parish in Forest Hills. “My parents were instrumental in forming my faith. They gave me that solid foundation to allow me to continue on my journey that led me to various life experiences and to where I am today.”

Cahill graduated from Don Bosco Preparatory High School, a private Roman Catholic school. Inspired by the school’s namesake St. John Bosco, who founded the Salesian Society and spent decades ministering to the outcast youths of his society during the 1800s, Cahill modeled his spiritual path after the saint.

“In high school, learning the life of Don Bosco really made me want to work with the youth.

I always have through coaching and assisting at camps,” said Cahill. “It was a life-changing experience for me. It’s really when I knew that I wanted to continue to work with youth, continue to serve the Church in that capacity. In high school I became a Salesian cooperator, and the priests at Don Bosco high school were very instrumental in helping me form my faith at that time and getting involved in programs that worked with troubled youth. It just re-

A life of service, inspired by a saint ally inspired me to want to do growing into disciples is just a nize the gifts that they’ve been that type of work.” tremendous thing to see in to- blessed with so that they can Cahill was always active in day’s world with so many teen continue to grow those seeds church. He was an altar server, tragedies happening, see them that have been planted.”

For the past eight years, the volunteered for ministry ac- really trying to make a differparish has been sendtivities, and became a ing its youth to the food member of the Knights pantry in Mansfield. The of Columbus at 18 years first time the group was old. It was his time spent scheduled to particiat Camp Salesian as a pate, only two members counselor, however, that showed up. Moved by cemented his passion for their experience, they told helping troubled youth. their friends, who told “Working with kids their friends, and so on. from such broken homes Eight years later, the proand being able to be there gram has now had more as a counselor and as a than 1,500 volunteer their friend; being able to see time.

Christ in every one of “In addition to that, those kids and praying we have never gone to for them,” said Cahill. the food pantry without “It was a grace-filled moat least one new person ment and had a tremenshowing up,” said Cahill. dous impact on my life.”

Ministering to the Married for 14 years, youth is clearly deep in the father of two relocatthe heart of Cahill. When ed to Mansfield 10 years asked to speak about his ago to look for a familyown accomplishments, oriented community, and found himself at home at Anchor person of the week — Jeff Ca- his voice would grow quiet and he seemed St. Mary’s Parish. hill. (Photo by Rebecca Aubut) to struggle to find the “St. Mary’s is such a words. When asked wonderful parish and this is such a wonderful place to live ence in this world, and being about the children who are part in,” said Cahill. “We so thank- able to help support them in of his ministry, he would easily find his voice — such as speakful we decided to live in Man- that,” said Cahill. sfield.”

Over the years, Cahill has en- ing about watching the children Right from the start Cahill joyed watching the youth minis- act out their faith through the Living Stations of the Cross or became involved in volunteer- try programs flourish. ing at the parish, and quickly “We incorporate spiritual taking part in visiting the seven became part of the confirmation programs, social programs, churches after the vigil Mass of formation team and other youth- community service programs, Holy Thursday.

“It’s a tremendous witness oriented ministry programs. and education programs so that “It’s been rewarding in the we can tap into the talents of all to their faith, and that continues sense that you get to see these individuals in middle school and to grow each year. Parishioners kids not only learn about their high school,” said Cahill. “It al- participate; it’s getting the famifaith, but live it. Seeing teens lows those teen-agers to recog- lies involved and that’s what the Church really needs,” said Cahill.

A former middle school and high school track athlete, Cahill volunteers his time and skills as head coach of the track team of St. Mary’s Catholic School. Only in their sixth year having a sports program, Cahill beamed with pride as he recounted how this past year, the girls and boys teams won not only the league championships but also the division

October 29, 2010

championships.

“Our team has a motto: The team that prays together, stays together,” said Cahill, who applies that motto to everyday family life. “The family that prays together, stays together.

It’s nice to be able to spend as much family time together. We live in a very fast-pace world and sports and extracurricular activities tend to take up a lot of time within the families. It’s the time that you do get to spend with each other, appreciate that time with each other and know that God is present and that God is always at the center of the family.”

Cahill already has a degree in social science with a minor in psychology from Westfield State College, but after receiving encouragement from his pastor, and getting support from his wife, Cahill graduated from a master’s degree ministry program St. John Seminary this past May, and has been quietly assuming a more pastoral role at St. Mary’s Parish.

“Looking back, if you were to tell me in high school that I’d be a youth minister 25 years later, I would have said no way,” said Cahill. “I knew that I’d be working within the Church.

It’s just nice to be looking back and seeing that my past experiences really led me to where I am today. And not only that, those experiences have helped me tremendously in ministering in today’s world.”

“I said the team that prays together, stays together, but my dad always told me when I was young, ‘If you do your best, God takes care of the rest,’” said Cahill. “And that’s a slogan I’ve always used throughout my life with the kids that I work with and family members. If we can all just do our best, God will take care of the rest.”

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

October 29, 2010

I

11

The Anchor

‘I got the music in me’

’ll begin this week’s Mankins, and every other sports column with an apology professional who feels he or she to all the great musical talents is being underpaid and under who will fall prey to my attempt appreciated. There are several to put into song the wild and songs that come to mind, but a wacky state of affairs in sports couple that fit quite nicely. The today. first is “Respect,” by the late, I’m of the opinion that a song great Otis Redding, and the hit has been written, at one time or for the Queen of Soul, Aretha another, about everything that Franklin. “All I’m asking for is a happens in life. Call it coinlittle respect. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” cidence, or karma, or just my Yet The Beatles also come to vivid imagination.

Therefore, I’ll attempt to combine two of my greatest loves, music and sports, into a cohesive and semi-intelligent piece this week.

By Dave Jolivet Here goes.

Let’s begin with good old, or should I just say old Brett Favre. The mind when athletes whine for man has contemplated retirerespect and proper compensation ment more times than Carter has to “take care of their families.” liver pills (I’ve always wanted to You can almost here it at their say that in print). The problem press conferences, “Money don’t is, he can’t. He’s played a game get everything it’s true. What it all his life, received accolades don’t get, I can’t use. Now give all his life, and has been in the me money, that’s what I want.” limelight all his life. In fairness Will they or won’t they? Will to him, that’s not something the New York Yankees sign from which someone can easily Derek Jeter again? As someone walk away. Favre’s theme song who hates most things Yankees, is by Carolyn Leigh and Mark I’ve always liked Jeter. He’s one Charlap, from “Peter Pan,” “I of the greatest Yanks to ever won’t grow up ... I will never wear the pinstripes, and that even try.” alone is reason to resign him, Then there’s Favre’s teameven as his talents slowly fall mate and former New Engprey to his age. Bob Seger sums land Patriot, Randy Moss, and up Jeter’s Bronx legacy, “Like a current Patriot holdout Logan rock, I was strong as I could be,

My View From the Stands

like a rock, nothin’ ever got to me, like a rock, I was something to see, like a rock.” But sadly, I think No. 2 could add, “Twenty years now where’d they go?

Twenty years, I don’t know. I sit and I wonder sometimes where they’ve gone.” I truly hope the Yanks show Jeter some R-E-SP-E-C-T. And what about our beloved Red Sox? Will they bring back Adrian Beltre, Victor Martinez, Big Papi, Jason Varitek, Jonathan Paplebon, or Jacoby Ellsbury?

Or will they go the youth movement route?

Let’s let The Eagles sort this one out. “There’s talk on the street, it’s there to remind you, that it doesn’t really matter which side you’re on. You’re walking away and they’re talking behind you.

They will never forget you ’til somebody new comes along.

There’s a new kid in town. I don’t want to hear about it.”

Finally, I’ll call on folk legend Joni Mitchell to summarize the ongoing labor dispute between the National Football League and the NFL Players Association, in their attempt to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement before the 2011 season — “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone?”

That’s a wrap. Or is it rap?

working on a workshop — The Greater Fall River Chapter of Mass. Citizens For Life is sponsoring a Respect Life workshop, hosted by the Holy Name Parish Pro-Life Committee. Working on the event are, from left: Bea Martins, director of the Greater Fall River MCFL Chapter; Barbara Wenc; Sue Plonka; and Jane Wilcox. The event will take place November 6.

Fall River parish to host Respect Life workshop

FALL RIVER — The Holy Name Parish Pro-Life Committee is hosting a Respect Life workshop from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Holy Name School on November 6.

The guest speakers will be Dan Avila, Esq. and Father Nic Austriaco, who will respectively present the topics “Assisted Suicide Threatens Massachusetts”

and “Disorders of Consciousness — New Discoveries.”

The program is being sponsored by the Greater Fall River Chapter of MCFL. The $5 registration fee includes lunch. For a registration form or more information call Bea Martins at 508-415-2599 or Barbara Wenc at 508-675-1098. Registration deadline is November 3.

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October 29, 2010

Pregnant women in crisis met with love continued from page one

a nurse practitioner, has been the director at Fall River since that location opened five years ago.

During Respect Life Month each October, AWC runs a baby bottle drive in which churches and other communities collect spare change in bottles that will go into the general ministry fund. This year, the South Coast has its largest drive ever with more than 3,000 bottles.

“It’s a great time of the year to raise awareness with the churches and faith communities,” she said.

Breda said she wants supporters to understand how vital their work is. AWC provides women with free pregnancy tests, ultrasound services and education about pregnancy and fetal development. They empower women with information, and guide them through the options of abortion, parenting and adoption. While the centers are up front about not providing abortion or abortion referrals, they do educate women about abortion risks and procedures.

If women make the lifeaffirming decision to parent their child, they can attend parenting classes and receive material assistance. AWC connects the women with additional community resources.

The staff also speaks with the women about sexual integrity and post-abortion recovery if they have had an abortion at any point in their lives.

Breda said that on occasion a woman who ended up having an abortion has come back the next time she is pregnant.

“It tells me that they’re not going to feel judged,” she said.

“Even though they may not have made the healthiest decision the first time, they want to do something different the second time.”

Breda called the challenging work “spiritual warfare,” adding that if she did not believe in God, she might believe abortion was the best answer for some of the women who come into the center.

Many of the women do not have a support system. They may not have healthy role models. Sometimes the father of the child is not around, and sometimes they do not know who the father is. They are hurt, broken women, and while a child may make their lives richer, that baby will not make their lives easier, she said.

AWC seeks to give the women hope by extending lifelines.

The staff encourages women to think about what continuing

the pregnancy would look like.

They also advise the women to seek out people in their lives who will support them if they decide to have their babies.

“If everything out there is telling them to have the abortion and we’re the only ones saying, ‘You can do this,’ once they leave here, that’s it,” said Breda.

One woman Breda saw recently is living with her father who she did not meet until she was 14. She is unable to work full-time because she is living in the United States with a green card. In her native country, her mother cares for her four-year-old son. She has not seen her son for two years but hopes to send for him soon.

While pregnant for the second time, the woman discovered that the father of her unborn child is married to another woman.

This woman came to A Woman’s Concern believing that abortion was her only option. She was afraid her mother would disown her for a second out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and she feared her father would throw her out of his home.

Her father gave her a ride to her abortion appointment.

She signed the paperwork and was waiting to be seen when her father called for her on the clinic’s phone. The woman told Breda that her father said, “Get out of that room. Get down here now.” He wanted to be a grandfather to her child.

“He wasn’t happy that this had happened but he could not have her step into that situation,” Breda said. “This is what she wanted him to say.”

Breda calls the stories where women chose life, “God’s stories.”

“Often times that decision to continue with the pregnancy is God’s story. Somehow or other he has touched this woman to make a decision for life, and we’ve been any part of that, so be to him the glory,” she said.

Much of what AWC does is sow seeds. Sometimes the statistics are discouraging, but Breda said she focuses on the positive stories and remembers that God is in charge.

“You come to lean in on God in such a big way and trust in him. He brought that woman to the door. He ultimately knows what her decision is. I have no control over her decision, and I have to keep my peace with that,” she said.

Women who come to the Fall River location are often facing serious economic challenges, and Breda said that most of them are “abortionminded.”

“People are not coming here for pregnancy tests because they’re happy that they’re pregnant,” she said.

Breda said she thinks their work right now hits “only the tip of the iceberg.” Limited by their location, the Fall River office is in the middle of a move within the town. Their current office is not easily accessible by public transportation, which can be a huge impediment to women who do not have a support system.

The new location, 355 South Main Street, is more visible and accessible. It will be a medically licensed facility so that ultrasounds can be provided in the office. At the current location they made arrangements with a physician in the same building in order to provide ultrasounds.

Breda also hopes to expand the hours at the new location.

She wants to go from three to four days a week and add evening hours on a weeknight.

They are waiting on approval of the Department of Public Health, and no date has been set for the grand opening. They are in the process of finding volunteers to help them with some of the grunt work of relocating, and they are still raising the necessary funds.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” Breda said.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, October 31 at 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father James Doherty, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Taunton.

October 29, 2010

Boston Globe sports writer to speak at fall scholarship dinner

WESTPORT — Veteran Boston sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy will be the featured speaker at the St. Mary’s Education Fund annual Fall Dinner on December 1 at White’s of Westport.

Proceeds from the Fall Dinner benefit the St. Mary’s Education Fund, which provides need-based financial scholarships to students at Catholic elementary and middle schools throughout the Fall River Diocese.

Mike Tamburro, who is president of the Pawtucket Red Sox and a member of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish in Seekonk, accepted the invitation from Bishop George W. Coleman earlier this year to serve as chairman of the 2010 Fall Dinner after assisting in the planning of previous years’ dinners as a member of the Attleboro area committee.

Tamburro considers Shaughnessy the “premier sports columnist in the nation” and believes that those attending the Fall Dinner will enjoy listening to his reflections on matters sports and beyond.

Shaughnessy became a sports columnist for the Boston Globe in 1989 after covering sports for that paper for eight years. He has been named Massachusetts Sportswriter of the Year seven times, and eight times has been voted among America’s top-10 sports columnists by the Associated Press Sports Editors.

In addition to his columns, he has written 11 books including “The Curse of the Bambino,” “Reversing the Curse” and “Senior Year: A Father, A Son and High School Baseball.” He also is a frequent commentator on national and local TV and radio.

Shaughnessy had been the scheduled speaker for the 2007 Fall Dinner but was unable to do so because of a death in his family two days before the event.

“He said then he wanted to fulfill his commitment to the dinner and to the St. Mary’s Education Fund another year,” said Mike Donly, diocesan director of Development, “and we are pleased we were able to work it out for this year.”

The Fall Dinner will begin with a 5:30 p.m. reception and will feature an extensive multi-course meal. The evening’s program includes a video snapshot of Catholic schools, student entertainment and the guest speaker’s presentation.

Since its inception in the early 1990s, the St. Mary’s Education Fund has helped bring a Catholic education into the financial reach of thousands of students and their families in the Fall River Diocese, and the Fall Dinner is one of only two principal fund-raisers held each year to support the fund.

In the current academic year alone, St. Mary’s Education Fund

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is providing $610,000 in partial tuition aid to more than 740 students in diocesan schools.

Tamburro described the fund as serving a “great need in the community” and expressed his intention to seeing that it meets its stated objective.

“At the heart of the St. Mary’s Education Fund is the goal to make a Catholic education available to every student who desires it, to not let cost become a barrier,” he said recently. “We — the Dinner committee members and I — are working very hard to try to get that done.”

Tamburro and committees in four areas of the diocese are now

Dan Shaughnessy

reaching out to businesses and individuals to extend an invitation to sponsor a table or purchase a ticket for the Fall Dinner in support of tuition assistance.

Leading the area committees are: in Attleboro, Paul Lenahan; in Fall River, Nick Christ; in New Bedford, Gary Fealy; and in Taunton, Harry Rose.

To support the Fall Dinner or obtain information on the St. Mary’s Education Fund, contact Tamburro, any committee chairman, or Donly at the Diocesan Development Office at 508-675-1311.

Sisters of St. Dorothy: 100 years in the U.S. continued from page one

school,” recalled Sister Dorothy “Dot” Schwarz. “We had a parish school, St. Patrick, and I was inspired by them. I just felt it was the best way to serve God.” One of four children, Sister Schwarz’s parents could not afford Catholic high school, so by ninth grade she was in a public school but yearning for different surroundings.

“I can remember in ninth grade, I missed the Sisters and missed the school and the Catholic environment,” said Sister Schwarz. “It was a very beautiful, peaceful environment.

I could remember telling the priest in my parish when I went to confession, I really felt that I really wanted to be a nun. He asked me how old I was, and I said I was 13 going on 14. He said, ‘Just be a normal teen-ager and you’ll know when God calls you.’”

For the next four years, Sister Schwarz took on the role of a typical teen-ager, going to dances and dating. Periodically she would visit the Sisters of St. Dorothy convent, and when she was pulled aside by a high school teacher after she gave a presentation and told she had a gift of teaching, Sister Schwarz knew that inner calling could no longer be ignored. Against the advice of friends, she made a weekend trip to Villa Fatima convent in Taunton.

“I just couldn’t not do it,” she said, “and the minute I stepped in, I knew I was home. It was just something inside. I’m telling you, I have never regretted even one day of all the years I have been in religious life. It’s such a joy.”

In 1984, Sister Schwarz was elected as Provincial of the Or-

der. Throughout the years, she has been reelected and is presently in her 20th year of being in charge of the Sisters in the North American province.

Currently there are 1,200 Sisters active in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

When Schwarz joined the order, there were 112 active Sisters in the United States; now there are only 33 left, divided between four convents.

“Unfortunately we have had a real arid period, and for over 10 years we have not received a candidate for religious life for our order. It’s pretty characteristic of most orders around here,” said Sister Schwarz, citing the increased opportunities women have had in the Church.

“It’s sad; we feel like an extinct breed.”

Undaunted by the dwindling numbers, the four remaining convents are making the most of their calling. Under the common thread of education, the Texas branch pours its efforts into helping Mexican immigrants while there are two schools on Staten Island still under the direction of the two convents in New York, and the Taunton branch owns a preschool.

“Education takes many forms. While we still have Sisters who are very active in Catholic schools, we also do

parish ministry,” said Sister Schwarz, who works as director of Religious Education at St. Augustine School in Providence, R.I. “We have Sisters who are chaplains in hospitals; Sisters who do workshops; Sisters who do retreat work with teens and adults; teach adult education courses. We also run a summer camp for children who are unable to afford camp on their own.”

Retired Sisters also help in their own way by providing moral support, and being the Sister of St. Dorothy’s powerhouse of prayer, said Sister Schwarz.

During this past July’s annual three-day gathering, the 100year anniversary was marked by a private celebration with Sisters coming from Texas and New York for a special Mass at Mount St. Joseph’s in Taunton.

Sister Schwarz hopes that Mount St. Joseph’s will come alive again in 2011, as the Sisters will mark the end of their jubilee year with a gathering of all the former alumni, friends and benefactors of the Sisters of St. Dorothy.

“We are just grateful for having had the privilege of serving the people of God in the area and in America for 100 years,” said Sister Schwarz. “It’s a great gift that God has given to us.”

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October 29, 2010

Affordable Housing in Massachusetts: Questions & Answers from the Catholic Perspective on Question 2

By the Staff of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference

The Roman Catholic Bishops in Massachusetts released a statement in September 2010 supporting a state law that promotes affordable housing.

The full statement can be accessed online at macathconf. org/10-BishopsStatementAffordabl eHousingQuestion2Sept21.htm.

The bishops also announced their opposition to Question 2, an initiative on the November 2 statewide ballot aimed at repealing the affordable housing law.

The following Q & A provides background for Catholics on the issues addressed by the bishops in their statement.

What affordable housing provisions would Question 2 repeal if a majority of voters support the ballot question?

If approved by the voters, Question 2 would repeal sections 20 through 23 of Chapter 40B of the Massachusetts General Laws. See Secretary of the Commonwealth Question 2 Summary at http://www.sec. state.ma.us/ele/ele10/ballot_ questions_10/qu es t_ 2 . ht m. These sections incorporate a procedural preference in the building permit process for public agencies, non-profit organizations and “limited dividend” developers seeking to build low or moderate income housing. Non-profit groups include faith-based social service providers such as the Planning Office for Urban Affairs in Boston.

“Limited dividend” developers are those “for profit” entities that agree to limit the profits they earn in order to participate in government subsidized housing development programs. Currently, under these

sections in Chapter 40B, any builder in the three categories just mentioned can apply directly to a city or town zoning board of appeals for a “comprehensive” permit to create affordable multi-family units. This allows affordable housing developers to avoid having to apply separately to numerous local zoning boards.

Thus the present law gives preference to those development plans that propose new housing for low or moderate income families.

If a majority of voters votes “yes” on Question 2, then these sections of the law on affordable housing would be abolished.

The advocates for voting “yes” on Question 2 say that they support affordable housing too, but claim that the affordable housing provisions of Chapter 40B have created all kinds of problems and thus need to be scrapped in their entirety. Why exactly do the bishops want the affordable housing provisions to be saved?

In their statement, the bishops make three important points.

First, they explain that the current law has led to the creation of affordable housing that otherwise would not have been created, saying that “no other state program or tool has been as effective” in meeting the Commonwealth’s housing needs. This assessment is backed by other sources. For example, a bipartisan gubernatorial task force on affordable housing concluded in 2003 that “a significant portion of the ... housing units built under comprehensive permits would not have been created in the absence of the statute.”

Chapter 40B Task Force Findings and Recommendations, May 30, 2003 at 15. Eliminating the affordable housing law will result

This week in 50 years ago — The diocese announced plans for a $1,125,000 campaign to build a girls’ regional high school on the corner of Adams and Hamilton streets in Taunton.

Bishop James L. Connolly named Dr. Clement Maxwell as campaign director.

25 years ago — Bishop Daniel A. Cronin offered opening prayers at the annual convention of the New England Association of Chiefs of Police, held in North Falmouth. Also in attendance was police chaplain Father Roger L. Gagne, pastor of St. Mark’s Parish in Attleboro Falls.

in affordable housing becoming even less available in the Commonwealth.

Second, the bishops highlight the essential role that the affordable housing law has played in enabling Catholic non-profit organizations to provide for the housing needs of so many families who could not otherwise afford a decent home. The very first affordable housing plan approved under the law in question was created by the Planning Office for Urban Affairs, a non-profit affiliated with the Boston Archdiocese. The Planning Office has become one of the most effective non-profit developers in the Commonwealth, and is responsible for the creation of more than 2,300 homes for more than 10,000 members of the working poor, seniors, persons with disabilities, and others in need of decent affordable places to live.

The Planning Office has a welldeserved reputation for promoting collaboration between all of the stakeholders when new affordable housing is proposed.

Question 2 backers cite legislative testimony delivered in 2007

by Massachusetts Inspector General Gregory Sullivan, describing problems with the affordable housing law with respect to unscrupulous developers. Sullivan’s testimony clarifies however that “the problems we have identified have been with these for-profit limited dividend corporations and a lack of oversight by both the subsidizing agencies and the state.”

Non-profits are not to blame for the troubles highlighted by the inspector general. Yet a “yes” vote on Question 2, dismantling the law entirely, will cripple the efforts of non-profit providers of affordable housing. That makes no sense as a

Diocesan history 10 years ago — The Anchor printed, in its entirety, Bishop Sean P. O’Malley pastoral letter on life issues. The letter, entitled, “For the Love of Life,” touched upon important issues such as abortion and physician-assisted suicide. Copies were sent to diocesan parishes and high schools.

One year ago — Bishop Stang High School seniors began attending a two-semester session on “Christian Vocations and Moral Theology.” Some of the text books in the course were based on Pope John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”

matter of policy, especially when Question 2 fails to propose any alternative.

Third, and finally, the bishops affirm that housing is a fundamental human right and regard the Commonwealth’s affordable housing law as a valuable tool for furthering that right. See Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church no. 365 (listing hous-

ing among other “basic human rights”). The Church’s recognition that a human right is at stake is consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations, which affirms that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including ... housing.”

Bishops’ statement on electing our civic leaders: Hope for a better tomorrow

One of the greatest blessings of our American democracy is the opportunity it affords to its citizens to step up and share their vision of a better society. Even in these difficult social and economic times, we continue to strive for a community in which all can benefit, and from which no one is excluded.

It was the same yearning for a better life for everyone that brought many of our ancestors to this country. So it is a deeply-rooted concern for the common good that has moved us throughout our history to participate in the election process. Our convictions about the importance of voting are bolstered by the innate sense of hope that has endowed this nation with such promise in good times and in bad.

We go to the polls no matter the direction of the social and economic trends at the time.

As Catholics we also are a people of hope. Hope is the Christian virtue that confirms our belief that we are never abandoned, and that we are always loved by God. We express these truths every time we extend our love to others as part of one human family. This same hope guides our civic involvement.

Because the common good is at stake, it is imperative that we exercise our right and duty to vote. As recognized by Pope Benedict XVI, the laity should “participate in political life, in a manner consistently in accordance with the Church’s teaching, bringing their wellfounded reasons and high ideals into the democratic debate” (Papal Address to the Pontifical Council for the Laity, May 21, 2010).

Particularly for us as Catholics, voting is an exercise of reason inspired by faith. The Holy Father has thus observed: “Just as every economic decision has a moral consequence, so too in the political field, the ethical dimension of policy has far-reaching consequences that no government can afford to ignore.” “This is why,” he continued, “the world of reason and the world of faith — the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief — need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization” (Papal Address at Westminster Hall, England, Sept. 17, 2010).

Our participation as citizens in the electoral process allows us to propose our vision for this country and about our future as a democracy. Thus voting is above all an opportunity — an occasion for contributing our insights as Catholics to the civic discussion nationally and locally, thereby inspiring social change consistent with our country’s foundational values.

Deciding which candidate in any particular race offers the best opportunity to take us in the right direction is not an easy task. Yet there is a measuring rod by which all electoral choices must be evaluated: will my vote enhance human dignity?

Certain moral and social issues are fundamentally important, since human rights are at stake and must be protected to help democracy to flourish in a way that benefits every citizen. These include the defense of the sanctity of life, the family based on marriage between a man and a woman, religious freedom, and the well-being of the poor.

As shifts in societal challenges are inevitable, it is also vital to determine from election to election which human rights face the greatest threat at the time of voting.

The opportunity to vote is a blessing. Taking advantage of this opportunity is an expression of hope. Go to the polls on Election Day and, through your choices at the ballot, act on your vision of a better society. + Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, O.F.M. Cap., Archdiocese of Boston + Bishop George W. Coleman, Diocese of Fall River + Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell, Diocese of Springfield + Bishop Robert J. McManus, Diocese of Worcester

October 29, 2010

Our readers respond

Protecting children and reputations I don’t know Jean Revil, but I love her column and I have looked forward to reading it every fourth week in The Anchor.

I was saddened she didn’t have a column this month because of the accusation being investigated against her from the early 1990s at Bishop Stang. I can’t imagine that a woman moved so much by the Holy Spirit would ever be guilty of harming a young person and I find her forceful denial of the accusations very credible and her trust in God that the truth will come out very moving.

What’s hard for me to understand is why there would have been publicity of this accusation on the part of the diocese before a thorough investigation was done.

I went back to The Anchor edition in which the policies and procedures of the Fall River Diocese were published and there’s absolutely nothing in there that says that the diocese has to notify the press. How is doing so fair to Ms. Revil? What if she’s innocent?

How would she ever be able to regain her reputation?

The Church obviously must do everything possible to protect kids from those who would harm them, even to the point of exercising abundant caution by putting a teacher on leave while something even from many years ago is being investigated, but how does a press release of such a terrible accusation from years ago protect kids? It seems to me that all it does is hurt Ms. Revil’s reputation in a way that will be hard to fix if she, as I pray will happen, is proven totally innocent. The only thing that I can imagine would have moved the diocese to publish a press release is so that the Diocese could show that it’s taking every accusation seriously. Thanks be to God that it is, but the reputation

15

The Anchor of a teacher, youth minister, and Anchor writer shouldn’t be sacrificed in order to show the diocese’s worthy resolve. As a Church, we should be interested both in protecting kids as well as in protecting the reputations of those who may be falsely accused.

Maria Medeiros New Bedford

Press release before investigation is wrong I am writing in response to the article about the allegations of sexual abuse brought against Jean Revil at Bishop Stang High School (October 15). Like most people who know Jean, I am hoping and praying for a quick resolution that fully exonerates Jean of these charges. I write specifically regarding the diocesan press release which announced the charges against Jean on the very day that she was suspended and the allegations were reported to the district attorney for further investigation.

As a former teacher at Bishop Stang High School, I am concerned about the fairness of this procedure that has publicized the allegations against Jean before an investigation has taken place to determine if they are true. As far as I know, if an alleged victim of abuse chose to go directly to the district attorney, instead of to the diocese, even the district attorney would not immediately issue a press release, announcing the accusations. For sure, a careful investigation would first take place, as is now being conducted by the district attorney.

Like many in the Church, I am proud of all that the Church has done in the wake of the sex abuse crisis in order to safeguard children from potential danger and in order to be transparent.

But I am concerned that the procedures put in place to protect

children have not been balanced with the requirement of justice for the falsely accused. For, even if an accused teacher is eventually exonerated, her reputation is surely beyond repair, due to an immediate publication of the allegations. I pray that the diocese and the whole Church might reconsider this particular aspect of the procedure, in the interests of justice.

Sarah Sahm Indianapolis, Ind. Great writing on writers Praise for Jennifer Pierce’s column “On Great Catholic Writers.”

As a retired professor of literature and journalism, I look forward to each appearance and commend The Anchor for presenting such a valuable feature.

Pierce is a gifted analyst and writer. Each piece is presented with clarity and reveals keen insights.

Her latest column on Gerard Manley Hopkins is mystic poetry in itself. Thank you, Jennifer Pierce.

John Lawrence Darretta, Ph.D. South Dennis Everyone deserves dignity Father Tad’s article on dementia in the October 8 edition was good to see. I’m a resident of an extended care facility (I’m told it’s no longer politically-correct to call them nursing homes), and we have a wide range of folks here of varied mental levels. It’s a diocesan facility and the dignity we are shown far surpasses what I’ve seen in other facilities. Our residents are generally not stripped of their dignity if or when they lose the ability even to remember what it is to be human. It’s encouraging to see The Anchor help others to remember this for all of us, even while it is being forgotten by some segments of society, like our census which, while advertising

that it takes only 10 minutes of our time, sadly doesn’t have 10 minutes to spare us and lumps us together as one in a non-differentiated “desk-census.”

Our years of experience are not totally wasted when they can be shared with others and sometimes even provide past solutions for modern problems. I can only add that when someone’s dementia reaches total unresponsiveness please remember Mother Teresa’s reminder: They need love most when they are most unloveable. Thank you and Father Tad once again.

Kathy King North Attleboro Heartfelt memories My heart was touched and my eyes filled with tears as I read and recalled memories of St. Vincent’s Home from the well-documented article in The Anchor. I was a product of the brick structure at 2860 North Main Street known as St. Vincent’s Orphanage (though I was not an orphan) in the north end of Fall River. I along with older and

younger brothers arrived in September 1945. We each stayed until we graduated from eighth grade — I left in June of 1952.

I gratefully remember Sisters Angelita, Ancilla, Bridgetta, Cecile, Judith, Domitilla, Regis and Rita; Father Humberto Medeiros, Father Boyd and Father Harrington; Duke and Joe Lima in the kitchen; the Leary Brothers, Danny, Charlie and Peter, who lived at St. Vincent’s for quite some time.

Neighborhood children also came to school at St Vincent’s.

One such person was Joe Raposo who lived across the street from the home. He had piano lessons at the home and later he was to be associated with “Sesame Street” and wrote music for the TV children’s show.

I have so many memories and your article brought them all back.

I am sending copies of The Anchor to my brothers who no longer live in the Taunton area. Also I’m praying for Sister Monice who was an angel to hundreds of boys. She really took care of God’s children.

May she rest in eternal peace.

Irene E. Mocker-Boivin W. Yarmouth

16

Youth Pages

supplies and demand — Bishop Feehan High School’s Summer Academic Academy and Attleboro’s St. Vincent de Paul Society partnered to collect school supplies for the community. The 139 freshmen who attended collected more than 400 items that will benefit local families. The academy is a two-week orientation program for incoming freshmen that introduces students to what is required of them at the Attleboro school, including service to others. Front, from left: freshmen Jonathan O’Brien, Grace Valley, Delia Calderon, and Andrew Hagopian. Back: Summer Academy instructors Linda Tyler, Rhonda Laliberte, Principal Bill Runey, and Donna MacPherson.

they’re to be commended — Benjamin Spevack and Brenna Teixeira, students at Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth, have been named Commended Students in the 2011 National Merit Scholarship Program. Commended Students placed among the top five percent of more than 1.5 million students who entered the 2011 competition by taking the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/ NMSQT). From left: Assistant Principal of Academics Kathleen Ruginis, Teixeira, Spevack, and Principal Peter Shaughnessy.

faith lessons — ­Four St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School, Hyannis, students recently received the “Ad Altare Dei” award at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in Fall River. National chaplain Father Stephen Salvador of The National Catholic Committee on Scouting presided over the ceremony. The purpose of the Ad Altare Dei (to the altar of God) program is to help Catholic Scouts of the Roman Rite develop a fully Christian way of life in the faith community. The program is organized in chapters based on the seven sacraments. The seven sacraments are a primary means toward spiritual growth. The boys were the only Scouts in the Diocese of Fall River to receive this award. From left: Peter Hartnett, Matthew Perrino, Father Salvador, Peter Keefe, and Andrew Battles.

October 29, 2010

web master — Bishop Stang’s Library Media Specialist, Jennifer Thomas, right, was awarded the Web Seal of Excellence from the Mass. School Library Association. This award recognizes excellence in a school library’s use of web tools including but not limited to web-pages and blogs. To be eligible, the recipient must be a member of the Mass. School Library Association for at least two years and must hold a professional library degree or be state certified as a library teacher. At left is Gerri Fegan, president of Mass. School Library Association.

a day of bonding — Eighth-graders at St. Mary-Sacred Heart School spent a day on retreat under the direction of Father David A. Costa, Sister Katheen Corrigan, and teacher Betty Ann Petterson.

The day was divided into two segments, the first of which focused on the individual talents and gifts of each student. The theme for the morning’s activities was, “We are fearfully and wonderfully made,” based on Psalm 139. The afternoon theme, centering on community, was “We are one body.” A majority of the students have been together since kindergarten. Here, Courtney Stoffel shares her mosaic and its meaning with her classmates.

uniform delivery — Gail Chalifoux, development director at Taunton Catholic Middle School, recently coordinated a clothing donation from the school’s uniform swap shop with Pam Potenza, a missionary who works with Father Craig A. Pregana at the Guaimaca Mission. As the students helped load the suitcases into the car, they put their faith in action, helping to clothe the needy and care for the environment at the same time. “It felt good to be doing something to help kids who need something as simple as clothes,” said Joey Celia, a seventh-grade student. In an on-going effort to promote both a spiritual and physical connection between TCMS and the Guaimaca Mission, the students at Taunton Catholic will continue working to help the children by collecting essential supplies needed to assist in their education.

Youth Pages

October 29, 2010

L

17

Whose side are you on?

ife is about making choices.

Eternal life is about making the right choices.

I thought growing up in the 1970s was hard. Today’s youth have much more to deal with than I could ever have imagined. Compared to theirs, my younger days were a walk in the park. After school, for example, my biggest problem was choosing teams and deciding what position I’d play in our friendly neighborhood street hockey game.

Today, the decisions you make are much more complex. After all, you do have so many more options than I did 40 years ago. Deciding what to do, how to do it, who to be with and what side to be on all need careful thought and consideration. I agree, sometimes those are not easy decisions to make. And, often, bad choices are made that later on are regrettable.

In the past, I’ve shared with you my thoughts about smoking, using drugs, pre-marital sex, teen-age pregnancy, abortion, peer pressure, to name a few. All of these have a negative impact on your personal life, physically and spiritually, and also on those who care for you and

love you. Getting yourself tangled the Lord’s army.” That man was in in these situations makes you think fact an angel and he tells Joshua that how and why you did what you God is not on his side. The question did, and most frightening, why is, who is on God’s side? We have to you didn’t allow others to help you realize that God does not take sides. through these struggles. You feel He is looking for us to be on his side. alone in deciding which side of the In Matthew 6:33 Jesus says, fence to be on, and it may make you “Seek God and his righteousness.” wonder where God is through all of What is God’s righteousness? Seek this and exactly whose side is God to do things and see things the way on.

Let’s discuss this question, whose side is God on? Take, for example, the Iraq war. Was God on the coalition forces’ side or the Iraqis? Christians believe

By Ozzie Pacheco of course, that he is on the side of the West because the West is Christian. History is rife with examples of each side being convinced that God is God sees and does them. In other with them and not their adversary. words, we are to be on his side and But whose side is God really on? follow his way of acting and living.

What does God say about this? If we Imagine if people spent more time look at the book of Joshua, 5:13, we doing that and less time claimsee a very interesting story. Joshua ing God as a cheering section we is confronted with a man holding might have a more peaceful world. a sword and Joshua asks the man, Remember, we are too weak and im“Whose side are you on, our’s or perfect for God to take our side. He the enemy’s?” The man answers, does not want to associate himself “Neither, I am here as commander of with our sinful nature. He wants us

to come to him, ask for forgiveness and accept his love. So don’t worry about whose side God is on. Start taking action to be on his side.

Next time you gather with friends, whether at home, school or your parish youth group meeting, try the following exercise: Divide your meeting place into three areas, with all participants in a “neutral” area. Read aloud the questions provided below (you may also make up your own) and indicate which area represents that choice.

Participants should step into the area designated for their choice. Each person should choose a side; there should be no one in the neutral area — no abstentions.

Would you rather: Have the power to fly or the power to disappear? Watch TV or read a book?

Live in the city or the country? Wake up early or sleep late? Live without music or live without TV? Laugh or make others laugh? Not be able to use your phone or your email?

Go without television or junk food for the rest of your life? Give or

receive? Be hungry or unemployed?

End hunger or hatred?

After reading the questions, discuss the following as a group: How did it feel to be the only one or one of the only ones on your side? Did you make your own choices, or did you try to guess what other people would choose? Why or why not? Did you feel any peer pressure to make one choice over another? Why or why not? What types of choices are more important — those that involve you, or those that involve other people?

Which question did you find hardest to make a decision? Why? What new insight did you learn about yourself from these choices?

I conclude my daily prayers asking for the strength and courage of the Holy Spirit to make God a part of everything I say and do. And so I ask you to allow God to be a part of your every thought, word and action.

Choose God’s side and you’ll find it easier to make the right choices.

Choose God’s side and it will make all the difference in your life, both now and after.

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

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The nuts-and-bolts consideration of whether Arizona’s school tuition tax credit program is constitutional, being heard by the Supreme Court November 3, will first have to survive a preliminary question about legal standing.

Specifically, do taxpayers have the right to challenge the Arizona Tuition Tax Credit when no state funds are actually spent, because it just gives a tax credit to those who donate to a scholarship program for private schools?

The case is a joint hearing of two related lawsuits, Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn and the Arizona Department of Revenue v. Winn. Kathleen M. Winn and other taxpayers brought the suit.

It has drawn the legal involvement of a wide range of organizations — including tuition scholarship organizations of the dioceses of Phoenix and Tucson and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — which filed friend-of-the-court, or amicus, briefs. Students attending Catholic schools consistently have received about 95 percent of the funds allocated through the program.

Also weighing in with “amicus” briefs were more than a dozen states, state and national school boards associations, civil liberties groups and a biblical association. Lutheran, Anglican, Baptist, Evangelical, Jewish, Unitarian, secular humanist and atheist organizations have joined in one or another brief arguing their interests.

The case raises general questions about tax credits that benefit students who attend religious schools, as well as specific ones about who benefits from the program in Arizona.

The program allows credits of up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples who donate money to a scholarship tuition organization,

which in turn uses the money to fund scholarships to private schools, including religious schools. The vast majority of such scholarships have gone to students who attend religious schools.

The Supreme Court has ruled that taxpayers generally cannot sue the government over how it spends money. However, a 1969 decision created an exception to that rule when the expenditure involves a possible violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

A 2007 ruling said the Establishment Clause exception exists only when the expenditure was established by a legislative body, not the executive branch. In that case, the court said the Freedom From Religion Foundation couldn’t sue the George W. Bush administration for using taxpayer funds to create the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Supporters of the Arizona law have argued that it isn’t the Legislature that determines how people spend their tax credits, but the taxpayers themselves, through the tuition organizations, which are not government entities.

The Arizona cases could end with the Supreme Court simply finding that the taxpayers have no right to sue.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said they can.

Should the Supreme Court agree that the Arizona taxpayers have the legal standing to fight the tax credit, then comes the question of whether the 1997 law unconstitutionally advances or endorses religion because a majority of taxpayers who participated gave their contributions to organizations that awarded scholarships to students attending religious schools.

In its April 2009 ruling, the 9th

in a 2002 Supreme Court ruling that said church-run schools can be a part of tuition voucher programs.

The USCCB brief was filed jointly with the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the Christian Legal Society, the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, the Center for Arizona Policy and the Association for Biblical Higher Education. They argued that “the

complaint that too many contributions under the program have been directed to religious schools is a complaint that voluntary religion is vigorous among Arizona taxpayers.”

They said that “the percentage of participating schools that are religious is irrelevant because an immense range of secular options are available to parents through Arizona’s public schools.”

Be Not Afraid

Tax credit that aids private school students comes under court scrutiny Circuit said the Arizona program “lacks religious neutrality and true private choice in making scholarships available to parents.”

The court went on to say that although scholarship aid is allocated partially through the individual choices of Arizona taxpayers, in practice the program “carries with it the imprimatur of government endorsement,” a boundary line drawn

18

The Anchor

October 29, 2010

Annual Red Mass is November 7 continued from page one

and, as distinguished recipient of the ecumenical award, Father Cregan of Stonehill College.

Recipients were nominated for the award by a committee of judges, attorneys, court personnel and priests from across the diocese, chaired by New Bedford Atty. Michael Harrington.

Father Mark T. Cregan, C.S.C.

In that post he continues the work begun by his uncle, longtime Red Mass planning committee chairman Atty. Joseph P. Harrington who died in late August.

This year, to recognize the creation in February of the University of Massachusetts School of Law at Dartmouth, the planning committee has extended an invitation to its Chancellor Dr. Jean F. MacCormack and Dean Robert V. Ward Jr. to be special guests at the Red Mass and the reception that will

Revised and updated ...

follow.

The Red Mass derived its name over the years from the color of the vestments customarily worn during the liturgy, which is formally the Mass of the Holy Spirit, who — as the source of wisdom and understanding — is invoked upon those in attendance.

Judge Aguiar retired from the bench in 2000 after 18 years of service. First appointed an associate justice in Attleboro District Court, he went on to the Appellate Division, Southern District, eventually becoming presiding justice. Two years later, he was appointed to same position in Fall River District Court.

He earned his law degree from Georgetown Law School in 1955 and after three years in the U.S. Army opened a law office in Fall River.

Judge John H. O’Neil

Order Ear Comple ly!!!

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2010-2011 Diocese of Fall River Catholic Directory ... Now shipping!!

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

While maintaining his private law practice, Aguiar served for many years as a representative in the Massachusetts State House and as a selectman in the

Attorney Bruce Gilmore

Town of Swansea.

As judge and lawyer Aguiar sought to help others better understand the workings of the legal system, giving frequent lectures on the law to bar associations, civic groups and high school students. He also taught law in the Army Reserves for more than 25 years.

In the late 1990s as a member of the Commission for Justice Across the Atlantic, he participated in joint seminars with legal officials from the U.S. and Portugal.

Aguiar has been active in numerous civic groups as well as at his parish, St. Francis of Assisi in Swansea. He and his wife Gertrud are the parents of three children.

Judge O’Neil was the presiding justice of Fall River District Court from 1992 to 1997. He began as an associate justice in that court when appointed to the judiciary in 1982 and later served as a justice on special assignment to Superior Court.

He began his law career in private practice in Fall River in 1955 upon graduation from Suffolk University School of Law. At different intervals in the years that followed he was also an assistant clerk in Bristol County Superior Court and an assistant Attorney General.

For 10 years, he taught classes on business law in the adult education program at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. He also served on the Judicial Nominating Commission and was an active member of several charitable boards and community associations. He was a member of the Fall River City Council in the 1960s.

O’Neil joined his son in a family law office when he retired from the bench in 1997, and continues to practice law today.

He is a parishioner of Holy Name Parish in Fall River, having joined there recently after years of attending the city’s Sacred Heart Parish while raising his seven children with his wife,

Gladys Fermino

Pauline, who died in 1995.

Attorney Gilmore is a graduate of Boston University School of Law and worked early on in his career at several Boston law firms before becoming an assis-

Our Lady’s Monthly Message From Medjugorje October 25, 2010

Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina

“Dear children! May this time be a time of prayer for you. My call, little children, desires to be for you a call to decide to follow the way of conversion; therefore, pray and seek the intercession of all the saints. May they be for you an example, an incentive and a joy towards eternal life.

“Thank you for having responded to my call.”

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tant district attorney in Plymouth County. In 1972, he began a private practice.

He has resided on Cape Cod since 1979 and now maintains a law office in Yarmouth Port. He handles civil and criminal litigation and is also town counsel for several towns on Cape Cod.

Judge Antone S. Aguiar Jr.

Gilmore and his wife Gael reside in Centerville and are parishioners of Our Lady of Victory in that village. They are the parents of six children.

Fermino retired in August of this year from the New Bedford District Court after nearly 40 years of service. At the time of her retirement she was Operations Supervisor.

Born and raised in Falmouth, she worked briefly there and for the City of New Bedford before beginning her employment in the court system.

She is a member of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in New Bedford and the mother of three children.

Father Cregan, who earned his law degree from the Brooklyn School Law School in 1990, has been president of Stonehill College for 10 years and in that time has worked to build on the school’s ties to the community by reaching to its members with renewed effort.

Combining his academic and justice spheres, he regularly teaches courses on constitutional and immigration law.

Before coming to Stonehill, Cregan, while pastor of a large inner-city parish in the Bronx, N.Y., maintained a general law office focusing on serving lowincome clients. He also was a leader in the New York Archdiocese community development efforts, which produced more than $100 million in affordable subsidized housing.

A graduate of Stonehill College, he joined the Congregation of the Holy Cross in 1975 and was ordained a priest in 1983.

All are welcome at the Red Mass. To obtain a ticket for the reception to follow, please contact Atty. Harrington at 508994-5900.

October 29, 2010

Pro-Life leader and surgeon, dies at 84

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Dr. Mildred Jefferson, a leader in the Pro-Life movement for decades who was also the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, died October 15 at her home in Cambridge. She was 84.

Among the groups praising Jefferson’s Pro-Life work over the years was the Massachusetts Catholic Conference.

Gerald D’Avolio, executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, said Jefferson’s role in the Pro-Life movement “demonstrated the movement’s breadth and depth — she was a pioneer in breaking barriers in the medical field and she was a dedicated physician who defended the dignity of the human person with intelligence and verve.”

“Her respect for the Catholic Church and her willingness to provide compelling legislative testimony over the years in alliance with the Massachusetts Catholic Conference will always be remembered and appreciated,” he added.

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks Nov. 1 Rev. William H. McNamara, Retired Pastor, St. Mary, Mansfield, 1924 Rev. Louis N. Blanchet, Assistant, St. Jean Baptiste, Fall River, 1927 Rt. Rev. Msgr. John F. Ferraz, Pastor, St. Michael, Fall River, 1944 Rt. Rev. Msgr. George F. Cain, Pastor, St. Mathieu, Fall River, 1953 Rev. William E. Farland, Pastor, St. Joseph, Taunton, 1987 Rev. William F. Gartland, C.S.C. Stonehill College, North Easton, 1988 Rev. John F. Sullivan, SS.CC., Retired Pastor, Holy Trinity, West Harwich, 1994 Rev. Manuel T. Faria, Retired, Catholic Memorial Home, 1999 Nov. 2 A memento for the repose of the souls of our bishops, priests and permanent deacons not on this list Rev. Joseph S. Fortin, Founder, St. Jean Baptiste, Fall River, 1923 Rev. Michael V. McDonough, Chaplain, St. Mary’s Home, New Bedford, 1933 Nov. 3 Rev. Jose M. Bettencourt e Avila, Retired Pastor, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, New Bedford, 1988 Nov. 4 Permanent Deacon James M. O’Gara, 1990 Nov. 5 Rev. Daniel A. Gamache, Retired Pastor, St. Joseph, New Bedford, 1998 Nov. 6 Rev. Patrick S. McGee, Founder, St. Mary, Hebronville, 1933 Rev. Joseph Oliveira, Retired Pastor, Our Lady of Lourdes, Taunton, 1999 Nov. 7 Rev. J. Edmond Tremblay, Retired Chaplain, Sacred Heart Home, New Bedford, 1985

19

The Anchor 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.

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

FALL RIVER — St. Anthony of the Desert Church, 300 North Eastern Avenue, has eucharistic adoration Mondays and Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and on the first Sunday of the month from noon to 4 p.m.

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

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

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.

Around the Diocese 10/29

The Sisters of Reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus will be giving a presentation on Divine Mercy tonight at 6:30 p.m. at St. Anthony of Padua Church in New Bedford. There will be a one-hour talk followed by prayer and the opportunity to venerate a first-class relic of St. Faustina. All are welcome.

10/30

Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville will host Dennis Fisher of Catholic Relief Services tomorrow at 7 p.m. in the parish center, rooms one and two. Fisher will provide an update on Haiti, the Sudan work, and talk about fair trade and economic justice. All are welcome.

An All Souls Day Walk of Remembrance will take place at the Rosary Walk on the grounds of the Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street, Easton beginning at 11:15 a.m. November 2. All are welcome to join in this prayer as they remember those who preceded us in life. A Mass for the intention of departed loved ones will follow at noon in St. Joseph Chapel. For more information call 508-238-4095.

11/2

11/5

Marian Manor, 33 Summer Street, Taunton will host its annual “Snowflake Bazaar” on November 5 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and on November 6 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. featuring Chinese auctions, roll-up table, hand-made crafts, baked goods, a “new gifts” table and photos with Santa.

11/5

The public is invited to an evening of contemporary Christian songs of comfort, healing and hope with singer-songwriter Anne DiSanto on November 5 at the Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street, Easton beginning at 7 p.m. Refreshments will be provided and a free-will offering will be accepted. For more information call 508-238-4095.

11/5

The Fall River Area Men’s First Friday Club will meet November 5, 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, there will be a hot-meal in the church hall. Kathy Splinter will be the guest speaker. Splinter is a former Army nurse, and is active helping the homeless.

Any gentleman wishing to attend may do so. Call 508-672-8174 with any questions.

11/6

A Day with Mary will take place November 6 from 8 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. at Holy Cross Church, 225 Purchase Street, South Easton. 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. There will be a bookstore available during breaks. For more information call 508-984-1823.

11/6

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.

St. Mary’s Parish, 106 Illinois Street, New Bedford is hosting a Holiday Fair on November 6 from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and again on November 7 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. featuring a full kitchen, crafts, bake table, white elephant table, Chinese auction, and much more. For more information call 508-942-5031.

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.

St. Mary’s Parish, Fairhaven, will be serving its famous Fall Parish Breakfast November 7 from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The buffet-style breakfast will include pancakes, scrambled eggs, baked ham, sausages, homemade potatoes, fruit, juice and coffee. Tickets are on sale before weekend Masses through tomorrow. For more information call 508-993-9113.

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.

11/7 11/12

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

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

11/7

Our Lady of Fatima Parish, 4256 Acushnet Avenue, New Bedford, will host its Harvest Fair November 7 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. For more information call 508-995-7351.

Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish, Coyle Drive, Seekonk will host its annual Holiday Bazaar on November 12 and 13 from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. both days. The event will feature blade meat sandwiches, hamburgers and hot dogs, clam chowder, French meat pie dinner along with raffles, hand-made crafts a silent auction and much more.

11/13

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.

The Women’s Guild of Corpus Christi Parish, East Sandwich will hold its annual Christmas Fair on November 13 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the parish center, 324 Quaker Meetinghouse Road, East Sandwich featuring home-made crafts, gift baskets, white elephants items and attic treasures, a delicious homemade luncheon, and baked goods table.

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.

11/13

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.

A Day of Music and Reflection with Gregory Norbet sharing his gift of prayer and meditative song will be held at the La Salette Retreat Center, 947 Park Street, Attleboro on November 13 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For reservations or more information call 508-222-8530.

11/20

Crafters are wanted for the annual Holiday Craft Fair at St. Margaret Regional School, Main Street, Buzzards Bay on November 20 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information email capeflorence1@verizon.net or call 508-566-2632.

20

The Anchor

October 29, 2010

Pilgrim Queen of the Family inspires family prayer continued from page one

some time for prayer.”

This growing devotion to the rosary and Our Lady all began with a simple suggestion on the part of Father Kermit Syren, who had dinner one night at Seybert’s home.

“Father Syren brought the shrine with him and left it with us,” Seybert said. “We said the rosary together that night and he suggested I get 10 families together to start a group. Each family has the shrine for three days and then they transfer it to the next family, so once a month each family hosts Our Lady for three days.”

The shrine is a simple wooden triptych with the iconic image of Our Lady of Guadalupe as its centerpiece, flanked by a rosary and the four sets of mysteries on one side and a pledge to dutifully pray the rosary each month on the other.

“The shrine is very unassuming — that’s kind of Our Lady’s way,” Seybert said. “It also comes with a rosary and a little prayer book that helps with teaching the kids.”

Devotion to the Pilgrim Queen of the Family was sanctioned and blessed by Pope John Paul II shortly before his death in 2004. It entails forming a group of 10 families that each commit to hosting Our Lady’s shrine for three days during the month and to pray the rosary faithfully each of those three nights.

“Each family picks three days on the calendar — ours is the eighth, ninth and 10th of the month — so you know for those three days the shrine will be at your house,” Seybert said. “Then it makes a pilgrimage to the next house. Each shrine group makes up a monthly schedule.”

“When you welcome Our Lady into your home, you are also agreeing to pray for your parish priest, for your diocesan bishop, for other families and to honor life,” added Kathy Davis, who belongs to one of four Pilgrim Queen of the Family groups now active at St. Joseph’s Parish in Attleboro. “Those are some of the intentions that are included with the shrine.”

Davis said a friend of hers was

involved with one of the Pilgrim Queen groups that started at St. John’s Parish after Seybert’s initial meeting with Father Syren and the devotion quickly spread in her own parish to the point where four groups of 10 families were assembled in less than a year.

“Our Lady is very active in reaching out to her children,” Davis said. “It really brings family together, too, because they pick a quiet moment out of their busy schedule to sit together in prayer. She brings a sense of peace and comfort with her and that really strengthens the family relationship.”

The Pilgrim Queen of the Family recently made international news when several of the wooden shrines were given to family members of the 33 Chilean miners trapped almost a half-mile underground in the San José copper-gold mines.

here in our parish, too. We’ve been able to organize a men’s group, a women’s group, and all the Attleboro youth groups are starting to link together, and I think it’s because of the intercession of Mary through these shrine groups.”

“Some of the cool things have been when we’ve had friends over to pray with us, or when we brought her to Cape Cod on vacation once,” Castro agreed. “It’s been nice to expose others to Our Lady a little bit.”

“That’s part of the joy with this type of ministry — getting other families or friends to join you,” Davis said. “Having others join you really strengthens your will to do it. It’s also good to know we’re not the only ones praying the rosary.”

On October 15 all of the Attleboro-based Pilgrim Queen families

FAMILY FAITH — Host families from St. John the Evangelist Parish in Attleboro pray the rosary to the Pilgrim Queen of the Family shrine during a recent summer gathering. (Photo courtesy of Shawn Seybert)

Seybert said he was surprised with how easy it was to get 10 families to commit to the monthly devotion, and they’ve now spawned two groups at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Attleboro, four groups at St. Joseph’s Parish in Attleboro, one group at St. Mark’s Parish in Attleboro Falls, with several others in nearby Rhode Island.

“It’s not a huge obligation to say the rosary for half-an-hour three nights a week during the month,” he said, “and it bore a lot of fruit

came together for a social gathering and Mass at La Salette Shrine celebrated by Father Kermit Syren.

“I think we had about 80 people there,” Seybert said.

“It was a great opportunity to not only celebrate Mass but also to enjoy each others’ company,” Davis agreed.

Everyone involved with the Pilgrim Queen of the Family ministry has found it to be not only beneficial to their own families, but also in bringing a greater awareness to the power of praying the rosary.

“I certainly think devotion to the rosary has been growing through this program,” Castro said. “Since this started, we now know there are at least 80 families in the Attleboro area praying the rosary on a regular basis — where there weren’t any three-and-a-half years ago.”

“It’s helped us to focus on prayer when life would otherwise just pass us by,” Seybert agreed.

“Even if it’s only a couple days a month, it’s more than we would do otherwise.”

For more information about the Pilgrim Queen of the Family shrine and devotion, visit www. pilgrimqueen.org/home.phtml.