Anchor 09.24.10

Diocese of Fall River

The Anchor

F riday , September 24, 2010

Sacred music to echo within sacred space

Walking the walk to aid moms and tots

Beethoven’s ‘Missa Solemnis’ to debut at St. Anthony’s

Diocesan youth encouraged to trek to Boston to support life B y Dave Jolivet, Editor

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

FALL RIVER — There can be no argument that Pro-Lifers don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk. Whether it be in prayer near abortion clinics, in a huge show of solidarity on the streets of our nation’s capital, or at the annual Mass.

Citizens for Life Respect Life Walk to aid Mothers and Children in Boston.

Each year thousands take to

NEW BEDFORD — Although Dr. David MacKenzie, the maestro and musical director behind the acclaimed New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, has performed several classical masterpieces within the hallowed confines of the majestic St. Anthony of Padua Church in New Bedford in recent years, there’s something special and even a little bit daunting about mounting GUIDING LIGHT — The image of Our Lady of Good Voyage was carried last Sunday from Our Lady’s Chapel in downtown New Bedford to the State Pier on the waterfront as part of an annual feast to pray for the protection of local fishermen. The tradition was started 15 years ago by members of the area Portuguese community, many of whom work in the fishing industry.

Story on page 10. (Photo by Kenneth J. Souza)

Cape Cod abortionist pleads guilty to manslaughter

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent

St. Anthony’s Church, New Bedford

a full-scale production of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis in D Major,” one of the composer’s most revered but seldom-performed works.

“It’s a work I’ve wanted to perform literally for 30 years,” MacKenzie said. “I’ve never performed it before and this will be the first performance for almost every singer and musician as well.”

“For me it’s a very interesting thing to see a genius like Dr. MacKenzie get so excited and a little bit nervous about performing a work. I Turn to page 18

HYANNIS — Three years to the day after Laura Hope Smith died during an abortion, the physician who performed the procedure pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

On September 13, Rapin Osathanondh, 67, of Wellesley, was sentenced to six months in jail, followed by nine months of home confinement and three years of probation after that. He was incarcerated the following day at Dukes County Jail and House of Correction in Edgartown and will likely serve three months.

A statement from the Cape & Islands District Attorney’s Office said the abortionist “admitted to being reckless and negligent in his practice at the Women’s Health Center, Camp Street Hyannis by not monitoring or possessing sufficient lifesaving training or equipment that resulted in the death of Ms. Smith.”

First Assistant District Attorney Brian S. Glenny, who prosecuted the case, told The Anchor that Laura’s death could have been prevented with proper monitoring while she was under anesthesia.

“In this case, we felt that the actions that were conducted here rose

Laura Hope Smith

to the level of a criminal involuntary manslaughter charge,” he said.

On the same day the criminal proceedings concluded, Laura’s parents accepted a settlement of $2 million in their civil case against Osathanondh.

Her mother, Eileen Smith told The Anchor, “I said I would accept no settlement that did not require the doctor going to jail. I’m not

concerned about the money. I’m concerned about justice.”

“Laura was a beautiful girl. She was a gift to our lives, and nothing can compensate me for her death.

I’ll never get over it. With God’s grace, we’ll continue and I know I’ll see good things come out of it.

But it’s a senseless tragedy. This did not ever have to happen. It’s a grief I’ll carry in my heart forever,” she said. “I feel like I am free to grieve my daughter. I really have felt that I have been fighting the fight for three years.”

Eileen said she was “thrilled” that the doctor pled guilty to a felony charge and will serve jail time.

She was also glad that there was no need to go through a trial that would have taken weeks.

Laura, 22, of Sandwich, was reportedly 13 weeks pregnant when she entered the Hyannis abortion clinic on Sept. 13, 2007. She died of cardiac arrest while under the anesthetic Propofol. She was not monitored and the clinic did not even have monitoring equipment.

Neither Osathanondh nor his staff member, who had no medical training, noticed Laura had died until after the abortion was completed.

The medical board suspended Osathanondh’s license in February 2008, and the only abortion clinic Turn to page 19

the streets of Beantown to bear witness to the sanctity of life, and to raise the hopes of mothers and children with an unmistakable show of support by raising thousands of dollars to benefit scores of Pro-Life organizations. And another constant with the Pro-Life movement, it’s always well represented by participants from the Diocese of Fall River. In fact, diocesan faithful are often near the top in march attendance.

“The Fall River Diocese is always a blessing to the Walk to Aid Mothers and Children,” said diocesan Pro-Life Apostolate director, Marian Desrosiers. “There is always a tremendous show of support from the people here.”

The 2010 Respect Life Walk is October 3, Respect Life Sunday, rain or shine, beginning and ending in the Boston Common, near the Parkman Bandstand at the corner of Tremont and Boylston streets. RegistraTurn to page 18

The Pope’s Great Britain Visit

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September 24, 2010

In major speech, pope lays out vision of religion’s role in public life LONDON (CNS) — In a major address to British cultural and political leaders, Pope Benedict XVI warned that Christianity risks being marginalized in Western societies and said the “voice of religion” must be heard in the public square.

The pope’s speech laid out his vision of how religious belief can influence the political process and preserve the ethical principles necessary for true democracy. Religion, he said, is “not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation.”

The German pontiff addressed about 2,000 leading figures in politics, business, the arts and diplomacy in Westminster Hall, a site rich in Church-state history. State trumpeters greeted the pope with a fanfare, and he was escorted into the hall by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, whose official duties include the welcoming of outside guests.

An ovation filled the hall as the pope, wearing a red cape, took the podium and delivered a speech televised across the country.

The pope recalled that Westminster Hall was where St. Thomas More, the 16th-century English scholar and statesman, was sentenced to death for opposing King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church. He said the saint’s trial underscored a perennial question about how much governments can impose upon citizens and their religious beliefs.

Modern democracies, he said, face a particular challenge: making sure that fundamental moral

principles are not determined by mere social consensus.

The pope said the Church teaches that the ethical foundations for political choices can be found through reason; the Church does not dictate these norms as religious truths, but it does promote them in a “corrective” role, he said.

This contribution of religion is not always accepted, he said, in part because “distortions of religion” like fundamentalism are seen as creating serious social problems. But he said reason, too, can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology.

In short, he said, the world of reason and faith need each other, and their relationship is a “twoway process.”

Pope Benedict then turned to the present and warned about what he called “the increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity,” which he said is occurring even in countries that have a reputation for tolerance.

He said there are some who argue, for example, that Christmas should not be publicly celebrated because it might somehow offend those of other religions or of no religion. He also complained of a failure to appreciate freedom of conscience and the legitimate role of religion in public debate.

Some, he said, openly advocate that “the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere.” On the contrary, religion and politics need to be in dialogue, he said, and one step in that direction was the “unprecedented invitation extended to me today.”

In his speech, the pope was returning to a favorite theme, one he has written and spoken about for years. At Westminster, to better drive his points home, he connected these arguments with some real-life situations — including a pointed reference to the U.S. banking bailout over the past two years.

The pope said it was clear that global poverty requires fresh thinking and firm financial commitments by richer countries in order to improve living conditions in areas such as family support, jobs, clean water, education and health care.

“Where human lives are concerned, time is always short: Yet the world has witnessed the vast resources that governments can draw upon to rescue financial institutions deemed ‘too big to fail.’

Surely the integral development of the world’s peoples is no less important: Here is an enterprise, worthy of the world’s attention, that is truly ‘too big to fail,’” he said.

The pope said the global economic crisis, which has severely impacted millions of people, reveals the inadequacy of pragmatic, short-term solutions to problems caused in part by “the lack of a solid ethical foundation for economic activity.”

The pope also offered an example of where ethical and moral influences have brought about a notable achievement: the abolition of the slave trade by the British Parliament in 1807.

In Westminster Hall, which is part of the Parliament complex, the pope said that “the angels looking down on us from the magnificent ceiling” were a reminder of the traditional religious element in British democracy.

“They remind us that God is constantly watching over us to guide and protect us. And they summon us to acknowledge the vital contribution that religious belief has made and can continue to make to the life of the nation,” he said.

Among those welcoming the pope was House of Commons Speaker John Bercow, who spoke of a “healthy tension” in the relationship between Church and state in Great Britain, including robust debate on social, scientific and sexual issues.

Bercow endorsed one of the pope’s main points when he said: “Faith is not a relic, either in political discourse or in modern society, but is embedded in its fabric.”

Before leaving, the pope briefly greeted a number of dignitaries, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who became a Catholic after leaving office three years ago.

bearing one’s sole — A pilgrim wears decorated Wellington boots as Pope Benedict XVI leads Mass and the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman at Cofton Park in Birmingham, England, September 19. Some papal well-wishers decorated their Wellies with “I love the pope” messages. (CNS photo/Darren Staples, Reuters)

Pope says golden years can be spiritually fruitful LONDON (CNS) — Although he walks quickly and appears to have no serious medical problems, the 83-year-old Pope Benedict XVI said he knows what it’s like to get old and experience increasing physical frailty.

Greeting a small gathering of his peers and elders in London, the pope said, “Our long years of life afford us the opportunity to appreciate both the beauty of God’s greatest gift to us — the gift of life — as well as the fragility of the human spirit.”

In the midst of a four-day visit filled with the pomp of papal liturgies and the formality of meeting royalty and government officials, Pope Benedict visited St. Peter’s Residence, a home for the aged run by the Little Sisters of the Poor.

“Those of us who live many years are given a marvelous chance to deepen our awareness of the mystery of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity,” the pope told the 76 residents, who include nine priests and members of religious orders.

“As the normal span of our lives increases, our physical capacities are often diminished; and yet these times may well be among the most spiritually fruitful years of our

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lives,” the pope said.

Patricia Fasky, who lives at St. Peter’s, welcomed the pope to the residence’s small theater and told him, “we all love you and we pray for you.”

The tiny stage was decked with yellow and white flowers; in front of it stood a mosaic of St. Peter, which the pope gave to the home, and a gold chasuble, which the residents and nuns gave the pope.

While the sisters and staff members energetically reached out to shake or kiss the pope’s hand, it was the pope who approached many of the elderly, grasping their hands with both of his.

Pope Benedict also used his visit to St. Peter’s as an opportunity to reaffirm Church teaching about the value of human life at every stage of its development and to urge people to love and respect the elderly.

As human longevity increases in many countries, he said, people must learn to see the growing number of elderly as a blessing for society.

“Every generation can learn from the experience and wisdom of the generation that preceded it,” he said, adding that care for older citizens is not a burden, but the repayment of a debt of gratitude.

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September 24, 2010

The Pope’s Great Britain Visit

Pope beatifies Cardinal Newman, calls him a model BIRMINGHAM, England (CNS) — In the central liturgical moment of his four-day trip to Great Britain, Pope Benedict XVI beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman and said his vision of religion’s vital role in society should serve as a model today.

Celebrating Mass in Birmingham September 19 for more than 50,000 people, the pope read aloud the decree proclaiming Cardinal Newman “blessed,” a major step on the way toward official recognition of sainthood.

A giant portrait of Blessed Newman hung behind the altar, and smaller likenesses were carried to the Mass by many of the faithful who filled Cofton Park in a suburb of the city.

Pope Benedict and the main concelebrants of the Mass processed to the altar while the choir and crowd sang “Praise to the Holiest in the Height,” a hymn with lyrics written

by Cardinal Newman. The lyrics to the offertory song, “Firmly I Believe and Truly,” also were written by the cardinal.

Blessed Newman, a 19th-century theologian and a prolific writer on spiritual topics, left the Anglican Church and embraced Catholicism at the age of 44. The pope announced that his feast day would be October 9, the day of his entry into the Catholic Church, but he did not mention his conversion or his relationship with the Anglicanism.

But welcoming Pope Benedict, Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham offered a prayer of thanks for the Anglicans who nurtured Cardinal Newman’s faith and for Blessed Domenico Barberi, a Passionist priest who welcomed him into the Catholic Church in 1845.

In his homily, the pope drew a portrait of Blessed Newman as a man who had profound insight into the Christian call to holiness and the importance of prayer and whose eloquent prose was able to inspire many of his time and subsequent generations.

In particular, he said, Blessed Newman examined the relationship between faith and reason and “the vital place of revealed religion in civilized society” — themes which the German pope has hammered home during his visit to Great Britain.

The pope paid special tribute to Blessed Newman’s vision of education, which combined intellectual training, moral discipline and religious commitment.

He quoted the theologian’s appeal for a well-instructed laity and said it should serve as a goal for catechists today: “I want a laity not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know

their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it.”

Beyond Blessed Newman’s intellectual legacy, the pope added, was his service to others as a priest — visiting the sick and poor, comforting the bereaved and caring for those in prison.

“No wonder that on his death so many thousand people lined the local streets as his body was taken to its place of burial not half a mile from here,” he said.

Deacon Jack Sullivan of Marshfield, Mass., whose healing from a crippling spinal condition in August 2001 was the miracle that allowed for Cardinal Newman’s beatification, read the Gospel at the Mass.

Earlier in the liturgy, after the pope read the decree of beatification, Deacon Sullivan and his wife, Carol, carried a relic of Blessed Newman to Pope Benedict.

The pope began his homily by noting that the day marked the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, a key chapter of British resistance to Nazi air attacks during World War II. He recalled that in late 1940 the nearby city of Coventry had suffered heavy bombing, with massive loss of life.

“For me as one who lived and suffered through the dark days of the Nazi regime in Germany, it is deeply moving to be here with you on this occasion and to recall how many of your fellow citizens sacrificed their lives, courageously resisting the forces of that evil ideology,” he said.

He said he joined in recalling the “shame and horror” of the death and destruction caused by the war and called for a commitment to work for peace and reconciliation wherever the threat of conflict looms.

Pilgrims were required to arrive at the Mass site hours before the pope, so they waited in a drizzle huddled in the dark with hands wrapped around steaming thermos cups of tea.

The bishops’ official papal visit Twitter feed said: “A true English beatification: cold, wet, rainy.”

Ian Johnston, 50, who came to Birmingham with an Irish group from the Neocatechumenal Way, said, “It was wonderful to see the sun come out as soon as the pope arrived.”

After the Mass, Pope Benedict visited the Birmingham Oratory of St. Philip Neri, a religious community established by Cardinal Newman and the place he lived until his death in 1890. The pope visited the recently remodeled oratory chapel and the rooms of Cardinal Newman, which are now a museum.

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The Church in the U.S.

September 24, 2010

Documentary on Archbishop Sheen to get New York screening WASHINGTON (CNS) — His television heyday was more than a half-century ago, but Archbishop Fulton Sheen continues to impress Catholics and serve as a source of admiration and inspiration.

One way it will be demonstrated is with the screening of a new biography, “Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: Servant of All,” October 4 in New York at St. Malachy’s Church, the “actor’s chapel” in Manhattan’s theater district.

The documentary’s title is a play on words about Archbishop Sheen’s status on his path to sainthood — he was given the title “servant of God” by the Vatican after his canonization cause was officially opened by the Diocese of Peoria, Ill., the late archbishop’s home diocese, which is headed by Bishop Daniel R. Jenky.

The October screening is being promoted by Vivian Sherwood, who served as press agent to Archbishop Sheen’s TV ratings rival, Milton Berle.

In the early 1950s, Berle ruled the roost on Tuesday nights. It got so that not even cinema and store promotions and giveaways could draw people away from the TVs on Tuesdays, when Berle’s show was the recognized ratings king.

The old Dumont network, looking for something to counter Berle, offered Archbishop Sheen the time slot opposite him. There weren’t any fancy theatrics — just a blackboard to help the prelate illustrate a point — but from 1953 to 1955, when the two were head-to-head in the ratings, Archbishop Sheen (then a New York auxiliary bishop) had the first show to put a dent in the size of Berle’s audience.

The bishop grabbed headlines when he said on one installment of his show, “Life Is Worth Living,” that “even (Josef) Stalin must meet his judgment.” The Soviet strongman died two days later.

In a recent telephone interview from New York, Sherwood, now 83, told CNS that when the archbishop won an Emmy Award for “Life Is Worth Living,” “I was the one who told Berle,” who good-naturedly groused, “Sure, look at his writers!”

When accepting his Emmy later that year, Archbishop Sheen said, “I want to thank my writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”

Sherwood later became a Catholic and has been a big a fan of Archbishop Sheen as she once was of Berle.

St. Malachy’s pastor, Father Richard Baker, never knew Archbishop Sheen, but said his telege-

nic presence reverberates today.

“Go to TV and you watch all the preachers and their shouting and ranting,” Father Baker told CNS. “With Archbishop Sheen there’s no yelling. There’s just the truth in an accessible and presentable way.”

“If you really want people to know who God is, it’s not something that they have to figure out how to understand it,” he added.

“He’s becoming as popular today as he was years ago.”

Father Baker may be on to something. An official Facebook page for Archbishop Sheen has recorded at least 3,223 people who said they “like” the site. An unofficial page for the archbishop, created before the official version and which directs people to it, has 6,373 people who “like” it.

Guests at the St. Malachy screening are to include Msgr.

John Kozar, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States; the late archbishop was national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, 1950-66. Others expected to attend are Msgr.

Hilary Franco, who was Archbishop Sheen’s secretary for five years; Joan Sheen Cunningham, the archbishop’s niece; and officials of the Archbishop Sheen Foundation.

The documentary had its broadcast debut on Easter on public television station WTTW in Chicago. It also has aired in Peoria and Washington and is being marketed nationally through public screenings at the parish and regional levels.

Msgr. Stanley Deptula, executive director of the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation, served as the film’s executive producer. Filming was done in Peoria, Milwaukee, New York and Houston.

The reflections of friends, family members and admirers of Archbishop Sheen interviewed for the documentary are woven among numerous clips from the archbishop’s television work and preaching, as well as dozens of historic photos. Among those interviewed were Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, Sheen biographer Thomas Reeves and television veteran Regis Philbin.

A general release to the public of the “Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: Servant of All” DVD is scheduled for early 2011. Currently it is available only for group showings.

More information about the documentary on Archbishop Sheen and his sainthood cause is available at www.sheenfilm.org.

pennsylvania heroes — Barbara Andrea of Brooklyn, N.Y., ties a ribbon onto a fence at the Flight 93 Temporary Memorial outside Shanksville, Pa. She placed ribbons in honor of John Talignani, who was among the passengers who died when the plane they were on crashed nearby after their struggle with terrorists who hijacked the flight on Sept. 11, 2001. (CNS photo/Jason Cohn, Reuters)

U.S. is 5th, Canada 4th in giving; religious motivations, charities cited

By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service WASHINGTON — The United States tied with Switzerland for fifth overall in a new index of giving formulated by CAFAmerica, the U.S. arm of a British-based charity clearinghouse known as the Charities Aid Foundation.

Australia and New Zealand tied for first, with Ireland coming in third.

Of the 153 nations studied in the World Giving Index, which takes in 95 percent of the world’s population, Sri Lanka placed the highest among Asian countries; Sierra Leone ranked highest among all African countries; and Guyana finished best of South American nations.

Three gauges were used to determine a country’s ranking: one’s willingness to give to a charitable organization, the willingness to volunteer, and whether one had helped a stranger in the previous month.

CAFAmerica CEO Susan Saxon-Harrold, during a recent conference call with reporters, noted Americans’ willingness to give to religious-oriented organizations.

“We know from these detailed studies that Independent Sector (a U.S. umbrella agency for charities) has done in the past,’’ Saxon-Harrold said, “the biggest field of interest that U.S. households support is within the religion category,” with 48 percent of U.S. households’ charitable contributions directed to religious organizations, compared to 27 percent to health-oriented

charities and 25 percent to social service organizations.

“There is obviously a strong motivation for religious and faith-based charitable giving,” she added, “principally due to the considerable number of Americans who have a strong faith — and I think that’s reflected in their charitable giving.”

Richard Harrison, the Charities Aid Foundation’s research director, said the statistics are even stronger in England, with giving to religious-based charities topping all other giving by a 4-to-1 margin.

The index was compiled using data from an ongoing international Gallup survey.

Saxon-Harrold noted that many of the countries at the bottom of the index are recipients of American charity. At the bottom was Madagascar, followed in order by Burundi, Ukraine, Serbia, Greece, Lithuania, China, Bangladesh, Rwanda and Pakistan.

Other nations in the top 10 were Canada, fourth; the Netherlands, seventh; the United Kingdom, eighth, and Austria, 10th.

The index also revealed that the older a person is, the more likely he or she was to give to charity.

Saxon-Harrold said, “The age at which one volunteers is a strong indicator of future giving. If children are exposed to caring and sharing at an early age,” they will be more likely themselves to give as they get older.” Harrison said differences between men and women when giving were “negligible.”

“Giving is a very personal decision, and being asked to give is a very important trigger to volunteering and giving,” Saxon-Harrold said. “There is a very strong correlation.”

Harrison noted that the index only took into account formal giving to registered charities.

Other contributions of time and money might not have made it into the survey.

Boyd, president of CAFAmerica, noted how some countries’ policies actually frown on charitable giving, citing China and Russia in particular. On the other hand, she said, the tax code in many nations, including Australia, New Zealand and the United States, foster charitable contributions.

Boyd said Americans “do a lot” and no one should take a critical view of the fifth place for the United States, but she added the United States “can always do more,” such as taking a national role in giving.

“I don’t remember any such event since ‘Give Five’ in the 1980s,” she said, referring to a widely advertised campaign encouraging Americans to give five percent of their income to charity and volunteer five hours a week.

While Saxon-Harrold said those with more income are more likely to give, what’s needed is the creation of a culture to “make it a lifelong habit — not just giving at home, but across borders.”

She added that charities should tap into social media to foster more giving.

September 24, 2010

The Church in the U.S. and to visit places where the cardinal lived.

The trip was coordinated by Sister Charlotte Rohrbach, a member of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, the order that sponsors the university. Those in the delegation include administrators, alumni and school trustees.

The nun, who is the university’s director of mission and archives and professor emeritus of history, said students will be invited to watch a videotape of the beatification on campus. Those making the trip also will be do-

a lot to give — Pictured is a statue of Cardinal John Henry Newman on the campus of Newman University in Wichita, Kan. College campus ministry leaders hope the recent beatification of Cardinal Newman will make the British scholar, philosopher and writer more familiar to today’s college students. (CNS photo/courtesy Newman University)

5 ing some videotaping and sending up-to-date messages through the online social networking tool Twitter.

Sister Charlotte said the university’s students understand the significance of this event because they are familiar with how the cardinal viewed the role of a university. According to a recent survey the Kansas school conducted about its mission, most students knew that it was “something about empowering students to transform society” — one of Cardinal Newman’s major points.

SE RE ATIN GI G ST LIM ER IT NO ED W! !

Cardinal Newman’s beatification could be teaching moment for colleges WASHINGTON (CNS) — College campus ministry leaders hope last Sunday’s beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman will make the British scholar, philosopher and writer more familiar to today’s college students.

Cardinal Newman, who died in 1890, always held universities close to his heart. He spent much of his life at Oxford University as both a student and a fellow. As an Anglican priest, he was the vicar at a university church and after his conversion to Catholicism, he founded the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Birmingham and a Catholic university in Dublin.

Many of his ideas on higher education are in his book “The Idea of a University” based on lectures he gave in the 1850s.

The cardinal is often associated with campus ministry because of his emphasis on students developing and integrating their faith and intellect. He also advocated that Catholic students who attend public universities be given a place to gather to support and encourage one another in their faith.

In 1893, three years after Cardinal Newman’s death, the University of Pennsylvania formed the first campus Newman Club as a tribute to his ideas.

Today, Newman centers — where Catholic college students meet for liturgies, prayer, service work, discussion groups, social events and often food — are located on the campuses of many public university campuses. In recent years, several Catholic student groups no longer call themselves Newman Centers but instead go by Catholic associations, Catholic student organizations or campus Catholic

communities, possibly because students lack knowledge about Cardinal Newman.

Father Eric Nielsen, director of St. Paul’s University Catholic Center at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said Cardinal Newman has had more of an influence on those who lead campus ministry today than on the students themselves. In part, that’s simply because “it’s a rare student who would pick up ‘Grammar of Assent’ (one of the cardinal’s books) and get excited about Cardinal Newman,” he said.

The priest hopes sainthood is not far off for the cardinal as that would raise his profile even more and likely promote his writings to college students. But in the meantime, he told Catholic News Service, campus ministry leaders continue to take up the cardinal’s challenge to help students integrate faith and intellectual study and ultimately “bring Christ to the world.”

Katherine Tillman, professor emeritus for the liberal studies program at the University of Notre Dame and co-editor of Newman Studies Journal, said college students don’t necessarily have to know about Cardinal Newman but they should know his ideas about higher education which emphasized knowledge of “all the disciplines in a wellrounded way.”

This well-rounded intellect, in Cardinal Newman’s view, was meant to be formed by faith and also to influence one’s faith.

Tillman noted that this can be a difficult balance for today’s students who may be oriented to social justice work without theological understanding or emphasize theological study without

reaching out to those in need.

Barbara McCrabb, assistant director for higher education at the Secretariat of Catholic Education of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, described Cardinal Newman’s beatification as a great opportunity for Catholic colleges and Catholic campus ministry programs to gain a deeper understanding of Cardinal Newman. This summer she surveyed campus ministry programs around the country and found that many of them were linking campus programs to the beatification with special lectures, liturgies, courses and events.

Msgr. Gregory Ketcham, director of St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, said the campus center plans to mark the beatification with a noncredit course on the life and teachings of Cardinal Newman, a campus presentation and by the singing of hymns composed by the cardinal at the weekend Masses.

He said the statue of Cardinal Newman also was moved into the chapel sanctuary for private prayer and devotion. The St. John’s Catholic Newman Center is one of the largest in the country and is one of the few to also include student housing. The priest said Cardinal Newman’s message — particularly about active laity — is important for today’s Catholic college students as they help each other in their faith and “progress outward to the larger society in evangelization.”

Newman University in Wichita, Kan., the only U.S. university named after Cardinal Newman, plans to mark the beatification by sending a delegation to the event

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The Anchor

The crucial and legitimate role of religion in the public square At the end of Pope Benedict’s highly successful four-day apostolic journey and state visit to Great Britain, British Prime Minister David Cameron, on behalf of all British citizens, publicly thanked him — not in an inauthentic ceremonial fashion, but in a concrete and personal way — declaring, “You have really challenged the whole country to sit up and think, and that can only be a good thing.”

Before the papal visit, most of the talking heads in the British media were predicting that the trip would not only be a dud, but an embarrassment. Some prominent atheists were ludicrously crying for him to be arrested for crimes against humanity as a result of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. Protests were being planned. Many were saying that the vast majority of British citizens, of whom only about eight percent are Roman Catholic, would just ignore the trip. Instead, the magnetism of Benedict’s meekness and the depth and clarity of his powerful discourses not only drew huge crowds to the streets and to events many orders of magnitude larger than the well-publicized protests. Benedict startled most Brits out of their spiritual lethargy, got them to sit up, pay attention, and think. He gently but courageously got them to think about the meaning of their life, challenging the roots of many of the culture’s deepest secularist assumptions, as we’ll discuss next week. He also got them to reflect anew on the role of religion in society and to challenge them not to take for granted the necessity of a firm ethical foundation of moral absolutes based on the natural law if they wished their culture to have a glorious future to make their storied past.

His thoughts on the importance of religious belief in society and the necessary ethical underpinnings of society should also get us on the other side of the Atlantic to sit up and think as well.

Benedict’s positive, appealing challenge to the secularist assumptions of a nation many prefer to call “post-Christian” began in his speech to Queen Elizabeth at Holyroodhouse, her official residence in Scotland. “The name of Holyroodhouse,” he said, “recalls the ‘Holy Cross’ and points to the deep Christian roots that are still present in every layer of British life.” He mentioned the monarchs of England and Scotland who have been great saints, how some of the most consequential British figures of recent times — like William Wilberforce, Florence Nightingale, and John Henry Newman — were “inspired by a deep faith born and nurtured in these islands” and how the British nation as a whole boldly “stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews.” He said that as the United Kingdom strives to be a “modern and multicultural society,” it should not forget “the Christian foundation that underpins its freedoms,” but rather should “maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate.”

The crescendo of his analysis of the dangers posed by the “more aggressive forms of secularism” continued in his homily at the Mass celebrated in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park. He called attention to the “dictatorship of relativism” that is threatening British society by obscuring “the unchanging truth about man’s nature, his destiny and his ultimate good.” He said, “There are some who now seek to exclude religious belief from public discourse, to privatize it or even to paint it as a threat to equality and liberty.” When religious belief is excluded, he continued, society becomes nothing more than a “jungle of self-destructive and arbitrary freedoms.” He called on British Catholics in particular “not only to be examples of faith in public, but also to put the case for the promotion of faith’s wisdom and vision in the public forum.”

In summoning British Catholics to that mission, Benedict led by example in his extraordinary address in London’s historic Westminster Hall before members of Parliament, former prime ministers, diplomats, and thousands of the Britain’s leading political figures. After expressing his sincere esteem for Parliament, the common law tradition, the separation of powers, the vision of the individual’s rights and duties, and the equality of all citizens before the law, he got the Parliamentarians to sit up and think when he politely suggested that Parliament had violated those principles in sentencing St. Thomas More to death for not violating his conscience. More’s death, he said, raises “the perennial question of the relationship between what is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God” and introduces the topic of “the proper place of religious belief within the political process.” Every generation, the pope said, must ask: “What are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend?,” and, “By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved?” Benedict stated that “these questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident. Herein lies the real challenge for democracy.”

Benedict says that the recent global financial crisis, as well as the history of slavery and the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century all illustrate what happens when social policies are grounded only on the quicksand of social consensus. He asserted that to be stable and good, on the other hand, society must be built on the rock of “objective norms governing right action … accessible to reason,” what tradition has called the natural law.

The role of religion in political debate, he said, is not to supply moral norms or propose concrete solutions but “to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles.” Without the corrective supplied by religion, “reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person.” Religion, itself, must in turn be purified by reason, lest “distortions of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism,” arise. Religion and reason must cooperate for their mutual purification. Religion in other words, is “not a problem for legislators to solve,” but “a vital contributor to the national conversation.”

Benedict expressed his concern to the Parliamentarians at “increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations [like Great Britain] that place a great emphasis on tolerance. There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere. There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none. And there are those who argue — paradoxically with the intention of eliminating discrimination — that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience.” This is precisely happening in Britain, where the government has forced Church agencies either to facilitate adoptions for same-sex couples or get out of the adoption business altogether. “These are worrying signs,” Pope Benedict summarized, “of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square.”

Andrew Brown, a columnist for the leftist Guardian newspaper, called Benedict’s speech “the end of the British empire,” because it challenged at its roots not only the Protestant political assumptions — and institutional anti-papal antipathy — of the last 470 years, but also many Brits’ “stubborn attachment to the notion that all you really need is decency, rather than theology.” It was “unthinkable” to have a pope come to Westminster Hall, praise St. Thomas More, and refer to the martyr as an example of the proper incarnation between religion and public life, he said. It was just as revolutionary, he argued, to have Benedict make the case for the necessity of black-and-white objective moral norms as the ethical foundation of society in a culture that cherishes consensus, compromise, and multiple shades of gray.

It’s clear that Benedict’s words and challenge got Andrew Brown to sit up and think. He wasn’t the only one. And that, as Prime Minister Cameron said, “can only be a good thing.”

September 24, 2010

‘Were not our hearts burning within us?’

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extent from the liturgy of the synagogue. ave you ever left the holy Mass Today, too, it is above all through the on Sunday thinking to yourself, liturgy that Christians come into contact “What was the Gospel about today?” with Scripture, particularly during the What about the first reading or the ReSunday celebration of the Eucharist.” sponsorial Psalm or the New Testament When I hear this, I think immediately reading? Not remembering what the Sunof our Lord’s encounter with his disciples day readings are about can sometimes be on the road to Emmaus after the resurchalked up to a “senior moment,” but if rection. His own disciples were unable we are honest with ourselves, more often to recognize him; they were distracted than not it is probably due to the fact that by everything else that they were unable we were not properly disposed to listening to the Word of God in such a way that to see Christ standing right before them (sound familiar?). Jesus said to them, it resonated within our hearts.

“O foolish men, and slow of heart to Isn’t it such a wasted opportunity believe all that the prophets have spoken. when we are at Mass listening to the And beginning with Moses and all the Word of God proclaimed and we don’t prophets, he interpreted to them in all the even remember it? What I propose this Scriptures the things concerning himself week is a reflection upon the Word of God and how we allow it to penetrate our (Luke 24:24-27).

This is what happens at every Mass. hearts and minds and eventually change The readings, from the Old and New our lives.

Testament, culminating with the Gospel, In the sacred readings, God speaks interpreted and explained by the homily, to his people (Sacrosanctum Concilium, shed light on what God has done and 33). It is in the reading of sacred Scripwhat he is doing now. ture that God opens to us the mystery of But let’s not forget what happened redemption and salvation. Scripture is not next in that merely a hisEmmaus torical account encounter: of past events; Putting Into “When he it is God was at table continually the Deep with them, he speaking to his took the bread people through

By Father and blessed, the power of Jay Mello and broke it, his Holy Spirit. and gave it As the “Catto them. And echism” extheir eyes were opened and they recogplains, “In sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her nized him. They said to each other, ‘Did strength, for she welcomes it not as a hu- not our hearts burn within us while he man word, ‘but as what it really is — the talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24: 31-32). word of God’ (2 Th 2:13); in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes The Scripture readings naturally lead into the liturgy of the Eucharist, where lovingly to meet his children, and talks we “recognize him in the breaking of the with them” (Dei Verbum, 21). bread” (v. 35).

As we listen to the Word of God What an awesome experience they proclaimed each Sunday, we listen to encountered. “Were not our hearts burnGod speaking to us. He tells us about ing within us,” they asked. Don’t you how much he loves us, about what he wish that you can say the same thing has done for us throughout history, and every time you heard the Word of God also about what he still wants to do for proclaimed at Mass? You can. We all can. us in the present moment. Listening to Christ himself is present in our midst Scripture each Sunday we have the opportunity to come to a greater realization when his word is proclaimed.

Pope Benedict XVI emphasized this of who we are, of where we have come point well, in his apostolic exhortation on from and where we are going. Often it the Eucharist, “Indeed, the word which is easy for us to get so caught up in our we proclaim and accept is the word made own lives that we forget about our rich flesh; it is inseparably linked to Christ’s heritage of faith. person and the sacramental mode of This may be most clearly seen during his continued presence in our midst. the celebration of the Easter Vigil when Christ does not speak in the past, but in there are seven Old Testament readings, tracing the history of Israel and how God the present. In this sacramental context of Christian revelation, knowledge and prepared his people for our savior, Jesus study of the Word of God enable us Christ. After these seven readings (each better to appreciate, celebrate and live followed by a Responsorial Psalm and the Eucharist. Here too, we can see how prayer), we then have a reading from St. true it is that ‘ignorance of Scripture is Paul’s letter to the Romans that explains the sacramental reality of baptism and its ignorance of Christ’” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 45). connection to the death and resurrection When we prepare for Mass, then, we of Christ. This is followed by a Gospel need to pray to the Holy Spirit to open reading that testifies to Christ’s rising our hearts to hear the word, to hear what from dead and the restoration of our it is that God wants to communicate to relationship with God. It may seem like us, to hear Christ himself. Let us pray that a lot for one Mass, but what a wonderful “our hearts may burn within us” as we celebration of our faith it is. hear God speaking to us through the holy In 1984, the Pontifical Biblical ComScriptures, and then respond with firm mission explained, “From the earlifaith and conviction, “Thanks be to God.” est days of the Church, the reading of Father Mello is a parochial vicar at Scripture has been an integral part of the St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth.

Christian liturgy, an inheritance to some

September 24, 2010

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The Anchor

Explaining the Mass during Mass Q: Are there possibilities for the celebrant to share more insights about what is taking place at different stages of the Mass, to facilitate better participation from the congregation?

I pose this question because most times I observe that people seem to “go through the motions” during the Mass and many don’t seem to “be connected” with what’s happening during the different parts of the eucharistic celebration. — M.F., Singapore A: This point is covered by the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM), No. 31: “It is also up to the priest, in the exercise of his office of presiding over the gathered assembly, to offer certain explanations that are foreseen in the rite itself. Where it is indicated in the rubrics, the celebrant is permitted to adapt them somewhat in order that they respond to the understanding of those participating. However, he should always take care to keep to the sense of the text given in the Missal and to express them succinctly. The presiding priest is also to direct the word of God and to impart the final blessing. In addition, he may give the faithful a very brief introduction to the Mass of the day (after the initial greeting and before the Act of Penitence), to the Liturgy of the Word (before the readings), and to the Eucharistic Prayer (before the Preface), though never during the Eucharistic Prayer itself; he may also make concluding comments to the entire sacred action before the dismissal.”

The GIRM thus suggests four moments when brief explanations or comments may be profitably inserted: at the beginning, before the readings, before the preface, and before the dismissal.

Ideally, explanations of the Mass would be best imparted through programs for the continual Christian formation of adults. But this is not feasible in most cases as relatively few Catholics have the commitment and the time to avail of these programs.

Some priests, realizing that many of the rites and prayers were lost on the faithful, have sought to remedy the situation with brief explanations car-

or three months, allowing for ried out on a cyclical basis. interruptions such as feasts For example, a priest who and the celebration of sacrahabitually celebrates Mass at ments during Mass. the same time for basically Once completed, another the same congregation ancycle can be preached every nounces that besides his usual few years as deemed pastohomily (perhaps shaving it rally necessary. by a couple of minutes), he Although these explanawill dedicate a few minutes each week to explain one or two particular points of the Mass.

Following this he uses one of the suggested moments to explain the meaning

By Father of the rite and the Edward McNamara spiritual fruits that the Church desires us to harvest through tions must necessarily be active participation in its celbrief, several priests who ebration and a deeper understanding of the exercise of the have applied this method have commented that most royal or common priesthood parishioners responded posiof the faithful. tively and affirmed that it has Some longer rites and helped them to understand prayers may be explained and live the Mass in a deeper piecemeal. For example, way. before the preface the priest Some readers may ask if could invite the people to the homily could be used to be attentive to the different explain these aspects. moments of the Eucharistic While it is generally recPrayer (preface, transitions, ommended that the homily epiclesis, consecration, anabe based on the readings, this mnesis, intercessions, etc.) is not an absolute rule. The and then explain one of these homily may also occasionally parts each week. A fairly focus on one of the liturgical complete explanation of the prayers, such as the collect, Mass can be given over two

Liturgical Q&A

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people understand what is going on at Mass and the meaning of the various rites.

Although I do not know any source capable of answering all possible questions — if there were, my task would be a lot easier — I can recommend a couple of fairly recent books that would help the inquiring layman and the priest in search of concise explanations.

Father Jeremy Driscoll’s “What Happens at Mass” and Scott Hahn’s “The Lamb’s Supper” are both excellent and accessible introductions to the Mass that complement each other very well.

Another interesting, albeit more technical, source is Father Jovian Lang’s “Dictionary of the Liturgy,” which offers concise definitions and illustrations on a wide range of liturgical topics.

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.

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from the feast or occasion being celebrated. Or it may even be used to explain other elements of doctrine, liturgical theology, and the meaning of the parts of the Mass.

If this can be integrated with the readings of the day, all the better. But this is not always possible.

At the same time I would be hesitant to depart from the readings on a regular basis as this could weaken the faithful’s understanding of the importance of God’s Word within the overall structure of the celebration.

I personally prefer using the commentaries for such explanations. They are usually closer to the actual moment in which the rite being explained is to be carried out, and this is generally more effective.

Helping the faithful gain a deeper understanding of the Mass is a pastoral necessity. Decisions as to the best means (commentaries or homilies) to achieve that goal are also pastoral and may differ from place to place.

Several readers might ask also if there are any recommended resources to help

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7:50 am

School Hall: Fatima Video Presentation.

9:00 am

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

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Mass of Our Lady: Main Celebrant and Preacher: Fr. Raphael Maria, FI; Consecration of Parish to Our Lady by Fr. Francis de Sales Paolo, OFM.

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12:15 pm

Exposition and Procession of the Blessed Sacrament.

12:40 pm

Sermon on Our Lady by Fr. Maximilian, FI. Silent Adoration.

1:20 pm

Meditations of the Passion of Our Lord.

1:55 pm

School Hall: Break. Bookstore will be open.

2:15 pm

The Five Glorious Mysteries. Act of Consecration. Benediction.

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- Confessions available throughout the day - Finish approx 3:10 pm Wheelchair accessible SELECTION OF VENUES FOR 2010 & 2011: Saturday, 6 Nov 2010 Holy Cross, Easton, MA Saturday, 4 Dec 2010 Our Lady of the Assumption, Osterville, MA Saturday, 1 Jan 2011 Our Lady’s Chapel, New Bedford, MA Saturday, 7, May 2011 Corpus Christi Church, E. Sandwich, MA

8

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n today’s Gospel we are presented with two different related scenes. In the first, we see Lazarus at the door of the rich man, longing to eat the scraps from the table. He sits there day after day and is ignored by the rich man. Day after day God gives the rich man an opportunity to look beyond himself and to see the needs of those around him. The rich man had the opportunity to relieve Lazarus’ pain, but failed to do so.

We too have the opportunity to help those around us.

No matter what our situation in life may be, we encounter people who could use our help. Sometimes a friendly visit, a cheerful smile, doing an errand for a neighbor has more meaning than sending a check to one’s favorite charity. One act does not replace the other, but both actions are needed to live the message of Jesus. Each one of us is called to give of our time, talent and treasure to those who

September 24, 2010

The Anchor

Called to be prophets

are less fortunate than us — “actions speak louder than to those who are in need. words.” The Gospels tell us In the Gospel Lazarus dies that there is a judgment and and is carried by angels to the that we will be judged by what bosom of Abraham. The rich we do to others (Mt 25:31-46). man also dies and enters into When we feed the hungry, the netherworld where there give drink to the thirsty, clothe is much torment. Each enters into eternal life and each receives Homily of the Week the reward or punishTwenty-sixth Sunday ment he chose by the in Ordinary Time way he lived. This is the message of the

By Deacon first scene presented Paul J. Macedo to us. We die the way we live. God did not the naked, visit the sick and love Lazarus more than the imprisoned, we are doing this rich man. He loved each to Christ himself. For whoever one equally. God loves each does these to the least of their one of us equally. He shows brethren, does them to Jesus. no partiality, no favoritism, In today’s second reading from but treats each of us as his Timothy we hear, “Keep the sons and daughters. But God Commandments without stain also gives us the freedom to or reproach until the appearchoose to accept or to reject ance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” his love.

This is how we show our love On first hearing these for God. words, our initial reaction In the second scene in would be that we would never today’s Gospel, the rich man reject God’s love. But there asks Abraham to send Lais an old saying that states

zarus to his father’s house to warn his brothers about the place of torment. Abraham replies that they have Moses and the prophets to guide them on their journey. We, too, have Moses, the giver of the Law, to teach us what God expects of us, to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We, too, have prophets who show us how to live as God’s children through the way they lived their lives. Not only the prophets of old, but also the modern day prophets. People like John Paul II, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day and many more modern day saints are examples for us to follow. We also have the stories we hear on the news and in the newspaper, whereby a passerby helps a person whose car is on fire, or dives in the ocean to rescue a person entrapped in a car, and many other stories from ordi-

nary people like you and me who think of their neighbors before themselves. These are those see someone in need and act without even thinking of the consequences? Each one of us, in our own way, is called to be a saint. Every time we do something for someone else, we are being a prophet in today’s world.

Every act we perform, every word we speak, should reflect our love for God. How do I measure up?

Today God is calling us to reflect on our life, to examine if we are like Lazarus who accepts God’s love or like the rich man who does not see the need at his door. We need to reflect and ask what opportunity is God giving us today to show our love for him. How am I a prophet in today’s world?

Deacon Paul J. Macedo serves at St. John the Baptist Parish and Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in New Bedford. He is married and has two children.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Sept. 25, Eccl 11:9-12:8; Ps 90:3-6,12-14,17; Lk 9:43b-45. Sun. Sept. 26, Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Am 6:1a,4-7; Ps 146:7-10; 1 Tm 6:11-16; Lk 16:19-31. Mon. Sept. 27, Jb 1:6-22; Ps 17:1bcd,2-3,6-7; Lk 9:46-50. Tues. Sept. 28, Jb 3:1-3,11-17,20-23; Ps 88:2-8; Lk 9:51-56. Wed. Sept. 29, Den 7:9-10,13-14 or Rv 12:7-12a; Ps 138:1-5; Jn 1:47-51. Thur. Sept. 30, Jb 19:21-27; Ps 27:7-9c,13-14; Lk 10:1-12. Fri. Oct. 1, Jb 38:1,12-21;40:3-5; Ps 139:1-3,7-10,13-14ab; Lk 10:13-16.

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n the evening of Dec. 15, 2004, I had dinner in the papal apartment with Pope John Paul II and several of his aides. Although his health had been deteriorating steadily for years, the pope was in good form that night, his sense of humor intact and sharp. Knowing that he liked large photo albums, I gave him a volume on national parks of the United States as a Christmas present. When an aide opened the book to Rocky Mountain National Park, the pope put on as much of a smile as his Parkinson’s disease would permit and said, “Denver: World Youth Day 1993. The bishops of the Unit-

A promise to Pope John Paul II he would never get to that vast ed States said it couldn’t be land himself. As that part of done. I proved them wrong.” the conversation was windWe all laughed as John Paul ing down, I looked across the flipped through the pages; in table and, referring to the fact his mind’s eye, he was back that “Witness to Hope” had hiking in the Rockies. only taken the John Paul II The conversation over dinner was wide-ranging, and at one point, after the usual papal kidding about my having written “a very big book,” John Paul asked about the international recepBy George Weigel tion of “Witness to Hope,” his biography, which I had published story up to early 1999, I made five years earlier. He was particularly happy when I told the pope a promise: “Holy Father,” I said, “if you don’t him that a Chinese edition bury me, I want you to know was in the works, as he knew that I’ll finish your story.”

It was the last time we saw each other, this side of the Kingdom of God. “The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II — The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy,” which was published by Doubleday on September 14, is the fulfillment of the promise I made to John Paul during our last evening together.

In addition to revisiting Karol Wojtyla’s epic battle with communism through the prism of previously classified and top-secret communist

The Catholic Difference

files, given to me by Polish researchers, the book offers a detailed account of the drama of the pope’s last six years: the Great Jubilee of 2000 and his historic pilgrimage to the Holy Land; September 11, and the pope’s efforts to frustrate Osama bin Laden’s insistence that his war with the West was a religious crusade; the Long Lent of 2002, when the Church in America grappled with the twin crises of clerical sexual abuse and episcopal misgovernance; John Paul’s ongoing efforts to build bridges of dialogue and reconciliation with the Churches of the Christian East; his struggle with illness, which brought him into at least one “dark night” spiritually; and his heroic last months, in which his priestly death became, metaphorically, his last encyclical. “The End and the Beginning” concludes with a lengthy evaluation of Karol Wojtyla, the man, and John Paul II, the pope. There, I’m able to tell some stories not previously on the public record, while assessing all that went right, and the things that went wrong, in one of

history’s most significant pontificates.

The story of Wojtyla vs. communism in “The End and the Beginning” is by no means simply a reprise of “Witness to Hope”; on the contrary, the Polish, East German, Soviet, and Hungarian secret police and foreign ministry files I obtained from Polish colleagues shed new, and often dramatic, light on the communist effort to destroy John Paul’s work and his reputation, as well as on communist efforts to penetrate the Leonine Wall and recruit collaborators in the Vatican.

In a world quickly forgetting what the Cold War was about, these once-secret classified documents are a powerful reminder that, as John Paul’s longtime secretary once put it to me, “It was ‘we and they,’ ‘us and them,’ all the time.”

And they were not scrupulous about playing the hardest of hardball.

John Paul II was the great Christian witness of this era.

Telling his story in full has been the privilege of a lifetime.

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

September 24, 2010

Smile, God loves you

Tuesday 21 September 2010 stern. I usually need to loosen — Old Dighton Village — 75th up a bit and laugh more. Laughbirthday of Henry Gibson, ter can be tricky. “You laugh “Laugh-In” comedian ne Saturday afternoon I happened on a woman leaving the Reflections of a Reconciliation Chapel.

Parish Priest She had just gone to confession. I passed silently

By Father Tim so as not to invade a priGoldrick vate moment. She blurted out, “Too stuck-up to say ‘hello,’ are we, Father?” It’s not too loud,” commented a brother the first time I’ve been accused of priest. “Didn’t your mother teach aloofness, nor will it be the last. you?” Ouch. Sometimes, you just My countenance can appear can’t win.

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The Anchor

The Ship’s Log

I remember my seminary homiletics professor warning us to avoid turning the sermon into a comedy routine. Too many pulpit jokes are never a good thing. Holy Mass is not entertainment. We are not there to be amused. Mass is worship. We stand in awe before God, offering glory and praise.

Worship demands a certain solemnity. Solemnity is not a problem for me. What I need to work on is humanness.

At Mass, I’m not praying in the

Between civilization and the abyss

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much as its presence. On the velyn Waugh, journalist, drunken exploits of Sebastian fiction writer, and biogFlyte, the “magically beautiful” rapher, converted to CatholiGatsby-esque character who cism in 1930, to much criticism draws Charles Ryder out of within the English literary society he loved and criticized in himself, Waugh writes: “His constant, despairing equal measure. Admiration for prayer was to be left alone. By Waugh’s skill, humor, and biting the blue waters and rustling social satire survived the scandal of his turn toward Rome, as even palm of his own mind he was happy and harmless as a Polyhis most conservative opinions nesian; only when the big ship on theology and culture failed dropped anchor beyond the coral to dampen his critics’ begrudgreef, and the cutter beached in ing admission of his talent and the lagoon, and, up the golden inimitable style. One such relucslope that had never known the tant appreciator, George Orwell, print of a boot there trod the back-hand complimented grim invasion of trader, adminisWaugh, saying he was “about as trator, missionary and tourist — good a novelist as a one can be while holding untenable opinions.”

Paradoxically, Waugh was somehow able to be unmistakably in the culture but not of it, as scholars

By Jennifer Pierce have shown his satire was not so much attacking as it was fondly only then was it time to disinter familiar. Even his criticism of the archaic weapons of the tribe modernism wasn’t a rejection and sound the drums in the hills; for he had a definitive modernor, more easily, to turn from the ist sensibility, using the world’s sunlit door and lie alone in the own absurdity and vices to teach darkness, where the impotent, that it was this very fallenness painted deities paraded the walls that pointed toward the need in vain, and cough his heart out for grace and salvation. Even among the rum bottles.” in the honeymoon glow of his And still, amidst all the sinful conversion, Waugh made the debauchery of characters spoiled theology in his work more by decadence, there are, if you implicit than explicit, discoverlook, bread crumb trails leading ing God in the most bereft and toward inevitable conversion.

Godless characters and cultures In an interview Waugh insists he narrated. In “Brideshead that mystical experience and its Revisited,” for example, one accompanying emotions cannot may be hard-pressed to unbe the domain of the novelist. derstand where grace resides The novelist describes people, in this novel of vacuous and actions, and events, and the rest self-centered characters, who is born within the reader as she pursue the comforts and luxury reads them. The end of “Bridesof wealth only slightly less than head” is executed precisely in they pursue the mirror to bask this way as what was implicit in self-admiration. Throughout the novel, I wondered why I kept becomes delicately explicit in simple actions and tableaux: a reading, when the characters’ dying man blesses himself, a tedious vanity was so tiresome; broken romance, a sanctuary yet Waugh’s style was magnetic lamp, and a soldier’s prayer, pulling me onward as he turned allow grace to dawn upon the even their despair into poetry, reader as slowly as it has on the displaying the presence of God’s characters through their epic grace through its absence as

On Great Catholic Writers

journey.

While his Catholicism remained controversial during an upsurge in fashionable atheism and the historic anti-Catholic leaning of post-Reformation Britain, Waugh seemed to surprise people with the fact that God loves sinners as well as saints (himself included in the former category) and with the fact that belief was not the antithesis of intelligence and wry, penetrating humor. His Time magazine obituary noted that Waugh had “developed a wickedly hilarious yet fundamentally religious assault on a century that, in his opinion, had ripped up the nourishing taproot of tradition and let wither all the dear things of the world.”

His conversion was deeply influenced by our friend G.K. Chesterton, who you may remember from our previous Anchor series on Catholic Thinkers, and Waugh includes him in “Brideshead,” quoting his writing at a crucial moment in the plot. When Chesterton died in 1936, as he loomed between coma and semi-consciousness his last words were: “The issue is clear. It is between darkness and light and everyone must choose a side.” Waugh seems to have been very influenced by this view as he sees Christianity as all that stands between civilization and a savage abyss, writing in a well-known article on his conversion: “The loss of faith in Christianity and the consequential lack of confidence in moral and social standards have become embodied in the ideal of a materialistic, mechanized state It is no longer possible to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis upon which it rests.”

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

solitude of mystical contemplation, I’m presiding at communal worship. I’m mediating between God and God’s people. I cannot ignore God nor can I ignore the People of God present before me.

Worship has a vertical and a horizontal dimension.

There are masters of this mix of holiness and humanness. His Holiness Pope John XXIII was quick with the quip. For example, when asked how many people actually work in the Vatican, his famous response was, “About half.”

Another example was Pope John Paul II. A few curmudgeonly cardinals grumbled when he had a swimming pool installed at the Vatican for his exercise regime. John Paul II responded with a riddle. “Which is more cost-effective: to build a swimming pool or to have you cardinals fly in from all over the world to elect the next pope?” Touché, Your Holiness.

Here on the East Coast, I am aware of two cardinals who mix holiness with humanness. One is His Eminence, Seán Cardinal O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston. I caught his subtle witticisms when he was Bishop of Fall River.

One Christmas, to supplement his arsenal of wit, I sent him (anonymously) a gift subscription to the “Joyful Noiseletter,” a resource of pithy sayings and pulpit jokes. I never heard him use the material.

I suspect the “Joyful Noiseletter” didn’t reach his desk.

Another cardinal who is solemn and human is Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York.

During Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, even at the most auspicious of ceremonies, he’s relaxed and quick with the aside, as at this year’s three-hour priesthood ordination ceremony.

Bishop George Coleman is also known for his quick wit, but you’re not going to read about it in this newspaper. He’s the publisher. My lips are sealed.

The key, I think, is two-fold: being attuned to the congregation and being spontaneous. If the entire assembly is distracted by something, the best way to deal with the interruption is to recog-

nize it, address it, and go on.

Once I was celebrating Mass when a two-year-old began screaming at the top of his lungs.

The more his parents tried to quiet him, the more he raged. This didn’t bother me at all but when I saw all heads turn, I knew we were no longer praying together.

The poor parents grabbed the child and fled towards the front door. “Oh, dear,” I commented.

“Was it something I said?” People laughed and got over it. Then back we went to prayer.

A woman in the parish is well-known to be prim and proper. One Sunday at Mass, she had a spell and fell over in the center aisle. Emergency personnel were summoned. Sirens blared. A stretcher was wheeled in. People gasped. It would have been foolish for me to ignore the situation. I commented, “Now, as you are aware, Mrs. Jones is very reserved. She would be mortified to know she caused such a scene. When she comes to, just pretend nothing happened.” Everyone laughed. We were able to go back to prayer. Mrs. Jones was back in church the following Sunday. She didn’t appear the least bit chagrined. It seems nobody “spilled the beans.”

In one parish, the fire alarms in the church and in the rectory were connected. The cook was in the rectory cooking supper; I was in the church celebrating Mass. Suddenly, alarms wailed and strobe lights flashed. Assured there was no fire, I calmed the congregation by saying, “Well, there goes my supper. Anyone want to invite me over tonight?”

I was then able to continue Mass prayerfully.

Saint Thomas Aquinas identified something exclusive to humans called “risibility” — the ability to laugh. This gift is ours alone. When my greyhound appears to be smiling, he’s just suffering from indigestion. Solemn and human is how God created us. Solemnly and humanly is how we must pray.

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

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The Anchor

September 24, 2010

Patroness of fishermen honored in annual New Bedford celebration

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

NEW BEDFORD — As a member of the Franciscan

Friars of the Immaculate, Father Raphael Maria has a deep reverence for and devotion to our Blessed Mother.

In fact, he and the other members of his order will often employ the signature “Ave Maria” salutation before ending a conversation or signing an email message.

But when members of New Bedford’s Portuguese community suggested having a feast to celebrate and give thanks to Our Lady for keeping a watchful eye over the city’s fishermen and other maritime laborers, he had to do a little research to find an appropriate icon of the Virgin Mary.

“I think it started back in 1995,” said Father Raphael.

“We had so many Portuguese people coming to Our Lady’s Chapel who either had an interest in fishing or knew someone who did, so we decided to try to get a statue of Our Lady of Good Voyage.”

According to Father Raphael, the statue can be traced back to one of the earliest recorded Marian apparitions in 1600 — just 69 years after Our Lady of Guadalupe — off the coast of Cuba.

“There were three men on a little fishing boat from the town of Cobre and all three were named John,” Father Raphael said. “The ‘three Johns,’ they called them. They were in danger of wrecking their ship in a violent storm when they began praying to Our Lady. She suddenly appeared to them and the waves became placid and the sun came out.”

Later as the “three Johns” were rowing back home, they noticed a glowing, luminous object beckoning them, Father Raphael said. Nearing the shore, they saw it was a statue of the image of Our Lady as she had just appeared to them.

“They took it to the town and it was enshrined in the church and it remains there to this day,” he said. “She eventually became the patroness of the whole country.”

Like many statues of our Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Good Voyage is depicted holding the Christ child in her left arm, but she also has a golden anchor in her right — representing the balance between her maternal love for her son and those who work on the water.

“She is the star of the sea,” Father Raphael noted.

For the past 15 years, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate and members of the city’s Portuguese community have annually paid homage to the Blessed Mother in that role with the two-day Our Lady of Good Voyage feast.

The weekend kicked off Saturday night with a candlelight procession during which the newlydecorated Our Lady of Good Voyage statue was transposed from her shrine in the chapel to a place in preparation for the bigger procession the next day.

“We have the major procession where we take Our Lady down to the State Pier — straight down Union Street — and pray for all the mariners, living and deceased,” Father Raphael said. “A wreath is thrown into the water and we release blue balloons into the sky. Then we come back to the chapel for Benediction and a reception in the hall.”

More than 100 people joined Our Lady, a statue of St. Joseph, and members of the Portuguese-American Band to make the threequarter-mile trek from Our Lady’s Chapel on Pleasant Street, down Union Street, to the city’s State Pier Sunday afternoon. Along the way they prayed the rosary, sang hymns to Our Lady in English and Portuguese, and silently reflected on those before them who went “down to the sea in ships.”

“We get a pretty good crowd every year,” Father Raphael said. “I think the fishing industry has been hit hard by the economy, so a lot of the fishermen — especially the generation that started this tradition in the ’90s — aren’t as active and their involvement is waning.

But I’ve seen different faces in recent years keeping the tradition alive.”

At the waterfront, more prayers were recited and a wreath in memory of those lost at sea was tossed into the water.

Last, but not least, countless blue balloons were released into the bright, sunny sky — probably not unlike the one that the “three Johns” witnessed after praying to Our Lady — symbolizing the prayers and solicitations that had likewise just floated into the heavens.

Although no formal blessing of the boats docked at the pier was done, Father Raphael said the prayers offered were “for all mariners on the sea, not just Portuguese fishermen, per se.”

“I have never been in an area where the people take their faith out into the street in this way,” Father Raphael said. “It’s really beautiful — you don’t see this much in American today. We’re really blessed with having devoted people like the Portuguese and we should do everything we can to foster this.”

September 24, 2010

The Anchor

All’s LoWELL that ends LoWELL

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his is just like the old days, young Red Sox fans. Watching the Home Towne Team play out the rest of the season, hoping to spoil another team’s chances of making the playoffs, and observing as players try to pad their statistics for a fatter payoff on their next contract.

Believe it or not, younger fans, this is what we old-timers experienced nearly every baseball season. Playoffs were a real treat ... and a World Series? That was like having ice cream for breakfast.

Actually, this isn’t all that bad ... for true Red Sox fans. It’s a test as to whether someone is an actual die hard or a fair weather fan. It’s the time of year when we see rats leaving a sinking ship, so to speak.

My View From the Stands

By Dave Jolivet Well, this rat goes down with his ship, and I’ll continue watching until we come to rest on the sandy bottom of Davy Jones’ locker.

But there is a great story unfolding even though the Sox will be playing golf in October. It’s watching a man play out the last games of his career with dignity and class. A true gentleman in a profession painfully short of such individuals.

Mike Lowell is calling it quits after this season and I and thousands of others will sorely miss this class act.

Every time Mikey comes to the plate my own aches and pains are awakened.

It’s easy to see he’s playing in discomfort, yet he gets paid to play, so play he does.

I wasn’t all that familiar with Lowell before he joined Red Sox Nation, but since his arrival, he’s been a breath of fresh air. There was no arrogance about him; no dogging it; no complaining; no big ego; no “I,” just we, as in team.

He is truly a role model for all youngsters playing the game.

Mike Lowell is getting out of the game he loves before he makes a fool of himself, as so many have done in the past. And don’t look for any Brett Favre moments from Mikey. He’s got his ducks all in a row.

He’s won two World Series and was the MVP of one of them. He’s had good years and not-so-good years. He’s battled cancer

and won. He has perspective.

And in what will turn out to be his last year as a professional, he was traded, only to have the transaction rescinded because of injury ... and he had the dignity and integrity to still give his all to the team that tried to move him.

I will miss having Mike Lowell around, not only as a good ballplayer, but also as a good human being.

I will induct Mikey into my sports Hall of Fame ... where the only requirement is having outstanding human qualities and class.

He will join the ranks of such notables as Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, Dwight Evans, and Jim Rice from the Red Sox. (Terry Francona will end up there some day, as well.)

From the Boston Celtics there are Bill Russell who always maintained his dignity in a town where many couldn’t see past the color of his skin, John Havlicek, K.C. Jones, Bob Cousy, and Red Auerbach.

Lowell will be included among exemplary Boston Bruins like Johnny Bucyk, Bobby Orr, Ray Bourque, and Willie O’Ree, the first African-American NHL player, who joined the Bs in 1958, and endured, with dignity, taunts like, “Go back to the south,” and “How come you’re not picking cotton.” His response was “Things like that. It didn’t bother me.

I just wanted to be a hockey player.”

And from the Patriots, Mikey will be enshrined with Jim Nance, Steve Grogan, John Hannah, Tedy Bruschi, and Troy Brown.

The Hall isn’t just for men, two gentlewomen athletes stand out as well — New Englander Mary Pratt who pitched in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in the ’40s and Joan Benoit Samuelson, who won an Olympic Gold Medal in the marathon and won the Boston Marathon. Two more class acts.

I’d love to see Lowell in the Sox organization in some capacity, but I’d rather see his family keep him full time. They deserve it ... and so does he.

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The Anchor

September 24, 2010

Can marriage be taught?

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an the sacrament of marriage be taught? We can teach about marriage, but the lived reality of this sacrament must be modeled, not taught. The theme for this catechetical year is Matrimony: Sacrament of Enduring Love. Our Church leadership is asking us to focus on the sacramental nature of marriage.

They want us to convey to the young children that there is much more to marriage than the wedding day. We are asked to teach that marriage as a secular reality stabilizes society an is more than a contract between two adults.

Our youth need to learn that marriage is a sign of Christ’s love for the world. In practice, a Christian marriage is an exercise in discipleship.

When we teach marriage we

The Great Commission

By Claire McManus use words like covenant and sacrament, words that rarely are part of secular definitions of marriage. We tell our children that marriage is a symbol of the way Christ loves his Church.

Little children can recite the words, but the concept of enduring love is not ready to be grasped until the children become older adolescents on their way to forming meaningful relationships, which is just about the time when we send them away after they are confirmed.

The only real opportunity to talk about the sacrament of marriage is when engaged couples present themselves to the priest to prepare for their wedding day.

At this point the couples are so wrapped up in the plans for the wedding that they are not always in the frame of mind to grasp an exalted theology of marriage as the sign of Christ’s love for his Church.

Engaged couples are all about the big moment: the walk down the aisle, the exchange of vows; the first dance. For them, the sacrament of marriage is a moment in time (an expensive moment) not a state of life. Moments are important, but they only are glimpses of reality.

A young nurse who worked in the ICU of a busy Boston hospital observed a different kind of big moment in the life of a marriage. An elderly man sat by his wife’s bedside on Christmas day and was told that there was no hope for her survival. Their 50-plus years together was going

to come to an end when his wife was taken off of life-support.

The man asked if they could wait until the next day so that he could sit by her side for one last Christmas. The next day the nurses looked up and saw the elderly gentleman walk down the corridor, dressed to the nines in his best suit. He came to see his wife off to her next life, and so he honored the moment the way he no doubt marked the other significant times in their life together. This tender act was a simple gesture, but also a profound teaching about love that is faithful to the end. Those who witnessed this moment caught only a glimpse of the bigger story of their marriage. Somewhere in between the walk down the aisle of the church and the walk down the hospital corridor was the journey that was their marriage.

How do we prepare a couple for the trek though the Appalachian Trail that best describes married life, with its peaks, valleys, and long stretches of mundane landscape? This task is carried out throughout the year by teams of married couples who share their marriage stories with the engaged couples of our diocese. They are led by a group of married couples who provide the backbone of a ministry that is totally voluntary. Team Pacheco, Team Akin, Team Johnson, Team Pires, Team Dupuis, have been serving our young couples and sharing their marriages for well over three decades. They are the people who help prepare the couples to face the long journey ahead.

The only way to convey the good news that marriage is the sign of Christ’s love for the world is to be Christ in the world.

Our marriages are packed to the brim with the stuff of discipleship. We create new life, pass along the faith, heal wounds, gather around the table to break bread, accompany each other in times of sorrow, and walk down that long corridor when it’s time to say our goodbyes. Our faith strengthens the faith of other couples struggling to stay on the journey together. If you have a marriage to share with a young couple, give a call to the Office of Faith Formation and offer your time and your story. You are the textbook that will teach our young people that matrimony is the sacrament of enduring love.

Claire McManus is the director of the Diocesan Office of Faith Formation.

not-so-wildlife — Animated characters are pictured in the movie “Alpha and Omega.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Lionsgate)

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

“Alpha and Omega” (Lionsgate) Opposites are forced to become allies when two kidnapped wolves, disciplined and serious Kate (voice of Hayden Panettiere) and freespirited, fun-loving Humphrey (voice of Justin Long), embark on a challenging journey to find their way home.

Despite colorful animation and eye-popping 3-D effects, co-directors Anthony Bell and Ben Gluck’s adventure falls back upon a tired formula of bathroom humor, slapstick action and wisecracking characters. The potty jokes aside, this is basically harmless fun for the entire family.

The Catholic News Service classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested.

“Resident Evil: Afterlife” (Screen Gems) Fourth entry in the gory series based on the video game has only 3-D to commend it this time around, which makes it moderately more interesting, if not less of a completely dull waste of time. Writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson puts Milla Jovovich as Alice back into the

black tights to fight off virusinfected, flesh-eating zombies in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. Fleeting rough, crude and profane language, flying knives, gun violence, abundant splattering zombie heads.

The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling.

The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

“The Town” (Warner Bros.)

Seamy heist drama in which a failed pro hockey playerturned-underworld-thief (Ben Affleck) first stalks, then falls for, a bank manager (Rebecca Hall). He and his cohorts (most prominently Jeremy Renner) fear she could identify them, despite the disguises they wore while successfully robbing her workplace. But the fundamentally good-hearted gangster’s

hopes for romance and a return to decency are hampered by the relentless pursuit of a sometimes unscrupulous FBI agent (Jon Hamm). While director and co-writer Affleck’s screen version of Chuck Hogan’s 2004 novel “Prince of Thieves” is seriously intended and morally weighty, excessive violence, gritty (though fleeting) sexuality and consistently foul-mouthed dialogue are red flags for all. The nun costumes donned by the gang during a subsequent caper jar on Catholic sensibilities in particular. Considerable gunplay and some bloody beatings, brief graphic nonmarital sexual activity, glimpses of upper female and partial nudity, pervasive rough and crude language, irreverent imagery.

The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, September 26 at 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Ron P. Floyd, a parochial vicar at St. Patrick’s Parish in Wareham

L

13

The Anchor

September 24, 2010

Heart speaking to heart: The pope in England

ast Sunday Pope Benedict, as the culmination of his trip to the United Kingdom, beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman (18011890), whose motto was “Cor ad cor loquitur,” “Heart speaks to heart.” This is the first time the Catholic Church has beatified an Englishman who wasn’t a martyr since the time of the Reformation.

As a young Anglican tutor and preacher at Oxford University, John Henry Newman led the Oxford Movement, encouraging the Anglican Church in holiness and virtue and the faith of the early Church.

In doing so, he increasingly moved away from Protestant understandings of Christianity.

Midway through the journey of his life, in 1845, he became a Catholic. In doing so, he sacrificed position and prestige. He was one who “loved honesty better than name, and truth better than dear friends.”

Two years later, he was ordained a Catholic priest in Italy. He returned to England to start the Oratory of St. Philip Neri there. Towards the end of his life, when he was attacked in print, he responded with his spiritual autobiography, “Apologia pro Vita Sua,” a spiritual masterpiece that is comparable to St. Augustine’s “Confessions.” In 1879, he was named a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. He wrote at the time, “It is a wonderful Providence, that even before my death that acquittal of me comes, which I knew would come some day

or other, though not in my life know so much of history that Benedict and Cardinal Newtimes this seems so natural, time.” they can defend it.” man are prolific theologians, especially when we feel the As Newman had asked so Pope Benedict, at the begin- preachers and writers. There exhilaration of love, when our eloquently, “How is it that ning of his pontificate just over is a close spiritual kinship hearts brim over with generoswe are so content with things five years ago, introduced a between them. ity, idealism, the desire to help as they are — that we are so new papal policy regarding beTo young people outside others, to build a better world. willing to be let alone, and to atifications. In principle, beati- Westminster Cathedral, Pope But at other times we realize enjoy this life — that Benedict echoed Newthat it is difficult to love; our we make such excuses, man’s theme “Heart hearts can easily be hardif any one presses on us speaks unto heart.” “I ened by selfishness, envy and the necessity of somewish to speak to you pride. Blessed Mother Teresa thing higher, the duty from my own heart, of Calcutta, the great Misof bearing the cross, and I ask you to open sionary of Charity, reminded if we would earn the your hearts to what I us that giving love, pure and

By Dwight Duncan crown of the Lord Jesus have to say. I ask each generous love, is the fruit of a Christ?” of you, first and foredaily decision. Every day we His beatification is a most, to look into your have to choose to love, and remarkable vindication of his fications were to be performed own heart. Think of all the this requires help, the help long and virtuous life and his by local bishops rather than the love that your heart was made that comes from Christ, from prolific and profound spiritual pope himself, who alone would to receive, and all the love it prayer and from the wisdom and theological writings. With continue to perform canonizais meant to give. After all, we found in his word, and from his teachings on the organic tions, the ultimate infallible were made for love …. We the grace which he bestows development of doctrine, the declaration of the Church that were made to receive love, and on us in the sacraments of the relation between faith and rea- a person is a saint and thus in we have….”

Church.” son, the problematic relativism heaven. The one and only ex“We were also made to give Dwight Duncan is a profesof modernity, the role of the ception to this rule was made love, to make it the inspirasor at UMass School of Law laity, he is rightly considered

by Pope Benedict in the case tion for all we do and the most Dartmouth. He holds degrees the century-ahead-of-his-time of Cardinal Newman. Pope enduring thing in our lives. At in civil and canon law.

Father of Vatican II, whom Pope Benedict, on the plane to Scotland, called “a figure of doctor of the Church for us and for all, and also a bridge between Anglicans and Catholics.”

50 years ago — Bishop James L. Connolly 10 years ago — Bishop Sean P. O’Malley, At the beatification Mass, appointed Msgr. Humberto S. Medeiros, chan- OFM Cap., blessed and dedicated the new Pope Benedict quoted Blessed cellor of the Fall River Diocese, to be pastor of church at the National Shrine of Our Lady of John Henry on the laity: “I St. Michael’s Parish in Fall River. Msgr. Me- La Salette in Attleboro. The new structure was want a laity, not arrogant, not deiros would later be appointed archbishop of built near the site of the former shrine monasrash in speech, not disputaBoston in 1970 and be elevated to cardinal in tery that was destroyed in a Nov. 5, 1999 fire. tious, but men who know their 1973. religion, who enter into it, who One year ago — Bishop George W. Coleknow just where they stand, man joined other clergy and faith leaders at the 25 years ago — More than 550 catechists who know what they hold and New Bedford Public Schools’ administration from across the Fall River Diocese attended a what they do not, who know building on County Street to walk down Wilseries of 20 workshops as part of a Religious their creed so well that they liam Street to sign the peace covenant on the Education Day sponsored by the Diocesan Decan give an account of it, who steps of City Hall to show their support for partment of Education at Bishop Stang High peace and to demand an end to the violence School in North Dartmouth on September 21. on city streets.

Judge For Yourself

This week in

Diocesan history

The Catholic Response

14

September 24, 2010

Statement in Support of Chapter 40B: The Affordable Housing Law, and in opposition to Question 2 on the November 2, 2010 statewide ballot The Roman Catholic Bishops in Massachusetts released a statement September 21, affirming their support for a state housing policy that is targeted for repeal on the November statewide ballot by Question 2. The Ordinaries of the Archdiocese of Boston, and the dioceses of Fall River, Springfield, and Worcester urge a “no” vote on Question 2 to retain the Affordable Housing Law, otherwise known as “Chapter 40B.” According to the bishops, “Chapter 40B is a critical resource in the Commonwealth, and it should be preserved.”

“The strength of the bishops’ support for the Affordable Housing Law underscores the significant need for affordable housing across the Commonwealth and the important work being done to meet that need,” said Lisa Alberghini, president of the Planning Office for Urban Affairs, a nonprofit social justice ministry and the Housing Development Office of the Archdiocese of Boston. “In our daily efforts to create vibrant communities through the development of high-quality affordable and mixed-income housing, we see first-hand this demand which is far from being met. Chapter 40B helps us provide residents of the Commonwealth with dignified, affordable homes, and should remain intact.”

Lawmakers enacted Chapter 40B in 1969 to promote the construction of affordable housing.

The law operates through a combination of regulatory incentives

and restrictions aimed at making at least 10 percent of all housing in a community economically accessible.

The Massachusetts Catholic Conference is the public policy office for the bishops in the Commonwealth.

September 21, 2010 As the Roman Catholic Bishops in Massachusetts, we appeal today to the Catholic community and to our fellow citizens of Massachusetts to sustain and support the Massachusetts affordable housing law. We do this because Question 2, placed on the November 2nd statewide ballot, proposes to eliminate an important law that has been an essential part of our State’s effort to provide housing for all the citizens of the Commonwealth since 1969. The Affordable Housing Law, often referred to by its statutory title, “Chapter 40B,” has led to the construction of over 58,000 units for seniors, young working families and disabled persons in communities throughout Massachusetts.

Chapter 40B is a critical resource in the Commonwealth, and it should be preserved.

Chapter 40B was established in part through the work of the Catholic Church to catalyze communities to build affordable housing. Through our diocesan social service offices, the Church has collaborated in the building of affordable homes and offered our support for community planning pursuant to Chapter 40B. Thus we know from experience that no

other state program or tool has been as effective as Chapter 40B. The law has been responsible for approximately 80 percent of the housing for low and moderate income households created in suburban regions over the past decade. Moreover, 100 towns have implemented affordable housing plans because they recognize that Chapter 40B initiatives strengthen their neighborhoods and provide for their residents.

The stories we hear in our parishes and through our diocesan ministries are painful: families made homeless when they lost their house to foreclosure; families paying high rents for apartments that are in poor condition or are far from good schools and good jobs; young middle class families who cannot afford to buy homes in the communities in which they grew up; elderly residents on fixed incomes who choose between paying their rent and paying for costly prescription medications; and people with special needs who cannot find homes that are accessible. The current economic crisis affirms the connection between lack of affordable housing and the experience of personal hardship in so many other areas of life.

As Catholics, we believe in the dignity of the human person, and that a home is central to that dignity. Pope John XXIII wrote in 1963 in Pacem in Terris that every person “has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life; these are pri-

marily food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and finally the necessary social services.” Pope John Paul II saw inadequate access to housing, along with unemployment, as among the most serious problems of the developed world.

He wrote in 1987, “The lack of housing, an extremely serious problem in itself, should be seen as a sign and summing-up of a whole series of shortcomings: economic, social, cultural or simply human in nature. Given the extent of the problem, we should need little convincing of how far we are from an authentic development of peoples.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in 1975 in its pastoral letter “The Right to a Decent Home” that society must find better means to address housing shortages: “We must seek to have a qualitative impact on the problem of housing deprivation in our society by attempting to change the system and the policies that result in housing deprivation.”

The Bishops added that working for better housing was not an isolated task, but instead was “indispensable to the future health of America and its people.”

The Commonwealth has developed policies such as Chapter 40B to build a better housing system. We must continue to be proactive in addressing our state’s critical housing needs; every community needs a mix of housing in order to be healthy, vibrant and inclusive. Repealing Chapter 40B would result in the loss of a valuable tool that has

prompted many cities and towns to build homes for those otherwise unable to secure adequate housing.

Housing is a human right. In recognition of that right, Chapter 40B should remain in effect so that the public and private sectors can continue to promote the development of affordable and mixed-income housing throughout the Commonwealth. Voting “no” on Question 2 will keep Chapter 40B on the books and thus preserve our state’s ability to act in the most effective way to meet the need of every individual for a decent affordable home.

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley Archdiocese of Boston

Most. Rev. George W. Coleman Diocese of Fall River

Most Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell Diocese of Springfield

Most Rev. Robert J. McManus Diocese of Worcester

Gerald D. D’Avolio appointed executive director on interim basis for the Mass. Catholic Conference BOSTON — The Massachusetts Catholic Conference (MCC) Board of Governors fice. I will seek to serve the cardinal and the bishops to the best of my ability as has announced the appointment of Gerald D. D’Avolio, Esq. as executive director of the search for a permanent successor moves forward. I am blessed to be able to MCC on an interim basis. He will fill the seat held since 2005 by the late Edward F. once again work with a well-qualified and dedicated staff, and I welcome their asSaunders, Esq., who passed away on Aug. 28, 2010. D’Avolio previously served as sistance as we carry on the mission of the Church throughout the Commonwealth executive director of MCC from 1976 until his retirement in 2004. He will serve until of Massachusetts.”

A graduate of Boston English High School and the University of a successor to Saunders is appointed.

Connecticut, D’Avolio earned his law degree from Suffolk University The MCC Board of Governors includes Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley Law School. He was an officer in the United States Marines and the (Archbishop of Boston), Bishop George W. Coleman (Bishop of Fall RivU.S. Marine Corps Reserves, attaining the rank of captain, and entered er), Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell (Bishop of Springfield), and Bishop the Judge Advocate General Corps of the U.S. Army Reserves, retiring Robert J. McManus (Bishop of Worcester). Since 1969, the MCC has in 1995 with the rank of Colonel. served as the public policy arm of the four Catholic dioceses in the ComFrom 1969-1974 he served as Assistant Attorney General for the monwealth. The MCC speaks not only to specific legislative proposals Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the Criminal and Industrial Acciand administrative procedures, but reflects also on the major human and dents Divisions. social moral issues of the day.

D’Avolio and his wife Donna live in Salisbury. He has two children The bishops said, “We are pleased that Gerry D’Avolio has again acand they have five grandchildren. cepted the call to serve the Church. He is an experienced, knowledgeable The MCC Board of Governors has authorized the creation of a search and respected Catholic who knows well the legislative process from his many years as executive director. Gerry brings a steady and reassuring Gerald D. D’Avolio committee to recommend a permanent appointment for the executive director’s position. The search committee will be chaired by Bishop presence to the position and we look forward to his leadership at this Coleman. time.”

It is anticipated that final selections of search committee members will be “I am honored to assist the bishops,” said D’Avolio. “Due to the most unfortunate and sudden death of attorney Ed Saunders, the former executive director of made in the coming week and that the committee will then commence its work. the Catholic Conference, this appointment as executive director on an interim basis As of this time no date has been established for the appointment of a new execuis necessary to carry on the day-to-day function, policies and programs of the of- tive director.

September 24, 2010

15

The Anchor

When you send your child to public school, do you exercise your rights as parents?

P

arents place a great deal nant focus of the Frameworks regarding sexual activity, of trust in the public schools by placing their great- pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection prevention est treasure, their children, in is on “methods” and “behavthe care of teachers, guidance iors,” with only token inclucounselors and school nurses. sion of abstinence. Students as Parents trust that their role as young as 11, and continuing primary teachers of right and through high school would wrong and counselors of their be taught “whom to consult,” children will be honored and affirmed; they expect that their values, and their right to teach them to their children will not be contradicted or their role subverted by others.

By Linda Thayer However, in recent years, with respect to sex education, that trust has been eroded. “methods for pregnancy Now that trust is on the verge prevention,” and “policies of of being completely betrayed in Massachusetts due to devel- various states ... regarding STI prevention among youth.” opments concerning the MasIn other words, students as sachusetts Health Curriculum young as 11 would be taught Frameworks. how and where to get birth The Health Curriculum control without the knowledge Frameworks are currently the and consent of parents. Tacit recommendations of the state as to what should be taught in approval is given to premarital sexual relationships for public schools; local districts students as young as 14. The have some discretion as to topic of homosexuality is inhow they are implemented. troduced to children as young However, recent legislative as five. attempts have been made to These objectives further make Health a core curricuextend a failed public policy lum subject, thereby making with respect to both teen pregimplementation of the Frameworks mandatory in all school nancy and STIs by creating a districts. No one is opposed to false sense of safety among Health education per se (nutri- the young, and inadvertently encouraging them to take tion, exercise, safety), but more risks. concealed within the FrameAccording to the most works is a radical form of sex recent data available from the education.

Guttmacher Institute, MasIn accord with of the sachusetts has one of the Frameworks, teachers would be required to explain to young lowest teen birth rates in the U.S. (48th). However, Maspeople the laws regarding “reproductive services,” including sachusetts also has one of the abortion. Under Massachusetts highest teen abortion rates in the nation (11th). law, parents must be involved After more than two dein a minor girl’s decision to obtain an abortion; a minor girl can obtain an abortion, however, without notifying a parent by obtaining permission from a judge. In explaining state law, students in public schools would literally be taught how to obtain a secret abortion.

This subverts the original intent of the law — parental involvement — and makes the judicial bypass the norm. Do the parents of the Commonwealth send their children to public school in order to learn how to obtain a clandestine abortion?

Furthermore, the predomi-

Guest Columnist

cades of promoting “safer sex” strategies to prevent STIs, the CDC recently found that 26 percent of teen-age girls in the U.S. have at least one STI, including 48 percent of African American teen-age girls. The most common STIs were HPV and Chlamydia.

Because portions of the Health Curriculum Frameworks include such a radical form of sex education and a critical disregard for the rights of parents, I urge parents to contact their schools and inquire as to the specifics of what their children will be taught with respect to abortion, marriage, abstinence, “safe sex” and so forth. Parents in Massachusetts currently have the right to opt their children out of any program that is contrary to their moral beliefs with respect to sexuality issues.

Parents and concerned citizens should also contact their legislators and express their opposition to any mandatory implementation of the Health Curriculum Frameworks.

To view the Frameworks online, visit http://www.doe. mass.edu/frameworks/health/ 1999/1099.doc and view the sections on Reproduction/ Sexuality, Family Life, and Disease Prevention and Control on pages 31 and 32. To download a brochure on the Frameworks approved by the Catholic bishops, go to www. macathconf.org.

Linda Thayer is a former science teacher in the Boston Public Schools and serves on the Pro-Life/Family subcommittee of the Mass. Catholic Conference.

Revised and updated ...

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16

Youth Pages

September 24, 2010

Local filmmakers victorious at 48-hour film project spare. “Last year it was incredibly close,” says Silva, “Too close, with only 30 seconds until disqualification. So this year I wanted to build in enough time to make the film I wanted to make, with no compromises.”

Nearly one month later, the results were announced at the historic Park Theatre in Cranston, R.I. “Condolences” was named the year’s top film and, as a result, will move on to the Miami International Film Festival in March, where they will compete against the winners of every other host city for a spot at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and Oscar consideration. “We were honored to win and so incredibly proud of our film and our team,” says Silva, “Everyone worked so hard and it really paid off.”

always ready for a burger — Freshmen at Bishop Feehan High School, Attleboro, are prepared to start a new year. The class gathered for a cookout in their honor after a day of orientation.

Seniors played the part of big brothers/big sisters who helped facilitate the day’s events. Pictured are a few freshmen with their senior “big brothers” enjoying a burger. From left, Kyle MacEachern, freshman; Austin Burlone, freshman; Joe Hannawi, senior; Ben Tyler, freshman; Ryan Semple, freshman; Josh Silva, freshman; and Kevin O’Brien, senior.

FALL RIVER — Harcourt Pictures, a Fall River-based independent film production company, many of whom are alumni or staff of Bishop Connolly High School, took home the top prize at this year’s 48 Hour Film Project in Providence, R.I., winning awards for Best Musical Score, Best Director and Best Film of the Year.

The international film competition runs annually in host cities around the globe and challenges filmmaking teams to write, shoot, edit and turn in finished short films within 48 hours. This year, more than 60 teams competed, randomly choosing their film genre and rushing to complete their films before the Sunday 7:30 p.m. deadline.

“It was definitely a challenge,” remembers team leader Chris J. Silva, Visual and Performing Arts chairman at Connolly, “but also loads of fun and very rewarding.”

Silva’s team, made up of more than 20 eager actors, editors, technicians and designers from the area, entered the competition for the second year in a row. Last year they took home the trophy for Best Editing.

“This year we were assigned Thriller/Suspense,” said Silva, “and I thought our script would work best as a silent film. We would tell the whole story using only images and music, without a single line of dialogue” The team’s top-honored film, entitled “Condolences,” tells the story of two young musicians, played by Andrew Iacovelli and Alec Moniz, whose friendship takes a turn for the worst with tragic results. After a crazed weekend of writing, filming and editing, the team turned in its film with plenty of time to

the buddy system — As part of the Buddy Program at St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro, upperclassmen are partnered with lowerclassmen to foster mentoring, friendship and respect.

Students in grades seven are paired with kindergarten students, and eighth-grade “buddies” with first-grade students. The students meet periodically during the year, creating crafts, reading and kiteflying at the end of the school year. Pictured is seventh-grader Connor Quigley with his new buddy, kindergarten student Aidan Killough.

Behind-the-scenes: From left, Chris J. Silva (director), Tim Valton (gaffer), James Fernandes (first assistant director), Andrew Correia (funeral consultant), Sean Murphy (actor), front/seated — Alec Moniz (actor), are pictured setting up a difficult shot in the funeral home location. All are either alumni or staff of Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River.

classroom fixtures — On the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Saint Mary-Sacred Heart School community celebrated its opening Mass to mark the beginning of a new school year.

Father David Costa, director of the North Attleboro school and pastor of St. Mary and Sacred Heart parishes, was the celebrant. One student from each class processed in with a crucifix to serve as a reminder of the feast day. The crucifixes were donated by Jay Brennan, president of Jeweled Cross and an alumnus of the school. With newly-blessed classroom crucifixes are, front, from left: Joey Landry, Christopher Tani, Leah Vigevani, Thomas Whalen, Yusef Kassem, Alex Daniels, and Jakob Gartman. Back: Charles Hearn, Elizabeth and Kay LaBelle, Teagan and Madelyn Sweet, Emily O’Heir, Brianne Brennan, and Skye Welter.

ACTION — Chris J. Silva, Visual

and Performing Arts chairman at Bishop Connolly High School, was part of an award-winning crew at an area film competition. (Photo by Dave Jolivet)

I

n my last two articles, I tried to express the reasoning behind my belief in the resurrection and my belief in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I am not a “blind faith” kind of person; it has to make sense to me.

Having said that, I know that the main reason I believe in God, in the Trinity, in the resurrection, in the Eucharist, in the power of prayer, in the communion of saints, in the intercession of our Blessed Mother — the main reason I believe in any of it is that God has blessed me with the gift of faith.

Every one of us has been given this gift, simply because God wants us to know him and to love him. However, each of us handles the gift

17

Youth Pages

September 24, 2010

Why I believe — a final thought

differently. Some reject it outright, perhaps because they know that opening that gift will require some response from their lives and they fear the commitment.

Some accept the gift, but never really open it.

It would be like getting a present and never unwrapping it, perhaps unaware that the wrapping is not the gift … there’s something inside. Some open the gift, but never use the contents, and before long they forget they even have it. Some even re-gift.

Parents who don’t actively live their faith by praying the Mass or receiving the sacraments but bring their children to CCD fit this category. And some open the gift, play with

it, work with it, explore it, nurture it, and come to rely on it. I think I’m in this category.

I believe primarily because

Be Not Afraid

By Jean Revil

God has given me the gift of faith, and I have been spending my life exploring all that it has to offer. I hope and I pray that I keep exploring for the rest of my days.

My best advice to the young people that may read this article is to first of all

learn what our Church actually teaches and why. Once you have the information, explore it with an open heart and an open mind. Pray for a deeper faith; pray for the gifts of wisdom and understanding. Give God a chance, give Mass a chance, give the sacraments a chance, and allow your life to be touched and changed. Spend some time and energy on this part of your life, because this spiritual component of your human nature is the part that is eternal. It deserves more than half-hearted acknowledgment of its existence. We work out in the gym to build up our bodies, we study to

build our intellect and our base of knowledge, we are attentive to our social life and friendships; our faith, our prayer lives, our relationship with God deserve at least as much attention.

It is the responsibility of every one of us to allow ourselves to be loved by God and to deepen our relationship with him on a daily basis. We have this gift of faith, but we also have the gift of free will.

God invites us every day into this incredible relationship, but he won’t force us to love him. The choice has always been ours.

Jean Revil teaches theology and is campus minister at Bishop Stang High School.

Comments welcome at: jrevil@bishopStang.com.

Pope meets with schoolchildren, offers a lesson on sainthood

By John Thavis Catholic News Service LONDON — In a rousing encounter with some 4,000 schoolchildren, Pope Benedict XVI asked them to make friendship with God the center of their lives.

“We need to have the courage to place our deepest hopes in God alone, not in money, in a career, in worldly success or in our relationships with others, but in God. Only he can satisfy the deepest needs of our hearts,” the pope said in Twickenham, a suburb of London.

He spoke to a cheering crowd of Catholic students who filled a soccer field next to St. Mary’s University College, and via Internet to the more than 800,000 young people who followed the event from their classrooms at Catholic schools throughout Great Britain.

The pope arrived a little late at the university, but he paused to greet some of the uniformed young students one by one, shaking their hands and accepting flower bouquets.

In a sense, Pope Benedict, a former university professor, was back in his favorite milieu. But on this particular day, he spoke more as a pastor than a theologian, offering a straightforward lesson on the path of sainthood.

Wearing a blue batik stole sent by students watching via internet in Gambia, the pope said he hoped that among his listeners there would be “future saints of the 21st century.”

“What God wants most of all for each one of you is that you should become holy,” he said, speaking from a giant red throne on a stage built for the occasion.

The pope acknowledged that “perhaps some of you think being a saint is not for you.” He reminded the students that the contemporary “celebrity culture” encourages

young people to find models in sports or entertainment figures, but he suggested they look at deeper qualities they would like to have in

destructive tendencies that cause great suffering, and compassion is born, he said.

“And once these things begin to

be used as a training facility for the 2012 London Olympics.

Earlier, in the university chapel, he met with British education

school days — Britain’s Queen Elizabeth stands with Pope Benedict XVI as they greet school children at the Royal Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, Scotland. The pope was on a fourday visit to Great Britain. (CNS photo/pool via Reuters)

their own lives.

Money and skill may make them famous, but it will not make them happy, he said.

“Happiness is something we all want, but one of the great tragedies in this world is that so many people never find it, because they look for it in the wrong places. The key to it is very simple — true happiness is to be found in God,” he said.

The pope said growing close to God was not unlike meeting a new friend, and hoping “they will find you interesting and attractive, and want to be your friend.”

“God wants your friendship.

And once you enter into a friendship with God, everything in your life begins to change,” he said. For one thing, he said, the practice of virtue becomes important. Greed and selfishness are recognized as

matter to you, you are well on your way to becoming saints,” he said.

The pope urged the students to avoid an overly narrow focus in their future studies, and to remember that the religious and ethical dimension is always a part of education. He also greeted the many non-Catholics studying in Catholic schools, and said they help ensure that respect for members of other religious traditions is among the virtues learned in Church-run schools.

The students presented the pope with three books to add to his own library: a volume written

by St. Bede, a book of Scottish poetry and a book about the Catholic martyrs of Wales.

The pope inaugurated a sports foundation named after Pope John Paul II at the university, which will

authorities and about 300 men and women religious who teach in Catholic schools. He paid trib-

ute to the great contribution of religious orders in education, especially noting the work of Sister Mary Ward, whose beatification cause has moved forward at the Vatican.

In the early 17th century, Sister Ward founded the Congregation of Jesus and of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, often known as the “English Ladies,” drawing the ire of Church authorities of that time for the unconventional structure of the order.

“I myself as a young boy was taught by the ‘English Ladies,’ and I owe them a deep debt of gratitude,” the pope said. He said real education is never simply a utilitarian exercise in imparting information of skills, but is about imparting wisdom.

The pope also told the school officials that he appreciated their efforts to ensure that Catholic schools provide a “safe environment” for children.

“Our responsibility toward those entrusted to us for their Christian formation demands nothing less,” he said.

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

18

The Anchor

September 24, 2010

Boston Respect Life Walk is October 3

Beethoven’s ‘Missa Solemnis’ to be performed in New Bedford

continued from page one

continued from page one

tion and pre-walk activities begin there at 1:30 p.m., with the walk beginning at 2:30 p.m.

The event is a 3.1-mile circular route. It should be noted that individuals can walk part of the route and have plenty of opportunity to catch up with the group further on in the walk.

Walkers are encouraged to solicit pledges for their participation. The registration fee is $5 for those age 18 and over. Registration and pledge sheets can be obtained at the Pro-Life Office, 450 Highland Avenue in Fall River, or by sending an email to pla@ plrachel.com.

Those making pledges have the option to choose where their monies will go, including Project Rachel (#32 on the form), or the Fall River ProLife Apostolate (#38). Pledge checks should be made payable to “Respect Life Walk.”

“Our diocese would like to see many of our young people head to Boston as they have in the past,” said Desrosiers.

“We’re hoping our diocesan schools will support the walk once again. Our youth give a tremendous witness to life.”

Desrosiers said that many diocesan parishes in the past have organized bus trips to Boston. She advised individuals who wish to attend to check their parish bulletin, or inquire with their pastors to see if any area parishes are doing so.

The Archdiocese of Boston is sponsoring a youth rally earlier that day, calling young people to gather at the Cathedral of Holy Cross, 1400 Washington Street in Boston, beginning at 10 a.m. Cardinal Sean O’Malley will celebrate a Mass with the youth at the cathedral at 11:30 a.m., followed by a pizza luncheon at 12:30 p.m. From there, the youth will process to the Boston Common to take part in the Respect Life Walk.

Desrosiers said the registration fee for that event is $15 by September 28, and $20 after.

“There will be several activities geared toward young children at the walk,” added Desrosiers. “There will be face-painting, balloons and other things to make the event family-friendly for those who bring their young children.

And there are many who do each year.”

The Greater Fall River Mass. Citizens for Life chapter is sponsoring a bus to bring local walkers to the Boston Commons. Round-trip fare is $5

for adults and $2 for youth 18 and under. The central pick-up location is at the Immaculate Conception Church on County Street in Fall River. Departure time will be at 12:30 p.m.

There will be a second pickup at the Taunton Galleria Park and Ride at approximately 12:45 p.m.

To reserve seats or for more information call Dot Nicolau at 508-674-8695 or Bea Martins at 508-415-2599 by September 29.

For more Boston walk information contact Mass. Citizens for Life at 617-242-4199 or visit masscitizensforlife.org.

The Fall River Pro-Life Apostolate is also busy making plans for the annual March for Life Pilgrimage with Bishop George W. Coleman to Washington, D.C., January 23-25, 2011.

“As in the past, we have two separate options for those wishing to attend the January 24 march,” said Desrosiers.

“We have a youth itinerary that includes bus transportation and various activities for the young people, and we have an adult itinerary that includes air transportation for those who cannot spend an extended time in the D.C. area.”

Those interested in attending should contact the ProLife Office at 508-675-1311 or email pla@plrachel.com.

In addition to the ProLife Apostolate pilgrimage, the Buzzards Bay Knights of Columbus Council 2911 has generously donated the proceeds from its annual golf tournament to organize several buses to the D.C. walk in January.

Plans are to have three comfortable motor coach buses available to transport pilgrims to attend the events from January 23-25. Their tentative itinerary is on January 23 for one bus to pick up travelers on the lower Cape, one for the upper Cape and the New Bedford area, and one dependent on where the majority of travelers originate. Pilgrims will stay at the Washington, D.C. Hyatt.

On January 24 pilgrims will attend Mass and take part in the march. The following day includes another Mass and the trip home.

Last year seats filled quickly. For information contact Kevin Ward at 508-291-0949.

Donations are also accepted for the trip, made payable to “Cape Cod Bus for Life, Inc.,” and mailed to 181 Great Neck Road, Wareham, MA, 02571.

have listened to Beethoven’s ‘Missa Solemnis’ many times, but I am not musically proficient enough to recognize its complexity beyond its beauty,” said Father Roger J. Landry, pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Parish. “But he describes it as one of the most challenging works that Beethoven ever composed.”

Calling it a “daunting” work unlike any other within Beethoven’s impressive canon, MacKenzie said the ‘Missa Solemnis’ remains one of the composer’s greatest achievements that is often eclipsed by his concurrent and popular Ninth Symphony, also penned late in his career.

“I think the biggest problem for this work is Beethoven’s language is so well-known to the average audience member,” MacKenzie told The Anchor. “But the ‘Missa Solemnis’ speaks at times in the language of the late quartets. Beethoven was exploring organization in music and structures and harmonic language at the time — concepts that really didn’t become popular until 40 or 50 years later with people like Mahler, Strauss and Wagner. But with it, he opened the door for literally a new language in liturgical music.”

Even though the German composer had already tackled a liturgical work with his earlier “Mass in C Major,” MacKenzie said the “Missa Solemnis” is a far more mature and fully-realized achievement that took an inordinate amount of time to complete.

“He authored it as a piece in honor of the ascension of his friend Archduke Rudolph to archbishop of Olmutz in 1820, but it just took forever for him to complete,” MacKenzie said. “It took four years — and that’s a long time for Beethoven. By the time it was ready to go, it was beyond the moment. But he had been planning even before the ‘Mass in C’ to compose a grand Mass.”

While Beethoven was a Catholic — albeit not a devout, practicing one — MacKenzie said he was certainly a very spiritual man who used his God-given talents and unique musical voice to express his beliefs.

“It’s interesting to note Beethoven wrote a little subtitle for the ‘Missa’: ‘Coming from the heart, may it speak to the heart,’” MacKenzie said. “I think that his treatment of the text is sometimes extra-liturgical, but in a modest way. For the most part, Beethoven really sticks to the liturgical text of the Mass. He went back and really analyzed the liturgy of the Mass itself — he even went so far as to having it translated from Latin into German in all its possibilities. He was very thorough in his approach and he personally considered this

work, in many ways, to be his crowning achievement.

“In many ways it was a statement of who he is as a composer, as a man, and in his relationship to God.” Noting that the “Missa Solemnis” contains echoes of Handel’s “Messiah” and homages to Bach’s “Mass in B Minor,” MacKenzie said Beethoven even cribs his own Ninth Symphony in parts.

“You hear many of the same dramatic gestures from the Ninth Symphony,” he said. “You could actually put the ‘Ode to Joy’ from the Ninth Symphony at the end of ‘Missa Solemnis’ and it would make perfect sense.”

Of course, being able to showcase this solemn, sacred masterpiece within the setting of St. Anthony of Padua Church seemed like a match made in heaven.

“It’s a remarkable place, a remarkable acoustical space and a remarkable visual space,” MacKenzie said. “To bring what to me is one of the most profound liturgical works in history — certainly on par with any of the great choral works — into St. Anthony’s Church is a blessing.”

“I have been profoundly moved to be present at some of their performances the past few years where the beauty of their music, the beauty of the genius of the composers, and the beauty of St. Anthony’s all come together to provide an aesthetic and spiritually-uplifting experience that in my life has had almost no parallel,” Father Landry said. “Many of the singers in the choir from my parish who are participating say it is one of the most serious vocal workouts they’ve ever had in their life. There are a lot of very skilled people who are working extra hard to pull this off, and I can’t wait to hear it.”

In addition to the October 17 performance of “Missa Solemnis,” the NBSO will be performing a second concert at St. Anthony’s Church in November, kicking off what they hope will become an annual holiday tradition.

“What we’re trying to do with our November 28 concert is to create an annual tradition for the area with Handel’s ‘Messiah,’” MacKenzie said. “We’ll be performing just the Christmas portion of the ‘Messiah’ with another instrumental work. This year it will be Vivaldi’s ‘Concerto for Two Trumpets.’ It will be performed on the first Sunday of Advent and having the ‘Messiah’ as the kickoff just seemed appropriate.”

“It’s been a long hope of mine that the NBSO would be willing to perform the ‘Messiah’ right at the beginning of Advent to allow any Christian to inaugurate our preparation for Christmas with Handel’s

masterpiece,” Father Landry said.

“So I’m excited about this doublefeature we’re having at St. Anthony’s this year and I really hope Catholics throughout the diocese will take advantage of this great opportunity.”

Father Landry was also pleased to be able to offer discount and group-rate tickets for both performances through his parish.

“As an inner-city pastor, it’s not always possible for my parishioners to be able to afford full-price tickets to an orchestral performance,” he said. “So tickets purchased through the parish will be offered at a $10 discount. Also any groups in the Fall River Diocese who would like to bring groups of 25 or more to the concert will be able to purchase them at $15 off face value. I’m hoping parishes might consider taking a confirmation class or other kids to experience some of the real treasures of not only western civilization’s patrimony but also the Church’s patrimony that have helped so many Christians before us lift up their minds and hearts to God in prayer.”

For MacKenzie, performing sacred works like Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” and Handel’s “Messiah” inside the solemn walls of St. Anthony of Padua Church puts the music within its proper context and setting.

“Physicists used to pooh-pooh this whole idea of sacred space,” he said. “But there have been a lot of studies recently that suggest the laws of physics shift somewhat within a place that has become a conditioned space — conditioned by prayers and devotion over the years. Our churches are places where miracles do happen, and music is one of the key vehicles for that.”

The New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Dr. David MacKenzie, along with the Providence Singers, directed

by Andrew Clark, and 100 choral singers will present Beethoven’s masterpiece “Missa Solemnis in D Major, Op. 123” on October 17 at 3 p.m. at St. Anthony of Padua Church in New Bedford.

The NBSO will also join an estimated 80 choral singers comprised of Mastersingers by the Sea, members of the UMass-Dartmouth University Chorus, and other groups from the area to perform the first part of Handel’s “Messiah” and Vivaldi’s “Concerto for Two Trumpets” on November 28 at 3 p.m. at St. Anthony of Padua Church.

Discounted and group tickets for both shows are available through St. Anthony of Padua Parish, 1359 Acushnet Avenue, New Bedford.

For more information about the NBSO, visit www.nbsymphony.org.

The Anchor

September 24, 2010

Cape Cod abortionist pleads guilty to manslaughter continued from page one

on the Cape closed. As part of his plea deal, Osathanondh is barred from practicing or even teaching in the medical field.

A grand jury found Osathanondh tried to cover up the fact that he and his staff were not certified in CPR. Eileen said she met with Osathanondh 10 days after Laura died.

“He told me he wracked his brain trying to figure out what he could do differently to save my daughter, and he comes up with nothing. He would have done everything the same way,” she said. “His whole point of being there was to cover up what he did.”

She praised the district attorney’s office for prosecuting the case, saying that abortion doctors elsewhere have gotten away with killing their patients when the pro-abortion establishment trumped justice. “It’s such an issue for a politician in Massachusetts to take a stand against an abortionist,” she said.

Eileen added that she hopes this case will show other prosecutors that they can get a conviction against any doctor who is criminally negligent.

Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, told The Anchor that maternal deaths at abortion clinics happen much more regularly than reported.

“Usually abortion is treated differently, and it’s good to see somebody getting called on it,” she said, adding that she would have liked to see Osathanondh serve more time.

Fox called this case a “teachable moment” for people to learn what actually goes on in abortion clinics.

“The public perception of abortion is that it is just a minor, little, safe operation,” she said. “It’s awful that someone died. But since that already happened, the fact that the case got to where it’s got is a very good thing for the general public.”

Fox also praised Eileen for speaking out about her daugh-

In Your Prayers

Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks Sept. 27 Rev. John W. Greene, S.J., Former Teacher at Bishop Connolly High School, Fall River, 1991 Sept. 29 Rev. J.A. Payan, Founder, St. Mathieu, Fall River, 1899 Sept. 30 Rev. John J. Griffin, Pastor, St. Paul, Taunton, 1963 Rev. George Taraska, OFM Conv., Parochial Vicar, Holy Rosary, Taunton, 1993 Oct. 1 Most. Rev. William O. Brady, S.T.D. Archbishop of St. Paul, 1961 Oct. 2 Rev. Joseph E. Sutula, Pastor, St. Casimir, New Bedford, 1961 Rev. Rene R. Levesque, Pastor, Blessed Sacrament, Fall River, 1999 Oct. 3 Rev. Msgr. Arthur G. Considine, Retired Pastor, St. Mary, South Dartmouth, 1991

ter’s death. Since that time, Eileen has traveled all over the country, speaking at pregnancy care center banquets, churches, schools and women’s groups — telling everyone Laura’s story. She receives calls from pregnancy center employees who tell her that her daughter’s

story convinced other women not to have an abortion. Sometimes she gets pictures of the babies.

“She has a wonderful faith,” Fox said of Eileen. “She says that she leaves it in God’s hands, and if it’s bigger than she is, he takes care of it.”

Around the Diocese 9/25

The Immaculate Conception Church Ladies Guild will be holding its annual Flea Market in the parish hall on County Street, Fall River tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. This fund-raiser is for the benefit of the boiler fund and other church projects.

9/25

The St. Vincent de Paul Society of St. Margaret’s/St. Mary’s parishes, Buzzards Bay and Onset, will sponsor its second annual Canal Walk tomorrow (rain date: October 2). Registration is from 8:15 - 8:45 a.m. in front of St. Margaret’s Church, 141 Main Street, Buzzards Bay. The one-mile walk begins at 9 a.m. starting at the train depot. For information call 508-291-1791.

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

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

Brewster — Eucharistic adoration takes place in the La Salette Chapel in the lower level of Our Lady of the Cape Church, 468 Stony Brook Road, on First Fridays following the 11 a.m. Mass until 7:45 a.m. on the First Saturday of the month, concluding with Benediction and Mass.

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

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

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

9/26

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.

9/26

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.

Sacred Heart Church, corner of Pine and Seabury streets, Fall River, will host a Chopstick Auction Sunday at 1 p.m. There will be more than 100 prizes and a cash raffle. Food will also be available starting at 11:30 a.m.

For more information call 508-990-6224.

A Health Fair will take place Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at St. Patrick’s Parish Hall in Wareham. Home Health Care Agency will be administrating flu and pneumonia shots. Be sure to bring insurance cards. Some exhibits include: Cancer Support Group, Dental Health, C.P.R. and Blood Pressure Checks.

10/1

The first meeting for this season of the Fall River Area Men’s First Friday Club will be October 1, 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. Norman Valiquette will be the guest speaker, who will speak about Blessed Andre Bessette of St Joseph Oratory. Any gentleman wishing to attend may do so.

For information call Daryl Gonyon at 508-672-4822.

10/2

St. Julie Billiart Church will host a Prayer Shawl workshop on October 2 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parish hall. The presenters are Janet Bristow and Victoria Cole-Galo. More information about this workshop and prayer shawls is available at the website, www.shawlministry.com, or call 508-993-2351.

10/3

Massachusetts Citizens for Life is sponsoring its annual Respect Life Walk to Aid Mothers and Children on October 3 beginning at 2:30 p.m. from the Boston Commons. The greater Fall River MCFL is sponsoring a bus from Immaculate Conception Church, County Street, Fall River to bring walkers to the Commons. Departure time is 12:30 p.m. There will also be a second pick-up from the Taunton Galleria Park and Ride in Taunton at approximately 12:45 p.m. To reserve seats or for more information, call 508-674-8695 or 508-415-2599.

10/3

A Living Rosary, sponsored by the Legion of Mary of St. Joseph-St. Therese Parish, New Bedford, will be held October 3 at 3 p.m. beginning with an outside procession from the parking lot behind the church. This year’s prayer intentions will be united with the “Walk for Life” held in Boston. For more information about the event or the Legion of Mary, contact Father Barry W. Wall at 508-679-1408 or Father Philip N. Hamel at 508-995-5235.

10/3

St. Mary’s Primary School, 106 Washington Street, Taunton, will host its 12th annual 5K Road Race on October 3 beginning at 10 a.m. Registration will take place from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the school. T-shirts will be given to the first 100 paid runners and awards will be given at the conclusion of the race. For more information call 508-822-9480 or visit www.needtorace.com.

10/6

In observance of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, the public is invited to join in an evening of Rosary Prayer and Song at the Rosary Walk on October 6, at the Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street, Easton, beginning at 6:30 p.m. For additional information call Holy Cross Family Ministries at 508238-4095.

10/9

Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Route 6, Wellfleet, will host its annual Holly Fair on Columbus Day weekend, October 9, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Photos with Santa will be taken from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and a session on how to make a hydrangea wreath will take place at 2 p.m. The event will include lunch, baked goods, refreshments, and plenty of gift ideas.

10/13

The Men’s Club and Ladies Guild of St. Elizabeth Seton Parish, North Falmouth, will host “La Bella Notte,” on October 13 at 6 p.m. Experience a beautiful night of Italian music and food prepared onsite. Social hour is from 6 to 7 p.m., with complimentary beverages and hors d’ oeuvres preceding dinner. Dessert will include Italian cookies and mini-pastries with coffee and tea. Call 508 457-6282 for reservations or further information.

10/16

Holy Name Parish, President Avenue, Fall River, will host its annual Harvest Festival on October 16 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the Holy Name School grounds. A yard sale will begin at 9 a.m. and entertainment will be provided by the Toe Jam Puppet Band. The event will also include auctions, raffles, games, ride and more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

20

The Anchor

September 24, 2010

Delaware becomes 23rd state to allow Pro-Life specialty license plates WILMINGTON, Del. (CNS) — Delawareans now may show their Pro-Life sentiment when they drive their cars, as the first batch of “Choose Life” specialty license plates has been delivered.

“When I saw that plate — it’s hard to describe that feeling,” Choose Life organizer Jim Cordie of Dover said about the arrival of his license plate in the mail in late August. “It was some type of relief.

There had been uncertainty.”

Delaware becomes the 23rd state to have Choose Life plates since the effort began in Florida in 2000. The plates have been offered in Maryland since 2003.

The Delaware plates carry the letters “PL,” for “Pro-Life,” Cordie said. The DMV requires a letter or letters before numbers to avoid confusion with the state’s numeral system for its standard tags.

“We would have preferred ‘CL’ for ‘Choose Life,’” Cordie said, but “CL” already is used by the state for commercial licenses.

Money raised by the tags will go to pregnancy counseling centers,

Cordie said. About $5,000 has been raised thus far, some of which reimbursed start-up costs for Choose Life Delaware Inc. The tags are available only to members of Choose Life Delaware,

which must inform the DMV if a member goes inactive, Cordie said.

Massachusetts began issuing Choose Life plates in June. For more information, visit www. machoose-life.org.