The Catholic Spirit - July 7, 2011

Newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Writing as a pastor, not a politician

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Helping the homeless

The Catholic Spirit

July 7, 2011

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News with a Catholic heart

Get a good read — on what’s happening at local Catholic bookstores

By Julie Pfitzinger For The Catholic Spirit

Independent bookstores face many challenges in a world increasingly dominated by technology. Whether it is online shopping for books at all hours of the day or downloading electronic versions of bestsellers onto an e-reader, consumers have choices that don’t necessarily involve a trip to the local bookstore.

Although this might seem to pose an insurmountable challenge to Catholic bookstores, it is not always the case due to the specialized nature of the titles they carry.

“There is no doubt that we are a niche,” said Sharon Balk, who owns St. George Catholic Books and Gifts in Blaine with her husband, Bob. The Catholic Spirit contacted a few local Catholic bookstores to see how owners and employees are meeting the challenge of today’s market.

Some common denominators include publishing online catalogs specifically for their stores, taking special orders, giving quantity discounts and offering a wide variety of items such as crucifixes, rosaries, music and DVDs and gifts to mark sacramental celebrations like baptism and first Communion — often the busiest times of the year for these retailers.

Kathy Ertl, owner of Holy Cross Books and Gifts in Lakeville, would love to see churches encourage parishioners not to

Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit

Sharon Balk, second from right, and Bob Balk, right, owners of St. George Catholic Books and Gifts in Blaine, show books to customers Mark Hudson of Chattanooga, Tenn., left, and Kristina Kummet of St. Paul in Ham Lake.

think of Catholic bookstores only when they have specific sacramental needs.

more churches can support Catholic bookstores, the better.”

“Churches want us to be ready when people want to buy for these celebrations, but we really need those customers all year long,” she said. “The

St. George Catholic Books and Gifts, Blaine When Bob and Sharon Balk opened

their Catholic book store seven years ago, the motivation was a simple one.

“We feel so strongly about our faith,” said Sharon. “We have such a passion for it and want to share it with others. In PLEASE TURN TO LOCAL ON PAGE 4

Shutdown: A wake-up call to mend civic culture

— page 12

Catholic Spirit blogs served up on new site The Catholic Spirit The Catholic Spirit launched a new blog site with a distinctly Minnesota flavor: CATHOLICHOTDISH.COM. Visitors to the site will find links to nine blogs covering diverse topics like the outdoors, book reviews, science and more, all from a Catholic perspective.

Catholic Spirit webmaster Craig Berry created the site to make it easier for readers to access all of The Catholic Spirit’s blogs in one place.

“We needed to rebrand our blogs,” Berry said. “‘Blogs’ or ‘Community’ doesn’t have the same zing as ‘Catholic Hotdish.’ In addition, we wanted to provide our visitors a simpler destination to find new content.”

Berry said he hopes Minnesota Catholics, especially, will visit the blog site, click the Facebook button and sign up for email updates. “That would be ‘Minnesota Nice’!” he said.

Visitors to the site also can subscribe to an RSS feed and follow Catholic Hotdish on Twitter at @CATHOLICHOTDISH to receive updates as soon as they are posted.

Also new on THECATHOLICSPIRIT.COM: ■ World War II veteran Lt. Harry L. Bedard died April 3, 1945. More than 60 years later, a funeral with full military honors was held for the Army Air Force soldier at his home parish, St. John the Baptist in Dayton. Watch a YouTube video featuring photos from the funeral and Bedard’s story.

■ View a video from the archdiocese’s June 26 Rural Life Sunday celebration at a farm in Hastings.

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JULY 7, 2011 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Writing as a pastor, not a politician In early June, I wrote a letter to Gov. Mark Dayton, Sen. Amy Koch and House Speaker Kurt Zellers about the present crisis over the state budget. Some commentators interpreted my message as favoring one party’s approach over another’s. That was not correct.

I took pains to express clearly and carefully the principles that should frame the budget discussions, namely, concern for the common good and providing essential services for the poor.

I wrote these letters not as a politician, but as a pastor — a pastor of 800,000 Catholics who operate small and large businesses in this archdiocese, who teach in our Catholic and public schools, who work on area farms, who staff government offices and who are unemployed.

I wrote as a pastor of a church that provides social and health services, wherein the effects of cutbacks in government support have a real and devastating impact.

That They May All Be One Archbishop John C. Nienstedt

In light of the state budget crisis, the church proposes an ethical and moral framework in the hope of moving the discussion in the right direction

Providing a framework Our Catholic parishes and organizations meet payrolls for their employees and know firsthand the difficulties caused by rising costs, especially in the area of health care. I, too, know of these difficulties firsthand.

But, even more importantly, I speak from the church’s age-old tradition of ethical analysis and moral insight that is found in our Catholic social teaching. From these teachings come principles which are applied using prudence and practical wisdom.

The church does not (as I did not in my letter) offer specific political or economic solutions, but rather proposes an ethical and moral framework in the hope of moving the discussion in the right direction.

The pursuit of the common good demands that power not dominate over justice, that the interests of partisanship not threaten the good of society as a whole, that the basic interests of the poor and most vulnerable not be ignored.

The church, of course, has a fundamental imperative

The Catholic Spirit The Catholic Spirit’s mission is to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. It seeks to inform, educate, evangelize and foster a spirit of community within the Catholic Church by disseminating news in a professional manner and serving as a forum for discussion of contemporary issues.

Appointments

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The pursuit of the common good demands that power not dominate over justice, that the interests of partisanship not threaten the good of society as a whole, that the basic interests of the poor and most vulnerable not be ignored.

”

ARCHBISHOP JOHN NIENSTEDT

from her Lord to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and shelter the homeless. But the state shares in these works as well in upholding the dignity of her citizens and thereby assuring the common good. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Those in authority should practice distributive justice wisely, taking account of the needs and contribution of each, with a view to harmony and peace. They should take care that the regulations and measures they adopt are not a source of temptation by setting personal interest against that of the community” (no. 2236).

The church is always willing to partner with government in its service to society when that service is rooted in justice and the dignity of the human person. I believe such cooperation is in the best interests of all concerned.

The governor and state legislators have an important and demanding task. They need our respect as well as our prayerful support. I, for one, have pledged both to them.

God bless you!

The New Generation of Appliance Specialists

Vol. 16 — No. 14 MOST REVEREND JOHN C. NIENSTEDT Publisher BOB ZYSKOWSKI Associate publisher

JOE TOWALSKI Editor

Published bi-weekly by the Catholic Spirit Publishing Company, a non-profit Minnesota Corporation, 244 Dayton Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102 (651) 291-4444, FAX (651) 291-4460. Periodicals postage paid at St. Paul, MN, and additional post offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Catholic Spirit, 244 Dayton Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102. www.TheCatholicSpirit.com e-mail: catholicspirit@archspm.org USPS #093-580

Father Peter Wittman was named pastor of St. Mark in Shakopee, effective July 1, in addition to his current assignments as pastor of St. Mary in Shakopee and St. Mary of the Purification in Marystown. Father Wittman, who was ordained in 1975, has served at St. Michael in West St. Paul, St. Mark in Shakopee, St. John the Baptist in Savage, All Saints in Lakeville and St. Joseph in West St. Paul.

Father Randal Kasel was named pastor of St. Michael in Pine Island and St. Paul in Zumbrota, effective July 23. Father Kasel, who was ordained in 2005, has served at St. Raphael in Crystal, St. Agnes in St. Paul and St. Charles in Bayport.

Father Mark Juettner was named pastor of St. Charles in Bayport, effective July 23. Father Juettner, who was ordained in 1979, has served at St. John the Baptist in New Brighton, St. Joseph in Lino Lakes, St. Michael in West St. Paul, St. Timothy in Maple Lake and St. Raphael in Crystal.

OFFICIAL Archbishop John C. Nienstedt has made the following appointments in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis: Effective July 1, 2011: Rev. Peter Wittman, pastor, St. Mark in Shakopee in addition to his current assignments as pastor of St. Mary, Shakopee, and St. Mary of the Purification, Marystown.

Effective July 23, 2011: Rev. Randal Kasel, pastor, St. Michael, Pine Island, and St. Paul, Zumbrota.

Rev. Mark Juettner, pastor, St. Charles, Bayport.

Clarifications

Materials credited to CNS copyrighted by Catholic News Service. All other materials copyrighted by Catholic Spirit Publishing Company.

Subscriptions: $29.95 per year Senior 1-year: $24.95 To subscribe: (651) 291-4444 Display Advertising: (651) 291-4444 Classified advertising: (651) 290-1631

Three priests get new assignments

Angela Warner

Joe Warner

Third-Generation Appliance Specialists St. Paul s Edina s Woodbury Maple Grove s Apple Valley Rochester s Mpls. Outlet

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■ On page 2A of the June 23 issue, Father Steve LaCanne’s appointment should have included that he continues as spiritual care director at St. Joseph’s HealthEast in St. Paul, where he has served since 2003, along with his change in assignment from administrator to pastor of St. Leonard of Port Maurice in Minneapolis.

■ A News Note June 23 on page 20A included the wrong photo of Father Roger Hessian, who celebrated his 50th anniversary of ordination on June 26 with a Mass and reception in New Prague.

FATHER HESSIAN

“If the dome of the Cathedral of St. Paul and that of the new State Capitol were part of the skyline of a city in Europe, they would be world famous.”

Cass Gilbert, Minnesota State Capitol architect

Local News from around the archdiocese

JULY 7, 2011

The Catholic Spirit

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Cathedral fundraising effort cuts debt in half

By Julie Carroll The Catholic Spirit

■ Cathedral’s exterior restoration cost $35 million.

A $12.5 million debt left over from the Cathedral of St. Paul’s exterior restorations a decade ago has been cut in half, according to archdiocesan officials.

In 2000, the cathedral’s copper roof was replaced and its granite exterior restored at a cost of $35 million.

Over the years, capital campaigns and several archdiocesan collections have helped repay much of that cost, but until last year a significant debt remained.

“Once the scaffolding came down and the crane went away and the roof was fixed, I think people thought: ‘Well, that’s it. We’ve done our duty,’” Archbishop John Nienstedt said. “In point of fact, it wasn’t that way, and I think some people are surprised to find that there was still indebtedness on it.”

On the occasion of Archbishop Harry Flynn’s 50th anniversary as a priest last year, the archdiocese asked benefactors to consider making a financial gift in the archbishop emeritus’s honor to reduce the Cathedral’s debt.

“Everyone who knows Archbishop Flynn knows that the cathedral restoration was so dear to

■ $6 million in debt remains.

Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit

■ Special collection to be taken up in parishes Sept. 24-25.

PLEASE TURN TO CATHEDRAL ON PAGE 5

Hearing Tests Set for Senior Citizens Announcement — Free electronic hearing tests will be given all next week Monday thru Friday from 9 am to 4 pm.

The tests have been arranged for anyone who suspects they are not hearing clearly.

People who generally feel they can hear, but cannot understand words clearly are encouraged to come in for the test, which uses the latest electronic equipment.

Everyone, especially those over age 55 should have an electronic hearing test once

a year. Demonstrations of the latest devices to improve clarity of speech will be programmed using a computer to your particular needs — on the spot — after the tests.

See (and HEAR) for yourself if newlydeveloped methods of correction will help you understand words better.

Tests will be performed at one of 20 convenient Greater Twin Cities Avada Hearing Care locations.

Call 1-800-435-5189

www.avada.com ©2011 HHM, Inc. 304

A Centennial Expression of Gratitude July 10th, 2011, 10:00 a.m.

Mass & Reception at Cathedral of Saint Paul 239 Selby Avenue, St. Paul, MN Maryknoll priests will celebrate all Cathedral Masses the weekend of July 9th-10th.

Please join us for 10 a.m. Mass on Sunday and reception to follow.

Our thanks to you for a century of prayers and support making our mission possible.

For more information: Tel: 773-493-3367, ext. 262 or E-mail: gdarr@maryknoll.org • Web site: www.maryknollsociety.org

Send notice of your upcoming parish event to us: spiritcalendar@archspm.org

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Local

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • JULY 7, 2011

Local Catholic bookstores fill niche for area readers CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 this business, we get to walk with Jesus every day.”

The couple, parishioners at St. Paul in Ham Lake, opened St. George after Bob had a shift in his career.

“We knew starting a bookstore wouldn’t be easy, but because we feel the Lord is always calling us to carry strong, solid Catholic material, we knew there would be customers,” Sharon said.

Both Bob and Sharon select the books for their store with a little help from their pastor, Father Jon Vander Ploeg.

“He is so well-respected and so wellread. We often run books by him to see what he thinks, and we’ll carry them if he says yes,” said Sharon, adding that the store has a special section devoted to Father Vander Ploeg’s favorite reads.

St. George also carries an extensive line of homeschooling curriculum and has online customers for this department from around the country.

Although the advent of e-books hasn’t made a huge impact on their store so far, Sharon said she knows the future of the book business is online and electronic, although she personally finds the concept hard to embrace.

■ Popular titles at St. George: books on the lives of the saints, books on apologetics, “Consoling the Heart of Jesus” by Michael E. Gaitley; “Time for God” and “Interior Freedom” by Father Jacques Philippe.

Saint Patrick’s Guild, St. Paul The family owned and operated Saint Patrick’s Guild has firmly established itself on the Catholic book/gift store landscape, but that doesn’t mean the growing presence of online retailers hasn’t made an impact.

“We are a niche market with a niche product,” said Tim Doran, president of Saint Patrick’s Guild. “At the same time, I do ask myself how I can compete with Amazon or Barnes and Noble. And unless smaller bookstores get into selling e-versions of books, it also makes me wonder if independent stores like ours will be around in five or 10 years.”

Doran does believe there is a resurgence among customers about the importance of “shopping local,” adding that Saint Patrick’s Guild has “an extremely loyal customer base.”

The store is also well known for the support it offers area authors such as Father John Forliti (author of the recently released “Ten Anchors”) Paul Bernabei and Tom Cody (“Top 20 Teens”) and Mary Treacy O’Keefe, author of the perennially popular “Thin Places: Where Faith is Affirmed and Hope Dwells.”

The Internet does offer a little boost because Doran believes many of his customers research books online before making a purchase.

“We’ll get calls asking for our hours and directions to our store. I think people realize they can just run over here and see the book or product for themselves before buying it. That actually happens a lot,” he said.

Underlying uncertainty about the future of small Catholic bookstores may be rooted in another cause, too, according to Doran.

“Kids today don’t read the way we did when we were growing up,” he said.

“Now the younger generation is on their

Summer reading list

Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit

A youth catechism book entitled “YOUCAT” and another entitled “Time For God”are among popular books on display at St. George Catholic Books and Gifts in Blaine.

computers and their phones and they don’t read.”

Doran thinks there are still 20-something readers torn between e-books and hard copies, but it is the 12-year-olds, already technologically savvy, who will likely be the ones determining the future of small bookstores.

■ Popular books at Saint Patrick’s Guild: books by and about inspirational people, “Jesus of Nazareth” by Pope Benedict XVI; “God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life’s Little Detours” by Regina Brett; “All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets and Witnesses for Our Time” by Robert Ellsberg.

Holy Cross Books and Gifts, Lakeville Like the Balks from St. George Bookstore, Bob and Kathy Ertl, owners of Holy Cross Books and Gifts, also took a leap of faith when they opened their Lakeville store five years ago.

The couple had a background in retail and were prepared for the long hours and financial challenges involved in running a bookstore. Today, Kathy works full time at Holy Cross and Bob, who has another job, works at the store part time.

According to Kathy, they are very strict when it comes to the types of books and DVDs they carry at Holy Cross.

“We don’t support anything not in line with Catholic or Christian teaching,” she said. “Our customers are always very happy to find a store in the area that carries good Catholic literature.”

Like the other booksellers, Kathy acknowledges the impact online retailers have had on business, which is why she believes it is so important for individual customers, as well as churches and school

programs, to work with stores like Holy Cross rather than going directly to the publisher.

“Larger orders are really the meat and potatoes of our operation,” she said. “I think it is just so vital for churches to support local Catholic bookstores.”

Store employees are happy to offer recommendations to customers — sometimes Kathy’s employees even provide suggestions to her about what new material she should carry.

“One of our youngest employees read “YOUCAT”, which is a new and very popular Catholic catechism for young people,” Kathy said. “She raved about it, so we’ve just ordered it for the store.”

■ Popular books at Holy Cross: “A Biblical Walk Through the Mass” by Edward Sri; “Walking with God: A Journey Through the Bible” by Tim Gray and Jeff Cavins; the new RSV Catholic Study Bible; “The Vatican” by Michael Collins.

Apostle Books & Gifts, Minnetonka For a small shop like Apostle Books, online retailers can truly seem like giants, but sales associate Sharon Spinharney said the number of loyal customers who continue to support the 14-year-old store is “very gratifying.”

“We’ve actually had to make Amazon a friend to some extent. It is a way for us to help customers track down a title if we don’t carry it,” said Spinharney, who works part time in the store owned by Judy Meier.

Having the opportunity to spend time with customers has been a huge boost, she said.

“Judy has gotten to know so many of our customers so well. She keeps their

Store locations and information ■ St. George Catholic Books and Gifts 10904 Baltimore St. N.E. Blaine, MN 55449 763-754-9777 WWW.STGEORGEBOOKS.COM ■ Saint Patrick’s Guild 1554 Randolph Avenue St. Paul, MN 55105 651-690-1506 WWW.STPATRICKSGUILD.COM ■ Holy Cross Books and Gifts 7608 160th St. West Lakeville, MN 55044

952-953-6330 WWW.HOLYCROSSINC.COM ■ Apostle Books & Gifts 4781 County Road 101 S. Minnetonka, MN 55345 952-931-0004 WWW.APOSTLEGIFTSONLINE.COM ■ Leaflet Missal Company 976 West Minnehaha St. Paul, MN 55104 651-487-2818 WWW.LEAFLETONLINE.COM

If you are looking for a great vacation book or simply something to enjoy during a quiet summer afternoon, here’s a sampling of some popular current reads mentioned by the Catholic booksellers in this story.

■ “Unplanned” by Abby Johnson The story of a former Planned Parenthood clinic director who made the decision to leave her job to join the Coalition for Life.

■ “Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back” by Todd Burpo During emergency surgery, Burpo’s son Colton, then 4 years old, claimed to have visited heaven and, following his recovery, told his parents about the experience in surprising detail. A New York Times bestseller.

■ “Breakfast with the Pope” by Susan Vigilante A memoir about Vigilante’s trip to Italy, her visit to the ancient village of Castel Gandolfo and the rare opportunity she had to meet and talk with Pope John Paul II. ■ “A Coach and A Miracle: Life Lessons from a Man Who Believed in an Autistic Boy” by Jim Johnson with Mike Latona Written by the coach of the Greece Athena High School boys basketball team, about young Jason McElwain, who made an incredible impact during the last three minutes of a basketball game at his Rochester, N.Y., high school, but had a greater impact on his coach, team and community.

— Julie Pfitzinger

names on a list and prays for them during her adoration hour at St. John the Baptist in Excelsior,” Spinharney said.

Large groups, like book clubs or Scripture study groups, are frequent patrons of Apostle Books. A Scripture study called “The Better Part” is so popular, the staff has a hard time keeping it on the shelves.

■ Popular books at Apostle Books: “The Teen Timeline” by Jeff Cavins; anything on Pope John Paul II; audio books; “God Calling” by A.J. Russell; “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young; several titles by Father Walter Ciszek (stories of spiritual growth and inspiration).

Leaflet Missal, St. Paul This family-owned and operated Catholic book and gift store has been serving St. Paul Catholics for more than 80 years.

Sales associate Martha Brown said the majority of Leaflet Missal’s customers prefer to shop in the store or order items through the store’s catalog.

■ Popular books at Leaflet Missal: books about the Mass and the new Roman Missal; New American Bible, Revised Edition; books on the lives of the saints or inspirational people; YOUCAT, the youth Catechism of the Catholic Church. Leaflet Missal also carries several titles in Spanish, including the “Diary of St. Faustina.”

Local

JULY 7, 2011 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

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A time for adoration

Deacon Ben Little of the St. Paul Seminary positions a monstrance with the Eucharist on the altar in the seminary chapel at the end of Mass celebrated

by Archbishop John Nienstedt June 28. This marked the beginning of 60 hours of eucharistic adoration for the intentions of Pope Benedict XVI, for an increase in vocations and for priestly sanctity — all in honor of the pope’s 60th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood. Adoration ended on the morning of July 1.

Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit

Cathedral collection set for September CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3 his heart,” said Father Joseph Johnson, Cathedral rector.

“The thought was posed: Why not honor him by trying to help finish what he considered his unfinished project,” he said. “So major benefactors around the Twin Cities were approached and gave very generously. That’s how we saw the debt this year cut in half.”

More than $6 million was raised through the effort led by Archbishop Nienstedt as well as Karen Rauenhorst and Jim Frey, co-chairs of an event that honored Archbishop Flynn on his 50th anniversary of ordination and helped raise money to pay down the Cathedral debt.

A nonprofit organization called the Cathedral Heritage Foundation was established four years ago to guide the restoration efforts and also assist with fundraising.

“The Cathedral Heritage Foundation . . . has reached out and made progress in attracting support from non-Catholic benefactors as well as from local corporations,” Father Johnson said.

Preserving a treasure

The Society for THE PROPAGATION OF THE FAITH . . . a Pontifical Mission Society Enclosed is my gift for the Missions of $__________. Send to: Rev. Mr. Mickey Friesen Rev. Mr. Mickey Friesen, 328 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55102-1997

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When Father Johnson became rector five years ago, the Cathedral’s monthly debt payment was about $120,000, he said. Now it’s $30,000.

“This great domed church sitting high on the hill dominating the skyline is a reminder to everyone of the presence of our loving God and his invitation to become disciples of the Lord Jesus,” Father Johnson said.

“It was clearly built by all the people of the archdiocese, and it clearly can only be

restored and maintained by all the people of the archdiocese as well,” he added.

Water seeping through the roof also damaged the Cathedral’s interior, which will require additional restoration work in coming years, Father Johnson said.

“It’s all of the beautiful ornamental plaster work that is crumbling due to the moisture within it, but it’s also the stonework . . . that has been compromised,” he said.

“We’re hoping that the things that we’re doing each year to care for the Cathedral will prolong the period before we need to tackle urgently the interior restoration,” Father Johnson said.

But it’s a matter of years rather than decades, he added.

September collection Parishes in the archdiocese will take up a special collection at Masses Sept. 24-25 to help further pay down the Cathedral’s debt.

“I’m very grateful to those who have contributed already,” Archbishop Nienstedt said. “And I would encourage people to contribute to the upcoming collection because, after all, the Cathedral belongs to all of us.

“That was one of Archbishop [John] Ireland’s themes, that everyone should feel at home in the Cathedral,” he added.

“That’s my hope as well.”

To help support the Cathedral restoration, individuals may also call the Cathedral Heritage Foundation at (651) 228-1766 or visit WWW.CATHEDRALHERITAGEFOUNDATION. ORG/DONATE. Editor Joe Towalski contributed to this story.

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Local

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • JULY 7, 2011

Passing along hope to people in need St. Paul Homeless Connect offers one-day gathering of resources for the poor

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

Niya Irving greeted Kassandra Himes and her five children with a warm smile as they entered the large auditorium in the basement of Saint Paul RiverCentre June 28. Himes, a single mother who moved to St. Paul from Chicago in April, was in need of help.

Irving and a group of several hundred volunteers were poised to lend a hand.

They were there as part of St. Paul Homeless Connect, a one-day event designed to place a number of practical services and resources in one place so that people in need could access them easily. Catholic Charities served as host for the event and teamed with Ramsey County Human Services, the State of Minnesota and other service providers.

Finding hope Irving was motivated to volunteer because she has used such services herself.

“I was homeless last year,” said Irving, 26, the single mother of an 18-monthold daughter, Jessania. “I just came in to help people and give them a little bit of what I got. It [the event] made me know there is hope.”

She walked around the auditorium

From left, volunteer Niya Irving helps Kassandra Himes of St. Paul navigate the booths at the St. Paul Homeless Connect event at the Saint Paul RiverCentre June 28.

Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit

with Himes and made sure Himes found all of the services and resources she needed. Irving even took three of Himes’ younger children to a child-care area so they could play while their mother filled her bag with useful information.

Two of Himes’ greatest needs were housing and school information. She left the auditorium having signed up her children for school in the fall. Schools will be contacting her in the next two months with information, then she will

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Archbishop Nienstedt’s Column “That They All May Be One” Every issue in The Catholic Spirit

decide where the kids will go when classes start in September.

“Right now, I’m staying in a shelter,” said Himes, 32, who is pregnant with her sixth child and due in August. “It’s a little bit of a struggle, but I try to do the best I can with whatever [help] I get. They have a lot of resources down here [at St. Paul Homeless Connect]. That’s what I like.”

Well-used resources Event coordinator Katie Tuione, hous-

ing manager for Catholic Charities, was glad to see an estimated 1,700 people come to gain access to a wide range of services and resources, including human services benefits, health care, legal assistance, veterans’ benefits, state identification services and personal services like haircuts.

At the conclusion of her visit, Himes and her children received a free meal and PLEASE TURN TO FORMER ON PAGE 22

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THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • JULY 7, 2011

Six more parishes exceed Appeal goal Six additional parishes have exceeded their 2011 Catholic Services Appeal goal, bringing the total number of parishes over goal to 75. The CSA has currently raised more than $8.8 million to help those most in need in the archdiocese.

The six new parishes are: St. Joseph, Hastings Cathedral of St. Paul, St. Paul Assumption, St. Paul Corpus Christi, Roseville St. Mary of Czestochowa, Delano St. Michael, St. Michael

CNS / Nancy Wiechec

Bob Zyskowski, associate publisher and general manager of The Catholic Spirit, speaks after accepting the 2011 St. Francis de Sales Award from the Catholic Press Association June 24 in Pittsburgh. Read more about the award at THECATHOLICSPIRIT.COM.

Catholic Spirit garners national journalism awards Associate publisher Bob Zyskowski receives Catholic Press Association’s highest honor

■ 2nd place — best regular arts and leisure column for “The Outdoors,” by photographer/writer Dave Hrbacek.

The Catholic Spirit

■ 2nd place — best coverage of the Year for Priests for a special section titled “Celebrating Our Priests.”

The Catholic Spirit garnered several journalism awards at the 2011 Catholic Media Convention June 22 to 24 in Pittsburgh.

The newspaper was awarded second place in the “general excellence” category, marking the seventh consecutive year The Catholic Spirit has finished in the top three among large-circulation diocesan newspapers.

The award takes into account all aspects of a publication — from the writing and photography, to the design and editing. The judges called The Catholic Spirit a “clean, well-organized, welledited paper” with good local content.

Also at the convention, associate publisher and general manager Bob Zyskowski was honored with the 2011 St. Francis de Sales Award from the Catholic Press Association — its highest award, which recognizes an individual’s “outstanding contributions to Catholic journalism.”

Writing honors Among other awards The Catholic Spirit received for material published in 2010 were: ■ 1st place — best editorial section for “This Catholic Life.”

■ 1st place — best editorial on a national or international issue for “Woody, Buzz and the meaning of life” by editor Joe Towalski.

■ 2nd place — best editorial on a local issue for “Health care policy: Whose side is God on?” by Joe Towalski.

■ 2nd place — best news writing for the news team’s series “7 Principles for Planning,” which examined the challenges facing the archdiocese as it prepared its strategic plan for parishes and schools.

Other Catholic organizations also presented awards recently, and The Catholic Spirit was recognized by two of them: ■ Dave Hrbacek was awarded the National Right to Life’s 14th Annual Excellence in Journalism Award for his story, “Electrician sparks life commitment by turning down abortion clinic job.”

And, from the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the newspaper received three awards: ■ Bob Zyskowski garnered first place honors in the “Visits to the Missions” category for his story, “Venezuelans, priests celebrate 40-year gift exchange” about the relationship between the archdiocese and its Venezuelan mission.

■ Staff writer Julie Carroll and Dave Hrbacek took first place in the “Mission News” category for their story “Situation in Haiti still critical” about the country’s efforts to recover following a devastating earthquake in January 2010.

Parishes that previously exceeded their goal are: St. Anne/St. Joseph Hien, Minneapolis Our Lady of Lourdes, Minneapolis Mary, Queen of Peace, Rogers St. Hubert, Chanhassen St. Luke, Clearwater Nativity of Our Lord, St. Paul St. Mary of the Lake, Plymouth St. Michael, Stillwater St. Peter, Forest Lake St. Michael, Kenyon St. Helena, Minneapolis Ascension, Norwood Young America St. Bartholomew, Wayzata St. Adalbert, St. Paul St. Genevieve, Centerville St. Bonaventure, Bloomington St. Albert, Albertville St. Rita, Cottage Grove Our Lady of Victory, Minneapolis St. Charles Borromeo, St. Anthony Risen Savior, Burnsville St. Jude of the Lake, Mahtomedi Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Paul St. Canice, Kilkenny St. Vincent de Paul, St. Paul St. Patrick, Jordan St. Thomas the Apostle, Corcoran Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Minneapolis St. Anne, Hamel St. Peter, Mendota St. Joseph, West St. Paul

St. Francis of Assisi, Lakeland Holy Family, St. Louis Park St. Patrick, Faribault St. Margaret Mary, Golden Valley St. Patrick, Edina Our Lady of Grace, Edina St. Francis Xavier, Taylors Falls St. Pius V, Cannon Falls St. Paul, Zumbrota St. Nicholas, New Market St. Michael, Prior Lake St. Paul, Ham Lake Guardian Angels, Chaska St. Charles, Bayport St. John the Baptist, Hugo St. Bridget of Sweden, Lindstrom St. Joseph, Taylors Falls Lumen Christi, St. Paul St. Cecilia, St. Paul Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Paul St. Rose of Lima, Roseville St. Louis, King of France, St. Paul St. Francis De Sales, St. Paul St. Agnes, St. Paul Sacred Heart, St. Paul St. John of St. Paul, St. Paul St. Odilia, Shoreview St. John Vianney, South St. Paul St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Hastings St. Henry, LeSueur Nativity, Madison Lake St. John the Baptist, Savage Most Holy Trinity, St. Louis Park Good Shepherd, Golden Valley St. Nicholas, Carver St. Joseph, Waconia St. John the Baptist, Dayton St. Katharine Drexel, Ramsey It is not too late to give a gift. If you would like to make a pledge/gift to the Appeal, please go to WWW.ARCHSPM.ORG/APPEAL to donate online; or if you have questions, contact the Development and Stewardship Office at (651) 290-1610.

Everything Catholic in Minnesota In print & online with The Official Minnesota Catholic Directory Call 651-291-4444 for information

■ Deacon Mickey Friesen, director of the archdiocese’s Center for Mission, received an honorable mention for TCS’ World Mission Sunday 2010 supplement.

JERICO CHRISTIAN JOURNEYS Check out our new Website www.jericochristianjourneys.com JOIN US ON PILGRIMAGE Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help near Green Bay, Wisconsin Many Summer/Fall Departures from Twin City area Or customize your own group For further information/brochures, call:

Toll-free 1-877-453-7426 19091 Island View Drive, Mora, MN 55051-7304 www.jericochristianjourneys.com colleen@jericochristianjourneys.com

Board member wins Catholic Spirit board member Christina Capecchi-Ries, won two awards — 2nd place for best feature article in a general magazine for her story “Men of the Same Cloth? Parishes React to a New Style of Priest” in U.S. Catholic; and 3rd place for best family life column for “Twenty-Something,” which is now the second-most widely published syndicated column in the Catholic press.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR NEEDS (612) 861-6088 • 1 (800) 945-4455

Daniel J. McGraw

“I want to be present wherever the people are found.”

Pope Benedict XVI

Nation/World 8

The Catholic Spirit

News from around the U.S. and the globe

JULY 7, 2011

Pope launches Vatican web portal

Briefly

Site will streamline news from various offices

Catholic Relief Services picks university dean as new president

By Sarah Delaney and John Thavis Catholic News Service

Carolyn Woo, dean of the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, has been named president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services.

Woo, 57, will succeed Ken Hackett, who is retiring after 18 years as head of the bishops’ international relief and development agency.

She will begin the job Jan. 1.

WOO Born and raised in Hong Kong, Woo served on the CRS board of directors from 2004 until 2010 and traveled to observe the agency’s program in Africa and Asia, including Banda Aceh, Indonesia, soon after the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Her teaching and research interests include corporate and competitive strategy, entrepreneurship, management of innovation and change and organizational systems.

Pope Benedict XVI inaugurated the Vatican’s online news portal with a click, and then announced the launch with the first-ever papal tweet.

“Dear Friends, I just launched News.va.

Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI,” the pope said in his message on the news site’s Twitter account.

His tweet — 117 characters — went viral, and within 24 hours HTTP://TWIT TER.COM/NEWS_VA_EN had more than 35,000 followers.

The pope was flanked by Vatican communications officials June 28 as he tapped an iPad and officially launched WWW.NEWS.VA, which aggregates news content from the Vatican’s newspaper, radio, television and online outlets.

Streamlining the news Archbishop Claudio Celli, who heads the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said at a news conference June 27 that the site would streamline news from the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano; Vatican Radio; the Vatican television station, CTV; the Vatican Information Service, VIS; the Fides missionary news agency; the Vatican press office; and the main Vatican website.

It offers print, video and audio material in Italian and English. New languages will be added gradually, beginning with Spanish, followed probably by French and Portuguese, he said.

Thaddeus Jones, an official of the pontifical council who coordinated the creation of the portal, said the site gives all the news generated by the various information sources but will highlight the latest most important items of the day.

Hybrid eyed as pope’s next vehicle CNS photo / L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters

Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, assists Pope Benedict XVI with the new Vatican news portal on an iPad at the Vatican June 28. The information portal at www.news.va aggregates the Vatican’s various media into a one-stop site for all things papal.

It features a list of the 10 most-read stories and offers links to many social network sites. Users can share content through Facebook, Twitter and email, Jones said.

Costs of the development and mainte-

nance of the site will be borne exclusively through donations from private organizations and foundations, Archbishop Celli said. It will not be supported at present or in the future by advertising or other commercial initiatives, he said.

Pope Benedict XVI will be traveling in greener style in the future when a project for a new hybrid popemobile gets off the drawing boards and on to the road, a papal spokesman said.

A hybrid vehicle has both an electric motor and a gasoline engine.

Mercedes-Benz is making plans for an energy-saving papal vehicle that could be used at home or abroad, said Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office.

World Youth Day registration high; many want to volunteer Catholic News Service Organizers of this year’s World Youth Day say that the figures for registration and requests to volunteer are higher than ever and bode well for a successful and joyful gathering in Madrid in August.

Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to attend the event, and organizers said they expect more than 1 million young pilgrims to join him.

Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, who leads the Vatican agency organizing the huge event, said that some 440,000 young people had already signed up, a record number for registrations with the event still six weeks away. More than 35,000 young Catholics have applied for one of 22,500 places in the vast volunteer corps, he

In Spain, pope to hold nine major meetings Pope Benedict XVI will preside over nine major events with young people during World Youth Day celebrations in Madrid in August, including a prayer vigil and a closing Mass expected to draw more than a million people.

The pope will hear the confessions of several young people, host a group of youths for lunch and lead a Way of the Cross with young people in central Madrid.

said.

At a news conference at the Vatican June 28, Cardinal Rylko said that every World Youth Day is “an extraordinary experience for a church that is a friend of

He will also meet with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and with members of the royal family during his Aug. 18-21 visit.

It will be the third international World Youth Day encounter for the German pope, who met with young people in 2005 in Cologne, Germany, and in 2008 in Sydney.

— Catholic News Service

young people, close to them with their problems” and is able to transmit “enthusiasm and missionary zeal.” Young people, especially in increasingly secular Europe, “have a particular need for all of

this,” he said.

In fact, he said, Pope Benedict chose the Spanish capital for the Aug. 16-21 event because of the specific need of Europe to rediscover its Christian roots and because of his conviction that young people are the most effective evangelizers.

The pope will spend Aug. 18-21 in Madrid, meeting with the young people several times and even hearing the confessions of some of them. The sight of young people going to confession in fields and tents has been a standard part of World Youth Day gatherings, but the Madrid celebration will mark the first time the pope himself will administer the sacrament at the event.

Nation/World

JULY 7, 2011 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Church opposes states’ same-sex union efforts In Rhode Island, bishop warns against civil unions Catholic News Service Saying that civil unions “promote an unacceptable lifestyle, undermine the faith of the church on holy matrimony, and cause scandal and confusion,” Providence, R.I., Bishop Thomas Tobin reminded Catholics that they may not participate in such ceremonies.

“To do so is a very grave violation of the moral law and, thus, seriously sinful,” he said in a statement June 30, the day after passage of legislation that will give same-sex couples who enter into civil unions the same rights and benefits as marriage in Rhode Island.

The state Senate agreed to the bill, which the House had already approved, on a 21-16 vote late June 29 and Gov. Lincoln Chafee, an Independent, signed it July 2. Some proponents of so-called ‘same-sex’ marriage in the state opposed the bill, however, saying it did not go far enough and allowed overly broad religious exemptions.

Bishop Tobin said he was “deeply disappointed” at the decision to permit civil unions.

“The concept of civil unions is a social experiment that promotes an immoral lifestyle, is a mockery of the institution

“Persons with samesex attraction are required to live the Christian virtues of chastity and modesty, as all persons are.

”

PROVIDENCE BISHOP THOMAS TOBIN

of marriage as designed by God, undermines the well-being of our families, and poses a threat to religious liberty,” he said.

He said church members should “have respect and love for persons with same-sex attraction” but must remember that “homosexual activity is contrary to the natural law and the will of God and, therefore, is objectively sinful.”

“Persons with same-sex attraction are required to live the Christian virtues of chastity and modesty, as all persons

are,” Bishop Tobin added.

The Rhode Island vote came less than a week after the New York Legislature approved a same-sex marriage bill, which the state’s Catholic bishops said would undermine marriage and families.

In a separate statement released July 1, Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, Calif., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, affirmed Bishop Tobin’s comments and denounced passage of the civil unions bill.

Elevating same-sex relationships to marital status with all of the rights of marriage, even if the new status is not called marriage, “fails justice because now the government is treating as similar two different realities that cannot be considered as analogous or equivalent in any way,” Bishop Cordileone said.

Marriage Equality Rhode Island called the civil unions legislation “fundamentally flawed” and, along with nine other organizations supporting same-sex marriage, urged Chafee to veto it because it allows religiously affiliated organizations — including hospitals, day care centers, schools or cemeteries — not to recognize same-sex unions.

Money, political clout set tone for N.Y. debate on marriage

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien Catholic News Service

It was a fight involving an age-old definition of marriage, with several Catholics playing key roles.

But in the end, according to a church spokesman, the effort to stop a same-sex marriage bill in the New York Legislature came down to money and political favors — neither of which were at the disposal of Catholic leaders and their allies working to keep the traditional view that marriage can only be between one man and one woman.

“Money talked in this case,” said Dennis Poust, director of communications for the New York State Catholic Conference, in an interview with Catholic News Service.

By a 33-29 vote late June 24, the state Senate approved legislation making socalled same-sex marriage legal in New York state. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat and a Catholic, signed it into law later that evening.

Influx of money Poust said the strategy used by proponents of the legislation was “very simple — millions and millions of dollars from wealthy gay-rights advocates from all over the country, a billionaire mayor in New York City willing to spend whatever it took and an extremely determined governor willing to do anything to get his way.”

“That’s not something the church can compete with,” he added in a telephone interview from the conference’s headquarters in Albany, N.Y. “We don’t have money to throw around and even if we did, it wouldn’t be permitted.”

Poust also said there were “all sorts of backroom deals and promises to senators” who voted to support same-sex marriage, as well as pledges by New York

Mayor Michael Bloomberg to “open up the pocketbooks” for those legislators.

“There was a lot of arm twisting, a lot of cajoling,” he said.

In a message to Catholic New Yorkers after the vote, the heads of the eight New York dioceses thanked the legislators and citizens who worked for defeat of the legislation.

“We know the pressure that was brought to bear on them, and we admire their courage and yours in attempting to defend marriage and protect religious freedom,” the bishops said. “Many surely believed that Catholics would simply shrug their shoulders and go along with this radical act of social engineering. Yet you did not do that.”

The bishops expressed “particular disappointment with those elected officials who publicly profess fidelity to our Catholic religion but whose public stance is at odds with a fundamental teaching of that faith.”

Poust said the New York bishops have expressed frustration with Catholic legislators who say they are personally opposed to same-sex marriage but feel compelled to vote for it anyway.

“The idea that you can claim to be a faithful Catholic and take a position that is at the opposite extreme of what the church teaches is no longer acceptable,” he said.

A last-minute amendment to the leg-

islation exempts any clergy members who decline to perform same-sex weddings and protects any employee “being managed, directed or supervised by or in conjunction with a religious corporation, benevolent order or a not-for-profit corporation.”

It also says failure to provide same-sex ceremonies would not “result in any state or local government action to penalize, withhold benefits, or discriminate against such religious corporation, benevolent order, a not-for-profit corporation operated, supervised or controlled by a religious corporation.”

Unless the law is delayed by legal challenges, it will take effect in late July. New York would then become the sixth state to permit same-sex marriage.

9

Pope says selfish economic models at the root of world hunger

By John Thavis Catholic News Service

Pope Benedict XVI said persistent world hunger was a “tragedy” driven by selfish and profit-driven economic models, whose first victims are millions of children deprived of life or good health.

In responding to the crisis, international agencies should rediscover the value of the family farm, promoting the movement of young people back into rural areas, the pope said July 1 in an address to participants in an annual conference on hunger organized by the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Meeting with the group at the Vatican, the pope strongly emphasized the theme of economic justice that has figured prominently in his encyclicals and other writings.

He noted that millions of men, women and children remain without adequate nourishment today.

“My thoughts turn toward the situation of millions of children, who are the first victims of this tragedy, condemned to an early death or to a delay in their physical or psychic development, or forced into forms of exploitation just to receive minimal nutrition,” he said.

Needing moral guidance The pope said the cause of such hunger cannot be found only in technical developments such as production cycles or commodity prices.

“Poverty, underdevelopment and, therefore, hunger are often the result of selfish behaviors that, born in the human heart, manifest themselves in social life, economic exchange, in market conditions and in the lack of access to food,” the pope said.

“How can we be silent about the fact that even food has become the object of speculation or is tied to the course of a financial market that, lacking definite rules and poor in moral principles, appears anchored to the sole objective of profit?” he said.

The pope said the United Nations’ own studies show that global food production is able to feed the world’s population — which makes the situations of hunger all the more unjust.

The pope called for support of international efforts to promote the family farm as a key component of national economies.

The pope also said food security also requires protective measures against “frenetic exploitation of natural resources.”

This is especially true because the race of consumption and waste seems to ignore the threat to the genetic patrimony and biological diversity, which are so important to agricultural activity, he said.

2010 WINNERS

Celebrating 100 years of publishing, The Catholic Spirit proudly announces the 10th annual Leading with Faith Awards

Nomination time!

We are looking for folks like these, business owners, supervisors, anyone with management responsibilities who lives their faith in the work-a-day world.

Presented by — PRESENTING SPONSOR — Available — PATRON SPONSORS —

The Catholic Spirit kindly requests nominations for the 10th annual “Leading With Faith" Awards.

Now is the time to nominate a Catholic manager, owner or business person for this prestigious award.

Do it now: deadline is July 15 The 2011 awards will be presented to individuals who have influenced the workplace through business practices that reflect the teachings of Jesus Christ and his Church and who share of themselves in their parish and/or community.

Business people will be honored in both large and small companies as well as leaders of nonprofit organizations.

Forms are also available online at TheCatholicSpirit.com. You will find a "Leading With Faith" nomination form with requirements and criteria the nominees must meet.

Please duplicate blank forms and nominate individuals in any or all of the three categories: businesses with fewer than 50 employees; businesses with 50 or more employees; and nonprofit organizations. The more thorough the nomination, the better the chance of selection.

If you have questions or to make reservations for the awards luncheon, contact Mary Gibbs at (651) 251-7709 or gibbsm@archspm.org.

— SPONSOR —

WORKPLACE PRACTICES — USE ADDITIONAL PAPER (Note: This is the most important part of the nomination. If you do not work with the nominee, it may be helpful to talk with him/her or someone who works with him/her.)

AWARD CRITERIA REQUIREMENTS • Nominee must be employed currently in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

• Nominee must be an active member of his/her parish.

1. List and describe examples that demonstrate the nominee's faith-based leadership. Examples might include treatment of employees and/or shareholders, value-based wages and benefits, role modeling, mentoring and others.

2. Describe an ethical dilemma the nominee has faced in his/her work environment and how he/she resolved the dilemma.

3. List major parish, archdiocesan and/or spiritually based non-church community organizations to which the nominee belongs. Identify leadership roles with each organization.

NOMINEE INFORMATION:

NOMINATOR INFORMATION:

Nominations must be submitted and postmarked by Friday, July 15, 2011.

Mail or e-mail nominations to: Mary Gibbs The Catholic Spirit 244 Dayton Ave. St. Paul, MN 55102 or gibbsm@archspm.org

Name: ________________________________________________

Name: ________________________________________________

Parish: ________________________________________________

Title: __________________________________________________

Phone: ________________________________________________

Relationship to nominee: ________________________________

E-mail:_________________________________________________

Phone: ________________________________________________

Company name (note whether for-profit or nonprofit):

E-mail: ________________________________________________

Archbishop John Nienstedt will present the “Leading With Faith” Awards at a noon luncheon banquet on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011, in the Rauenhorst Hall Ballroom in the Coeur de Catherine building at St. Catherine University, 2004 Randolph Ave., St. Paul.

_______________________________________________________

Company contact information, if available:

SUBMITTAL PROCESS:

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

Number of employees: _____

_______________________________________________________

Job title: _______________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

How long has nominee held that position?_________________

_____________________________________

“Exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of later aggressive behavior, aggressive feelings, aggressive thinking.”

Psychology professor Craig Anderson

This Catholic Life JULY 7, 2011

Opinion, feedback and points to ponder

The Catholic Spirit

11

Should minors be able to buy violent video games? e use our TVs for more than watching TV. There are DVDs (and, for the hardy holdouts, VHS tapes), and time-shifting and on-demand options in the new digital age. TVs also are used to play video games.

And the Supreme Court has opened the floodgates for the most violent of video games to be purchased by minors, striking down a California law that had banned their sale to youngsters, imposing a $1,000 fine for any store that sold violent video games to anyone under 18.

Mark Pattison The vote wasn’t close — 7-2 — and the two dissenters represented one each from what is generally regarded as the court’s liberal and conservative wings.

Leland Yee, the California state senator who wrote the law, was clearly unhappy with the high court’s decision.

“Unfortunately, the majority of the Supreme Court once again put the interests of corporate America before the interests of our children,” he said in a statement posted on his website June 27, the date of the court’s ruling. “It is simply wrong that the video game industry can be allowed to put their profit margins over the rights of parents and the wellbeing of children.” Such profits come “at the expense of our kids’ mental health and the safety of our community,” he said.

The video game industry’s annual sales total $10 billion.

U.S. Rep. Joe Baca (D-Calif.) said June 27 he would reintroduce a bill that would require the makers of any video game rated T (for teen) or higher to post a health warning, in the manner of those found on cigarette packs: “WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.” He sponsored such a bill in 2009, but it went nowhere.

“Research continues to show a proven link between playing violent games and increased aggression in young people,” Baca said in 2009. “American families deserve to know the truth about these potentially dangerous products.”

W

What do you think?

How should parents and the culture address the issue of violent video games?

Send us your thoughts: ■ By email to CATHOLICSPIRIT@ARCHSPM.ORG.

Please write “Video games” in the subject line.

■ By mail to The Catholic Spirit, 244 Dayton Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102.

Commentary

Free speech question In his dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer said, “I would find sufficient grounds in these studies and expert opinions for this court to defer to an elected legislature’s conclusion that the video games in question are particularly likely to harm children,” adding his view that the California law passed constitutional muster.

Breyer added, “What sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting the sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds

The Catholic Spirit will publish a selection of responses in the newspaper and online at THECATHOLICSPIRIT.COM.

“It is simply wrong that the video game industry can be allowed to put their profit margins over the rights of parents and the well-being of children.

”

5LELAND YEE California state senator

and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?”

In a separate dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas — considered an “originalist,” meaning that he backs the intent of the Constitution’s original framers — said:

“‘The freedom of speech,’ as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors — or a right of minors to access speech — without going through the minors’ parents or guardians.”

The justices in the majority considered

video games a protected form of speech under the First Amendment. It was the first time the court gave a blanket protection to a communications medium since 1952, when movies got that nod. TV doesn’t qualify for full protection because it uses the airwaves, which are owned by the public and managed in the public’s stead by the government, to transmit content.

The California law “abridges the First Amendment rights of young people whose parents (and aunts and uncles) think violent video games are a harmless pastime,” said the majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia and joined by four other justices.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a separate concurring opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, but he added his belief that a more narrowly tailored law could work, noting the disturbing imagery of some of the games.

“The objective of one game is to rape a mother and her daughters,” Alito said. In another, “players attempt to fire a rifle shot into the head of President Kennedy as his motorcade passes by the Texas School Book Depository.”

The Parents Television Council was none too pleased with the ruling. “When an industry trade group files a federal lawsuit to defend a child’s constitutional rights, the alarm bells should be deafening,” said the group’s president, Tim Winter, in a June 27 statement.

While most TVs now in use carry a Vchip to allow parents to block programs that carry a TV Parental Guideline they don’t care for, the technology has not advanced to the point where DVDs or video games carrying ratings objected to by parents — but still needing the TV screen to be viewed — can be likewise blocked.

It may turn out to be the next, necessary, step.

Mark Pattison is media editor for Catholic News Service.

12

Opinion-Letters

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • JULY 7, 2011

/ This Catholic Life

State government shutdown:

A wake-up call to mend our civic culture ow that our elected leaders have collided in a game of “chicken” and significant portions of state government are idled, a pall has been cast over Minnesota.

Although there was a shutdown in 2005, it was a “shutdown light” and solved quickly. This one will likely go longer and is more serious: More services and functions are suspended, and the divisiveness and vitriol are deeper and louder.

The combination of the court order on “essential services” and temporary “stop gap” funding from counties and other sources allows Catholic Charities to avoid immediate disruptions in services to our clients. Other nonprofits are confronting more diffiTim Marx cult challenges. A resolution is needed soon to avoid major consequences.

N

Guest Column

Protecting the poor Catholic Charities has been one of the many voices that have advocated for a state budget that protects the poor and vulnerable by maintaining adequate funding for basic needs such as housing and health care, as well as continuing to fund items that are necessary to maintain jobs and self-sufficiency such as child care and transit.

With poverty and homelessness increasing as a result of the Great Recession, it is morally wrong, fiscally short-sighted and economically counterproductive to cut services that put the poor at greater risk and limit their opportunities for productive lives.

As the negative impact of the budget adopted by the Legislature became clear, Catholic Charities also advocated for

Where to write

“Are we willing to interpret the promises made in the heat of campaigns in the broader context of the responsibility of our leaders to govern and promote the general welfare?

”

TIM MARX

more revenue as part of a final resolution that would also include reduced spending and long-term reforms. Our advocacy on these matters will continue until there is a budget in place, and we ask for the continued support of the Catholic community.

Lessons from history But there are larger issues at stake. Our civic culture and elected leaders are accepting the consequences of a government shutdown — jobs lost, lives disrupted, resources wasted, and our state’s reputation tarnished — rather than adopting reasonable compromises.

History is replete with examples of decision-makers stubbornly sticking to positions in spite of evidence that doing so would be contrary to the interests they were trying to protect, and notwithstanding better alternatives that were widely discussed.

Barbara Tuchman, the renowned historian, chronicled several such incidents — allowing the Trojan Horse into Troy, the Protestant Reformation, the British Loss of North America, and America’s humiliation in Vietnam — in her 1984 book “March of Folly.” In these examples, stubbornness persisted and the predicted negative consequences were the result.

The consequences of the state shut-

■ E-mail: CATHOLICSPIRIT@ARCHSPM.ORG ■ Mail: The Catholic Spirit, 244 Dayton Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102

down do not, for now, rise to the level of those chronicled in “March of Folly.” But the common good will feel the impact, and the common good will be served if we learn from this history so as to not repeat it.

Seeing the bigger picture A responsible resolution to the state budget will require the Legislature and the governor to adopt a broader and longer-term view of what they seek to accomplish.

Can the broader goals of fiscal responsibility and economic vitality be advanced with some new state taxes?

Are there ways to raise revenue, maintain needed services and enhance tax fairness without relying solely on income taxes on the wealthy?

And what about the rest of the citizens of this state? Are we willing to interpret the promises made in the heat of campaigns in the broader context of the responsibility of our leaders to govern and promote the general welfare?

I am confident this is possible, and I am certain it is necessary if the future of our state is to be as bright as its past.

Tim Marx is chief executive officer of Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Material printed on the Opinion and Letters page does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the archdiocese or The Catholic Spirit.

Don’t overlook the need for immigration reform I buried his ashes today, Sunday, with well over 200 tearful family members, friends and well-wishers present, among them his 17 yearold stepson whom I baptized when he was an infant.

We frequently read about the thousands of people who die in the desert after crossing the border with Mexico.

Yet, for altogether too many of us in our society, it is easy to dismiss these family providers as numbers, as law-breakers and as “Mexico’s problem.”

Letter

But this number has a name, Rafael, and Rafael has a history. He had to be cremated because of the merciless sun and elements of the desert, although his picture reveals a healthy, friendly 40-year-old man.

He was well loved by many and generous, a model father, according to his stepson, and ever since he was touched deeply at a retreat four years ago, an active member of the Church of the Assumption in Richfield.

As we “echar la culpa” (blame) and argue over who’s responsible for the budget woes, serious ones, of our state and country, we easily overlook immigration reform with no attention to how it is intertwined with so much of what we do and who we are. All of us have benefited from the “illegal alien.”

As generous as we might be as a well-off society, we are also shortsighted. I say that with apologies to no one. We buried Rafael today, but we cannot bury our responsibilities to improve a very broken immigration system. After all, we’re baptized, and that’s not the way to imitate Jesus Christ.

DEACON CARL VALDEZ Incarnation-Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, Minneapolis

We will not remain silent, says faith-based coalition “If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace and for economic and racial justice, it will forfeit the loyalty of millions and cause men everywhere to say that it has atrophied its will.”

— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from Joint “A Knock at MidReligious night,” 1963 Legislative

Statement

Coalition The public is aware of high-profile issues and incidents that have put a spotlight on the role of religion in our state’s governance. Some have questioned the propriety of religious voices in our public debates.

We, the members of the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, thought it would be helpful to reaffirm what our coalition of

the largest faith groups in Minnesota believes is the proper role of religious communities’ participation in public life.

The Islamic Center of Minnesota, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, the Minnesota Catholic Conference and the Minnesota Council of Churches, separately, and together as the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, pledge to work in the public realm to protect human dignity and to build social justice in ways that strengthen our democracy and the responsiveness of our government.

Our identities as religious people compel us to speak out on behalf of the common good. This is not to compete with the democratic process, but to enrich it.

We see ourselves as faithful participants, and even stewards, of our democracy. We have rich teachings and the wisdom of centuries to draw upon and to offer. We remind people of faith, and

everyone, that healthful policymaking is the obligation of all people — people of diverse faiths and people outside our various religious traditions.

Religious people cannot be silent, nor should we be. Democracy works when there is a free exchange of ideas, and religious communities should continue to serve their historic function in providing voices of conscience to the public debate.

We will enter the public debate with statements grounded in our religious values but articulated with reasoned arguments accessible to those who do not share our religious beliefs.

Let there be no question that the participation of religious communities in public debates is somehow unconstitutional or breaches the supposed “wall of separation” between “church” and state.

As has been well documented, Jefferson’s metaphor was meant to ensure that the government stayed out of the church’s

business, not that religious people should be silent about public affairs.

The religious communities that make up the JRLC will strive to speak, whenever possible, with a consensus voice. But there are policy matters where lack of consensus obligates faith communities to raise their unique voices as a matter of conscience and civic obligation.

As we expect of the public in our own advocacy, we respect the right of our communities, and other people of good will, to work for the common good in accordance with their creed or their conscience.

Allow us to express our gratitude to our public servants and elected representatives. They are all remembered in literally thousands of prayers on a daily basis, and we thank them for their service.

This statement was approved June 17 by the JRLC board of directors.

This Catholic Life / Commentary

JULY 7, 2011 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

13

Life lessons from my 80-year-old grandpa eave it to Grandpa to put things in perspective. It was halfway through our second annual Christmas party, and I was flitting around, refilling glasses and collecting empty plates.

Preparing for the party had kept me moving — wrapping presents, baking shortbread cookies, stringing 3,200 white lights on our blue spruce. Not exactly meditating to “Silent Night.”

I brought some water to Grandpa, sitting in the corner facing everyone, and sat down beside him.

“Look,” he instructed me, his blue eyes misty. “What do you see?”

I scanned the kitchen: nodding and laughing. Then I looked at Grandpa. Somehow he had stepped outside the scene and was observing it from a distance.

“No ill will,” he said, answering his own question. “Everyone’s happy.

You see love.”

He’s come to love reading, and in March he wrote to World War II P.O.W. Louie Zamperini, the subject of Lauren Hillenbrand’s bestseller “Unbroken.”

“God sure must have had a mission for you in life to put you through so much,” he wrote. “We will probably never meet in this life but look forward to meeting you in God’s heaven.”

L Twenty Something Christina Capecchi

Ten years after heart attack, Grandpa embraces each day as a gift from above

Relishing the ordinary In that moment, I glimpsed it, too, rising above the particulars and seeing the picture in broader strokes.

Here we all were, shoveled out from the snow, marking another Christmas together, bound by blood and by love, standing in the sacred space where duty meets desire.

It was the perfect Christmas gift, to step outside the party like the Ghost of Christmas Present and then reenter, relishing all the little things that had seemed ordinary a moment before.

That is Grandpa’s magic. He has a painter’s grateful eye, sharpened 10 years ago by a heart attack. Surgeons

Traveling a long distance

“He has taught me that heaven brushes earth — in paint strokes and clarinet notes, in written words and spoken prayers, in first Communions, in every Communion.

”

— CHRISTINA CAPECCHI

patched the hole in his heart, and he steadily recovered, embracing each day as a gift from above.

Three years later, at 73, Grandpa taught himself to play clarinet, putting numbered tape on keys to correspond with his fingering chart. Within months he was playing the second movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto.

He is a dark-skinned, light-eyed artist, the fifth child of a Florentine immigrant raised in the shadow of

the Duomo.

Grandpa spent his career painting Catholic churches, refinishing statues of saints and applying gold leaf.

Now he is enjoying retirement, playing in the St. Paul Police Band, fishing at his cabin and watching “Jeopardy” with Grandma. (She would be a brilliant contestant, he insists.)

He’s on his second pacemaker and awaiting the birth of his third greatgrandchild. He began writing a book called “Life Begins At 70.”

In May Grandpa gave a toast at my cousin’s wedding. “May earth and heaven mingle,” he told the newlyweds. I’ve seen him cry at every grandchild’s wedding, and that evening, he found the words for his tears.

In June Grandpa turned 80. We celebrated on the second Saturday of the month, which happened to be the day the cottonwood trees had been buffeted by just enough heat and just enough wind to unleash their flossy seeds. Wrapped in cotton clusters, they are designed to travel long distances.

So is Grandpa.

To experience 80 years and rejoice in each new day is his singular joy.

He has taught me that heaven brushes earth — in paint strokes and clarinet notes, in written words and spoken prayers, in first Communions, in every Communion. And when those moments happen, we hold them to our hearts, never quite the same.

Christina Capecchi is a freelance writer from Inver Grove Heights. Contact her at CHRISTINA@READCHRISTINA .COM.

Deteriorating performance makes firing inevitable; now what? iring someone from their job is unpleasant.

Managers hate doing it and employees hate losing their job. But it happens, and our faith can be a guide for both manager and employee.

F

First, consider the manager’s perspective.

Faith and the Workplace Tom Bengtson

Employers must balance justice and mercy

If employee performance devolves to the point were termination is inevitable, the employer has to work hard to balance two principles: justice and mercy.

Justice to the other people who depend on the company — employees, customers, shareholders and benefactors — requires that a nonperforming employee improve performance, move someplace where the requirements of the work match their performance or — barring success on those two fronts — leave the company. A manager has to be the one moving this process forward.

Mercy, however, requires that an employer manage an underperforming employee with dignity. The employer might ask himself, “If I were having trouble, what would I want?”

Managers can use the answer to that question as a guide. This typically means helping the employee to succeed at the first sign of a performance issue, communicating clearly about consequences if performance fails to improve, privacy and discretion if termination is actually executed, and some level of follow up to help the employee find work elsewhere.

“Since the beginning of time, people have wondered why bad things happen to good people; if you are fired, don’t let this question be an impediment to your faith.

”

TOM BENGTSON

Always painful From the employee’s perspective, job loss almost always hurts, and firings typically hurt more than layoffs.

A fired employee is likely to experience a series of emotions, starting possibly with disbelief and moving to anger, sadness and finally acceptance. But it could take weeks or months to work through all this.

The duration of the process will be proportional to the extent the employer successfully balanced the principles of justice and mercy. It is much easier to accept a firing that is just and

merciful than it is to accept one that seems random and harsh.

Since the beginning of time, people have wondered why bad things happen to good people; if you are fired, don’t let this question be an impediment to your faith. Any forcible and unpleasant change is an opportunity for a person to reflect on the past, consider the factors that led to the change and make plans for a new path in the future.

As you ponder your situation, remember that putting the fire out and rebuilding the home are two separate projects. In other words, initially you might have to take any job you can get to pay the bills, but longer term you want to find a work situation that best matches your interests and gifts.

God first Whether you are a rank-and-file employee or a manager, work is ultimately a gift that gives those of us in the labor pool the opportunity to co-provide with God for family and self.

God invites us into this work to help us develop a relationship with him. In our careers, it is easy to focus on job descriptions, promotion tracks, compensation and profits. But, if we focus first on our relationship with God, the rest usually falls into place.

For more on faith in the workplace, visit WWW.TOMBENGTSON.COM.

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THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • JULY 7, 2011

Commentary

/ This Catholic Life

Priest hooks men with fishing retreat he sun was a ball of red as it made its descent toward the horizon on Lake of the Woods in northern Minnesota on a beautiful evening in late June.

Father LeRoy Scheierl, pastor of four parishes in the Diocese of St. Cloud, sent someone to pull me away from my chef duties inside one of three cabins owned by the Knights of Columbus on Magnusson Island, the northernmost tip of the state and the continental U.S. “Bring your camera,” was the simple order given by one of the 14 men taking part in Father Scheierl’s fishing retreat on the big lake.

Quickly and humbly, I obliged. I wasn’t about to miss a spectacular sunset, though I was not the least bit interested in slacking off on my assignment as head dinner cook for the evening.

As I stared at the crimson glow of sun and clouds reflected in the still waters of the lake, I couldn’t help but sense the presence of the Artist who painted this scene.

This is exactly the kind of experience Father Scheierl had in mind when he came up with the idea for the retreat several years ago. He wanted to get men away from their responsibilities so they could fish, pray and experience God in the outdoors.

From this standpoint, the retreat, which took place June 20 to 24, was a huge success. In addition to hours of fishing, we prayed the Liturgy of the Hours every morning and evening, prayed the rosary twice and attended Mass in a small chapel built by the Knights as part of a replica of Fort St. Charles, which originally stood in the 1700s as a hub for the canoe travels of the voyageurs.

T The Outdoors Dave Hrbacek

Thanks to the Knights of Columbus, men can find God on Lake of the Woods

Fishing for help And, yes, Father Scheierl put in a good word to the almighty for some walleyes to bite, too. Sometimes, fishing can be so good on this lake that invocations for angling success seem almost unnecessary.

Not so on this trip. We battled a double whammy of unstable weather and a prolific hatch of mayflies that resembled the plagues described in the Book of Exodus. The bugs were everywhere, and the walleyes were gorging on them, which made our offerings of live bait and minnow plugs significantly less appealing.

Fortunately, there are so many fish in this lake that you can catch a limit of walleyes even on a bad day.

And, that is precisely what happened. It took three days of fishing, but our group of 14 left the lake with a combined limit of 56 walleyes (four per person), plus a few bonus sauger.

But, as tasty as those walleyes will be, catching fish is not what made the trip memorable for myself, my son, Andy, and his high school classmate, Jake Druffner, of St. Michael in Stillwater. Rather, it was the fellowship with the other men, Father Scheierl’s engaging talks about the

Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit

Father LeRoy Scheierl, left, a priest of the Diocese of St. Cloud, enjoys time in a boat with Charles Francis during a fishing retreat on Lake of the Woods in late June. Also in the boat were brothers Leon and Ken Kuhn.

history of the voyageurs, the prayer and the chance to spend time in the outdoors with nothing to distract us.

In today’s world, especially, it is important for men to have such experiences, Father Scheierl noted, and it is why he has shifted the emphasis of his priestly ministry from youth toward adult men in recent years.

Making time for God “There’s a real need for men’s spirituality out there,” he said. “To me, it’s very rewarding to see men gathered around a campfire or in the cabins talking about God and faith and what matters to them. . . . Those are things you don’t just do or don’t just happen unless you provide an environment for that.”

This was a diverse group of men that filled the Knights’ three cabins and the five boats that embarked from the Angle Outpost Resort to the nearby island. It included a pair of highly skilled anglers in their 20s, who probably caught as many walleyes as the rest of us combined.

There also were several farmers in the group, who were able to figure out a way to get away from their chores. One of them is an elk farmer from Brandon (near Alexandria), who is originally from Malaysia.

I enjoyed getting to know these men as I talked, joked, prayed, ate and fished with them. All but one of them came from the four Alexandria-area parishes where Father Scheierl serves as pastor — Our Lady of Seven Dolors in Millerville, St. Ann in Brandon, St. William in

Parkers Prairie and Sacred Heart in Urbank.

through the ‘Ape’ Vine.” It will feature a talk on evolution.

We took turns cooking breakfasts and dinners, with Father Scheierl throwing in a shore lunch one day, using walleye we had caught that morning.

Christianity began on lake

Time for healing As we repeatedly opened our prayer books and pulled out rosaries, it was evident to me that these were devout men of prayer. It was rare that anyone stayed out in his fishing boat too long and showed up late for prayer. And, the men were quick to help those assigned to cook a meal, even after they had already taken their turn.

Perhaps, the most somber moment of the week came during introductions on the first day. One of the men said he had decided to come in order to help ease the pain of losing his wife to a tragic car accident. The one-year anniversary of her death occurred during the trip. He seemed a bit quiet at times, but smiled and laughed as much as any of us.

I think Father Scheierl is on to something. This was his third fishing retreat (the first was in 2007) and he had no trouble filling the 14 spots. But, that’s not all.

Continuing in this fishing theme, he has come up with a program called Theology on the Lakes, in which a parishioner with lakeshore property hosts an evening devoted to a talk, discussion and fellowship.

The next one is scheduled for July 15 on Lake Miltona near Alexandria.

The title for this event is: “I heard it

“We’ve had 70 to 80 people come.

It’s starting to grow more and more,” Father Scheierl said, of the Theology on the Lakes events.

“Christianity began on a lake — the Sea of Galilee. There’s a natural connection.”

So, I asked Father Scheierl, will there be any fishing involved in Theology on the Lakes?

“We’ll get a volunteer to walk on water, and then we’ll go fish for him,” he joked.

As I made the eight-hour drive home, I couldn’t help but be thankful to the Knights for making this retreat possible. Not only did they build the three cabins, but they have made them available for priests and the men they invite as guests — free of charge.

Since the Knights opened their cabins to lay people several years ago, they are getting more use. As we prepared to leave, Father Greg Mastey, vocations director for the St. Cloud Diocese, was bringing in a group of men for another fishing retreat.

With a little better planning, I might have been able to take in a second retreat, maybe even served as a fishing guide. For now, I’ll just keep hoping there’s a next time.

Dave Hrbacek is a staff photographer at The Catholic Spirit. Visit his Faith Outdoors blog at HTTP:// C ATHOLICHOTDISH . COM / BLOGS /FAITH OUTDOORS.

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.”

Matthew 13:16

The Lesson Plan JULY 7, 2011

Reflections on faith and spirituality

The Catholic Spirit

15

Mass, adoration, reconciliation among ways to meet Jesus hy do you speak to them in parables?” The disciples ask Jesus this question immediately after he gives a punchy conclusion to the Parable of the Sower. Jesus says, “Whoever has ears ought to hear.” In other words, “Listen up!”

It is as if the disciples are politely asking Jesus to remove some of the gravity of his message. But this the Master will not do.

For as the Prophet Isaiah says of the Word of God, it will make the earth “fertile and fruitful” and achieve “the end for which it is sent” which is nothing other than our eternal salvation.

How often would we, like the disciples, prefer to have the Lord’s words be less demanding? How often do we choose to let our common daily anxieties and cares dominate our thoughts and “choke out” Deacon the word of God? Ben Little There is more to Jesus’ “listen up” than we might notice at first glance.

Like he does in the parable he has just told, Jesus is revealing something about himself to the crowds who have come to see him. When he says, “Whoever has ears ought to hear,” he is really reminding us that our ears, and indeed our eyes and our hearts, are made to hear and understand his word.

Jesus is the God who made us, the God who made us

“W

Sunday Scriptures

Readings Sunday, July 10 15th Sunday in ordinary time ■ Isaiah 55:10-11 ■ Romans 8:18-23 ■ Matthew 13:1-23

For reflection Beginning this week, what can you do to listen more deeply and carefully to Jesus’ words?

in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:26). We must resist the temptation to ask Jesus, even politely, to lower the pitch of his message when it seems too difficult, because it is the message of our salvation.

Even though we might think so at times, an easy, cheap, counterfeit Gospel will not satisfy us — we are created only to hear and respond to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Going to Jesus In order to become the “rich soil” that Jesus describes, we must turn to him and listen to his words in all their power. The more we do this, the more we will understand that the words of Jesus, which come to us in the Scriptures (most of all in the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes) and in the church’s teaching, are really tailor-made for us.

We can, like the crowds in the Gospel, go to Jesus and listen to him in any number of ways. Most of all, we do this by regular attendance at Mass where we hear his word proclaimed solemnly and receive Jesus, the Word Himself, in the Holy Eucharist.

In order to extend the fruitfulness of the Mass and sharpen our desire to attend once again, we should delight to come before Jesus in eucharistic adoration, just as the crowds stood on the shore listening to Jesus speaking from the boat.

Approaching the sacrament of reconciliation in order to hear Jesus’ words of mercy will help to till the soil of our hearts and make them even more ready to hear Jesus.

Hungering for more Before long, we will no longer protest, along with the disciples, for the Lord to “tone it down.” Instead, we will hunger more and more for the authentic words of Jesus.

What a great joy it will be to see that word begin to govern our lives more completely and yield fruit “a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold” as we glorify God and extend ourselves in charity toward a world in great need.

Deacon Ben Little is in formation for the priesthood at the St. Paul Seminary for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. His home parish is St. John in Little Canada and his teaching parish is St. Anthony of Padua in Minneapolis.

Daily scriptures Sunday, July 10 15th Sunday in ordinary time Isaiah 55:10-11 Romans 8:18-23 Matthew 13:1-23 “On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.”

— Matthew 13:1 We tend to think only big gestures make a difference. Yet, so often in the Gospels Jesus simply ministered to those who crossed his path. I remember the woman who was struggling with her image of God until, in prayer, she recalled walking down the street as a child and passing a woman who patted her on the head and smiled at her lovingly. In that exchange, she felt loved and accepted in a way she had never before experienced and years later recognized God’s affection for her in that encounter.

Monday, July 11 Benedict, abbot Exodus1:8-14, 22 Matthew 10:34 — 11:1 When we follow Jesus, we can’t tolerate injustice in order to avoid conflict.

Tuesday, July 12 Exodus 2:1-15a Matthew 11:20-24 Even the most powerful miracle won’t change our hearts unless we recognize the compassion in which it is rooted.

Wednesday, July 13 Henry Exodus 3:1-6, 9-12

Matthew 11:25-27 What are you trying to earn that is freely given?

Thursday, July 14 Kateri Tekakwitha, virgin Exodus 3:13-20 Matthew 12:28-30 Notice the ways Christ has been present to you in times of suffering.

Friday, July 15 Bonaventure, bishop Exodus 11:10 — 12:14 Matthew 12:1-8 Do you hold yourself and others to an impossible standard of perfection?

Saturday, July 16 Our Lady of Mount Carmel Exodus 12:37-42 Matthew 12:14-21 Don’t allow the rejection and judgment of some to stop the compassion and mercy of God from working through you.

Sunday, July 17 16th Sunday in ordinary time Wisdom 12:13, 16-19 Romans 8:26-27 Matthew 13:24-43 “. . . for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.”

— Romans 8:26 So often our prayer remains polite and safely distant from what we are really feeling. Tears, although we may find them embarrassing, have been described as the highest form of prayer because they come from the deepest

part of our being. When our prayer turns dry and our relationship with God seems distant, we can call on the indwelling Spirit for help in expressing whatever remains hidden from our hearts and minds.

Monday, July 18 Camillus de Lellis, priest Exodus 14:5-18 Matthew 12:38-42 It can’t be called faith if we demand signs and wonders before we are willing to change our hearts and minds.

Tuesday, July 19 Exodus 14:21 — 15:1 Matthew 12:46-50 Notice if you ever ignore some people and show a preference for others based on their role.

Wednesday, July 20 Apollinaris, bishop and martyr Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15 Matthew 13:1-9 What helps you open your heart to give and receive compassion and forgiveness?

Thursday, July 21 Lawrence of Brindisi, priest Exodus 19:1-2, 9-11, 16-20b Matthew 13:10-17 By putting limits on the mercy of God, we unknowingly resist the wholeness God desires for us.

Friday, July 22 Mary Magdalene Exodus 20:1-17

John 20:1-2, 11-18 When we are in the darkness, we don’t recognize how God comes to us in unfamiliar people and places.

Saturday, July 23 Bridget of Sweden, religious Exodus 24:3-8 Matthew 13:24-30 When the situation most requires patience, we are often most tempted to make impulsive decisions.

Sunday, July 24 17th Sunday in ordinary time 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12 Romans 8:28-30 Matthew 13:44-52 “The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, ‘Ask something of me and I will give it to you.’”

— 1 Kings 3:5 We know that in response to God’s invitation Solomon asked for an understanding heart to judge God’s people and to distinguish right from wrong. We also know that, despite this promising beginning, King Solomon failed to remain faithful to the Lord. No one is immune to a similar fate, as we are often blind to our own weaknesses.

Meeting with trusted companions as well as taking time to quiet our hearts on a regular basis can help us become aware of both our gifts and our illusions.

The daily reflections are written by Terri Mifek, a member of St. Edward in Bloomington and a certified spiritual director at the Franciscan Retreat House in Prior Lake.

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The Lesson Plan

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • JULY 7, 2011

The Act of Penitence: What’s changing?

The following is the next in a series of articles regarding the new Roman missal, which will be used in the United States beginning Nov. 27, the first Sunday of Advent.

It is best to face the facts: Jesus has favorites. The poor, the weak, the vulnerable — for these little ones, Christ has a special love, as he makes so clear in the Gospels.

One sign of such love is his startling solidarity with them: “Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me.” Powerful words, indeed, and words meant to awaken within our own hearts a deep love and care for the poor. We ignore these words at our own eternal peril.

But then there is that other group of individuals for whom Christ has such passionate love and concern: the repentant sinners. This special love has been given to Christ by the Father himself, a love that is directly connected to Jesus’ appointed mission — to seek out the lost and to Father bring the wandering sheep at last to John Paul verdant pastures.

Erickson In the beautiful writings of St. Faustina, the canonized visionary who has bequeathed to the church the “Divine Mercy” image, we hear again and again of Christ’s thirst for souls, especially lost souls who feel their own sin crushing them with its dreadful weight.

Indeed, Faustina claims that these souls have a particular “claim” on Christ’s mercy. The greater the sin, the greater the mercy of God made manifest in Christ Jesus.

Christ’s particular love for sinners, despite our willfulness and pride, is a wondrous and liberating revelation.

It is, in fact, a critical component of the Good News.

Until the day we die, the Savior calls us back, always ready to welcome us and lead us into that loving communion with the Father that is every human being’s vocation. Until that moment of judgment that will mark our last day, the crucified hound of heaven chases and pursues us in a whole host of different ways, regardless of how we have failed or how many times we have said no to him.

Lift Up Your Hearts

Acknowledging our sins And so it is right, one might even say advantageous, to begin the Mass with an acknowledgment of sin. We are called to admit and to claim as our own our arrogance, our lust, our vanity, our capacity to betray and to destroy, and our negligence, so that we might claim Christ as our own and be mercifully welcomed by him into his own prayer to the Father.

In a certain sense, we boast with Paul in our infirmities, so that the cross of Christ might shine ever more clearly and singularly in our broken life. In this is the scandal of the cross, and it is glorious.

We call this acknowledgment of sin that marks the beginning of Mass the “penitential rite.” Like most of the parts of the Mass, many of its words will be changing on Nov. 27, even as the fundamental meaning of the act remains the same.

Probably the most common form of the penitential rite used at Mass is “Form C,” that is, the trope or litany form — which begins with an acclamation connected to Christ’s mission and life, and proceeds to ask three time

Present text

New text

I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do; and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord, our God.

I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault; therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin, all the Angels and Saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.

The series Upcoming articles ■ July 21: “The Gloria.” It’s appropriate that our first liturgical exposure to this retranslated text will not be Nov. 27, but rather at the Vigil Mass of Christmas, when we will gather to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Why? Because the new words sound an awful lot like the hymn of the angels at Bethlehem.

■ Aug. 4: “The Creed, part 1.” Why does the Creed matter, and why is it changing from “We believe” to “I believe”?

■ Aug. 18: “The Creed, part 2.”

■ Sept. 1: “The Preface Dialogue.” It is right and just.

■ Sept. 15: “The Roman Canon, part 1.” As a way of examining the Mass itself, we’ll explore the first Eucharistic Prayer, often called the Roman Canon.

Many rich symbols and references are found within this ancient prayer, and by paying attention to the scriptural and traditional imagery, we can learn much

for his mercy: “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.”

They are powerful words, and we should listen to them when they are spoken, striving to make them our own. This form of the rite will actually not be changing at all.

‘Mea culpa’ But the church provides other options for this important moment. The first option given by the church, called “The Confiteor,” is an extended admission of sin, and a petition to our brothers and sisters for their own prayers.

In the new translation of this beautiful text, we will soon hear the phrase “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.” This, of course, is a much more literal translation than we currently have of the actual Latin text — “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” Our current translation simply reads “through my own fault.”

This phrase, “mea culpa” is well known even by those who have little knowledge of Latin or the church’s liturgical prayer. It’s a public admission of fault.

To repeat the phrase three times is not simply a rhetorical flourish. This three-fold admission of guilt is fundamentally a cry for Christ, whose own love is “grievous,” even to the point of death, death on the

about just what it is we are doing through, with and in Christ at the Mass.

■ Sept. 29: “The Roman Canon, part 2.”

■ Oct. 13: “The Roman Canon, part 3.”

■ Oct. 27: “The Roman Canon, part 4.”

■ Nov. 10: “Q&A.” As the implementation of the new missal becomes imminent, we will try to answer any remaining questions about the new texts and their use.

■ Nov. 23: “Q&A, part 2.”

Past articles Read it online at TheCatholicSpirit.com.

■ Why a new missal?

■ New translation is a plus for Catholics.

■ Meet the new kids on the block.

■ The Lord be with you — and with your spirit.

cross. As people of hope, we admit our failures boldly and with the physical sign of striking the breast, an ancient sign of penitence.

Not sacramental confession It is perhaps important to note that the penitential rite is not equivalent to the sacrament of confession. It is still the clear teaching of the church that serious sin must be confessed, integrally and to a priest, for absolution to be given and the sacraments received.

But like confession, when taken seriously the penitential rite trains us to love and to forgive. God’s forgiveness is not simply a gift meant for us alone. We are called to be shaped by this love, and to experience and ask for it often, so that we might give it often to others, especially those who hurt us or those toward whom we have an aversion.

You cannot give what you do not have. In the penitential rite, we ask for mercy, so that we might give it to others.

The glorious fact is that this Christ does come when he is called, in word and in sacrament, to comfort and to save. Indeed, it is such a glorious fact that immediately following our acknowledgment of sin we proclaim with full voice the gloria!

Father John Paul Erickson is director of the archdiocese Office of Worship.

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Lesson Plan

JULY 7, 2011 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

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Really, truly, substantially present ecently, I gave an address at the annual Atlanta Eucharistic Congress, which is one of the most impressive gatherings in the American Catholic Church. Roughly 30,000 people came together, on the eve of the feast of Corpus Christi, to celebrate the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

The congress opened with a spectacular procession of thousands of Catholics, representing practically every parish and organization in the Atlanta archdiocese. As the throngs marched in, a choir, backed by an energetic band, sang spirited gospel songs. After an hour of singing and marching, Archbishop Wilton Gregory appeared at the end of the procession bearing a large consecrated host in a gold monstrance.

As the archbishop approached the Father elevated altar, a group of Mexican Robert Barron drummers, dressed in Aztec finery, beat an insistent rhythm. Then, when the monstrance was placed on the altar, the entire arena fell silent for two minutes, and finally one of the classic eucharistic hymns of the church was sung. It was one of the most impressive expressions of the church’s belief in the real presence that I have ever witnessed.

R

Reflection

‘Living bread’ What is the origin of this distinctively Catholic conviction that Jesus is “really, truly and substantially present” under the eucharistic signs of bread and wine?

I would suggest that we begin with the still breathtaking discourse of the Lord, found in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. Astounded by the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes, the crowds come to Jesus, and he tells them not to search for perishable bread, but rather for the bread that “endures to eternal life.” He then specifies, “I myself am the living bread come down from heaven . . . . The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Now it would be hard to imagine anything more theologically problematic, and frankly, more disgusting to a first-century Jew than this claim. Scattered throughout the Old Testament are numerous prohibitions against the eating of an animal’s flesh with the blood, for blood was seen as life and hence as the special prerogative of God. But Jesus is proposing, not only the eating of an animal’s flesh with blood, but his own human flesh with blood. When they balk (“The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’”), Jesus does not tone down his rhetoric; he intensifies it: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

It is fascinating to note that the Greek verb that lies behind the word “eat” here is not “phagein” (the verb normally used to designate the way human beings eat) but rather “trogein” (a verb that designates the way animals eat, having the overtone of “gnawing” or “munching”). And in case anyone has missed his point, Jesus adds, “For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.”

Are we surprised that most of the crowd, having taken in this teaching, decided to leave Jesus? “Therefore, many of his disciples . . . said, ‘This is a hard saying:

CNS photo illustration by Karen Callaway, Northwest Indiana Catholic

Who can understand it?” So, indeed, has this teaching been hard and divisive in the course of the church’s life.

Changing reality How can we begin to understand it? Let us consider the power of words. Certainly words can describe reality, standing, if you will, in a passive relationship to what is. But they can also play a much more active role, not simply describing reality, but affecting it, changing it.

Think of the manner in which a word of praise, spoken by a significant authority figure, can change the direction of a young person’s life. Or consider the authoritative statement, “You’re under arrest,” spoken by a properly deputized officer of the law: Whether the addressee of those words likes it or not, he is, in fact, under arrest, the words having actively changed his status.

Now, if our puny human words can change reality, how much more thoroughly and radically can the divine word bring about an ontological transformation.

On the biblical telling, God’s word, in fact, constitutes reality at the deepest level: “God said, ‘Let there by light,’ and there was light.” The prophet Isaiah, channeling the words of the Lord, says, “So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please.”

The central claim of the New Testament is that Jesus is not simply one teacher among many, one more in a long line of prophets, but rather “the word made flesh,” the incarnation of the divine word which made and sustains the world.

Therefore, what Jesus says, is. To the dead daughter of

Jairus, Jesus said, “Little girl, get up,” and the dead girl got up. At the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus shouted, “Lazarus come out!” and the dead man came out.

The night before he died, Jesus sat down with his disciples for a Passover supper. He took the ordinary unleavened bread, broke it, gave it to his disciples and said, “Take this all of you and eat it; this is my body.” He then took the blessing cup after supper and, passing it around, he said, “Take this all of you and drink from it; this is the cup of my blood.”

Was he trading in symbolic and metaphorical speech?

If he were an ordinary human being, one more prophet or religious poet, that’s all he could have been doing.

But he was, in fact, the Word of God, and therefore, his words had a power to transform at the most fundamental level of reality. This is why that ordinary bread and wine became Christ’s very body and blood.

At the consecration at every Mass, the priest takes bread and wine and pronounces over them, not his own words, but Christ’s. He acts, not in his own person, but “in persona Christi” and hence he affects the transformation that Catholics call “transubstantiation,” the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

And this is why, in the presence of those transformed elements, the only proper action is to fall down in worship.

Father Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and the Francis Cardinal George Professor of Faith and Culture at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Ill.

Pope says Eucharist cultivates communion, service, sharing Catholic News Service Pope Benedict XVI said the Eucharist is the heart of church life and an “antidote” to the increasingly individualistic global culture.

Addressing pilgrims June 26 on the feast of Corpus Christi, which commemorates the institution of the Eucharist, the pope said the Eucharist was like the “pulsing heart” that gives life and meaning to everything the church does.

As the sacrament of Communion, it is able to transform people’s lives, leading them to God, he said.

“In a culture that is more and more individualistic — a culture in which we are immersed in Western society, and that tends to spread itself throughout the world — the Eucharist constitutes a type of ‘antidote,’” the pope said.

“It works in the minds and hearts of believers and continually disseminates in them the logic of communion, of service, of sharing — in short, the logic of the Gospel,” he said.

The pope said this spirit, nourished by the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, was evident in the lives of the early Christians, who lived fraternally and shared

their worldly goods in common, so that no one was impoverished.

“And even in later generations through the centuries, the church, despite human limits and errors, continued to be a force of communion in the world. We think especially of the most difficult periods of trial: what it meant, for example, in countries ruled by totalitarian regimes, to be able to gather at Sunday Mass,” he said.

Against the emptiness produced by a false sense of freedom, the pope said, the Eucharist is like a medicine that helps people regain an attachment to the truth and the common good.

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

Albert Einstein

Arts & Culture 18

The Catholic Spirit

Exploring our church and our world

JULY 7, 2011

‘Transformers’ more suitable for mature audiences Though clearly pitched at youthful viewers — sports cars that turn into robots, cool! — “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” (Paramount) is director Michael Bay’s 3-D third installment of a franchise based on a line of Hasbro toys.

It includes plot and dialogue elements that make it exclusively suitable, if not especially satisfying, for those who are, chronologically at least, well past adolescence.

By Moreover, while John Mulderig gore is virtually absent from the screen during this sci-fi adventure’s seemingly endless two-and-ahalf-hour running time — even as computer-generated, cannon-fodder extras are bloodlessly vaporized by the dozen — gunplay and explosions feel omnipresent.

Caught up once again in the ongoing mechanical mayhem that sees a race of good shape-shifting alien robots combating an evil army of their own kind is ordinary human — and now college graduate — Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf).

Though the boisterous interplanetary conflict provides distraction from Sam’s mostly unsuccessful job hunt — hey, kid, times are tough all over — it also endangers his live-in British girlfriend, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley).

Entertaining outings from John Malkovich as a wacky tycoon and John Turturro as a conspiracy theorist help offset a tedious back story involving an alternate history that would be vaguely offensive if it weren’t so silly. According

Movie Review

CNS photo / Paramount

Animated character Bumblebee is pictured in the movie “Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon.”

to same, the real reason for the U.S.Soviet race to the moon in the 1960s was the Camelot-era crash landing there of one of the Transformers’ spacecraft.

Hearing the news of this unusual event from Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, JFK barks — what else? — “Get me Bobby!”

While the outcome of what follows is easily guessed, more suspense hangs on the question of whether our hero will

Last chance to see ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’

ever put an engagement ring on poor Carly’s finger. This despite his growing conviction — fueled by her “Perils of Pauline”-style sufferings at the hands of the baddies — that “she’s the one,” as well as his late-reel blurting out of the Lword. Ah, modern romance.

each of crude and crass language. The Catholic News Service classification is AIII — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

The film contains pervasive stylized violence, cohabitation, brief partial nudity, some sexual banter, a couple of uses of profanity and about a dozen instances

John Mulderig is on the staff of Catholic News Service. More reviews are available online at WWW.USCCB. ORG/MOVIES.

Larson’s ‘In the Garden of Beasts’ sheds new light on Nazi Germany Are you a World War II junkie? Love history and politics? Here’s a great read for you.

As Adolph Hitler was gearing up his Nazi steamroller, American diplomat William Dodd tried By to warn the U.S. govBob Zyskowski ernment.

“In the Garden of Beasts” tells how and why Dodd couldn’t convince either Franklin Delano Roosevelt or the highsociety members of the U.S. Foreign Service that Hitler shouldn’t be treated like the leaders of other countries.

Dodd’s tenure as ambassador to Germany comes alive in Erik Larson’s latest superb nonfiction work. The brutality of Hitler and his Nazi brethren is palpable.

Plucked out of the history department of the University of Chicago, Dodd may have been a third or fourth choice for the post in Berlin, an appointment FDR

Book Review

Photo by Tom Sandelands

If you haven’t had a chance to see “Jesus Christ Superstar” at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, there’s still time. The play runs through Saturday, July 30. To purchase discounted dinner and show tickets for $34 each, call (952) 934-1525 and ask for promo code STAR.

made under pressure of a deadline. Naive enough to have his family Chevrolet shipped to Germany when the world’s ambassador class generally used limos and chauffeurs, Dodd’s middle-class values put him at odds with the consulate staff in Berlin, made him the source of German leaders’ ridicule, and, worst of all, caused his reports to be disrespected by those in Washington who should have been listening to his warning cries.

Don’t be put off by the nonfiction character of “In the Garden of Beasts.”

Larson has done amazing research here, but the way he fashions the change in Dodd and Dodd’s daughter, Martha, too, from being lovers of all things German (Martha in more ways than one!) to a critical analyst of that country’s leadership and people is brilliant.

Bob Zyskowski is associate publisher of The Catholic Spirit. To read more of his book reviews, go to CATHOLICHOT DISH.COM.

Calendar Dining out Fish fry at Knights of Columbus Hall, Bloomington — Every Friday: 5 to 9 p.m. at 1114 American Blvd. Cost is $10.95. Call (952) 888-1492 for reservations.

Chicken and rib dinner at Knights of Columbus Hall, Bloomington — Every Wednesday: 5 to 9 p.m. at 1114 American Blvd. Cost is $10.95. Call (952) 888-1492 for reservations.

KC pancake breakfast at the Crystal Community Center, Crystal — July 31: 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at 4800 Douglas Ave. N. Cost is $6 for adults and $3 for children 10 and under.

Parish events Annual Cities 97 Basilica Block Party at the Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis — July 8 and 9: 5 to 10:30 p.m. both nights on the Basilica campus, 16th Street and Hennepin Avenue.

Features local and national acts, food, beverages and raffles. For information, visit WWW.MARY.ORG. ‘Hope Rekindled: Widows’ Day of Reflection’ at Our Lady of Grace, Edina — July 9: 8 a.m. at 5071 Eden Ave. Led by nationally known speaker Johnette Benkovic. Cost is $10 and includes a light breakfast and lunch.

Download registration at WWW.OLG PARISH.ORG or call (952) 929-3317.

All parish summer Mass at St. Patrick, Edina — July 10: 10 a.m. Mass at 6820 St. Patrick’s Lane. An ice cream social, live music and a bake, candy and flower sale follow the Mass. For information, visit WWW.STPATRICK-EDINA. ORG. Senior Wellness Education series, ‘Be Wise, Be Informed, Be Empowered: Senior Fraud and Scam Alerts’ at Lumen Christi, St. Paul — July 12: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 2055 Bohland Ave. A light lunch will be served prior to the presentation. To RSVP, call (651) 698-5581.

Thrift sale at Immaculate Conception, Columbia Heights — July 14 to 16: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at 4030 Jackson St. N.E. For information, visit WWW.IMMAC-CHURCH.ORG. 20th annual St. Mark’s children’s play at St. Mark, St. Paul — July 15 and 16: 7 p.m. at 2001 Dayton Ave. This year’s production is, “The Secret Garden.”

Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children.

Summer celebration at Mary, Mother of the Church, Burnsville — July 16: 5 p.m. at 3333 Cliff Road. Visit WWW.MMOTC.ORG. Glenmary Home Missioner to speak at St. Mary of the Purification ‘Marystown,’ Shakopee — July 16 and 17: Father Steve Pawelk will speak during Masses all weekend at 15850 Marystown Road.

Country festival at St. Mary of Czestochowa, Delano — July 17: 10:30 a.m.

Mass at 1867 95th St. S.E. Pork chop and roast beef dinner follows, beginning at 11 a.m. Features live music, games, a cake walk and more.

Parish festival at St. Mary, LeCenter — July 17: Polka Mass at 10 a.m. followed by a roast beef dinner at 165

JULY 7, 2011 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Prayer/ liturgies

Don’t Miss Move and Groove Family Fest at the Basilica Park Nicollet’s Move & Groove Family Fest at the Basilica is a free summer event on the grounds of the Basilica of St. Mary July 10 from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., during the Basilica Block Party weekend.

The event celebrates kids’ fitness, healthy eating, and wellness in a fun, interactive environment.

There will be plenty of activities that encourage kids to develop their creativity and imagination, and the festival features something for everyone, from kids to adults to seniors.

For information visit WWW.MOVEANDGROOVEFAMILYFEST.COM. N. Waterville Ave. Also features live music, horse-drawn wagon rides, games, raffles and more.

Parish festival at St. Albert, Albertville — July 17: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 11400 57th St. N.E. Chicken dinner from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., games, live music and more.

Summer festival at St. Gregory the Great, North Branch — July 17: 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 38725 Forest Blvd.

Features a pig roast dinner, games, silent auction and more.

Golf tournament to benefit All Saints Church at Crystal Lake Golf Course, Lakeville — July 18: 12:30 p.m. start at 16725 Innsbrook Dr. For information, visit WWW.ALLSAINTSCHURCH.COM. 80th birthday celebration for Father Jim Schoenberger at St. Mary of the Purification ‘Marystown,’ Shakopee — July 24: Refreshments will be served after the 10 a.m. Mass at 15850 Marystown Road.

Summer festival at St. Patrick of Cedar Lake, Jordan — July 24: Outdoor Mass at 10 a.m. at 24425 Old Hwy 13. Blvd. Chicken dinner follows, as well as live music, children’s

games, country store, beer garden and more.

Fun Fest Summer Jam parish festival at Immaculate Conception, Columbia Heights — July 29 to 31: 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, 4:30 to 10:30 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.to 4:30 p.m. Sunday at 4030 Jackson St. N.E. Features live music, games, a car show and more.

For information, visit WWW.IMMACCHURCH.ORG. Julifest at St. Mark, Shakopee — July 30 and 31: Outdoor polka Mass at 5 p.m. Saturday followed by a street dance from 7 to 11 p.m. at 350 S. Atwood St. Sunday includes entertainment, craft and bake sale, beer garden and more.

Legion of Mary prayers in front of Planned Parenthood, St. Paul — Every Friday: 3 p.m. at 1965 Ford Parkway.

For information, call (651) 439-9098.

Knights of Columbus traveling rosary at St. Mary, St. Paul — July 10: 2 p.m. at 261 Eighth St. E. Sisters of St. Joseph 11th Day of Prayer for Peace at the Chapel of the Presentation of Our Lady, St. Paul — July 11: 6:30 p.m. at 1880 Randolph Ave. In commemoration of the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki and in remembrance of the tsunami victims in Japan, the service will include a Japanese tea ceremony.

Healing Mass at Holy Name of Jesus, Wayzata — July 14: Rosary at 6:30 p.m. , Mass at 7 p.m. at 155 County Road 24. Father Jim Livingston will be the celebrant.

Knights of Columbus traveling rosary at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Maplewood — July 17: 2 p.m. at 1725 Kennard St. Healing Mass at Lumen Christi, St. Paul — July 18: Rosary at 7 p.m and Mass at 7:30 p.m. at 2055 Bohland Ave. Father Jim Livingston will be the celebrant.

Singles Retreats Healing retreat at Christ the King Retreat Center, Buffalo — July 29 to 31: 7 p.m. Friday to 12:45 p.m. Sunday at 621 First Ave. S. Theme is: “Healing the Deepest Hurts with Contemplation.” For information, visit WWW.KINGSHOUSE.COM.

NFP classes July 7 — Holy Family, St. Louis Park: Billings Ovulation Method ovulation, (612) 396-4019.

July 7 — Mercy Hospital, Coon Rapids: Twin Cities FertilityCare ovulation, (651) 232-3088.

July 9 — U of M Fairview, Minneapolis: Twin Cities FertilityCare ovulation, (651) 232-3088.

July 12 — St. Michael, St. Michael: Billings Ovulation Method ovulation, (763) 263-8297.

July 12 — Nativity of Our Lord, St. Paul: Billings Ovulation Method ovulation, (651) 726-4134.

July 13 — St. Joseph’s Hospital, St. Paul: Twin Cities FertilityCare ovulation, (651) 232-3088.

July 19 — Holy Family Academy, St. Louis Park: Couple to Couple League - sympto-thermal , (612) 721-3791.

July 19 — St. Stephen, Minneapolis: (Spanish) Billings Método de la Ovulación (Spanish) (612) 767-2437.

July 21 — Holy Family, St. Louis Park: Billings Ovulation Method ovulation, (612) 396-4019.

July 22 — St. Ambrose Church, Woodbury: Couple to Couple League - sympto-thermal, (612) 721-3791.

July 26 — St. Joseph’s Hosptial, St. Paul: Twin Cities FertilityCare ovulation, (651) 232-3088.

Aug. 4 — Holy Family, St. Louis Park: Billings Ovulation Method ovulation, (612) 396-4019.

Aug. 8 — Woodwinds Hospital, Woodbury: Twin Cities FertilityCare ovulation, (651) 232-3088.

Aug. 9 — Divine Mercy, Fairbault: Family of the Americas - ovulation (952) 934-0382.

Aug. 15 — St. Charles Borromeo, Minneapolis: Twin Cities FertilityCare - ovulation, (651) 232-3088.

For more information on NFP classes, call the Archdiocesan Office of Marriage, Family & Life at (651) 291-4489.

Sunday Spirits walking group for 50plus Catholic singles — ongoing Sundays: For Catholic singles to meet and make friends. The group usually meets in St. Paul on Sunday afternoons. For information, call Judy at (763) 221-3040 or Al at (651) 482-0406.

Young adults Frassati Society BWCA trip — July 30 to August 7: Cost is approx. $200. For more information, call (612) 518-5490 or email JENMESSING@USFAMILY.NET.

Other events Day of Honor and Recognition for Birth Mothers at Our Lady of Grace, Edina — July 23: 9:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. at 5071 Eden Ave. This event offers an opportunity for healing, sharing and learning about resources available to birth mothers.

Sponsored by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in conjunction with Catholic Charities. Cost is $15 and includes lunch. Register online at WWW.ARCHSPM.ORG. ‘Come and See’ weekend with the Visitation Sisters of Minneapolis — July 29 to 30: 6 p.m. Friday to 7 p.m.

Saturday at 1527 Fremont Ave. N. Spend time in prayer and relax with the Sisters. Learn about religious life and Salesian values. For information, email MULLINKF@AOL.COM. Steubenville North youth conference at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul — July 29 to 31: For information and registration, visit WWW.PARTNERSHIPFOR YOUTH.ORG/EVENTS_STPAUL.HTML.

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“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”

Matthew 25:35-36

From Age to Age 20 J

ULY

7, 2011

A Catholic Spirit special section

The Catholic Spirit

Julie Pfitzinger For The Catholic Spirit

A new chapter will begin for School Sisters of Notre Dame Judy Bakula and Rita Jirik when they retire at the end of this month from their roles as co-directors of Theresa Living Center and Caroline Family

Helping homeless women succeed As retirement nears, two School Sisters of Notre Dame reflect on more than two decades of assisting clients to achieve economic independence Services, which provide transitional housing in St. Paul for homeless women.

TLC was launched in February 1988, and Sister Rita vividly recalls the first night she spent in the 12bedroom residence, located in the former St. Casmir convent.

“We had only one woman in the

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Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit

School Sisters of Notre Dame Rita Jirik, left, and Judy Bakula, right, enjoy time with LaTarsha Johnson and her son, Tyrone, at Theresa Living Center in St. Paul. Sister Rita and Sister Judy officially end their jobs as co-directors of the center July 31, but hope to maintain a connection to the center and its residents.

program at the time, so it was just the two of us here,” Sister Rita said.

This resident was the first of approximately 700 women and children the sisters have helped over the years at TLC and also at CFS, located at the former Euphrasia House (once run by the Home of the Good Shepherd), which became a second program site in 1999.

Residents of both programs arrive from battered women’s shelters or emergency service shelters; Sister Rita said they receive calls from shel-

ter workers on a regular basis but can only accommodate 12 residents at TLC and 24 at CFS.

Life support All residents are required to work, volunteer or be in school for 30 hours per week. They also meet with a case manager on a weekly basis and have the opportunity to work on practical living skills such as budgeting, saving and, in some cases, parenting.

Pregnant women or those with

one child less than 1 year old are allowed to live at TLC; all residents must be 18 or older.

CFS is a scattered-site program.

The case managers meet with the residents at the CFS location, but the women live in apartments located elsewhere. If a woman has more than one child, she is placed with CFS. The residents pay rent, but are given some rental assistance, Sister Rita said.

PLEASE TURN TO SISTERS ON PAGE 21

From Age to Age

JULY 7, 2011 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Sisters reflect CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20 At TLC, the residents pay 30 percent of their income for housing. Women at both locations can stay in the program for up to two years.

From the beginning, Sister Judy and Sister Rita have served as co-directors of the non-profit program. Sister Judy has acted as the housing manager and case manager supervisor, while Sister Rita handled more of the financial aspects — grant writing, working with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and fundraising.

Over the years, the two women have asked residents what was most beneficial to them during their stay at either TLC or CFS. “The most common response we’d get is that meeting with other adults — either with their case manager or with us — helped them stay focused on what they needed to do to become economically stable,” said Sister Rita.

Many of the residents face serious challenges — from drug and alcohol addiction to abusive relationships.

“A lot of the women have been through drug treatment and they are not allowed to use drugs here,” Sister Judy said. “Part of their challenge is to keep working on their sobriety. If they are using, there isn’t really a light at the end of the tunnel.”

The TLC and CFS programs are nondenominational and not affiliated with a church. However, both women frequently field questions from residents about their lives as religious sisters.

“Even though we go by our first names, all of the women either refer to us as “Sister” or “Miss,” said Sister Rita. “They are always very respectful.”

Looking ahead With the departure of the sisters, TLC and CFS will have a slightly different organizational structure. Pat Prinzevalle has been hired to serve as executive director and started her job on July 1; the organization will also hire a housing manager.

Sister Judy will be working part-time at Learning in Style, a school for immigrant children in Minneapolis run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. Sister Rita is taking a break but hopes to work with young women studying for their GED exam.

When asked what it means to leave behind a place that has been part of their lives for so long, both focused not on themselves, but on the women they served.

“I believe so strongly in our mission to prepare a homeless, one-parent family to become economically independent,” said Sister Rita. “It has been very affirming to see women really succeed and feel safe and happy with themselves. To realize you are part of making that happen means something.”

“I feel privileged to have been able to be part of this time in their lives — when they are calling on all the strength and courage they need to make changes,” said Sister Judy. “Great things happen, hard things happen, but they just want to better their situations for themselves and for their children.”

For more information about the Theresa Living Center or Caroline Family Services, visit WWW.THERESALIVINGCENTER.COM. The organization accepts financial donations as well as donations of clothing for women and children, paper goods and household items. For information about donating, call the Theresa Living Center at (651) 774-5594.

The

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JULY 7, 2011 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Single parent families increasingly among homeless

By Dennis Sadowski

lies seeking help.

Catholic News Service

Increasing desperation

Out of work and living in a shelter, Jasmine, a single mother, has one thing on her mind: reuniting her family.

Son Emanuel, 3, is staying with Jasmine — who asked that her last name not be used — at the Ozanam Family Shelter in Edison, N.J., run by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Metuchen.

But 5-year-old daughter Monet is not; she’s with her grandmother, the mother of Jasmine’s former boyfriend.

“It’s difficult because she wants to see him all the time and he wants to see her,” Jasmine said about her kids. “It’s difficult to find transportation to get up there or so she can get here.”

Jasmine turned to the shelter in midJune, after she and her boyfriend decided it was time to go their separate ways. For Jasmine, Emanuel and Monet, finding even a modest apartment in northern New Jersey is out of the question. Rent for a one-bedroom apartment typically runs $900 a month; a two-bedroom place runs $1,500.

“Two kids and an adult can’t live in a one-bedroom apartment,” Jasmine said.

“It’s either live on the streets or come to a shelter.”

“Definitely we’ve seen an increase in the desperation of people calling,” Parke said.

Karen Wallensak, executive director of the Catholic Charities Housing Resource Center in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said her agency has seen homelessness on the rise in suburban and rural areas, especially among two-parent families.

“This is due primarily because of the economic crisis and the foreclosure crisis,” she said.

The new wave of homelessness has prompted shelter providers to develop new programs to move families into more stable environments. Transitional housing programs that help families return to independence are developing rapidly, but the need still exceeds the number of slots available across the country.

At shelters, case managers increasingly are focusing on helping residents improve skills in resume writing, interviewing techniques and networking.

“Ultimately, we want the clients to be self-reliant,” explained Lindsay Cuomo, case manager at the Ozanam Family Shelter. “We try to point them in the right direction. We want them to secure these things on their own.”

For Jasmine, the search for a home begins with a job. During the past four years, she said she has been employed for only three months, and then as a personal shopper taking home $60 to $70 a week. She knows that’s not going to go far in paying the rent.

Most of the jobs Jasmine has found, however, pay the minimum wage. In New Jersey, that’s $7.25 an hour.

“It’s very difficult to find work because everybody wants you to have experience and if you don’t have experience, they won’t hire you. And everybody wants you to find a job. It’s been very difficult to find a job. I’ve been looking for four years,” she said.

“Everybody in the same area basically sees the same jobs. So everybody who’s not working is looking at the same jobs.

With the way the economy is now . . . I’m like one out of 50 or one out of 100.”

A growing trend Jasmine’s predicament illustrates a growing trend across the country: Families are making up a growing proportion of homeless people. Shelter providers told Catholic News Service they are seeing more families who have been forced to abandon stable living arrangements and thrust into the uncertainty of life on the streets.

Wesley Moore, division director for housing and social concerns for Catholic Charities in Metuchen, told CNS that many parents landing in the Ozanam Family Shelter — single or married — are facing unemployment or underemployment, making it difficult for them to make ends meet.

The 2010 Annual Homeless Assessment Report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development found that since 2007, the number of people in families who are homeless has increased by

19.8 percent. Based on reports from shelter providers nationwide, HUD estimates that people in families now make up 35.6 percent of the country’s homeless population on any given night. That compares with 29.8 percent in 2007.

Homelessness among individuals declined 6.4 percent during the same period.

Overall, HUD estimated that nearly 1,593,150 people were homeless in 200910, with 567,334 being from families.

That compares with an estimate of 1,581,595 homeless people in 2006-07, with 473,541 from families.

More jobless men homeless Neil Donovan, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said his organization believes that the federal government’s count may be off by as much as 20 percent because not all shelters report their statistics on homelessness every year and that people who stay out of shelters are not part of any count. He urged HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau to do a better job of identifying who’s homeless and why they are homeless so that the reasons people are without a home can be better addressed.

HUD’s data are not meant to downplay the size of the traditional homeless population: men. In fact, 62 percent of all sheltered homeless people in 2010 were male.

The largest group — 37 percent — were men 31 to 50 years old.

HUD found, however, that a growing number of single men were homeless because of a lost job than because of alcohol or drug abuse.

The typical homeless family, HUD reported, is a mother with two children.

The report also cited a growing number of two-parent families experiencing homelessness as victims of layoffs and real estate foreclosures.

Jean Beil, senior vice president of programs and services at Catholic Charities USA, sees the movement of people from homeownership into the rental market as a primary reason for the increase in homelessness among families. With more people seeking to rent, prices move upward, forcing some at the low end of the market into the street, she said.

In markets where housing costs are high, shelters are feeling particularly pressed. Gillian Parke, director of the Sacred Heart Shelter of Catholic Community Services of Western Washington in Seattle, has seen more two-parent fami-

Former homeless mom now helps other women in need CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6 a set of bus passes from Irving.

“Our hot meal was a huge success,” Tuione said. “People’s bags [of printed materials] are full. That tells me they’re utilizing the resources that are here. Child care is full and that tells me families are using our services.”

Irving was so committed to helping others in need that she showed up at 8:30 a.m., even though the doors were not opened to visitors until 10 a.m. The memories of her struggle to escape homelessness — and violence — are still fresh and raw.

“I was in a battered women’s shelter,” said Irving, a St. Paul resident who says she is Catholic but does not belong to a specific parish. “I had a boyfriend who liked to abuse me. One day, he went to work and I got away and went to a battered women’s shelter. That was May 1 of last year. . . . Today, I’m in an apartment. I got an apartment with my daughter. I’m a struggling young mom. I’m unemployed.”

Need is great The continued economic downturn has increased the number of people needing the help that St. Paul Home-

less Connect provides.

Tuione said that there were 500 more visitors this year than last year. And, some of the people who traditionally have been resistant to attending these types of events have started coming — members of ethnic communities like Hmong, who generally try to look within their own communities for the help they need.

“I was really touched to see some of those communities present here,” she said. “If nothing else works today, I’m the proudest of that.”

For volunteers like Irving, the satisfaction comes from something much simpler — being able to reach out and help someone in need.

“I want to live my life helping other people,” she said.

“I’m a people person. I can talk to anybody and make them smile, even on their worst day.

“This [event] touched me. It helped me see all the needs of the people and all the people crying out for help. This is a serious matter.”

It’s a matter made more serious by this economy, Tuione noted. “The economy is not forgiving,” she said, “therefore, we cannot fall behind on the needs of those we serve.”

Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit

Kassandra Himes of St. Paul waits in line with sons Jawon, left, and Kieonte during the St. Paul Homeless Connect event at the St. Paul RiverCentre June 28.

23

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • JULY 7, 2011

Parents should determine teens’ vaccinations, bishops say California bill would remove parental consent requirement for vaccine against sexually transmitted disease

“Most parents are involved in the lives of their

Catholic News Service California’s Catholic bishops have urged Catholics in their state to contact lawmakers and ask them to vote against a bill removing parental rights to a teen vaccination against sexually transmitted diseases.

The bill, which already passed in the state Assembly and is currently before the state Senate, would remove the parental consent requirement for vaccinating children 12 and older and would allow children to be given Gardasil vaccine intended to prevent human papillomavirus, or HPV — a virus that can cause cervical cancer.

The vaccine was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2006 and is recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nationally, 91 deaths and more than 21,000 adverse reactions have been

minor children and need to know if they are seeking medical care — regardless of whether the care is curative or preventative.

”

CALIFORNIA CATHOLIC CONFERENCE

attributed to Gardasil, said a legislative alert distributed by the California Catholic Conference that cited figures released in January by the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

Minors do not have adequate judgment to make a decision about this vaccine, the alert said.

Catholic San Francisco, the archdiocesan newspaper, reported that California law already allows children 12 and older to consent, without parental involvement, to treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. The bill would expand that right to immunizations against these diseases.

“Most parents are involved in the lives

of their minor children and need to know if they are seeking medical care — regardless of whether the care is curative or preventative,” said the Catholic conference alert. The conference is the public policy arm of the state’s Catholic bishops.

“This bill appears to be an ‘end run’ following the failure in 2007 to mandate HPV vaccination for all girls entering public junior high school — a measure strongly opposed by parents rights groups and vetoed by the governor,” the conference said.

The CDC recommends that all girls 11 or 12 years old get three doses of Gardasil or a similar vaccination, Cervarix. Both protect against the two main strains of

human papillomavirus. The vaccinations are said to work best if administered before sexual activity begins.

One in four California teens who is sexually active contracts a sexually transmitted disease each year, according to the California Department of Public Health.

And according to the CDC, human papillomavirus is the main cause of cervical cancer in women. There are about 11,000 new cervical cancer cases each year in the United States and cervical cancer causes about 4,000 women’s deaths each year in the United States.

Other opposition William May, chairman of the California-based group, Catholics for the Common Good, a lay apostolate, joined representatives of the Catholic conference in testifying against the bill June 15 at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. He said that by removing parental rights, the bill gives inordinate power to doctors and other health care officials.

If there are allergic reactions, parents may not know why and may not be able to react in a timely manner, he added.

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“Dear Friends, I just launched News.va. Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI.” Pope Benedict XVI, in a first-ever papal tweet inaugurating the Vatican’s online news portal, which features a Twitter account

Overheard 24

The Catholic Spirit

Quotes from this week’s newsmakers

JULY 7, 2011

Time’s a wastin’ Nominate a deserving business owner, supervisor, or manager for a Leading With Faith Award The Catholic Spirit

WWII vet laid to rest Above: The Minnesota Funeral Honor Guard are present with full military honors at the funeral for WWII veteran 2nd Lt. Harry Bedard at St. John the Baptist in Dayton June 25. Bedard was killed April 3, 1945, when his plane crashed in the Philippines.

He was declared missing in action until 2010, when new DNA technology and a DNA sample from a nephew helped identify his remains and they were returned to his family. To view a slide show of photos, visit THECATHOLICSPIRIT.COM. Left: The Minnesota Funeral Honor Guard carry Harry Bedard’s casket out of St. John the Baptist after the June 25 funeral in Dayton.

It’s been four years since Mike McGovern received The Catholic Spirit’s Leading With Faith Award, but it’s something the president and chairman of the board of Catholic United Financial won’t soon forget.

“The honor of receiving this award in 2007 still humbles me,” McGovern noted in a letter to the newspaper, “and I strive to remain worthy of it.”

The same goes for Don Regan.

PREMIERBANKS.COM continues to mention that the bank chairman was recognized at the Leading With Faith program in 2005.

Over the past nine years, The Catholic Spirit has honored more than 100 people, who, like McGovern and Regan, bring their Catholic faith to the workplace and who generously share with our communities the gifts God has given them.

Shouldn’t the owner of your company, your supervisor or perhaps manager you’ve come to admire be recognized, too?

Hurry: The deadline is approaching — July 15.

Here’s how it works

Photos by Jim Bovin

Cathedral of St. Paul to host archdiocesan choir camp The Cathedral of St. Paul will host the first archdiocesan choir camp Aug. 22 to 26. The day camp, which is open to current St. Cecilia choir members and new choristers, is a safe, high-quality choral arts experience for girls and boys ages 10 to 17.

Campers will receive music instruction and The rehearse daily in Cathollic Spirit preparation for sung Evening Prayer and future concerts.

The cost of the camp is $75 and includes lunch. For information or to register, email LLAWYER@CATHEDRAL SAINTPAUL.ORG.

perform the national anthem during the July 15 Twins game at Target Field. The school’s band program has more than 140 students in fourth through eighth grades and is divided into prep band, junior varsity band and varsity band.

St. Joseph to hit Target

Cedarcrest accredited

The band from St. Joseph’s School in West St. Paul has been invited to

The Minnesota Nonpublic School Accrediting Association has accredited

News Notes

New principal in Richfield Blessed Trinity School in Richfield has hired Patrick O’Keefe as principal effective July 1.

O’Keefe grew up in St. Paul, attending St. Pascal Baylon School. He has a master’s degree in education from the University of Notre Dame and was most recently assistant principal at Our Lady of Sorrows School in McAllen, Texas.

Cedarcrest Academy in Maple Grove from 2011 to 2018. Cedarcrest Academy was recently named an official Roman Catholic School by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. MNSAA is a voluntary method of quality assurance with a goad to evaluate, validate and improve each school’s quality.

Father Reding on board Father Michael Reding, pastor of St. Bartholomew in Wayzata, was appointed July 1 to the board of directors for Benilde-St. Margaret’s School in St. Louis Park. He serves on the board as the representative of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

A native of Red Wing, Father Reding was ordained in 1997 and served at Transfiguration in Oakdale, before being named pastor of St. Bartholomew in 2000.

To nominate a manager who lives or works in the 12-county Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, go to THE CATHOLICSPIRIT.COM and click on the Leading With Faith logo or story.

A panel of judges will choose awardees in three categories — large business (50 or more employees), small business and nonprofit organizations.

Nominate a worthy Catholic leader you know, won’t you? Do it today at THECATHOLICSPIRIT.COM.

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Call 651-291-4444 for information