The Catholic Spirit - April 12, 2018

April 12, 2018 • Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Pope Francis’ guide to

holiness

Retreats and pilgrimages From day trips to dayslong excursions, spirit-fueling destinations abound in the tri-state area.

— Pages 15-18

Seminary to seek new rector Bismarck bishop recalls Msgr. Thomas Richter, who was slated to succeed St. Paul Seminary Rector Msgr. Aloysius Callaghan in June.

— Page 5

Agricultural concerns Catholic Rural Life’s national conference explores significance of vocation amid agricultural issues.

— Page 7

Remembering MLK’s mission Participants in interfaith rally commit to fighting racism and discrimination 50 years after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — Page 11

CCF at 25 In 25 years, the Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota has evolved from “money manager” to its own philanthropic force for good.

— Pages 12-13

Environmental art St. Peter Claver parishioner spearheads exhibit inspired by Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’.”

— Page 22

Pope Francis kisses the foot of an inmate during Holy Thursday Mass March 29 at Regina Coeli prison in Rome.

“Christian wisdom can never be separated from mercy toward our neighbor,” the pope wrote in his apostolic exhortation, “Gaudete et Exsultate,” released April 9.

CNS

Papal doc addresses ‘call to holiness in the modern world’ Catholic News Service

P

ope Francis’ new document, “Gaudete et Exsultate,” shows that holiness is not an impossible task, nor is it something to be pursued far removed from today’s world, said the papal vicar for the Diocese of Rome.

“The pope wants to tell us that holiness is not something else apart from our everyday life, but it is exactly our ordinary existence lived in an extraordinary way,” said Archbishop Angelo De Donatis, the papal vicar, speaking at a Vatican news conference April 9 for the presentation of Pope Francis’ new apostolic exhortation on the call to holiness in today’s world, titled in English, “Rejoice and Be Glad.”

Many people in today’s secularized world might think holiness is “antiquated,” but the new document seeks to demonstrate its timeless relevance for everyone, the archbishop said.

Pope Francis is reminding Christians that the desired goal of their journey is true life, joy, meaning and fullness found in Jesus with the help of divine grace and the action of the Holy

Spirit received in baptism, he said.

“To be Christians means to receive from God the gift of a beautiful life, a life rich in meaning and flavor,” he said.

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said he is grateful to Pope Francis for “his powerful, straightforward words.”

“Pope Francis is very clear,” said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston in an April 9 statement. “He is doing his duty as the vicar of Christ, by strongly urging each and every Christian to freely, and without any qualifications, acknowledge and be open to what God wants them to be — that is ‘to be holy, as he is holy’ (1 Pet 1:15).

“The mission entrusted to each of us in the waters of baptism was simple — by God’s grace and power, we are called to become saints,” he added.

Pope Francis is calling each Christian to “acknowledge and be open to what God wants them to be,” Cardinal DiNardo said. The words from the document that jumped out at him when he first read them were: “Do not be afraid of holiness.”

u Read more about “Gaudete et Exsultate” on page 9.

“

Do not be afraid of holiness.

It will take away none of your energy, vitality or joy. On the contrary, you will become what the Father had in mind when he created you, and you will be faithful to your deepest self.

Pope Francis, “Gaudete et Exsultate” (“Rejoice and Be Glad”)

2 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

APRIL 12, 2018

PAGETWO

“

Shame is a secret invitation of the soul that needs the Lord to overcome evil.

The tragedy is when we are no longer ashamed of anything. Do not be afraid of being ashamed.

Let us pass from shame to forgiveness.

Pope Francis, speaking April 8 at an outdoor Mass in St. Peter’s Square commemorating Divine Mercy Sunday. Celebrated every year on the Sunday after Easter, it was added to the universal Church calendar by St. John Paul II in 2000. The Polish pope was a longtime devotee of the Divine Mercy devotions of St. Faustina Kowalska, whom he beatified in 1993 and canonized in 2000.

NEWS notes

20 DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

TALKING HEALTH CARE Sister Carol Keehan, of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, gives a presentation April 5 called “The Future of Health Care: Catholic Contribution to the National Debate” at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Sister Keehan is president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States. The event was organized by UST’s Institute for Catholicism and Citizenship.

The number of members on the Robotics team at Visitation School in Mendota Heights. The team, called the Robettes, competed at the North Star Regional FIRST Robotics Competition at the University of Minnesota March 28-31. The Robettes, girls from seventh through 12th grade, won the Chairman’s Award, the most prestigious award at the competition, which qualifies them to compete at the National Championships in Detroit April 25-28. Chesterton Academy also fielded a team at the competition. In its first year in the program, the team, called TechNoLogic, won the Rookie Team Inspiration Award. The robotics competition is run by an organization called FIRST, which promotes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) at schools across the country via the robotics program. The Robettes are scheduled to appear on the TPT show “Hands on Science” April 15 and 22, which features five FIRST Robotics teams. Broadcast times are 8:30 a.m. (TPT 2) and 8 p.m. (TPT MN) April 15, and 2 a.m., 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. April 22 (TPT MN).

2017

The year Blessed Stanley Rother was beatified. Parishioners of St. Pius V in Cannon Falls celebrated his legacy April 4 with his first-class relic and a presentation by Archbishop Emeritus Harry Flynn, who became friends with Father Rother during seminary. Archbishop Flynn also spoke about Father Rother’s many Minnesota ties. A priest of the then-Oklahoma City-Tulsa diocese, Father Rother served a mission in Guatemala beginning in 1968. He was murdered in 1981 defending the persecuted.

400 CNS

MARCHING MIGRANTS Central American migrants walk from a temporary church shelter to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City April 9. More than 1,000 migrants joined a decade-old Stations of the Cross Caravan, which marches annually through Mexico at Easter to draw attention to violence against Central American migrants crossing Mexico. Organizers say many more Hondurans than usual participated this year due to political repression in the country after a contentious election last November. The caravan stalled in southern Oaxaca state, some 260 miles from the Guatemala border, but some migrants continued to Mexico City to hold demonstrations. President Donald Trump sent a series of tweets criticizing Mexico for not stopping the caravan moving toward the U.S.-Mexico border, and he later authorized the mobilization of National Guard units to the border. Bishops in the U.S. and Mexico issued statements criticizing the National Guard deployment. Seeking refuge from persecution and violence in search of a peaceful life “is not a crime,” eight border-state bishops said April 6 in a joint statement.

in REMEMBRANCE

DEACON SALVATORE CATAPANO

The Catholic Spirit is published semi-monthly for The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis Vol. 23 — No. 7 MOST REVEREND BERNARD A. HEBDA, Publisher United in Faith, Hope and Love

TOM HALDEN, Associate Publisher MARIA C. WIERING, Editor

43.7

The percent of Minnesota abortions funded by taxpayers, which, according to Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, has hit an all-time high. “Minnesota’s court-imposed policy of tax-funded abortion allows the abortion industry to offer ‘free’ abortions to economically vulnerable women,” said MCCL Executive Director Scott Fischbach in an April 3 statement.

“This gives the industry an easy revenue stream, and it is taking full advantage — especially in the face of the long-term trend of declining overall abortions.” In 2016, taxpayers paid for 4,321 abortions at a cost of more than $1 million, according to data released by the Minnesota Department of Human Services. MCCL said the number of state-funded abortions has grown by 27 percent since 2013, with more than half performed by Planned Parenthood in 2016.

600

Deacon Catapano, 84, served Medina parish Deacon Salvatore “Sam” Catapano died March 31. He was 84. He was born in Buffalo, New York, and was ordained to the permanent diaconate in 2001. He served at Holy Name of Jesus in Medina from 2001-2016.

Before entering ministry, he went to college in his home state for a degree in accounting. He worked for General Mills from 1956-1998. In 1998, he became a vice president in the auditing department. His wife, Ann, died in 2005. The couple had six children. A funeral Mass was offered April 7. Interment is in Holy Name Cemetery.

The number of attendees at the second annual Knights Mass at the St. Austin campus of the parish community of St. Bridget in Minneapolis April 8. The event was started last year to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Knights of Columbus. About 70 Knights and members of the Knights’ Ladies Auxiliary attended. Archbishop Bernard Hebda celebrated the Mass, along with Father Paul Jarvis, senior associate pastor. A 14-member male chorus of Knights sang during the Mass.

The number of Missionaries of Mercy who met privately with Pope Francis April 10 at the Vatican. First commissioned in 2016 during the Jubilee Year of Mercy, the missionaries are priests from around the world mandated with spreading God’s mercy and forgiveness. More than half of them attended a meeting in Rome April 8-11 on spiritual formation and fellowship.

Among them was Father John Ubel, rector of the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul (pictured). “God is not idle to wait for the sinner. He runs towards him, because the joy of seeing him come back is too great,” Pope Francis told the missionaries.

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APRIL 12, 2018

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 3

FROMTHEMODERATOROFTHECURIA ONLY JESUS | FATHER CHARLES LACHOWITZER

Ground, stomped and pressed into glory

I

n the 50 days of the Easter season, all seven sacraments of the Church are celebrated.

Baptisms and confirmations, first confessions and first Communions, marriages and ordinations. These opportunities to encounter the person and real presence of Jesus Christ are at the heart of our Catholic tradition and spiritual lives.

Nonetheless, as imperfect people in an imperfect world, the consequences of original sin and our mortal nature cast a shadow on the light of the risen Christ. The realities of sin, suffering and death know not our seasons, and rain on every parade. In the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, we are consoled that God’s Easter promise is fulfilled in the merciful balm of Jesus.

Each of us is gifted with the garden of the soul. It is fertile ground indeed and bears much fruit. In the early Church, an image was used to acknowledge the outpouring of grace in lives facing many challenges.

Catechumens were seen as the harvest — grains of precious wheat. The persecutions in the early Church were seen as the grinding of this grain into a fine flour. To this flour were added the waters of baptism,

Molido,pisoteado y presionado en la gloria

E

n los 50 días de la temporada de Pascua, se celebran los siete sacramentos de la Iglesia.

Bautismos y confirmaciones; primeras confesiones y primeras comuniones; matrimonios y ordenaciones. Estas oportunidades para encontrar a la persona y la presencia real de Jesucristo están en el corazón de nuestra tradición católica y nuestra vida espiritual.

No obstante, como personas imperfectas en un mundo imperfecto, las consecuencias del pecado original y nuestra naturaleza mortal arrojan una sombra sobre la luz de Cristo resucitado. Las realidades del pecado, el sufrimiento y la muerte no conocen nuestras estaciones y la lluvia en cada desfile. En el sacramento de la unción de los enfermos, nos consuela saber que la promesa de la Pascua de Dios se cumple en el misericordioso bálsamo de Jesús.

Cada uno de nosotros está dotado con el jardín del alma. Es un terreno fértil y da mucho fruto. En la iglesia primitiva, se usó una imagen para reconocer el derramamiento de gracia en las vidas que enfrentaban muchos desafíos. Los catecúmenos fueron vistos como la cosecha: granos de trigo precioso. Las persecuciones en la iglesia primitiva fueron vistas como la molienda de este grano en una harina fina. A esta harina se añadieron las aguas del bautismo, el aceite de la unción, la levadura del Evangelio y una pizca de sal para la preservación. A través del fuego del Espíritu Santo, esta es la receta para el pan de vida bajado del cielo.

Ya seamos recolectores en el campo de trigo, trabajadores en el viñedo o trabajadores en los huertos de olivos, todavía es la realidad de nuestro mundo que conocemos muchos desafíos en la vida de la fe. Las persecuciones de

the oil of anointing, the leaven of the Gospel and a dash of salt for preservation. Through the fire of the Holy Spirit, this is the recipe for the bread of life come down from heaven.

Whether we are gatherers in the wheat field, laborers in the vineyard or workers in the olive orchards, it is still the reality of our world that we know many challenges in the life of faith. The persecutions of Christians continue throughout much of the world. Even in America, where we are free to practice our own religion, the persecution of the Christian faith can be a subtle, but no less real, part of life.

Therefore, if we are feeling pulverized, then let us be a fine flour transformed into the very body of Christ as bread for the world. If we are feeling knocked down and stomped on, then let us be like grapes. Just add the sweetness of prayer and the leaven of the Gospel (and aging helps, too) to be a fine wine, transformed into the blood of Christ poured into the chalice of our salvation. If we are feeling the pressures of complicated lives and the weight of too many responsibilities, then let us be like olives, pressed into a pure oil. Through the workings of the Holy Spirit, we are anointed with the oil of gladness and become the oil of anointing.

los cristianos continúan en gran parte del mundo. Incluso en Estados Unidos, donde somos libres de practicar nuestra propia religión, la persecución de la fe cristiana puede ser una parte sutil pero no menos real de la vida.

Por lo tanto, si nos sentimos pulverizados, seamos una buena harina transformada en el mismo cuerpo de Cristo como pan para el mundo. Si nos sentimos derribados y pisoteados, entonces seamos como las uvas.

Simplemente agregue la dulzura de la oración y la levadura del Evangelio (y el envejecimiento ayuda también) a ser un buen vino, transformado en la sangre de Cristo vertida en el cáliz de nuestra salvación. Si estamos sintiendo las presiones de vidas complicadas y el peso de demasiadas responsabilidades, entonces seamos como las aceitunas, presionadas en un aceite puro. A través del funcionamiento del Espíritu Santo, somos ungidos con el aceite de la alegría y convertidos en el aceite de la unción.

En todas y cada una de las formas en que las realidades omnipresentes del pecado, el sufrimiento y la muerte llegan a nuestras vidas y a nuestro mundo, Dios nos ha dado el ejemplo de Jesucristo, el primer fruto de la creación, que fue perseguido y torturado, sufrió y murió. Sin embargo, en su resurrección, tenemos la expiación de los pecados, la redención a través del sufrimiento y el camino a la vida eterna.

Los testigos más efectivos del Evangelio y de las verdades de nuestra fe no son aquellos cuyas vidas se ven perfectas. Más bien, los testigos más efectivos son aquellos cuyas vidas no son perfectas, aquellos que conocen personalmente las pruebas y las parodias de la vida y, sin embargo, persisten en un espíritu gozoso. En Cristo, recibimos la gracia de los sacramentos para que a medida que pasamos por las peores cosas de la vida, solo sirvan para sacar lo mejor de nosotros. ¿No es de extrañar entonces que las celebraciones de la temporada de Pascua incluyan pan, vino y aceite?

Read ‘Only Jesus’ at TheCatholicSpirit.com

“

The most effective witnesses to the Gospel and to the truths of our faith are not those whose lives look perfect.

In each and every way, the ever-present realities of sin, suffering and death come into our lives and into our world, God has given us the example of Jesus Christ — the first fruit of creation — who himself was persecuted and tortured, and who suffered and died.

Yet in his resurrection, we have the atonement for sins, redemption through suffering and the way to eternal life.

The most effective witnesses to the Gospel and to the truths of our faith are not those whose lives look perfect. Rather, the most effective witnesses are those whose lives are not perfect, those who personally know the trials and travesties of life and yet persevere in a joyful spirit. In Christ, we are given the grace of the sacraments so that as we go through the worst things in life, they only serve to bring out the best in us.

Is it no wonder then, that the celebrations of the Easter season include bread, wine and oil?

OFFICIAL Archbishop Bernard Hebda has announced the following appointments in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis:

Effective March 23, 2018 Reverend Biju Mathew Pattasseril, appointed chaplain at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Saint Paul. This is in addition to his current assignment as parochial administrator of the Church of Saint Boniface.

Reverend Adam Tokashiki Oka, PES, appointed chaplain to Chesterton Academy in Edina. Father Tokashiki is a priest of Pro Ecclesia Sancta.

Reverend Vaughn Treco, appointed chaplain at the University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis. Father Treco is a priest of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

Effective April 1, 2018 Reverend Michael Krenik, appointed parochial vicar of the Church of Saint Olaf in Minneapolis. This is a transfer from his previous assignment as administrative chancellor for the Office of the Archbishop for the Archdiocese.

Effective April 9, 2018 Reverend Mark Pavlak, appointed parochial vicar of the Church of Saint Joseph in West Saint Paul. This is in addition to his current assignment as parochial vicar of the Church of Saint John Neumann in Eagan.

Effective May 1, 2018 Reverend Thomas Walker, appointed temporary parochial administrator of the Church of Saint John the Baptist in Jordan, while the pastor, Reverend Tim Yanta, is on sabbatical. This is in addition to his current assignment as pastor of the Church of Saint Michael in Prior Lake.

Effective July 1, 2018 Reverend Richard Banker, appointed pastor of the Church of Saint Edward in Bloomington. This is a transfer from his current assignment as pastor of the Church of Saint Rita in Cottage Grove.

Reverend Mark Joppa, appointed pastor of the Church of Saint Charles in Bayport. Father Joppa has been serving as parochial administrator of the same parish.

4 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

APRIL 12, 2018

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Obstructed view

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Father Doug Liebsch, right, of the Diocese of St. Cloud blocks the path of Joe Wappes of St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul during the championship game of the annual Priests vs. Seminarians Basketball Tournament April 6 at St. Agnes in St. Paul. Father Aaron Nett (not pictured) of the Diocese of St. Cloud made a shot in the final seconds to give the priests the win, 46-44. Earlier, St. John Vianney defeated a team of seminarians from the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity to advance to the championship game. In the foreground is Father Tony Vanderloop of St. Henry in Monticello.

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THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 5

New seminary rector recalled to home diocese

By Jessica Trygstad The Catholic Spirit Msgr. Thomas Richter, who since January has been preparing to transition to the role of rector at the St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, has been recalled to his home Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota, Archbishop Bernard Hebda announced April 4.

Archbishop Hebda, who tapped Msgr. Richter for the post last fall to succeed Msgr. Aloysius Callaghan, celebrated Mass at the seminary before telling staff and students that Bishop David Kagan has appointed Msgr. Richter to fulfill a pastor role at Queen of Peace in Dickinson, North Dakota.

By responding to Bishop Kagan’s request, Archbishop Hebda noted how Msgr. Richter “gives us that powerful example of priestly obedience, collaborating with our bishops.”

Msgr. Richter, who was in Rome during the announcement, will continue to serve as vice rector until June 15.

“He really has developed a great love for this seminary and most especially for the seminarians here, and was very much looking forward to being rector,” Archbishop Hebda said. He requested prayers for Msgr. Richter and the seminary community.

Archbishop Hebda noted that the seminary’s executive board will select a search committee for the next rector. He encouraged Mass attendees to share names of prospects with Bishop Andrew Cozzens, who will lead the committee and, if necessary, serve as interim rector. Bishop Cozzens had served as an instructor at the seminary before becoming a bishop.

“We want to make sure that you’re going to be loved and cared for, even if there’s an interim rector,” Archbishop Hebda told seminarians after Mass.

COURTESY MIKE SHAUGHNESSY | SUN NEWSPAPERS

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Msgr. Thomas Richter, who was slated to assume the role of rector of the St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul in June, has been recalled to his home Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota, to lead a parish. He is pictured eating lunch with seminarians Feb. 15.

Describing the seminary’s work in forming clergy as crucial for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and beyond, the archbishop said the process might take some time and that leaders will look for the “right fit” to carry the seminary forward. He recalled Msgr. Richter’s insight that the gifts that make a good pastor are the same gifts that make a good rector, who ultimately serves as the pastor of the seminary community.

Following Mass, Msgr.

Callaghan, who will serve as rector emeritus come June, said the search committee will likely include clergy and lay people. He said at this point, he’s uncertain whether he’ll mentor the new rector once named. “[Msgr. Richter] was both eager and excited, but as with all of us priests, it’s what the bishop needs — that’s our life — so when we put our hands in the hands of the bishop [upon ordination], we respect obedience,” Msgr.

Callaghan said.

In this case, he added, “The local Church has to determine what their needs are and make a sacrifice, and then sometimes they have to regroup, but it all works out. It’s all part of God’s plan.”

Archbishop Hebda announced in October that Msgr. Richter, 50, would become the 15th rector of the St. Paul Seminary.

Ordained in 1996, Msgr. Richter has served as a pastor, including rector of Bismark’s cathedral, and taught in Catholic high schools.

He also served 11 years as his diocese’s vocations director. He has been on the executive board of the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors, and as a faculty member and spiritual director of the Institute for Priestly Formation in Omaha, Nebraska.

Msgr. Richter gave the keynote address at the Archdiocesan Men’s Conference March 10 at St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights.

JUMPING FOR JOY From left, Cretin-Derham Hall players Jaeden King, Ryan Larson, back, and Sy Chatman celebrate after beating Apple Valley High School 79-78 in the Class 4A state boys basketball championship game March 24. Senior center Daniel Oturu had 17 points, including a last-second dunk to beat defending champion Apple Valley. The St. Paul Catholic school captured its eighth state title with the victory at the Target Center in Minneapolis.

in BRIEF Southern neighbor now Diocese of Winona-Rochester WINONA — The Diocese of Winona is now the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, according to a decree from the Vatican’s Congregation of Bishops. “This is a significant moment in our diocese’s history,” said Bishop John Quinn in a March 31 press release. “My heart is lifted by this news, as I know that the presence of a co-cathedral in Rochester will provide unique ways to share the Gospel in our diocese’s fastest-growing city.” Rochester is Minnesota’s third largest city, and 75 percent of the diocese’s population lives between Rochester and Mankato, according to the diocese. The diocese began the process of seeking the designation in 2015. On June 24, St. John the Evangelist Church, Rochester’s oldest Catholic parish, will be elevated to a co-cathedral.

Papal Nuncio Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Pope Francis’ delegate to the United States, will celebrate the liturgical ceremony, which will include the blessing of a new “cathedra,” or bishop’s chair, for the church. The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Winona will not change status, retaining its role as the seat of the diocese. The diocese was established in 1888. It includes the state’s 20 southernmost counties.

Gold medalist Pannek welcomed back at Benilde-St. Margaret’s School

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit Benilde-St. Margaret’s girls hockey players oohed and aahed as they held and got pictures with an Olympic gold medal March 21, won by 2014 alumna Kelly Pannek.

“It’s so heavy,” one BSM player exclaimed.

The BSM student athletes met with the Olympic women’s hockey gold medalist over breakfast at the St. Louis Park Catholic middle and high school. Pannek, who played forward for the team, fielded questions from the girls and then visited with them informally, getting pictures and signing autographs.

“It’s just kind of crazy. I was watching her on TV, and she was representing our country and she’s meeting … all these important people just for this sport,” said BSM eighth-grade forward Sophie Melsness. “It’s amazing to see.”

Pannek joined the U.S. women’s hockey team in 2017 after various international competitions leading up to the Olympics. In South Korea in February, she helped the U.S. go 4-1 overall with two assists, including one on a game-tying goal in the third period of the gold medal game.

Following a presentation to BSM’s student body, she shared her experience with BSM hockey players during a Belgian waffle breakfast in the school’s library conference room. Spread out at tables around the room, the girls asked questions ranging from what it was like to compete in the Olympics to what she ate.

While at BSM, Pannek excelled academically and starred in three sports. That included winning “Ms. Soccer” in 2013 and back-to-back state titles in 2012 and 2013. In girls hockey, she led the Red Knights to state in 2014. She also won all-state honors in girls lacrosse in 2014.

She went on to have a strong start to her college career at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities as she helped the Gophers win national titles in 2015 and 2016. She’s majoring in supply chain management.

In playing archrival Canada, the U.S. rallied to beat its northern neighbor in a 3-2 shootout victory Feb. 22 for the gold medal. Pannek, who passed the puck to teammate Monique Lamoureux-Morando for the gametying goal in the third period, described what the final shots of the shootout were like: “You can’t really put words to it, but whenever you see those pictures, it brings back the chills and all the memories of it.”

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

U.S. Olympic women’s hockey gold medalist Kelly Pannek joined a group of Benilde-St. Margaret’s girls hockey players for a photo March 21.

LOCAL

6 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

APRIL 12, 2018

Four women to be honored at ACCW convention in Stillwater The Catholic Spirit

formation director and volunteered in the office. In the broader community, Hupf has been involved in 4-H, the school board, Future Farmers of America and was an election judge. She and her husband raised six children on their farm, which hosted the archdiocesan Rural Life Sunday Mass and celebration.

At the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women’s 86th annual convention April 20-21 at St. Michael in Stillwater, leaders will present Laywomen Volunteer Awards to four women.

Betty Cardinal ST. PIUS X, WHITE BEAR LAKE Betty Cardinal, 73, is a wife and mother of three. At her parish, she helps prepare children for their first reconciliation and Communion. She is also a teacher and sponsor for the Right of Christian Initiation for Children, which began after she referred a family to her parish for baptizing their children.

She is active in her parish CCW and has chaired a variety of parish committees, including the Appalachia Mission collection. She has also decorated the church’s worship space for more than 15 years and is an extraordinary minister of holy Communion. For two hours each week, she prays in the parish’s 24-hour eucharistic adoration chapel. Outside of her parish, she is a member of the “Pastel Painters” and has assisted in painting more than 20 houses. She also volunteers with Habitat for Humanity and “Friends of the Poor,” a program of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Forty years ago, she helped organize the parish school’s first “walking marathon,” which continues today. She has also coordinated youth mission trips, opens her home to a foreign exchange student each year and is active in the pro-life movement.

Melinda Stella BETTY CARDINAL

CATHERINE HERRMANN

OLIVE HUPF

MELINDA STELLA

Catherine Herrmann

Olive Hupf

MOST HOLY REDEEMER, MONTGOMERY

ST. PIUS V, CANNON FALLS

Catherine Herrmann, 79, has been a past president of her parish Council of Catholic Women, an extraordinary minister of holy Communion and a lector. She has coordinated and taught religious education for 30 years and served as a chairwoman for parish festivals. As a member of the parishinitiated “Sisterhood of the Bag Ladies,” she makes plastic sleeping mats for homeless veterans. Her service extends to the greater community as a member of the local hospital board and a leader of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts for 30 years. She is the founder of the Jaycee Women in Montgomery. Herrmann has been involved with the community theater as an actress, seamstress and director. She has been married for 57 years and continues to work with her husband in their drug store. They have six children and 18 grandchildren.

Olive Hupf, 84, has served as president and co-president in her parish CCW, and has been active on the ACCW board since 1993. She has hosted pro-life events and initiated the local Haiti project, sewing first Communion dresses and other needed items. She has collected Christmas gifts for families in lowincome parishes and coordinates filling a semi-truck with Christmas gifts for the poor in Appalachia. She started the Christmas Shoe Box mission project in 2013. Representing the ACCW, she had a private audience with Pope John Paul II in Rome. She has led pro-life and legislative missions, and has attended numerous National Council of Catholic Women conventions and a United Nations forum. At St. Pius V, she initiated eucharistic adoration and a children’s choir, and played the organ for Masses.

She also served as the parish’s faith

TRANSFIGURATION, OAKDALE Melinda Stella, 48, has served as the CCW president and is currently the communications director at her parish.

Also an active volunteer, she works at the fall festival, Lenten fish fry and rummage sale, serves doughnuts after Mass and is an extraordinary minister of holy Communion. As chair of her parish’s Financial Peace University program, she helps families with their finances and coordinates volunteers to pray for participants. She has been a faith formation teacher for the past two years.

Through CCW, she has coordinated making meals for the local food shelf, and ensures any extra food from various parish gatherings and bake sales goes to sick, elderly and homebound parishioners. Outside of the parish, Stella prepares food at the Medieval Banquet, greets guests at the art festival, coordinates a weekend event and works the concession stand for sports activities.

She is currently chair of the fine arts show. A wife and mother of six, Stella is a registered nurse at Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul.

LOCAL

APRIL 12, 2018

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 7

Scientists, farmers, theologians reflect on agriculture as ‘noble vocation’

By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit The story was about a duck — that a friendly duck had been regularly spending time in a man’s yard, and now the man was feeding it. He had asked his pastor, Father Gregory Mastey, if he had time to listen to his story, and Father Mastey had said yes.

“After about 15 minutes of him telling me these stories about this duck that keeps showing up ... then he turned to tears. And I said, what else is happening, George? And he says, ‘I’m lonely after my wife has passed. My life isn’t the same when I have neighbors so far away. I feel the pains of this.’ And that came out of a duck story.”

“This is the reality of pastoral life in rural areas, especially with farmers and rural people,” said Father Mastey, a rural pastor who grew up on a farm, at a conference on agriculture and vocation March 22.

A priest of the Diocese of St. Cloud, Father Mastey was among three panelists speaking on “Faith, Food, and the Environment and the Task of the Pastoral Leader” at A Noble Vocation: Integrating Faith, Food and the Environment, a three-day conference organized by St. Paul-based Catholic Rural Life. Also on the panel were Sister of Mercy Esther Mary Nickel, associate director of worship for the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, and Brad Roth, a Mennonite pastor from Kansas and author of “God’s Country: Faith, Hope and the Future of the Rural Church.” The three shared their pastoral experiences and insights from working in rural communities.

Held at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, A Noble Vocation’s other sessions focused on U.S. agriculture history, environmental challenges and climate change, and they included international and indigenous perspectives. In remarks at the conference’s opening evening session March 21, CRL Executive Director James Ennis said the conference’s 110 participants from 18 states had been drawn together by various concerns, including food security, agricultural issues and the environment.

“We’re gathered here because there’s a real concern around what’s happening around agriculture and family farms, what’s happening in our rural communities and our rural life, concerns about food security and how we’re going to feed the world in the future, while caring at the same time for our environment,” he said. “There are concerns about retrieving this sense of the nobility of agricultural production and the nobility of the farmer. How do we do that, and what does our faith tell us about that?”

About 60 of conference’s participants were farmers or worked in agribusiness, Ennis told The Catholic Spirit. Others were scientists, food experts, faith leaders and theologians.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda gave the keynote address March 21, telling participants that farmers hold “a unique role in the fulfillment of God’s plan.”

He pointed to St. John Paul II’s 1979 Mass at Living History Farms near Des Moines, Iowa, in the midst of five other stops — all in metropolitan areas — as an indication of the Church’s esteem for farmers and agriculture. He

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Sister Esther Mary Nickel, associate director of worship for the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, makes remarks during a panel discussion March 22 at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul during a national conference called A Noble Vocation: Integrating Faith, Food and the Environment. Others participating are, from left, moderator Christopher Thompson of the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul, and panelists Father Gregory Mastey of the Diocese of St. Cloud, who grew up on a farm, and the Rev. Brad Roth, pastor of a Mennonite church in Kansas. quoted the pontiff from the Mass: “While it is true here that farming today provides an economic livelihood for the farmer, still it will always be more than an enterprise of profit-making. In farming, you cooperate with the Creator in the very sustenance of life on earth. ...

You who are farmers today are stewards of a gift from God, which was intended for the good of all humanity.”

Archbishop Hebda acknowledged the difficulties many farmers face, as well as the complexities of agricultural production and its environmental impact, but he said challenges should be faced with hope. He encouraged deeper reflection on agriculture as a vocation and quoted from “Laudato Si’,” Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on caring for creation.

He also spoke about the root of vocation — Latin’s “vocare,” “to call” — and noted that what naturally follows is “obedire,” to listen.

“To refer to the vocation of an agricultural leader means someone who is called and then also listens,” he said.

“The commitment to agriculture is a vocation given by God, a unique and privileged way of life. Indeed, of all the occupations undertaken by men and women, the task of ‘tilling and keeping the earth’ reaches to the depths of our relationships with God the Creator, with creation and with all of humanity.”

Repairing the social fabric During the panel on pastoral life, Father Mastey said that as the duckwatcher intimated, rural life can be isolating. There used to be four farms on a square-mile of land, but by the 1990s, on average there was only one farm building in that same space, with no guarantee of it being occupied, he said.

Because people are “busier and busier,” the social structure that once held rural life together has unraveled, and the economy makes it difficult for young people to take over family farms, if they even want to.

Ministering in rural areas should be rooted in building relationships that understand people’s connection to their land, he said. During Minnesota’s warmer months, he holds a weekly Tuesday evening outdoor Mass at his

parishioners’ homes, and he asks them to introduce themselves and their land — how they came to call it home — as well as their families. The liturgies bring people together, he said.

Father Mastey also turns outdoor excursions into ministries, so he’s known to offer canoeing ministry, fishing ministry and hiking ministry. These retreats open the door to relationships, he said.

“The pastoral life is really about connecting the dots and relationship, and realizing that God is in all these places,” he said.

Sister Nickel, a member of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Michigan, who holds doctoral degrees in liturgy and agronomy, described her former work teaching liturgy to seminarians at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado, and her current work with parish planning in the Diocese of Sioux City. As demographics and finances cause dioceses to consider merging and closing rural parishes, the process needs to include Church leaders listening to Catholics affected by those decisions, she said.

“The task for pastors and parishes is not to create community but to reveal community,” she said. “By our common baptism, we all participate in the mystical body of Christ. We are all members of the people of God, the Church.”

In her parish planning work, Sister Nickel has spent time listening to rural parishes at risk for closure, and she has helped Church leaders and parishioners change their perspective from criticism to hope, and from financial concerns to faith, she said. Shifting demographics and parish merging and closings have “a dramatic effect on community and communion,” she added. “Change can affect a vision, or, with the proper perspective of faith, it can be an occasion to bring a deeper and real communion among the faithful and their pastor. Most often, people just need to be heard.”

Called to listen The panel of faith leaders was moderated by Christopher Thompson, director of the Center for Theological Formation at the St. Paul Seminary

School of Divinity in St. Paul and author of recently published “The Joyful Mystery: Field Notes Toward a Green Thomism” about understanding the world as God’s creation. He and Ennis drafted the document “Vocation of the Agricultural Leader: Integrating Faith with Agriculture and the Environment,” published in 2016 by CRL and the Vatican-based International Catholic Rural Association.

The document’s ideas undergirded the conference, the second of its kind hosted

by CRL. The first conference was held in 2014. CRL also participated in a similar conference in Milan in 2015 organized by the International Catholic Rural Association. In addition to running CRL, Ennis serves as the international organization’s president.

Ennis told The Catholic Spirit that he hoped participants gained an understanding of why the concept of vocation is vital to agriculture. The importance of listening — including farmers’ listening with humility to the needs of the natural world, as well as listening to God’s will in hard times — was a reoccurring theme, he said.

But, he said, agricultural leaders also need to be “invited” to a relationship with God through caring for his creation, not “indicted” for practices that don’t reflect their work as a vocation, such as engaging in unsustainable farming methods or relating to animals — and even people, such as farm workers — only as “production units.”

“The Church has a voice in these conversations because you’re dealing with human beings: their response to God, their care for creation [as] God’s gift,” Ennis said.

And while pastors serving rural areas need to understand that relationship, so do scientists and policy makers working in agriculture, he said.

“We really want also to speak into the scientific and agriculture science sector that this [farming] isn’t just a secular activity,” he said. “There’s something beautiful because you’re engaging creation and you’re providing food, and it is an ancient vocation. It’s not just another transaction.”

LOCAL

8 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

APRIL 12, 2018

Arab journalist says refugees take forgiveness to heart

By Melenie Soucheray For The Catholic Spirit In her encounters with Christian refugees in the Middle East, a Lebanese journalist discovered that they didn’t see displacement as “the last word” of their lives, and it didn’t condition the way they related to the people who took their lands.

But that rang true for what she knows of Christianity, the journalist, Maronite Catholic Marta Zaknoun, said in a March 24 presentation at St. Peter in North St. Paul.

“Coming from a very hardcore Christian family, I was raised with the notion of forgiveness and hope,” said MARTA ZAKNOUN Zaknoun, 33, who was born and raised in Jerusalem.

Following Palm Sunday Mass, Zaknoun presented “Christians in the Middle East: A People, A Face, A Newness in Everyday Rubble.” She showed a video and spoke about the complex, historic, sometimes peaceful relationships among Christians, Muslims and Jews in her homeland, and the painful, disruptive impact of war on the thousands of displaced people in the region.

Zaknoun now lives in Canada with her husband and three children. She works in her parish and writes for Catholic publications. With friends, she created a video and a set of 21 wall panels for the 2016 New York Encounter, an annual three-day cultural event. The exhibit features stories told by Iraqi and Syrian Christian refugees in Amman, Jordan.

When Islamic State militants swept into the void

created by war in their home countries, the extremists told Christians they either had to convert to Islam, pay a high tax or leave.

“It’s my community,” Zaknoun said of the Christians.

“I know that living in the Middle East was never easy for my minority, but I also treasure, very much, the land and the holy sites. The presence of Christians in those places is important to me as a Christian. I felt very moved by the fact that these refugees gave up everything — their jobs, their stability, the future, everything they had — for Christ.”

Zaknoun added: “They left Iraq and Syria because their lives, and the lives of their children, were in danger.

They were forced to leave. But, the fact that they cling to their faith, that they don’t fall into despair and their faith doesn’t weaken, is also something that fascinated me. One of them said to me, ‘We lost everything, but we gained and kept the only thing that matters.’”

The people Zaknoun interviewed for the exhibit said they have taken Christ’s revolutionary example of forgiveness to heart. In turn, Zaknoun exhorted her audience not to put the refugees on a pedestal and call them “super Christians.” Instead, she asked them to remember the struggles and big questions in their own lives and to reflect on unity with refugees.

“We should enjoy our lives. We should enjoy our faith,” said Father Ettore Ferrario, St. Peter’s pastor. He told parishioners, “Don’t go out [tonight] with the emotion of pity, but keep this message with you: Am I shaped by physical things or desires, or am I more struck by the mother who discovered, again, her faith in God and his love, because of her physically painful situation?”

That introspection is a theme of St. Peter’s yearlong

celebration of 130 years as a Catholic community in North St. Paul. Its approach, “Duc in Altum” (“Into the Deep”), includes a series of educational programs, including Zaknoun’s presentation. The series is inspired

by Jesus ordering St. Peter to “put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch” (Lk 5:4).

Father Pietro Rossotti, the parish’s parochial vicar, is leading the “Duc in Altum” planning process.

“We strongly believe that we are educated in faith to make it part of our culture,” he said. “If Jesus is not part of our culture, if Jesus is not attractive in that part of my life, it’s not enough to praise him on Sunday. If Jesus has a real presence, we will wish that he can enter our life, day in and day out.”

Meri Jo Tepe is a lifelong resident of North St. Paul, a member of the parish council and part of the “Duc in Altum” committee. Zaknoun’s presentation fulfilled her expectations: “I can’t imagine the life that [the refugees] are living, being so deep in their faith and forgiving of a group of people who basically said, ‘You’re out.’”

“I am dwarfed by that,” she continued. “I am not anywhere near where they are. If I can take one step closer and have one more opportunity to really think through what I believe in and how I can share my faith with others, that’s tremendous — to be merciful.”

Zaknoun concluded that not even the biggest evil can silence refugees’ desire to live a “beautiful, full life, which, to me,” she said, “is possible only because Christ helps them live that way.

“This is the connection that I really see with Holy Week,” she added. “I see people that are not stuck in the tomb. They live the resurrection. They live with pain and with tears, and they suffer, and it’s difficult, but death doesn’t have the last word.”

Crosiers’ $25 million abuse settlement approved March 22 The Catholic Spirit A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge approved a $25 million settlement for victims/survivors of clergy sex abuse in a case against Crosier Fathers and Brothers March 22. The settlement was approved on schedule, despite public speculation from victims/survivors’ attorneys that a legal objection filed by attorneys representing the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis could delay it. The archdiocese withdrew its objection after the settlement plan was modified to address its concern.

“Despite commentary from others last week, the archdiocese never sought to block the Crosiers’ plan of reorganization or its settlement with victims/survivors,

and doing so would not have benefited the archdiocese in any way,” said Thomas Abood, chair of the archdiocese’s Reorganization Task Force, in a March 22 statement.

Like the Crosiers, the archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the wake of mounting clergy sex abuse allegations, and it is working in mediation toward a plan for reorganization. In the statement, Abood emphasized that the archdiocese is “in favor of justly compensating all victims/survivors, including those asserting claims in the Crosiers’ case” and that its concern was “that wording in the Crosiers’ plan would have resulted in 23 of the Crosiers’ victims/survivors collecting the Crosiers’ liability to them from the archdiocese and its carriers.”

“This would have been unfair to hundreds of archdiocesan victims/ survivors,” Abood said. “Such collection would have reduced the archdiocesan assets and insurance otherwise available to the other 400 victims/survivors who have claims against the archdiocese. Had the archdiocese not filed the objection, our insurance carriers would have taken the position that we had, in effect, waived the carriers’ rights to collect any payments they made for the Crosiers’ liability from the Crosiers, and that this waiver voided our coverage — meaning the archdiocesan insurers wouldn’t need to contribute to the trust we have been building for three years.”

Attorneys from Minneapolis-based Briggs and Morgan representing the

archdiocese had been working to resolve the issue “for some time,” which was known by the victims/survivors’ attorneys, Abood said. “As the settlement today shows, all that was needed was clarification that the Crosiers’ plan does not allow abuse claimants to collect Crosiers’ liability from the archdiocese or its carriers,” he said.

The Crosiers are based in Phoenix, but have a community in Onamia. Some members accused of abuse served in the archdiocese at the time of the alleged abuse, resulting in 23 overlapping abuse claims against the order and the archdiocese. There were 67 claimants in the Crosiers’ case.

The Crosiers filed for bankruptcy in June 2017.

8 • Bach’s ‘St. John Passion’ 18 ACCW leaders 6 • Assisted suicide in U.S. April 20, 2017

Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Happy Easter!

Young

love at 95 St. Paul couple shares reasons why marriage stays strong for 74 years

— Page 14

St. Paul neighborhood April 6. The each other during their daily walk in their Leona and Vince Arceno pause to smile at Spirit their relationship. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic to Mass together are an important part of

He is risen! Alleluia!

two, both 95, have been married for 74 years,

and say their walks and going

Why Jesus’ empty tomb matters • 10-11 Pope Francis’ Easter message • 11 Connecting Divine Mercy to ecology • 16

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Meeting of the minds

Concert 4 Hope

At St. Thomas, Cornel West and Ross Douthat prove conversation on ideologically divisive topics need not actually divide.

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Retreat leaders and participants explain the importance of silence for prayer and offer tips on finding it.

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APRIL 12, 2018

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 9

NATION+WORLD

Holiness means being loving, not boring, pope says

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service God calls all Christians to be saints — not plastic statues of saints, but real people who make time for prayer and who show loving care for others in the simplest gestures, Pope Francis said in his new document on holiness.

“Do not be afraid of holiness. It will take away none of your energy, vitality or joy,” the pope wrote in “Gaudete et Exsultate” (“Rejoice and Be Glad”), his apostolic exhortation on “the call to holiness in today’s world.”

Pope Francis signed the exhortation March 19, the feast of St. Joseph, and the Vatican released it April 9.

Much of the document was written in the second person, speaking directly to the individual reading it.

“With this exhortation I would like to insis t primarily on the call to holiness that the Lord addresses to each of us, the call that he also addresses, personally, to you,” he wrote near the beginning.

Saying he was not writing a theological treatise on holiness, Pope Francis focused mainly on how the call to holiness is a personal call, something God asks of each Christian and which requires a personal response given one’s state in life, talents and circumstances.

“We are frequently tempted to think that holiness is only for those who can withdraw from ordinary affairs to spend much time in prayer,” he wrote. But “that is not the case.”

“We are all called to be holy by living our lives with love and by bearing witness in everything we do, wherever we find ourselves,” he said.

He wrote about “the saints next door” and said he likes “to contemplate the holiness present in the patience of God’s people: in those parents who raise their children with immense love, in those men and women who work hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly religious who never lose their smile.”

Pope Francis also noted the challenges to holiness, writing at length and explicitly about the devil just two weeks after an uproar caused by an elderly Italian journalist who claimed the pope told him he did not believe in the existence of hell.

“We should not think of the devil as a myth, a representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or an idea,” the pope wrote in his exhortation. “This mistake would lead us to let down our guard, to grow careless and end up more

vulnerable” to the devil’s temptations.

“The devil does not need to possess us. He poisons us with the venom of hatred, desolation, envy and vice,” he wrote. “When we let down our guard, he takes advantage of it to destroy our lives, our families and our communities.”

The path to holiness, the pope wrote, is almost always gradual, made up of small steps in prayer, in sacrifice and in service to others.

“

We are frequently tempted to think that holiness is only for those who can withdraw from ordinary affairs to s pend much time in prayer.

That is not the case.

Pope Francis Being part of a parish community and receiving the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and reconciliation, are essential supports for living a holy life, he wrote. And so is finding time for silent prayer. “I do not believe in holiness without prayer,” he said, “even though that prayer need not be lengthy or involve intense emotion.”

“The holiness to which the Lord calls you will grow through small gestures,” he said, before citing the example of a woman who refuses to gossip with a neighbor, returns home and listens patiently to her child even though she is tired, prays the rosary and later meets a poor person and offers him a kind word.

The title of the document was taken from Matthew 5:12 when Jesus says “rejoice and be glad” to those who are persecuted or humiliated for his sake.

The line concludes the Beatitudes, in which, Pope Francis said, “Jesus explained with great simplicity what it means to be holy”: living simply, putting God first, trusting him and not earthly wealth or power, being humble, mourning with and consoling others, being merciful and forgiving, working for justice and seeking peace with all.

The example of the saints officially recognized by the Church can be helpful, he said, but no one else’s path can be duplicated exactly.

Each person, he said, needs “to embrace that unique plan that God

willed for each of us from eternity.”

The exhortation ends with a section on “discernment,” which is a gift to be requested of the Holy Spirit and developed through prayer, reflection, reading Scripture and seeking counsel from a trusted spiritual guide.

“A sincere daily ‘examination of conscience’” will help, he said, because holiness involves striving each day for “all that is great, better and more beautiful, while at the same time being concerned for the little things, for each day’s responsibilities and commitments.”

Pope Francis also included a list of cautions. For example, he said holiness involves finding balance in prayer time, time spent enjoying others’ company and time dedicated to serving others in ways large or small. And, “needless to say, anything done out of anxiety, pride or the need to impress others will not lead to holiness.”

Being holy is not easy, he said, but if the attempt makes a person judgmental, always frustrated and surly, something is not right.

“The saints are not odd and aloof, unbearable because of their vanity, negativity and bitterness,” he said.

“The apostles of Christ were not like that.”

In fact, the pope said, “Christian joy is usually accompanied by a sense of humor.”

The exhortation included many of Pope Francis’ familiar refrains about attitudes that destroy the Christian community, like gossip, or that proclaim themselves to be Christian, but are really forms of pride, like knowing all the rules and being quick to judge others for not following them.

Holiness “is not about swooning in mystic rapture,” he wrote, but it is about recognizing and serving the Lord in the hungry, the stranger, the naked, the poor and the sick.

Holiness is holistic, he said, and while each person has a special mission, no one should claim that their particular call or path is the only worthy one.

Pope Francis’ exhortation also included warnings about a lack of holiness demonstrated by some Catholics on social media, especially when commenting anonymously.

Saints, on the other hand, “do not waste energy complaining about the failings of others; they can hold their tongue before the faults of their brothers and sisters, and avoid the verbal violence that demeans and mistreats others.”

St. Grandma? Pope cites the famous and ‘saint next door’ Naturally in a document on the Christian call to holiness, Pope Francis cited a heavenly host of saints — including some whose sainthood causes are ongoing and some who probably will never be canonized.

“A great cloud of witnesses,” he said, encourages each Christian to take steps toward holiness. “These witnesses may include our own mothers, grandmothers or other loved ones,” he wrote.

In “Rejoice and Be Glad,” Pope Francis quoted a myriad of experts — canonized saints — on the striving for holiness but, like much of the document, many of those quotations offered very practical advice rather than lofty thoughts.

In a footnote about how saints are happy and usually have a good sense of humor, Pope France quoted a prayer attributed to the English martyr, St. Thomas More: “Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest. Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to maintain it. Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil, but rather finds the means to put things back in their place. Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumbling, sighs and laments, nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called ‘I.’ Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor. Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke and to discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able to share it with others.”

Pope Francis also referred in the document to the “witness borne by the Trappists of Tibhirine, Algeria, who prepared as a community for martyrdom.” In 1996, the monks were kidnapped from their monastery and beheaded by a group of terrorists trained by the al-Qaida network. The monks’ story was treated in the 2010 film “Of Gods and Men.” In January, the pope signed a decree formally recognizing the monks’ death as martyrdom; the announcement of a date and place for their beatification is expected soon.

The pope’s homage to the Trappist martyrs is part of a section on the importance of being part of a community, supporting and challenging one another. “Growth in holiness is a journey in community, side by side with others,” he wrote. Such sharing works not only for the famous, formally canonized saints, he said. “In many holy marriages, too, each spouse becomes a means used by Christ for the sanctification of the other. Living or working alongside others is surely a path of spiritual growth.”

Holy spouses would have the advantage of knowing a saint and would probably agree with Pope Francis’ observation about the holy ones: “Their lives may not always have been perfect, yet even amid their faults and failings they kept moving forward and proved pleasing to the Lord.”

The pope encouraged Catholics to draw what inspiration they find useful from the lives of saints, but he also said it is not a good idea to try to copy them exactly because that could “lead us astray from the one specific path that the Lord has in mind for each of us.”

— Cindy Wooden

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10 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Pope denounces use of chemical weapons after deadly attack in Syria

By Junno Arocho Esteves Catholic News Service Pope Francis condemned the use of chemical weapons after a deadly attack killed dozens of innocent men, women and children in Syria.

“There is no good and bad war, and nothing, nothing can justify the use of such instruments of extermination against defenseless people and populations,” the pope said April 8 before concluding Divine Mercy Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square.

A suspected chemicalweapon attack occurred late April 7 when Syrian army warplanes allegedly flew over and bombed the eastern town of Douma, located 15 miles north of the Syrian capital, Damascus, according to the Reuters news agency.

The Syrian American Medical Society Foundation reported 42 victims were killed in the attack while hundreds of people, “the majority of whom are women and children, were brought to local medical centers with symptoms indicative of exposure to a chemical agent.”

Despite witness accounts,

APRIL 12, 2018

HEADLINES uSweden’s Lutherans to let Catholic parish hold Masses in Lund Cathedral. For the first time in 500 years, Lutherans in Sweden are welcoming Catholics to celebrate Masses in Lund Cathedral. The historic, formerly Catholic cathedral that was the site of bitter religious feuding has become a site of interfaith friendship since Pope Francis held a service there in 2016.

uQuebec bishops ponder possibility of married priests. During a

conference dedicated to the future of the Catholic Church in Quebec, Auxiliary Bishop Marc Pelchat of Quebec said consolidating parishes was not a solution to the lack of priests.

uCatholic priest in Congo shot dead; kidnapped priest released,

unharmed. U.N. radio in Congo reported April 9 that Father Etienne Nsengiunva, a priest in Kitchanga, was shot at point-blank range April 8. The murder occurred three days after Father Celestin Ngango of St. Paul Karambi parish, abducted on Easter, was found, unharmed, by villagers.

CNS | EMAD ALDIN, EPA

Children’s bodies are seen after an alleged chemical attack April 8 in rebel-held Douma, Syria. the Syrian government denied involvement in the attack.

The U.S. State Department denounced “the regime’s history of using chemical weapons against its own people” and said that Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashir al-Assad, “ultimately bears responsibility for the brutal targeting of countless Syrians with chemical weapons.”

Pope Francis prayed “for all the dead, for the wounded, for the families who suffer” and called for world leaders to abandon the use of war as a means of gaining peace and stability.

“We pray that political and military leaders choose the other way: that of negotiation, the only one that can lead to a peace that is not that of death and destruction,” the pope said.

uNCAA championship a win-win for Catholic universities. The

victories for the Notre Dame women’s and Villanova men’s basketball teams is not a first for either squad, but it is a first for two Catholic university teams to win both championships in the same year, according to Paula Moore, vice president of external affairs for the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities based in Washington.

uSupreme Court examines freedom of speech at crisis pregnancy centers. In oral arguments before the Supreme Court March 20, justices seemed skeptical about a California law that requires pro-life pregnancy centers in the state to visibly display information about abortions to their clients that the centers say violates their right to free speech.

Read the stories at TheCatholicSpirit.com.

Vatican: Journalist’s claim that pope denied hell’s existence is unreliable

By Junno Arocho Esteves Catholic News Service The Vatican said comments attributed to Pope Francis denying the existence of hell are a product of an Italian journalist’s “reconstruction” of the pope’s remarks and not a faithful transcript of the pope’s real words.

Eugenio Scalfari, a co-founder and former editor of La Repubblica, an Italian daily, said Pope Francis — with whom he has had several telephone conversations and face-to-face meetings — invited him to his residence March 27. Scalfari, 93, an avowed atheist, claims the pope said that while the souls of repentant sinners “receive the forgiveness of God and go among the line of souls who contemplate him, the souls of those who are unrepentant, and thus cannot be forgiven, disappear.”

“Hell does not exist, the disappearance of sinful souls exists,” Scalfari claims the pope said in the interview published March 29.

The Italian journalist has explained on more than one occasion that he does not take notes or record his conversations with the pope; he re-creates them afterward from memory, including the material he puts in quotation marks.

The Vatican issued a statement soon after the article was published, saying the pope did receive Scalfari to exchange Easter greetings, but he did not “give him an interview.” Regarding the alleged words of the pope, which were also published in a similar article written by the journalist in 2014, the Vatican said

Scalfari’s article “is a product of his own reconstruction in which the actual words pronounced by the pope are not cited.”

“No quotes of the aforementioned article should therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the Holy Father’s words,” the Vatican said.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “immediately after death, the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, ‘eternal fire.’”

The alleged quotes ascribed to Pope Francis directly contradict the many public remarks he has made in homilies and speeches confirming the existence of hell. Meeting a group of children and teens during a Rome parish visit March 8, 2015, a girl asked the pope, “If God forgives everybody, why does hell exist?”

The pope assured the children that God is good but reminded them that there was also a “very proud angel, very proud, very intelligent, and he was envious of God. ... He wanted God’s place. And God wanted to forgive him, but he said, ‘I don’t need your forgiveness. I am good enough!’”

“This is hell: It is telling God, ‘You take care of yourself because I’ll take care of myself.’ They don’t send you to hell, you go there because you choose to be there.

Hell is wanting to be distant from God because I do not want God’s love.”

On other occasions, the pope has described hell as the destination for those who choose to continue to sin and do evil.

NATION+WORLD

APRIL 12, 2018

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 11

Participants in interfaith rally resolve to continue Rev. King’s work

By Richard Szczepanowski Catholic News Service About 2,000 people gathered on the National Mall April 4 to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and to commit themselves to fighting racism and discrimination.

The gathering — called the “A.C.T. to End Racism” Rally — was organized by the National Council of Churches and featured clergy from numerous faith traditions, including Catholics, Orthodox Christians, various Protestant denominations, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians and others. A.C.T. stands for “awaken, confront and transform.”

“We have for too long lived under the scourge of racism in our society. To begin the process of healing our nation, we as Christians must join with people of all faiths in holding ourselves accountable for our complicity, and commit to righting the wrongs,” said Jim Winkler, NCC president.

The daylong event began with a sunrise march from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial to the National Mall, an interdenominational prayer service, speeches and musical performances.

“We’ve come to unite in nationwide resolve to end the sin of racism,” said Washington Auxiliary Bishop Roy Campbell. “We must act now; we cannot wait another 50 years.”

Before addressing the rally, Bishop Campbell walked with Catholics in the march from the King monument to the rally site. Faithful from the Archdiocese of Washington walked with a “Catholics Against Racism” banner.

Bishop Campbell also praised Rev. King, noting that while the great civil rights leader was assassinated, “silencing his voice did not silence his words.”

“Dr. King heard Jesus’ call to proclaim to a segregated nation that all men are created equal,” Bishop Campbell said.

Mercy Sisters Sharon Durham and Diane Guerin

CNS | JACLYN LIPPELMANN

traveled from Philadelphia to participate in the event.

“When we look at the role of the Church, we see the responsibility to be present and call for justice. This is a truth,” said Sister Durham.

The rally was held 50 years to the day that Rev. King, standing on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, was assassinated by James Earl Ray. “I remember that day [when Dr. King was killed] very well. I can remember being in shock and being afraid of what would come next,” said Grace Robinson, who traveled from Michigan to attend the rally. “We’ve come far [in fighting racism] in the past 50 years, but we still have far to go.”

That sentiment was echoed by the Rev. Julian DeShazier, a Chicago pastor and hip-hop artist who performs as J.Kwest. “The work has been done before us,

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Franciscans hold signs during an “A.C.T. to End Racism” rally on the National Mall in Washington April 4.

The rally marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

but now finishing the work begins with us, in our hearts, in our minds, in our spirits,” he said.

“Racism isn’t sad, racism is sin,” he added.

Participants at the rally came not just from across the country, but from Canada as well. Florence Cummings traveled with a small church group from Toronto to be present at the event. “Racism here, in Canada or anywhere is wrong and must be confronted,” she said.

Anita Bonds, at-large member of the District of Columbia City Council, called the gathering “an historic and important event.”

“We are not here just to memorialize Dr. Martin Luther King, but to honor him by continuing his work,” she said.

In Minneapolis, an ecumenical prayer service, “The Dream Continues,” planned at the Basilica of St. Mary April 3 was canceled due to a snowstorm.

12 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

I

n the early 1990s, Archbishop John Roach called a meeting of a dozen leaders in the archdiocese to discuss an idea: a foundation to support the local Catholic Church, with an initial goal of $45 million.

Fundraising was to begin immediately.

Sitting at the table was Larry McGough, who had founded McGough Construction with his father and brothers. He remembers hesitancy from the others being consulted — they said that $45 million was too much to ask. But McGough thought differently.

“Finally I had a chance [to speak] and I said, ‘Archbishop, I think it’s a great idea and think we should do it,’” he recalled.

A day or two later, the archbishop asked him to work on the foundation. McGough didn’t hesitate to say yes. A parishioner of St. Rose of Lima in Roseville, McGough had worked on 20 to 30 previous fund drives, he said, but never one with such a high goal.

For a year, McGough co-chaired the campaign, often teaming up with Archbishop Roach to meet potential donors. The archbishop’s main concerns were Catholic schools and the poor, McGough said. Everyone they approached gave something. Some gave less than expected, and some gave much more. In a matter of months, they had $78 million to launch the Catholic Community Foundation in 1993. Jim Mullin was its founding president.

In the 25 years since, the foundation has grown from 27 donors in 1994 to managing 1,100 funds with $350 million in assets. In the 2017 fiscal year, it distributed $14 million in grants, a tenth of its total grants since its inception.

Mullin led CCF until 2005, when Marilou Eldred took the helm. Anne Cullen Miller assumed the role upon Eldred’s 2013 retirement.

Now the nation’s largest Catholic community foundation, CCF works to build “a vibrant Catholic community” through its donors’ charity and its own grant-making to Catholic and non-Catholic causes.

“We talk about this innate need we have to give, not [just about] giving to needs,” said Miller, a parishioner of St. Joseph in West St. Paul. “Catholics have always known that through our formation, through the Gospel teaching.

So we try to tap into that. Everyone has a need to give. It doesn’t matter if you’re wealthy or not.”

CCF helps to fund parishes, Catholic schools — including the seminaries — and charitable work within the local community, but people who work with it say it’s still not well-known.

And CCF is working to change that.

Solid footing Sitting in CCF’s boardroom Feb. 22, Miller pointed to portraits that line the wall commemorating the foundation’s early leaders. McGough is there, as are founding board president Tom Gainor, founding board vice chair Mary Frey and founding board member Gerry Rauenhorst.

“Just incredible people,” Miller said. “I get emotional thinking about it because … [many of them] are still around, and I say to them, ‘Could you have imagined?’ It hasn’t been that long … . What they did — the leadership, the wisdom, the vision, the dedication, the faith.”

Ten years ago, Miller joined what is now the Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota after working for Fortune 200 insurance companies. She was CCF’s vice president of finance and investments before taking on her current role.

Even 25 years after CCF’s founding, Miller attributes the foundation’s growth to “that early trust and faith that some lay leaders had in this basic good idea.”

“You don’t manage money perpetually if you don’t believe in compounding growth,” she added, “so that initial investment and support and faith and trust has compounded over the years. It hasn’t been easy. There have been fits and starts. We weren’t sustainable for a number of years, and that was a big headwind for us. And that’s what’s changed for us in the past six years, is [that] sustainability has become a tailwind.”

That pivot, as well as several years of encouraging investment markets, has been helpful for CCF’s healthy financial position, but Miller also credits CCF’s dedicated, vocation-minded staff and “a steady stream of new development growth.”

“We’ve averaged $20 [million] to $30 million in new money every year,” she said. “That, I think, is all about the

word getting out about us … . We grow through networks, whether it be a trusted adviser, a trusted friend, a trusted pastor, where they’ve been watching us, and I think we’ve proved ourselves.”

Miller said that CCF differs from Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis — which people often confuse — in that Catholic Charities does the direct work of helping men, women and children in poverty through various programs. CCF supports that work in perpetuity.

It has a staff position dedicated to learning about needs in the Catholic community — “what keeps [leaders] up at night.”

“It is our great honor and great duty to make sure that people who want to help and support have an opportunity to know about that,” she said. “We can bring people together.”

Archbishop Roach’s initial two main concerns — poverty and Catholic education — remain the crux of CCF’s giving. In the past several years, CCF has been examining how it can make a bigger impact through its own Legacy Fund. Unlike its donor-advised funds, in which donors determine where funds go and how much to give, the CCF board has complete discretion over the Legacy Fund.

“I was a big believer in [starting] the Legacy Fund,” said McGough, 88, who continues to serve on CCF’s board.

Marjorie Mathison Hance, a CCF board member and retired vice president of external relations at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, said that she’s witnessed CCF evolve from resource managing to exploring how philanthropy can truly make an impact on local needs.

“CCF has really stepped into a new role that’s about transforming our Catholic community,” said Hance, 69.

The foundation learns about community needs from its organization grantees, as well as “thought leaders” who have proverbial fingers on the local pulse. They’re “helping to shape a vision about how needs can be met differently,” she said.

In Catholic education, that includes CCF’s partnership with the Catholic Schools Center of Excellence and Aim Higher Foundation, she noted.

Making mo

At 25, Catholic Community Fo ‘money manager’ to its own

By Maria Wiering

‘It makes us hopeful’ As a member of CCF’s grant committee, Kate Wenger has a hand in deciding where CCF routes its impact grants.

Since joining the committee two years ago, Wenger said she’s had “a firsthand look at where the community is, and what the needs are, and how we can respond to it.”

Some of those grants are already targeted for certain causes, but for other grants, the committee identifies a “community priority” which directs its giving. This year the focus is school-aged children and after-school programming.

CCF invites organizations to apply for the grants. As part of the application process, committee members visit program sites before making recommendations on grant recipients. Wenger has visited three sites in her tenure on the committee, and she was most struck by her first visit, which was to Neighbors Inc., a nonprofit serving lowincome people in northern Dakota County. That year, the committee was focusing on helping elderly men and women live independently in their homes, and Neighbors was doing that by helping the elderly find transportation to doctors appointments with its Dial-a-Ride program.

“And so they have a huge volunteer staff, and they would sign up to go drive these people. They got to know each other, and they just made it possible for them [to get to their appointments],” she said.

Wenger was captivated by a story about a woman who could only be treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, but that was farther than Neighbors’ volunteers were willing to drive regularly. They discovered, however, that the airport had a shuttle to Mayo, so they arranged for volunteers to pick up the woman from her home and take her to the shuttle, and to reverse the trip later in the day.

In six months, the woman recovered her health, and a year later she was living independently and had returned to work.

“That to me is a very concrete example of how they made a difference in this organization,” she said. CCF granted Neighbors $12,000 that year.

Wenger and her husband, Brian, also have a CCF donoradvised fund, which has simplified their giving, they said.

They had been supporting several organizations separately, but the Wengers, both 56, were attracted to CCF’s centralized giving options, clear record-keeping and

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul receive connect with parish families. • Guests of Sabathani Senior Center helping seniors live independently. • CCF President Anne Cullen M St. Paul in 2015 after presenting a tuition assistance grant check. • established by Father Stan Sledz to fund ministries led by Catholic accessible online platform.

“For instance,” Kate said, “when there was Hurricane Harvey, I think a number of donors were calling CCF saying, ‘How can we help?’ So [CCF] sent out a blast email saying you can use your donor-advised fund, or these are other reputable organizations you can donate through. So that’s helpful.”

Brian Wenger is impressed with CCF’s efficiency. “There are lots of foundations that don’t do as well as Catholic Community Foundation. There are few, few that do,” he said. “We’re drawn to the Catholic Community Foundation because of the faith part and [the] efficiency and ease.”

Both Brian and Kate recognize the way philanthropy has increased their generosity, and that’s something they hope to pass on to their six children. Responding financially to community needs also provides a sense of agency, they said.

“We get to see the concrete benefits of our giving, whether it be in Catholic education, or the multiple projects done by the archdiocese, or in historical preservation, and so we value that, and we see that we — as part of many, many, many — can effect change in areas that we think are important, [that are] faith-based, and that feels great,” Brian said. “We can see humans who are having a better life because of it. … We can see institutions that are preserved and enhanced because of it.”

Kate added: “I think it makes us hopeful.”

Impacting innovation In 2014, Father Leonard Jenniges died, leaving part of

APRIL 12, 2018 • 13

oney matter

oundation transforming from philanthropic force for good • The Catholic Spirit

PHOTOS COURTESY CCF

ed a 2015 CCF grant for its summer soccer league, which helps it r dance in 2016. The Minneapolis center received a CCF grant for Miller talks with Father Mark Moriarty of St. Agnes School in • A 2016 banquet celebrates New City Ministry, a CCF fund c adults of color. his estate to St. John the Baptist in Savage, where he had served as pastor for nearly 18 years. The unexpected bequest prompted its then-pastor, Father Michael Tix, to call CCF. The parish had already been talking about creating an endowment to fund its future needs, and parish leadership agreed that this gift was what it needed to get started.

The parish established three endowments: one for the parish, one for St. John the Baptist Catholic School and one for the parish cemetery. It keeps the endowments at front-of-mind with an annual collection envelope slated for adding to the funds.

The parish has also hosted CCF presentations to better help parishioners understand the services the foundation offers. For example, he said, Catholics may want to include their parish in their will, but they want to talk to a financial expert about how best to do that.

Long before funding the endowments, St. John the Baptist had already established a relationship with CCF through agency accounts for potential major building or capital work, which began to “set the stage” for endowments, said Father Tix, the parish’s pastor from 2004 to 2017.

CCF helps parishes plan for long-term financial stability by connecting them with financial resources and experts that understand and support their mission as Church, he said.

“Their funding is based on Catholic teaching, too, and often in a parish setting, you wouldn’t always readily have the people to be able to do that [kind of faith-consistent investing],” said Father Tix, now the archdiocese’s

episcopal vicar for Clergy and Parish Services. “It’s a great service to parishes.”

In Richfield, Blessed Trinity Catholic School, like schools across the archdiocese, has a longtime relationship with CCF, as many of its students received financial aid grants through CCF-administered grants. In 2016 and 2017, that relationship deepened when the preK-to-eighth-grade school received two impact grants from CCF to help it meet technology and marketing goals.

Now each student in grades five to eight has a Chromebook for research and projects, funded in part with the $25,000 total funds the school received from CCF. That kind of technology is costly but important, said Blessed Trinity Principal Patrick O’Keefe. “They are moving into an environment where that is increasingly a part of how they work and operate as a student,” he said.

The students use the Chomebooks in the classroom and at home. For some students, the Chromebook might be the only education-focused technological device they can access. And, giving the middle-school students Chromebooks means that their previous school computers and devices have been made available to lower grades, improving students’ technology access across the board.

O’Keefe noted that many of its graduates go on to Academy of Holy Angels, which is adjacent to one of Blessed Trinity’s two campuses, and which has had a oneto-one laptop program for more than a decade.

Blessed Trinity’s Chromebook program makes it more competitive as it seeks new students, O’Keefe said, and it’s also using CCF grant funds to “tell its story” by improving its strategic marketing efforts and donor database.

The school is one of six schools in the archdiocese partnering with the New Jersey-based Healey Education Foundation, which aims to apply sound business principles to Catholic school operations. CCF’s grant makes it possible for Blessed Trinity to apply some of the Healey Foundation’s ideas, O’Keefe said. Last year, the Healey Education Foundation recognized Blessed Trinity for having the largest percentage K-8 growth of any of its partner schools across the country.

The CCF grant made it possible for the school to take a long-range plan and make it reality much sooner, O’Keefe said. The success it’s seen because of what it was able to do with the CCF grants has also under-girded other fundraising efforts, he said.

“We’re very blessed [to be] where we are,” he added. “It’s because of people who do the incredible work like what the Catholic Community Foundation does. … It allows us to be so much more successful in the ways we know we have to work as an individual school, because we have a partner like that [CCF], and the others who stand with them.”

New horizons While the CCF continues to grow, its leaders have big dreams for what it would look like for it to meet its full potential. McGough said he’d love to see the foundation have $1 billion in assets.

“I’ve always thought that ultimately we’d be able to support all the Catholic schools lock, stock and barrel, and … I know that’s a long way off,” McGough said. “I’m not naive, but I think that day will come.”

He envisions the same for efforts helping the poor, he said. “I think we’re a strong Catholic community, and I think that the people recognize that we’ve got to give to the poor,” McGough said.

Decades ago, he was sitting on the board of the local chapter of a non-Catholic nonprofit that serves children.

He and two others who also happened to be Catholic were combing the donor list for names they recognized, and between them realized they knew 90 percent of the people listed — because they went to Catholic schools.

“I realized what a strong Catholic community [we have] here, because all the leaders we were talking about are Catholic,” he said.

While CCF isn’t the oldest Catholic community fund in the U.S., its role as the largest has caught the attention of Catholic leaders from across the U.S. interested in starting — or growing — their own community foundations.

Bishop Richard Pates, a former auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese, did the same after he was appointed to lead the Des Moines, Iowa, diocese in 2008.

CCF’s strategic plan for its future is simple, Miller said.

“Grow awareness of our work so that we can grow funds, so that we can ultimately grow impact,” she said. “The more impact we have, the more awareness we have. …

How CCF works As a community foundation, CCF serves the charitable needs in a certain area — in its case, Minnesota. In the fiscal year 2017, 81 percent of its grants went to charities in the 12-county area served by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. A nonprofit, CCF sustains itself with revenue fees from the funds it stewards.

Donors invest money through CCF by establishing endowments for perpetual giving, donor-advised funds for grant-making, charitable trusts and gift annuities, and other planned giving. Many of the beneficiaries of these funds are Catholic institutions, including parishes, schools and nonprofits such as Catholic Charities. Some families — members of CCF’s Legacy Society — have entrusted their charitable legacy in perpetuity to CCF’s stewardship. CCF honors the society’s members — living and dead — at an annual Mass.

CCF also partners with parishes, schools and other Catholic organizations to help them grow their assets and meet financial goals in a manner consistent with Catholic social teaching.

CCF donors have the option to contribute to CCF’s own Legacy Fund, which distributes grants to meet “urgent and emerging” community needs, according to its website. With that fund and other “field of interest funds,” which are designated for a certain cause and administered by CCF, the foundation makes annual “impact grants” to organizations serving particular spiritual, educational or social needs in the community. Grantees are invited to apply. In FY 2017, CCF focused on Catholic elementary school tuition and “capacity building,” organizations that serve young mothers facing homelessness, and a variety of other causes.

With a CCF donor-advised fund, donors invest a minimum of $10,000 and receive an immediate charitable tax deduction. As the sum of the fund grows, donors use the fund as an “account” for their charitable giving, advising grants to the causes and charities they hold dear.

Miller called donor-advised funds “a tool to teach the joy of philanthropy.”

CCF donors include school teachers, rank-and-file 3M employees and construction workers. “It’s the same profile as who’s in the pews,” Miller said. “But I do think there’s a misconception that to set up a charitable fund you have to be wealthy. You really don’t.”

Miller said the donor-advised funds often feel like a “loaves and fishes” scenario — that people grant from them, but the value always seems to remain the same.

She said that holding a donor-advised fund seems to “re-frame” the decision-making for people, and they give differently from how they would if they were writing checks out of their general account, because it separates charity from bill paying. She called donoradvised funds “a charitable checkbook” that users find liberating.

“From my own experience and what I seem to witness is that people who have donor-advised funds tend to give more to their parish or their school or the causes that they care about, not less,” she added, “because it’s efficient, it’s tax efficient, it’s an investment … so it does grow.” and it’s a self-fulfilling cycle.”

“Ultimately, our vision is that we will be a $50 million a year grant-maker in the year 2027,” she said. She expects $30 million of that growth to come from the momentum it’s already built, “but the $20 [million] means we have to do some things differently.”

Over the past few years, CCF has highlighted the “convening aspect” of its work, Miller said. “We’re not a fund warehouser. We’re not trying to accumulate funds.

We don’t measure our success by that $350 million [asset] marker. We measure our success by the growth in the sacramental life of the Church.”

To that end, Miller is working with archdiocesan leaders to identify the markers that would indicate the Catholic community’s growth. “We’re serious about that,” she said, and she expects the information to influence how CCF focuses its funds and marketing.

CCF is holding a banquet April 26, “Come to the Table,” to mark its 25th anniversary. The evening’s keynote speaker is Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, whom Forbes called “the entrepreneurial bishop” in 2016 for his efforts to leverage the wealth in his Catholic community to meet Church and community needs.

Miller said the event will be a “friend-raiser,” not a fundraiser.

“We have a front-row seat to people doing amazing things and inspiring so much hope, and we want to celebrate that,” she said. “Many won’t celebrate themselves; they’re incredibly humble people.”

14 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

APRIL 12, 2018

FAITH+CULTURE

Coon Rapids parish, seminary lead anti-pornography initiatives Priests, therapists take pastoral approach to heal addictions, prevent use Editor’s note: This is the second story in a two-part series on pornography. Read the first story at TheCatholicSpirit.com

By Bridget Ryder For The Catholic Spirit

F

ather Kyle Kowalczyk calls pornography the elephant in the room. But last fall, he called it out from the pulpit to start a “paradigm shift” at Epiphany in Coon Rapids, where he serves as parochial vicar.

Pornography was discussed in several aspects of his formation at the St. Paul Seminary, including presentations by sexaddiction therapist Mark Laaser, co-founder of Faithful and True, a Christian counseling center based in Eden Prairie. But once in a parish after his 2016 ordination, he realized the gravity of the problem.

“Every priest knows that FATHER KYLE pornography is a major issue, but KOWALCZYK like all things, it sometimes takes a personal encounter for it to take root in the heart,” Father Kowalczyk said of breaking porn addiction. “When several people very close to me shared how their marriages had been damaged, in one case severed, because of this, I woke up. What I found in the parish is that it is actually the issue, and it sometimes seems as if the whole world is struggling with it.”

That wake-up call led to a new pastoral initiative to give parishioners the support both to overcome their own pornography habits and to help their children avoid its trap. Father Kowalczyk launched the campaign with a homily at Sunday Mass Oct. 29 that directly laid out the moral dangers of pornography, encouraged parents to talk about it with their children and offered the hope of God’s mercy.

Following Mass, therapist and Epiphany parishioner Jake Voelker gave a talk on pornography from his counseling perspective and another talk for parents the following Monday.

The parish also created a webpage about pornography that includes resources, a recording and transcript of Father Kowalczyk’s homily, and a portal to contact him anonymously. In January, Father Kowalczyk also started leading an Exodus 90 fraternity for the men of the parish.

Father Kowalczyk wants parishioners struggling with pornography to know first and foremost that the mercy of God is available to them. His homily opened with that theme because he knows that pornography has to be approached with care in order to avoid shaming people, which can prevent them, especially those caught in a compulsion or addiction, from seeking help.

“Everyone knows that it’s not something to be proud of, but then you add sin on top of that,” he

said. “There’s so much shame.”

Instead of intensifying the shame and isolation around pornography, he wanted to expose it to the mercy of God and the help of friends, parents and the parish community.

“Everyone thinks they’re alone in this, and that’s what the evil one wants [them to think],” he said. “We need to shed the light of Christ on it.”

Father Kowalczyk said the parish has responded well; he received positive feedback on his homily, including many thanks.

“I think people got it. I think people recognize that we need to talk about it,” he said.

Exodus 90 The most astounding response, though, has been to his invitation to the men of the parish to join him for Exodus 90, a three-month program of prayer, fellowship and asceticism. From Jan. 1 until Easter, 45 men took cold showers; gave up snacks, sweets, alcohol and movies; prayed at least 20 minutes a day; did an intense daily workout; and met weekly in small groups to strengthen and encourage each other.

Exodus 90 was originally developed in 2012 by Father Brian Doerr, a priest of the Archdiocese of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who was then rector of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. “[Father Doerr] realized these men were good men who genuinely wanted to serve the Church, but weren’t free to do so,” said James Baxter, 26, a friend of Father Doerr’s and a former seminarian at St. John Vianney College Seminary and the St. Paul Seminary, both in St. Paul.

For some, this meant an attachment to pornography.

For others, it meant the mediocrity of adolescent habits such as playing video games. To bring the seminarians to a greater freedom, he applied the traditional Catholic spiritual practices of prayer, asceticism and mutual support to the cognitive science that it takes 90 days to rewire the brain. He added the name Exodus to evoke the image of the Israelites’ journey from slavery to the freedom of the Promised Land.

In 2015, Baxter, a blogger for thosecatholicmen.com, launched Exodus 90 into the international spotlight with its own website. The website lays out the program and, for those who register and pay a fee, provides daily emails, guides and meditation books. Approximately 5,000 men have registered as participants since 2015, and Baxter estimates that for every man who registers, there are two to three others who are also participating.

Like the first seminarians, men participate in the program for many reasons. About half report that it is specifically in order to overcome pornography habits.

At Epiphany, Father Kowalczyk also made Exodus 90 about more than pornography, inviting men to participate for any reason. He has been impressed with their consistency in meeting every Saturday morning for the last three months. At the meetings, Father Kowalczyk would offer a “fervorino,” or pep talk, and then the men would divide into small groups. Father Kowalczyk participated in his own Exodus 90 fraternity of priests simultaneously with his parishioners.

Exodus 90 groups also exist at St. John Vianney College Seminary, which is addressing the dangers of

“

Everyone thinks they’re alone in this, and that’s what the evil one wants [them to think]. We need to shed the light of Christ on it.

Father Kyle Kowalczyk

pornography use among its students.

“We know it’s something we have to face,” said Father Michael Becker, SJV rector.

The seminary has rules and boundaries in place to help train seminarians in virtue and create an environment where they can be open about their struggles and receive help. All seminarians are required to install Covenant Eyes, an accountability software, on their personal computers. This program records internet use and sends a weekly report to a chosen accountability partner. For seminarians, that person is one of the seminary’s formators. Non-academic computer use is also limited to one hour a day. From their second year on, seminarians can also participate in a confidential chastity group led by a licensed counselor. Individual counseling is also available.

“I just praise the seminarians,” Father Becker said, “because they believe that Jesus is helping them, and they believe in chastity, and they are being freed one by one.”

Father Becker also admires parents who enforce boundaries around media and track their children’s computer use, he said.

Preparing parents Father Kowalczyk knows of other parishes and priests taking the initiative to address pornography. He hopes the momentum will snowball into a movement that can overcome one of the most pervasive moral problems of today.

He has made helping parents and children openly communicate about the issue his next pastoral priority.

Generally, statistics show that children are exposed to pornography on the internet by the time they are 11 years old.

“Parents should clue into the fact that if you think your kid hasn’t looked at pornography, they are surely looking at pornography,” he said.

In his talk to parents at the parish, Voelker encouraged parents to be firm and proactive in monitoring their children’s electronic and media devices, despite their protests or claims that parents are violating their privacy. He also told parents to be prepared for the day when their child might tell them he or she is using pornography and needs help.

“Our children need to know that we’re a safe place to come to, and we’re not going to berate them and say, ‘You should know better. Why didn’t you come to me sooner?’” he said.

Voelker said ending isolation and creating connection is the best way to overcome pornography habits or addiction.

“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, but connection,” he said.

University says Facebook rejected ad because it shows Jesus on the cross Catholic News Service The Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio said March 30 in a blog post that an administrator of its Facebook page noticed one of its ads had been rejected because it contained “shocking content, sensational content, excessively violent content.”

“What was the offending image?” the blog post asked.

“The San Damiano Cross. Jesus in glory, reigning from his cruciform throne. This is what the monitors at Facebook consider excessively violent, sensational and shocking.”

The blog post at bit.ly/2GAGlRj includes a screen

capture of the message of rejection from Facebook: “Your image, video thumbnail or video can’t contain shocking, sensational, or excessively violent content.”

The university said the San Damiano Cross image was one in a series of ads it posted to Facebook March 29 to promote two of the school’s online master’s degree programs — in theology and in catechetics and evangelization.

The San Damiano Cross is the large Romanesque rood cross that St. Francis of Assisi was praying in front of when he is said to have received the commission from the Lord to rebuild the Catholic Church. The original cross hangs in the Basilica of St. Clare in Assisi, Italy.

Franciscans cherish this cross as the symbol of their mission from God. “Indeed, the crucifixion of Christ was all of those things,” the blog post said of Facebook’s “shocking content” qualifications. “It was the most sensational action in history: man executed his God. It was shocking, yes: God deigned to take on flesh and was ‘obedient unto death, even death on a cross.’

(Philippians 2:8) “And it was certainly excessively violent: a man scourged to within an inch of his life, nailed naked to a cross and left to die, all the hate of all the sin in the world poured out its wrath upon his humanity,” it added.

APRIL 12, 2018

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 15

RETREATS+PILGRIMAGES

The Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians sits on Holy Hill near Milwaukee.

COURTESY HOLY HILL

The making of a Wisconsin pilgrimage

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

W

endy Zeuli of Our Lady of Grace in Edina last year came up with a new way to celebrate Mother’s Day — go on a pilgrimage with her daughter, Katie.

Wendy chose a newer pilgrimage called the Wisconsin Way, which begins 16 miles northeast of Green Bay in Champion, at a Marian shrine called Our Lady of Good Help, and winds its way south 130 miles through rural terrain to the Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians at Holy Hill near Milwaukee.

She had met the priest who created it, Father Andrew Kurz, when he was giving a presentation to American pilgrims who had walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain, which Wendy did in 2015.

“I loved walking the Camino de Santiago, so I just thought I need to do this here,” said Wendy, 59. “I just love the idea that there is a pilgrimage ... so close to us in Wisconsin.”

It was Katie’s first pilgrimage, but she did not hesitate to say yes to the invitation. Led by Father Kurz, the pilgrimage started on Mother’s Day, May 14, and lasted three days. Most of the miles were covered by driving, but there were beautiful walks through state parks and other scenic locations, with stops at Marian shrines along the way. Four others joined them.

A priest of the Diocese of Green Bay, Father Kurz, 46, first walked the pilgrimage route in October 2013, covering a distance of 130 miles that took him 12 days. From there, he dreamed of taking others. He now guides four trips a year, taking up to 10 people in a van he bought specifically for leading the pilgrimages. He took three people on his first trip, and he estimates he has taken 70 in 14 trips since he started guiding in 2014, with some repeat pilgrims. This year’s trips will be in May, June, September and October.

“After I saw the movie, ‘The Way’ [about the Camino de Santiago] a couple times in 2011 and 2012, I thought to myself that [creating a pilgrimage in Wisconsin] would be a wonderful thing to do,” said Father Kurz, who walked a few miles of the Camino while traveling in between visits to Lourdes, France, and

Holy grounds The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Champion is the site of the only approved Marian apparition in the U.S. In 1859, Mary appeared three times to Belgium immigrant and farmer Adele Brise, asking her to “gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation.” Brise, then 28, devoted the rest of her life to this mission.

Her father, Lambert Brise, built the first chapel the same year Adele experienced the apparitions. Three more chapels were built after that, each replacing the previous one. The present chapel was built in 1941.

In 2010, Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay formally approved the apparitions. The grounds and buildings are open daily, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“Holy Hill,” home to the Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians, was once home to Francois Soubrio, a French hermit, who is said to have discovered the hill on a map as a place already dedicated to Mary.

Farmers found him living there is the early 1860s.

Located in Erin, about 30 miles northwest of Milwaukee, the site was also considered a sacred Marian site by the area’s Irish and German immigrant communities. The hill is now home to a group of Discalced Carmelite friars. Its present shrine church was completed and consecrated in 1931. The church, shrine and grounds are open daily, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. May 1 through Oct. 31, and 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 1 through April 30.

Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help Champion Holy Name of Jesus Monastery Denmark

Chapel of Our Lady, Queen of Our Hearts Steinthal

Holy Resurrection Monastery St. Nazianz

St. Matthias New Fane

Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians at Holy Hill Erin

For more information about the Champion shrine, visit shrineofourladyofgoodhelp.com. For more information about the Holy Hill shrine, visit holyhill.com.

Fatima, Portugal. “[In 2013] I got assigned at Champion and the surrounding parish around the shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, and I thought, ‘Oh Lord, are you trying to tell me something?’ And then, I started getting more excited.”

There is a clear Marian focus to the pilgrimage, which starts at the site of the only verified Marian apparition in the U.S. Father Kurz said the shrine was a natural place to begin the journey.

The Zeulis embraced the idea of trying to connect with Mary by praying rosaries throughout the pilgrimage.

“The Blessed Mother definitely has her hand in this; there’s no question about it,” Wendy said. “I had no idea that there were so many Marian shrines ... convents and statues and little churches, and so

many things devoted to our Blessed Mother on that route.”

On the pilgrimage, participants pray, have quiet time for reflection and stay at interesting places like Holy Resurrection Monastery in St. Nazianz, home to Byzantine Catholic monks. That was a highlight for the Zeulis, along with the scenery.

“It was beautiful,” said Katie, 28. “One day when we were walking ... we were saying the rosary and these two beautiful horses came right up to the fence as we were walking past them.

“We went and petted them,” she added. “I haven’t played with a horse since I was a kid. So that was just such a beautiful moment, and they followed us as we were walking down the road to the end of their fence.”

The experience reminded her “that God is all around us in all these little moments. … in a very subtle, beautiful way.”

For Wendy, the trip confirmed a decision she had made after walking the Camino to quit her publishing job and devote her time to volunteering. This month, she is going to Houston to help rebuild houses destroyed by Hurricane Harvey.

“I’ve absolutely no business doing that financially,” she said, of full-time volunteering. “I can’t afford to do that.

But I’ve been called to do it. ... So, the Wisconsin Way was just another step along that path.”

Some of her favorite parts were the quiet times of reflection, the camaraderie with Father Kurz and the other pilgrims, and, of course, time with her daughter.

“It was wonderful to have her there,” Wendy said. “We both have strong faith.

And so, to have her commit ... to spend not only four days with her mom, but four days saying rosaries and going to Mass and having it totally focused on a Catholic pilgrimage was really a blessing for me.”

Father Kurz has bigger plans for the Wisconsin Way: a 400-mile trip with two additional legs, culminating at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse.

At least three people have walked the entire route, he said.

Father Kurz has been thinking of ways to make the pilgrimage workable and affordable for pilgrims who want to do it without a guide. On the Camino, there are stops along the way called “albergues,” or pilgrim hostels, which are similar to a bed and breakfast but are either inexpensive or free. He hopes to find a way to encourage locals along the route to build them or convert part of their homes to accommodate pilgrims.

He also wants to have local restaurants and coffee shops offer food at reduced rates, or even free.

It’s all part of his quest to draw more pilgrims to the Wisconsin Way. “He’s just on fire for this thing,” Wendy said. “You’ve got to experience it with him if you want a taste of the Wisconsin Way.” To learn more about the Wisconsin Way or book a trip, visit wisconsinway.com.

16 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

RETREATS+PILGRIMAGES

For many men, Demontreville retreats are annual respites

Pacem in Terris hermitages offer silence, seclusion

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit Since 1948, lay men from around the region and beyond have used silent retreat weekends at Demontreville Jesuit Retreat House in Lake Elmo as a way to respond to God’s will in their lives through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.

Many of them have made dozens of the three-day Ignatian retreats, returning year after year, or sometimes multiple times in a year.

Jesuit Father Patrick McCorkell, Demontreville’s director, said he knows a man who has made the retreat 65 times.

The 47 retreats Demontreville holds each year offer the opportunity “to be by yourself, to find solitude where you can … [and] consciously experience the movement of God’s grace in your mind and heart,” Father McCorkell said.

The center is marking its 70th anniversary. Jesuits came to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1948 to open a retreat house, similar to the one they established in St. Louis, the White House Jesuit Retreat. They purchased Michael Waldorf’s Lake Elmo family estate near Lake Demontreville. Six homes on the Waldorf estate served as retreat facilities. The Jesuits built a main retreat house in 1966.

The retreat center’s first director,

APRIL 12, 2018

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Father Don Keegan, is said to have organized the first retreat with just one contact, and the demand expanded from there. The center’s second director, Father Ed Sthokal, led Demontreville for 58 years, and he kept a clear vision for Demontreville during the waves of change in the Church during the 1960s and 1970s, noted Father McCorkell, who assumed the helm in 2004. “[Father Sthokal] said it as simply as this: ‘We will do one thing; we will do that very well,’ and that’s what we’ve done,” he said.

The Jesuits have a long tradition of offering silent men’s retreats based on the Spiritual Exercises, written by Jesuit founder St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 1500s. The exercises guide people to develop selfknowledge, know Jesus and become like Jesus.

“It’s one of those deals where it’s really good for reflecting on all aspects of your life, and ... where is God in all of that,” said Michael Flood of Holy Spirit in St. Paul, who has made 27 Demontreville retreats.

Retreatants arrive Thursday night and walk through the exercises via talks and reflections throughout the retreat weekend, which ends Sunday

Demontreville Jesuit Retreat House in Lake Elmo is a destination for lay men looking for a silent, Ignatian retreat.

evening. They also participate in Mass, reconciliation, rosary, vespers, benediction and silent prayer.

“Silence is … essential to the kind of retreat that we try to offer because it’s based on personal reflection and, actually, interior self-awareness,” Father McCorkell said.

About 65 men attend each retreat, and, on average, 10 of them are there for the first time. The retreats are also open to nonCatholics; about 10 Protestants also attend each retreat, according to Demontreville’s website. Father McCorkell said the retreat is for anyone who wants to pray.

Flood said it’s common for men to bring their sons and recruit friends for Demontreville weekends.

Demontreville’s surroundings aid reflection, with paths through its wooded acres, and quiet, rolling land along the lake shore. Repeat retreatants stay in the same room each year. That consistency, along with the rhythms of the retreat, “creates almost a timelessness,” Father McCorkell said.

Flood said that the retreat leaders “try to get you back into the retreat experience as quickly as possible.”

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit People who make individual retreats in Pacem in Terris’ hermitages make a free-will donation, but the center gets “spiritual paychecks” in the form of letters from former “hermits” that describe their stories and experiences, said Tim Drake, executive director.

“They talk about relationships that are healed because of their time at Pacem; they talk about direction they’ve been given in regards to their job or school or decisions that they need to make because of that time,” he said.

Pacem in Terris Retreat Center, which is in the Diocese of St. Cloud, began welcoming retreatants in 1988. The center was the realization of foundress Shirley Wanchena’s vision to create a place for silent, self-guided retreats. Its nineteen hermitages in the woods near Isanti have been a place of silent encounter with God for thousands of people for the past three decades.

“They’re coming there because they want to set aside some of the time that God’s given them and give that back to God,” said Drake, who became the center’s executive director last year.

Each hermitage equips its occupants with basic daily necessities, allowing the “hermits” to stay in prayer with minimal concerns. Staff members provide food baskets but also offer an optional community dinner in the retreat center on weekdays. Sunday Mass is typically offered in the retreat center’s chapel, and directions to local parishes are provided when a priest isn’t available.

The retreat center also has three hermitages in the main building for people with special needs.

Pacem in Terris can host retreatants of any age over 18. Retreatants make a free-will offering for their stay, which can vary in length.

Around 1,100 retreatants come to Pacem in Terris each year. The majority come from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, but the center also draws from around the state and beyond.

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RETREATS+PILGRIMAGES

APRIL 12, 2018

‘Blessed is she who believes’

Twin Cities Blessed Is She retreat St. Mark in St. Paul will host a Blessed Is She “Wild” retreat Aug. 10-11. The retreat begins Friday evening and continues all day Saturday with speakers, Mass, eucharistic adoration and a procession, confession, music, meals and creative activities.

Laura Kelly Fanucci, a local author and Blessed Is She contributor, will be the retreat’s emcee and one of its speakers.

Online Catholic women’s ministry has strong local ties

The theme is from John 3:8: “The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The retreat is one of six scheduled this year; others are in Arizona, California,Texas, Florida and Washington, D.C.

By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit

E

arly each morning, an email with the subject “Today’s Devotion” pops up in 45,000 inboxes around the world. It contains a link to the daily Scripture readings and a short reflection. The source is Blessed Is She, an Arizona-based women’s ministry that launched the daily Catholic devotions in 2014.

In the past four years, the online ministry has grown to include in-person small-group studies, brunch meet-ups and regional retreats, including one slated for August in St. Paul. It also offers prayer journals, planners with the liturgical year, a podcast and blog, a Catholic journaling Bible and study materials designed for groups to delve into faith topics such as the rosary and the Beatitudes.

Despite its headquarters being 1,300 miles away, Minnesota is the state with the largest share of its daily devotional writers, all of whom are women.

Blessed Is She’s founder, Jenna Guizar, was inspired to start the ministry after struggling as a young mother to find Catholic community with other women, especially one rooted in Scripture. She was impressed by Protestant women’s ministries, but she couldn’t find what she was looking for from a Catholic perspective. So she decided to spearhead it herself.

Guizar sent a call into the Catholic women’s blogosphere, asking for volunteers to write personal reflections on Scripture. Nell O’Leary Alt, a lawyer turned stay-at-home mom in St. Paul, was among those who answered the call.

“I thought, ‘I was the managing editor of a law review. I could help you manage all of these volunteers,’” said Alt, 34, a parishioner of St. Agnes in St. Paul. “Little did I know that this would change my faith life dramatically.”

Alt’s initial volunteer role as Blessed Is She’s managing editor is now her part-time job. Its writers number 40 and come from different walks of life. “It’s the whole gamut of Catholic women,” Alt said.

That’s what Guizar was hoping.

“I wanted us to have a home that every woman could be included in, and it didn’t matter if you were a young mom, a single woman or a grandmother,” said Guizar, 31. She sees the goal as twofold: to engage women in Scripture and to help them nurture friendship with other women.

“I want every single woman to have a friend that she can talk to about the Lord, and talk to when her heart is really incredibly sad, and when her heart is really joyful,” she said.

To that end, Blessed Is She helps women host Blessed Brunches, casual, potluck-style meet-ups that bring together like-minded women in person and build

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Nell O’Leary Alt of St. Agnes in St. Paul is the managing editor of Blessed Is She, a national ministry. community. Thousands have been held worldwide, Alt said.

The ministry’s name comes from Elizabeth’s words to Mary at the visitation, recounted in Luke 1:45: “Blessed is she who believes that the Lord will fulfill his promise to her.”

Despite its size, Blessed Is She remains a homegrown operation. It’s Guizar’s full-time job, and she and her husband ship Blessed Is She products out of their home in Tempe.

Blessed Is She offers an annual paid membership, but the daily devotional is free and is available at blessedisshe.net, with the option for it to arrive by email.

“The daily devotions are the thing that we have the most pride in,” Guizar said. “We want women to sit down and read the Word every day. That’s our biggest drive, and everything else comes after that.”

With all of the ministry’s facets, Alt admits it can be hard to pin down Blessed Is She. Her elevator speech: “Blessed Is She is an online Catholic ministry that seeks to build sisterhood in real life.”

The ministry’s Midwest Facebook group alone has more than 10,000 members. Their posts testify to the fact that Blessed Is She connects with women at different places in their faith journeys. The environment is nonjudgmental and encouraging, and its members share “dozens and dozens of prayer requests all day long,” Alt said.

Like Alt, local Catholic writers Laura Kelly Fanucci and Susanna Spencer jumped on board with Guizar at Blessed Is She’s inception, and they’re two of eight Minnesota reflection writers. In addition to contributing reflections, Spencer, a St. Agnes parishioner with a master’s degree in theology, is a Blessed Is She theological editor, and Fanucci, a parishioner of St. Joseph the Worker in Maple Grove, wrote this year’s Advent and Lent journals.

“It’s amazing to look back and see how much it’s

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THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 17

A Blessed Is She retreat “brings this incredible beauty and radical sisterhood together so that women of all ages, all walks of life, come together to be transformed and bring that back to their parish,” said Blessed Is She’s managing editor Nell O’Leary Alt, who’s been to three. “It’s been life altering for me, and I really hope it’s life altering for the women who are able to come.”

Organizers expect the retreat to draw more than 300 attendees and to sell out of tickets in advance. Early-bird cost is $125. For more information, visit blessedisshe.net. grown,” said Fanucci, who directs a program on vocation at the Collegeville Institute at St. John’s University and writes the Catholic News Service column “Faith at Home.”

“I don’t think any of us ever thought it would become what it is today. ... I thought ‘wow, if you can get women in college and you can get women in retirement and grandmothers, and they can connect through the Scriptures together, what a beautiful model of ministry,’” she said.

Like the Blessed Is She website and social media posts, its publications are attractive and feminine. Beauty is central to how it carries out its mission. Both the images and Scripture attract, said Fanucci, 37.

Blessed Is She inspired Spencer, 31, to form her own small group for Catholic women after moving to St. Paul from Buffalo, New York.

“Having a place where I can have other friendships that are based on our love of God and our desire to help each other grow in holiness has been just a complete blessing in my life, and [it] helps me just get through my days, knowing that I’ve got other friends praying for me,” she said.

Fanucci said that in her Catholic circles, she witnesses a lot of hand-wringing about the state of the Church and its future, but Blessed Is She challenges a decline narrative.

“Blessed Is She is one of those places where I find so much hope, in both what the Church is today and what it can become, because it’s so alive, it’s growing, it’s right in the middle of popular culture,” she said. “It has really helped me to see a new narrative of abundance about what’s going on in our Church, and what’s possible when the new evangelization takes root.”

RETREATS+PILGRIMAGES

18 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Day tripping

Loyola marks 40 years of offering spiritual direction

Five spirit-fueling destinations within an easy drive

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit

The Catholic Spirit Catholics looking for an excursion that doesn’t require an overnight stay — or plane ticket — might consider the following pilgrimage sites, all within a few hours’ drive from the Twin Cities.

• “Grasshopper Chapel.” In the summer of 1876, Rocky Mountain grasshoppers descended upon an area near St. Cloud, devastating crops in their wake. Because the grasshoppers laid eggs, the following year was worse.

Benedictine Father Leo Winter urged his parishioners to pledge to Mary that they would build a chapel in honor of the Assumption and offer Masses there frequently for the next 15 years if she would intercede for them. That year, a small wood chapel was constructed, and a statue of the Madonna and Child was placed inside. The grasshopper plague ended. Although a tornado destroyed the original chapel in 1894, the statue remained intact. In 1951, Benedictine Father Victor Ronellenfitsch and community members of St. Boniface church in Cold Spring oversaw the building of a new chapel among towering trees. The chapel remains in the care of St. Boniface. State Highway 23 and Chapel Hill St., Cold Spring. 320-685-3280.

• Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A 1-mile meditation trail guides visitors along several devotional areas dedicated to saints. The shrine’s 70 acres include statues of St. Juan Diego, to whom Mary appeared in Mexico in the 16th century, and the Mother of the Unborn. The shrine church offers Mass, confession, eucharistic adoration, Stations of the Cross and the divine mercy chaplet, and has public venerations of relics after Masses. Pilgrims have the opportunity to gain a plenary indulgence. Picnic tables are available April through October. 5250 Justin Road, La Crosse, Wisconsin. guadalupeshrine.org.

• Assisi Heights. Built in 1953 and situated on 100 acres, this landmark building is the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Francis, who founded St. Marys Hospital, now part of Mayo Clinic. Assisi Heights reflects the heritage of the Umbrian region of Italy, where St. Francis of Assisi lived. The grounds express the Franciscan respect for the environment. The ornate lobby has a slate floor, Italian marble columns and hand-blown stained glass windows from Germany.

Tours are 2 p.m. most Mondays and Saturdays, and special group tours are available upon request.

Preregistration is required at least one day in advance.

APRIL 12, 2018

WIKIPEDIA | CREATIVE COMMONS

The Grotto of the Redemption is located in West Bend, Iowa.

Mass is held 11 a.m. Sunday through Thursday in Lourdes Chapel. 1001 14th St. NW, Rochester. rochesterfranciscan.org. Contact Sister Alice at 507-282-7441.

• Cathedral of St. Paul. Designated the National Shrine of the Apostle Paul, the mother church of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis — and Minnesota — offers guided tours 1 p.m. Tuesday through Friday of the 102-year-old cathedral. Six shrines surrounding the sanctuary honor the national patron saints of many of the immigrants who settled in Minnesota in the 19th century: St. Anthony of Padua (Italy), St. John the Baptist (French Canadians), St. Patrick (Ireland), St. Boniface (Germany), Sts. Cyril and Methodius (Slavic nations), and St. Therese of Lisieux (protector of all missions). Paintings, frescoes and stained glass windows also depict Christ and saints.

The Cathedral Museum exhibits historic photographs, paintings, drawings and artifacts. 239 Selby Ave., St. Paul. cathedralsaintpaul.org.

• Grotto of the Redemption. On the National Register of Historic Places and noted as the largest man-made grotto in the world, it claims to contain the largest collection of precious stones and gems found anywhere in one location. Nine stone grottos depicting scenes in Christ’s life offer quiet places for reflection.

According to lore, after a seminarian contracted pneumonia, he prayed for healing through Mary’s intercession and promised to build a shrine in her honor if he lived. The man recovered, and after his ordination, Father Paul Dobberstein came to West Bend as a pastor in 1898. For over a decade, he collected rocks and precious stones for the grotto, which is believed to have been completed in the 1930s. Mass and confession are offered at nearby Sts. Peter and Paul in West Bend and St. Mary in Mallard. 208 First Ave. NW, West Bend, Iowa. westbendgrotto.com.

Since 1977, the Loyola Spirituality Center in St. Paul has been offering opportunities for people seeking spiritual direction. The lay-run center, an independent nonprofit, offers spiritual direction, workshops and retreats throughout the year. Loyola’s staff serves all Christians.

“Spiritual direction is really for anyone who has noticed a hunger or a need for God in their lives, particularly when it revolves around their personal prayer life,” said Dan Johnson, a spiritual director and Loyola’s communication liaison.

Founded by then-Jesuit priest Dick Rice, who left priestly ministry in the 2000s, the center first operated out of St. Joseph Hospital in St. Paul. Rice had been offering spiritual direction, and he recognized the need to make it more widely available. Archbishop John Roach invited him to open Loyola. Now located next door to St. Peter Claver in St. Paul, Loyola operated as a Catholic institution until 2012, when it became independent from the Church. A majority of the spiritual directors are Catholic, but some are Protestant.

Loyola’s 13 spiritual directors have gone through training programs such as the spiritual direction certificate program at St. Catherine University in St. Paul. They are also familiar with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, which Johnson described as their common thread. Loyola also offers workshops and retreats, including one for clergy. School Sister of Notre Dame Sister Joanne Dehmer offers a retreat for women whose mothers have died.

Workshop topics include wisdom, aging, caregiver support and Enneagram basics. Enneagrams are a personality map with occult roots that the Church cautioned against in the 2003 pontifical document “Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian reflection on the ‘New Age’,” stating that “when used as a means of spiritual growth, [it] introduces an ambiguity in the doctrine and the life of the Christian faith.” Johnson, however, said they’re useful for understanding the human condition and “noticing some of our tendencies as humans, particularly some of the ways that we really get stuck or fall.”

Loyola celebrated its 40th anniversary April 8 at Carondelet Village auditorium in St. Paul.

“People find spiritual direction to be very helpful when they’re going through transitions in life,” Johnson said. “Spiritual direction is really the help that we receive to notice and come to understand and respond well to God’s movement in our lives.”

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APRIL 12, 2018

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 19

FOCUSONFAITH SUNDAY SCRIPTURES | FATHER DAVID HENNEN

Jesus is right in our midst

Last Sunday, we heard from John’s Gospel about the resurrection appearance to the disciples in the locked room and specifically about Thomas, who doubted. On this third Sunday of Easter, we have another resurrection appearance from the Gospel of Luke.

The two disciples who encountered Jesus on the way to Emmaus have returned to tell the other disciples. Imagine the excitement as they spoke about their experience when Jesus suddenly appears. The Gospel states that, “he stood there in their midst.” He didn’t come through the door or climb in the window. He simply just appeared.

It is interesting to note what Jesus does not say. He does not ask, “Why did you leave me?” or “How could you abandon me when I needed you most?” He does not rebuke them or chastise them for their lack of courage. Instead, he simply says, “Peace be with you.” Sensing their fear and questions, he continues by saying, “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.

Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” Even more amazing is that Jesus asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?”

What a beautiful reminder to us that in the midst of our struggles and brokenness, Jesus comes to us and offers us peace.

He does not want to shame us or embarrass us. He doesn’t expect that we need to get our life in order before he will have

ASK FATHER MIKE | FATHER MICHAEL SCHMITZ

When a loved one’s death tests our faith

Q. I have been having a really hard time

trusting God lately. Ever since a family member died, I keep blaming God and finding it difficult to keep my faith. Do you have any thoughts on what I can do?

A. Thank you very much for writing. First,

please allow me to express my condolences for the death of your family member. The Bible teaches us that death is the final enemy that Christ will ultimately destroy, and until then, we all experience its effects in our lives. I don’t know if encountering death ever gets easy. In my life as a priest, I come up against death on a regular basis. If I am simply thinking about death as an intellectual topic, then it is very straightforward, and I’m unimpressed by it. But every single time I encounter death concretely — up close — it hurts.

Because of that, I want to acknowledge your loss as something that I think I (and most people reading this) can relate to; death not only destroys the natural life of the person, but it also plows into the lives of those all around it.

Because of that, it is not difficult to imagine why you would say that you are turning toward blame and struggling with faith. But let’s take a closer look at this.

First, whenever we are in pain, we desire to find the source of our pain. Think of the last time you got sick. I’m guessing that, somewhere in the midst of your coughing and being achy and feverish, you wanted to know, “Where did I catch this bug?”

You might have asked, “Who got me sick?”

This is not because knowing that it was that random coworker who came to work sick or it was your second-grader who came home with the sniffles who was the culprit helps anything. It doesn’t actually matter who it was who passed the sickness along to you. But we naturally want someone to blame. I want to know the immediate cause of this pain that I’m experiencing now. That way, my pain can be re-directed as anger and blame, and I will get some relief from that “redirection.” But it doesn’t actually do anything. It doesn’t help a person get better or help them avoid sickness in the future. It is a useless exercise in blame.

Most blaming is just that: useless. For example, maybe it was

anything to do with us. The example of Jesus is often the opposite of how we treat others. Don’t we often hold others accountable when they have failed? We are so good at producing a litany of events where others have disappointed us or fallen short in some way. It can even feel good to be able to remind someone of their shortcomings.

Jesus, in his great mercy, does not see in us where we have failed. Jesus instead sees our potential and a possibility for greatness and holiness. He comes and meets us right where we are and wants to accompany us as we seek to be his disciples.

I don’t want to suggest that we are given a free pass for the sins and failures of our past. There are consequences for our sins, but they do not define who we are as sons and daughters of God. Later in the Gospel, Jesus mentions the importance of repentance and the need to seek forgiveness for our sins. Jesus’ appearance in the Gospel today reminds us that we don’t have a vengeful God waiting for us when we sin. We have a merciful God who wants to give us peace.

I do find it interesting that in this resurrection appearance, Jesus ate that piece of baked fish in front of the disciples. This meal and the other meals that Jesus shared with them after his resurrection reveal to us the importance of the Eucharist. When we gather for Mass and receive the Eucharist, we have an encounter with the Lord that is even more profound than the appearance of Jesus to his disciples. With an open heart, we can actually become what we eat. When that happens, our “amen” means that we are saying yes to the commission to go and announce the good news.

Father Hennen, pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Hastings, was ordained for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2005. He has served at Epiphany in Coon Rapids and St. Francis Xavier in Buffalo.

your co-workers who passed the illness on to you, but that wasn’t intentional, and maybe they passed on the contamination before they even knew they were sick. What is more, they had to endure the same illness themselves, so what good would it do to blame them? If we think about it, you probably passed the sickness on to more people than you imagine as well. This is the result of living in a world touched by sin, suffering, sickness and death.

If I can’t find someone to blame for a bad thing, then the most obvious person to accuse is God. I mean, after all, he is God. If anything happens at all, it is ultimately his fault, isn’t it? He created the world. He could change whatever he wants, however he wants, right? God is the easiest target of blame, especially when we secretly believe that God owes us something. But the hard truth is: God doesn’t owe us anything.

Now, I want to pause a moment and reaffirm what I said at the beginning. Whenever we suffer a loss or a death, this is real, and the pain is real. But to turn this pain into blame is the wrong move. It reveals that we ultimately believe that God is in our debt; that, in order to get our love, God has to do whatever we ask of him.

But that isn’t a relationship. And that isn’t faith in God. That is more like manipulation. It’s less like faith and more like superstition. If I will only trust God as long as he gives me whatever I want, then I have revealed that I might actually not want him, I just want what he can do for me.

This is one of the reasons moments of pain and loss are essential for our faith. These times reveal in whom we are truly placing our trust. These moments can serve to clarify our intentions and purify our hearts. You have suffered. You are definitely invited to grieve. But God has revealed that he enters into our pain. He isn’t the one to blame for our suffering; he is the one who has embraced our suffering and redeemed it. One of the main reasons why he did this was to prove to us that we can trust him, even when we are hurting most.

I invite you to bring your sadness and loss to the God of the Broken Heart — Jesus, who suffered abandonment by his friends, who grieved the deaths of those he loved, and who entered into the darkness of death himself so that we wouldn’t be alone in our moments of abandonment, grief and death.

Father Schmitz is director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth and chaplain of the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Reach him at fathermikeschmitz@ gmail.com.

DAILY Scriptures Sunday, April 15 Third Sunday of Easter Acts 3:13-15, 17-19 1 Jn 2:1-5a Lk 24:35-48 Monday, April 16 Acts 6:8-15 Jn 6:22-29 Tuesday, April 17 Acts 7:51–8:1a Jn 6:30-35 Wednesday, April 18 Acts 8:1b-8 Jn 6:35-40 Thursday, April 19 Acts 8:26-40 Jn 6:44-51 Friday, April 20 Acts 9:1-20 Jn 6:52-59 Saturday, April 21 Acts 9:31-42 Jn 6:60-69 Sunday, April 22 Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts 4:8-12 1 Jn 3:1-2 Jn 10:11-18 Monday, April 23 Acts 11:1-18 Jn 10:1-10 Tuesday, April 24 Acts 11:19-26 Jn 10:22-30 Wednesday, April 25 St. Mark, evangelist 1 Pt 5:5b-14 Mk 16:15-20 Thursday, April 26 Acts 13:13-25 Jn 13:16-20 Friday, April 27 Acts 13:26-33 Jn 14:1-6 Saturday, April 28 Acts 13:44-52 Jn 14:7-14 Sunday, April 29 Fifth Sunday of Easter Acts 9:26-31 1 Jn 3:18-24 Jn 15:1-8

20 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

COMMENTARY

TWENTY SOMETHING | CHRISTINA CAPECCHI

The art of slow living: When calligraphy becomes prayer Erica Tighe was 26 when she made the leap: She would set out on her own to be a calligrapher. Full time. In order to pay her $800 rent and cellphone bill and $1,000 college-loan payment and also, hopefully, afford some food.

She had a sociology degree and lingering burn-out from teaching in Brooklyn, her latest stint. She’d recently moved to Los Angeles, but after a few months of looking for a nonprofit job, she couldn’t find one that would cover her rent and college debt.

Several people who had seen Erica’s work online had asked her to make their wedding invitations. She thought maybe that could suffice. She planned to refine her self-taught method, which was eliciting periodic orders for $20 commissions via Etsy.

“I got on my knees and asked God for work,” Erica

SIMPLE HOLINESS | KATE SOUCHERAY

Easter and the paschal mystery in marriage We currently find ourselves in the season of Easter, the time between Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday and Pentecost, which celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire on Christ’s followers. As we look back to the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus we experienced throughout the triduum, we witnessed the selfsacrificing love of our Lord. This is known as the paschal mystery, which embraces and celebrates the redemptive work of Christ.

For Catholics and all Christians, marriage has this sacrificial aspect of the paschal mystery at its core. On their wedding day, however, couples don’t often think about the concept as they state their vows.

That day is filled with joy, people who support and encourage the couple, and the expectations of a loving future together. Even though the couple promises to love one another in good times and in bad, the bad times seem inconceivable, and the promise to abide by the vows in such times is often easily made.

However, when the day arrives to live out the commitment to remain resolute and faithful to that promise, the real work of the sacrament of matrimony unfolds.

A spouse might be diagnosed with depression or another mental illness, which will significantly affect the couple’s happiness and well-being. Or one of them might have a stroke or a heart attack, requiring the other spouse to take on a new role in the marriage, often that of caretaker, even though he or she might feel ill-equipped to do so. Or one might be diagnosed with chronic or terminal cancer, catapulting the other spouse into the role of deciphering medical jargon, as well as managing the turmoil experienced by their children.

In each of these cases, as well as many others, the

told me. “I was in complete fear. My spiritual director said to me: ‘God is your boss, so ask for work!’”

Eventually, a $100 gig came in.

She reached out to a fellow Phoenix native who had launched an online ministry for Catholic women called Blessed Is She, offering to make one Instagram quote. The two 20-somethings forged a close partnership on a shoestring budget, granting Erica total creative license to design products — posters, prints, journals, mugs.

The first journal sold 700. The latest one sold 9,000.

Their hunch proved right: If they poured in the effort and supplied something that was beautiful and original, demand would follow.

Today — three years later — Erica makes “a really nice living” running her design business called Be A Heart, which employs two women. She built off the random commissions for website logos and expanded her wheelhouse, learning to paint watercolor, digitize prints and design books. Blessed Is She occupies half her time, allowing her to pursue other projects, including celebrity weddings, calligraphy workshops, a Catholic journaling Bible published last year by Our Sunday Visitor and a lettering book called “Written

By Hand,” published last year by Rock Point Press.

Barnes & Noble picked it up this spring, and it is being translated into four other languages.

Erica invited her 13,000 Instagram followers to work through the book together as a nine-week project using the hashtag “writtenbyhandchallenge.”

Participants shared snapshots of their slow-but-steady progress: addressing Christmas cards, making pretty gift tags, working alongside their children.

Calligraphy invites you to use your hands, which

Action challenge Make a renewed commitment to your spouse and your marriage during this season of Easter, as well as to the paschal mystery. Take time to read the Mass readings for each upcoming Sunday liturgy and ask God to fill your heart with the grace of faithfulness to the renewal of your marriage.

supportive spouse must summon the resources to remain steadfast and committed to the work that will be required to remain strong and stabilize the family. This spouse might not feel prepared to handle the pressures of such changes in the marriage, and yet, as Scripture reminds us, God’s grace is a gift to us in times of difficulty and struggle, as it states, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).

Living the ‘yes’ With these and many other individual struggles that must be managed by couples, marriage in our current era requires a new kind of commitment. The “yes” we made on our wedding day is a “yes” to the selfsacrificing love found within the paschal mystery, which espouses that life will come from the “yes” we convey to the difficulties we experience with our partner throughout our lived commitment to that “yes.” When Jesus accepted the cross and all that it meant for himself, as well as for humanity, he did so through such self-sacrificing love.

As couples face the challenges in marriage and remain committed in the good times and the bad, they are a living example of the paschal mystery. Esther Perel, a noted New York marriage and family therapist, stated that in modern marriage, we have four or five marriages to the same person, for marriage must grow and evolve in order to withstand the pressures of our current culture.

In such a marriage, the partners continue to live out the “yes” they made to each other on their wedding day, and they hold true to that promise as they face difficulties that arise each day, due to the willingness to accept the sacrifice required by that “yes.”

Soucheray is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a member of Guardian Angels in Oakdale. She holds a master’s degree in theology from the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul.

APRIL 12, 2018

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Calligraphy invites you to use your hands, which young adults are itching to do in response to the iPhone era of thumb-tapping. young adults are itching to do in response to the iPhone era of thumb-tapping, Erica says. It helps explain the resurgence of the antiquated art.

Calligraphy also forces you to slow down, dipping the nib of the pen into ink — the old-school method Erica espouses — with every word. That’s what can make it prayerful, she says. “I pretty much do everything fast in my life. This is likely the only thing I do slow. I like how it becomes a meditation for stillness. Little moments can reflect the relief that we experience in prayer.”

Erica’s Catholic faith pulses with each stroke, especially the belief in the dignity of each person.

Hand lettering makes that visible, Erica points out.

“To have your name written on a piece of paper that someone has taken the time to slow down and write, to connect the letters that make up your name, which is your identity, to be known and seen — that’s what we are called to do daily. Can we see the cashier? Can I slow down enough to see my significant other sitting across from me? How do we slow down enough to see the divine in our everyday life?”

Capecchi is a freelance writer from Inver Grove Heights.

LETTER Immigration issue not so simple In the last Catholic Spirit, the letter to the editor titled “Unsustainable way of life” simply stated all immigrants come to America for the same reasons.

Simple is the precise word. While many people do come to America for the American dream, there are many that do not.

America needs people that will live by our Constitutional law. Sharia law is in direct competition with our law; it does not promote the dignity of women and children and does not respect other religions.

Immigration is about promoting the best possible environment for our country to prosper and promote freedoms for all, and is a means to determine who is dedicated to live by the same moral and civil codes.

There is already a legal path to citizenship.

Citizenship is an honor and a responsibility, not a prize or a means to allow people to live in a simplistic world that does not exist.

Sharon Peterson St. Joseph, Rosemount Share your perspective by emailing CatholicSpirit@ Please limit your letter to the editor to 150 words and include your parish and phone number. The Commentary page does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Catholic Spirit. Letters may be edited for length or clarity. archspm.org.

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COMMENTARY

APRIL 12, 2018

FAITH IN THE PUBLIC ARENA | ANNE KRISNIK

We are all responsible for helping the poor

Minnesota is ranked the secondbest state in the nation overall (after Iowa). This is according to new overall state rankings by U.S. News and World Report, which are based on more than 75 metrics including economy, education, opportunities and quality of life.

However, it’s not great for every Minnesotan. Not all of us have the same opportunities or quality of life.

In 2009, Minnesota released the bipartisan Legislative Report from the Commission to End Poverty in Minnesota by 2020. The report set forth specific goals and contained numerous recommendations.

As we approach 2020, Minnesotans of faith need to take a hard look at our progress in addressing poverty and the commission’s recommendations. The Joint Religious Legislative Coalition — composed of Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims from across the state — has just issued “Poverty in Minnesota: A Progress Report.”

More than half a million Minnesotans (including more than 160,000 children) live in households below the federal poverty threshold — $20,780 for a family of three. Ten percent of Minnesota households are impacted by hunger.

Many communities have a severe shortage of affordable housing. The rate of homelessness for adults

THE LOCAL CHURCH | ANNE MALONEY

NFP, my body and me Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of columns exploring the content and impact of “Humanae Vitae,” Blessed Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical affirming the Church’s proscription on the use of contraception. This year marks the 50th anniversary of its promulgation.

The youngest of five children, I was reared by parents who believed that the Catholic Church was the One True Church; there were to be no half-hearted Catholics in their clan. I watched four older siblings get married and start their families. As had my parents, my brothers and sisters embraced and practiced natural family planning. In my world, that is what Catholics did.

I understood that sex is a gift from God, meant to be directed toward the creation of families. As a young woman, however, I was in love with books and learning. I never enjoyed babysitting as my friends did, and I knew I would never be the sort of woman who was “good with children.”

Pope Paul VI issued “Humanae Vitae” in 1968, but I didn’t hear about birth control until I entered high school in 1972. There I heard the whispered stories of how the Holy Father was supposed to “OK” artificial contraception but lost his nerve. Some of my teachers trembled with indignation over the silliness of Pope Paul VI’s arguments. Armed with this borrowed disdain, I began to argue with my mother about birth control.

My mother had no real arguments against artificial contraception; all she could give me was “contraception is not natural.” I threw back the pro-birth control arguments I had heard at school; I was shocked and disappointed when she finally threw up her hands and said, “Fine! You’re so smart! All I will say is, ‘Trust the Church.’” Having said that, she was finished.

I graduated from college and went to graduate school.

I fell in love; Stephen was “on board” with Church

over age 55 increased by 8 percent over the past five years. When looking for work, many Minnesotans face barriers including a lack of education, mental health issues, addiction or a criminal conviction. The disparities between white Minnesotans and Minnesotans of color are substantial — in income, home ownership rates and academic success.

We can do better.

The poverty progress report addresses areas in which public policy directly impacts poverty. Our laws are a blueprint for our state. There are many approaches to addressing these issues, and elected officials might have different ideas about how to address them. But all elected officials care about Minnesotans living in poverty and want them to be successful.

Each of us can directly impact policies. Call and email your elected officials. Attend town hall meetings and ask your representatives how they are helping Minnesotans in poverty. Come to the Capitol and meet with them personally. Tell them what you see in your congregation and community.

Our call As Catholics, we are called to help the poor and vulnerable. St. James reminds us, “If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty’ without giving them the bare necessities of life, then what good is that?”

We know the Lord hears the cry of the poor. We, too, need to listen. Many of you are responding to God’s call for help by serving families experiencing homelessness or people in need of food or clothing. These are all worthy acts of charity. But can we do more?

Pope Francis has said that politics “is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good.” In the public arena, we can complement our charitable and philanthropic efforts by also working to promote distributive and social justice. Our faith

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 21

Work to end poverty Many Minnesotans continue to struggle with poverty, food insecurity, obtaining a quality education and securing affordable housing. Review “Poverty in Minnesota: A Progress Report” at jrlc.org.

Consult your elected officials about what they are proposing to combat poverty and economic insecurity.

You can find your legislators at mncatholic.org by clicking “Take action” and “Find your legislator” or by visiting leg.state.mn.us and clicking on the tab “Who represents me?”

challenges us to be advocates for those struggling and on the margins.

The first step is to become informed. Talk to your neighbors about poverty. Visit a food shelf or emergency shelter and listen to the stories of the people there.

Then call your senators, representatives and county commissioners. Ask candidates for office what legislation they are pursuing to address poverty.

This Easter season, as we live out our baptism, let us show gratitude for the gifts we have received and remember to use them to help our brothers and sisters.

Krisnik is executive director of the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, an interfaith anti-poverty advocacy organization co-sponsored by the Minnesota Catholic Conference.

“

As I noted signs of fertility and felt the rhythms of how I worked, I started seeing my own flesh as something to marvel at rather than something to suppress.

iSTOCK | BAKS

teaching on natural family planning. As for me? I was terrified. I feared that NFP would give us baby after baby after baby, and my life as a scholar would be over. My decision to use NFP was the single greatest act of faith I ever made in the Catholic Church.

When I got married, I had been struggling for six years with an eating disorder. I had gone on a diet in college to lose weight — I had been genuinely overweight — and when I reached my “ideal weight,” I was afraid to stop dieting. I had come to depend on the feeling of control I got from denying myself food; it made me feel superior to deny my flesh, to say “no” to hunger and exercise myself into exhausted submission. I had tried — and failed — several times to “get over” my eating disorder. It very nearly killed me. I was struggling when we got married, and Stephen knew that I had a troubled and negative relationship with my body.

In our first year of marriage, I was shocked to find that I liked NFP. I listened to my feminist friends complain about the messy mechanics of sex — about the preparations involving wires, jellies and foams, pills that made them bloated and cross — and thought, “Hmm. I’m not sorry to miss out on that.”

I was used to seeing my body as an object to control, to deny, to hate. As I noted signs of fertility and felt the rhythms of how I worked, I started seeing my own flesh as something to marvel at rather than something to suppress. My long-standing body hatred started to fade.

Fifteen months after marrying, we decided to try to have a baby; my excitement at the prospect of being co-creator of our baby pushed my worry about getting fat off to the side.

Thank God I was wise enough to listen when my mother told me to trust the Church. I was reared to be a good Catholic girl, and that I have tried to be. I was not reared to be a feminist; that is an identity I chose for myself much later. The world told me I would have to choose between being Catholic and being a feminist.

Not so. My decision to trust the Church was one of the most feminist decisions I have ever made.

NFP taught me how to begin to love my body for what it could do instead of abusing it because of what I wanted it to look like. NFP strengthened my marriage, helped me have three beautiful children, honored my trust in God and probably saved my life.

Maloney is an associate professor of philosophy at St. Catherine University in St. Paul. She is married to Stephen Heaney, who teaches philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, and they have three children and one granddaughter. They are members of Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul.

Editor’s note: “Faith at Home” by Laura Kelly Fanucci will run this month only at TheCatholicSpirit.com. It will return to the print edition next month.

22 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

APRIL 12, 2018

CALENDAR FEATURED EVENTS Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women 86th Convention — April 20-21: 12:30–9 p.m. April 20 and 8 a.m.–2:30 p.m. April 21 at St. Michael, 611 Third St. S., Stillwater. Event includes Mass with Bishop Andrew Cozzens, a variety of speakers, a marketplace, silent auction, entertainment and lay woman volunteer awards. For more information and to register, visit accwarchspm.org.

Siena Symposium for Women, Family and Culture public lecture “Recovering from the Sexual Revolution: Humanae Vitae 50 Years Later” presented by the symposium’s humanitarian leadership award recipient Jennifer Roback Morse — April 26: 7:30 p.m. in the Woulfe Alumni Hall at the University of St. Thomas, 2115 Summit Ave., St. Paul. Morse is an author and the founder of the Ruth Institute, a global nonprofit devoted to “creating a mass social movement to end family breakdown by energizing the survivors of the sexual revolution.” For more information, visit stthomas.edu/sienasymposium or contact Deborah Savage at pdsavage@stthomas.edu.

Dining out Knights of Columbus pancake breakfast — April 15: 9 a.m.–noon at Blessed Sacrament, 2119 Stillwater Ave., St. Paul. blessedsacramentsp.org.

Center, University of St. Thomas, 2115 Summit Ave., St. Paul. lukespehar.com.

7:30 p.m. at St. Richard, 7540 Penn Ave. S., Richfield. strichards.com/first-fridays.

6:30–8:30 p.m. at 8260 Fourth St. N., Oakdale. guardian-angels.org .

Oakdale combined choirs sing to end hunger — April 21: 7 p.m. at Guardian Angels, 8260 Fourth St. N., Oakdale. guardian-angels.org.

Taize Prayer — Third Friday of each month: 7 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood.

651-777-7251 or stpaulsmonastery.org.

Johan van Parys presents “The Power of Sacred Art: Beauty that Saves and Shatters” — April 22 and 29: 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m. at the Basilica of St. Mary, 1600 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis. mary.org.

Retreats Women’s weekend retreat — April 20-22 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake. franciscanretreats.net.

Being a Beacon of Love: Living in Faith, Hope and Charity presented by Jean Stolpestad — April 25: 8:45 a.m. at Nativity of Our Lord, Steiner Hall, 1900 Stanford Ave., St. Paul. 651-696-5401or parish.nativity-mn.org.

Conferences/workshops

Young adults

Order Franciscans Secular (OFS) — Third Sunday of each month: 1 p.m. at Catholic Charities, 1200 Second Ave. S., Minneapolis. 952-922-5523.

Archdiocese young adult bowling for ages 18-39 — April 28: 5:30–8:30 p.m. at Flaherty’s Arden Bowl, 1273 W. County Road E, Arden Hills. tiny.cc/ archdiocese.

Ongoing groups Job transitions and networking group — Tuesdays: 7–8:30 a.m. at St. Joseph the Worker, 7180 Hemlock Lane, Maple Grove. Bob at bob.sjtw@ gmail.com or sjtw.net/job-transition-networking-group.

CARITAS cancer support group — Wednesdays: 10:30 a.m.–noon at St. Joseph’s Hospital, second floor, maternity classroom 2500, 45 W. 10th St., St. Paul.

Dementia support group — Second Tuesday of each month: 7–9 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood.

651-777-7251 or stpaulsmonastery.org.

Parish events Holy Childhood rummage sale — April 12-14 at 1435 Midway Parkway, St. Paul. 9 a.m.–7 p.m. April 12; 9 a.m.–5 p.m. April 13; and 9 a.m.–1 p.m. April 14 (bag day). holychildhoodparish.org.

Holy Name Catholic Council of Women’s spring salad luncheon — April 14: 11:30 a.m. at 3637 11th Ave. S., Minneapolis. churchoftheholyname.org.

Holy Family Maronite annual Lebanese dinner — April 15: 11 a.m.–4 p.m. at 1960 Lexington Ave. S., Mendota Heights. 651-291-1116.

Pax Christi parishioners’ art exhibit “New Life: the Birth of Spring” — April 15-May 13: 9 a.m.– 5 p.m. at 12100 Pioneer Trail (enter door 3), Eden Prairie. paxchristi.com.

Loretto Knights of Columbus pancake breakfast — April 22: 8–11 a.m. at 150 Railway St. E., Loretto. saintsppta.org.

Presentation of Mary spring craft sale — April 21: 9 a.m.–3 p.m. at 1725 Kennard St., Maplewood. presentationofmary.org.

Taste of Lebanon dinner — April 22: 11:30 a.m.– 5:30 p.m. at St. Maron, 602 University Ave., Minneapolis. 612-379-2758 or stmaron.com.

A Taste of Spain: 11th annual Feast of the Golden Fork — April 28: 6:30–9 p.m. at Holy Childhood, 1435 Midway Parkway, St. Paul. holychildhoodparish.org.

Music Luke Spehar album release concert — April 20: 7:30 p.m. at O’Shaughnessy Educational

“A Splash of Color” spring salad luncheon with entertainment by Benson Family Singers — April 28: 11:45 a.m.–2 p.m. at Guardian Angels, 8260 Fourth St. N., Oakdale. guardian-angels.org.

Guardian Angels crafters’ spring sale — April 28-29 at 8260 Fourth St. N., Oakdale. 8 a.m.– 1 p.m. April 28 and 10 a.m.–5 p.m. April 29. guardian-angels.org.

Prayer/worship Taize Prayer — First Friday of each month:

Schools Immaculate Conception All School Open House and Preschool and Kindergarten Play Date — April 14: 9:30 a.m.–noon at 4030 Jackson St. NE, Columbia Heights. 763-788-9065 or school.iccsonline. org/news/open-house-and-preschoolkindergarten-playdate.

Edina Educational Roundtable hosted by St. Thomas Academy and Visitation School — April 17: 7–8 p.m. at St. Patrick, 6820 St. Patrick’s Lane, Edina. cadets.com/admissions.

Community Strong – St. Thomas Academy Family Night — April 20: 6–8 p.m. at 949 Mendota Heights Road, Mendota Heights. cadets.com/support-our-cadets/ community-auction.

Schools Community Strong Gala Night and St. Thomas Academy Community Auction — April 21: 5 p.m. at 949 Mendota Heights Road, Mendota Heights. https://bit.ly/2q5uXpt. St. Francis Xavier Spring Fever Extravaganza — April 21: 6 p.m.–midnight at the Education Center, 219 19th St. NW, Buffalo. school.stfxb.org.

Friday Night at the Friary — third Friday of each month: 7–9 p.m. at Franciscan Brothers of Peace friary, 1289 Lafond Ave., St. Paul. Men ages 18-35 are invited for prayer and fellowship. facebook.com/queenofpeacefriary.

Other events 2018 St. Paul Monastery Prioress Dinner honoring Don and Jean Regan (Premier Bank) and Barb Rode (Saint Therese) — April 12: 5–8 p.m. at Guardian Angels Social Hall, 8260 Fourth St. N., Oakdale. tinyurl.com/2018Prioress.

Highland Catholic School used book sale — April 20-22 at Lumen Christi, 2055 Bohland Ave., St. Paul. Preview sale ($10) 6–8 p.m. April 20; 8:30 a.m.–6 p.m. April 21; 8:30 a.m.–noon April 22. lumenchristicc.org.

Kirsten Malcolm Berry presents An Invitation into the Images of the New Testament — April 26: 7–9 p.m. at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. benedictinecenter.org.

Speakers

Bellis Adoption Education and Support — April 28: 11 a.m. at Annunciation, 509 54th St., Minneapolis. mybellis.org.

Bringing Human Trafficking Out of the Shadows presented by Pete Orput, Washington County Attorney, with survivor testimony — April 12:

Knights of Columbus bingo — Wednesdays: 6–9 p.m. at Solanus Casey Council Hall, 1920 S. Greeley St., Stillwater.

Environmental messages take shape in St. Paul art exhibit

By Jessica Trygstad The Catholic Spirit Current events and Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home” have inspired five local artists to depict their environmental concerns in the exhibit “Hope. Earth. Liberation.” at Artista Bottega in St. Paul.

Mary Gallagher, a parishioner of St. Peter Claver in St. Paul, formed the group Catholic Artists for Environmental, Immigration and Economic Justice in 2017 after learning about the lead-contaminated water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement last June.

She said she became concerned after President Donald Trump was elected in 2016 because of what she perceived as his apparent dismissal of environmental protections.

Gallagher describes the group’s members — of diverse ages and ethnicities that represent the global Church — as “serious artists with a serious message.”

“I was surprised by what little followthrough there was in the Catholic community,” Gallagher, 63, said of the encyclical, “and I think it’s a brilliant

document that encompasses more than environmental care; it’s environmental justice that has a great effect, a strong relationship with economic justice and racism — two things I’m very concerned about.”

Gallagher’s portion of the exhibit includes wall panels of nature scenes titled after excerpts from “Laudato Si’” and a water fountain made from an abandoned statue of whom Gallagher believes to be St. John the Evangelist.

She painted the statue to correspond with a set of waterscapes — inspired by church altar rails — and said she’ll change the color of the water in the fountain to red during some weeks depending on current events related to the protection of waterways.

“Taking care of our water and environment is taking care of our children,” said Gallagher, who’s married and has an adult daughter. “It takes actively caring for our earth, which is not an object to be used. It’s our home.”

Gallagher, an occupational therapist in St. Paul, would especially like to reach Catholics who are just starting families of their own.

With an estimated 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, “I feel if everyone took ‘Laudato Si” seriously, that would

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

be a global shift,” she said.

Contributing artists are Rebekah Crisanta de Ybarra, Tony Ejiofor, Ricardo Levins Morales and Anne Sugnet. They use a variety of media and forms. Gallagher said that although not all members are Catholic, they support the exhibit’s objective.

“I would encourage Catholics to claim this part of our legacy — to claim care of the environment — as ours,” Gallagher said.

Artist Tony Ejiofor, right, of Transfiguration in Oakdale talks with Lynette Graham of St. Peter Claver in St. Paul about his artwork during an exhibit at Artista Bottega in St. Paul April 7. Behind them is one of Ejiofor’s pieces, “Peace and Nature: Life by the Riverside.”

The exhibit runs through May 2.

Gallagher would like to partner with Catholic institutions, particularly universities, to host the exhibit in the future.

The artists are hosting student-toartist discussions and dialogue about care of the environment for junior high, secondary and post-secondary student groups. For more information, contact catholicartistsforjustice@gmail. com.

APRIL 12, 2018

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 23

Documentarian: Vanier’s world of L’Arche communities ‘makes sense to me’

By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service Randall Wright, who made the recently released film documentary “Summer in the Forest” on the L’Arche communities founded by Canadian Jean Vanier, said Vanier’s world “makes sense to me.”

Wright knows of which he speaks. “I work in film and television — where you can imagine there are a lot of egos and [a] lot of fantasies and a lot of anxieties,” he told Catholic News Service in an April 6 telephone interview from his home in London. “I’ve spent lots of time in very broken parts of the world. Jean Vanier’s world makes sense to me. I’ve seen a lot of wars; I’ve seen a lot of problems on the planet. It was exciting to see a world that makes sense.”

L’Arche, French for “The Ark,” brings together people with intellectual or physical disabilities into an intentionalliving situation with able-bodied people who share life with them and treat them as equals. Nearly all of them are faith-

based, although not all are Catholic.

“People in a sense feel liberated with an encounter with L’Arche,” said Wright, who identified himself as a Catholic “very strongly, very much so.”

“For me it was to do with my greataunt, who was someone with an intellectual disability and somewhat rejected by the family,” he recalled. “I met her when I was 4, and she had a distorted face, and she would come and pick me up. ... My grandparents had a conventional view of Aunt May and felt she needed to be separated by the rest of the family. There was a feeling in the family of strangeness, and I felt very frightened of her.”

By the time he reached his late 40s, Wright said, “I was just trying to work out why I had these feelings.” He was invited to a party given by a L’Arche community in London “in the basement of the church, and I went in. I went down. It was a wonderful occasion.”

Before setting out to make “Summer in the Forest,” Wright said he thought, “It’ll

CNS

Randall Wright, who directed the documentary “Summer in the Forest” about the L’Arche communities, poses with David, a resident who has Down syndrome. be impossible to make a film. There’s no money. But I discovered quite quickly that people who get Jean Vanier see him as one of the world’s most incredible figures.”

He added: “In one sense you could argue that the film is about power. It’s about the weak speaking to the powerful.

I couldn’t make them do anything. They already trusted me totally. It was on me to trust them. I had to give up my normal techniques and be prepared to accept that what was being offered might contain something profound.”

Wright was not disappointed.

Sister Hosea Rupprecht, in her review of the film for CNS, called it a “gentle, loving portrait” of Vanier, “a man with those same qualities.” She added, the documentary “provides inspiration and a glimpse of what our world could be like if we all practiced just a little more compassion and treated everyone with the consideration they deserve.”

One highlight of Wright’s time with L’Arche was a three-day conversation with the residents of one house solely on the parable of the good Samaritan.

“I had a uniquely privileged insight into the culture of L’Arche,” he told CNS, “which Jean said is not about utopia; it’s very much about humanity and facing reality with great hope and great confidence and great faith.”

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EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: The Catholic Cemeteries is seeking an active, participating Roman Catholic with a graduate degree to serve as Director of 6 cemeteries. Responsibility includes over-all management of personnel, public relations, sales, fiscal oversight and financial controls. For further information: http://careers.archspm.org/jobs/ executive-director-catholic-cemeteries/ Pregnancy Choices LifeCare Center, Apple Valley, is seeking two part-time Life Coach positions; hours TBD. One position requires fluent Spanish. Certified life coaching training provided. For more information and full job descriptions, please contact director@ mypregnancychoices.com.

St. Casimir Catholic School in Wells, MN seeks an energetic, collaborative leader to serve as its School Principal starting in the 2018-2019 school year. Candidate must be a practicing Catholic, served at least 5 years in teaching and/or administration and possess a Master’s Degree at minimum. Interested candidates should submit the following items electronically to Father Jason Kern: jkern@ dow.org.

• A cover letter containing your vision of Catholic education and suitability for this position • Resume with detailed professional experience • References Review of applications will begin immediately.

Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, St. Paul east side, seeks an active Catholic for its fulltime Parish Business Administrator.

Please email Fr. Erickson for full position description and application: ericksonj@ archspm.org. https://rebrand.ly/blsdscrmnt.

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Position Summary: Assists the patient and her/his family in coping with the psychological, social, emotional and spiritual needs in time of illness and/or stress. Provides an atmosphere of concern and recognition of the dignity of the human person in the light of the gospel of Christ. Helps preserve a patient-centered attitude of care. Gives the patient an opportunity to verbalize feelings regarding his/her illness, assesses needs and documents interventions. Promotes a team approach with other disciplines.

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Collaborates with metro Faith Formation Team. Will have primary responsibility for religious education programs serving K-12 ages, Totus Tuus or other summer enrichment, and YDisciple or other high school formation programs. Must be practicing Catholic; MA and experience preferred. Commensurate salary and benefits. For more information see www. waterloocatholics.org. Send resume to: WCFF Search Committee; Becky McElroy; 600 Stephan Ave.; Waterloo, IA 50701. Phone: (319)233-0498; beckymcelroyff@gmail.com.

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24 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

THELASTWORD

E

ven before Katherine and Jeff Dobbs were married, they had a name picked out for a future son: Fulton Francis. Fulton, for Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the mid-20th century priest known for his broadcast evangelism; and Francis, for Pope Francis, whom the couple later met at a general audience during their honeymoon in 2017.

Little could they have known the significance of their baby’s namesakes less than a year later. Fulton Francis Dobbs was born last Christmas Eve with an immunodeficiency that remains undiagnosed.

They’ve been praying for Fulton’s healing through the intercession of Archbishop Sheen, whom Pope Benedict XVI declared venerable in 2012, meaning the Catholic Church considers him to have lived “heroic virtue” and worthy of imitation. The next step in the sainthood process is beatification, which requires one miracle through that person’s intercession.

After Fulton’s birth, the Dobbs’ parish, St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony, distributed cards with a prayer by Father Andrew Apostoli, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal who was ordained a priest by Archbishop Sheen and has worked on his cause for canonization.

Katherine’s father, Steve Burrill, also a parishioner of St. Charles Borromeo, has been leading the prayer charge not only for his grandson, but also for his daughter and son-in-law.

“Your faith needs to get you through the ‘whys’ — not the ‘why me?’, but the ‘why us?’” said Burrill, 61.

“I think it would be strange not to have that. But it’s faith that helps you figure that out, or at least try to work through it. I can’t think of two people who were more ready to be parents … than these two.”

Praying for a miracle Family seeks Fulton Sheen’s intercession for son’s healing

By Jessica Trygstad • The Catholic Spirit

‘A little hermitage’ Katherine’s 30-week ultrasound revealed that Fulton wasn’t growing at a normal rate, and doctors determined he had an intrauterine growth restriction, but didn’t know the cause. Katherine’s doctor ordered her to go on bed rest, and going forward, she had two ultrasounds a week. At 37 weeks gestation, doctors decided to induce labor, and Fulton was born Dec. 24, 2017, at 3 lbs., 13 oz. and 17-and-a-half inches.

From the start, Fulton wasn’t eating well, and his oxygen levels were dropping, so Katherine, 32, and Jeff, 30, had him baptized at the hospital. After about a week, doctors performed genetic tests at Children’s Minnesota in St. Paul and then Minneapolis, and Fulton was placed in isolation. Meanwhile, his newborn screening tests indicated that he had severe combined immunodeficiency, involving a disorder that leaves little or no immune response. Commonly known as “bubble boy disease,” the condition leaves those who have it highly susceptible to severe infections. But more tests ruled out SCID, which could have been treated with a bone marrow transplant.

“We are relieved to find out he didn’t have SCID, but we still don’t know why his lymphocytes are low,” said Katherine, referring to Fulton’s white blood cells. “So, we’re navigating all sorts of things.”

Thus far, every genetic test has come back inconclusive, and they’re awaiting the results of another.

While Fulton’s March 2 homecoming has been joyous, it brings a new set of challenges. The Dobbses have few visitors, and they can’t take Fulton out in public.

“The Lord is inviting me into a little hermitage right now — not going out, not inviting people over,” said Katherine, a former teacher at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in New Brighton.

Katherine and Jeff were recently trained to administer infusions in Fulton’s legs every other week, giving him antibody protection. Fulton also has central apnea, which he’s able to resolve on his own, Katherine noted.

She admitted that at first, she was even afraid to cry, fearing her tears could kill Fulton because of the germs they contained.

“So, just to think about even more than just one hour at a time was so anxiety-provoking,” she said. “I feel like the Lord is saying, ‘My ways are not your ways,’ and … not to plan the next moment because it’s impossible to plan the next moment. So, just to trust that [God is] going to provide, and receive the graces of the moment.”

The couple’s anniversary Feb. 25 was one of the first times they left the hospital; they celebrated by attending Mass at St. Stephen in Minneapolis. They wore masks, and afterward, asked the priest to offer them Communion.

BRIAN RESCH | COURTESY KATHERINE DOBBS

Jeff and Katherine Dobbs sit with their newborn son, Fulton, at their home after being released from the hospital in early March. Fulton was born Christmas Eve with an immunodeficiency that remains undiagnosed.

“Just to be able to receive the Eucharist on our anniversary was really, really beautiful,” Katherine said, noting Archbishop Sheen’s love of the Eucharist as well.

Mutual devotion Katherine’s love of St. Therese of Lisieux inspired her and Jeff to read Archbishop Sheen’s book, “St. Therese: A Treasured Love Story,” which includes text from talks he gave in 1973 about the French nun and her universal appeal. While on bed rest for the last weeks of her pregnancy, Katherine researched Archbishop Sheen and listened to his “Life is Worth Living” on CD. It was derived from his television show of the same name that aired in the 1950s and, at its peak, had 10 million weekly viewers. Eventually, her research led her to an Illinois woman who shares not only her esteem for Archbishop Sheen, but also, at one point, prayers for a baby’s miraculous healing.

Katherine connected with Bonnie Engstrom, who, at St. Charles Borromeo March 23, shared the account of the alleged miraculous healing of her newborn son, James Fulton, in 2010 through Archbishop Sheen’s intercession.

“And wouldn’t it be amazing if we had Fulton’s miracle,” Engstrom told attendees.

Engstrom, 36, grew up 20 miles away from Archbishop Sheen’s birthplace of El Paso, Illinois. While she was familiar with the prelate for that reason alone, she started to watch YouTube videos of him during her pregnancy with James.

The home birth of Engstrom’s third child started well, but elation turned to devastation when he was stillborn.

A friend who was there to pray and take pictures later described a “mystical experience” after James’ birth.

“She was just flooded with images of Fulton Sheen and felt his presence,” Engstrom recalled.

Their friend, a former nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit, then called 911. She later told Engstrom and her husband, Travis, that the only time she had seen a

APRIL 12, 2018

baby like James was when she carried one to the morgue.

At the ER, James continued to lie cold and motionless while doctors and nurses worked to revive him. But as the doctors began putting their hands up to call his time of death, “after 61 minutes of not having a heartbeat, James’ heart started to beat again, and it never stopped again,” Engstrom said.

Despite the surprise recovery, doctors were quick to caution that no one goes without a heartbeat for an hour and lives; they just didn’t know when James would die.

Although Travis performed an emergency baptism while waiting for the ambulance, their pastor and a hospital chaplain came to baptize and confirm James.

“God bless our priests,” Bonnie said, “that in these moments when Travis and I felt completely hopeless — there was nothing we could do to parent our child, we couldn’t even touch him, we couldn’t even hold him — there was nothing we could do. And so the Church, through these priests, says, ‘We’re going to give him every grace needed so that he can die a holy death.’ And I knew that’s what they were saying because in the Roman Catholic rite, babies do not get confirmed.”

Medical staff also feared they’d have to amputate one of James’ legs that had become “dead” from a chemical burn when epinephrine leaked out in the ambulance in an effort to restart his heart.

Even as James began to improve, doctors held to their grim prognosis; they thought he’d be blind, have to be fed through a tube, have the intelligence of an infant and likely have cerebral palsy.

From one affliction to another, Bonnie said she felt like God was taking her baby away from her bit by bit when she thought about everything he’d never be able to do. But then she remembered what she knew about God — that he’s “faithful and generous.”

“I wanted to live in the light; I did not want to live in the darkness,” she said. “And so I chose to hope. And I chose to thank God for his generosity and thank God for his faithfulness and thank God for the way he provided for us all during James’ pregnancy and to trust that that was not over, [and] that God was not finished.”

James’ leg began healing the next day. And at 6 days old, he began breathing on his own.

The Engstroms brought James home after seven weeks in the NICU. Once his feeding tube was removed, he began to meet milestones. And although an earlier MRI had shown brain damage, a follow-up MRI showed a “perfectly healthy brain.”

Through it all, the Engstroms believe Archbishop Sheen was there in prayers from family members and friends for James’ full recovery through the prelate’s intercession. Believing that God miraculously healed James, Bonnie’s mother encouraged her to notify the Archbishop Fulton Sheen Foundation in Peoria, Illinois.

In the Diocese of Peoria — which is promoting Archbishop Sheen’s sainthood cause — a tribunal was opened to investigate James’ case.

The Foundation submitted James’ alleged miracle to the Vatican a day after Pope Benedict XVI declared Archbishop Sheen venerable in 2012. In March 2014, a medical advisory board unanimously approved James’ case as a medical miracle that had no scientific or medical explanation. A few months later, a team of theologians who advise the Congregation for the Causes of Saints also unanimously approved the alleged miracle through the intercession of Archbishop Sheen. However, the case is on hold because of a conflict with the Archdiocese of New York, where Archbishop Sheen’s body is buried.

Regardless, Bonnie, who blogs at aknottedlife.com, points to a higher purpose.

“All of this — me standing here right now, Fulton Sheen’s sainthood, James’ miracle, hopefully the miracle that Fulton Dobbs will get — all of this is for the honor and glory of God. It has nothing, really, to do with me or our babies or Fulton Sheen; it’s all about Jesus Christ and him being praised.”

The Engstroms have seven children, and James is now 7 years old.

Katherine attended Bonnie’s presentation, which was followed by Stations of the Cross and eucharistic adoration.

To read the full story, including more about Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who attended the St. Paul Seminary, visit TheCatholicSpirit.com.