The Catholic Spirit - December 10, 2021

December 9, 2021 • Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Grounded in hope At installation, Bishop Cozzens of Crookston says Christ can bring healing to his new diocese

Bishop Andrew Cozzens expresses joy at being installed the eighth bishop of the Diocese of Crookston Dec. 6 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

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SPECIAL COVERAGE: Bishop Cozzens’ installation • B SECTION PRAYERFUL ADVENT 5A | CATHOLIC MISSION SCHOOLS 6A | SUPREME COURT AND ABORTION 8A | HIP-HOP ARTIST 9A | CHRISTMAS TRUCE 13A | DIACONATE ORDINATION 16A

2A • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

DECEMBER 9, 2021

PAGETWO NEWS notes Our Lady of Peace, a hospice care center in St. Paul for people with terminal illnesses, marked its 80th anniversary Dec. 7. In a story in the winter 2021 issue of Ramsey County History Magazine for the Ramsey County Historical Society, Catholic Spirit contributor and freelance writer Christina Capecchi chronicled the hospice home’s story, beginning with its founding — incidentally, on the same day as the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor — as Our Lady of Good Counsel by the Hawthorne Dominicans, so called because they were established by writer Nathaniel Hawthorne’s daughter Rose. The story is reprinted with permission at TheCatholicSpirit.com. Our Lady of Peace’s board of directors recently launched a capital campaign for a $5 million expansion and renovation.

MICHAEL STECHSCHULTE, DETROIT CATHOLIC | CNS

SCHOOL SHOOTING Oxford High School students comfort one another Nov. 30 following a Mass at St. Joseph Church in Lake Orion, Mich., hours after a mass shooting at the school left four students dead and seven other people wounded. Authorities said a 15-year-old Oxford sophomore has been charged in the shooting.

Two recently deceased bachelor brothers left $2.6 million to St. Croix Catholic School in Stillwater to endow a scholarship fund. John DeCurtins and Jean DeCurtins were parishioners of St. Michael in Stillwater. John died in 2018 at age 95. Jean died the following year at age 100. Both men had served in World War II, and, according to a Dec. 2 news release from the school, “They lived modestly, rarely spending anything on themselves while showing extraordinary generosity to those around them.” With a campus adjacent to St. Michael parish, St. Croix Catholic School educates students in pre-kindergarten to grade eight. “The Lord has been so good to us in ways we will never be able to number. He is confirming, once again, through the generosity of our benefactors that the future of our world needs schools like St. Croix Catholic which unite with families to form scholars, disciples, and servant leaders,” SCCS principal, Sister Maria Ivana Begovic, said in the news release.

Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield is one of 59 schools worldwide honored as a 2021 School of Distinction by accreditation and school improvement leader Cognia of Alpharetta, Georgia, which serves 36,000 public and private early learning, elementary and high schools in more than 85 countries. A Cognia engagement team recognized Holy Angels for its clear strategic and organizational direction, effective support of teaching and learning, use of student achievement data to build curriculum and instruction and equitable student opportunities.

A special morning announcement and anniversary cake at lunch are planned at St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights Jan. 25 as the school celebrates the 50th anniversary of its middle school. The middle school began in 1971 as a two-year program with seventh- and eighth graders learning together. By 1980, the school had grown to need its own, newly-constructed space attached to the upper school.

Twenty years later, the current middle school building was constructed on the north side of the existing space to provide students with a dedicated facility. Its original space is now the library and Innovation Center. In the 2017-2018 school year a sixth grade was added.

COURTESY DIOCESE OF KNOXVILLE | CNS

CATHOLIC CHARITIES ARSON Holding a flashlight and statue of the Madonna and Child, Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville, Tenn., exits the administrative offices of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee Dec. 1 after viewing damage caused by a fire. Investigators determined the Nov. 28 blaze was arson.

In anticipation of the new year, The Catholic Spirit asks, “What is your prayer for our country or world in 2022?”

Send responses of 200 words or less to CatholicSpirit@ archspm.org with “Readers Respond” in the subject line. Your reflection may be included in a future edition of The Catholic Spirit.

An abundance of grace can be had this Christmas weekend, as Christmas Day falls on a Saturday and the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is Sunday, Dec. 26. The Church teaches that both feast days should be honored by separate Mass attendance. This means Massgoers may fulfill their Christmas obligation by attending any Mass between Friday afternoon and midnight Sunday. If a Massgoer wishes the Christmas evening Mass to fulfill the Dec. 26 obligation to honor the Holy Family, he or she should have previously attended a Dec. 24 Mass or a separate Dec. 25 Mass to observe the Christmas feast.

in REMEMBRANCE

PRACTICING Catholic On the Dec. 3 “Practicing Catholic” show, host Patrick Conley interviews Deacon Gordon Bird, who gives an update on Catholic Watchmen, commissioned by Bishop Andrew Cozzens five years ago, and describes how people can get involved. Also featured are Nancy Bandzuch from Catholic Sprouts, who provides tips for parents on how to help their children grow in faith this holiday season, and Hayley Mueller, who describes Catholic Charities’ Warming House at Mall of America Dec. 10-11. Listen each week on Fridays at 9 p.m., Saturdays at 1 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. on Relevant Radio 1330 AM. Listen to interviews after they have aired at practicingcatholicshow.com, soundcloud.com/ practicingcatholic or tinyurl.com/practicingcatholic.

The Catholic Spirit is published semi-monthly for The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

United in Faith, Hope and Love

Assistant Principal Melissa Livermore at Holy Family Catholic High School in Victoria was honored as a 2021 Distinguished Lasallian Educator for the Christian Brothers Midwest District at the opening session Nov. 18 of the 48th annual Lasallian Region of North America Huether Lasallian Conference in Baltimore. Three other educators were honored by their respective districts in the U.S. and Canada. Livermore, assistant principal for academics, was particularly recognized for her leadership and zeal in successfully offering online learning for the final term of the 2019-2020 school year and in-person learning for the entire 2020-2021 year.

Vol. 26 — No. 23 MOST REVEREND BERNARD A. HEBDA, Publisher TOM HALDEN, Associate Publisher MARIA C. WIERING, Editor-in-Chief JOE RUFF, News Editor

Deacon served two parishes in 30 years of active ministry The Catholic Spirit Deacon James McDonald, who served two parishes over his 30 years of active ministry, died Dec. 3. He was 78. Survivors include his wife, Gloria. Funeral arrangements were pending. Ordained in 1982, Deacon McDonald began his ministry at Holy Name of Jesus in Medina and served there for 22 years. In 2004, his service to the Church began anew at St. Hubert in Chanhassen, where he ministered for eight years, retiring in 2012.

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DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 3A

FROMTHEARCHBISHOP ONLY JESUS | ARCHBISHOP BERNARD HEBDA

Making Jesus’ presence known

T

he Nativity scene is already in place at St. Helena’s Church in Minneapolis, minus the statue of the Baby Jesus. The empty space in the stable seemed to accentuate what we so often feel in this Advent season, that our lives and hearts can only be filled by Jesus and that we are incomplete without him.

I was at St. Helena’s for the funeral of Father Richard Villano, the pastor emeritus of the parish, who had served there for more than four decades, retiring at the age of 89 earlier this year. Had it not been for the health challenges that made it impossible for him to continue to lead the parish, Father Villano would have never retired. He had begun his service at St. Helena’s before the new Code of Canon Law took effect, and accordingly was not bound by any term limits as pastor. St. Helena’s parishioners were his family. As much as he tried, he could not imagine being anywhere else.

Judging from the packed pews at the funeral, the folks of St. Helena’s felt the same way. It was a beautiful tribute to Father Villano’s impact on the parish and to the bond that can exist between a parish and its pastor whenever he is focused on filling their life with Jesus. The Christ child was absent from the crib, but Jesus was clearly front and center in the hearts of the faithful that morning.

The homilist at the funeral, Father John Paul Erickson, centered his reflections on the theme of fatherhood, arguing that Father Villano had earned the title “father” in the way that he took care of

Dar a conocer la presencia de Jesús

E

l pesebre ya está en su lugar en la Iglesia de Santa Elena en Minneapolis, menos la estatua del Niño Jesús. El espacio vacío en el establo parecía acentuar lo que tan a menudo sentimos en esta temporada de Adviento, que nuestras vidas y corazones solo pueden ser llenados por Jesús y que estamos incompletos sin él.

Estuve en St. Helena’s para el funeral del padre Richard Villano, el párroco emérito de la parroquia, que había servido allí durante más de cuatro décadas, y se jubiló a la edad de 89 años a principios de este año. Si no hubiera sido por los problemas de salud que le imposibilitaban continuar al frente de la parroquia, el padre Villano nunca se hubiera retirado. Había comenzado su servicio en St. Helena’s antes de que entrara en vigor el nuevo Código de Derecho Canónico y, en consecuencia, no estaba sujeto a ningún límite de mandato como pastor. Los feligreses de Santa Elena eran su familia. Por mucho que lo intentó, no podía imaginarse estar en ningún otro lugar.

A juzgar por los bancos abarrotados en el funeral, la gente de St. Helena’s sintió lo mismo. Fue un hermoso tributo al impacto del Padre Villano en la parroquia y al vínculo que puede existir entre una parroquia y su párroco cuando él se enfoca en llenar su vida con Jesús. El niño Jesús estaba ausente del pesebre, pero Jesús estaba claramente al frente y al centro de los

The Christ child was absent from the crib, but Jesus was clearly front and center in the hearts of the faithful that morning. his parishioners. That was a recurring theme that morning, as countless parishioners and members of the staff approached to let me know how Father Villano had been a true father to them. It was clear, moreover, that they were family to him, providing just the care that he needed so that he could, with the new pastor’s blessing, stay in the rectory as long as his health (and physicians) permitted.

Since the conclusion of our Synod small groups, I have been reviewing the mountain of data and feedback that was offered. I am so grateful for the lay faithful who have stepped forward to assist in categorizing and analyzing the responses. Not surprisingly, the input confirms the importance of vibrant and welcoming parishes for the success of the Church’s mission. The data confirms the importance of dedicated pastors, like Father Villano, but also the critical significance of effective collaboration, as at St. Helena, with well-prepared lay ecclesial ministers, invested parish lay leadership and an army of volunteers, aware of their gifts, prepared to radiate Christ in a way that welcomes others to the parish.

Together we are able to do much more than we could ever do on our own.

The information forwarded to me highlighted the extent of the needs before us, especially in

corazones de los fieles esa mañana.

El homilista del funeral, el padre John Paul Erickson, centró sus reflexiones en el tema de la paternidad, argumentando que el padre Villano se había ganado el título de “padre” por la forma en que cuidaba a sus feligreses. Ese fue un tema recurrente esa mañana, cuando innumerables feligreses y miembros del personal se acercaron para decirme cómo el Padre Villano había sido un verdadero padre para ellos. Además, estaba claro que eran familia para él, que le brindaban la atención que necesitaba para que, con la bendición del nuevo pastor, pudiera permanecer en la rectoría mientras su salud (y los médicos) lo permitieran.

Desde la conclusión de nuestros grupos pequeños del Sínodo, he estado revisando la montaña de datos y comentarios que se ofrecieron. Estoy muy agradecido por los fieles laicos que han dado un paso al frente para ayudar a categorizar y analizar las respuestas.

No es sorprendente que la información confirme la importancia de parroquias vibrantes y acogedoras para el éxito de la misión de la Iglesia. Los datos confirman la importancia de pastores dedicados, como el padre Villano, pero también la importancia crítica de una colaboración eficaz, como en Santa Elena, con ministros eclesiales laicos bien preparados, liderazgo laico parroquial investido y un ejército de voluntarios, conscientes de sus dones, preparado para irradiar a Cristo de una manera que acoja a los demás en la parroquia. Juntos podemos hacer mucho más de lo que podríamos hacer por nuestra cuenta.

La información que me fue enviada destacó el alcance de las necesidades

parishes ministering to new immigrants. There is a real hunger, for example, for more formation opportunities in Spanish and for a greater understanding of the ways in which culture impacts our faith. It is clear to me that we need to be praying for vocations among our immigrant communities so that we might have men and women who are able to minister effectively in a variety of cultural contexts.

Last Saturday’s ordination to the diaconate reminded me of the importance of deacons in the Church’s response to those needs. I was privileged to ordain seven deacons with a stunning breadth of gifts and experiences. Coming from different countries, cultures and professional backgrounds, but sharing a common love for Christ and zeal for souls, our new deacons are surely going to be able to reach new populations who hunger for Jesus. I am already excited about the ways in which they are going to enrich our parishes and bring Christ into our hospitals, prisons and other institutions.

If you see individuals in your parish that you think would make good deacons or lay ecclesial ministers, I hope that you will encourage them to pursue those possibilities. There is something so beautiful when people from within our parishes are being called to lead in these ways. As we pray for revitalized Christ-centered parishes, please remember to pray for those whom the Lord is calling to serve the Church. We need more Father Villanos, more deacons, more consecrated men and women, and more lay leaders with apostolic hearts.

As we pray at the empty crib this Advent, let’s ask Jesus to make his presence known and felt in our parishes by calling more women and men to service.

que tenemos ante nosotros, especialmente en las parroquias que atienden a los nuevos inmigrantes.

Hay un hambre real, por ejemplo, de más oportunidades de formación en español y de una mayor comprensión de las formas en que la cultura impacta nuestra fe. Para mí está claro que tenemos que orar por las vocaciones entre nuestras comunidades de inmigrantes para que podamos tener hombres y mujeres que sean capaces de ministrar eficazmente en una variedad de contextos culturales.

La ordenación al diaconado del sábado pasado me recordó la importancia de los diáconos en la respuesta de la Iglesia a esas necesidades. Tuve el privilegio de ordenar siete diáconos con una asombrosa variedad de dones y experiencias. Procedentes de diferentes países, culturas y antecedentes profesionales, pero compartiendo un amor común por Cristo y un celo por las almas, nuestros nuevos diáconos seguramente podrán llegar a nuevas poblaciones que tienen hambre de Jesús. Ya estoy entusiasmado con las formas en que van a enriquecer nuestras parroquias y traer a Cristo a nuestros hospitales, prisiones y otras instituciones.

Si ve personas en su parroquia que cree que serían buenos diáconos o ministros eclesiales laicos, espero que los anime a buscar esas posibilidades.

Hay algo tan hermoso cuando se llama a personas de nuestras parroquias a liderar de esta manera. Mientras oramos por parroquias cristocéntricas revitalizadas, recuerde orar por aquellos a quienes el Señor está llamando a servir a la Iglesia. Necesitamos más

Padre Villanos, más diáconos, más consagrados y consagradas, más líderes laicos con corazón apostólico. Mientras oramos cerca de el pesebre vacío este Adviento, pidamos a Jesús que haga que su presencia se conozca y se sienta en nuestras parroquias llamando a más mujeres y hombres al servicio.

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

Effective December 27, 2021 Reverend Andrew Jaspers, assigned as parochial administrator of the Church of Saint John the Baptist in New Brighton.

This is a temporary assignment while the pastor, Reverend Paul Shovelain is on sabbatical, and in addition to his current assignment as chaplain of North Memorial Medical Center in Minneapolis.

Effective January 1, 2022 Reverend Jimmy Mathew Puttananickal, assigned as pastor of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Saint Paul. This is a transfer from his previous assignment as chaplain of Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.

Retirement Effective January 1, 2022 Reverend Jan Michael Joncas, granted the status of a retired priest. Father Joncas has been a priest of the Archdiocese since his ordination in 1980.

4A • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

DECEMBER 9, 2021

LOCAL

SLICEof LIFE A ‘Party with St. Nick’ Robert Chakich as St. Nicholas gives gold coins to Valerie Pabon Jimenez, left, and Maria Ayala Castillo at St. Peter in Richfield during an event after a Spanish Mass Dec. 5 called “Party with St. Nick.” Chakich, 87, has been playing the role the last 10 years or so, even though arthritis in his knees has hampered his mobility. He walks around the basement hall where the party takes place handing out gold coins to children, then takes a seat to pose for pictures with interested families. “I think it helps me get into the holiday spirit,” Chakich said of playing the role. “It’s fun talking to the little kids.” Chakich and both girls are parishioners of St. Peter.

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Celebrate the Christmas Season at the Cathedral of Saint Paul

Pre-Christmas Confessions Monday – Thursday, December 20-23: 3:30 – 5:00 p.m.

Friday December 24 – Christmas Eve Confessions: 10:00 – 11:30 a.m.

Christmas Eve Mass at 4:00 p.m.

Saturday, December 25 – Christmas Day Midnight Mass – Most Rev. Bernard A. Hebda, Celebrant (11:15 p.m. Carol Prelude with Cathedral Choir) 10:00 a.m. (with Cathedral Schola) 8:00 a.m. | 12:00 Noon (with Organ and Cantor) (9:00 a.m. Mass at the Saint Vincent de Paul Campus) Feast of the Holy Family Sunday, December 26 Masses at 8:00 a.m. | 10:00 a.m. | 12:00 Noon Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God Friday, December 31 | 5:15 p.m. (Anticipatory) Saturday, January 1 | 10:00 a.m. (with Organ and Cantor) The Epiphany of the Lord Sunday January 2 – 8:00 a.m. | 10:00 a.m. | 12:00 Noon | 5:00 p.m.

I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Luke 2:10

National Shrine of the Apostle Paul 239 Selby Avenue, Saint Paul MN 55102 • 651.228.1766 • www.cathedralsaintpaul.org

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DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 5A

Advent peace can be found in prayerful quiet of adoration chapels

By Maura Keller For The Catholic Spirit Advent is a perfect opportunity to spend time in a eucharistic adoration chapel — and at St. Rose of Lima in Roseville, recent renovations will enhance time in prayer for parishioners and all who visit.

“Advent is a season of expectant waiting, quiet, silence and attentiveness,” said Father Marc Paveglio, pastor. “The prayer of adoration gathers all those movements of the heart together.”

In addition, Jesus in the Eucharist is similar to Jesus in the crib, Father Paveglio said. “He is there — body, blood, soul and divinity. When we allow ourselves to rest before Christ in the monstrance, like a little child in his mother’s lap, we take on Mary’s own heart in preparation for Christmas.”

When Father Paveglio arrived as pastor in July 2018, he quickly saw that many St. Rose parishioners were adorers, but he also saw an adoration chapel in need of repairs. The chapel was originally a convent chapel of the Servite Sisters, built in 1956.

After the sisters’ departure from St. Rose in the late 1980s, the chapel was modified into a space that was simple, functional and accessible. But time began taking its toll. The pews were splitting apart, the carpet was

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People pray in the recently renovated adoration chapel at St. Rose of Lima in Roseville Nov. 24. worn out, and although the lights worked, they were harsh on the eyes.

“We decided to refresh the space, but also to heighten the overall beauty of the chapel to honor the presence of Christ in the Eucharist,” Father Paveglio said.

Working with designer and craftsman Nick Vasko, a chapel renovation proposal was developed that was reminiscent of the Spanish colonial style –– similar to places where St. Rose herself might have prayed in a life

that spanned the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

“Our patroness St. Rose is an exceptionally eucharistic saint,” Father Paveglio said. “Each day, her mother took her to the church of Santo Domingo in Lima to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. Rose continued to love Jesus in the sacrament of the altar throughout her life, and it was that love for Christ that energized her love for the poor and downtrodden of Peru.”

The renovated adoration chapel features large timbers, wrought iron, adobe textures and rich colors, giving the chapel a harmonious and unified feel. Symbols of St. Rose’s story, especially the rose bloom and crown of thorns, appear throughout the design.

While the chapel’s primary purpose is for silent prayer with the Blessed Sacrament, it also has the potential to be used for small weddings or funerals.

Parishioners Peggy Bakko and Celeste Hannan are frequent adorers in the chapel. They said they enjoy each hour spent there, knowing they are surrounded

by Jesus’ love. They listen in prayer, ask for help, pray a rosary, or discover more about the Lord through Scripture and other readings.

“A regular hourly commitment per week is wonderful, but for those who cannot do that, we hope they will come whenever their time permits and stay for any amount of time,” Hannan said.

Candlelight and sunrise mark Advent Rorate Mass at Minneapolis parish

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit A special Advent Mass in honor of Mary begins in candlelight and ends with dawn breaking as it celebrates the Blessed Virgin — the Morning Star — and Christ, light of the world, with a congregation’s peaceful, prayerful presence at the Eucharist.

At Our Lady of Peace in Minneapolis, a Rorate Mass will be celebrated 7:15 a.m.

Dec. 11, the Saturday before Gaudete Sunday and the third week of Advent, which also emphasizes the joy and promise of Christ’s coming at Christmas.

With the back windows at Our Lady of Peace facing east, sunrise streams into the nave, said Father Joah Ellis, pastor.

Our Lady of Peace doesn’t usually offer

a Saturday Mass. But after considering the votive Rorate Mass in 2019 and deciding they couldn’t fit it to their schedules just then, Father Ellis and Elizabeth Pike, director of music and liturgy, decided to offer the Mass in 2020, with pandemic precautions in that first year of COVID-19.

“It was really Father’s passion project,” Pike said. “And I was happy to do it.

(But) once the liturgy started, I found it to be really moving, to be part of it, and to offer it to the congregation together.”

Last year’s Mass began with candles alone lighting the sanctuary and Pike’s prayerful voice ringing clear without accompaniment with the Latin words from Isaiah 45:8 the Mass is named for: “Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant

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justum” or “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just” and “Aperiatur terra et germinet salatorem” — “Let the earth be opened and send forth a Savior.”

Combined with the special effort to get up early, before the rest of the world stirs, the darkness lends an air of being out of time and place, Pike said. It allows quiet prayer with plenty of time left in the morning for people to get where they need to go, she added. “As a liturgist, I don’t always have the quiet we offer to others,” Pike said. “We can experience this, and you don’t have to rush.”

Parishioners Drs. Ken and Laurel Haycraft, both 75, attended last year’s Rorate Mass and plan to attend this year’s. “Going to Mass is wonderful, but

Saturday with candlelight draws you right down into prayer,” Laurel Haycraft said. “It’s a reminder of how important Mary is in bringing us to Jesus,” Ken Haycraft said.

The Rorate Mass is an ancient tradition most often celebrated in communities devoted to the Latin Mass. But it also can be celebrated in the vernacular, and at Our Lady of Peace, the rich tradition of chant — both Latin and English — is an important part of the Mass.

About 30 people attended last year’s Rorate Mass, Father Ellis said. Having even more people participate would be wonderful, he said.

“We are trying to make it something that those in the greater Twin Cities area who are interested will come,” he said.

Come Home for Christmas

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6A • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

DECEMBER 9, 2021

Panelists: Mission Schools offer hope to disadvantaged students

By Susan Klemond For The Catholic Spirit Addressing challenges that Catholic mission schools face in nurturing the minds and souls of students, including those whose families lack resources for tuition, requires community support, a panel of education experts said Nov. 18 as they discussed the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Drexel Mission Schools Initiative.

“Every student that I look at in the eye, I think, this is a soul for Christ,” said panelist Yen Fasano, associate director of the effort in the archdiocese’s Office for the Mission of Catholic Education. “If people are really dedicated to amplifying their gifts and their dignity and calling out their potential, that doesn’t change. But what changes are the resources needed to support the Drexel Mission Schools.”

Part of the St. Paul-based Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota’s “Giving Insights” series exploring philanthropy’s impact, the event at St. Catherine University in St. Paul focused on ways Catholic mission schools, which offer tuition and other assistance to disadvantaged students, help create a more equitable society.

Donors, local and national education leaders were among 112 people who attended the discussion either online or at the university. CCF, which helps steward financial investments and philanthropy of Catholic parishes, individuals and institutions, co-hosted the forum with the Aim Higher Foundation, also based in St. Paul, which provides scholarships for Catholic elementary school students with demonstrated need.

Panelists discussed accessibility, challenges of hiring and retaining teachers, college and workforce preparation, societal impact and other issues.

The Drexel Mission Schools Initiative, introduced by the archdiocese last year, includes 10 K-8 archdiocesan schools serving 1,800 students from low-income

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Panelist Yen Fasano, left, of the Office for the Mission of Catholic Education in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, speaks during a “Giving Insights” forum Nov. 18 at St. Catherine University in St. Paul. Also serving on the panel were Jesuit Father Christopher Collins, second from left, vice president for mission at the University of St. Thomas, and Elias Moo, Catholic schools superintendent in the Archdiocese of Denver. ,backgrounds. The schools receive programming and services in exchange for meeting excellence standards.

More than 50% of the students in each school qualify for free or reduced lunch, and more than half are students of color.

Mission schools can play a transformative role, said Anne Cullen Miller, president of CCF, which through its work financially supports the Catholic community’s spiritual, educational and social needs.

“They’re not only helping individual students reach their greatest potential, but they’re shaping our society and building up our Church,” she said.

Challenges, including Catholic school closures around the country, are concerning, said Ricky Austin, forum moderator and Aim Higher Foundation’s vice president of advancement and operations. But, Catholic

compassion

education stands out in closing achievement gaps, participants said. Minnesota schools have had some of the largest gaps by race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status in the nation, according to an October 2019 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

The Church’s Gospel mission and the history of American Catholic schools support making Catholic education available to students of all income backgrounds, said panelist Elias Moo, Catholic schools superintendent in the Archdiocese of Denver. And, students prepare for more than college, he said.

“When you inevitably lift up the expectations … beyond how ‘useful’ their education can be for them, in essence what you’re doing is giving them a glimpse of what more they’re capable of and what they’re created for ultimately,” Moo said.

In the Cristo Rey network of 38 college preparatory high schools around the country, students can gain corporate work study experience as part of their education, said Elizabeth Goettl, president and CEO of the Chicago-based effort, which includes Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Minneapolis. All Cristo Rey students are from low-income backgrounds.

Catholic education has changed from the 20th century, when religious sisters ran schools with few resources, said Jesuit Father Christopher Collins, vice president for mission at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Continuing to create pathways for people who want to teach in a Catholic school requires community assistance, he said.

“I think there are great opportunities to think about: How do we align the institutions that we do have, so that we can provide that stable pipeline of teachers that will be a steady influence for our young people going forward?” he said.

Learn more about the Catholic Community Foundation’s efforts to support the Drexel Mission Schools Initiative at ccf-mn.org/drexel.

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LOCAL

DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 7A

Father Villano’s decades of ministry marked by passion for Catholic education

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit Father Richard Villano, once a teacher while with the Crosiers, carried his enthusiasm for Catholic schools through years of ministry, 43 of them at St. Helena in Minneapolis. He died Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 25, at 89.

Gary Wilmer, who has five decades of service in Catholic education, admired the dedication of a priest he first met in the early 1970s, while Father Villano was serving at St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony and Wilmer was hired as the school principal.

“He just loved his vocation,” said Wilmer, who was principal at St. Charles for 37 years and forged a lifelong friendship with Father Villano. “And, that’s why he continued rather than retire.”

When Father Villano became pastor of St. Helena in 1981, after three years of being an associate, the school was consolidated with another parish school, Holy Name in south Minneapolis, under the name South Park Regional Catholic School. It was part of a then-recent consolidation trend among Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. But Father Villano wanted to dissolve the consolidation and restore St. Helena School, which had existed from 1926 to 1971.

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

In this file photo, Father Richard Villano blesses a new stone cross for the church exterior in 2016 to replace the one struck by lightning during a 2015 storm. He died Nov. 25.

According to John Sondag, who worked with and for Father Villano for 39 years as director of religious education, “the school would not be in existence today had not Father Villano been pastor.” A panel of women religious whose communities had been staffing schools throughout the archdiocese was making

Archbishop Hebda urges measures against COVID-19

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit As COVID-19 cases mount again in Minnesota, Archbishop Bernard Hebda in a Dec. 1 letter urged pastors in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to strongly recommend that parishioners who attend Mass or other large indoor events wear facemasks and to continue looking for ways to physically distance.

The Minnesota Department of Health also has urged renewed vigilance. November was this year’s deadliest pandemic month in the state with 628 COVID-related deaths.

COVID hospitalizations hit 1,562 Dec. 1, closing in on the state’s record 1,864 hospitalizations on Nov. 29, 2020.

Kenyan contact dies in bus accident

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit At least 32 people were killed in southeastern Kenya Dec. 4 when a bus carrying a Catholic choir plunged into the Enziu River, which was swollen by heavy rain. Among those killed was Brother Kenneth Wanzala Okinda, 41, from the Diocese of Kitui, who visited the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2015 as part of a special relationship between the two dioceses.

“Brother Kenneth was often sought out for advice in Kitui,” said Mary Jo Voxland, chair of the Delegation Action Team for the Center for Mission in the archdiocese. “He was so nice; just a gentle soul. He loved his time here in Minnesota.” He was a member of the Brothers of St. Peter Claver.

The archdiocese and the Diocese of Kitui started a partnership in 2004 in response to the U.S. bishops’ pastoral letter, “A Call to Solidarity with Africa.”

Every other year, to learn from one another, the Kitui diocese or the archdiocese sends a delegation to visit the other.

December 24

Christmas Eve Mass Lessons and Carols at 4 p.m.

Mass at 4:30 p.m.

December 26

Feast of the Holy Family Mass at 10:30 a.m.

January 2

Feast of the Epiphany Mass at 10:30 a.m.

St. Catherine University Our Lady of Victory Chapel 2004 Randolph Avenue St. Paul, MN 55105 651-690-6724 stkate.edu No Mass will be held on Christmas Day, December 25, or on the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, January 1.

recommendations about school consolidations to the superintendent at the time. Father Villano stood firmly in advocating for the return of St. Helena School, Sondag said.

The priest succeeded “through his dogged persistence,” Sondag said. St. Helena School returned for the 1982-83 school year and continues to this day as a K-8 school, with a current enrollment of 114.

Jane Hileman came on board as a teacher at St. Helena School in the fall of 1984, after teaching for a year and a half at St. Charles. She then was hired to lead the school in 1998. On Aug. 10, her daughter’s birthday, she had just a brief job interview with Father Villano.

He got right to the point, she recalled, and said to her, “I want you to be the principal.” Hileman served in that role for 20 years before retiring in 2018. Then, in September, she came back as interim principal.

“He’s a good Italian, and so am I; we enjoyed our heritage together a lot,” said Hileman, whose three daughters all went to St. Helena School. “He was a true supporter of the school.”

Father Villano served St. Helena even after his retirement earlier this year. His funeral Mass was Dec. 3. Interment is at Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota Heights.

8A • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

DECEMBER 9, 2021

NATION+WORLD Justices seem willing to allow Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban

By Carol Zimmermann Catholic News Service

PRO-LIFERS HOPEFUL

In the Supreme Court’s first major abortion case in decades — which looked at Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy — the majority of justices Dec. 1 seemed willing to let that ban stay in place.

But it was unclear if they would take this further and overturn Roe v. Wade.

While the justices considered the state law and the possible ramifications of supporting it or not, people were on the steps of the Supreme Court revealing their side of the divide on this issue by what they shouted, or with placard messages calling abortion murder or an essential right.

At several points during the arguments in court, Chief Justice John Roberts brought the focus back to the question at hand: the 15-week ban on abortions in Mississippi, which was struck down by a federal District Court in Mississippi in 2018 and upheld a year later by the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

A 15-week ban is not a “dramatic departure from viability,” Roberts said.

The point of viability was key to the discussion because the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that states cannot restrict abortion before 24 weeks, or when a fetus is said to be able to survive on its own.

Roberts seemed hesitant to go beyond that. If the court were to overturn Roe v.

Wade, he asked, would it also be asked to reconsider several other cases that people could say have been wrongly decided.

The discussion of previous court decisions, the use of “stare decisis,” came up frequently. The term, which means to stand by things decided, was used in reference to previous abortion cases but also several other cases. Some justices pointed out that precedence should not always be a deciding factor and some cases did need to be overturned.

Justice Stephen Breyer indicated the court was treading on contested ground.

He said he was concerned that its decision could be seen as merely political.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor took that a step further, saying the court would be seen as highly politicized if it were to overturn Roe and other related rulings.

“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are

The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee Dec. 1 urged Catholics and all people of goodwill to unite in prayer that the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade in its eventual ruling on Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

“In the United States, abortion takes the lives of over 600,000 babies every year,” Baltimore Archbishop William Lori said. “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health could change that.”

TYLER ORSBURN | CNS

Pro-life advocates near the U.S. Supreme Court Dec. 1, the day justices heard oral arguments over a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of gestation. just political acts?” she asked. “I don’t see how it is possible.”

But as the arguments continued, more reflection seemed to be on the issue of abortion itself and the possibility of bringing the issue “back to the people,” as Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart suggested.

Stewart stressed that Roe and Casey court decisions “haunt our country” and “have no home in our history or traditions.”

Roe v. Wade is the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Casey v.

Planned Parenthood is a 1992 decision that affirmed Roe and stressed that a state regulation on abortion could not impose an “undue burden” on a woman “seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh emphasized the court was being forced to “pick sides” on a contentious issue and questioned why the court had to be the arbiter here.

“The Constitution is neither pro-life nor pro-choice,” he said, adding that it “leaves the issue to the people to resolve in the democratic process.”

Justice Clarence Thomas asked what those opposed to the state ban thought was the constitutional right to an abortion. Justice Samuel Alito spoke of the fetus having “an interest in having a life.”

Julie Rikelman, of the Center for

HEADLINES u Religious freedom commission welcomes U.S. diplomatic boycott of Olympics. The Biden administration’s diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing sends “a strong and unequivocal message” to the Chinese government that its persecution of religious minorities will not be tolerated, said the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The decision demonstrates the United States’ “unwavering commitment to religious freedom,” Nury Turkel, the commission’s vice chair, said in a Dec. 6 statement.

“The Chinese government’s systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom and other human rights of Uighur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and many others betray the Olympic spirit.” u Swiss bishops order study on past sexual abuse. The Swiss bishops’ conference and the nation’s conference of religious orders have commissioned an independent study of sexual

Reproductive Rights, who represented the Jackson Women’s Health Organization in its challenge of Mississippi’s abortion law, said keeping the law in place would cause “profound damage to women’s liberty, equality and the rule of law.”

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar went on to argue that overturning the court’s previous abortion rulings would have “severe and swift” effects of prompting abortion restrictions in other states.

If the court sides with Mississippi, it would be the first time the court would allow an abortion ban before the 24-week point, and it could lay the groundwork for other abortion restrictions that other states could follow.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a court brief supporting Mississippi, said abortion is not a right created by the Constitution and called abortion “inherently different from other types of personal decisions to which this court has accorded constitutional protection.”

Referring to the court’s major abortion decisions, the brief warned that if the Supreme Court “continues to treat abortion as a constitutional issue,” it will face more questions in the future about “what sorts of abortion regulations are permissible.”

A ruling in the case is expected in July.

abuse cases within the Catholic Church in the country during the second half of the 20th century. In a statement released Dec. 6, the bishops’ conference said two history professors from the University of Zurich will assemble and lead a team of researchers who will begin their work by March 2022.

The archbishop’s statement was issued the same day the court heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion facility. If the court’s ruling, expected in July, upholds the ban, it possibly also could overturn Roe and send the abortion issue back to the states to decide laws on it.

Archbishop Lori directed people to prayfordobbs. com for Catholic and ecumenical prayers and resources for community engagement and action “as we await the court’s decision in this case.”

Pro-life advocates and supporters of keeping abortion legal gathered outside the Supreme Court rallying for their respective positions as the justices heard oral arguments in the case inside the court.

Beyond the court building’s steps, statements about the Mississippi law and predictions about the outcome of the case came from all quarters.

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, predicted there would be “a revolution” if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

Shaheen, who is on record as a supporter of widespread access to abortion, said that young people in particular would find it unacceptable if the court strikes down the legal precedent set by Roe in 1973 legalizing abortion nationwide.

Many pro-lifers hoping Roe will be overturned emphasized the many scientific advances made in the nearly 50 years the Roe decision was handed down, advances they argued that have led to unprecedented information on the developmental stages of the unborn child from conception to birth.

At the rally outside the court, Grazie Pozo Christie, a radiologist and a senior fellow with The Catholic Association, said “incredible advances in science and fetal medicine have rendered viability a totally incoherent legal standard.”

— Julie Asher, CNS

Dec. 4 to members of the Orthodox Church of Greece for the ways Catholics over the centuries had offended them, and he told Catholic leaders that they must embrace their minority status with humility. “Here, today, I feel the need to ask anew for the forgiveness of God and of our brothers and sisters for the mistakes committed by many Catholics,” Pope Francis told Orthodox Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and all Greece.

The pope visited Cyprus and Greece Dec. 2-6.

u Pope: Paris archbishop was hounded out by gossip. Pope Francis told reporters he accepted the resignation of Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris because the archbishop’s reputation had been destroyed, making it impossible for him to continue leading the French archdiocese. “There was a failure on his part, a violation of the Sixth Commandment, but not a complete violation, because it involved little caresses and massages that he gave his secretary. That’s the accusation,” the pope responded Dec. 6 when asked by a French reporter.

The archbishop had said he offered to step down to avoid “becoming a source of divisions,” and the pope accepted his resignation Dec. 2.

u Students, fellow Catholics in Iowa pray for slain Spanish teacher. The Fairfield, Iowa, community has responded with an outpouring of love and prayer for Nohema Graber, 66, a devout Catholic and a native of Mexico, who was killed Nov. 3. Two former students, both 16, have been charged with murder. Her pastor, Father Nick Adam of St. Mary parish, said Graber was like a go-between for the parish’s Anglos and Hispanics and that “she lived for the Eucharist.”

u Pope asks pardon for sins that drove Catholic, Orthodox apart.

Like St. John Paul II before him, Pope Francis apologized

— Catholic News Service

DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 9A

FAITH+CULTURE

Hip-hop artist tops the charts and delivers the Gospel

By Christina Capecchi For The Catholic Spirit Becoming a hip-hop artist was a childhood dream of Connor Flanagan, now 32 and dad of three little girls. He and his wife, Katie, belong to St. Pascal Baylon in St. Paul.

Q What’s it like being on tour?

A It’s a breath of fresh air. You get to

meet amazing people. I played a show in the middle-of-nowhere Kansas a couple weeks ago, and man, the Kansas plains are beautiful. After the show, I stepped outside, and I could see more stars than I’d ever seen in my life. I’m dumbfounded by the places God takes me. I buy a coffee cup from every city I go to — whether I’m in the fanciest hipster coffee shop or at a roadside diner where I’ll ask the waitress if I can keep a mug for $5. My wife and I built this homemade coffee mug rack that holds close to 30. There’s a story attached to each one.

Q You and two other local musicians

founded Dayton Avenue record label almost a year ago. How does building up other musicians make you better?

A If we’re not using our gifts to

encourage others, then what are we doing? There’s no competition in the kingdom of God. There’s so much room for our gifts, and for me to think that somebody else succeeding will somehow inhibit my ability to succeed is a lie.

Once a week I’m on the phone with someone who found me on Instagram and asks about my career.

Q Do you, in turn, receive help from more established musicians?

A Sometimes you see that turnaround

real quick, but it’s more of a long play.

Generosity always wins. One of my favorite prayers is the Ignatian prayer of generosity. It’s such a freeing thing.

Q I love the spirit of your song

“Fulltime Dreamer.” What are your wildest dreams?

A In some ways, I’m living the biggest

dream I’ve ever had. I’ve opened for some

A Inspiration rarely strikes. It’s a muscle

of my heroes in Christian music — David Crowder, Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes. I’ve played at some of my favorite festivals that I went to as a kid. One of my wildest dreams would be to go full time, to run Dayton Avenue with my buddies and have music be my sole focus. I would love to be able to invest locally in the Twin Cities on the real estate side, in an event center or some kind of place where we could influence the city with live music. My wildest dreams are just the continuation of the seeds we already have planted.

you have to work out. I write every day.

I do writing exercises. After a year of regular practice, I’m starting to see the fruits of that. Ideas are coming quicker.

Songs are coming together faster.

Q Two of your records debuted on the top 10 on iTunes.

A That was surprising and awesome. It

Q What gives you the courage to chase your dreams?

A It’s lonely. I’m finding there are not

a lot of people built the way I’m built.

But on the flip side, I’ve been given a gift to lead and to drive, and I’ve seen how much it can galvanize those around me. At the end of the day, this is for my kids. If I don’t get accolades or the record sales, I basically want to create a public diary for my kids, so when they’re 30 or 40, they can look back and say, “Wow, look what he tried to do!” If it gives them permission to dream, then I’m a success!

Q You remind people not to quit dreaming when they grow up.

A There are stereotypes that you get

married, have kids and then your dreams die. But the more committed I am to my vocation, the more God has breathed life into my dream — and the more convicted I am to do this music thing, because I want my girls to see their dad fighting for this. Your dream can be a side project. It doesn’t have to make money. I still have a 9-to-5 that helps the family as I’m building my music business.

Q Are people surprised that you’re a devout Catholic who does hip-hop?

A Everybody. I don’t lead with it. I think marketing myself as a Catholic hip-hop artist is just cheesy. But when it comes out, it opens up amazing discussion, and I have this opportunity to witness to the charismatic side of the Church and what a joyful life the Catholic life can be.

Q You don’t fit into a tidy category.

Monsignor Aloysius Callaghan Congratulations and Blessings on your Jubilee Anniversary of Ordination to the Priesthood.

May the Lord bless you abundantly in your priestly ministry.

Your Parish Family at The Church of Saint Timothy Maple Lake, Minnesota Date of Ordination: December 17, 1971

Welcome back! backtomassmn.org

COURTESY CONNOR FLANAGAN

A My heart resonates with tradition so

much, which is weird. They seem so contradictory: I love banging hip-hop, but then I’m so filled by Gregorian chant and the Eucharist. The Church has so much to learn about how to engage culture and show they’re not mutually exclusive.

Q Is Scripture conducive to rap?

A One hundred percent! Many of my

songs are scripturally based. I just wrote a song called “Be Not Afraid” that culls all these Bible verses about battling fear. One of my favorite ways to pray is to pray a psalm a day. That whole book is literally a songbook! The way they’re laid out, I pull from them for hip-hop songs.

Q To quote your song “I Believe,” what helps your unbelief?

A Any time I’m struggling with belief,

I do two things: “Let’s go to your word, God, where you can speak to me divinely, and then let’s go to my story, where you have authored it from the beginning and I can see your goodness played out.”

Q After a concert, are you exhausted or revved up?

A I want to keep going! I’m like, “Give

me the video footage!” I film every concert, and I treat it like game film. I watch it, “OK, that didn’t feel off. How did the crowd relate to this?”

Q What helps you compose music?

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was an affirmation that this is working.

And it was just fun! It’s like, “God, you are for us, in the big things and in the little things.” Sometimes I can experience God in the first sip of coffee on a cold morning just as much as I can in hitting the top 10 on iTunes.

Q We think of fun as something

effortless that happens to us, but the fun you’re describing comes from effort.

A When you pour in so much time and

energy and you have a vision and then it comes to life — whoa! That is fun!

Q A sense of place informs your music.

You shoot videos in St. Paul, showing a gritty urban landscape. How does the Ohio farm where you grew up influence you today?

A It gave me a work ethic. We had

chores, and we worked hard and we loved playing in the woods. Growing up on that farm gave me an imagination.

We’d grab a backpack and go play for hours and come back at dinnertime.

Imagination and work ethic — I recognize that being a big differentiator in me.

Q How do you try to recreate those

experiences for your daughters, living in the city?

A We’re doing it our own way. It comes

down to a sense of adventure. When there’s a massive thunderstorm, we take off our shoes and dance outside. We build a massive snow luge off the back deck in the winter to go sledding on. I put them in a cardboard box and take a flashlight and we go out at night, and I fly them through the backyard like CathSpMM-July-Sept-2021.qxp_Layout 1 6/30/21 10:5 they’re in an airplane.

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10A • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

DECEMBER 9, 2021

FOCUSONFAITH SUNDAY SCRIPTURES | FATHER TROY PRZYBILLA

God works through all things

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!” When I hear these words from St. Paul, I’m tempted to think that he is being overly optimistic. How can we rejoice in the Lord always? How can a parent who has lost a child rejoice? How can someone who has unjustly lost his or her job to a vaccine mandate rejoice? How can we as a culture rejoice when thousands of innocent children are being aborted every day?

The reason we can rejoice in the midst of all of this is because we rejoice in the Lord, not in the things of this world.

There have always been problems and there will always be problems, so, somehow, we must always find a way to rejoice in the Lord. The best one to teach us how to do this is Mary.

The prophecy of Zephaniah can be attributed to Israel’s immaculate daughter, Mary.

“Shout for joy, O daughter Zion! Sing joyfully, O Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart O daughter Jerusalem! The LORD has removed the judgment against you; he has turned away your enemies; the King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst” (Zep 3).

Mary grew up in poverty in an Israel that was ruled by the tyrannical Roman Empire. Despite this, she rejoiced in the Lord always. When she conceived the Lord in her womb, she went in haste to help her cousin Elizabeth and upon this meeting she said, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. My spirit rejoices in

FAITH FUNDAMENTALS | FATHER MICHAEL VAN SLOUN

Marriage basics

A Sacrament. Marriage is one of the seven sacraments, and it was established as such

by Christ. It is one of the two sacraments of commitment, along with holy orders, and it is a beautiful and meaningful way to live out one’s baptismal faith as an adult.

Definition. Marriage is a covenant of love between a man and a woman. It is a vocation, a special calling by God, in which, by the providence of God, a man and woman are led to each other and are blessed with a singular love for each other. In marriage, the husband and wife are united and establish a lifetime partnership for the well-being and happiness of each other, for the raising and formation of their children, and ultimately, to help each other reach the eternal wedding banquet, everlasting life in heaven with God, the angels and the saints.

Conditions. A marriage is between a man and a woman. At least one must be a baptized Catholic. The man must be at least 16 years of age and the woman at least 14 (Canon 1083). Parental permission is required for a person under the age of 20. Each must be free to marry, that is, currently not married. This is determined if neither was previously married, if a person’s previous spouse is deceased, or if there was a former valid or invalid marriage that no longer exists as certified by a civil divorce decree and a declaration of nullity. The person must enter the marriage freely, without fear, force or coercion; have the maturity to understand the nature and responsibilities of marriage; commit to the union for life; be open to children; and accept the obligation to be faithful.

Permanence. The marriage bond is sealed by God. The two become one flesh, and they are not to be separated (Mt 19:5-6 and Mk 10:8-9). As the covenant of love between God and human beings is permanent, so the covenant of love between husband and wife is unbreakable and indissoluble for their own benefit, the

God my savior” (Lk 1).

Many years later she would witness the brutal passion and death of her Son. How did she rejoice in the midst of this? Through her tears, she was able to trust that God was doing something amazing for our salvation.

Now that Mary is in heaven, she can see this a lot more clearly.

God is still working for our salvation despite the many problems in our world.

In 1528, a holy Franciscan priest was appointed bishop of what is now Mexico. Bishop Juan Zumarraga left the turbulent Protestant reformation in Europe only to enter the turbulent relationship of the indigenous people and the Spaniards. He tried to defend their dignity and rights but the damage was done.

The indigenous people wanted nothing from the Spaniards, including their religion. Every effort of Bishop Zumarraga and the missionaries failed, so he turned to Mary for help.

When she appeared on St. Juan Diego’s tilma as the Virgin of Guadalupe on Dec. 12, 1531, she was dancing on the moon. In the midst of the splintering of Christianity and the divisions among God’s children, she danced. In other words, she rejoiced. She rejoiced because she trusted that God was about to do something amazing for their salvation. In just 10 years, 9 million indigenous people joyfully embraced Christianity and were baptized into the Catholic faith. This offset the large number of people who were leaving the Catholic Church in Europe due to the Protestant Reformation.

When we look at the many problems and divisions in our world and our Church today, it’s very difficult to rejoice. The more we focus on these problems, the more discouraged and depressed we become. Instead, we need to be like Mary and stay focused on the Lord and trust that he is still preparing us for something amazing for our salvation in our time. The more we focus on this, the more we are able to rejoice in the Lord always.

Father Przybilla is pastor of St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony.

benefit of their children, the stability of society and the strength of the Church. Their enduring love also serves as a witness to the nature of God’s love.

Preparation. The parish and diocese have requirements that help an engaged couple prepare for marriage, and a combination of people typically assist the couple during the process: a priest, deacon, parish wedding coordinator, parish staff member, mentor couple, counselor or parishioner. The usual requirements include conferences, workshops, reading materials, a pre-marriage inventory, liturgy preparation and a retreat. The program covers the theology and spirituality of marriage, growth in holiness as individuals and as a couple, prayer, communication, conflict resolution, finances, common interests, sexuality, natural family planning, roles, parenting, family dynamics and spiritual beliefs.

Several documents are also required, five by the Church: a newly issued baptismal certificate for each, the freedom to marry form for each and the prenuptial questionnaire, as well as a civil marriage license. Finally, the sacrament of reconciliation is recommended prior to the wedding.

Ministers and witnesses. The spouses mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of matrimony by expressing their consent before the Church (Catechism, No. 1623). The ordinary minister for the sacrament of marriage is a bishop, priest or deacon who receives their consent. In places where there is a lack of priests and deacons, the bishop can delegate a lay person to officiate. There must also be two witnesses present.

Location. A marriage is celebrated in a parish church, ideally the parish where the bride and groom are members and worship regularly. It typically is celebrated at the home parish of either the bride or the groom. Sometimes, with the necessary permissions, a marriage is celebrated in another church, an oratory, the chapel of a Catholic college where one or both attended, or in a military chapel, if one or both are active duty or veterans. Catholic weddings are not celebrated in secular venues or outdoors.

Father Van Sloun retired this year as pastor of St. Bartholomew in Wayzata. This column is one in a series on the sacrament of marriage.

Find the series at TheCatholicSpirit.com.

DAILY Scriptures Sunday, Dec. 12 Third Sunday of Advent Zep 3:14-18a Phil 4:4-7 Lk 3:10-18 Monday, Dec. 13 St. Lucy, virgin and martyr Nm 24:2-7, 15-17a Mt 21:23-27 Tuesday, Dec. 14 St. John of the Cross, priest and doctor of the Church Zep 3:1-2, 9-13 Mt 21:28-32 Wednesday, Dec. 15 Is 45:6c-8, 18, 21c-25 Lk 7:18b-23 Thursday, Dec. 16 Is 54:1-10 Lk 7:24-30 Friday, Dec. 17 Gn 49:2, 8-10 Mt 1:1-17 Saturday, Dec. 18 Jer 23:5-8 Mt 1:18-25 Sunday, Dec. 19 Fourth Sunday of Advent Mi 5:1-4a Heb 10:5-10 Lk 1:39-45 Monday, Dec. 20 Is 7:10-14 Lk 1:26-38 Tuesday, Dec. 21 Sg 2:8-14 Lk 1:39-45 Wednesday, Dec. 22 1 Sm 1:24-28 Lk 1:46-56 Thursday, Dec. 23 Mal 3:1-4, 23-24 Lk 1:57-66 Friday, Dec. 24 Christmas Vigil Is 62:1-5 Acts 13:16-17, 22-25 Mt 1:1-25 Saturday, Dec. 25 The Nativity of the Lord Is 62:11-12 Ti 3:4-7 Lk 2:15-20 Sunday, Dec. 26 Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph Sir 3:2-6, 12-14 Col 3:12-21 Lk 2:41-52

KNOW the SAINTS ST. LUCY (c. 283-304) This saint, venerated by Christians since her own time, likely was martyred in Sicily, probably during the persecutions of Roman Emperor Diocletian, who ruled 284-305. However, legends about Lucy include a rejected suitor denouncing her as a Christian and miracles that saved her from life in a brothel, from being burned at the stake and from having her eyes plucked out. Another legend says she bled to death after her throat was cut. Lucy, whose name suggests light, is among the saints listed in the canon of the Mass; she is the patron saint of electricians and ophthalmologists, and Christians pray for her intercession regarding diseases of the eyes. Her feast day is Dec. 13.

— Catholic News Service

DECEMBER 9, 2021

ECHOES OF CATHOLIC MINNESOTA REBA LUIKEN

The making of St. Kate’s The year 1937 was pivotal for Sister Antonia McHugh and the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul. Sister Antonia retired after 23 years as the leader of the college, first as its dean and then as the college’s first president. A few months later, she received word that St. Catherine’s would be the first Catholic college granted a Phi Beta Kappa chapter.

Sister Antonia’s years of striving for a rigorous academic program, standardized curriculum, well-educated faculty and respectable library were vindicated as the college counted itself among the elite liberal arts schools in the nation.

Of course, Sister Antonia sought to build a college that was not only equal to Vassar or Wellesley, but also made better Christians. No detail was beyond her notice. She personally planned campus gardens to be beautiful in every season with tulips, peonies, dahlias, snapdragons and asters blooming one after the other over the year. She expanded the college’s footprint, commissioning Our Lady of Victory Chapel on the highest point of campus and supporting Mendel Hall for science in the 1920s. By 1937, St. Catherine’s had educated 3,800 women from 25 states and 14 countries.

From its inception, the college had a powerful list of supporters. Sometime in the 1890s, Mother Seraphina Ireland, mother superior of the Sisters of

WHY DO CATHOLICS DO THAT? FATHER JOHN PAUL ERICKSON

Church’s new year, no Gloria?

Q Why does the

Church year start with Advent? And why not on Jan. 1?

A This is a great

question! It gives me a chance to talk a little bit about how we as Catholics keep time, which is a different way of keeping time than the world. At the very center of the Church’s yearly calendar, and her understanding of time in general, is the awesome feast of Easter, which is the preeminent celebration of our salvation and the fullest manifestation of God’s merciful love and his plan. It is commemorated every Sunday, which is meant to be like a little Easter. Revolving around this great solemnity like planets are four other major celebrations, between which and through which the Church weaves a mighty band that includes the lives of the saints, Ordinary

FOCUSONFAITH St. Joseph of Carondelet in St. Paul, started to pursue the idea of building a college for women. She set her eye on a group of dense woods with a view of downtown St. Paul and Fort Snelling, but she did not yet have money to purchase it. Her brother, Archbishop John Ireland, gave the CSJs the royalties from a book he published in 1900, foreseeing that the new institution would be the CSJs’ greatest contribution to the community over the next 50 years.

The sisters fanned out across the country and went door to door to sell as many copies as they could to fund a college. After the land was purchased, Archbishop Ireland convinced Hugh Derham, a farmer in Rosemount, to donate $20,000 to build the first building of the new school. Named Derham Hall, it featured everything the new school needed from classrooms to dormitories, to a chapel. In 1905, it opened its doors as a high school when boarders from the nearby St. Joseph Academy moved in.

College classes were launched in 1910, and the first two graduates completed their bachelor’s degrees in 1913.

For many decades, the campus offered high school and college-level courses for young women, focusing on preparing all of them to be well-educated women of faith. However, in 1987, the high school merged with Cretin High School for boys, becoming the coeducational Cretin-Derham Hall and moving off campus. Today, Derham Hall and Our Lady of Victory Chapel are listed jointly on the U.S. Register of Historic Places recognizing their well-preserved architecture. Although the college has continued to expand, becoming St. Catherine University in 2009, Derham Hall still serves as its administration building and students still worship regularly in Our Lady of Victory Chapel.

Luiken is a Catholic and a historian with a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.

She loves exploring and sharing the hidden histories that touch our lives every day.

Time, and the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. These four major feasts are Christmas, Epiphany, the Ascension of Christ and Pentecost. As one can tell, these feasts follow the life of the Lord and the great mysteries of his life and mission. So, it’s only natural that the Church’s year begins with preparations for Christmas, a feast day assigned to Dec. 25, nine months after March 25, the feast day of the Annunciation, which is the date assigned to Christ’s conception.

For many centuries now, Advent has been marked by four weeks, though it’s unclear as to why and when this was defined.

Allow me to take this opportunity to say that Advent, like Lent, is supposed to be marked by a penitential character, though decidedly less so than Lent. But Advent is still meant to be a time of preparation, and part of this preparation should be the repentance of sin.

Jan. 1 is the start of the Gregorian Calendar, the most widespread tool for keeping track of the year’s progression.

It’s all well and good (and probably pretty much necessary) to follow this calendar for the purposes of bills, birthdays, milestones and employment, but we Christians should also remember that we keep time differently than the rest of

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 11A

The Catholic Spirit asked our readers “Has Bishop Andrew Cozzens touched your life in the past eight years he’s served as an auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis?” The following is a selection of their responses.

One year I was at the St. John Paul II Champions for Life banquet.

Bishop Andrew Cozzens spoke. He told a story of a woman who was being encouraged to have an abortion because there was something wrong with the baby. The mother adamantly refused. The baby was born and was healthy. Bishop Cozzens said, “Do you know how I know that story? Because, that baby was me.” He took his two thumbs and pointed to his chest.

Amazing and wonderful! God bless you and thank you, Bishop Cozzens.

Michelle Kilroy St. Pascal Baylon, St. Paul Bishop Cozzens impacted lives by his relationship with Jesus. Bishop opened wide the doors for people to become part of Jesus’ flock. Bishop imitated Jesus’ genuine love for all in little ways: smiling at strangers, nodding to churchgoers and saying yes to that “just-one-more” photo. Bishop, in a huge way, accepted other Catholic

religious orders, for example, Pro Ecclesia Sancta and the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus. Bishop empowered fear to vanish for the unloved, unwanted and abandoned, and his pro-life actions give back to his flock — hope. Tons of gratitude for you, Bishop Andrew Cozzens. Stay warm in the great NW of MN. Mary Barron St. Mary, Waverly It was a very young (and recently ordained) Father Andrew Cozzens who received me into the Catholic Church in 1997. So, in a way, we started out together. I would go on to become a Catholic lay evangelist and apologist with a bunch of books and articles and talks, and a show on EWTN. When I helped start a new high school, it was a still pretty young Bishop Cozzens who helped Chesterton Academy become an officially recognized Catholic school, as well as the Chesterton Society becoming an official Association of the Christian Faithful. This year, suddenly finding myself filling in as headmaster at our school, I had the opportunity to host Bishop Cozzens when he paid a visit to Chesterton Academy in Hopkins. The next day he was named the new Bishop of Crookston. We keep converging at key points, and I can only pray our paths will continue to cross in the days and years ahead, and

PLEASE TURN TO READERS RESPOND ON PAGE 15A

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12A • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

DECEMBER 9, 2021

COMMENTARY TWENTY SOMETHING | CHRISTINA CAPECCHI

Bread, wine and a Norway spruce

Before there were any buildings in Rockefeller Center, there was a Christmas tree.

At the peak of the Great Depression, construction workers hungering for holiday cheer pooled their money to buy a 20-foot balsam fir and placed it in the center of the construction site. They decorated the tree with whatever they could find: strings of cranberries their wives made, paper garlands, tin cans, even foil gum wrappers.

The men lined up at the tree to receive their paychecks. Their spirits were buoyed — and, unbeknownst to them, a tradition was born. Ninety years later, it endures.

Each tree brings a story. In 1951, it drew national attention when NBC televised the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree lighting for the first time. In 1969, it was given 12 metal wire angels made by an immigrant woman. After the Sept. 11 attacks, it was adorned in red, white and blue.

Last year it carried a tiny owl from upstate New York on a 170-mile ride to New York City. The stowaway was named Rocky, short for Rockefeller, wrapped in an orange blanket and nursed by veterinarians before being released. In the process, she became an internet sensation and the subject of a new children’s book, “The Christmas Owl.” This year the Rockefeller tree makes history as the first one from Maryland. The 79-foot Norway Spruce was wrapped with more than 50,000 multi-colored lights on five miles of wire and then topped with a 900-pound Swarovski star.

But my favorite part of the story is what happens when the star is removed and the lights are unplugged.

When Christmas ends, the tree’s story is just beginning. Its trunk is milled into two-by-fours and used by Habit for Humanity to build a house. The one-

SIMPLE HOLINESS | KATE SOUCHERAY

Gathering safely this season

As we find ourselves in the season of Advent, we have the opportunity to consider how we will approach the holidays: Will it be buying more presents, or being more present? How will we keep everyone safe, and not create “super-spreader” events?

The brief glimpse into the home life of Martha and Mary with their guest Jesus is a story we read only in Luke’s Gospel (10:38-42). We witness Jesus’ clear, empathic exchange with these two sisters. Mary has chosen to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to his teachings, while Martha has chosen to go to the kitchen and prepare a meal for them.

When Martha becomes indignant and demands Mary’s help, Jesus simply replies, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.

There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

As we find ourselves immersed in holiday preparations and festivities, we may feel pressure to make this Advent and Christmas “just perfect for everyone.” Perfection is not what the Lord asks of us, but rather our willingness to be present to one another, thereby manifesting his spirit in our homes,

When Christmas ends, the tree’s story is just beginning.

iSTOCK PHOTO | ANDYKAZIE

time Christmas icon becomes a forever home.

This speaks to me as a Catholic surrounded by sacramentals — physical objects that take on spiritual significance. They are blessed by prayer and priests and patterns. Rosary beads handled every morning.

Candles burning at night. Medals dangling from the neck. And at the source and summit of our faith, bread and wine consecrated.

Sacramentals are hopeful. They see not just what is but what can be. They reflect Jesus’ promise: “Behold, I make all things new.” They assure us that, like the Christmas tree hauled out of Rockefeller Center, we can make of ourselves something beautiful, something lasting. Our weary bones can become a home.

Sacramentals offer a special kind of comfort in hard times, and we are marking the end of another hard year. A year of darkness and division. A year of resignations and aimlessness. A year of uncertainty.

We can relate to those construction workers back in 1931 who fashioned a dreary construction site into a

Christmas scene.

Yesterday I chatted with a Catholic dad who heads to the same Christmas tree farm my family visits each December. He joked about how long the tree remains perched in their house — weeks after Christmas, until his wife finally declares, “Enough!”

Then he sticks the tree in a snowbank in his yard till it’s warm enough for a bonfire.

“It’s quite fun to put a dry pine tree on fire because it crackles and explodes,” he said. “I think about the sacramentality, the resurrection of this tree: There’s this thing that has a new purpose.”

Maybe you’re feeling used up and dried out, like an old Christmas tree stuck in the snow. Maybe God is preparing your next chapter. Maybe 2022 will be your year, when people watch you and say, “There’s someone who has a new purpose.”

our events and commitments, and throughout this entire season.

Could we each take a step back and assess our participation and commitments during this busy season? Could we discern what is most important for ourselves, our families and our friendships, and do only those things we know will bring about peace and health for everyone?

According to Jesuit Father David Lonsdale, discernment is our ability to allow our life to be formed and guided by the word of God so that it shapes our lives and the structures of our communities. Wendy M. Wright, author of “Sacred Dwelling: A Spirituality of Family Life” and professor of theology at Creighton University, states, “God is now truly present to us, woven into the fabric of our lives, present and waiting to be perceived and celebrated.”

We have the choice of whether we will create a home of holiness this season that will influence and impact the coming year. We have endured 20 months of chaos and upheaval, and many of us are still choosing not to gather in large family groupings this season, due to the desire to diminish the spread of the coronavirus. We are coming to terms with what we thought would be a normal holiday season, only to learn that there is a new variant that threatens our well-being and resumption of normal activities.

We may not be happy about this reality, but we are now realizing that sacrifice is needed to help our communities, our country and our world return to something resembling normalcy. We don’t want to do online schooling in 2022. We don’t want mask mandates in the coming year for ourselves or our children. We want to return to regularity, something

ACTION STRATEGIES

Capecchi is a freelance writer from Inver Grove Heights.

u Ask yourself what you can do to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. If this requires a sacrifice, see this as your way of bringing our communities to a new stage of the pandemic. u Be a living witness to your family and friends of Christ’s love that is freely given and lovingly encourages us to sit at his feet and receive his teachings. we likely took for granted before the pandemic.

Embracing a simpler holiday season may be what we need to do, even if we are not happy about it.

This Advent, talk with your family and decide if there is a way to gather that allows you to see one another safely, but also to celebrate the beauty of this season. The concept of Advent is that it is to prepare our hearts for the birth of the baby Jesus at Christmas.

Use discernment in these coming days to find ways to weave the love of Christ into your family gatherings and celebrations.

It is a choice of how we will gather, how busy and how preoccupied we will be during this season.

Choose peace. Choose calm. Choose presence.

Choose Christ.

Soucheray is a licensed marriage and family therapist emeritus and a member of St. Ambrose in Woodbury.

She holds a master’s degree in theology from The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul and a doctorate in educational leadership from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.

COMMENTARY

DECEMBER 9, 2021

ALREADY/NOT YET | JONATHAN LIEDL

Unity: A gift that only Christ can give

Human beings want to belong.

We yearn to be in communion with others. We desire to be known and loved, and to know and love others in turn. In short, we want unity.

And yet, disunity and opposition define much of our lived experience.

Whether within our families or friend groups, or at the level of national politics and world affairs, division and mutually-exclusive competition dominate.

Unity requires vulnerability, opening oneself up to someone else. But fear of being taken advantage of and harmed in the process leads to closed off selfpreservation, or worse — the pro-active domination of others.

Individualism is one obvious instance of the abandonment of the pursuit of unity. But in our own day, we’re also seeing the rise of purported forms of unity, which bring a group together along the lines of shared affinities like racial or national identity, but do so only to compete for power with others, thwarting any movement toward unity among all mankind.

A chasm seems to lie between our desire for unity and our actual ability to achieve it. Is our situation hopeless?

What can possibly overcome this divide?

The trenches of World War I may seem like the last place to look for an instance of the divisions of mankind being overcome. But thanks to a sensational performance of “All Is Calm” at the Ritz Theatre in Minneapolis — which consisted entirely of songs sung from the era as well as excerpts read from the actual letters of the soldiers involved — I was transported

to the “western front” to witness the miraculous “Christmas Truce” of 1914.

Pope Benedict XV had actually called for an end to fighting in Europe during the Christmas season. But while the Germans accepted, the Allies declined. In fact, commanding officers discouraged any sort of clemency or fraternity shown toward the enemy.

Nonetheless, as the holiday approached, German and British soldiers along the line began singing Christmas carols across no-man’s land from their own respective trenches. And then, on Christmas Eve, something truly miraculous happened. A single German soldier climbed out of his trench and walked toward the British line, his arms raised in a gesture of openness, singing “Stille Nacht” — or “Silent Night.”

His single act of heroic self-abandonment prompted an incredible outpouring of fraternity between “Tommy” and “Fritz.” Men, who only moments earlier were attempting to kill each other, put down their arms, met in the field of battle, and exchanged gifts and wellwishes, even photos of their families and sweethearts.

German and British officers swapped caps and posed for a picture. At one place along the line, all stopped to listen to a French opera star sing a Christmas hymn.

There was even an account from a German soldier of a friendly match of soccer played between two sides.

Many of those who participated in the Christmas Truce remembered it as the most impactful moment of their lives. Some wondered openly if it would’ve been possible to end the Great War then and there, with the men in the trenches defying orders from on high and meeting their enemies as brothers.

Of course, that wasn’t how things played out. The truce was soon broken up by commanding officers, and the fighting resumed. In fact, in many parts along the line, no truce had been observed. One British soldier was actually shot dead as he attempted to make a gesture of Christmas generosity toward the Germans. The momentary, fragmented unity was not to last. World War I would go on to claim the lives of 9 million men.

Nonetheless, something significant did happen on the western front during that Christmas ceasefire. And

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 13A while the most cynical might ascribe the truce to more mundane and material factors, those who have eyes to see cannot help but notice that the two sides’ shared Christianity was the source and means of their unlikely unity.

As one French soldier wrote, as he listened to the exchanges of Christmas carols from the trenches, broken by occasional gunfire, “Oh poor little God of love, born that Christmas night, how could you ever love mankind?”

It is Christ’s love that gives the only possible hope for human unity. The Fathers of the Church knew this well, and it was one of their favorite themes. “Satan has broken us up,” said St. Cyril of Alexandria, but Christ restores unity not only between man and God, but also among members of the human race.

National, familial, ethnic and cultural affinities aren’t bad things. In fact, they’re the means through which we live out our call to form real, concrete bonds with those in our lives. But when these forms of unity become our ultimate allegiance, they eclipse our belonging to Christ and actually undermine the quest for that perfect unity that alone can satisfy.

“All Is Calm” presented this in striking fashion, when the peace and harmony of the Christmas Truce soon gave way to a cacophonic flurry of voices calling for retaliation and bloodshed, culminating with an angry cry of “God save the king!”

No king, aside from Christ, can bring us the unity we ultimately desire. Similarly, no promise of “earthly utopia” apart from a God who can rise above our fallen humanity is achievable. Only by belonging to Jesus — that “poor little God of love,” who utterly transcends the fear-based rivalries and competition of mankind, yet nonetheless became incarnate in the midst of it, who came to us when we were still his enemies to draw all men to himself — can we overcome the divisions that plague us and enter into true communion with one another. May we receive the gift of unity Christ offers us this Christmas season.

Liedl writes from the Twin Cities.

Retirement Fund for Religious Please give to those who have given a lifetime.

Like the women and men religious shown here, thousands of elderly sisters, brothers, and religious order priests spent decades ministering in Catholic schools, hospitals and more—usually for little pay. Today, many religious communities struggle to care for aging members due to a lack of retirement savings. Your gift to the Retirement Fund for Religious helps provide nursing care, medicine, and other necessities. Please be generous.

retiredreligious.org Visit retiredreligious.org/2021photos to meet the religious pictured.

©2021 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington DC • All rights reserved • Photo: Jim Judkis

Please donate at your local parish December 11–12 or by mail at:

Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Attn: Sister Lynore Girmscheid, SSND 777 Forest Street St. Paul MN 55106-3857 Make check payable to Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis/RFR.

14A • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

DECEMBER 9, 2021

Why I Am Catholic

A

By Meisha Johnson DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

As I now wrap up my Master of Sacred Theology degree fter being raised without any religion, experiencing a profound spiritual awakening in my living room and later being confirmed Catholic, I often get asked “Why Catholic?” The

answer is both simple and complex, but the simple

answer is: God led me here.

Upon my spiritual awakening, I wasn’t at all versed in

denominational differences. At that point, I only knew that Jesus Christ was Lord and that I needed him. I had been working on television for many years as a reporter and, in hindsight, was unprepared for how God was about to use my training as a journalist to begin the quest for truth — to begin asking tougher questions that really mattered. This “quest” led me first to the holy Bible, which I read cover to cover (yes, in chronological order!), then to the front doors of many different churches, and ultimately to an academic deep-dive in sacred theology.

When I first told my news director (as well as friends and family) that I’d be stepping away from television in order to “work for God,” I was not-so-surprisingly told I was crazy. But deep in my heart, by the grace of God, not yet understanding the magnitude of the salvific mission, I knew he was up to something great. Immediately upon moving back to the Midwest from the East Coast, I began academically studying the Bible at a Protestant university. It was here I began asking more historic questions about our Christian faith — What happened before the Reformation? What were our earliest Christian relatives practicing? What was the first Church?

After much research and prayer, I found myself standing at the beautiful front doors of the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul — a breathtaking and mystifying slice of heaven on earth. Standing on the grounds of one of the most historic and enchanting Churches in the country, there was no denying in that moment what God had done. I was Catholic — and it was God who led me here.

and prep for a doctorate, I am often moved to tears of gratitude for what God has done in my life. I thank him for leading me out of the darkness and into the brightness of the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church — the Church instituted by Christ himself. I thank him for the grace to participate in her life-transformative sacraments and liturgical practices. In my view, it is next to impossible to walk into a cathedral, or any Catholic church for that matter, and not be completely awestruck by her wonder — steeped in the richest of history and tradition, adorned with breathtaking beauty and artwork, overcome by the sweetest and most powerful aroma of incense that permeates the soul.

Since becoming Catholic and actively participating in the liturgical life of the Church, everything in my life has changed for the better. It’s a gentle reminder of just how blessed we are to be a part of this Church body, passed on through the apostles of Christ and strengthened by our earliest ancestors; a spiritual body that allows us to experience the fullness of our faith and most intimate relationship with our loving Creator. While I may not have been given the gift of faith growing up, I am profoundly grateful for the Damascus-like conversion I experienced. It was on these grounds, after all, that I went from being lost to being found; from wandering soul to participant in the Final Supper. So, while there are countless reasons why I am Catholic, I relish most in the fact that it was God himself who led me here.

“The truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32).

A member of the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, Johnson, 42, is the director of church mission at St. Joseph of the Lakes in Lino Lakes. She has two teenage daughters.

“Why I am Catholic” is an ongoing series in The Catholic Spirit. Want to share why you are Catholic? Submit your story in 300-500 words to CatholicSpirit@archspm.org with “Why I am Catholic” in the subject line.

DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 15A

CALENDAR PARISH EVENTS Pancake Breakfast and Bake Sale — Dec. 12: 9 a.m.–noon at St. Jerome, 380 Roselawn Ave. E., Maplewood. Breakfast is a freewill offering. Eat in or take out. stjerome-church.org “Come to the Stable: A Living Nativity” — Dec. 12: 3–6 p.m. at Our Lady of Peace, 5426 12th Ave. S., Minneapolis. A family-friendly holiday tradition. olpmn.org/come-to-the-stable “Presence at the Nativity: an Advent Evening of Reflection” — Dec. 13: 6:30–8 p.m. at Risen Savior, 1501 E. County Rd. 42, Burnsville. Based on the Ignatian practice of imaginative prayer, facilitator Carolyn Kolovitz will use guided meditation, reflection, art and music to dive deep into the heart of the stories of Advent. RSVPs appreciated but not required.

Childcare available. risensavior.org

PRAYER+WORSHIP Men’s Retreat Weekend — Dec. 10-12 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake. Four conference talks and a refreshing blend of scheduled and open time. Confession, anointing, Mass, Holy Hour and prayer sessions. Delicious meals cooked onsite. franciscanretreats.net Women’s Advent Morning of Reflection — Dec. 11: 9 a.m.–noon at Good Shepherd, 145 Jersey Ave. S., Golden Valley. Women ages 13 and older.

READERS RESPOND

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11A that I can be half as much a blessing to him as he has been to me.

Dale Ahlquist President, Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton Headmaster, Chesterton Academy of the Twin Cities Bishop Andrew Cozzens is a person of great humility, grounded in the embrace of his priestly calling. My late husband, Charles, and I were part of a team of two couples who regularly met with Bishop Cozzens for a period of time, during his studies for the priesthood at The St. Paul Seminary. We discussed a broad

Features author Liz Kelly on “Love Like a Saint.” goodshepherdgv.org/reflection “Practicing Presence” Advent Morning of Reflection — Dec. 11: 8:30 a.m.–noon at St. Raphael, 7301 Bass Lake Road, New Hope.

A special morning for mothers of young children.

Practice living in the present to receive God’s grace this Advent: to be prayerful, silent and open to Christ and the gift of motherhood. archspm.org/events

MUSIC “Heaven’s Child Christmas Cantata” — Dec. 12: 3–4 p.m. at Mary, Mother of the Church, 3333 Cliff Road, Burnsville. A Christmas Cantata by Pepper Choplin. Presented by Mary, Mother Music Ministry and Unity High School with full orchestration and narratives. A freewill offering will be taken. mmotc.org “Divinum Mysterium” Christmas Organ Concert — Dec. 17: 7 p.m. at St. Edward, 9401 Nesbitt Ave. S., Bloomington. A variety of beautiful Christmas music performed by Kraig Windschitl on an Austin organ. Freewill donations appreciated. stedwardschurch.org Advent Lessons and Carols — Dec. 18: 7 p.m. at Holy Cross, 1621 University Ave., Minneapolis.

A time-honored tradition that tells the narrative of salvation history with Scripture, beloved carols and choral selections by the choirs of Holy Cross. sam@ourholycross.org. 612-930-0860. ourholycross.org/musical-events

array of topics, and regardless of the topic, his questions and comments always demonstrated a thoughtful, contemplative approach to his calling. And that embrace of the gift of humility has served him well as the auxiliary bishop here. The Diocese of Crookston is fortunate that he will be their shepherd.

Jessie Nicholson Cathedral of St. Paul, St. Paul In anticipation of the new year, The Catholic Spirit asks, “What is your prayer for our country or world in 2022?” Send responses of 200 words or less to CatholicSpirit@ archspm.org with “Readers Respond” in the subject line. Your reflection might be included in a future edition of The Catholic Spirit.

“Second Chances: Stories of Hope and Joy Restored” — Dec. 19: 4:30 p.m. at St. Paul, 1740 Bunker Lake Blvd. NE, Ham Lake. An encouraging evening of music and stories of second chances offered to the wandering soul. Prelude and carols sung at 4 p.m. Soup dinner and cookies follow program. Accepting donations for Women’s Life Care Center of Anoka. churchofsaintpaul.com/second-chances

YOUNG ADULTS Into the Deep Young Adult Winter Weekend — Jan 7-9: IDRETREATS is hosting a three-day winter getaway with options to downhill ski, snowboard, cross country ski, snowshoe, or lounge at Cascade Lodge and Lutsen Mountains, on the north shore of Lake Superior. Casual talks about the Catholic faith and the Theology of the Body will be part of each evening and travel time. idretreats@gmail.com. idretreats.org/2022-idretreats/ya-winter-weekend

CALENDAR submissions DEADLINE: Noon Thursday, 14 days before the anticipated Thursday date of publication.

We cannot guarantee a submitted event will appear in the calendar. Priority is given to events occurring before the next issue date.

LISTINGS: Accepted are brief no­tices of upcoming events hosted by Catholic parishes and organizations. If the Catholic connection is not clear, please emphasize it in your submission.

Included in our listings are local events submitted by public sources that could be of interest to the larger Catholic community.

ITEMS MUST INCLUDE the following to be considered for publication: uTime and date of event uFull street address of event uDescription of event uContact information in case of questions ONLINE: TheCatholicSpirit.com/calendarsubmissions

OTHER EVENTS Catholic Charities Warming House — Dec. 10-11: 4–8 p.m. at 60 E. Broadway, Bloomington. A free, outdoor holiday event bringing together the Twin Cities community. Enjoy food trucks, winter crafts, holiday displays, the Giving Tree and more, all while learning about Catholic Charities and the men, women, children and families it serves. cctwincities.org/warming-house

WHY DO CATHOLICS DO THAT? CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11A

the world in some significant ways. In this we bear witness to the fact that we are in the world, but not of the world. Of particular importance is the honoring of Sundays, each of which should be the high point of every week, and focusing on the great feasts of the year and celebrating them well. This includes making a good Advent.

Q Why is the Gloria omitted from Mass

during Advent? When will we hear it again?

A Advent is, again, a time of solemn

preparation for Christmas, and part of that preparation includes penance. One of the ways that the Church marks this penitential character to the season is the omission of the Gloria at Sunday Mass. This omission is meant to remind us that we are not quite ready to

Cathedral Festival of Lights — Dec. 15-19: 6–9 p.m. in St. Paul at 239 Selby Ave., 215 Summit Ave., and 1583 Summit Ave. Cathedral Festival of Lights returns with free outdoor Christmas light show, and new immersive indoor show and holiday market.

The light show runs Dec. 15-19. Tickets ($15) for the indoor event, Starry Night, available now at eventbrite.com. cathedralheritagefoundation.org

celebrate the Christ’s arrival just yet, but need to strive to stay vigilant and awake for his coming. The Gloria will resound again at the First Mass of Christmas, which is celebrated in most churches on Christmas Eve. It’s an appropriate return date, as the hymn itself is inspired by the very angels who announce to the shepherds the arrival of the Messiah.

Now, it is also the case that the Gloria is still sung or recited on feast days during Advent.

For example, St. Andrew (Nov. 30), the Immaculate Conception. (Dec. 8), Our Lady of Guadalupe (Dec. 12), or the celebration of a patronal feast day in a parish, will all still feature a Gloria. On these days, the Church takes a brief break from the quiet of Advent to rejoice in the triumph of her saints.

Father Erickson is pastor of Transfiguration in Oakdale. Send your questions to CatholicSpirit@ archspm.org with “Why Do Catholics Do That?” in the subject line.

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16A • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

DECEMBER 9, 2021

THELASTWORD

Called as servants Seven in archdiocese ordained to permanent diaconate

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit

1

N

oting a common call to be servants in the readings chosen for the ordination Mass of seven men to the permanent diaconate Dec. 4, Archbishop Bernard Hebda encouraged them as well to know Jesus’ love while acting in mercy for the glory of God, pointing “only to the face of Jesus Christ.

Only Jesus.”

With the seven men seated before him in the sanctuary for the homily at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, Archbishop Hebda said his discernment to the priesthood included a beloved spiritual adviser reminding him of the story of the rich man who asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus’ request that the rich man sell everything and follow him was a tremendous “ask,” the archbishop said. But as a seminarian, he was encouraged to concentrate more on the manner in which Jesus spoke. “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.”

“My hope for you is you already have experienced Jesus’ loving gaze,” the archbishop said. “I am trusting that you have seen that loving gaze in your spouse or family members who have supported you” and in the eyes of those the men already have served.

“It is that loving gaze that will sustain you as you pour out your lives,” Archbishop Hebda said.

The call to serve one another is for all people, laity and clergy, the archbishop said.

But as examples, “gentlemen, we will look to you, in your radical service.”

Service at the altar, with the Word, in charity, in parishes, hospitals, nursing homes or jails, in whatever ministry to which they are summoned, “we, the body of Christ, are going to be counting on you,” the archbishop said.

The men also should remember that their call to ministry arises out of the mercy God has shown them, Archbishop Hebda said. They must serve with humility, never preaching themselves but always giving glory to God and pointing only to Jesus, he said.

The seven ordained men were Deacons Michael Braun of Presentation of the Virgin Mary, Maplewood; Michael Engel of St. Michael, St. Michael; Adelmo Gracia of Assumption, Richfield; Philip Grisez of Our Lady of Grace, Edina; Michael Lane of Holy Spirit, St. Paul; Jose Luis Rodriguez of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Minneapolis; and Victor Susai, Pax Christi, Eden Prairie.

2

4 1 Michael Braun, left, Michael Engel, Adelmo Gracia, Philip

Grisez, Michael Lane, Jose Luis Rodriguez and Victor Susai kneel during their ordination Mass to the permanent diaconate Dec. 4 at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul.

2 Deacon Adelmo Gracia gives a blessing to his wife, Yadira, after Mass.

3 Stacy Engel, right, wife of Deacon Michael Engel, gives a

thumbs up as the men are applauded during Mass. Next to her is Yadira Gracia.

3

5 4 Deacon Jose Luis Rodriguez kisses his wife, Marlene, after Mass.

5 Archbishop Bernard Hebda and Deacon Philip Grisez hold the Book of the Gospels.

PHOTOS BY DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 1B

BISHOPCOZZENSof CROOKSTON

With a statue of Mary behind him, Bishop Andrew Cozzens delivers the homily during his installation Mass Dec. 6 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Crookston.

‘Mary, we’re going to Crookston’ Bishop Cozzens assumes role as eighth bishop of Crookston, Mary at his side

By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit

“P

raebe Nobis Cor Tuum, Maria” rang out brightly as women’s voices harmonized in Crookston’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception during Bishop Andrew Cozzens’ Mass of Installation Dec. 6. The women were Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus, and the hymn was based on Bishop Cozzens’ episcopal motto: “Praebe Nobis Cor Tuum,” a phrase from the final line of a Marian prayer written in the 17th century by St. Louis de Montfort: “Give us your heart.”

The first part of that same line are the words “Totus Tuus” — totally yours — the motto of St. John Paul II, who had an immense impact on Bishop Cozzens as a young man and priest.

In 2013, the Handmaids commissioned Twin Cities composer Christine Heidgerken to create a hymn based on Bishop Cozzens’ motto. As their gift, they sang the piece for him for the first time at his December 2013 episcopal ordination in St. Paul, when he became an auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis. On Oct. 18, Pope Francis named him the eighth bishop of Crookston.

“Now, for eight years, almost every time he comes, we sing it,” said Mother Mary Clare Roufs, the Handmaids’ foundress and a longtime friend of the bishop. “It’s very special to him and to us.”

Archbishop Bernard Hebda asked them to sing the piece at Bishop Cozzens’ Mass of Thanksgiving Nov. 28, and they sang it again Dec. 6 as the altar was being prepared.

Bishop Cozzens’ trust and confidence in Mary’s closeness were visually underscored for Alison Kaardal on the day he left St. Paul. By mid-afternoon Dec. 3, the bishop had cleared his small apartment at The St. Paul Seminary and filled his Ford Escape with the last of his belongings — his vestments, suitcases, a stained-glass lamp. The final thing he carried out was a statue of Mary — a 3-foot tall, pregnant Madonna known as Our Lady of Hope.

Kaardal, his administrative assistant, knew the SUV was full.

“Where’s that going to go?” she asked.

“She’s riding shotgun,” she recalls him saying, strapping the statue into the passenger seat.

The last thing she heard him say before he began the 300-mile trip northwest was, “C’mon, Mary — we’re going to Crookston.”

DAVE HRBACEK THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

For Kaardal, who has worked with Bishop Cozzens since 2016, the moment represented the way he lives his life. He was beginning an adventure, she said, by “grabbing Mary’s hand, and saying, ‘Yes, Mary, if you’re with me, we’ll go to Crookston together, it will all be possible.’”

Throughout his episcopacy, Bishop Cozzens has expressed his closeness to Mary. It’s something that has made an impression on Archbishop Hebda.

“I know he has such great love for Our Lady,” he told The Catholic Spirit in early November. “Having been ordained (a bishop) on that solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, he has that closeness to Our Lady and will often mention Our Lady when we’re praying together or when we’re gathering. I know that she has an important part in his ministry, too.”

In this special tribute to Bishop Cozzens’ eight years as the auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, The Catholic Spirit has highlighted facets of his local and national episcopal ministry.

The Catholics interviewed have known Bishop Cozzens well in his various roles — pastor, friend, mentor, leader. They invariably speak to his natural talents and leadership qualities, but also to his deep life of prayer, love of Jesus and authentic confidence in Mary’s closeness as a mother. They also describe the trust he holds that his faith will sustain him in his new role.

COURTESY BISHOP COZZENS On his journey to Crookston, Bishop Bishop Andrew Cozzens’ statue of Cozzens recognized the symbolism of Our Lady of Hope rides along Dec. 3 on Mary as a passenger, too, and texted a his drive from St. Paul to Crookston. mid-trip photo of the statue to Kaardal and some other friends, including Bishop Juan Miguel Betancourt of Hartford, Connecticut. Bishop Betancourt revisited the image on his phone Dec. 6, ahead of the installation Mass.

The day before, Bishop Betancourt had celebrated Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, and with the congregation prayed three Hail Marys for Bishop Cozzens.

Before the installation Mass, Bishop Betancourt told The Catholic Spirit, “How providential that the Lord has called him to this diocese to be the eighth bishop in the hands of the Blessed Mother.”

Referring to the passenger-seat statue, he said, “He’s got the Blessed Mother on his way to Crookston that night, so she’s taking care of him.”

2B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

Thank you, Bishop Cozzens For your leadership as Vicar of Education, for your tireless commitment to ensuring Catholic schools in this Archdiocese thrive, and for your unwavering belief that “Catholic schools are sacred places preparing our children for both their lives on Earth, and in Heaven.”

May God bless you in your service to the Diocese of Crookston.

Sincerely, your friends and partners at

Aim Higher Foundation

Catholic Services Appeal Foundation

Catholic Community Foundation

Catholic Finance Corporation

Catholic Schools Center of Excellence

GHR Foundation

BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 3B

Installed as bishop of Crookston, Bishop Cozzens pledges to be a man of prayer

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit

A

cknowledging challenges faced in the Diocese of Crookston and the healing power of reconciliation and hope in Christ, Bishop Andrew Cozzens said at his installation Mass Dec. 6 that his first goal is to be a man of prayer, spending time each day before the Eucharist praying for the people of the diocese and seeking to serve them.

“Jesus Christ is alive. He lives in us. He lives in Crookston. No matter what difficulties we experience, he wants us to be his witness,” Bishop Cozzens, 53, said in his homily at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Crookston, concelebrated by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the U.S. apostolic nuncio, and bishops in the region including Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Bishop Richard Pates, apostolic administrator of Crookston since the resignation of Bishop Michael Hoeppner in April, and Bishop Victor Balke, who served the diocese for 31 years before his retirement in 2007. Bishop Pates, bishop emeritus of Des Moines, Iowa, was auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis from 2001 to 2008.

Bishop Hoeppner’s resignation came at the request of Pope Francis after a Vatican investigation into allegations that the bishop mishandled allegations of clergy sexual abuse.

The key to healing, Bishop Cozzens said, is a personal relationship with Jesus in the Church.

Each person has that need individually and it can be met through baptism, reception of the Eucharist, confirmation and the sacrament of reconciliation, he said.

Those same ingredients are the key to evangelization, or sharing the love and hope of Christ, he said.

“We have hope because Christ hopes to save us,” Bishop Cozzens said. Hope is not Pollyannaish or a matter of positive thinking, he said.

“Hope is not rooted in a vague optimism that things will work out,” he said. Hope lies in the paschal mystery, the resurrection of Jesus, who knows the presence of evil, even in the Church, he said.

“All of us are weak,” he said. “That’s why we go to confession.”

He continued: “We have hope so as not to be afraid to face evil, not be afraid to admit our weakness and sins. God has given us reason to hope.” The diocese has been through difficult times and “it doesn’t help to pretend that these did not happen,” he said. But people can work through that together, he said.

“Are we prepared to welcome the spirit of Christ, our mission in the Church?” Bishop Cozzens asked. “As a people, are you ready to listen to the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life?”

Whatever state in life, consecrated religious, married, single, it doesn’t matter, Bishop Cozzens said. All are called to “proclaim the God of salvation in the Spirit, a

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Bishop Andrew Cozzens holds aloft the papal bull he received from Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the U.S. apostolic nuncio, at the start of his installation Mass Dec. 6 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Crookston. building up of the Church.” Everyone is called to be a missionary, he said.

“Today is a beautiful day, but it’s really not about me,” he said. “It’s about the Church of Crookston.

Somebody’s got to be bishop, and that’s me,” Bishop Cozzens said with humor. “But this is for us. It’s the work only we can do in northwest Minnesota.”

Bishop Cozzens noted that the harvest of sugar beets, a key crop in northwest Minnesota, was the largest this fall in the region’s history. “Why? Because of the drought,” he said. Sugar beets had to grow deeper and longer; they were stretched to reach any available water underground. And when rain finally did fall, they grew much larger than normal, he said.

“Rain down your grace upon the Diocese of Crookston,” Bishop Cozzens said in a prayer to close his homily. “Let us grow deep roots in you, so we may bear an abundant harvest for (our) salvation.”

TheParishioners Parishioners and and Staff Staff of The of the Cathedral of Saint Paul the Cathedral of Saint Paul wish to congratulate wish to congratulate

Bishop Andrew Cozzens

Bishop Andrew May God bless you and Cozzens the faithful of the Diocese of Crookston!

May God bless you in your new ministry!

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Jack and Judy Cozzens watch their son become the eighth bishop of the Diocese of Crookston during the installation Mass.

Congratulations Bishop Andrew Cozzens

Bishop John T. Folda, clergy, religious, and laity of the Diocese of Fargo offer congratulations and prayers on your appointment as eighth Bishop of the Diocese of Crookston.

4B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

Bishop Cozzens’ friends, ministry collaborators attend Mass of Thanksgiving

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

J

ean Rowe, 59, a parishioner of the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, shares several ties with Bishop Andrew Cozzens, so she felt compelled to attend his Mass of Thanksgiving at the Cathedral Nov. 28 as he prepared to leave the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to be installed Dec. 6 as bishop of the Diocese of Crookston.

Both grew up in Colorado. The bishop baptized and confirmed her son, Jack. Her husband, Kelly, worked with the bishop on Minnesota’s safe haven law for newborns and on the board of trustees of St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights. Then-Father Cozzens anointed Kelly’s dying father after Rowe ran into him in the hospital hallway.

“He’s such a holy, wonderful man,” Rowe said. “He has a lot of intellectual firepower and a true passion for people and for Christ.”

Rowe was one of about 1,600 people who attended the Mass and have been touched by the ministry of Bishop Cozzens, whose archdiocesan service began with his 1997 ordination to the priesthood.

During his homily, Bishop Cozzens encouraged the faithful to live their lives with the end of life in mind — and that the Lord “warns us” that death could come at any time.

“So, he invites us to this vigilance of heart,” Bishop Cozzens said, and the Church invites people to look at the true meaning of life. “And therefore, how should I live it today, so that I’ll be ready for the end?”

“Most of us set our sights too low on what we’re really made for,” Bishop Cozzens continued. “We were made for eternal joy, eternal peace, perfect love.”

The purpose of life is to get ready to enter into that perfect and eternal union with God, he said.

One great gift from the Lord is friendship, Bishop Cozzens said, which allows people to experience being known and loved. In preparing to leave for Crookston, he said, he will be leaving many friends behind but “friendship in this life isn’t permanent.”

“And those bonds of love that we share with each other are simple reflections of what eternity will be, when we’ll get to always be with our friends, when there will be no tension because there will be no sin, and we’ll get to taste what real friendship and communion is, first with Jesus, and then with everybody else in heaven.”

Katie Leahey, 26, a parishioner of St. Mark in St. Paul, knows members of the bishop’s family.

“It was important for me to be here because of all the ways that Bishop Cozzens let the Holy Spirit work

The Dominican Friars Province of St. Albert the Great wish to congratulate

Most Rev. Andrew Cozzens on his Installation as the Eighth Bishop of the Diocese of Crookston

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Bishop Andrew Cozzens addresses the congregation at the end of his Mass of Thanksgiving at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul Nov. 28. through him and just to give thanks to God for that, in all the ways he’s led parishioners and supported consecrated life … and family life, and just the way he’s lived,” she said. “I’m really grateful for and inspired by that.”

Mary Jane Miller, 81, drove to the Mass from New Prague, where she is a member of St. Wenceslaus. Her son, Father Michael Miller, was ordained one year before Bishop Cozzens, and she knows the bishop’s mother, Judy, through a “mother of priests” group.

“So, I know him very well,” she said. “And he gets a hug every time I see him because he’s like my boy.”

Joe Masek, 28, executive director of the Twin Citiesbased Cana Family Institute and a member of Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul, described the bishop as an incredible advocate for ministries on the front lines of evangelization and discipleship.

“I came here to celebrate and give thanks to God for his leadership and for leading the charge in our diocese, both personally as well as in his advocacy of organizations like ours,” he said.

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Bishop Cozzens greets Cindy Casey, left, Lindsey Belting and Nicole Thayer of St. Peter in Forest Lake after Mass.

BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 5B

‘He has a compassionate, fraternal heart’ Archbishop Hebda reflects on six years of ministry with Bishop Cozzens

A

rchbishop Bernard Hebda has naturally worked closely with Bishop Andrew Cozzens since the archbishop first arrived in the Archdiocese of St. Paul of Minneapolis in 2015. The Catholic Spirit asked him about his unique vantage of Bishop Cozzens’ leadership and personal qualities that he will bring to the Diocese of Crookston. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview by Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit

Q How did you first meet Bishop

Cozzens? Did you know him before Pope Francis assigned you to be the archdiocese’s administrator in 2015?

A I did. I didn’t know him well, though.

I knew him when he was Father Cozzens and was doing his doctoral work in Rome. I was doing some spiritual direction at the North American College, and a number of the students there were involved in the apostolate at the University of St. Thomas’ Rome campus, the Bernardi Campus. I would hear our seminarians talk about this Father Cozzens all the time, and we would periodically run into each other.

At one point, he was part of an optional retreat that was being offered at the North American College for seminarians. It was called Fanning the Flame Retreat, and it was sponsored by St. Paul’s Outreach. I think it was the first time that the North American College had had a retreat from a group that was primarily laypeople. It was a number of leaders here from St. Paul and Bishop Cozzens. He was a really important part of that retreat. I got to listen to him speak and got to watch him at work and realized already at that point that he was an exceptional young priest. And then I had a chance to meet him after he was made an auxiliary bishop here, while I was the bishop of Gaylord (Michigan).

Q How did you find out about Bishop Cozzens’ appointment to Crookston?

You must have expected that this could happen.

A I expected it because he has all of

the qualities to be a great diocesan bishop. I’ve just always been thinking that someday I’d get that call from the nuncio. In fact, I got it on the same day as Bishop Cozzens — Oct. 4 — and I had spoken with Bishop Cozzens and he didn’t tell me a darn thing! Soon after, I heard from the nuncio, and he shared

TS

T& S

Q What was that first conversation like?

A So Bishop Cozzens’ boss will be the

A I was really happy for Crookston and

for Bishop Cozzens. But for us, Bishop Cozzens has been such an important part of our archdiocese. It’s going to be a challenge for us to not have him here.

He’s been a wonderful leader. How do we manage to cover the great work that Bishop Cozzens has been doing, and to make sure that the work of the Church doesn’t get bogged down?

Q When you first arrived as our

apostolic administrator and began working closely with Bishop Cozzens in 2015, it was in the midst of a crisis situation — right after Archbishop John Nienstedt and Bishop Lee Piché’s resignations, with the archdiocese in bankruptcy, and having just had civil and criminal charges filed against it. How did you see him as a leader during that time?

A A couple things really impressed

me, but first of all, his great faith. It would have been easy for someone to get discouraged in those circumstances, especially with two of his colleagues resigning, because he had obviously worked closely with Bishop Piché and Archbishop Nienstedt. Bishop Cozzens, as a man of deep prayer, was confident that the Lord was at work. Even in those difficult times, he never appeared to be discouraged, always was confident that the Lord would help us through, and would always emphasize how important it is that we would do what’s right. That would be our North Star, that we would have compassion for those who have been hurt and we would strive to be transparent. As he was making decisions or recommendations to me, I always appreciated his prayerful discernment.

Q How do you see his leadership

qualities, as well as his personal and spiritual qualities, serving him as bishop of Crookston?

A That first day I was here (in June

2015), the priests had gathered in Rochester for our Presbyterial Assembly when that (the bishops’ resignations) was all announced. So, it was a great shock to the priests. When I got there, it was the day after this had all transpired. I heard from so many of the priests about what a great job Bishop Cozzens had done in sharing the news with them, but also his sense for how the Lord might be asking the archdiocese to respond. They spoke about how he was incredibly fraternal with them — I can’t tell you how many of them mentioned that he offered his cell phone to call — but also paternal. I

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think that the priests in Crookston will be particularly well served by Bishop Cozzens’ ability to really live out those fraternal relationships, and he’ll be a great support to the priests. It’s obviously a much smaller presbyterate than what we have here. I think that gives him some opportunities to go even deeper in the relationship between bishop and priests. I know that they’ll find in him a welcoming ear — he listens so well. He has a compassionate, fraternal heart.

You mentioned my involvement in the “Vos Estis” investigation, and that’s only because it was the pope, through the Congregation for Bishops, that charged me with that. So, I didn’t have any natural right to do that. I was doing that on behalf of the Holy Father. Each bishop relates directly to him.

Q Because you oversaw the “Vos Estis

Q It struck me that Bishop Cozzens’

Lux Mundi” investigation into Bishop Michael Hoeppner, you have unique insight into the challenges that await Bishop Cozzens as far as healing that diocese. What can you say to those challenges, and how Bishop Cozzens might be able to address them?

A I don’t really know the Diocese of

first message to the priests of Crookston, at vespers the evening of the announcement, was one of humility and a promise to pray. How has he inspired you as a man of faith?

A He’s a man of conviction who knows

Crookston all that well; I know one little piece of it. But I do know that the priests are looking forward to having a leader who’s going to be able to work with them in bringing healing into the diocese.

I’m always impressed with the strength of small dioceses, in the way in which they’re able to really do incredible things.

Bishop Cozzens will be just the right leader for that, with his deep grounding in prayer. That will be very comforting to the priests. But he’s also going to be magnificent with the laypeople. He has an easy relationship with his own family, with his siblings and his nieces and nephews that make him so much fun to be around. He relates well to people. He had very powerful experiences early on, even before he was a priest, with NET Ministries and St. Paul’s Outreach. He has that ability to connect with people quickly. He had great experience in parishes, at the Cathedral and then in Faribault. They’re just getting a really tremendous pastor, which is particularly important in a small diocese, where people expect to relate to him as a pastor, which is beautiful.

Q Crookston is still within the

metropolitan area of the archdiocese, and you’re the metropolitan

that the Lord has a plan for him and his life, and that absolutely gives him his foundation and keeps him balanced. In the very early days I was here, things were rather hairy. The fact that Bishop Cozzens was so constant and steady, and knowing that was rooted in his prayer, certainly had a great impact on me. No matter how many directions we were being pulled in, we always have to make sure we’re grounded in our own relationship to the Lord in prayer.

Q What else have you learned from

him in six years of ministry together?

A He has an amazing ability to listen and

an amazing ability to process and help summarize what’s been a course of the discussion. I really appreciate his deep sense of the Church as a theologian. He brings different gifts to episcopal ministry than I do as a canonist. For the two of us to be able to draw from two different disciplines in that way has always been helpful for me. How he’s enriched my insights by his own theological insight has been a great gift for me. I know (Catholics in the Diocese of Crookston) are blessed beyond their wildest imaginings and getting somebody who’s such a great leader and whose talents are already recognized across the country.

CONGRATULATIONS

BISHOP COZZENS

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DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

The Association of Coordinators and Religious Educators

Bishop Andrew Cozzens

We greatly appreciate your servant leadership!

pope, just as it’s the pope who’s my boss. The metropolitan in the province can be a convener, so I’ll bring together people for our province, which includes not only the dioceses of Minnesota, but also South Dakota and North Dakota.

There are times we’re looking for some joint pastoral work or outreach where it’s enriched by being able to do things in common rather than individually.

But it’s very few responsibilities that the metropolitan archbishop has, and it’s certainly not to intervene in the matters of the local Church.

In gratitude for your leadership!

Sincerest Congratulation to

John E. Trojack Attorney at Law

archbishop. What does that mean?

I think some people have the idea you’re the boss of the other bishops.

with me the news, and told me I was able to speak with Bishop Cozzens about it.

www.acremn.com

6B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

BISHOP COZZENS

Women religious blessed by bishop’s support

DECEMBER 9, 2021

A focus as bishop on priestly fraternity

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

From left, Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist Teresa Christi Balek, Mary Consolata Klucik, Maria Karol Hamacher and Philomena Coon greet Bishop Andrew Cozzens after his Mass of Thanksgiving Nov. 28 at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul.

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit After Bishop Andrew Cozzens’ Mass of Thanksgiving Nov. 28 at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, members of several religious communities of women offered him well wishes and received a blessing.

Among them were four members of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, who teach at St. Agnes School in St. Paul and live in the parish’s convent. Sister Teresa Christi Balek handed Bishop Cozzens a copy of a book he wrote that the sisters wanted him to sign. Called “A Living Image of the Bridegroom: The Priesthood and the Evangelical Counsels,” it is a published form of a doctoral dissertation he wrote in 2008 as a way to help priests live the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience that women and men religious adopt.

Bishop Cozzens contacted the sisters shortly after their arrival in August 2018.

That connection is one example of the way he has built relationships with

religious communities of women in the archdiocese, including the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, Pro Ecclesia Sancta, Missionaries of Charity, the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus, which he helped form in the Diocese of New Ulm. “He’s really been like a father to us — very personable and very present to us,” Sister Teresa Christi said, noting that he played a role in her community coming to St. Agnes.

The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia arrived in 2001 to teach at St. Croix Catholic School in Stillwater. The school’s current principal, Sister Maria Ivana Begovic, said Bishop Cozzens has made connections with the sisters both at the school and at the motherhouse in Nashville, Tennessee, where he has given talks to the entire community.

“That has been a gift, to have him share his wisdom and his love for the consecrated life with us, and helping to delve more deeply into the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience,” Sister Maria Ivana said.

“A brother helped is like a strong city,” said Father Jeff Huard, senior spiritual director at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, quoting Proverbs to describe a need across the nation for bishops to lead in community building, especially for the priests of their dioceses, to keep them healthy and holy. Bishop Andrew Cozzens is one of the finest in this regard in the country, as is Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Father Huard said.

As he begins as the eighth bishop of the Diocese of Crookston, Bishop Cozzens brings experience that includes having helped shape the Companions of Christ, a fraternity of diocesan priests and seminarians that came together in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in October 1992.

With Bishop Cozzens’ support and assistance from its earliest years, 30 priests in the archdiocese are members and two more are in formation. In addition, five seminarian candidates are in formation, four seminarians are “precandidates” and three have expressed interest. There are eight households of Companions in the archdiocese, with two to five members in each household.

The Companions also has fraternal communities in the Archdiocese of Denver and Diocese of Joliet, Illinois.

“He had a major role in leading our formation process,” Father Huard said, “to help young men understand what we are doing and then discern and embrace it.” The bishop’s doctoral work focused on fraternity and formation in the evangelical counsels (poverty, chastity, obedience), he said, “so that’s had a very high impact on our life together.”

It makes sense to live as companions because it’s not good to be alone, Father Huard said. “But the primary, theological reason is you’re together for love, the love of Christ and your people. And this

enhances love and holiness of life.”

Bishop Cozzens’ “whole lane” is his intellectual work, Father Huard said, “so he has very strong fraternity with other theologians.” That’s why the bishop has a strong national impact, he said. “He’s also a very courageous moral leader.”

As a young bishop, Bishop Cozzens has been recognized for his evangelical passion and drive, Father Huard said, “and part of that is always fraternity.”

When the bishops gather as a group, Bishop Cozzens is one who is “a clear mover in this direction,” he said.

“Bishop Cozzens has always been on the front line of that work.”

Diocesan priests find Bishop Cozzens approachable and deeply authentic, Father Huard said, and he had a strong impact as a teacher and formator at the seminary, and in his time in 2018-2019 as interim rector. “But we always have Bishop (Cozzens) back to start out our year because he’s so nicely focused, moving the men into holiness of life, fraternity together.”

On Oct. 11, 2013, the day then-Father Cozzens was appointed an auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, he spoke with The Catholic Spirit on a variety of topics, including his involvement with the Companions of Christ. In that interview, Bishop Cozzens said it was his privilege that, as a priest, he was always able to live in community with other priests. Even after being ordained a bishop, he continued to live with others, including at St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center at the University of Minnesota, at the former St. Michael rectory on St. Paul’s West Side, and at The St. Paul Seminary.

(See related story on page 8B.) Bishop Cozzens said he was committed to supporting priests, and that the Companions of Christ is one way to do that. “I just think it’s very important that priests find the support they need,” he said.

Congratulations Most Rev. Andrew Cozzens CONGRATULATIONS

Bishop Andrew Cozzens ON YOUR APPOINTMENT AS BISHOP OF CROOKSTON

on your installation as the

Bishop of Crookston!

Yours in Christ, Most Rev. John M. Quinn and the faithful of the

SMALL FIRM RELATIONSHIPS. LARGE FIRM IMPACT.

Diocese of Winona-Rochester

DECEMBER 9, 2021

BISHOP COZZENS

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 7B

One prayer group, 10 vocations: the remarkable story of Bishop Cozzens’ college friends

By Christina Capecchi For The Catholic Spirit

A

t a small Catholic college in a small Midwestern town, a small group of students gathered Monday nights for a prayer group that would have a big impact. At the center of the group was a scrawny young man strumming guitar, a student who radiated equal parts levity and piety and would one day be appointed bishop of the Diocese of Crookston.

Drew.

Everyone at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, in the early ‘90s knew Drew Cozzens, the Colorado native who was ever-present on campus. He worked for the student newspaper, he served as a resident assistant at St. Joseph Hall, he was a fixture at daily Mass and a linchpin in the homecoming festivities.

He was the ideal candidate to ride atop a mattress fitted with bicycle wheels for the annual bed race, a storied inter-dorm competition.

It was a pivotal juncture in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, which was engaging young Catholics through praise and worship music and a focus on personal relationships with Jesus, and would soon receive pontifical recognition. It also marked the advent of the modern era of priestly formation, ushered in by the 1992 release of St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation “I Will Give You Shepherds,” which reshaped seminaries by emphasizing human formation alongside the spiritual and intellectual.

Drew and his friends felt tidal waves from both movements. They treasured their pontiff, Pope John Paul II, and they embraced the charismatic style of prayer, founding The Spirit of St. Benedict Prayer Group to meet every Monday for prayer, Scripture and praise and worship.

The group was reinforced by a priest who served as their spiritual director. A Catholic sister also provided spiritual counsel. Drew led the music.

Combined with their rigorous education and access to sacraments, the young men were spiritually awakened.

“It was the perfect environment to grow up in because you had good intellectual formation — an excellent philosophy department — good spiritual direction and the prayer group and good friends,” said Father Joseph Taphorn, Benedictine Class of 1993, who was two years below Drew and is now rector of The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul. “It’s what you wish every young person could have.”

Father Taphorn met Drew when the future Bishop Andrew Cozzens was a junior, steeped in campus life. “He’d laugh a lot,” Father Taphorn said. “He’d had a significant conversion experience, so he had all that zeal and zest for life but also was serious in growing in his faith.”

That zeal manifested itself in surprising ways, like the time Drew, a skilled rock climber, repelled down the side of St. Joseph Hall.

As an RA, he wasn’t afraid to write up a student who broke visitation rules. Once, he caught a young woman sneaking into his men’s dorm at midnight through the fire escape. Drew was unabashed about the moral guidelines to be drawn from Church teaching, but he wasn’t stern.

Joy was visible in his countenance — a

COURTESY THE ST. PAUL SEMINARY

A 1990 yearbook photo of the pro-life group founded by Bishop Cozzens and his friends includes Father Joseph Taphorn (far left) and Bishop Andrew Cozzens (second row, right). The man on the far right with the tie (just above Bishop Cozzens) is now Father Alphonsus Hermes. The man whose head covers the “n” in Atchison is now Father Joseph Tatro. young man who loved life and loved the Lord.

“He was a Spirit-filled dynamo,” said Dominican Father Andrew Hofer, Class of 1994, who belonged to their prayer group and now teaches at St. Dominic Priory in Washington, D.C. “I was impressed by the way he led so many students to give clear witness to Christ in the face of hostility and ambiguity.”

Members of The Spirit of St. Benedict Prayer Group looked forward to Monday evenings. They winnowed down in size a bit, settling at around five to 10 members. They were dubbed “The God Squad.”

Support from the “squad” was a priority, Father Taphorn said. “Drew was growing in his faith and eager for a fraternal brotherhood,” he said.

Everyone in the group experienced that fraternity, which spurred them along their spiritual journeys.

“Having the witness of others trying

to grow in holiness was moving,” Father Taphorn said.

When some members — Drew included — began talking about their interest in priesthood, it made the lofty vocation feel more feasible.

“When someone steps out, that gives encouragement to others to do the same,” Father Taphorn said. “It creates that energy.”

It animated Father Alphonsus Hermes, Class of 1992, who released his stale notions about what kind of man enters seminary.

“They were openly pursuing the priesthood, and that allowed me to open up to several people who had suggested it to me before that,” said Father Hermes, a Norbertine priest who is now a member of St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California. “Seeing them actually interested — and not ashamed about it — that was very encouraging for me. I would attribute them to opening me up

to a priestly vocation.”

He began to imagine priesthood in the context of a robust fraternity, which made the vocation more appealing.

He saw how it served a dual purpose: recreation and refinement. “A great aspect was mutual encouragement, which was a euphemism for correcting each other, encouraging others in their weakness.”

The prayer group had the right approach, Father Hermes said. “Andrew Cozzens, he’s an honest guy, and he wants people to be better.”

Delivering honest feedback as a friend made all the difference, Father Hermes said. “Relational evangelization was emphasized, to make connections, reaching out to students you wouldn’t normally sit with in the dining hall or inviting people to Mass.”

Monday after Monday, month after month, a miracle was underway. The core members of the prayer group prayed and sang, studied Scripture and discussed religious life. Ultimately, the desire for priesthood seized the heart of everyone.

“It was contagious because there were about 10 of us who entered religious life or the priesthood during the four years I was there,” Father Hermes said.

That fact remains a source of awe.

“It’s a great grace of God to see how many priestly and religious vocations came from a group of friends at Benedictine College in the early 1990s,” said Father Hofer.

In August of 1993, when Pope John Paul II came to Denver for the first World Youth Day held in North America, several members of the prayer group attended, including the future-Bishop Cozzens, who had already graduated from Benedictine College.

“Being in his presence was super encouraging,” Father Taphorn said of the pope. “You just wanted to give your life to the Lord.”

Weeks later, he and Drew entered seminary — one in Columbus, Ohio, one in St. Paul. Their ordinations fell one week apart in 1997. Drew became Father PLEASE TURN TO BENEDICTINE ON NEXT PAGE

Congratulations Bishop Cozzens!

OUR 7 TH ALUMNI BISHOP SINCE 2000

Benedictine College is pleased to welcome Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens, our alum, as the new Bishop of the Diocese of Crookston in Minnesota.

We were honored to have Bishop Cozzens as our 2021 Commencement Speaker and we look forward to working with him as we strive to Transform Culture in America.

WWW.BENEDICTINE.EDU ATCHISON, KANSAS

BISHOP COZZENS

8B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Seminary formation ‘a passion’ for Bishop Cozzens

By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit An early morning Holy Hour is the place seminarians living at The St. Paul Seminary can regularly expect to spot their housemate, Bishop Andrew Cozzens, said Deacon Connor McGinnis, a transitional deacon of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The bishop has lived at the seminary in St. Paul since 2018, and he quietly prays alongside the seminarians in St. Mary’s Chapel a few mornings of the week, Deacon McGinnis said.

Witnessing this aspect of Bishop Cozzens’ prayer life makes an impact, with a certain “marveling at … that consistency of prayer there, even in the midst of all the other things pulling on him,” Deacon McGinnis said.

Although he was ordained a priest in 1997, Bishop Cozzens has never been far from seminary life. Following doctoral studies in sacred theology in Rome, he taught and served in seminary formation at The St. Paul Seminary from 2006 to his episcopal ordination in 2013.

When longtime SPS rector Msgr. Aloysius Callaghan transitioned to a new role, Bishop Cozzens served as interim rector from June 2018 to January 2019, and led efforts to find the right candidate for a permanent rector. That ultimately led to the appointment of Father Joseph Taphorn, a priest of the Archdiocese of Omaha, and a friend of Bishop Cozzens since college.

Bishop Cozzens was still interim rector as Deacon McGinnis entered SPS in 2018, and the bishop’s efforts to strengthen seminary culture and build fraternity were noticeable, he said.

Those efforts aren’t only local. Bishop Cozzens is the president of the corporate

board for the Institute for Priestly Formation in Omaha, Nebraska, which provides ongoing formation for diocesan seminarians, priests and bishops. In 2015, discussions at an IPF conference in Denver led Bishop Cozzens and other seminary leaders from the U.S. and Canada to identify the need for formation for seminary formators — the men and women who help prepare seminarians for ministry. That conversation was particularly driven by a talk Bishop Cozzens gave there on St. John Paul II’s vision for seminary formators.

That ultimately led to the creation of the Seminary Formation Council, which sponsors a two-year certificate in Seminary Formation for Missionary Discipleship for seminary formators.

Bishop Cozzens serves as the president of its board of directors.

Being a good formator “doesn’t happen automatically,” said Father John Kartje, rector and president of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary near Chicago, who worked to form the Seminary Formation Council and currently serves as vice president of its board. “Bishop Cozzens’ leadership has been so central to the entire process,” he said, noting the bishop’s range of experience, deep spirituality and talent for synthesizing ideas.

Seminary formation “is just a passion of his and part of his vocation,” he said.

While the Diocese of Crookston doesn’t have its own seminary, its seminarians will benefit from having a bishop who’s interested in them and their formation, Father Kartje said. “As rector here (Mundelein), it’s so evident when a bishop really does take a deep interest in his seminarians. … I would totally envision Bishop Cozzens being a formator for those seminarians, though not as a seminary faculty member.”

CONGRATULATIONS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

BENEDICTINE

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE Andrew Cozzens — all but dropping his nickname — and then, in 2013, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The other members of his prayer group went on to assume leadership positions elsewhere. Abbot James Albers, a Benedictine, stayed close to their alma matter. He is now the abbot of St. Benedict Abbey in Atchison. Father Hermes is in California. Father Hofer teaches in the nation’s capital. Father Taphorn steers The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, where Bishop Cozzens had been helping to guide the archdiocese. Another friend, Father Joseph Tatro, is a priest of the Diocese of Wichita.

Their friendships endure, along with fond memories of the fraternity they knit together on Monday nights in Atchison.

“Life is hard,” Father Taphorn said. “Life can be lonely, but it doesn’t need to be. We’re called to be in community. We can find support from others and share life, and the most important thing we can share is our faith.”

Father Hermes agrees. “We all need community,” he said. “It is not good for man to be alone. Even when he’s elevated, Bishop Cozzens is still in close contact with the priests he met from college.”

Those men expect great things of Crookston’s newest bishop, who occasionally dusts off his guitar.

“Crookston is super blessed,” Father Taphorn said. “We know what kind of a man and priest he is: a deeply faithful, joyful man, with an ability to really teach beautifully and lead by example. He’s very devoted to priestly formation and women religious. That’s going to go a long way. I think he’ll really invest himself. He’ll be rooted there.”

His priest friends have heard bishops commend Bishop Cozzens’ efforts to lead the National Eucharistic Revival initiative as part of his work as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis. (See story on 18B.) “All of us throughout the nation should pay attention to how Bishop Cozzens envisions a eucharistic renewal,” Father Hofer said.

“We would do well to follow his lead.”

That noble example will be undergirded by kindness — just as it was 30 years ago. People, again, will follow.

“He has a servant’s heart,” Father Hermes said. “He cares about people knowing the love of God.”

Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila and Bishop Jorge Rodríguez offer their heartfelt congratulations to Most Rev. Andrew Cozzens on his installment as the eighth bishop of the Diocese of Crookston.

May God bless you and your ministry!

Bishop Cozzens

We can’t thank you enough for your leadership, support, and prayers for our life-saving and life-changing mission in the heart of the Twin Cities. Thank you for being a wonderful partner for Life!

– The Board of Directors and Staff of Abria Pregnancy Resources

Bishop Jorge Rodríguez, Ph. D.

Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila, S.T.L.

archden.org

DECEMBER 9, 2021

BISHOP COZZENS

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 9B

Archbishop Hebda at vespers: Bishop Cozzens is gifted, inspiring and filled with joy

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

I

n his homily at a vespers service in Crookston the night before Bishop Andrew Cozzens was to be installed as the eighth bishop of that diocese, Archbishop Bernard Hebda recalled the time as priests in Rome he and Bishop Cozzens provided pastoral care for religious sisters with St. Teresa of Kolkata’s Missionaries of Charity.

“While the sisters liked me, they loved Father Cozzens,” he said Dec. 5 in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, adding, “By God’s grace, both of us were shaped more by the Missionaries of Charity than they were by us.”

It’s no coincidence that Bishop Cozzens’ motto, which translates to “lend us your heart,” was a favorite quote and prayer of Mother Teresa, the archbishop said. “If you want to understand your new bishop, take some time to get to know Mother Teresa,” he said.

Bishop Cozzens asked Archbishop Hebda to deliver the homily, during which the archbishop noted that the world learned after Mother Teresa’s death about some of the dark spiritual struggles she faced for decades. But “she certainly understood a thing or two about joy,” the archbishop said.

In her way of looking at the world, joy is present in people who live a life of loving surrender and total trust, he said. And Mother Teresa told her sisters that joy can be the net that catches souls, the archbishop said.

“I’ve seen that at work myself in these last six years, as I have worked closely with your new bishop,” he said. “His joy is one of his great evangelistic tools.”

Bishop Cozzens is “a gifted and inspiring bishop who himself is filled with joy” that is foundational, not situational, a joy that comes from knowing what God has done for his people, the archbishop said.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda signs a document at the altar attesting to his witnessing of Bishop Andrew Cozzens’ Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity during a Dec. 5 vespers service.

Bishop Cozzens, right, and Bishop Richard Pates stand nearby at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Crookston. Bishop Cozzens was installed Dec. 6 as the eighth bishop of the Diocese of Crookston and Bishop Pates was the diocese’s apostolic administrator.

COURTESY RUSSELL HONS

Pope Francis has said that Christian joy does not mean living laugh to laugh, but rather, peace that is deeply rooted, peace in the heart, the peace that only God can give, Archbishop Hebda said. For St. Augustine, a Christian should be an alleluia from head to toe, the archbishop said. “He is speaking of an existential joy, a joy that comes from knowing that we’re loved by God, chosen by God, sustained by God,” knowing that God is in control and has a plan.

Archbishop Hebda closed his remarks with a quote from a letter Mother Teresa wrote a few hours before her death in 1997: “We have much to thank God

for, especially that he has given us Our Lady’s spirit to be the spirit of our society. Loving trust and total surrender made Our Lady say yes to the message of the angel, and cheerfulness or joy made her to run in haste to serve her cousin Elizabeth.

“Let us keep close to Our Lady, and she will make that same spirit grow in each one of us,” the archbishop said. “On this second Sunday of Advent, on this vigil of your installation, bishop, let us heed Mother Teresa’s advice. We join you, Bishop Cozzens, and the faithful of Crookston, in asking Our Lady to lend us her heart, her joyful heart, for the years ahead …”

BISHOP C

10B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

‘No place where Christ lives is north Bishop Cozzens’ installation marked by joy, warmth and trust in Jesus’ healing power

By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit

A

fter the other priests and bishops had processed into the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and the processional hymn ended, Bishop Andrew Cozzens remained in the narthex, standing behind a closed door. He knocked on the door with a gavel — bang, bang, bang — and Archbishop Bernard Hebda opened it. Bishop Cozzens stepped into the cathedral, kissed a crucifix and took the aspergillum — the instrument for sprinkling holy water — to bless the congregation.

The knocking is a sign of a bishop taking claim of the cathedral, and while most of the congregation watched the dramatic gesture from their pews, 13-year-old Alex Thornton had the best view in the house, standing just a few feet behind the bishop, near a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus where the child had knelt to pray just a few minutes before.

Thornton, who has Down syndrome, thought the moment was special but unexpected — he hadn’t realized he’d have a unique view. His spot right outside the main doors gave him and his parents, David and Patty Thornton, a chance to congratulate Bishop Cozzens, who stepped away from the processional line to greet them.

“We love to support our bishops,” said David Thornton, who with his family attends St. Bernard in St. Paul. Even with the Mass available via livestream, driving the fourand-a-half hours to see the event in person was worth it, he added. “We feel it’s important, whenever possible, to be present. … It’s a great honor as Catholics to be able to come to an event like this.”

The Mass of Installation drew Catholics from across the Midwest and beyond. The weather, however, wasn’t conducive to travel — as if to confirm visitors’ stereotypes about northwest Minnesota, the winter’s first major snowstorm brought 8 inches of snow to the region Dec. 4-5, whipping it into blizzard conditions by early Sunday evening. The North Dakota Department of Transportation and North Dakota Highway Patrol closed Interstate 29, and several vespers-bound guests had to have their vehicles pulled from roadside ditches. On the morning of Dec. 6, the temperature was 8 degrees below zero, but the windchill was minus 25.

Bishop Juan Miguel Betancourt of Hartford, Connecticut, had followed the forecast and flew in a couple days early, he said. The former vice-rector of The St. Paul Seminary, Bishop Betancourt was ordained an auxiliary bishop in 2018. Bishop Cozzens was among the three bishops who consecrated him. The two became friends as young priests studying in Rome, and rather than returning to his native Puerto Rico, then-Father Betancourt came with other members of his religious order to St. Paul, where he taught at the seminary and was pastor of St. Francis de Sales.

“The people of Crookston are going to be blessed in having him,” Bishop Betancourt said. “I’m here to support him, even if under the snow.”

While many attendees logged significant mileage to be at the installation Mass, perhaps none made such an arduous journey as Ron Vasek, who, until the Dec. 5 vespers, had been avoiding the cathedral ever since he filed a lawsuit in 2017 against Bishop Michael Hoeppner and the Diocese of Crookston. He alleged that Bishop Hoeppner coerced him in 2015 into recanting an allegation of sexual abuse he had made against a priest of the diocese. Vasek’s experience prompted a Vatican investigation of Bishop Hoeppner, who had led the Crookston diocese since 2007.

The investigation, entrusted to Archbishop Hebda as the metropolitan archbishop, was the first investigation of a sitting U.S. bishop to be made public under “Vos Estis Lux Mundi,” Pope Francis’ 2019 norms regarding bishops accused of either misconduct or improperly handling

claims of misconduct. Bishop Hoeppner resigned in April at Pope Francis’ request.

In his homily, Bishop Cozzens spoke about hope and reconciliation, and that resonated with Vasek. “People have to forgive each other,” he said, “but I like that he said that we can’t ignore the fact that bad things have happened.”

His hope, he said, is for “the ship to get righted and that people see the goodness in Bishop Cozzens.”

Preaching for the first time as bishop in Crookston, Bishop Cozzens said that at a goodbye celebration in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, someone had asked whether the Crookston diocese was “North of Hope”— a reference to the late Minnesota Catholic author Jon Hassler’s 1990 novel about a priest in northern Minnesota.

“It probably was written about someplace in the Diocese of Crookston,” he said. “But the point is clear: No place where Christ lives is north of hope. And most especially, in difficulties and struggles, to discover the true power of hope. And the Diocese of Crookston has been through some difficulties and struggles. It doesn’t help to pretend that these did not happen. But to have real hope, we face those difficulties and struggles head on. And we’ll do that together. It’s part of the healing that God wants to do in our midst.”

During the Mass, Bishop Cozzens’ family filled two front pews, with his parents, Jack and Judy, at the end. The evening before, Judy had shared with guests at a postvespers reception that she and Jack had added to their daily rosary an extra decade for the people of Crookston. She asked Catholics in that diocese to pray a decade for their new bishop as well. After saying a rosary with the congregation just prior to the installation Mass, she said she also hoped that God would bless the Crookston diocese with religious vocations.

Around 75 priests (and nearly 20 deacons) processed into the Mass. Among them was Father William Slattery, a priest of Fargo ordained in 2015. He was a college student in Rome with the University of St. Thomas’ Catholic Studies program when he met then-Father Cozzens, who was finishing his doctorate. Now, as a priest in a neighboring diocese, Father Slattery has attended retreats Bishop Cozzens has given f or clergy.

“Going to school at St. Thomas, you kind of knew Father Cozzens. He would give talks. (He’s) very inspiring, especially on his dissertation and the way in which voluntary poverty is part of the priestly life, and particularly the diocesan priesthood,” said Father Slattery, the campus minister at Shanley High School in Fargo, which draws students from across the Red River in Moorhead, in the Diocese of Crookston. “He’s an answer to a lot of prayers in this area, just to get great leadership to bring reconciliation, help people encounter Christ and bring a lot of renewal to this area. He’ll be wonderful.”

Also there for Sunday evening vespers and the installation Mass was Sister Esther Mary Nickel, director of Christian worship for the Archdiocese of Detroit. A Sister of Mercy, she’s known Bishop Cozzens and his sister, Helen, for more than 30 years, when he was discerning the priesthood and his sister was not yet married.

“Why was it important for me to come? Because he’s important to me,” she said.

That’s how Marta Pereira felt as well. The director of the Office for Spirituality at the University of St. Thomas, she first came to know Bishop Cozzens as a student in a class he taught on the Eucharist, which is why she thinks it’s fitting that he’s leading the National Eucharistic Revival.

“He really instilled in us the real meaning of the Eucharist, and that totally changed my life,” she said. “I have had a lot of formation, and I had never experienced the Eucharist how he had taught us.”

A native of Costa Rica, Pereira praised his closeness to Spanish-speaking Catholics as someone who not only knew the language, but also has “a heart to connect with the people.” Since his ordination as bishop, Pereira has made a commitment to pray for him, especially because he became bishop at such a difficult time in the archdiocese, she said.

“He has been a great gift for the archdiocese,” she said. “I know that the Lord has a special mission here, but it has been really hard to see him go.”

1 Bishop Andrew Cozzens, right, greets

Archbishop Bernard Hebda at the start of his installation Mass Dec. 6 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Crookston.

At left is Father Joseph Richards, rector of the Cathedral, and at right is Father Tom Margevicius, director of worship for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Bishop Cozzens kissed the cross held by Father Richards before continuing his procession into the church.

2 Bishop Cozze

and his mother, installation Mas

COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021 • 11B

of hope’

ens greets Alex Thornton , Patty Thornton, before the ss.

2

PHOTOS BY DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

4 3 Ron Vasek stands inside the Cathedral

during the installation Mass, after staying away since 2017 when he filed a lawsuit against Bishop Michael Hoeppner and the Diocese of Crookston, alleging the bishop coerced him into recanting an allegation of sexual abuse against a priest of the diocese.

3

1

5 4 Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus,

based in New Ulm, sing during the Mass.

6 5 Bishop Cozzens elevates the Eucharist 6 Bishop Cozzens blesses Cecilia Lopez, during Mass.

held by her father, Daniel Lopez, after Mass. Lopez and his wife, Alexa, who also attended the Mass, belong to St. Bernard in St. Paul.

12B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

From all of us at the Seminaries of Saint Paul, thank you for showing us what it means to be a

BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 13B

Bishop Cozzens’ coat of arms

T

he personal arms which a diocesan bishop adopts are impaled with the arms of his diocese. The shield in the coat of arms of Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens is divided vertically with the shield of the Diocese of Crookston on the left side (heraldic “dexter”) and his own arms on the right (or “sinister”) side. This symbolizes the marriage between a bishop and a diocese.

The coat of arms of Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens is divided into four sections by the St. Andrew cross. Like his patron, St. Andrew, Bishop Cozzens wishes his entire life to be conformed to Christ through laying down his life for Christ’s bride, the Church (Eph 5:25-26).

At the center of the cross is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, representing Bishop Cozzens’ desire to make present through his episcopal ministry the love, mercy and healing that flow from the pierced Heart of Christ for the salvation of the world.

Along the lower left arm of the cross is the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to whom Bishop Cozzens entrusts his life and ministry as a bishop. Sharing with her in the sufferings of discipleship (represented by the sword in her heart), he hopes to share in the fruitfulness that flows from this suffering (represented by the roses around her heart). Along the lower right arm of the cross is the Heart of St. Joseph, with a staff of lilies representing his purity and his identity as a guardian of the Holy Family. Like St. Joseph, Bishop Cozzens takes the Church as his bride in chaste love and seeks to love all her children with a Father’s compassionate and steadfast heart. St. Joseph is also known as “Protector of Virgins,” a title which reflects Bishop Cozzens’ deep love and gratitude for consecrated religious. He is grateful to be installed as the eighth bishop of the Diocese of Crookston during the Year of St. Joseph, proclaimed by the Holy See to commemorate the 150th anniversary of St. Joseph being declared Patron of the Catholic Church.

The top or “chief” of Bishop Cozzens’ arms hails a

landscape of mountains representing Bishop Cozzens’ native state of Colorado, where he learned to climb mountains, as well as the call of every Christian to seek ever-greater heights in the spiritual life. At the base is a field of blue and white waves taken from the coat of arms of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, in which he was ordained to the priesthood and served for the first 24 years of his priestly life. The water reminds us of the new life of baptism which is the beginning of every Christian’s life in Christ’s love.

The arms of the diocese are on a field of red and white waves, representing the Red Lake River on which Crookston is located and the Mississippi River, which has its source in the diocese.

The croziers, representing the office of bishop, are placed in jurisdictional impalement. They represent the Office of the Apostles and their successors, the bishops, who are entrusted with feeding the lambs and the sheep in accordance with the command of Christ (Jn 21:15-17). The crosses on the shield resemble the cross in the arms of the Diocese of Duluth, from which the diocese of Crookston was split.

The blue roundel and the white crescent portray Our Lady’s colors. The crescent honors the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, her title as titular of the cathedral and Patroness of the United States of America. This symbol is derived from the Book of Revelation: “And a great sign appeared in Heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and the moon was under her feet and upon her head twelve stars” (Rev 12:1).

Around the border of the shield is seen a three-ply cord, which represents the importance that Bishop Cozzens attaches to priestly fraternity, as well as the gratitude he has for the fraternal life he has shared in the Companions of Christ, a fraternity of diocesan priests. The three-ply cord comes from the Book of Ecclesiastes: “Where alone man may be overcome, two together can resist. A three-ply cord is not easily

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broken” (Eccl 4:12). On top of the shield is a gold Celtic cross symbolizing the Irish ancestry of Bishop Cozzens. The five red stones set within the center of the cross represent the five wounds of Christ. As St. Peter tells us, “By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pt 2:24). Through these wounds, Bishop Cozzens desires to make known Christ’s healing love.

Bishop Cozzens has chosen as his motto, “Praebe Nobis Cor Tuum,” which translates, “Give us your heart.” The motto is taken from the final line of a prayer by St. Louis DeMontfort to Our Lady. This prayer was dear to both St. John Paul II (“Totus Tuus” — the first line of the prayer) and St. Teresa of Kolkata (“Praebe nobis cor tuum” — the last line of the prayer), to whom Bishop Cozzens has a special devotion. This motto expresses his desire to be united with the Heart of Jesus through the Heart of Mary and to lead others to this same union.

Congratulations The School Sisters of Notre Dame congratulate Bishop Cozzens on his installation.

May God bless you, Bishop Cozzens!

BISHOP COZZENS

14B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

DECEMBER 9, 2021

Passion for Catholic education drove Bishop Cozzens in vicar role

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

O

ne of Bishop Andrew Cozzens’ earliest roles in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was serving as vicar for Catholic education, a post he took right after becoming an auxiliary bishop in December 2013. His passion for building up Catholic schools and their enrollments is evident to those who have worked closely with him.

Early on, Bishop Cozzens went to work creating a new office in the archdiocese: the Office for the Mission of Catholic Education. He hired Jason Slattery in 2015 to be its director, and together the two hired other staff members and began forging a vision for Catholic education in the archdiocese. From the beginning, Slattery was impressed by what Bishop Cozzens brought to the table, which involved closing the previous Office of Catholic Schools and charting a new course.

“Right out of the gate,” Slattery said, Bishop Cozzens was “seeing the importance of Catholic education. (His) being the first vicar of education the (arch)diocese has had was a great gift. In that work, from his first days in office, he exhibited real vision and courage.”

And, perhaps most important, he knows the details, Slattery said. “And, that’s a rare thing for a leader to really understand — the details of how the thing really works, what makes it succeed.”

Over the last six years, Bishop Cozzens has worked closely with Archbishop Bernard Hebda to develop a long-term vision. Their collaboration resulted in the Roadmap for Excellence in Catholic Education,

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

In this file photo, Bishop Andrew Cozzens talks with students at St. John Paul II Catholic School in Minneapolis Jan. 29, 2018, during a Knights of Columbus Coats for Kids donation event. which was released in 2019 and will guide school and archdiocesan leaders for years to come.

“This archdiocese is really blessed with two bishops who are really once-in-a-generation leadership figures,” Slattery said. “It was just such a blessing to witness how harmonious and united they were. The importance of Catholic education is a priority in the local Church.”

The Roadmap, developed after 18 months of work, consists of five areas of strategic importance for Catholic schools: talent management, particularly leadership development; curriculum and assessments; access and

sustainability; mission schools; and governance.

One outcome is the Institute for Catholic School Leadership at The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, which offers a 14-month, graduate-level certificate to principals and aspiring principals.

Bishop Cozzens also helped guide local Catholic schools through the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2020, after more than two months of distance learning, he and Slattery wrote a letter to all Catholic school families articulating the archdiocese’s plans to move forward in solidarity with Catholic school leaders for in-person learning in fall 2020, something Twin Cities public schools were more reluctant and slower to do. Catholic schools successfully opened their doors, with some experiencing increased enrollment. Overall, leaders including Slattery called the move to in-person learning a success, despite COVID-19 outbreaks at some schools.

Bishop Cozzens’ role as vicar for Catholic education also involved visiting schools across the archdiocese, going into classrooms, celebrating Masses and talking with teachers and staff. The time he took is reflected in a tribute booklet compiled by the education office and presented to him Dec. 1. It contains prayers, well wishes and expressions of gratitude. All 89 Catholic elementary and high schools contributed words and photos.

Julie Shelby, principal at St. Timothy’s School in Maple Lake, wrote: “I appreciate all your inspiring words to lead us through a pandemic and allow us to continue to help our students grow in their faith. Your dedication to our schools has given me the ability to strengthen my role as a leader at St. Timothy’s School. I am blessed to have been guided by your wisdom.”

sends our prayers and warmest congratulations to NET Alumnus Bishop Andrew Cozzens on your installation as the 8th Bishop of the Diocese of Crookston!

With your continued leadership we have been able to invite over 2.2 million young people to love Christ and embrace the life of the Church.

BISHOP ANDREW COZZENS

Heartfelt welcome from the Clergy, Religious and Lay Faithful of the

DIOCESE OF CROOKSTON As eighth Bishop of Crookston, you are a worthy successor to those who have come before you.

We look forward to continuing, under your leadership, more than a century of Catholic Tradition in the midst of God's natural beauty found in Northwest Minnesota's lakes, forests and bountiful farmland.

BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 15B

Bishop Cozzens’ pro-life story started before his birth

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

‘WITNESS OF OUR FAITH’

Bishop Andrew Cozzens has told his birth story many times — how his mother, Judy, when pregnant with him, was advised by her physician to get an abortion. Nancy Schulte Palacheck recently recalled that Judy told her doctor that God sends us whatever we can handle, that this was her baby and she was going to have the baby.

Schulte Palacheck, family and laity outreach coordinator for the Office of Marriage, Family and Life in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, believes Bishop Cozzens felt called to promote the pro-life cause at an early age, adding, “Look what (God) has done with him for all of us.”

For one, Schulte Palacheck said, Bishop Cozzens was instrumental in getting Minnesota’s “safe haven law” passed in 2000. It enables women to drop off their unwanted, unharmed babies at specified locations within seven days of their birth.

Sonya Flomo, an administrative assistant and the Life Fund grants administrator at the archdiocese, remembers meeting with then-Father Cozzens and two parishioners at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul to draft a mission statement for the proposed safe haven law. She said he worked tirelessly to ensure it passed so each child would be treated “the same way he was treated.” His mother trusted in God’s providence, she said, “and that’s exactly what he does.”

Flomo, who has worked with prolife programs in the archdiocese for 24 years, said when people hear Bishop Cozzens’ story, their attitude changes and they see why he’s the way he is.

“Prayer is the root of his being,” she said. “He’s a blessed child from God

On a personal note, Nancy Schulte Palacheck recalled how Bishop Cozzens helped her family when her son, Clark, was diagnosed with cancer in July 2016 at age 24 and died at 25 in September 2017.

“He came to our home and met with my son,” Schulte Palacheck said. “He walked very closely with us and loved Clark, and described how our journey doesn’t end here, and how it begins in the next (life) and how we need to prepare during this time.”

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Bishop Andrew Cozzens addresses people gathered at Planned Parenthood in St. Paul in 2019 for the annual Good Friday Prayer Service for Life, organized by Pro-Life Action Ministries. and he wants that for everybody.”

Mary Jane Miller, a parishioner of St. Wenceslaus in New Prague who drove to Bishop Cozzens’ Mass of Thanksgiving in St. Paul Nov. 28, said she prays that the doctor who recommended abortion to his mother would see who this baby became.

“If that isn’t a true miracle for antiabortion (causes),” she said.

Schulte Palacheck said Bishop Cozzens is a huge proponent of natural family planning and regularly spoke to NFP teachers in the archdiocese to support them in their work, and explained to other audiences why the Church encourages its use.

Bishop Cozzens regularly participates in pro-life events, including the annual Prayer Service for Life at the Cathedral of St. Paul and the accompanying prolife march to the Minnesota Capitol.

In gratitude for your faithfulness.

May God continue to Bless you!

Be assured of our prayers as you embark on your new journey as Bishop of Crookston.

He has prayed at Planned Parenthood clinics, traveled every other year to the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and he spoke last January at a March for Life: Youth and Family Conference in St. Paul. He has been closely involved with the archdiocese’s annual St. John Paul II Champions for Life Awards.

Bishop Cozzens also has blessed ultrasound machines at women’s clinics, including a machine recently received at the Alpha Women’s Center’s mobile medical center at Our Lady of the Prairie in Belle Blaine.

He has been “incredibly supportive” to Twin Cities-based Abria Pregnancy Resources, such as chairing Abria’s clergy council, participating in its annual gala, meeting with donors and mentioning Abria at Masses and other venues to encourage support, said

Bishop Cozzens heard her son’s last confession and officiated at his funeral Mass. She described the bishop as humble, loving, caring and kind.

“He is a beautiful witness of our faith,” she said, drawing people and their hearts closer to Jesus in a loving and caring way.

— Barb Umberger

Angela Franey, its executive director.

During a homily Bishop Cozzens delivered at a Mass in 2020 celebrating the 20th anniversary of Rachel’s Vineyard, a ministry focused on healing people impacted by abortion, he said the organization’s staff provided faith, hope and healing. Through the Church’s support and the power of prayer and the sacraments, he said, its retreats showed how the love of Jesus, the paschal mystery of Jesus, can change lives.

He has acted on his pro-life passion for many years. During a livestreamed conversation with young adults May 21, 2020, Bishop Cozzens said he was arrested six to eight times for civil disobedience during college for blocking the entrance to abortion clinics. He served time in jail for it.

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16B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

Parish’s Latino community knew then-Father Cozzens destined for bigger things As priest and bishop, he ‘was there for the ministry,’ not for himself

MULTI-FACETED MINISTRY Bishop Cozzens has often advocated for immigrants in government policy and pastoral care.

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

u At a Minnesota House Transportation Policy and Finance Committee hearing in March 2015, he said immigrants without legal status should be able to obtain provisional driver’s licenses or state-issued identification, calling it a moral imperative to help those living in the U.S.

W

hen then-Father Andrew Cozzens was assigned in 2000 as parochial vicar of Divine Mercy in Faribault (then named the Faribault Catholic Community), which included a Spanish-speaking population, he was determined to learn the language.

He not only learned the language but the culture as well, said Dora Mata, its Latino ministry coordinator, who has served the parish since 1997.

“That’s what we really liked about him, because you get close to the families when you understand the culture,” Mata said. He enjoyed interacting with and getting to know the Hispanic people, she said, and conducting blessings for families, including their homes. He also loved the community’s Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrations, Mata said, so he became “one of us.”

Mata recalled the time Bishop Cozzens spent with and supported parish youth.

One parish family still remembers how he helped them after a teenage family member was killed in an accident, including working with a funeral home on the family’s behalf, she said.

No matter how tired he was, he made time for people, Mata said. “And he did it with heart,” she said.

After two years, Bishop Cozzens was sent to Rome for studies. His former parishioners knew then that their parochial vicar was meant for something bigger, Mata said.

“He’s like, ‘no, not me,’ but I said, ‘yes, you will see,’” she said. “It’s because of the kind of man he is, and he is very intelligent.” Mata said seeing those qualities in a priest lets people know he will “get far in life because they’re there for the ministry, not for themselves.”

Estela Villagran Manancero met Bishop Cozzens when he served at Divine Mercy,

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u In a homily in English and Spanish at a Dec. 9, 2017, Mass of Solidarity at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, Bishop Cozzens said the Church is a family and “in God’s kingdom, there are no borders.” Every human being, “no matter their race or origin, no matter where they were born, has the same dignity and the same inherent human rights,” he said.

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

In this 2014 file photo, Bishop Andrew Cozzens greets people at Risen Savior in Burnsville before Mass to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. and started meeting with him regularly at archdiocesan offices in St. Paul in 2014, where she serves today as director of the Office of Latino Ministry.

She recalled the bishop’s participation in an annual Latino Family Day that included Mass and learning which parish brought “the best tamales.” When Bishop Cozzens moved the event from the Cathedral of St. Paul to Como Park a few miles away in 2013, 2,000 people participated, Villagran Manancero said.

“I think from there, people were close to him,” she said.

When the crowd outgrew the space in Como Park, the event was moved in 2015 to St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights, but was suspended in 2017 and 2018 for the national V Encuentro (“fifth encounter”) gathering, a nationwide faith-building process for Latino Catholics. Because of Bishop Cozzens’ Spanish-speaking abilities “and his gifts,” Villagran Manancero recommended him, and he served as the Encuentro’s lead bishop for region eight, which included

the six dioceses in Minnesota and the four in North and South Dakota.

Every Dec. 11, Villagran Manancero said, Bishop Cozzens visited Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul and on Dec. 12, visited other parishes on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Her office held a Latina Catholic Women’s night, alternating months with a men’s night, “so we can support the family,” Villagran Manancero said.

Bishop Cozzens offered confessions when help was needed.

Latinos saw him as a priest accompanying the people, Villagran Manancero said, and they have been impressed by how he has remained “close to the people” after becoming a bishop. She recalled how Bishop Cozzens was always present for the archdiocese’s annual Mass of Solidarity, attended graduations for the Office of Latino Ministry’s five formation institutes (pastoral leadership, biblical, catechetical, basic theology, liturgy) and participated in Advent and Lenten retreats. He

u At a 2018 news conference with faith leaders and state officials, he spoke at the State Capitol in St. Paul about the need to reunite immigrant families and prevent future separations of children from parents when families illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.

celebrated bilingual Masses for confirmation — in 2020, three Masses, where 668 people from 12 parishes were confirmed.

When Bishop Cozzens celebrated Mass at parishes with a large Hispanic population, he stayed afterward to mingle with people, Villagran Manancero said. “He goes table to table,” she said, giving blessings when requested.

As Bishop Cozzens begins serving as bishop of the Diocese of Crookston, Villagran Manancero said she hopes he will restore the office for Latino ministry that was once in place in that diocese, so the Spanish-speaking community can be better served and integrated with those who speak English.

“We are one community that happens to be living there with different languages, but as a Church, we are one,” she said.

Congratulations

Bishop David D. Kagan and the clergy, religious and lay faithful of the Diocese of Bismarck offer sincere congratulations to Bishop Andrew Cozzens and a promise of prayers on his appointment as the Bishop of the Diocese of Crookston.

BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 17B

Part of bishop’s appeal to youth is being ‘a happy priest’

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

W

ith students crowded before a stage at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul as part of Archdiocesan Youth Day in 2017, Father John Paul Erickson strode to a drum set at the back of the stage, Father Nick VanDenBroeke picked up an electric guitar, Father Joah Ellis headed to the keyboard and Father James McConville carried a stand-up bass.

The Second Collection band started playing, and Father Michael Daly began singing “We Are the Free” by Matt Redman. The crowd sang along and batted around colorful vinyl beachballs.

When the song ended, cheers grew as the audience watched Bishop Andrew Cozzens walk on stage, saying, “That was pretty good guys, but why don’t you give me that guitar?” The crowd cheered.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Bill Dill, marriage preparation and youth ministry events coordinator in the archdiocese’s Office of Marriage, Family and Life.

“People were shocked when the bishop came out and played with them. It was quite the spectacle.”

Part of the bishop’s appeal to young people is that he is “a happy priest,” said Mark Berchem, founder and president of West St. Paul-based NET Ministries, which offers retreats to high school students around the country. When young men and women considering a vocation interact with someone holy, who can be serious but also positive, optimistic and fun to be around, “it’s very inviting,” he said.

In addition to serving with the ministry as a team leader before being ordained a priest, Bishop Cozzens’ support of NET Ministries included being an annual keynote speaker for the organization’s monthly Lifeline events, Berchem said. “He is very good in front of young people,” he said. “They can relate with him.”

Bishop Cozzens also was involved with St. Paul’s Outreach college campus ministry as a young man, at one point spending summers in an SPO household. He continued to be involved in NET and SPO as a bishop, including chair of Inver Grove Heights-based SPO’s national board of directors since 2013.

Gordy DeMarais, SPO’s founder and president, said that at a recent board retreat, Bishop Cozzens spoke about the spiritual origin and nature of their work.

“He reminded us that while we should aim toward excellence in all of the human dimensions of our organization, we must always remember that this is the Lord’s work, and ‘apart from him we can do no good.’”

With the bishop leaving the board due to his appointment in Crookston and other responsibilities, DeMarais said the organization is “grateful for the

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

In this file photo from 2017, Bishop Cozzens plays the guitar in The Second Collection, a priest band, at Archdiocesan Youth Day. contribution he is making to the broader Church and eager to support these important initiatives.”

Catholics ages 18-28 who join NET Ministries serve nine months with evangelization teams to share the Gospel with other young adults and their families.

Bishop Cozzens’ first assignment, as a team leader from 1991-1992, was in the Diocese of Crookston, where his team spent time in Crookston as well as Barnesville, on the southern border of that diocese, and Warroad, at the northern tip, on Lake of the Woods. His team also served in Moorhead and East Grand Forks.

After ordination, he helped train new NET missionaries and celebrated Mass, gave presentations and heard confessions.

He always encouraged people that “you can do this,” Berchem said. While some people see the negative, the bishop sees potential, he said. “This is where you can go, this is what you can do.”

During the pandemic in 2020, with in-person activities curtailed, Bishop Cozzens reached out to youth with three livestreamed conversations on current events and other topics in a Catholic context.

He encouraged young adults to submit questions for discussion. One was “What is it like to say Mass in an empty church?”

Dill noted that any time Bishop Cozzens spoke to

THE SECOND COLLECTION To see a video of The Second Collection at AYD in 2017, visit tinyurl.com/2017-secondcollection.

youth ministers, he inspired people to holiness. “His witness is so authentic that it connected with people, especially to young people,” he said. When Bishop Cozzens participated in events for youth, he often heard confessions, Dill said, and the lines were long.

“When he came to the March for Life with us and told stories of his pro-life activity over his lifetime, he has some amazing stories, and he really inspired the kids and the adults,” Dill said.

Bishop Cozzens will be remembered “very long, wide and deep,” he said. “When people heard him, they knew that he knew the Lord, and he spoke from a deep, personal relationship with the Lord.”

Berchem said the people in the Diocese of Crookston are blessed. “You’re getting a good shepherd,” he said.

He will care for people, reach out to them, call them into greater holiness and greater service to one another, Berchem said. “I’m excited to see what happens.”

Bishop Andrew h. Cozzens May the Holy Spirit guide you and Mother Mary inspire you as you lead

the Diocese of Crookston

Prayerful Best Wishes

Bishop Cozzens May you be greatly blessed in your ministry in the Diocese of Crookston, so all in your diocese will be

HEALTHY, HAPPY AND HOLY!

From Monsignor Douglas Grams, diocesan administrator, and the faithful of the Diocese of New Ulm, Minn.

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18B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

Bishop Cozzens’ Eucharistic Revival to help ‘fulfill a great need for the Church’

By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit

I

n 2019, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops elected Bishop Andrew Cozzens to succeed Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles as the chairman of its Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis.

When he officially stepped into that three-year role in 2020, he inherited the leadership of a plan — then still in its earliest stages — for a National Eucharistic Revival, a nationwide initiative that aims to deepen Catholics’ love for Jesus in the Eucharist.

In November, the bishops voted during their fall general assembly in Baltimore to approve the event’s capstone: a National Eucharistic Congress, slated for July 17-21, 2023, in Indianapolis. Bishop Cozzens has described the event as similar to World Youth Day. “My sense is that the Holy Spirit is leading us together to fulfill a great need for the Church,” he said in his Nov. 17 presentation to his fellow bishops ahead of their vote. He noted that the Revival was driven in part by a 2019 Pew Research study that found that only one-third of Catholics believe Catholic teaching about the Eucharist, that it is the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the Eucharist is “the source and summit” of the Christian life.

The Eucharistic Revival begins June 19, 2022, the feast of Corpus Christi — a launch day Bishop Cozzens envisions to be marked by diocesan eucharistic processions. The Revival’s work is being done by an executive team and eight working groups, supported by staff of the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis.

In a Nov. 18 interview at the end of the general assembly, Archbishop Bernard Hebda told The Catholic Spirit that “one of the highlights of the week was that discussion (on the Eucharistic Revival)

BOB ROLLER | CNS

Bishop Andrew Cozzens listens to a question during a Nov. 17 session of the fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. Behind him is Archbishop Charles Thompson of Indianapolis, the 2023 National Eucharistic Congress’ host city. and certainly, getting to see Bishop Cozzens’ really incredible work in that area.”

“We certainly have great pride in his work, given that he’s been the auxiliary in St. Paul and Minneapolis,” he said. “We saw in that leadership in the (bishop’s) Conference the leadership that’s been so well known to us in the archdiocese.”

Archbishop Hebda said he’s dreaming of the Eucharistic Revival including an effort that’s statewide, or even province-wide, with the dioceses

in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, “imagining the vitality that could come from that.”

He noted that the Crookston diocese contains the headwaters of the Mississippi, and how “something that starts small can become something so mighty.”

“We in Minnesota particularly have a sense, not just because Bishop Cozzens is involved, that this could be a real moment for us to come together and build something that’s going to be mighty in our response to Christ’s call,” he said.

Con��atulations BISHOP ANDREW COZZENS

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BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 19B

Clergy abuse survivor: Bishop Cozzens had ‘immediate concern for my soul’

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit

G

ina Barthel received a response the same day she emailed Bishop Andrew Cozzens, explaining she was a victim of sexual abuse by a priest in New York and asking if he would be willing to meet with her.

He called, they found a time in January 2014 and they’ve been meeting once a month ever since. Conducted in a safe environment, their discussions have guided Barthel through anger, tears and trauma to drawing ever closer to Christ, particularly in eucharistic adoration.

“January will mark eight years,” Barthel said. “I thought we would meet once.”

Barthel knows Bishop Cozzens can’t do the same for every clergy abuse survivor. But whenever she told him of someone who needed help, even from outside the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, he always said he would find a way to assist them, she said. As the eighth bishop of Crookston, she is certain that caring for victim-survivors of clergy abuse will be a strong aspect of his ministry.

“I believe he will put into place or provide means for people who can walk with people, who can support them. People who are competent and sensitive to the victims,” she said.

The Diocese of Crookston is going through its own struggles with past clergy sexual abuse. Bishop Cozzens is succeeding Bishop Michael Hoeppner, who led the diocese from 2007 until his resignation in April at the request of Pope Francis. The resignation followed a Vatican investigation into claims that he mishandled clergy sexual abuse allegations in the diocese.

Bishop Cozzens brings administrative experience as well as a pastoral heart to helping victims and the Church through what has been found to be sexual abuse

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Gina Barthel greets Bishop Andrew Cozzens after his Mass of Thanksgiving Nov. 28 at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. by clergy around the world. He was ordained auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis in December 2013, just as a crisis erupted that led to the archdiocese going through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy from 2015 to 2018 that involved more than 450 clergy abuse claims and resulted in a $210 million settlement with victimsurvivors.

A month after Bishop Cozzens was ordained bishop, he also became involved in an internal investigation of sexual misconduct against Archbishop John Nienstedt, who had been leading the archdiocese since 2008. Later calling that investigation “doomed to fail” because it was conducted internally and without its leaders having authority to act, Bishop Cozzens

joined other U.S. prelates in calling for further reform of the Church.

Ultimately, a structure to investigate bishops accused of wrongdoing was established worldwide through Pope Francis’ 2019 legislative document “Vos estis lux mundi.”

Barthel, 45, said she has seen Bishop Cozzens’ pastoral care in the midst of her crisis of faith.

“I knew he believed me,” Barthel said of first explaining to Bishop Cozzens what had happened to her. “But I also knew he had immediate concern for my soul and well-being. I felt heard and respected. You would have thought he had nothing else to do. That was very healing to me.”

It continues to be healing, Barthel

said, as she recovers from her trauma.

“There are still times I am angry and tearful, but it’s not the same intensity as it was (in) the beginning,” she said.

“I have moved from victim-survivor to thriver. Now, I am really thriving.”

Her need for Christ’s healing, her faith and love for the Church — but anger at it — has been mixed into the pain of sexual abuse, creating a complex and arduous process of recovery, she said.

“It takes someone who is very patient and experienced in the spiritual life to walk you through that,” said Barthel, who grew up in St. Michael parish in St. Michael, lived in nearby Albertville for a time as an adult but now lives in Elk River in the Diocese of St. Cloud. Bishop Cozzens continues to accompany her, she said.

Early in the morning that it became public Bishop Cozzens had been appointed to Crookston, she received a text from him asking her to call him, something he had never done before, Barthel said.

Dialing him up, she received the news and despite knowing things would be different, she was able to say, “Praise God, congratulations, I’m happy for you.”

“He said, ‘I wanted you to hear my voice and reassure you I am not abandoning you. It will look different because I am going to Crookston, but I will continue to walk with you,’” Barthel said.

Now, Bishop Cozzens’ spiritual direction will be via Zoom or telephone calls, or she will make the four-hour trip to Crookston, Barthel said. Bishop Cozzens pointed out, “‘It’s doable in a day,’” she said.

Meanwhile, Barthel said she is praying for Bishop Cozzens and the Diocese of Crookston. She attended vespers and his installation Mass in Crookston.

“I’ll be praying my heart out for him and the diocese,” she said.

Congratulations Bishop Cozzens

Congratulations,

Bishop Andrew Cozzens!

Thank you for your prayerful leadership in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

May the Holy Spirit continue to guide you in the Diocese of Crookston.

Our prayers are with you as you begin your ministry in Crookston.

Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda and the Archdiocese Catholic Center staff.

20B • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

BISHOP COZZENS

DECEMBER 9, 2021

God Bless you, Bishop Cozzens!

We at SPO want to express our love and appreciation to Bishop Cozzens!

For his witness to faith and building community, we are ever grateful to him and his service as Chairman of the SPO board for 8 years.

www.spo.org