The Catholic Spirit - February 9, 2017

February 9, 2017 Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Last year, Catholic Services Appeal pledges exceeded the $9.3 million goal, and its leaders are hopeful that the 2017 appeal will have an even greater impact. This Catholic Spirit 4-page section highlights the annual appeal’s wide reach through snapshot features on the 17 ministry areas it funds.

The 2017 CSA kicked off Feb. 5 with an event at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. — The Catholic Spirit

2A • The Catholic Spirit

Better storytelling helped 2016 CSA reach goal

By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit

T

he Catholic Services Appeal is kicking off its 2017 campaign with a new initiative seeking a broad impact: $1,000 scholarships for eligible students attending Catholic elementary schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The appeal will continue to support 11 of the archdiocese’s neediest Catholic elementary schools, as it has in the past, but this allows the appeal’s education dollars to touch more people and parishes, said Jennifer Beaudry, Catholic Services Appeal Foundation executive director.

“It’s important for us to spread out the reach of the CSA to all of the schools,” she said, adding that the From left, Deacons Nicholas Froehle, Matthew Shireman, Paul CSAF plans to award 400 of the new scholarships.

Baker and Brandon Theisen talk between classes at the The scholarships join an array of other ways the CSA St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in May 2016. SPS is one of supports 17 ministry areas in the archdiocese. Like 17 ministry areas funded by the annual Catholic Services recent years, it aims to raise $9.3 million. Those funds Appeal. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit support 16 ministries within the archdiocese, plus rebates granted back to parishes that meet 90 percent of testimonials from the folks that receive this money their appeal goals. about how they’re using it and how it’s needed.”

Last year, Catholics pledged $9,393,800, according to They’re also finding that potential donors understand the Plymouth-based CSAF’s unaudited preliminary that the CSAF is a separate organization from the campaign numbers. The foundation has collected more archdiocese, and they are no longer expressing concerns than $9,070,000 of those funds, and expects only to that CSA funds might be entangled in the archdiocese’s receive 25 percent of the bankruptcy. The bigger challenge remaining uncollected pledges. It is now updating donor lists and will fund some of its ministries at “It’s just really a connecting with Catholics who 100 percent, while others will testament to how hard aren’t members of parishes or receive 95 percent of their goal who don’t write checks, funding. the people in the including millennials.

Last year’s appeal also saw 350 That’s why it’s turned greater parishes, the pastors and attention more people donate than in 2015, to online giving, which is the first time donors have including its participation in the business increased in years. That stemmed a Minnesota’s annual Give to the trend that required fewer people to administrators worked Max Day in November. They first give more to meet goal. The uptick to make this happen ... raised funds through the online in donors is a welcome sign of giving day in 2015, garnering change, and CSAF leaders hope it’s and the real generous $7,000. In 2016, they brought in a harbinger for future appeals. more than $30,000. spirit of the people in “We feel like our message is They’re also working to help really resonating with pastors and parishes meet individual goals. the archdiocese.” parishioners that we are a separate Last year, 124 of the 187 parishes organization [from the Jennifer Beaudry in the archdiocese met their goal, archdiocese] and that we’re and the CSAF plans to pay out helping thousands and thousands $1,818,886 to parishes. of people within this archdiocese,” said CSAF Board Beaudry attributes the success to parish leaders and President Tim Healy.

Catholics’ sense of charity.

After the 2015 CSA fell short of its goal, Healy “Personally, I did not think we were going to hit the attributes the 2016 appeal’s success to the foundation’s [overall] goal in pledged amount this year — I thought efforts to better tell the stories of the difference appeal we were going to get close — so it’s amazing to me that dollars make. The CSAF has boosted its presence on we did hit the goal,” she said. “It’s just really a testament social media, launched a regular newsletter and to how hard the people in the parishes, the pastors and provided individualized updates for parishes to monitor the business administrators worked to make this happen progress toward their goals. The foundation’s website ... and the real generous spirit of the people in the www.csafspm.org includes photos and testimonies from archdiocese.” people who have benefited from appeal-funded The CSAF aims to increase the $9.3 million overall ministries. goal within the next few years and eventually fund The foundation has also made a point of visiting the more ministries. Ultimately, Beaudry said, it’s about ministries the appeal funds, which has also made an service and supporting the archdiocese, nodding to the impression on CSAF leaders.

2017 theme, “support.”

“Our job ... is to tell the stories of these 17 ministries “People are hearing the stories, and they’re that can’t raise this money on their own,” said CSAF responding, and we just need to continue to get the Board Member Greg Pulles. “Every week we’re pumping message out on all the good that we as a collective out Facebook posts, every month we’re pumping out an archdiocese are doing together, and it’s exciting,” Healy e-mail, and we’re gathering more and more and more added. “And our hope is that we can do more.”

2016

2015

2014

Collected $9.946

Pledged $10.242

Goal $9.3

Collected $8.717

Pledged $9.042

Goal $9.3

Colllected $9.070

Pledged $9.393

In millions, CSA goals with unaudited dollars pledged and raised since 2014, the year after the Catholic Services Appeal Foundation was established. Numbers for 2016 are based on figures collected through Dec. 31.

Goal $9.3

BY THE NUMBERS

February 9, 2017

VENEZUELAN MISSION Goal: $204,163 The parish of Jesucristo Resucitado’s work stretches beyond the spiritual to meet the practical day-to-day needs of many of its parishioners. It runs a medical clinic and laboratory, dentist office, soup kitchen and emergency assistance programs.

It also partners with a neighboring parish to operate a shelter for orphans and homeless people.

It also has a church, parish center and chapels. It’s all part of a mission that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis started in Venezuela in 1970, and has been under the leadership of Father Greg Schaffer since 1994. Father James Peterson currently assists him in serving the 11 neighborhoods within the parish boundaries that are home to approximately 65,000 people. It’s an area that has long suffered from a high unemployment rate, but its people’s problems have been compounded by Venezuela’s poor economy, which turned sour in 2014 due to a severe drop in the price of oil, the country’s main export. “There is a lot of suffering going on right now, a lot of political turmoil,” Father Greg Schaffer told The Catholic Spirit. “That’s difficult.” http://venezuela. archspm.org

A student from Good Shepherd School in Golden Valley listens during class Jan. 18. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS Goal: $1,375,000 “The impact that we have on scholars’ lives and the exposure to the faith is immeasurable,” Benito Matias, principal of Ascension Catholic School in Minneapolis, told the CSAF. He was speaking of his school, but the same applies to all Catholic elementary schools, which the appeal supports through operations funding and scholarships.

Although non-Catholic schools may offer similar academic opportunities as Catholic schools, Matias says Catholic schools uniquely integrate faith in students’ study and prayer, and in the behavior teachers model. “We’re constantly talking about faith and ... how Jesus plays a role in all the things we do, from our daily announcements each morning to just one-on-one conversations or meditations,” he said. “It’s very important to us.” www.archspm.org/departments/schools

February 9, 2017 The Catholic Spirit • 3A

AMERICAN INDIAN MINISTRY Goal: $200,000 “I’m especially concerned that my children and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren have the opportunity to learn about our heritage and continue to share that.”

Sylvia Spence

College students gather at St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center Aug. 21, 2016. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

ST. LAWRENCENEWMAN CENTER Goal: $264,000 Research shows that by the time young adults graduate from college, they’ve made significant decisions about the role faith will have in their life, said Brother Kenneth Appuzo, chaplain of St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center at the University of Minnesota, which is why his work to connect those 18-to-20-year-olds to their faith is so important. “We need to be out on the campus in the places where they live and they’re comfortable and they learn, and meet them kind of where they’re at — literally, physically — but also spiritually, emotionally [and] socially,” he told the CSAF. A longtime fixture on the U of M’s East Bank campus, the center has adopted a fresh vision under Brother Appuzo’s direction, but he said the culture makes “less and less room for faith.” The students who arrive on campus with a strong faith need resources and relationships to help it continue to grow, and the students who have little or no faith need opportunities to meet God and the Church, he said.

“We need to be able to, especially in a relational way, get close enough to them [so] that they feel like the Church is offering personal attention to them,” he added. To that end, the center offers a “spiritual home” with the sacraments, community and more than 15 annual events for the U’s estimated 10,000 Catholics. https://umncatholic.com

PRISON CHAPLAINS Goal: $45,345 Deacon Tim Zinda has worked for years in prison ministry, offering spiritual counsel and resources to people serving time in correctional facilities, but last year he collaborated with parish leaders to try something new — working with people after they leave prison and transition back to regular life. Called “Embrace,” the program not only helps ex-offenders with practical needs, such as housing, food and clothes, but it also provides them with a community through the parish. After his 2016 release after his third time in prison, Edward Stahlmann said working with the Embrace program is helping him avoid prison continuing to be “a revolving door.” “It’s not just about resources, [but] that’s a big part of it,” he told the CSAF. “It’s a community of people, so every time that I have an issue that comes up, there’s people I can call or people I can email and say, ‘Hey, I’m really struggling with this right now. Can you help me through this?’”

Based at the Minneapolis parish of Gichitwaa Kateri, the archdiocese’s American Indian Ministry serves about 1,000 Catholic families. The actual reach, however, is broader, said Sylvia Spence, who has been involved in the ministry for more than 30 years. “I think we evangelize people that even aren’t in our communities at times because of our services offered at the church,” she told the CSAF. “We have people that come in and say they would like prayers and they’re not part of a Catholic community, but they realize the value of prayer and how it brings us all together.” In helping American Indians from several tribes maintain their cultural values and symbols within the Catholic faith, one of the ministry’s central offerings is the Miigeweyon Hearse, or “Going Home Project,” which transports a deceased person’s body to his or her home reservation for burial.

ST. PAUL SEMINARY Goal: $650,000 The CSA funds more than 30 seminarians annually at a cost of $30,000 each, or $120,000 over four years — the men’s final years in the classroom before their priestly ordination. This year, 11 men are expected to be ordained priests for the archdiocese. Among them is Deacon Brandon Theisen, whose home parish is Epiphany in Coon Rapids. He told the CSAF that it takes “many years of preparation” to learn to be “a spiritual father to thousands of people” and help them develop a relationship with Christ.

And not all of that is academic.

“In seminary we have different formators, [including] spiritual directors,” he told the CSAF. Speaking of the human formation aspect of seminary life, he added: “So, if it be in little ways with manners, etiquette, which fork to use at the dinner table ... [or] how to carry on a normal conversation, they just try to help polish us so we can be bridges to people, not obstacles.” www.stthomas.edu/spssod

EVANGELIZATION AND CATECHESIS Goal: $150,000 Last September, 350 men and women gathered in Burnsville for a conference on grandparenting. It was the first of its kind in the archdiocese, and it launched the Catholic Grandparent Ministry, an initiative of the archdiocese’s Office of Evangelization and Catechesis.

Established in 2014, the office also oversees Catholic Watchmen and Rediscover, and it is a partner with Women in the New Evangelization. It aims to help parishes improve adult faith formation and outreach, and it is targeting efforts to build up family life and parish community. http://rediscover.archspm.org

Bishop Andrew Cozzens presents a Champions for Life Award Oct. 13, 2016. The awards are an initiative of the Office of Marriage, Family and Life. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

MARRIAGE, FAMILY AND LIFE Goal: $385,174 From retreats for engaged couples to faith formation for people with disabilities, and a biomedical ethics commission to Archdiocesan Youth Day, the archdiocese’s Office of Marriage, Family and Life encompasses an extensive list of programs, initiatives and groups that, together, dovetail with nearly every part of family life. St. Peter Claver parishioner Michelle Nabors found support in Faithful Spouses, a group the office hosts monthly for Catholics who are separated or divorced. “Faithful Spouses has been helpful in fellowship, support and prayer,” Nabors told The Catholic Spirit in 2015. “[It’s] a community of people who are asking the same questions that are honestly questions most people in society don’t understand why you’re asking in the first place, much less how to answer.” www.archspm.org/offices/marriagefamily-life

ARCHDIOCESAN COUNCIL OF CATHOLIC WOMEN Goal: $25,585 “I talked to a priest last year and said the women are the backbone of the Church. He said no, they’re the heart of the Church.”

Florence Schmidt

Each year, members of the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women fill a semi-truck with Christmas gifts from people in the archdiocese for families in Appalachia. They also coordinate a mental health hotline, host leadership and spirituality events, and serve in their parishes, often in behind-the-scenes capacities. Last year, they raised $18,000 for their Mission Plan Madonna Fund, which supports motherchild centers in third world countries. “The strength of ACCW needs to continue because women are reaching out for the support,” Florence Schmidt, ACCW president, told the CSAF. “Our country is very secular and ACCW women want the support of their peers.

They want to know that what they’re doing is worthwhile.” www.accwarchspm.org

4A • The Catholic Spirit

February 9, 2017

ST. JOHN VIANNEY COLLEGE SEMINARY Goal: $300,000

Father Tom Margevicius and Deacon Mike Powers sign “I love you” in front of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Minneapolis, which serves the Catholic deaf community. Courtesy CSAF

DEAF MINISTRY

The CSAF funds annual room and board — about $10,000 — for each seminarian from the archdiocese studying at St. John Vianney College Seminary at the University of St. Thomas. It’s the largest undergraduate seminary in the United States, drawing men from 20 dioceses. More than 400 of its alumni are priests.

Among them is Father Matthew Northenscold, ordained in 2016 for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and who serves as the associate pastor of St. Peter in North St. Paul. “I got close to God,” Father Northenscold told The Catholic Spirit, speaking of his experience studying at SJV and, later, at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. “I learned how to listen to him in prayer. He revealed his great love during a retreat and holy hour, and I felt a deep desire in myself to help others learn that same love.” www.stthomas.edu/vianney

Goal: $39,733 Beth Seibert, a Catholic who is deaf, said there are many parishes that have an American Sign Language interpreter, but she chooses to attend Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Minneapolis, which has a particular outreach to the deaf community. Even the auditoriumstyle floor plan is conducive to members of the congregation being able to easily see the liturgy, she said.

Its pastor, Father Tom Margevicius, signs the Mass. “The priest himself is able to sign, the choir signs, the music is signed, so that’s what makes it so unique — that we can really participate and be involved using our language and our culture,” she told the CSAF. The community is strong enough to compel her to make the drive each week from her home in North St. Paul. People who are not hearing impaired also attend the traditionally Italian parish, and “they respect our language, they respect our culture, and I don’t feel like I’m treated as a second-class citizen,” Seibert said. https://olmcmpls.org

CATHOLIC CHARITIES Goal: $1,100,000 Catholic Charities is “a leader at solving poverty, creating opportunity, and advocating for justice in the community. The organization is working to advance a vision of a community where there is poverty for no one and opportunity for everyone.”

Catholic Services Appeal Foundation

ST. PAUL’S OUTREACH Goal: $11,000 “You need other people there to help fight with you.”

Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis helps nearly 30,000 people each year, with a focus on people who are homeless, children, refugees and immigrants, older adults and people with disabilities.

Their work includes the new Higher Ground St. Paul, which opened in January to serve men and women who are homeless in St. Paul. www.cctwincities.org

Austin Riordan

St. Paul’s Outreach serves students at colleges and universities across the country, including eight in the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: Bethel University, Inver Hills Community College, Normandale Community College, St. Catherine University, St. Olaf College, St. Paul College, the University of Minnesota and the University of St. Thomas. Through building friendships and forming community, SPO missionaries accompany students as they encounter Christ and deepen their relationship with him. Austin Riordan moved into an SPO “household” of men as a senior at St. Thomas, and later served as an SPO missionary at the university after graduation. “I would have never been talking about Jesus or about the Catholic faith if someone else hadn’t initiated. I wasn’t going to walk through the doors of campus ministry by myself. Somebody needed to walk me in there, in the metaphorical way. When I think about that with my own work, I know that the people who really need campus ministry aren’t the people who are going to walk in there by themselves,” he told The Catholic Spirit. “It’s about building a real friendship, and if we’re living our Christian lifestyle well, the name of Jesus will come up, but in a natural way, and people will wonder why we live this way, and they’ll begin to ask questions.” https://spo.org

HIGH SCHOOLS Goal: $800,000 In 2016, the CSAF awarded tuition scholarships to 320 students. Among them was Gabriella Grady, a sophomore at DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis.

“Just having that constant presence of God and always having him right in our classrooms and at home, ... it makes us feel like we are doing the right thing, and that makes us think about what we’re doing and the good deeds that should be done,” she told the CSAF. Her religion classes and the school’s faith-filled environment builds on and deepens the Catholic faith she has been taught at home, she said. Receiving a scholarship supported by Catholics across the archdiocese “makes me feel really special and that people really care about how kids are doing in life,” Grady added. “I think students should all have the fair chance of coming here, because it is a great school and it does enforce that fact that God is always present.” www.archspm.org/departments/schools

Girls dance at Latino Family Day Aug. 13, 2016. Dave Hrbacek/ The Catholic Spirit

LATINO MINISTRY Goal: $350,000 Of the estimated 185,000 Latinos living in archdiocese, about 63 percent are Catholic. Latino ministry serves this growing population with Spanishlanguage outreach, retreats, faith formation and leadership programs for youth and adults, and 23 parishes with a Latino ministry arm. The Office of Latino Ministry also coordinates the annual Latino Family Day, oversees parish teams that help civilly married Latino couples sacramentalize their unions, and hosts Catholic Men’s Night and Catholic Women’s Night. “If we support the family from the beginning with the family catechism and supporting them when they have crises, then that family is much more stable to keep on with the faith and pass on the faith,” Estela Villagran Manancero, Latino Ministry director, told the CSAF. www.archspm.org/departments/oficina-ministeriolatino

HOSPITAL CHAPLAINS Goal: $600,000 The CSAF funds the salaries of nine Catholic hospital chaplains who serve 13 area hospitals: Abbot Northwestern, Children’s-St. Paul, Fairview Southdale, Hennepin County Medical Center, Mercy, Methodist, North Memorial Medical Center, Regions, St. John’sMaplewood, United, Unity, University of Minnesota and University of Minnesota-Fairview. According to the CSAF, more than 100,000 Catholics “move through” these hospitals each year. Chaplains offer sacraments including the anointing of the sick, reconciliation and holy Communion, as well as a ministry of presence. Their “congregation” is constantly changing; chaplains say a person’s average hospital stay is approximately two days, which means their connection with Catholics might be short but significant.

PARISHES Goal: $1,800,000 The largest single area the CSAF supports is parishes through rebates determined by donations to the appeal. Their goal is either 5 or 6 percent of their offertory income, depending on whether or not they are affiliated with a school. Parishes that reach 100 percent of their goal receive a 25 percent rebate, and parishes that reach between 90 to 99.99 percent of their goal receive 10 percent back. Last year, 124 of the 187 parishes in the archdiocese hit their donation goal.

Poverty and incarceration 5B • School choice 6B • Catholic-Muslim dialogue 20B February 9, 2017 Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Pages 10B-11B

IMMIGRANTS AT CROSSROADS

Thousands march in downtown Minneapolis Jan. 31 to protest President Donald Trump’s executive orders on immigrants and refugees. Catholic leaders, including Archbishop Bernard Hebda, have called Catholics to action. See story inside. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

ALSO inside

Charismatic anniversary

Iraq’s Christian future

Remembering the Holocaust

Considering vocations

Charismatic movement continues to draw Catholics as it marks 50 years of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

— Page 6B

A priest reflects on Christians in war-torn Iraq, saying, “I don’t see a future for Christians in Mosul.”

— Page 12B

French priest works to find hidden mass graves of people killed during the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.

— Page 13B

Religious, priests inspire youths to ask God for help in discerning vocation at Lifeline event.

— Page 19B

2B • The Catholic Spirit

PAGE TWO

February 9, 2017 OVERHEARD

in PICTURES

“By participating in sport, we are able to go beyond our own self-interest and in a healthy way we learn to sacrifice, to grow in fidelity and respect the rules.”

Pope Francis, in a 52-second message played on jumbotrons at the NRG Stadium in Houston during Super Bowl LI Feb. 5. Watch the video at www.facebook.com/ TheCatholicSpirit.

NEWS notes • The Catholic Spirit

Catholic schools raffle underway Students at select schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are selling raffle tickets as part of Catholic United Financial’s annual Catholic Schools Raffle. Twenty-four Catholic schools in the archdiocese and another 58 from Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota will keep 100 percent of every $5 ticket sold. Catholic United Financial, based in St. Paul, covers the entire cost of the prizes and promotional materials.

Ticket sales for prizes that include a vehicle, cash and vacation packages will be through Feb. 26. In the raffle’s seven-year existence, it has helped Catholic schools in the archdiocese raise more than $1,415,800. For more information, visit www.catholicunited.org/raffle.

JOYFUL JUBILARIANS Following the annual Mass for Consecrated Life Feb. 5 at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters Marilyn Umunnakwe, left, and Miriam Fausta Aniuche, third from left, congratulate jubilarian Sister Mary Ann Hanley, second from left, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet celebrating her 75th jubilee. Sitting with her is Sister Mary Elizabeth Harroun, also a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet. Sister Marilyn was celebrating her 25th jubilee.

Father Eugene M. Brown/For The Catholic Spirit

Marriage event Feb. 10-12 in Buffalo World Wide Marriage Encounter is hosting an event for married couples and priests Feb. 10-12 at Christ the King Retreat Center in Buffalo. The event includes presentations from married couples, priests and religious on communication in marriage. The application fee is $75, but organizers do not want cost to prevent a couple from attending the weekend. The event is the first of 11 WWME weekends scheduled in Minnesota in 2017. For more information, visit www.wwme.org.

Archdiocese holding moving sale Feb. 18 As it completes the move of its headquarters to 777 Forest St. in St. Paul, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis will hold a cash-and-carry moving sale 8:30 a.m.–noon Feb. 18 at the Hayden Center, 328 Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul. The sale items are primarily office furniture and not available for preview or early sale. For more information, contact Margaret Slawin at 651-290-1610.

PRAYER BREAKFAST Jordan’s King Abdullah II, center, his wife, Queen Rania, and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attend the National Prayer Breakfast Feb. 2 in Washington. President Donald Trump spoke at the annual event. “America is a nation of believers,” he said. “In towns across the land, we see what we so easily forget: The quality of our lives is not defined by our material success but by our spiritual success. I speak that as someone who has had great material success and who knows many people who have had great material success. ... Some of them are very miserable, miserable people.” CNS

MILESTONE Our Lady of Lourdes in Minneapolis, “the little French church,” is celebrating 140 years. It was the first parish in the United States to be named for the Lourdes apparition and is the oldest continuously used church in Minneapolis. After the church was built in 1857 by the First Universalist Society, French Catholics from nearby St. Anthony of Padua parish bought it and altered its original Greek temple style to that of French Provincial.

Preservation projects began in the 1960s and have continued. A Feb. 12 celebration with Bishop Andrew Cozzens will include the parish’s annual Fleur de Lis awards, highlighting the weekend’s festivities and the parish’s history. Other events are planned throughout the year. For more information, visit www.ourladyoflourdesmn.com.

CORRECTION A story on page 7 in the Jan. 26 issue misquoted Jamie Arthur, director of the Cardinal Newman Society’s Catholic Education Honor Roll. The quote should have read, “I think we’re in a critical time, and if we’re not forming the next generation of Catholics, I don’t know who will be sitting in the pews or leading the Church.” We apologize for the error.

The Catholic Spirit is published semi-monthly for The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis Vol. 22 — No. 3 MOST REVEREND BERNARD A. HEBDA, Publisher TOM HALDEN, Associate Publisher MARIA C. WIERING, Editor

Women’s Discernment Retreat Feb. 18 A day retreat for women ages 16-35 with a genuine interest in consecrated life will be 8 a.m.–4 p.m. Feb. 18 at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Bloomington. Bishop Andrew Cozzens will celebrate Mass and speak at the retreat, and consecrated women will share vocation stories and answer questions. Lunch is provided. Cost is a free-will donation. For more information, visit www.10000vocations.org.

Liturgical praying event at St. Thomas More Feb. 18 A founding member of the St. Louis Jesuits liturgical music group, Jesuit Father Roc O’Connor will lead a workshop 8:30 a.m.–noon Feb. 18 at St. Thomas More in St. Paul. According to organizers, “participants will practice mindful presence to the major liturgical gestures we make with our bodies in worship — dealing with time, pace and attentiveness.” The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 651-227-7669.

Called and Gifted Workshop Feb. 24-25 St. Paul in Ham Lake is hosting a Called and Gifted Workshop Feb. 24-25.

The event offers an exploration of how the gifts, or charisms, of the Holy Spirit work in people’s lives and the life of a parish. The event begins Friday 7–9:30 p.m. and continues Saturday, 8:30 a.m.–4 p.m. Cost is $125. For more information, contact Jona Winkelman at jona@churchofsaintpaul.com or 763-757-6910.

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February 9, 2017

FROM THE BISHOP

The Catholic Spirit • 3B

Catholic Services Appeal puts faith into action for ‘least of these’

L

ast fall I was able to join several other priests in hearing confessions for more than 100 college students who were on retreat from the University of Minnesota Newman Center at St. Lawrence. Recently, Archbishop Bernard Hebda celebrated the sacrament of confirmation for three inmates at Lino lakes state prison. In October, I led eucharistic adoration for more than 1,200 high school students at Archdiocesan Youth Day. More than 30,000 Latinos attended services for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in our parishes this year. Our two priests at the archdiocesan mission in Venezuela brought the sacraments and the love of Jesus to one of the poorest places in the world in their parish, which numbers 65,000 faithful. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was ranked fifth in the country the last three years for the number of priests ordained, as we ordained 26 new priests in the last three years and will ordain 10 more in May. What do all these facts have in common? They were all made possible by the Catholic Services Appeal.

As an auxiliary bishop who travels throughout the archdiocese, I see so much good done in Christ’s name. I feel so blessed because I get to see God’s incredible work in so many places. If you could follow me around, you would be inspired by the way people are living their faith in this ONLY JESUS archdiocese.

Bishop Andrew Cozzens Pope Francis has told us we must find ways to bring Christ

La Apelación de Servicios Católicos pone la fe en acción para ‘más pequeños de éstos’

E

l otoño pasado pude reunirme con varios otros sacerdotes para escuchar confesiones de más de 100 estudiantes universitarios que estaban en retiro del Centro Newman de la Universidad de Minnesota en St. Lawrence. Recientemente, el Arzobispo Bernard Hebda celebró el sacramento de la confirmación de tres presos en la prisión estatal de Lino Lakes. En octubre, dirigí la Adoración eucarística para los más de 1,200 estudiantes de secundaria en el Día Arquidiocesano de Jóvenes. Más de 30,000 latinos asistieron a los servicios para la fiesta de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe en nuestras parroquias este año.

Nuestros dos sacerdotes en la misión arquidiocesana en Venezuela llevaron los sacramentos y el amor de Jesús a uno de los lugares más pobres del mundo en su parroquia, que cuenta con 65,000 fieles. La Arquidiócesis de St. Paul y Minneapolis ocupó el

to the peripheries to the places where he is not, and this is exactly what the Catholic Services Appeal Foundation does. It reaches those people who would otherwise fall through the cracks because no individual parish can do these ministries alone, but, together, we must do them.

Whether it is supporting hospital chaplains, Catholic Charities or deaf ministry, whether it is enabling evangelization efforts, marriage preparation or providing a Catholic education for many whom it would be out of reach for, so much good is being done that could not be done if we did not join together to support these important ministries.

In St. Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 25, we see a picture of what the end of time will be like. The Gospel says that we will stand before our merciful and loving savior and he will say, “Whatever you did to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). He will remind us that whenever we fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked and visited the sick or imprisoned, it was actually Jesus we were serving.

The Catholic Services Appeal offers us a chance to be a part of this incredible mission that we all share as Catholics. Through the appeal, you can bring Jesus to some of the places where his love is most needed.

I’m delighted to make my sacrificial contribution to join in all this incredible work being done in Christ’s name.

Will you join with me in supporting this important work? “Truly, I say to you, whatever you did to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”

quinto lugar en el país en los últimos tres años por el número de sacerdotes ordenados, ya que ordenados 26 nuevos sacerdotes en los últimos tres años y ordenará a 10 más en mayo. ¿Qué tienen en común todos estos hechos? Todos ellos fueron posibles gracias a la Apelación de Servicios Católicos.

Como obispo auxiliar que viaja por toda la arquidiócesis, veo tanto bien hecho en el nombre de Cristo. Me siento tan bendecido porque puedo ver el increíble trabajo de Dios en tantos lugares. Si ustedes pudieran seguirme, estarían inspirados por la forma en que la gente vive su fe en esta arquidiócesis.

El Papa Francisco nos ha dicho que debemos encontrar maneras de llevar a Cristo a las periferias, a los lugares donde él no está y esto es exactamente lo que hace la Fundación de Apelación de Servicios Católicos. Alcanza a aquellas personas que de otra manera caerían a través de las grietas debido a ninguna parroquia individual puede hacer estos ministerios, pero, en conjunto, hay que hacerlas. Ya se trate de apoyar a los capellanes de los hospitales, las Caridades Católicas o el ministerio de los sordos, ya sea facilitando los esfuerzos de evangelización, la preparación del matrimonio, o proporcionando una educación Católica para muchos que estaría fuera de

alcance, se está haciendo mucho bien que no se podría hacer si no nos unimos para apoyar estos importantes ministerios.

En el Evangelio de San Mateo, capítulo 25, vemos una imagen de cómo será el fin de los tiempos. El Evangelio dice que estaremos ante nuestro salvador misericordioso y amoroso y dirá: “en cuanto lo hicisteis a uno de estos mis hermanos más pequeños, a mí lo hicisteis” (Mateo 25:40). Nos recordará que cada vez que alimentábamos a los hambrientos, dábamos de beber a los sedientos, dábamos la bienvenida al extraño, vestíamos a los desnudos y visitábamos a los enfermos o encarcelados, en realidad era Jesús al que servíamos.

La Apelación de Servicios Católicos le ofrece la oportunidad de ser parte de esta increíble misión que todos compartimos como Católicos. A través de la apelación usted puede llevar a Jesús a algunos de los lugares donde su amor es más necesario. Estoy encantado de hacer mi contribución sacrificial para unirme a todo este increíble trabajo que se hace en nombre de Cristo. ¿Se unirán a mí para apoyar este importante trabajo? “De cierto os digo que en cuanto lo hicisteis a uno de estos mis hermanos más pequeños, a mí lo hicisteis.”

New gender policy won’t affect Catholic Scouting units, committee says Catholic News Service The Boy Scouts of America’s new policy to accept members based on their gender identity will have no impact on Scouting units sponsored by the Catholic Church, said the National Catholic Committee on Scouting.

The Boy Scouts announced Jan. 30 that effective immediately, the Texas-based organization will determine membership eligibility for Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts on a youth’s gender identity as indicated on the membership application. Previously, the policy based eligibility on the gender indicated on a youth’s birth certificate.

The change in policy “has no impact on the operation and program delivery of Scouting program[s] in Catholic-chartered units,” said a Feb. 4 statement issued by the Catholic Scouting committee.

“Scouting serves the Catholic Church through the charter concept, which is similar to a franchise,” it said.

“The units chartered to a Catholic institution are owned by that organization. The BSA has stipulated that religious partners will continue to have the right to make decisions for their units based on their religious beliefs.”

The statement was signed by George Sparks, national

Cub Scouts prepare to participate in the presentation of the gifts during a Mass marking Scout Sunday at St. Joseph Church in Kings Park, New York, Feb. 5. Scout Sunday is celebrated annually by the Boy Scouts of America to recognize the contributions of young people and adults to Scouting. CNS/ Gregory A. Shemitz chairman of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting, and Father Kevin Smith, a priest of the Diocese

of Rockville Centre, New York, who is national chaplain of Catholic Scouting. The statement was approved by Bishop Robert Guglielmone of Charleston, South Carolina, who is the episcopal liaison between Catholic Scouting and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In announcing the membership change, Michael Surbaugh, chief Scout executive, said the organization has been “challenged by a very complex topic — the issue of gender identity.”

“We’ve taken the opportunity to evaluate and update our approach,” he said in a video message posted online. “I hope you’ll join with me in embracing the opportunity to bring Scouting to more families and children who can benefit from what our organization has to offer.”

“This is an area that we will continue to thoughtfully evaluate to bring the benefits of Scouting to the greatest number of youth possible all while remaining true to our core beliefs,” Surbaugh said.

Those beliefs, he said, are based on the Scout Oath, which begins “with duty to God,” and the Scout Law, which ends” with a Scout’s obligation to be reverent.”

About 70 percent of Boy Scout troops are run by faithbased groups.

4B • The Catholic Spirit

LOCAL

February 9, 2017

SLICEof LIFE

Friendship on ice From left, Donna Bonicatto, Sam Kerlin, Katie Bonicatto, Dorothea Rossmeisl and Julia Waletzko of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis skate hand-in-hand Feb. 1 during a young women’s event sponsored by their parish at Central Park in Maple Grove.

“A few of us have been friends for two to three years, meeting through the Basilica,” Donna Bonicatto said. “Social events are a chance for us to catch up, have a few laughs and support each other in our faith journey.”

Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

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February 9, 2017

LOCAL

Advocates explore link between mass incarceration, poverty

Experts suggest diversion, not prison In analyzing the current situation, Tyner drew from a 2,000-year-old source. “Aristotle said something that was very profound: ‘Poverty is the parent to revolution and crime,’” she said.

Through the Prison Phone Justice Campaign, Tyner has worked to lower the cost of prison phone calls, a burden that families often bear. She has worked to promote the cost-effectiveness and fiscal advantages of community-based solutions versus imprisonment.

Census data dictate how and where government funds are spent. If a Minneapolis resident is imprisoned in Lino Lakes, resources that could be used to help that person who returns home are, instead, going to the city where the prison is located.

Tyner is also concerned about what she called the “cradle to prison pipeline.”

“A black child born in 2001 has a one-in-three chance of going to prison in his lifetime. A Latino boy has a one-in-six chance,” she said. “At what point could we say a black boy has a three-in-three chance of being successful in pursuing his dreams of getting a college education, and a Latino boy a six-in-six chance to succeed?”

Williams noted that recent data show there are more black men in college than in prison.

“That’s the good news,” he said.

However, he continued, “While crime rates are dropping, the incarceration rates are going up. It’s been suggested that we could put more emphasis on diversion programs instead of locking people up.”

Blauert and his team of procedural justice trainers are working with Minneapolis police officers and the community through the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, a project of the U.S. Department of Justice.

“It’s basically treating people the way you’d like to be treated, which is a simple enough concept,” Blauert said.

in BRIEF MAPLEWOOD

Presentation offers 24-7 adoration Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary began holding perpetual eucharistic adoration Feb. 5 in a side chapel connected to the parish office, 1725 Kennard St. Before to the new chapel, the parish only held adoration on Thursdays. Barb Kleiter, parishioner and volunteer adoration coordinator, said that getting adorers for the early morning hours was easier than she thought it would be. She attributes the good response, in part, to hosting a eucharistic miracle exhibit and a visiting priest who spoke about the power of eucharistic adoration in parish life. “There are many miracles that can come out of it when a whole parish is involved,” she said.

By Melenie Soucheray For The Catholic Spirit Artika Tyner said life, not books, introduced her to mass incarceration. “I kept hearing about this tangled web of mass incarceration with far too many entry points and far fewer exit points,” said Tyner, associate vice president of diversity and inclusion at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul and a civil rights attorney. She started collecting data and found that 2.3 million Americans are in the criminal justice system.

Armed with anecdotes and data, Tyner painted a picture of the impact mass incarceration has on communities and families for an audience of about 100 people Jan. 31 at St. Olaf in Minneapolis. The event was hosted by Catholic Charities Office of Social and its network of grassroots activists, the Sowers of Justice.

“America has 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prison population,” she said. “Our prison population is 370 percent higher than the prison population in the U.K., and 800 percent higher than the prison population in Germany.

In the words of Cornell West, ‘race matters’ when I think about criminal justice. There are more black men under the control of the correctional system than were enslaved in the 1800s. That’s a sobering statistic.”

Gender matters, too, she said. The fastest growing population in jail is women, with more than 1 million incarcerated, she said. Of them, 62 percent are mothers.

“Between 1970 and 2014, we see the prison population of women increase 14-fold,” she said.

“African-American women are three times more likely to enter into the criminal justice system” than women of other races, she added.

Also speaking at the panel event were Brandt Williams, senior reporter at Minnesota Public Radio, and Butch Blauert, a 25-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department.

The Catholic Spirit • 5B

SHAKOPEE

St. Francis Regional Medical Center opens new urgent care

Artika Tyner, pictured above in a 2016 file photo, is the associate vice president of diversity and inclusion at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. She spoke at St. Olaf in Minneapolis Jan. 31 about mass incarceration and intergenerational poverty.

Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit The program helps officers and community members change perceptions and behaviors based on a history that has led to mass incarceration. It’s centered on the idea that if a person is treated fairly by an officer, the outcome will be positive, and trust will grow.

Tyner offered eight specific strategies for responding to mass incarceration: Create jobs and end poverty, promote educational opportunities, disrupt the “cradle to prison pipeline,” become aware of implicit biases, explore how a variety of social justice issues play a part in the solution, build restorative communities, and engage in policy reform by becoming a Sower of Justice.

Above all, Tyner encourages people to heed the call to lead and embrace the opportunities to address poverty and mass incarceration, she said.

Broadly resonating principles The Catholic Charities Office of Social Justice relies on the Sowers of Justice to help it reach its public policy goals. There are more than 30,000 Sowers in the Twin Cities alone, said Acooa Ellis, director of advocacy.

Most Sowers are members of Catholic parishes, she said, but non-Catholics are welcome.

“We certainly honor the legacy of [Catholic Charities’ social justice] office, but realize to do the work that we want to do, and to get further upstream, we really need a broad base of people doing that,” she said.

To be effective change-makers at the city and neighborhood levels, as well as at the State Legislature, Ellis and fellow advocates focus on working inside systems.

“That’s a newer approach for the team,” she said.

“We’re looking to engage folks still grounded in Catholic social teaching principles, but who are not necessarily Catholic, because we know some of these principles resonate broadly.”

Joan Miltenberger, director of St. Olaf’s Charity and Justice Ministry, said the Catholic bishops have been clear in their faithful citizenship documents that charity and justice go hand-in-hand.

“We see people through our outreach ministries or who have been imprisoned, and we see how difficult it is for them to reconnect with their families,” she said.

“Part of our role as a person in the pew is to share the stories of those who are directly affected by mass incarceration and to show that our baptismal commitment calls us to do more, not only to visit the imprisoned, but to try to help change the structures that are contributing to mass incarceration.”

St. Francis Regional Medical Center opened an urgent care clinic at Southbridge Crossings retail area Jan. 31. The center anticipates 10,000 to 12,000 patients will visit the facility in its first year, according to a statement. The medical center is owned by Allina Health, HealthPartners Park Nicollet and Essentia Health, and is sponsored by the Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth.

STILLWATER

Chamber of Commerce honors religious sister for education Nashville Dominican Sister Mary Juliana Cox, principal of St. Croix Catholic School, won the Educator of the Year award from the Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce. It is one of seven community awards that will be presented at the Chamber’s inaugural Winter Gala Community Award Celebration 5:30 p.m. Feb. 10 at the Historic Water Street Inn.

ST. LOUIS PARK

BSM appoints new president Benilde-St. Margaret’s School named Adam Ehrmantraut its sixth president effective Feb. 1.

He began his teaching career in the late 1990s at BSM, and he was recognized in 2015 as one of the Minnesota Principals of the Year based on his work at Tartan High School in St. Paul. “Adam’s nearly 20 years of experience teaching, motivating and leading in an educational setting has prepared him to be a strong, committed and effective leader at BSM,” said Tom Backen, English department chair and member of the search committee, in a statement.

ST. PAUL

Floyd becomes Cretin-Derham Hall’s third Super Bowl winner Michael Floyd, a former Cretin-Derham Hall High School football star, became the school’s third alumnus to win a Super Bowl when the New England Patriots charged back from behind 28-3 to beat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 Feb. 5. Floyd, who was listed as inactive for the game, joined the Patriots Dec. 15 after the Arizona Cardinals released the fifth-year wide receiver following a DUI arrest Dec. 12. Minneapolis native and Falcons defensive end Ra’Shede Hageman, who attended Our Lady of Peace in Minneapolis for middle school, had a couple of tackles in the game. Hageman received support from his alma mater during the week leading up to the Super Bowl with signs shared via a Facebook post. Hageman commented in appreciation: “Wow that’s crazy. So many memories at OLP! Thanks for the love.”

6B • The Catholic Spirit

LOCAL

February 9, 2017

At 50, Charismatic Renewal still draws people to Holy Spirit

By Susan Klemond For The Catholic Spirit While musicians from St. Paul’s Outreach played high-energy praise and worship music, Christy Plant lifted her hands and swayed. More than 100 others joined in to worship the Lord with the expressive gestures that have characterized the Catholic Charismatic Renewal since it began 50 years ago.

Some looked upward as they held their arms in front of them with open palms. Others closed their eyes with hands folded, while still others joined hands and joyfully smiled as they sang.

The praise and worship followed Mass celebrated by Archbishop Bernard Hebda and further set the tone for a daylong conference Feb. 4 at Epiphany in Coon Rapids, hosted by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Office in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The annual event also marked the 50th anniversary of the birth of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, an international movement in the Church that began as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit during a retreat in 1967. It is known for renewed emphasis on praise and worship, as well as an activation of spiritual gifts including prophecy and tongues, said Peter Fastner, 65, a conference organizer and board member of the local Catholic Charismatic Renewal Office.

Titled “Father, Forgive Them,” the conference was designed to “stir up the gifts of the Holy Spirit and help people understand how to use them for God’s greater honor and glory,” Fastner said. Some of the roughly 400 attendees of all ages brought decades of experience in the Renewal, while others were just discovering it.

In his homily, Archbishop Hebda spoke about Jesus offering his apostles rest and showing compassion for the crowds. The archbishop encouraged conference attendees to open their hearts to what the Lord wanted to teach them, as Mary did, and respond with gratitude.

“We’re given in Mary that wonderful example of what it means to be a disciple, one who opens her heart to whatever it is that the Lord wants to teach her, who allows herself to be led, then offers that great ‘yes,’” he said. “All of us are called to offer that ‘yes’ in our lives as well.”

As the featured speaker, Father James Livingston, prepared to take the podium, attendees extended their hands and invoked the Holy Spirit. The pastor of St. Paul in Ham Lake, Father Livingston focused on Jesus’ call for the Church to co-create with God by practicing mercy and forgiveness, as he did.

“As Jesus breathes out his last breath, there’s

Christy Plant of Maternity of the Blessed Virgin in St. Paul joins in praise and worship Feb. 4 at the Winter Teaching Conference sponsored by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Office.

Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit something of creation taking place,” Father Livingston said. “The one forgiven is recreated. And the one who forgives becomes a co-creator and participates in his or her ... being fashioned and made into the participation in the life of God.”

Single retreat sparks a movement St. John XXIII lit a spark for the Renewal in the late 1950s with prayer for the Holy Spirit to open the Church in a new Pentecost. Inspired by Vatican II teachings, lay Catholics heard a call to open themselves to the Holy Spirit, Fastner said.

The Renewal traces its origins to a 1967 retreat at Duquesne University near Pittsburgh, where students asked the Holy Spirit to act powerfully in their lives, and several had Pentecost-like experiences. They told other students and during the next 10 years, the Renewal spread rapidly among U.S. Catholics.

It fostered dialogue with Protestants and also deepened Catholics’ interest in Scripture, the sacraments, worship through music, sharing lives and prayer for each other, and the spiritual gifts, Fastner said.

In the Twin Cities, charismatic prayer groups formed in the 1970s, some drawing hundreds. A number of the groups and communities continue to meet, said Fastner, who co-leads a group at his parish, Epiphany.

While the Renewal’s growth began to plateau in the United States in the 1980s, the movement grew exponentially overseas — and continues to grow, he

said. Today, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is a diverse collection of more than 120 million Catholic individuals, groups and activities in more than 200 countries, according to International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services. Based in Rome, the organization coordinates, provides resources and serves as a link between the Renewal and the Holy See, which has approved it as a Private Association of the Faithful.

Renewal fruits include greater understanding of the Holy Spirit, development of ministries such as NET Ministries and St. Paul’s Outreach — ­ both serving young adults and based in the Twin Cities — and growth of small faith communities, Fastner said.

All Catholics — whether charismatic or not — have in common their baptism and the fact that the Holy Spirit fosters Church unity, Fastner said, adding that the Renewal is one manifestation of God today.

While physically expressive prayer continues to be a hallmark of the Renewal experience, Plant said charismatics are also contemplatives, because the Holy Spirit leads them inward. A parishioner at Maternity of the Blessed Virgin in St. Paul, Plant, 71, was introduced to the Renewal more than 30 years ago. She attended the conference to re-center her faith, she said.

“We’ve been going for 50 years now, and now we have the new evangelization,” she said. “The charismatic movement is poised to ... deal effectively with teaching people how to bring out the evangelization teachings for other people around them.

It happens in small ways.”

Stephanie Lortie, 30, of St. Peter in Mendota, was introduced to the Renewal at the conference. She hoped to get insights for career discernment. “I’ve never felt more drawn to deepen my faith, and conferences like this are the best way to do it,” she said.

St. Paul in Ham Lake parishioners Jim and Dayna Prokop were also just learning about the Renewal. After a talk that touched on spiritual gifts, Dayna, 59, said she appreciated the focus on prayer and spiritual reading as a way of being open to God’s gifts.

The Renewal isn’t a program, but a way for the Church to be alive in a new way, said Fastner, adding that he believes it will continue to bring God’s kingdom to the modern world.

“I think it’s really clear that the popes believe the Renewal has an important place in the Church, and it’s important that [it] continues to call people forth to a renewal of the Holy Spirit in their lives and working in the Church.”

School choice rally coincides with key issue hearing at Capitol

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit A bill that could help middle- and low-income families afford a Catholic or private school education made headway among Minnesota Senate and House committees Jan. 24.

The proposed Equity and Opportunity Scholarship Act, H.F. 386 and S.F. 256, would enable middle- and low-income families to receive scholarships to attend the schools of their choice. The bill would give a 70 percent tax credit to corporations and individuals who donate to Minnesota Department of Revenue-approved nonprofits that fund the scholarships. The bill would also expand the current tax programs in Minnesota that help with education expenses but don’t assist with nonpublic school tuition.

Sen. Roger Chamberlain, a Republican from Lino Lakes, and Rep. Ron Kesha, a Republican from Little Falls, co-authored the bill.

“Too many families throughout Minnesota have little or no options when it comes to a good K-12 school,” said Chas Anderson, executive director of Opportunity for All Kids, in a statement. “A child’s future should not be determined by the ZIP code they live in or by a parent’s economic situation. All Minnesota parents should have the opportunity to access the best education option for their children. We need to remove financial barriers that prevent children from being able to attend schools that meet their needs.”

A statewide agency that supports school choice, Opportunity for All Kids held a rally at the State Capitol rotunda in between the bill’s Jan. 24 hearings.

A diverse crowd of adults heard from several speakers, including Lisa Graham Keegan, former Arizona superintendent of public instruction. Arizona is one of 17 states that has a scholarship tax credit program.

Partnering organizations with OAK include the Minnesota Catholic Conference, Minnesota Independent School Forum, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Jewish Community Relations Council, Minnesota Association of Christian Schools and Minnesota Harvest Initiative.

MHI founder Reynolds-Anthony Harris, a parishioner of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, testified at the hearings and spoke at the rally. Harris came to the sessions with an understanding of Catholic schools’ value from his experience serving on the board of directors at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Minneapolis.

“We think that the parent is the ultimate arbitrator with the intent of creating a collaborative relationship with institutions, and what that means is a collaborative relationship with the teacher,” Harris said.

Benito Matias, principal of Ascension School in Minneapolis, also testified. Both chambers voted to advance the legislation.

Education Minnesota, the state teachers’ union,

partnered with other groups to oppose the legislation and held a press conference Jan. 24 at the Capitol.

While they support low-income families, they don’t want to see a reduction in funding for public schools, they said.

A press release from Education Minnesota stated the tax breaks from the bill “are the same as vouchers.

They exacerbate inequity by directly draining critical funding away from public schools, hurting lowincome and greater Minnesota schools that need the funding most.”

According to OAK, “nearly 40 percent of our state’s public high school graduates who attend postsecondary education require remedial education.”

The organization also reports that of the “lowest performing 15 percent of public schools, more than half are in suburban and rural districts.”

The Opportunity Scholarships Program, which could begin in 2018 if the legislation passes, would have a $35 million cap in the 2019 fiscal year and a $70 million cap in the following two years. Families qualify for the program based on income, which coincides with the limits for free or reduced lunch eligibility.

The rally and hearings took place during National School Choice Week, an annual week for raising awareness about the variety of educational options for children.

February 9, 2017

U.S. & WORLD

The Catholic Spirit • 7B

Trump’s ban of refugees ignites firestorm, but also gains support Catholic News Service As President Donald Trump signed an executive memorandum intended to restrict the entry of terrorists coming to the United States in the guise of refugees, the action brought quick response from Catholic and other religious leaders.

The largest response came from more than 2,000 religious leaders representing the Interfaith Immigration Coalition who objected to the action in a letter to the president and members of Congress.

The heads of Catholic charitable agencies, organizations working with immigrants and Catholic education leaders also decried the president’s action.

The action also drew supporters, with organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and some Church leaders saying it was necessary to protect the country’s security. Federal judges have since blocked the government from denying entry to anyone from the affected countries with a valid visa (see sidebar at right).

Trump signed the memorandum, titled “The Protection of the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States,” Jan. 27. He said it was meant to keep “Islamic terrorists out of the United States.

We don’t want ’em here. We want to make sure they don’t enter the country. ... The only ones we want to admit into our country are those who will support our county and deeply love our people. We will never forget the lessons of 9/11.”

The memorandum suspends the entire U.S. refugee resettlement program for 120 days and bans entry of all citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries — Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia — for 90 days. It also establishes a religious criteria for refugees, proposing to give priority to religious minorities over others who may have equally compelling refugee claims.

The seven countries previously were identified under guidelines established in the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015. The act includes a provision that allows the Department of Homeland Security to limit Visa Waiver Program travel for certain individuals who have traveled to the seven countries.

The religious leaders’ letter said the U.S. has an “urgent moral responsibility to receive refugees and asylum seekers who are in dire need of safety.” The correspondence called on elected officials to “be bold in choosing moral, just policies that provide refuge for vulnerable individuals seeking protection.”

The leaders also insisted that the U.S. refugee resettlement program remain open to all nationalities

and religions that face persecution. They decried “derogatory language” about Middle Eastern refugees and Muslims in particular, adding that refugees “are an asset to this country,” serving as “powerful ambassadors of the American dream and our nation’s founding principles of equal opportunity, religious freedom and liberty and justice for all.”

Church leaders also expressed concern about the country’s immigration policies after Trump called for construction of an “impassable physical barrier” along the United States’ southern border because “continued illegal immigration presents a clear and present danger to the interests of the United States.”

He also called for increased enforcement and the withdrawal of federal funds from cities and states that do not comply. Those presidential actions, signed Jan. 25, brought an immediate stream of reactions from Church officials, as a group and as individuals.

Many cited Pope Francis’ call to build bridges and break down walls.

In an interview with Catholic News Service Jan. 30 from Geneva, Msgr. Robert Vitillo, secretary general of the International Catholic Migration Commission, recalled Church teaching that holds “we should always welcome the stranger” just as “Jesus taught us by his example.” He explained how the commission has helped about 1 million people since it began collaborating with the U.S. government in 1975. The commission has helped refugees apply for entry into the U.S. because of the complexity of the process and its attention to national security.

Msgr. Vitillo called that work an “overwhelmingly positive” experience. He also recalled how much of America was settled by immigrants and built by their contribution.“I hope the U.S. will stay faithful to that kind of response,” he said.

Soon after Trump signed the Jan. 27 memorandum, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, who is Catholic, commended the action, saying “our No. 1 responsibility is to protect the homeland.”

“We are a compassionate nation, and I support the refugee resettlement program, but it’s time to reevaluate and strengthen the visa vetting process.

President Trump is right to make sure we are doing everything possible to know exactly who is entering our country,” Ryan said.

Members of Congress lined up primarily along political lines, with Democrats opposing the measures and most Republicans supporting them. About 20 Republicans voiced reservations about portions of the action, with some describing its potential to inspire terrorists overseas and its need to have been vetted more widely before implementation.

Legal actions put hold on presidential refugee ban The breadth of President Donald Trump’s authority to limit refugees entering the United States will be fought in federal court, and some of the legal challenges ultimately may end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Several lawsuits, including one from the State of Minnesota, have been filed challenging Trump’s Jan. 27 executive memorandum that suspended the entire U.S. refugee resettlement program for 120 days and banned entry of all citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries for 90 days.

Another clause in the memorandum established religious criteria for refugees, proposing to give priority to religious minorities over others who may have equally compelling refugee claims.

In five of the earliest lawsuits, federal judges blocked the government from denying entry to anyone from the affected countries with a valid visa. The court orders are short-term in nature and were issued in anticipation of the cases being argued by both sides during the next several weeks before any potential restraining orders are issued.

A statement issued Jan. 29 from the Department of Homeland Security said the U.S. Customs and Border Protection “began taking steps to comply with the orders.” More lawsuits are expected and could encompass several parts of the law that govern presidential authority over who to admit and not admit to the U.S. Attorney Charles Wheeler, director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network’s Training and Support section in Oakland, California, identified one area of the law that allows the president to suspend the entry of “any class of aliens” if it determined that their entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

However, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 amended the law to prohibit any foreignborn national from being given preference because of their “race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence.”

“The refugee issue is going to turn on whether [Trump’s action] specifically exempting Christians says that the intention of it is in fact to favor one religion over another,” Wheeler told Catholic News Service. “I think that makes [the action] much more vulnerable to equal protection challenges.”

— Catholic News Service

8B • The Catholic Spirit

U.S. & WORLD

Pro-life leaders: Gorsuch will carry on Scalia’s legacy Catholic News Service President Donald Trump nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the seat on the U.S. Supreme Court that has been empty since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last February.

Gorsuch is a man the country needs, Trump said in announcing his nominee Jan. 31. He added that his pick for the high court already has had bipartisan support. “Judge Gorsuch has outstanding legal skills, a brilliant mind, tremendous discipline,” he said.

When Trump announced his choice at the White House, in the audience was Maureen McCarthy Scalia, the widow of the late justice. One of the couple’s children also was present: Father Paul Scalia, a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia.

In his remarks, Gorsuch said he was thankful for friends, family and faith giving him balance. He also said he was honored and humbled to be chosen as a nominee to the nation’s highest court. He described Scalia as a “lion of the law” and said he misses him.

He said he respects the fact that Congress, not the courts, writes new laws. “It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people’s representatives. A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge, stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.”

Several news outlets reported that hundreds of demonstrators held a rally outside the Supreme Court building to protest Trump’s choice of Gorsuch. Pro-life organizations, however, were quick to praise the president’s selection of someone who they said will “carry on the legacy” of Scalia.

Gorsuch, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, is 49, making him the youngest Supreme Court nominee in 25 years. He was born in Denver and currently lives outside of Boulder, Colorado, with his wife and two daughters. He lived in the Washington area as a teenager when his mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Gorsuch attended the Jesuit-run Georgetown Preparatory School, where he won a national debate championship.

Gorsuch has the typical qualifications of a high court justice. He graduated from Columbia, Harvard and Oxford, clerked for two Supreme Court justices and also worked for the Department of Justice.

He also is an adjunct law professor at the University of Colorado, and he wrote a 2009 book arguing against the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Gorsuch hasn’t written a ruling specifically on

February 9, 2017

Clergy differ on bill to repeal Johnson Amendment

By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service

Judge Neil Gorsuch speaks after President Donald Trump nominated him to be a U.S. Supreme Court justice Jan. 31 at the White House in Washington. If confirmed, Gorsuch will fill the seat that has been empty since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last February. CNS abortion, but he has strong views on religious liberty. He sided with the Little Sisters of the Poor in their challenge of the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act. And in Hobby Lobby Stores v.

Sebelius in June 2013, the 10th Circuit ordered the federal government to stop enforcement of the federal mandate against Hobby Lobby, the Oklahoma-based Christian chain of retail arts and crafts stores. In his concurrence, Gorsuch said the contraception mandate substantially burdened the company’s religious exercise — a decision the Supreme Court later upheld.

Gorsuch is an Episcopalian. Scalia, who had been one of six Catholic members of the court, was often described as its most conservative voice and known for his strict interpretation of the Constitution’s intent.

“All too often, our efforts to protect unborn children and other vulnerable humans have been overridden by judges who believe they have a right to impose their own policy preferences,” Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said in a statement.

“We are heartened that Judge Gorsuch appears to share Justice Scalia’s view that federal judges are constrained to enforce the text and original intent of constitutional provisions, and on all other matters should defer to democratically elected lawmakers,” Tobias added.

Priests for Life, the American Life League, the Susan B. Anthony List and other groups echoed those sentiments.

Since 1954, the “Johnson Amendment,” a rider inserted by then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson into that year’s version of the tax code, has banned all federally recognized nonprofit organizations — including religious organizations ­— from endorsing candidates and otherwise participating in partisan political activity at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status.

That may change, however, if Republican leaders get their way. The party made repeal of the amendment a plank in its 2016 convention platform, and President Donald Trump vowed Feb. 2 at the National Prayer Breakfast to “get rid of and totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment.

Rep. Jody Hice, R-Georgia, a second-term congressman and a co-sponsor of the Free Speech Fairness Act, as the Johnson Amendment repeal bill has been named, is a former Southern Baptist minister who thinks repeal is a good idea.

Until about a decade ago, “I would receive threatening letters” from the IRS that said “we would lose our tax-exempt status if we reviewed political issues,” Hice said. Those letters, he added, were “very threatening, very chilling.”

Then, in 2008, Hice said, he and other clergy issued endorsements from their pulpits, recorded those endorsements, sent them to the IRS and challenged them to do something about it. The IRS never responded, so Hice was part of a group t­ hat did the same thing the next year. Again, no response.

Now, every year, the Alliance Defending Freedom coordinates a similar event.

“Churches have censored themselves right out of participation, right out of keeping their congregations informed,” Hice said. With the Johnson Amendment repealed, “you could address the issues, in my case, from a biblical perspective, and actually endorse a candidate [whose views] that we as a congregation share without fear of losing tax-exempt status or being threatened in any way.”

Rabbi Jack Moline, president of the Interfaith Alliance, believes repeal would create more problems than it tries to solve. It would “create a campaign political atmosphere in houses of worship all over the country,” he said. “It’s important for people of faith to understand their tradition, but to be sheltered from having to express those values in a political way.”

U.S. & WORLD

February 9, 2017

The Catholic Spirit • 9B

in BRIEF WASHINGTON

draft version of a potential religious freedom order was circulating in the media and among federal staff and advocacy groups at the end of January. When White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about the draft Jan. 30, he said he would not get “ahead of the executive orders that we may or may not issue.” He noted that there have been a lot of executive actions and “a lot of things that the president has talked about and will continue to fulfill, but we have nothing on that front now.”

Pence speaks at March for Life “Life is winning again in America, and today is a celebration of that progress,” U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said at the March for Life rally Jan. 27. He was the highest-ranking government official ever to address the crowd in person. The annual event, which marks the Roe v. Wade anniversary, drew tens of thousands to the National Mall, including Catholics from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Other speakers included New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee; Kellyanne Conway, President Donald Trump’s campaign manager and now special adviser to the president; Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa; and Reps. Mia Love, R-Utah, and Chris Smith, R-New Jersey. Early that morning, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, conveyed a message from Pope Francis to the March for Life, saying the pontiff was “profoundly grateful for this impressive testimony to the sacredness of every human life.”

IRVINGTON, N.J.

Auxiliary bishop punched at Mass Auxiliary Bishop Manuel Cruz of Newark told a congregation he was fine Jan. 29, the day after he had been punched in the mouth by an assailant. The Cuban-born Bishop Cruz, a Newark auxiliary since 2008, was at a Jan. 28 event for baseball Hall of Famer Robert Clemente when he was attacked at the Basilica Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Newark. Bishop Cruz was taken to a hospital afterward with injuries that were not serious. He was released later that day and returned to the cathedral residence. Archbishop Bernard Hebda previously served as coadjutor archbishop of Newark before his appointment to St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Bishops launch campaign urging Trump to protect religious freedom Saying “religious freedom in America has suffered years of unprecedented erosion,” the U.S. Catholic bishops have posted an online letter for Catholics to send to President Donald Trump urging him to sign an executive order promoting religious freedom. The letter, found at www.votervoice.net/USCCB/campaigns, says the president can “restore the federal government’s respect for the religious freedom of individuals and organizations” with an executive order that establishes a “government-wide initiative to respect religious freedom.” Individuals can sign the letter and click a link to submit it to Trump. A leaked

VATICAN CITY

Vatican releases updated guidelines for bioethical questions To offer clearly and accurately the Catholic Church’s positions on abortion, contraception, genetic engineering, fertility treatments, vaccines, frozen embryos and other life issues, the Vatican released the “New Charter for Health Care Workers,” an expanded and updated guide of the Church’s bioethical

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teachings. The document is meant to provide a thorough summary of the Church’s position on affirming the primary, absolute value of life in the health field and address questions arising from the many medical and scientific advancements made since the first charter was published in 1994, Msgr. JeanMarie Mupendawatu, secretary delegate for health care in the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said Feb. 6.

‘Call Me Francis’ streaming on Netflix Originally produced as an Italian feature film, “Call Me Francis” has been recast on Netflix as a series of four 50-minute episodes. According to a Catholic News Service reviewer, the miniseries renders a textured, honest, yet sympathetic portrait of Pope Francis before he was pope. In Spanish with English subtitles, the dramatization became available for streaming Dec. 16.

QUEBEC CITY

Prayers offered after mosque shooting People of many faiths gathered Jan. 31 for a solidarity Mass at Notre-Dame-de-Foy church, next to the mosque belonging to the Quebec Islamic Cultural Center, where six men were killed while they were praying Jan. 29 by a 27-year-old gunman. Cardinal Gerald Lacroix, who had returned from Rome just hours before, called everyone to reject violence. “Men and women of dialogue: This is what we are called to be — full of respect and truth. Like Jesus, let us be mindful of the needs of those we live with. Let us learn to know them and to advance with them. We have a lot to gain from listening, meeting and living together.

We are made to enrich each other, and we’ll do it by learning how to love each other,” he said.

— Catholic News Service

10B • The Catholic Spirit

I M M I G R AT I O N

T

hree men live with the Franciscan Brothers of Peace who are not religious brothers. They are among 55 victims of torture seeking political asylum in the U.S. whom the brothers have housed in their friary on Lafond Avenue in St. Paul since 1995.

In the past, the brothers have welcomed refugees from Iraq, one of the seven countries whose citizens the Trump administration temporarily banned from entry into the U.S. with a Jan. 27 executive order. The order, which also suspended the entire U.S. refugee resettlement program for 120 days, is currently blocked by federal court judges. It is the third immigration-related executive order President Donald Trump has issued since his Jan. 20 inauguration. The others order the expansion of an existing barrier between the U.S. and Mexico, sanctions for “sanctuary cities” and an increase in deportation of unauthorized immigrants.

The orders have motivated protests across the U.S., including in the Twin Cities, and calls to action from faith leaders, including Archbishop Bernard Hebda.

On Jan. 26, the archbishop issued a statement calling for prayers for local immigrants and refugees, as well as for people in a position to help them. He first acknowledged that many people were experiencing fear because of the executive orders.

“This is clearly a moment for continuing our prayers not only for the immigrants and refugees who call our archdiocese home, but also for our parishes who are discerning ways of responding to this situation and for our government leaders at all levels who are called to work for the common good,” he said.

He said the U.S. bishops “have recognized that this is a moment for comprehensive immigration reform and have repeatedly called for collaboration between the White House and our lawmakers in the House and Senate to work together to this end.”

“While recognizing the right of countries to protect their borders and to regulate immigration in a way that is fair and promotes public safety, the Church has repeatedly underlined the importance of treating our undocumented brothers and sisters with the dignity that is theirs as children of God,” he said, adding that Pope Francis has called for people to welcome the migrant and refugee.

Archbishop Hebda repeated his message in a video the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis posted that day, and while speaking with other faith leaders at a Jan. 30 event in Minneapolis organized by the Minnesota Council of Churches.

His statements echo the Minnesota Catholic bishops’ immigration document, “Unlocking the Gate in Our Hearts.” It was released in 2012, before Archbishop Hebda and Bishop Andrew Cozzens were leading the archdiocese. However, the pair, along with Father Kevin Kenney, vicar for Latino Ministries, have been affirming its call to action.

Weeks after the election, they acknowledged immigrants’ mounting concerns, including the possibility of deportation. On the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Archbishop Hebda, Bishop Cozzens and Father Kenney marked the Dec. 12 National Day of Prayer for Migrants and Refugees with a video and written message, in which they promised immigrants they would “seek to protect you ... and do what we can to prevent unjust deportation.”

Always an immigrant Church A 2014 Pew Research Center study estimated there were 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S., with 100,000 in Minnesota. States with the greatest number of unauthorized immigrants included Florida, New Jersey, New York and Texas.

California had the most, with 2.3 million. Most come from Mexico.

Father Kenney said Church leadership is prioritizing

the immigration issue because it affects a large percentage of its members. The majority of Latinos entering the U.S. are Catholic, and there’s a Latino population within each parish boundary in the archdiocese, he said.

“The face of the Catholic Church is changing. It’s always been an immigrant Church,” he said, adding that Latino Catholics are “going to be the future of the Church” in the U.S. While the “waiting game” continues on questions surrounding the implementation of Trump’s executive orders, so does the “praying game” — “praying for conversion of whomever to see that we’re all human beings,” Father Kenney said. He encourages people to embrace immigrants as part of the greater Church, rather than viewing them as outsiders coming in.

“Then, there’s a relationship that moves us a little deeper,” he said.

“Make a decision one Sunday to go to a nearby parish that offers Mass in Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, just in a way that allows one to experience another culture,” he advised, “and see they’re faithful, good Catholic people and Christians who are trying to live their life based on Jesus Christ.”

But Father Kenney, who is also pastor of Divine Mercy in Faribault and St. Michael in Kenyon, acknowledges the challenges of the Christian call to welcome the stranger while keeping the nation’s borders safe. He said it would be most productive for Catholics to “work for a system that works” by contacting their elected representatives.

In the meantime, he doesn’t believe protesting accomplishes long-term goals.

“It sure gets the word out, but we’ve done it for years, and what change has it made?” he said, noting that in recent history, he believes only Martin Luther King Jr. has succeeded through protesting, and it took a long time.

Essentially, he said, the immigration system needs to be fixed, and Catholics should work for that reform.

For the local Church, the work now involves comforting people who are living in fear of the unknown, he said. Archdiocesan leaders are focusing their efforts with pastors and parish leaders to educate and train them about how they can support immigrants. That involves writing wills and determining custody of children in the event that parents are deported.

Local Church leade

options in wake of

By Matthew Davis, Dave Hrbacek, J

Welcoming the stranger?

Trump’s executive order to suspend the U.S. refugee resettlement program directly affected 24 refugees Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis had planned to settle this month, the organization said in a statement.

“These men, women and children who have already been through an intensive, two-year security review have had their travel to the U.S. canceled and are unable to join their families here,” the statement said. “Most are Somali and Burmese nationals fleeing violence in their home countries and will have to stay in refugee camps until the ban on refugee resettlement is lifted.”

Catholic Charities has resettled 24,000 refugees from more than 25 countries in the past 40 years. It said it would monitor the situation and focus on helping the refugees who have recently arrived find housing, work and education.

Most of the refugees the Franciscan Brothers of Peace serve have come from African countries and have gone through a difficult process to seek asylum, said Brother Pio King, who serves as the order’s guardian overall.

“It’s often quite lengthy and involved with a lot of waiting time,” he said. “But they’re very courageous men with a lot of patience, and we’ve been blessed to

A crowd gathers in front of the Federal Building in down

by President Donald Trump on immigration and refugees

“ ... wouldn’t it be fantastic if

united statement that we sta and sisters, and we

Father Warren Saza

see many families united, and quite a few men h become citizens of the United States. They’ve enriched our lives greatly. We just hope that the not a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering that be involved with this [executive order].”

Brother Pio said he and the other brothers do want to get embroiled in politics, but simply wa continue helping — and have others be allowed

February 9, 2017 • 11B

N S I T U AT I O N

ers pledge solidarity, consider

f Trump’s executive orders

Jessica Trygstad and Maria Wiering • The Catholic Spirit

“sanctuary-supporting” parish. It’s an idea that St. Thomas More in St. Paul is seriously exploring.

Parishioners agree that they have to do something, but are discerning exactly how, said its pastor, Jesuit Father Warren Sazama.

“We’re really trying to do this in such a way that really unites and galvanizes the parish in a way of how we respond as a Christian community to the situation that’s going on in our country right now,” he said. “There was a real sense of, ‘We have to do something, what makes sense?’ ... I haven’t heard one parishioner say we shouldn’t do something.”

The parish held two well-attended meetings in December to discuss supporting immigrants at risk for deportation, and another meeting is scheduled this month. The parish will likely have its plan in place by March, Father Sazama said.

Father Sazama became pastor of St. Thomas More in July 2016, after serving 10 years as president of a Catholic high school in Milwaukee. There, he knew several students who were born in the U.S., but who feared their parents’ deportation. He said the parish is focusing on people who may be deported themselves, or who, like his former students, are citizens but are afraid they might be separated from parents who entered the country illegally.

“Obviously, we recognize that every nation has the right and even obligation to defend its borders or control immigration, but these people that are here, and are productive ‘citizens’ — it’s the terror of those people ... that really galvanized us. We can’t say, ‘Too bad, so sad’ to those people,” he said.

He said the parish is considering several options, from lobbying efforts and offering pro bono legal counsel to immigrants, to housing immigrants at risk of deportation on parish grounds.

Father Sazama said responding to immigrants’ needs is essential to Catholic social teaching, and he hopes more local parishes discern the possibility of being a sanctuary or sanctuary-supporting community.

“Statements are good, but we have to offer some material support,” he said. “The important thing is that we stand together. I mean, wouldn’t it be fantastic if all the parishes in the archdiocese made a united statement that we stand in solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters, and we will fight any unjust deportations? The bishops said that, how about if all of us as parishes said that? Wouldn’t that be powerful?”

Seeking sanctuary

ntown Minneapolis Jan. 31 to voice opposition to executive orders issued s. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

f all the parishes in the archdiocese made a

and in solidarity with our immigrant brothers will fight any unjust deportations?”

ama, pastor of St. Thomas More in St. Paul

have

ere’s t will

o not ant to d to

help — those in need.

“We would hope and expect that mercy is going to be part of whatever the solution is,” he said. “And, justice is important, too. But, it’s human lives and their families that are very important.”

Some parishes are wondering if housing immigrants is part of their calling, too, as they consider the various ways they could become a “sanctuary” or

About 20 Minnesota churches from several denominations have already declared themselves sanctuary or sanctuary-supporting churches, including a handful of Catholic parishes outside of the archdiocese. About 10 Catholic parishes in Minnesota, including St. Thomas More, are discerning sanctuary status, but have yet to determine their role.

Several have been working with Catalina Morales, 25, an undocumented immigrant who is protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy the Obama administration initiated in 2012. Her parents brought her and her two older sisters from Mexico to the U.S. illegally when Morales was 2 years old, and she hopes sharing her family’s story will change people’s hearts and U.S. policy. (Read more of Morales’ story at www.TheCatholicSpirit.com.)

As the immigration organizer for ISAIAH, a faithbased advocacy organization in Minnesota, Morales said her experience and her Catholic faith motivate her work. A parishioner of St. Odilia in Shoreview, she said her faith has been a support amid the uncertainty and difficulties her family has faced as undocumented immigrants.

Through ISAIAH, she’s been meeting with Church leaders to discuss the idea of sanctuary, which she ties

to the historical idea of people in danger finding protection on sacred ground. She said that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has issued a memo stating that its officials won’t enter churches or schools to apprehend undocumented immigrants for deportation.

What being a sanctuary church means will differ for each community, Morales said, and she realizes not all churches can logistically commit to the arrangement. It might mean offering shelter, clothing, food, legal services and physical accompaniment for immigrants to court hearings, she said. Some churches might simply make a public statement of support for the immigrant community.

“We are actually trying to have the community see immigrants as human beings,” she said. “The narrative of this country is that we’re criminals, but it’s more that this person is a child of God. This person came into this country for a better opportunity. Scripture says welcome the stranger.”

She said that not every Catholic parish is obligated to become a sanctuary church, but “every single Catholic Church right now should be struggling with this question,” she said. “People inside the parishes should be talking about this, and they should be struggling inside of their minds about what is it in our teaching, and what is it that they have to do.”

Immigration issues have long been a focal point for Anne Attea, Latino ministries pastoral associate at Ascension in Minneapolis, who has worked with Mexican immigrants for two decades. She said that many people from Latin America who want to immigrate to the U.S. find the process cost prohibitive.

“It’s really, really important to understand [that] unless you are someone with a lot of money and a lot of resources, you can’t even get a visa to the United States,” Attea said.

Visas for permanent immigration to the U.S. currently range from $205 to $425, excluding adoptions, according to the U.S. Department of State’s website. U.S. News & World Report estimates that the average household income in Mexico is $12,806 in U.S. dollars. Other immigration expenses, such as applying for green cards, can quickly add up to thousands of dollars, Attea said.

The value of the peso, Mexico’s currency, plummeted in the 1990s when the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. The resulting poverty and desire for a better life for their children drove the immigration of Mexicans to the U.S. from the 1990s until now. Those “are the same reasons our immigrant ancestors came to this country,” Attea said.

She strongly believes in the need for immigration reform, something that hasn’t happened since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

In its call for immigration reform, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops envisions a pathway to permanent residence status and, eventually, citizenship for “foreign nationals of good moral character who are living in the United States.” The USCCB also calls for immigration public policy to address migration’s root causes, workplace protections for immigrants and family unification.

Improving opportunities for immigrants’ legal entry to the U.S. plays a role in stronger borders, the USCCB argues.

“The bishops also believe that by increasing lawful means for migrants to enter, live and work in the United States, law enforcement will be better able to focus upon those who truly threaten public safety: drug and human traffickers, smugglers and would-be terrorists,” it stated in a 2013 document on immigration reform. “Any enforcement measures must be targeted, proportional and humane.”

12B • The Catholic Spirit

FAITH & CULTURE

February 9, 2017

Iraqi Christian leader visiting Mosul sees little future for Christians

By Paul Jeffrey Catholic News Service

A

s some residents of the city of Mosul celebrate their new freedom from the Islamic State group, an Iraqi Christian leader who visited the war-torn city said Christian residents are unlikely to return.

“I don’t see a future for Christians in Mosul,” said Father Emanuel Youkhana, a priest, or archimandrite, of the Assyrian Church of the East.

Father Youkhana, who runs Christian Aid Program Northern Iraq, a Christian program for displaced Iraqis around the city of Dohuk, entered Mosul in a military convoy Jan. 27, the day Iraqi officials raised the national flag over the eastern part of the city. Islamic State seized the city in 2014, causing Christians and other minorities to flee.

Once inside Mosul, Father Youkhana moved about freely, talking to residents and soldiers. He visited two churches, both heavily damaged.

“The churches were used as warehouses by Daesh,” he said, referring to the terrorist group by its common Arabic name. “They used the churches to store what they looted from Christian and Yezidi villages, but as the end neared, they sold the buildings to local contractors, who started tearing down the walls to reuse the steel inside. If the army hadn’t entered for another couple of weeks, the buildings might have been completely destroyed.”

“The churches I saw were not destroyed with bombs, but by the everyday business operations of the community. How can Christians return to that environment?”

Father Emanuel Youkhana

One building, belonging to the Syriac Orthodox Church, had not been completely swept for explosives, according to Iraqi soldiers in the area.

The Islamic State had painted the front of the building with an Islamist slogan, and a military commander told Father Youkhana his troops would gladly paint over it. Father Youkhana replied that it

was not his church, so he couldn’t authorize the troops.

“And leaving it as is preserves the evidence of what Daesh did here,” he told Catholic News Service.

At another church, owned by the Assyrian Church of the East, the body of an Islamic State fighter poked out of a pile of garbage in front of the sanctuary.

Father Youkhana, who went to high school in Mosul, also photographed several houses that belonged to Christians, but had been given or sold to Muslim families by the Islamic State.

While he doubts Christians will return, he believes they will be able to recover the value of their properties, notwithstanding attempts by the Islamic State to destroy local government records.

“Christians aren’t going to come back to stay. The churches I saw were not destroyed with bombs, but by the everyday business operations of the community. How can Christians return to that environment? It’s unfortunate, because Mosul needs their skills. Most Christians were part of the intellectual and professional class here; they were doctors and lawyers and engineers and university professors. But I don’t see how they can return,” he said.

Father Youkhana would make no predictions how long peace will last once the Islamic State is driven completely out of Mosul, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city. The Iraqi army units that expelled the Islamic State are largely Shiite Muslim. Several of the military’s armored vehicles sported flags of the Popular Mobilization Units, a Shiite militia, and Father Youkhana said he saw several examples of graffiti written by Shiite soldiers calling for violence against the Sunnis.

“Why do they do that?” he asked.

“They are undermining their achievement. People are thanking them for liberating them, and in return they try to provoke them. Just because they have the upper hand now.”

Father Youkhana also visited Qaraqosh, a Christian town 20 miles southeast of Mosul that he described as “a ghost town.” While Mosul was bustling with busy markets and people digging out from the rubble of war, the streets of Qaraqosh were eerily silent, with most houses blackened by fire but still standing.

He explored the remains of the Syriac Catholic cathedral, reportedly the largest church in Iraq. Blackened by fire, its courtyard was filled with the ashes of what had been the church’s library, as well as shell casings and bullet-ridden mannequins that the Islamic State

ABOVE Father Emanuel Youkhana, an archimandrite of the Assyrian Church of the East, looks through the rubble of a Syriac Catholic Church Jan. 27 in Qaraqosh, Iraq. The mannequin and poster were used as target practice.

CNS/Paul Jeffrey LEFT Children wave Iraqi flags Jan. 27 to celebrate the partial liberation of their city as they climb on top of armored military vehicles in Mosul, Iraq. CNS/Paul Jeffrey

apparently used for target practice.

Some Christian leaders are pushing for a quick return to Qaraqosh. One Christian member of the Kurdistan parliament said he is looking for $200,000 that would finance the return of 50 families, buying them the basic furniture and household items they need to re-establish themselves in their homes.

But Karim Sinjari, Kurdistan’s interior minister, told a visiting ecumenical delegation that neither the necessary security nor appropriate infrastructure are in place.

“I won’t stop them, but I would advise them not to go,” he said. “The conditions aren’t ready yet.”

Iraqi Christian leaders echoed his concern.

“Security is the most critical need we have,” said Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Bashar Warda of Irbil.

“Rebuilding our churches is the last thing we should think about. We want to first build houses for our people, so they can live with dignity, and we need infrastructure in the villages. But all this is only possible if we can have security.”

“Unless there is security, whatever we build will be for Daesh, not for us,” said Syriac Orthodox Bishop Nicodemos of Mosul.

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Some residents of Qaraqosh have returned, carrying weapons and wearing uniforms of the Ninevah Plain Protection Units, or NPU, a militia formed by the Assyrian Democratic Movement, an Iraqi political party allied with the Shiites. It operates in coordination with the Iraqi military, which has assigned it primary responsibility for protecting Qaraqosh and a nearby village.

Father Youkhana said he is troubled by the NPU’s role.

“They are trying to play politics as a big actor, when in reality they don’t have that power,” he said. “What little role they have is exaggerated in the Christian diaspora, where it starts to sound like a Hollywood movie.”

Fadi Raad is tired of running from the Islamic State, so the 25-year-old Qaraqosh native joined the NPU and today patrols the streets of the town on the lookout for lingering terrorists.

“I’m here to defend my village, and because I want to save the Christians in Iraq. It’s difficult here now, but when the government and the NGOs repair all the houses, then the Christians will come back. The NPU is here to stay. It’s different now. If Daesh comes back, we will kill them all,” he said.

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FAITH & CULTURE

February 9, 2017

The Catholic Spirit • 13B

French priest reveals ‘forgotten’ Holocaust victims at Twin Cities event

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit

“We have to teach [about the] Holocaust because, unfortunately, it’s the reference today for mass crime.”

F

ather Patrick Desbois has dedicated his priesthood to uncovering a massive crime.

That’s how the French priest described the Holocaust when he spoke at a packed Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park Jan. 26.

He said the Holocaust is often noted as just a fact of history.

“If it was nothing to shoot 2 million or 3 [million] Jews in Europe, what can we say today?” Father Desbois asked, indicating that he faces a lingering indifference to the existence of mass graves.

Since 2004, Father Desbois has investigated hidden mass graves from the Holocaust in Ukraine, Russia, Poland and Belarus. He has found tens of thousands of people’s remains buried in fields, forgotten by the annals of history.

“Even if at some point I have read or became familiar with the numbers on a page, it’s always mind boggling and staggering,” said Demetrios Vital, who was among the 750 people who attended the presentation. He serves as the outreach coordinator at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota. “That’s true of so many of the different horrible things we hear about, [that] we must hear about and learn about.”

The Nazis killed millions of Jews and members of other groups from 1933 to 1945 during World War II. While much has been documented about the Holocaust in Germany and Poland, less is known about its mass killings and grave sites around eastern Europe and Russia.

During his childhood, Father Desbois first learned of the Holocaust from his grandfather, who had spent time in a concentration camp in Rawa-Ruska, Poland. Father Desbois said his grandfather told him that the victims outside the camp had it worse than those inside.

As a priest, Father Desbois visited the city and began to see what his grandfather described. He learned of German Nazis shooting Jews in secret and burying them in mass graves, sometimes while still alive. The rule was one bullet per person, he said; eyewitnesses reported seeing the ground move for days as those who were still alive struggled until death.

In 2004, Father Desbois formed the organization Yahad-In Unum (a combination of Hebrew and Latin meaning “together in one”), and he works with 27 people to research mass graves from the Holocaust. He also interviews witnesses, who are now in their 80s or older, which means little time remains to interview more.

TV news show “60 Minutes” featured his work in October 2015 in a report titled “The Hidden Holocaust.”

Father Desbois also wrote a book about his work, “The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

Father Desbois said his organization’s purpose is to “find them, to recognize them and prove it” in investigating the graves. He and his researchers don’t

Father Patrick Desbois

Father Patrick Desbois, pictured above, spoke about the Holocaust at Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park Jan. 26. The French priest has spent 15 years in eastern Europe and Russia investigating mass graves of Holocaust victims. Courtesy Yahad-In Unum memorialize the graves because they must “work with the legislation of the country,” but the families of the deceased can mark the site with small memorials.

Often, the mass graves have been treated and sold as regular land, with some lying under buildings.

“It’s very common because in the Soviet Union, people couldn’t choose anything,” Father Desbois said.

“So they couldn’t choose their house, they couldn’t choose their garden, they couldn’t choose their field. It was given through the Soviet structures.”

Number unknown The number of hidden mass graves remains unknown. Father Desbois does know that Nazis shot members of other groups such as gypsies. Besides the shootings, they took victims’ belongings and sometimes raped women and girls.

Judith Meisel, 86, who attended Father Desbois’ presentation, said she saw executions first-hand during the Holocaust while growing up in Lithuania. Now a St. Louis Park resident, Meisel and her sister escaped and came to the United States.

“Instead of [bringing people to a] concentration camp, they [Nazis] would have the children stand on the balcony, and they’d take stones and kill the people if they can, and then shoot,” Meisel said.

Concerns for safety preceded Father Desbois’ presentation at Beth El after the nearby Sabes Jewish Community Center was evacuated Jan. 18 due to a bomb threat. St. Louis Park police provided security at Father Desbois’ presentation.

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“Resilience in the face of threats is one of the most important ways to respond to terrorism or threats of terrorism as people demonstrate that they won’t be deterred, Jews and non-Jews alike,” said Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas.

Father Erich Rutten, chairman of the Commission on Ecumenism and Interreligious Affairs of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, introduced Father Desbois and read a message from Archbishop Bernard Hebda, who was unable to attend. The event occurred on the eve of the Jan. 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Father Desbois told the crowd that they must pass on the truth about the Holocaust. He said such an atrocity could happen again, and the brutality of the Islamic State resembles it.

“We have to teach [about the] Holocaust because, unfortunately, it’s the reference today for mass crime,” Father Desbois said.

He also indicated it’s important to help people understand and explain the Holocaust as a crime “because there is a denial” of the Holocaust having happened. It takes evidence to explain it, he said.

In addition, Father Desbois said Christians “have the same duty to show the evidences of the persecution of the Christians by ISIS. They [militants] destroyed most of the churches, they stole most of the property, they killed some Christians, and nothing has been done systematically to prove it.”

Father Desbois added that time is running out to collect evidence of the Christian persecutions, too.

Outreach 5) Catholic Charities 6) Deaf Ministry

7) Elementary Schools

February 9, 2017

8) Evangelization & Catechesis

On behalf of the 17 Collective Ministries in the Archdiocese and the over 200,000 people in need they support every year:

9,300,000

124 Parishes (8 more than 2015) reached their parish goal in dollars collected

St. Bridget of Sweden Our Lady of Grace Holy Family St. Anne St. Agatha Ascension St. Stephen St. Mary St. Michael Good Shepherd St. Bartholomew St. Anne/St. Joseph Hien St. George St. John the Baptist All Saints St. Peter St. Michael St. Michael St. Peter St. Mary of the Lake St. Mary of the Lake Nativity of Our Lord St. Hubert Cathedral of St. Paul St. Adalbert St. Charles Borromeo St. Helena Our Lady of Mt Carmel St. Nicholas St. Albert Holy Name of Jesus St. Olaf St. Pius V St. Casimir St. Gabriel the Archangel St. Katharine Drexel St. Paul Blessed Sacrament

Lindstrom Edina St. Louis Park Hamel Rosemount Norwood Young America Minneapolis Stillwater Pine Island Golden Valley Wayzata Minneapolis Long Lake Excelsior Minneapolis North St. Paul Kenyon Stillwater Mendota White Bear Lake Plymouth St. Paul Chanhassen St. Paul St. Paul St. Anthony Minneapolis Minneapolis Elko New Market Albertville Wayzata Minneapolis Cannon Falls St. Paul Hopkins Ramsey Ham Lake St. Paul

244.06% 231.94% 224.42% 217.64% 204.92% 197.27% 195.63% 193.43% 192.08% 189.72% 187.83% 187.54% 185.03% 183.71% 180.21% 176.69% 175.34% 172.60% 170.81% 170.43% 168.22% 167.85% 167.13% 165.40% 165.06% 164.01% 163.93% 160.68% 160.09% 155.32% 154.70% 154.63% 154.51% 154.47% 154.16% 153.29% 152.51% 150.00%

St. Ambrose St. Thomas the Apostle Sacred Heart St. John the Baptist St. Raphael St. John the Baptist St. Charles Lumen Christi St. Louis King of France St. Francis de Sales St. Bonaventure St. Rose of Lima Sacred Heart St. Paul St. John Neumann St. Mary Mary, Queen of Peace Holy Childhood St. Peter Corpus Christi St. Pius X Most Holy Trinity St. Joseph St. Patrick St. John St. Michael Our Lady of Victory Sacred Heart St. Bernard St. Andrew St. Patrick St. Albert the Great Holy Trinity

Woodbury Corcoran St. Paul Savage Crystal Dayton Bayport St. Paul St. Paul St. Paul Bloomington Roseville Rush City Zumbrota Eagan Le Center Rogers St. Paul Forest Lake Roseville White Bear Lake Veseli Hastings Oak Grove Little Canda St. Michael Minneapolis Robbinsdale St Paul Elysian Faribault Minneapolis Goodhue

Parishes Over 100% of Goal St. John the Baptist St. Francis of Assisi St. Genevieve St. Ignatius St. Joseph

New Brighton Lakeland Centerville Annandale West St. Paul

146.65% 146.45% 146.09% 145.77% 145.51%

12805 HWY 55, Ste 210 | Plymouth, MN 55441

142.88% 140.96% 140.31% 139.84% 139.51% 138.36% 138.09% 136.69% 135.97% 134.48% 133.91% 133.85% 133.46% 132.08% 131.21% 130.67% 130.44% 128.99% 127.46% 127.32% 127.20% 126.21% 125.66% 123.82% 123.79% 123.69% 122.23% 121.77% 120.85% 120.68% 120.03% 119.89% 119.81%

St. Patrick Guardian Angels St. Joseph the Worker St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Mary, Mother of the Church Divine Mercy St. Michael Immaculate Conception Immaculate Heart of May St. John Vianney St. Vincent de Paul Assumption Holy Trinity St. Nicholas St. Stephen St. Rita St. Jude of the Lake St. Mary of Czestochowa St. Odilia All Saints Our Lady of the Prairie St. Patrick St. Joseph Nativity of Mary St. Joseph Assumption Our Lady of the Lake St. Patrick St. Henry St. Luke Maternity of the Blessed Virgin St. Thomas More St. Joseph St. Boniface Ss. Peter & Paul Ss. Joachim & Anne Guardian Angels St. Columba St. Agnes Holy Rosary Incarnation St. Bernard St. Peter St. Jerome St. Joseph Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary St. Alphonsus St. John the Baptist

Edina Oakdale Maple Grove Hastings Burnsville Faribault Prior Lake Watertown Minnetonka South Saint Paul Brooklyn Park Richfield Waterville Carver Anoka Cottage Grove Mahtomedi Delano Shoreview Lakeville Belle Plaine Jordan Waconia Cleveland Lino Lakes St. Paul Mound St. Paul Le Center Clearwater St. Paul St. Paul Rosemount St. Bonifacius Loretto Shakopee Chaska St. Paul St. Paul Minneapolis Minneapolis Cologne Richfield Maplewood Taylors Falls Bloomington Brooklyn Center Vermillion

119.27% 118.93% 118.57% 118.39% 118.22% 116.92% 116.86% 116.68% 116.26% 116.07% 115.93% 115.87% 115.84% 115.81% 115.28% 115.03% 114.92% 114.65% 114.44% 113.98% 112.88% 112.25% 110.84% 110.65% 110.55% 110.45% 110.45% 109.31% 109.15% 109.09% 108.91% 108.07% 107.57% 106.91% 106.90% 106.47% 105.50% 105.39% 104.09% 103.77% 102.97% 102.00% 101.99% 101.90% 101.71% 101.66% 100.61% 100.14%

T: 612-294-6622 | www.csafspm.org

15) St. John Vianney College Seminary

Parishes Over 150% of Goal

11) Latino Ministry 12) Marriage, Family & Life 13) Parishes 14) Prison Chaplains

The Parish Honor Roll:

10) Hospital Chaplains

To the 40,000 parishioners who made a pledge In 2016, you reached the $ Catholic Services Appeal goal of in pledged dollars.

9) High Schools

16) The Saint Paul Seminary 17) Venezuelan Mission

1) American Indian Ministry 2) Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women (ACCW) 3) Campus Ministry – Newman Center 4) Campus Ministry - Saint Paul’s

14B • The Catholic Spirit

FOCUS ON FAITH

February 9, 2017

SUNDAY SCRIPTURES

Sharon Perkins

Take God’s gift of freedom to next level Most people would agree that living an ethical life boils down to our personal choices between “good” and “evil.” Others might use different criteria, such as useful or not useful, pleasurable or not pleasurable, etc.

Whatever our standards, we value the freedom to identify our own paths as one of the most treasured aspects of being human, and we resist someone else telling us what to do.

The readings for Feb. 12 are full of references to making wise choices, but as St. Paul states, the wisdom informing those choices is “not a wisdom of this age.”

The wisdom spoken to “those who are mature” takes the form of “statutes,” “decrees,” “commandments”

The Catholic Spirit • 15B

and “law” — the very things that make postmodern society nervous.

Fearing a loss of freedom, some renounce organized religion and submission to God’s commandments. But the Bible leads us to a great paradox. God, the author of human freedom, doesn’t command us to act unjustly and “to none does he give license to sin.”

St. Augustine put it another way, writing that God is the master “whom to serve is perfect freedom.”

In the Gospel, Jesus not only affirms the “law and the prophets,” but also interprets them more rigorously, teaching that “whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

In our day-to-day living we constantly make choices between the freeway or the back roads, a salad or a burger, or whether to wear the blue tie or the red one.

Seldom do we actually choose between “good” and “evil.” But faced with what we perceive to be two “goods,” we usually pick what we think is better; or confronted with two undesirable outcomes, we go for the one that’s “not so bad.” And we think that our exercise of choice comprises the extent of human freedom.

The readings are God’s invitation to take his gift of freedom to the next level, to not merely settle for the lesser of two evils or the more expedient of two good

Sunday, Feb. 12 Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Readings • Sir 15:15-20 • 1 Cor 2:6-10 • Mt 5:17-37 outcomes. God wants us to be truly free in the deepest sense of the word, to be formed according to his lifegiving divine wisdom and to act accordingly. His commandments are the means that make this possible.

This Catholic News Service column is offered in cooperation with the North Texas Catholic of Fort Worth, Texas.

DAILY Scriptures Sunday, Feb. 12 Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Sir 15:15-20 1 Cor 2:6-10 Mt 5:17-37

Wednesday, Feb. 15 Gn 8:6-13, 20-22 Mk 8:22-26 Thursday, Feb. 16

Monday, Feb. 13 Gn 4:1-15, 25 Mk 8:11-13

Gn 9:1-13 Mk 8:27-33

Tuesday, Feb. 14 Sts. Cyril, monk, and Methodius, bishop Gn 6:5-8; 7:1-5, 10 Mk 8:14-21

Friday, Feb. 17 Gn 11:1-9 Mk 8:34–9:1

SEEKING ANSWERS

Father Michael Schmitz

Fighting the ‘noon-day devil’ of acedia Q. I sometimes just wish that I could run away from the life I am living. There is nothing terribly wrong with it, but I get this feeling that I should just leave this behind and try something new. Is this a sign that I should?

A. Thank you for writing with this great question.

Before I offer something I hope is helpful, I want to note that you stated nothing is wrong with your current situation. I highlight that because there are some people who are certainly in the wrong situation.

They might be living with someone who is not their spouse, and their conscience is bothered by that. That is a good sign that things should change. A person might be in a situation where they are being victimized at home or at work. Those kinds of cases could involve a very different set of “next steps” that I will not be looking at here. Since you indicate that you are in a reasonable position, I will assume that those elements are not involved here.

What you are describing is one of the seven deadly sins. That may be alarming, but let me clarify what a

Saturday, Feb. 18 Heb 11:1-7 Mk 9:2-13

Tuesday, Feb. 21 Sir 2:1-11 Mk 9:30-37

Friday, Feb. 24 Sir 6:5-17 Mk 10:1-12

Sunday, Feb. 19 Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Lv 19:1-2, 17-18 1 Cor 3:16-23 Mt 5:38-48

Wednesday, Feb. 22 Chair of St. Peter, apostle 1 Pt 5:1-4 Mt 16:13-19

Saturday, Feb. 25 Sir 17:1-15 Mk 10:13-16

Thursday, Feb. 23 St. Polycarp, bishop and martyr Sir 5:1-8 Mk 9:41-50

Sunday, Feb. 26 Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Is 49:14-15 1 Cor 4:1-5 Mt 6:24-34

Monday, Feb. 20 Sir 1:1-10 Mk 9:14-29

deadly sin is. A deadly sin is not always, in and of itself, grave matter. The deadly sins can also be those sins that lead a person into areas of deeper and darker sin. You might think of them as “gateway sins,” in the same sense as “gateway drugs”; on their own, they might not destroy one’s life, but they often lead to harder and harsher drug use.

The particular sin (or, more accurately, temptation) you described is called “acedia.” Most people know this temptation by another name, “sloth.” I prefer the first word, and I will say why in a moment.

In the early Church, there were a number of men and women who went to live in the desert to seek the Lord in silence and solitude, penance and prayer.

While these hermits were living and praying in the desert, they had the clarity to notice the various temptations that assailed them while they were pursuing Jesus with everything they had. From this experience, a list of “deadly sins” was compiled. The sins on this list are pride, wrath, envy, gluttony, greed, lust and acedia.

Now, if you were living out in the desert, you might not be confronted with every one of these temptations.

For example, a person might be of the temperament to battle with greed but not with lust. Another person might wrestle with pride but be free from wrath. But the one temptation that these hermits said assailed everyone was acedia.

When we translate “acedia” to the term “sloth,” a couple of things happen. First, we think we know what the word “sloth” means. Second, what we think “sloth” means is not, in fact, what it means here. Most people associate sloth/acedia with laziness, but true acedia is far more sneaky than simple avoidance of work. In fact, those who are tremendously busy can often suffer from acedia. There are workaholics who are guilty of acedia.

Acedia is not the avoidance of work; it is the avoidance of the work that I am called to do at this

moment.

The desert fathers called acedia “the noon-day devil.” They called it this for a very simple reason: It struck at noon-day. Imagine you were living in a sparse hut out in the desert. From 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. the sun would seem like it was suspended in the sky, unmoving and inescapable. The freshness of morning has already passed, and the cool and calm of evening had not yet arrived. All one could do was sit in one’s hut and pray (or weave baskets or whatever task to which the hermit had been committed). The profound feeling of discontent would begin beating on the door of the person’s mind, arguing that they ought to get up and do something else. It didn’t matter what: Sometimes it was the temptation to rejoin society and spread the Gospel or serve the poor; sometimes it was the temptation to visit another hermit for a spiritual conversation. Good things! Regardless of what the temptation was, it was the draw to “leave one’s hut” and do something else — anything else.

We have all been there. We have said “yes” to our state in life (married life, religious life, priesthood or consecrated single life) and then we get to that moment when we want to just “leave our hut” and do anything other than what we are called to do at that moment. This is not the time to flee. This is the time to enter into the moment and the mission even more deeply.

Is there a time to discern another way of life? Maybe (but not if we have made a permanent promise). But the time of temptation and desolation is not the time to make this move. The time to move is when we are moving toward, not when we are running away from, the call of God. Father Schmitz is director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth and chaplain of the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

Reach him at fathermikeschmitz@gmail.com.

16B • The Catholic Spirit

THIS CATHOLIC LIFE • COMMENTARY

February 9, 2017

FAITH IN THE PUBLIC ARENA

eschatological horizons, embrace unjust or divisive means to achieve their ends, ends which themselves might be noble.

Jonathan Liedl

Foundation in Christ

Activism in Christ The first tumultuous weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency have seen marches, rallies and demonstrations across the country, held in opposition to, or in support of, at least some part of the president’s agenda. Millions have taken part, and the trend shows no sign of stopping. To put it mildly, activism is in the air.

While some of these demonstrations have drawn attention to commendable causes, too many have been characterized by vulgarity, hysteria and discord.

The leaders of the Women’s March on Washington, in particular, seemed more concerned with insulting and offending political opponents than they were with fostering any sort of meaningful conversation, as Madonna and the rest reacted to a perceived authoritarian president with their own brand of power politics.

Authentic activism should inspire peace and conversation. The fact that so much of what currently passes for “activism” breeds the opposite is an indication that something is awry. The disconcerting elements of these demonstrations are symptoms of a deeper spiritual sickness plaguing our democracy.

‘Activistic heresy’ In his masterful spiritual work, “The Soul of the Apostolate,” Trappist abbot Dom Jean Chautard warns us against what he calls the “activistic heresy.” It is a tendency, even among Catholics, to falsely believe that social and political ills must be fought exclusively with worldly weapons. In doing so, we can mistake the important work of social activism as an ultimate end, and sacrifice even our interior life for the sake of social and political gains.

By putting the active cart before the spiritual horse, the activistic heresy cuts off our access to the only thing that can sanctify our works and make our actions truly fruitful: a living relationship with Jesus

TWENTY SOMETHING

Christina Capecchi

Angels among us: how helping leads to healing Spend a day in a surgery waiting room and you’ll witness a hundred quiet acts of mercy.

Strangers gather for a host of reasons with a common cause: to sit beneath the slowest clock and wait it out. They make calls, utter prayers and flip through magazines. And in their anxiety, they extend morsels of compassion: smiles and small talk, directions to the cafeteria and tips on its offerings.

One person shown the way by someone slightly less new, flashes of humanity while loved ones down the hall are put under.

The mercy at one Minneapolis hospital, where I spent a recent Thursday as my husband’s elbow was reassembled, began with this text: “Surgery started.

Everything going well.” Five words to make you feel oriented and relieved, the optional last three abounding in kindness.

A 60-something couple across from me hunkered

Protect life and human dignity: Catholics at the Capitol, March 9 Join Minnesota’s bishops, speakers and Catholics from across the state for a day of inspiration and advocacy in St. Paul.

Schedule

RiverCentre 7 a.m. – Doors open, continental breakfast, vendors 7:30 a.m. – Prayer 8 a.m. – Mass 9 a.m. – Morning program with keynote speakers, issue briefings and advocacy training 11:30 a.m. – Lunch 12:20 p.m. – Buses to the Capitol State Capitol 1 p.m. – Afternoon program with legislative visits, bishops meet and greet, rosaries in the rotunda and Capitol tours 3:45 p.m. – Closing ceremony and send-off 4 p.m. – Conclusion Registration is required. Those 22 and younger are free. $20 early-bird pricing ends Feb. 15.

To register, visit www.catholicsatthecapitol.org or call 651-227-8777.

Christ. We come to love “action for action’s sake,” Dom Chautard says. Even the sacraments and prayer can be subverted as tools to serve a temporal agenda.

Or worse, we might even come to disdain the interior life as a hindrance to action. We see this tendency from secularists who, after a tragedy, ridicule the religious community’s call for prayer as worthless.

Or from those who, having only political and not

“Thus says the Lord: Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless ... and do not turn your back on your own.” down for their daughter’s four-hour surgery, a double mastectomy. A toddler behind them sprawled across her grandpa, staring at the fish tank. A camouflageclad college student wanted to know where his dad would be recovering overnight. A collared 40-something paced and repeatedly checked on his wife’s status.

We were told we would be notified as soon as any information became available, but people could not wait. The women behind the front desk responded with grace, promising to look into each query and let them know as soon as they learned more. Surgeons periodically popped in, shaking hands and sitting down to explain an outcome in the most simple and encouraging language they could.

As we settle into a new year already shadowed by political tensions, I’m focusing on the acts of kindness playing out in my midst. A neighbor shoveling for us late at night. Casseroles and cards. A well-oiled prayer chain.

I’m reveling in gratitude and trying to seize entry points for compassion. A trip to the grocery store brings opportunities at every aisle: carts stuck together in the entrance, crowded corners, broken bags in

Political activism is important, but it can only be authentic if it is rooted in Christ. Our interior life cannot merely be an aid to our active life, but must be its very foundation. Through prayer, penance and reception of the sacraments, we invite Christ to enter into our lives, inform our decisions and guide our actions. As St. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.”

This approach to activism was at the heart of the annual March for Life in Washington, which took place for the 44th time this January. The march did not begin with a rally or a star-studded concert.

Instead, it began with a vigil Mass in which those who received the Eucharist literally became channels of God’s love and grace. Is it any wonder that, instead of grotesque hats and cussing celebrities, the March for Life was marked by joy, peace and love?

Perhaps this approach might not shame the Supreme Court into immediately overturning Roe v.

Wade. But it will succeed in changing the hearts and minds and souls of those who encounter it, which is far more valuable in the long run.

An opportunity for authentic activism On March 9, Minnesota Catholics will have an opportunity to engage in this kind of authentic activism at Catholics at the Capitol. We will gather in St. Paul to learn about some of the key issues facing our state, tie them all together within a consistent ethic of life, and then head to the State Capitol to share our message with legislators.

We’ll begin our day of advocacy and activism at 7:30 a.m. with prayer, followed by 8 a.m. Mass at the RiverCentre in St. Paul. We do this not to merely check a box or attempt to channel God’s grace toward our own agenda, but because we know that without Christ, all the activism in the world will fail to accomplish the one thing it needs to: the glorification of God and the advancement of his will.

Liedl is the communications manager of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the public policy voice of the Catholic Church in Minnesota.

parking lots. It feels so good to help in the smallest of ways or pay a sincere compliment to a weary cashier.

I learned about mercy from an 85-year-old priest — a retired English professor who quotes Samuel Taylor Coleridge and hears confessions twice a week.

He donates every month to a free-of-cost hospice founded by Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne and explained to me his reasoning: “Spiritual and corporal works of mercy happen there. We can’t personally do much of that work, and so we have proxies.”

The same organization sends two nurses every month to his retirement home for priests to trim their toenails. “As I get older, my feet get farther and farther away from me,” he said. “That’s the trouble.”

What a beautiful way to serve the Church’s servants, the kind of assistance most would never think to provide. “Old folks appreciate the power of touch,” he said.

One of this month’s Scripture readings brings it all home with words from Isaiah: “Thus says the Lord: Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless ... and do not turn your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed.”

Acts of mercy aren’t just to be performed when you’re in perfect condition and your to-do list is complete. They’re done when you are wounded — that’s how you arrive at healing.

“Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!”

Capecchi is a freelance writer from Inver Grove Heights and the editor of www.sisterstory.org.

THIS CATHOLIC LIFE • COMMENTARY

February 9, 2017

WORD ON FIRE

Bishop Robert Barron

Dave Rubin, the ‘pelvic issues’ and Jewish comedians Recently, I was interviewed in Los Angeles by Dave Rubin for his popular program “The Rubin Report.”

Dave is a stand-up comedian, political satirist, protégé of Larry King, and spokesman for, I think it’s fair to say, the classically liberal, secularist world view. He has demonstrated a particular interest in the issues raised by the new atheists and by the supposed conflict between religion and the sciences. He is also an advocate of gay marriage. You might be wondering, therefore, why he’d want to talk to a Catholic bishop.

But this reveals one of his most appealing characteristics, namely, a willingness to engage points of view very different from his own. I found during my pleasant, stimulating hour with him that he has studied the methods of his mentor, Larry King, which is to say, he asks good, searching questions, but doesn’t play “gotcha” or try to trip up his interlocutor.

About half-way through the conversation, Dave turned to several hot-button issues, including abortion, pornography and gay marriage. I was more than happy to engage all of these, and I did so in a way that, I hope, struck the right balance between moral demand and mercy. I suppose you could watch the video and decide for yourself. But I will confess that the moment we turned to these matters, something in me tightened, precisely because I knew that, though this part of the interview covered perhaps 10 minutes, it would pretty much obscure everything else that we talked about. And judging from the thousands of comments on the videos, my instinct has proved to be more or less accurate. As I have argued before, this preoccupation with “the pelvic issues” has served to undermine the work of evangelization.

When you read the great evangelizing texts of the New Testament — the Gospels, the epistles of Paul, the book of Revelation, etc. — you don’t get the impression that what their authors wanted you primarily to understand is sexual morality. Rather, they wanted you to know that the great story of Israel had come to its highpoint and that God, in the person of the crucified and risen Messiah, had come to reign as king of the world. God, redemption, the cross, the resurrection, Jesus the Lord, telling the good news — these are the master themes of the New Testament.

Again, please don’t misunderstand me: God impinges upon all aspects of life and therefore placing our sex lives under the Lordship of Jesus matters. But I fear that for so many people in the secular world today, religion is reduced to the policing of sexual behavior, and this is massively unfortunate.

When you read the great evangelizing texts of the New Testament — the Gospels, the epistles of Paul, the book of Revelation, etc. — you don’t get the impression that what their authors wanted you primarily to understand is sexual morality.

I’d like to draw attention to one topic from my conversation with Dave Rubin that I think merits special consideration, since it shows an important link between Biblical religion and the very liberalism that Dave represents. Toward the end of our interview, he asked me about humor in relation to the Bible and referred to a number of famous Jewish comics from Mel Brooks to Jerry Seinfeld to Larry David. I replied that whenever I hear such figures, I do indeed think of the authors of the Scriptures, for the Bible is marked, through and through, by a playful irony and by a profound skepticism regarding power, authority and any claim to human perfectibility. Read Isaiah,

The Catholic Spirit • 17B

Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the author of the book of Jonah, the composer of first and second Samuel — especially in regard to kingship and institutional corruption — if you doubt me on this score. And this is why, I insisted to Dave Rubin, that much of our political sensibility in regard to checks and balances, and much of our healthy skepticism in regard to the accumulation of power by any one person or one group, are born of these Biblical instincts.

Nowhere is this principle on fuller display, I explained, than in the central symbol of the Christian religion. The cross of Jesus, depicting a tortured and humiliated man put to death by a corrupt political power, is held up as a kind of taunt to imperial Rome — and to any of Rome’s successors down through the ages. What Christians say through that sign to all oppressive empires is this: You think you dominate the world through your threats and military power, but God’s authority is greater than yours, and God’s might overwhelms yours. This is why it is a delicious (and typically Jewish) irony that Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, places over the cross of Jesus a sign that reads “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” making Pilate the first great evangelist.

Relatedly, there is no text on earth more insistent upon the foibles, follies and wickedness of human beings than the Bible. Whereas many philosophies of the ancient world — Platonism and Gnosticism come readily to mind — teach some form of human perfectibility; and whereas many ideologies of modernity — Nazism and Communism most prominently — hold out utopian fantasies, the Scriptures squint skeptically indeed at such programs.

Blaise Pascal, opining that the one who would make himself an angel will in fact make himself a beast, was operating out of a thoroughly Biblical perspective. I would argue that political liberalism at its best — wary of power, critical of political oppression, protective of those likely to be exploited by various forms of imperialism — is deeply rooted in the Jewish/Biblical mindset.

Anyway, I am very grateful to Dave Rubin for the interview and the opportunity to explore a number of issues related to faith and society. I just hope that his viewers can appreciate that there is a lot more to Christianity than the “pelvic issues.”

Bishop Barron is an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

LETTERS Why a Catholic lobby day?

If the Minnesota Catholic bishops’ goal in a separate lobbying day for Catholics is to encourage Catholic lobbying as Jason Adkins, MCC executive director, says (“Catholics at the Capitol aims to inspire public policy participation,” Jan. 12), they could double down in their annual effort to get Catholics to lobby with the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition (JRLC) in its Day on the Hill. The MCC is still a member of the JRLC, along with Protestant Christians, Jews, Muslims, Unitarian Universalists — members of the Minnesota Council of Churches. The next JRLC Day on the Hill is Feb. 23, and the MCC Catholics at the Capitol is March 9, two weeks later. Chances are Catholics will not attend both.

Why lobby separately as Catholics? Is it a change in agenda? The JRLC agenda concentrates on social justice.

Is the MCC shifting emphasis from the Church’s teaching on the “preferential option for the poor” to issues of personal ethics — sex, marriage, child-bearing and end-of-life choices?

As U.S. citizens, bishops and lay Catholics have an ethical consideration in lobbying for laws restricting freedom of personal choice. In the U.S., people are free to live by their own religious and ethical codes unless there are good public, evidence-based reasons for restricting their freedom. We believe personal freedom is in the common good. Since “our Church teaches” is not a public reason, lobbyists need evidence for their assertions that laws are required to prevent harm to others. This is a serious matter.

Catholics can persuade others of our values by living

according to Catholic teaching ourselves. No lobbying required. But asking lawmakers to provide justice for all citizens? That is exactly what lobbying should be about.

And there is no better way for Catholics to do it than with other people of faith in the JRLC. Paula Ruddy St. Albert the Great, Minneapolis

Cardinal Newman Society’s ‘honor roll’ Re: “Speaker: Catholic schools must cultivate identity to keep students in the faith,” Jan. 26 — I attended this event, but was disappointed in that it seemed more like a marketing event for the three schools (Providence Academy in Plymouth, Chesterton Academy in Edina and St. Agnes School in St. Paul) and the Cardinal Newman Society itself.

While nothing that Dr. Jamie Arthur said was controversial per se, implicit in the discussion was the notion that if a school is not on the Society’s “honor roll,” it’s lacking. As the article notes, only schools that apply are even considered. I had never heard of the Cardinal Newman Society prior to this event, so it’s unclear to me why its “Honor Roll” carries significance.

It also left an uneasy feeling with me that a bishop of our archdiocese was at an event that held these three schools up implicitly at the expense of the dozen or so other archdiocesan high schools. One would think if our own high schools weren’t

“Catholic enough” that our local bishops would work to change that.

Online comment at www.thecatholicspirit.com Bishop Andrew Cozzens responds: Parents, students and their families in our archdiocese are blessed to have many Catholic high schools from which to choose. We have many good organizations and foundations offering direct help to our Catholic schools, but very few of these organizations work with every Catholic school in the archdiocese. The scope of each organization is necessarily limited. Three of our schools have gone through the hard work of applying to be on the Cardinal Newman Society’s Honor Roll and received this distinguished honor. It is an impressive honor that supports the reason we are in the work of Catholic education: to help our young people develop and strengthen their relationship with Jesus Christ as they grow in knowledge of their world and their faith, and experience the seamless integration of both spiritual and human learning. My support of these schools at this event does not mean that I don’t support or recommend our other Catholic high schools. Every school has many occasions to celebrate its commitment to excellence, and whenever possible, the archbishop or I try to be present to share in the joy of these achievements. I work closely with the archdiocese’s Office for the Mission of Catholic Education to make sure students receive a quality, Catholic education at all of our Catholic schools and in our religious education programs.

Share your perspective by emailing CatholicSpirit@ The Commentary page does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Catholic Spirit. Letters may be edited for length or clarity. archspm.org.

18B • The Catholic Spirit

CALENDAR

Dining out St. Catherine pancake and sausage breakfast — Feb. 12: 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. at 4500 220th St. E., Prior Lake.

Guardian Angels Men’s Club annual beef and sausage dinner — Feb. 12: 10 a.m.–noon at 217 Second St. W., Chaska.

Holy Cross pancake and sausage breakfast — Feb. 19: 8:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. at Kolbe Center, 1630 Fourth St. NE, Minneapolis. www.ourholycross.org.

Soup supper for Dorothy Day Center at St. Wenceslaus — Feb. 20: 4:30–7 p.m. at 215 Main St. E., New Prague. 952-758-3888.

St. Nicholas family movie night — Feb. 17: 6:30–8:30 p.m. at 51 Church St., Elko New Market. www.stncc.net/family-movie-night.

St. Odilia presents “The Wizard of Oz” — Feb. 24-26: 7 p.m. at 3495 Victoria St. N., Shoreview. www.stodilia.org.

Mardi Gras pancake breakfast and Mass with Archbishop Bernard Hebda — Feb. 26: 11 a.m.–2:30 p.m. at St. Richard, 7540 Penn Ave. S., Richfield. www.strichards.com.

St. Helena CCW spring tea — Feb. 26: 2–4 p.m. at 3204 E. 43rd St., Minneapolis. Lucy at 612-729-9445 or www.sainthelena.us.

Music

Alpha at Guardian Angels — Tuesdays through April 4: 6:30–8:45 p.m. at 218 W. Second St., Chaska. www.gachaska.org.

Paul Koleske Concert — Feb. 12: 1:30 p.m. at St. Jerome, 380 E. Roselawn Ave., Maplewood.

Prayer/worship

Ongoing groups

World Day of the Sick Mass with Archbishop Bernard Hebda and presentation — Feb. 11: 10 a.m.–noon at St. Charles Borromeo, 2739 Stinson Blvd. NE, St. Anthony. www.curatioapostolate.com.

Faithful Spouses support group — Third Tuesday of each month: 7–8:30 p.m. Location TBD. For those who are living apart from their spouses because of separation or divorce. 651-291-4438 or faithfulspouses@archspm.org.

Career Transition group meeting — Third Thursday of each month: 7:30 a.m. at Holy Name of Jesus, 155 County Road 24, Medina. The Career Transition Group is for people looking for work, changing careers, or looking to improve skills and network. www.hnoj.org/career-transition-group.

Dementia support group — Second Tuesday of each month: 7–9 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. 651-777-7251 or www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

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

Parish events Cabaret Dinner Theatre at Immaculate Conception — Feb. 10-11: 6 p.m. at 4030 Jackson St. NE, Columbia Heights. $30 reserved seat tickets required. www.iccsonline.org.

St. Pius X Winterfest — Feb. 11-12: at 3878 Highland Ave., White Bear Lake. www.churchofstpiusx.org.

CALENDAR submissions DEADLINE: Noon Thursday, 14 days before the anticipated Thursday date of publication. Recurring or ongoing events must be submitted each time they occur. We cannot guarantee a submitted event will appear in the calendar.

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

ITEMS MUST INCLUDE the following to be considered for publication in the calendar: • Time and date of event • Full street address of event • Description of event • C ontact information in case of questions.

(No attachments, please.)

St. Alphonsus Council of Catholic Women, Women’s Day of Reflection — Feb. 18: 8 a.m. at 7025 Halifax Ave. N., Brooklyn Center. RSVP by Feb. 12 to Kathy at 763-561-6507.

FAX: 651-291-4460

Embracing the Holy Time of Lent — Feb. 19: 4–6 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

A note to readers

Ecumenical Taize prayer — first Friday of the month through May 5: 7:30 p.m. at St. Richard, 7540 Penn Ave. S., Richfield. www.strichards.com/first-fridays.

Taize prayer — Third Friday of each month: 7 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. 651-777-7251 or www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

Retreats Married Couple’s Retreat — Feb. 10-12 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake. www.franciscanretreats.net/married_couples.aspx.

Women’s Weekend Retreat — Feb. 17-19 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake. www.franciscanretreats.net.

Encountering God in Everyday Life — March 3-4, April 7-8 and May 5-6: 5–6 p.m. at St. Paul’s

MAIL: “Calendar,” The Catholic Spirit 244 Dayton Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102 The Catholic Spirit does not accept calendar submissions via email. Please submit events using the form at www.thecatholicspirit.com/calendarsubmissions.

More online Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

Schools Open houses at Holy Cross — Feb. 23 and March 16: 3:30–5 p.m. at 6100 37th St. W., Webster. www.holycrossschool.net.

Conferences/seminars/ workshops The Inner Landscapes of Liturgical Praying — Feb. 18: 8:30 a.m.–noon at St. Thomas More, 1079 Summit Ave., St. Paul. www.morecommunity.org.

February 9, 2017 The Name of God is Mercy — Feb. 19: 1–3 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. 651-777-7251 or www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

School of Lectio Divina — Feb. 24 and March 1: 1 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood.

651-777-7251 or www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

Catholic Divorce Survival Guidance — Mondays, Feb. 27 – May 22: 7–8:15 p.m. at St. Edward, 9401 Nesbitt Ave. S., Bloomington. www.stedwardschurch.org.

Singles Sunday Spirits walking group for 50-plus Catholic singles — ongoing Sundays: For Catholic singles to meet and make friends. The group usually meets in St. Paul on Sunday afternoons. Kay at 651-426-3103 or Al at 651-482-0406.

Singles group at St. Vincent de Paul, Brooklyn Park — ongoing second Saturday each month: 6:15 p.m. at 9100 93rd Ave. N. Gather for a potluck supper, conversation and games. 763-425-0412.

Young adults Valentine’s swing dance at the Cathedral — Feb. 11: 6:30–10 p.m. at 239 Selby Ave., St. Paul.

Swing dance lessons from 7–8 p.m. $8 per adult, $22 per family. www.facebook.com/ events/1808413786063279.

Cathedral Young Adults Theology on Tap — Wednesdays through Feb. 22: 6:30 p.m. at O’Gara’s, 164 Snelling Ave. N., St. Paul. www.cathedralsaintpaul.org/cya.

Other events Agape Dinner for Widows and Widowers — Feb. 18: 10 a.m. at 1250 S. Shore Dr., Forest Lake.

RSVP to Deacon Terry Moravec at 651-295-4444 by Feb. 10. www.stpeterfl.org.

Father Gregory Welch’s 50th anniversary (Feb. 18) Mass and reception — Feb. 19: 11 a.m. at St. Patrick in Edina, 6820 St. Patrick’s Lane.

Art exhibit: Seeing God — Through March 3: 9 a.m.–6 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood.

651-777-7251 or www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

Women with Spirit Bible Study — Tuesdays through April 4: 9:30–11:30 a.m. at Pax Christi, 12100 Pioneer Trail, Eden Prairie. www.paxchristi.com/wws.

It’s coming!

The 2017 Catholic Spirit Thanks to these web advertisers on TheCatholicSpirit.com!

Saint Agnes School • St. Patrick’s Guild • Saint Therese Homes The Glenn • Benedictine Health Center at Innsbruck • St. Thomas Academy Our Lady of Peace Home • Daughters of the Heart of Mary

www.TheCatholicSpirit.com

Fish Fry Guide — a comprehensive list of parish Lenten meals in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Look for it in our Feb. 23 issue.

February 9, 2017 The Catholic Spirit • 19B

At vocations-focused Lifeline, youths encouraged to say ‘yes’ to God’s call

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit While driving down Interstate 94 in Minneapolis a few years ago, Father Michael Becker witnessed a motorcyclist slam head-first into a car. The rector of St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul pulled over and anointed the man, who died at the scene.

Father David Blume shared Father Becker’s story while speaking to more than 450 high school boys at the Feb. 4 NET Ministries Lifeline Mass and program. The young men had just watched a similar incident dramatized in the vocations video “Fishers of Men” produced by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“It’s not just dramatic, it’s very real,” said Father Blume, the vocations director for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

That call to bring Christ to others in an emergency stirred something within the young men attending the event. Among them was Andy Hanson, a senior at Robbinsdale Cooper High School.

“It just shows how important they [priests] are even to society,” said Hanson, who attends St. Raphael in Crystal.

Held at the NET Center in West St. Paul, Lifeline brings teenagers together monthly for Mass, socializing and presentations on Catholic living.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda celebrated Mass at the evening event, which focused on discernment, religious vocations and priesthood. Following Mass, priests and religious spoke to separate groups of young men and women.

In the men’s vocation presentation, Brother Conrad Richardson of the Franciscan Brothers of Peace in St. Paul explained the importance of priesthood, the permanent diaconate and religious life.

Marriage, he explained, is a “natural vocation,” but God also calls people to serve him in a “supernatural way” through ordained and religious life.

Religious men and women from more

Declan Thompson of St. Francis Xavier in Buffalo high-fives seminarians of St. John Vianney College Seminary during a National Evangelization Teams Ministries Lifeline event Feb. 4 at the NET Center in West St. Paul. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit than 10 orders — including Pro Ecclesia Sancta, St. Peter Claver Sisters, School Sisters of Notre Dame and the Crosier Fathers and Brothers — joined the 1,200 youth and adult volunteers at Mass in the NET Center gym.

In his homily, Archbishop Hebda reflected on the Gospel message of being the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world.” He also reflected on the works of mercy called for in the second reading from the book of Isaiah. He said that text lays out “a beautiful game plan … since it’s Super Bowl weekend” for following Jesus.

“If we turn our lives over to the Lord in whatever way he is calling us to serve, it’s then that we’re going to be able to bring light to the world,” Archbishop Hebda said. “Not our own, but Jesus’ [light].”

The archbishop also spoke of the attitudes needed to discover one’s vocation in life.

“Our job is to give ourselves over with such humility, with such docility that we’re willing to do whatever it is that the Lord asks us to do,” Archbishop Hebda said.

Speaking to a group of young women,

Sister Mary Juliana Cox of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia of Nashville in Stillwater explained that Jesus is already active in their lives. She emphasized the importance of responding to their baptismal gifts, which provide a foundation for discerning God’s call, living the universal call to holiness and living out religious life if called.

“The consecrated life is the fulfillment of our baptismal promises,” Sister Mary Juliana said. “It’s a deepening of those promises.”

She highlighted the importance of starting to “remove those things that are keeping others from seeing the light” and to “turn away from sin, which only distorts that light and dims it.” She said it allows a person to give one’s “all to the Lord” in order for others to be “able to see the light, see the way to heaven more clearly.”

Sister Cynthia Carmona of Pro Ecclesia Sancta, which serves St. Mark in St. Paul, concluded the presentation in talking about the importance of building trust in God and learning to say “yes.” It worked for her.

“I haven’t regretted a moment I’ve been a sister,” she said.

Hearing more about religious vocations resonated for St. Anthony Village High School sophomore Maria Osterbauer.

“I thought that it was really interesting how they said that you’re called to a vocation wherever you are,” said Osterbauer, a parishioner of St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony. “You can be living what God wants you to do and ... this life isn’t actually your own. It’s for God.” Eighth-graders Mary Oberg, who is home-schooled, and Anna Walter, who attends St. Agnes in St. Paul, each said the presentation inspired them to think more about vocations. They both attend St. Joseph in West St. Paul.

“They were so joyful and so happy,” Walter said of the sisters.

Oberg recalled how saying “yes” paid off for Sister Cynthia.

“She knew what God wanted her to do, but she wasn’t ready to say yes, but then when she said yes, she was truly and absolutely happy,” she said.

For Hanson, the time is approaching to make a public step in that “yes.” He plans to apply to SJV to begin studies for the priesthood. He said he has been considering priesthood for three years.

St. Anthony Village High School senior Thomas Solomon also has SJV on the radar for next year. Solomon, who attends St. Charles Borromeo, learned more about the priesthood last year from Joe Wappes, a fellow parishioner and SAV graduate who entered SJV in 2016.

Wappes also spoke to the boys about seminary that evening.

“He’s got me thinking about it,” Solomon said.

It’s that step that priests, brothers, sisters and deacons most encouraged that night. They prayed with the youths in the crowded aisles of the gym during the closing prayer session, which especially resonated with Hanson. “It was amazing having all the religious being here to help pray over you,” he said.

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20B • The Catholic Spirit

THE LAST WORD

February 9, 2017

Sadia Tarannum, right, board member of the Northwest Islamic Community Center in Plymouth, talks with parishioners at St. Joseph the Worker in Maple Grove, including Ann O’Connor, left, wife of Deacon Kevin O’Connor, who gave a presentation at a Jan. 26 event, Muslim-Christian Conversation.

Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

Two faiths, one table

Catholics, Muslims share experiences at St. Joseph the Worker

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

A

group of 21 Muslim men and women walked into a meeting room at St. Joseph the Worker Jan. 26 and passed by an array of treats and snacks.

The food was a sign that the Maple Grove parish was rolling out the welcome mat. It was the first time its Muslim neighbors had ever set foot on parish grounds. They joined with about 70 parishioners to learn about each other’s faith and build relationships.

“We’re very excited because there’s just been so much negative [sentiment] in the media recently,” said Roxanne Smith, a St. Joseph staffer who coordinates social justice efforts. “So, to have 91 people in the room tonight just delights us, because we know that we have so much more in common, and we wanted to focus on what we have in common in our faith traditions as opposed to the differences.”

The event was called Muslim-Christian Conversation, and it featured speakers from both the parish and the Northwest Islamic Community Center, plus a chance for participants to sit around tables and talk about their faith traditions and experiences. At least one Muslim sat at every table to give all parishioners a chance to hear their stories.

“It warms my heart,” said Sadia Tarannum, a board member of the Northwest Islamic Community Center. “The doors are open, the hearts are open and everybody is willing to sit down and talk about each other’s similarities. …

We celebrate our similarities when we come

together, and embrace and respect each other’s differences. We do have traditional differences, and we learn to embrace those and respect those.”

Parishioner Katrina Carney, a sophomore at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph majoring in peace studies, drove to Maple Grove for the event.

She helped plan it and was glad to see it come to fruition.

“I was really excited for this because I’ve been waiting for it,” said Carney, who grew up with a close Muslim friend and who has been working for years to have a Christan-Muslim dialogue event at her parish.

The idea stemmed from the parish’s attempt four years ago to build relationships with members of other faith traditions, including Muslims, Jews and Hindus, Smith said. It went well, but the focus was too broad.

“We really wanted to get in depth with each one of them, but better to do it one at a time,” Smith said. “And, with all of the crises that have been happening with the Muslims [around the world and in the U.S.], it seemed so important to all of us that this would be the first [group from a different faith tradition] that we would get into deeper relationship with.”

Smith described the response from the Northwest Islamic Community Center as “eager.” Muslims from the organization already had been engaging in dialogue with Christians of other denominations. This was the first time, however, that members had ever visited any Catholic church.

“I feel very good coming here because I keep hearing all the quotes from Pope Francis and all his letters and all the events that he does,” Tarannum said. “It touches my heart so much, everything that he does and says. I generally respect him, and I like him genuinely. That’s why I think I feel more [comfortable] coming to a Catholic church. I’m

Tamim Saidi, board member of the Northwest Islamic Community Center, talks with parishioners of St. Joseph the Worker in Maple Grove to help them understand Islam.

He also gave a presentation at the event.

Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit like, ‘I already know you guys.’”

This won’t be the last time the two faith groups get together, Smith noted. In the works for March is an event called Safe Harbor training, which will address how to react when someone is being persecuted or harassed. Smith also wants members of her parish to visit the Islamic center during a similar dialogue event that takes place the third Friday of every month.

Beyond that?

“We talked about even just doing a potluck meal,” Smith said. “No formal agenda, just a gettogether. Bring your families, we’ll bring our families and come together.”