September 27, 2018 • Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis
Archdiocese’s $210 million settlement plan approved
Child protection checkup As the spotlight shines nationwide on how the Church has fallen short in keeping kids safe, local leaders weigh in on policies and procedures of the archdiocese. — Pages 10-11
Survivor speaks Archbishop Hebda invites clergy abuse survivor to address hundreds gathered for prayers of reparation and healing at Cathedral of St. Paul. — Page 5
Archbishop Hebda apologizes for hurt, thanks survivors for helping change Church By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ plan for reorganization, including a $210 million settlement for victim/survivor remuneration, was approved by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge Sept. 25. PLEASE TURN TO REORGANIZATION ON PAGE 5
MARIA WIERING | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
Headed to Hartford Puerto Rico native surprised by call to become a bishop By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit
Basilica celebrates First Minneapolis Catholic church west of the Mississippi starts 150 years ago in a wooden shed, grows to become co-cathedral. — Page 6
Enjoying retirement Four priests who recently left fulltime ministry share reflections on decades of service, plans for the future. — Pages 13-14
Archbishop Bernard Hebda, left, speaks to media alongside Thomas Abood, chairman of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ finance council and Reorganization Task Force, following the confirmation of the archdiocese’s plan for reorganization Sept. 25 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
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ather Juan Miguel Betancourt Torres was meeting with a seminarian the afternoon of Sept. 11 when his phone rang. He ignored it. When it continued to ring, he checked the number and saw an unfamiliar area code. It was from Washington, D.C. Father Betancourt, a vice rector of spiritual formation at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, took the call as the seminarian stepped out of the room. He thought it might be the superior general of his religious community, Servants of the Holy Eucharist and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Instead, it was the apostolic nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre. He informed Father Betancourt that Pope Francis had appointed him to be an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut. “And then he said, ‘Do you know where that [Hartford] is?’” Bishop-elect Betancourt
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recalled. “And, we started laughing. ‘Yes, Archbishop, that’s Connecticut.’” Replying to Archbishop Pierre that he is a “man of the Church,” Father Betancourt accepted the role. Six days later, he flew to Hartford to meet people from the archdiocese and Archbishop Leonard Blair. He will be ordained 2 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford. The 48-year-old native of Puerto Rico came to the U.S. in 2006 to serve in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and
Minneapolis both at the seminary, where he teaches Scripture, and as pastor of St. Francis de Sales in St. Paul. He said he did not see this appointment coming. “It was, for me, shocking, and confusing, too, because you don’t expect that call,” he said. “My mind was just spinning,” But, he was reassured of his ability to handle the role when he called Archbishop Bernard Hebda later that day to discuss the appointment. He also gained strength and resolve from his next move after
Bishop-elect Juan Miguel Betancourt Torres said “there’s sadness” about leaving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to serve as an auxiliary bishop in Hartford, Conn., but he plans to “enjoy every single minute with the people that I have here, both at the seminary and at the parish, and my religious community.”
getting the nuncio’s phone call, when the seminarian, Chris Grow of the Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa, came back into the room to continue their meeting. Bishop-elect Betancourt couldn’t tell Grow why, but “I said, ‘Let’s go to the chapel,’” he recounted. “So, he accompanied me to the chapel, and I went directly to the Blessed Mother [statue]. And, I just stayed there in prayer.” He added, “I just offered myself: ‘Blessed Mother, this is PLEASE TURN TO BETANCOURT ON PAGE 7
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SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
PAGETWO
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After 35 years of darkness, let me tell you, the light is so much better than the darkness.
— Father Brendan McGuire, a priest in San Jose, California, in a Sept. 8-9 homily disclosing his sexual abuse from a priest when he was 18 years old. He asked that family and friends of victims/survivors “listen to our pain without judgment. We do not expect you to solve the past hurt or take away the suffering. We just want to be heard; telling the story strangely heals us.”
NEWS notes
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AND THE WINNER IS Father Patrick Hipwell, pastor of Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul, gets ready to announce the grand prize winner of the annual raffle Sept. 16 at the Nativity County Fair. The threeday parish festival features food, entertainment, games and an outdoor Mass on the final day, which Father Hipwell celebrated before choosing the winning raffle ticket. It belonged to parishioner Margaret Eckert, who collected the $5,000 grand prize.
The distance in miles between Minneapolis and Panama City, Panama, which is hosting the next World Youth Day Jan. 20-29, 2019. Bishop Andrew Cozzens plans to lead a group from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and he invites high school students and young adults ages 16 to 30 to join him. Estimated cost is $3,500 per person. For more information, visit versoministries.com/calendar/wydspm.
60,000
The number of Catholics expected to participate in Rosary Coast to Coast, an international, simultaneous recitation of the rosary Oct. 7, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Organized nationally by the Holy League, the prayer event includes a 3 p.m. “rosary rally” at the Minnesota State Capitol led by the Knights of Columbus. National organizers are encouraging people to pray the rosary especially at U.S. borders, government buildings and other public spaces. Besides the Capitol event, the rosary will be prayed at multiple parishes and other locations around the archdiocese. For more information and times of individual events, visit rosarycoasttocoast.com.
5
The number of parishes that Father Ubald Rugirangoga will visit in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to celebrate healing Masses Oct. 2-7. A priest of the Cyangugu Diocese in Rwanda, Father Rugirangoga has been preaching healing and reconciliation worldwide since 1995. He lost more than 80 family members and 45,000 parishioners in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. He will celebrate Mass 7:30 p.m. Oct. 2 at St. Peter in North St. Paul, 5 p.m. Oct. 4 at Immaculate Conception in Columbia Heights, 7 p.m. Oct. 5 at St. Bernard in St. Paul, 4:30 p.m. Oct. 6 at St. Michael in St. Michael and 3 p.m. Oct. 7 at St. Raphael in Crystal. He also will speak 7 p.m. Oct. 3 at Providence Academy in Plymouth, where the documentary “Forgiveness” about his life will be shown. COURTESY TRANSFIGURATION CATHOLIC SCHOOL
OSCAR TIME Teachers at Transfiguration Catholic School in Oakdale show off their Oscar statue costumes during a school assembly Sept. 14 to kick off fundraising for the annual Walk-a-Thon, which takes place Oct. 12. The friendly Oscar competition featured teachers representing three grade groups, K-2, 3-5 and 6-8, who volunteered to allow fellow teachers to wrap them as an Academy Award. Posing after the competition are, from left, music teacher Laura Thompson, gym teacher Abbey Luger, eighth-grader Jadyn Lowrie as the school’s tiger mascot, middle school teacher Mary Hernandez and middle school teacher Connie Weingartz, who won first place in the Oscar competition representing the grades 6-8 group.
MILESTONE Community of Christ the Redeemer celebrates 40 years What began as a few lay Catholics deciding to live in community has grown into a lay community of more than 400 households and the birthplace of two nationwide ministries. Community of Christ the Redeemer is a lay Catholic charismatic covenant community in which members make a formal agreement to live lives of holiness together and spread the Gospel. Based in West St. Paul, the community will celebrate its 40th anniversary Sept. 2829. CCR began as one of many communities around the U.S. in the late 1960s and 1970s during the charismatic renewal, a Catholic and ecumenical movement that sought a deeper response to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. A group of Catholic young adults at the former Catholic Youth Center in St. Paul who served on its retreat program were inspired to form a covenant community. NET Ministries, an international youth retreat ministry based in West St. Paul, also grew out of that retreat program. St. Paul’s Outreach in Inver Grove Heights, a nationwide campus ministry, also grew out of the community’s mission, as did the Companions of Christ, communities of diocesan priests in the archdioceses of St. Paul and Minneapolis and Denver, Colorado. Young couples from CCR have also formed new lay communities in Kansas City, Kansas, and Tallahassee, Florida.
The Catholic Spirit is published semi-monthly for The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis Vol. 23 — No. 18 MOST REVEREND BERNARD A. HEBDA, Publisher TOM HALDEN, Associate Publisher MARIA C. WIERING, Editor
1875–1945
The years lived by Charles Connick, a prominent American stained glass artist who designed windows in the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. His windows — along with those designed by Bancel La Farge, son of artist John LaFarge — will be the focus of fundraising efforts from this year’s Festival of Lights, an annual gala hosted by the Cathedral Heritage Foundation, 6–9:30 p.m. Oct. 4 at the Cathedral. The evening will include “flipping the switch” on new color-changing lighting on the Cathedral’s facade. The foundation is a non-sectarian nonprofit organization that supports the Cathedral as a national treasure and sponsors art, music and cultural programming there. For more information, visit cathedralheritagefoundation.org.
4 million
The number of people who have attended Matthew Kelly’s seminars and presentations in 50 countries, according to dynamiccatholic.com. The founder of Dynamic Catholic, Kelly will be presenting “Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose” to a sold-out crowd at the Minneapolis Convention Center Sept. 29. Kelly partnered with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2013 for the “Rediscover: Catholic Celebration” attended by 5,000 Catholics at the St. Paul RiverCentre.
CORRECTION In the Sept. 13 edition, the headline of the Spanish translation of Bishop Andrew Cozzen’s column “Bringing light to darkness” on page 3 was incorrect. It should have read, “Llevando la luz a la oscuridad.” The Catholic Spirit apologizes for the error.
Materials credited to CNS copyrighted by Catholic News Service. All other materials copyrighted by The Catholic Spirit Newspaper. Subscriptions: $29.95 per year: Senior 1-year: $24.95: To subscribe: (651) 291-4444: Display Advertising: (651) 291-4444; Classified Advertising: (651) 290-1631. Published semi-monthly by the Office of Communications, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, 777 Forest St., St. Paul, MN 55106-3857 • (651) 291-4444, FAX (651) 291-4460. Periodicals postage paid at St. Paul, MN, and additional post offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Catholic Spirit, 777 Forest St., St. Paul, MN 55106-3857. TheCatholicSpirit.com • email: tcssubscriptions@archspm.org • USPS #093-580
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 3
FROMTHEARCHBISHOP ONLY JESUS | ARCHBISHOP BERNARD HEBDA
In these dark times, young people a beacon of hope
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n just a few weeks, bishops and experts will be gathering in Rome for the 15th Ordinary Synod, which will focus on young people, the faith and vocational discernment. The preparations began more than a year ago for what will be a golden opportunity for the universal Church to listen to the movement of the Holy Spirit concerning this important topic. You will remember that the Holy Father solicited online input from young people around the world and encouraged gatherings within the local diocese to consider the questions that will be treated in the course of the Synod, which will last from Oct. 3-28. It’s an amazing commitment of time and resources that reflects the importance of young people to the life of the Church. I sure hope the Synod will give evidence of the vitality of young believers that I have so regularly experienced in this archdiocese. Allow me to mention a few recent examples. On Sept. 11, I had the pleasure of commissioning 170 NET missionaries, young people who commit a year of their lives to sharing the Gospel with teens around the country. At the commissioning Mass, the excitement was palpable. In the midst of the dark clouds that have recently been encircling our Church, these young people were giving an unqualified “yes” to Jesus and going full steam ahead in proclaiming the Good News. Amazingly, 22 of those young people are right here from our archdiocese. Similar commitment was evident when I celebrated
En estos tiempos oscuros, los jóvenes son un faro de esperanza
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n pocas semanas, obispos y expertos se reunirán en Roma para el 15º Sínodo Ordinario, que se centrará en los jóvenes, la fe y el discernimiento vocacional. Los preparativos comenzaron hace más de un año por lo que será una oportunidad de oro para que la iglesia universal escuche el movimiento del Espíritu Santo con respecto a ese importante tema. Recordarán que el santo padre solicitó su contribución en línea en todo el mundo y alentó reuniones en la diócesis local para considerar las preguntas que serán tratadas en el curso del Sínodo, que durará del 3 al 28 de octubre. Es un increíble compromiso de tiempo y recursos que refleja la importancia de los jóvenes en la vida de la iglesia. Espero que el sínodo muestre la vitalidad de los jóvenes creyentes que con tanta regularidad he experimentado en esta arquidiócesis. Permítanme mencionar algunos ejemplos recientes. El 11 de septiembre, tuve el placer de encargar a 170 misioneros de NET, jóvenes que dedican un año de sus vidas a compartir el Evangelio con adolescentes de todo el país. En la misa de puesta en marcha, la emoción era palpable. En medio de las oscuras nubes que recientemente han rodeado nuestra iglesia, a a Jesús. estos jóvenes estaban dando un “sí” no cualificado a Jesús y avanzando enérgicamente en proclamar la buena nueva. Asombrosamente, 22 de esos jóvenes están aquí de nuestra Arquidiócesis Un compromiso similar fue evidente cuando celebré la misa en una reunión la semana siguiente para aquellos involucrados en el ministerio de jóvenes y la catequesis para jóvenes en nuestra arquidiócesis, muchos de ellos ellos mismos jóvenes adultos. A juzgar por quienes participaron, trabajar con los jóvenes debe servir para rejuvenecer el alma. Hubo un alto grado de compromiso y un profundo deseo de
Mass at a gathering the following week for those involved in youth ministry and youth catechesis in our archdiocese, many of them themselves young adults. Judging from those who participated, working with youth must serve to rejuvenate the soul. There was a high degree of engagement and a deep desire to help the Church through the difficult challenges before us. That commitment to rebuilding the Church — the mission that once captivated the heart of another young adult, St. Francis of Assisi — is equally evident in the open letter to me that young adults and other members of our archdiocese recently published at yarespond.wixsite.com/twincities. It’s a carefully researched and impassioned plea for transformative reform and renewal in our Church to address the issues of abuse and cover-ups, in a way that respects our Catholic understanding of the Church as the body of Christ and recognizes that all have a role to play in righting the ship. As they stated, “Every Catholic has a responsibility to ensure that our Church is safe, compassionate and committed to following Christ in word and deed.” Having prayed with many of the signatories when they gathered in a vigil on the steps of our Cathedral in August, I know that they’re heartbroken about the Church’s present challenges and serious about humbly and prayerfully discerning next steps for rolling up their sleeves and embracing the work of renewal. I was really moved when they offered “accompaniment” to me as the archdiocese continues its work of rebuilding trust. They concretely offered the resources of the young adult community to
ayudar a la iglesia a superar los difíciles desafíos que tenemos ante nosotros. Ese compromiso de reconstruir en la iglesia, la misión que una vez cautivó el corazón de otro joven adulto, San Francisco de Asís, es igualmente evidente en la carta abierta que los jóvenes adultos y otros miembros de nuestra arquidiócesis han publicado recientemente en yarespond.wixsite.com/twincities. Es un alegato apasionado y cuidadosamente investigado para una reforma y renovación transformadora en nuestra iglesia para abordar los problemas de abuso y encubrimiento, de una manera que respeta nuestra comprensión católica de la iglesia como el cuerpo de Cristo y reconoce que todos tienen un papel para jugar para enderezar la nave. Como declararon, “cada católico tiene la responsabilidad de garantizar que nuestra iglesia sea segura, compasiva y se comprometa a seguir a Cristo con palabras y hechos”. Cuando oré con muchos de los signatarios cuando se reunieron en vigilia en los escalones de nuestra catedral en agosto, sé que están desconsolados por los desafíos actuales de la iglesia y serios acerca de los próximos pasos humildes y en oración para enrollar sus mangas y abrazar el trabajo de renovación. Me conmovió mucho cuando me ofrecieron su “acompañamiento” ya que la Arquidiócesis continúa trabajando en la reconstrucción de la confianza que concretamente ofreció los recursos de la comunidad de adultos jóvenes para realizar presentaciones y facilitar discusiones basadas en su estudio de abuso sexual y mala conducta. Somos bendecidos de tener tantos adultos jóvenes en nuestra área que son teológicamente articulados y genuinamente enfocados en Cristo — una reflexión, Yo argumentaría, no sólo de familias fuertes, sino también de la gran obra que se está haciendo en los campus católicos de nuestra región y en ou r ministerios del campus en nuestros colegios seculares. Estoy agradecida también por las parroquias que ofrecen un acercamiento especial a nuestros adultos jóvenes, ofreciendo oportunidades para el desarrollo de liderazgo y apoyo de pares. Ayudan a formar a
“provide presentations and facilitate discussions” based on their study of sexual abuse and misconduct. We are blessed to have so many young adults in our area who are theologically articulate and genuinely focused on Christ — a reflection, I would argue, of not only strong families, but also of the great work that is being done on the Catholic campuses in our region and through our campus ministries at our secular colleges. I’m grateful as well for the parishes that offer special outreach to our young adults, offering opportunities for both leadership development and peer support. They help form our young adults and young families to love the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church and take seriously the universal call to holiness that echoed through the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. In my discussions with young adults in these last weeks, I have been inspired as well by their sense of the need for ongoing personal conversion. They want holy and faithful priests, deacons and bishops who, in love with Christ, can point them and their families toward him. That is what the Church wants for them as well. I look forward to continuing the conversation with our young Catholics on each of the points they raised. I trust that the Lord will guide this dialogue, which I suspect will be important not only for them but for all of us in this local Church. Throughout salvation history, the Lord has used the likes of David and Esther, youthful and relatively inexperienced, to humble the proud and save his people. We give thanks to God that he continues to speak to the hearts of the young and has prepared them “for such a time as this” (Es 4:14).
nuestros jóvenes adultos y familias jóvenes a amar la vida sacramental y litúrgica de la iglesia y tomar en serio el llamado universal a la santidad que se hizo eco a través de las enseñanzas del Concilio Vaticano II. En mis discusiones con los adultos jóvenes en estas últimas semanas, estoy inspirado también por su sentido de la necesidad de la conversión personal en curso. Quieren sacerdotes, diáconos y obispos santos y fieles que, en amor con Cristo, puedan señalarlos a ellos y a sus familias hacia él. Eso es lo que la iglesia quiere para ellos también. Espero con ansias continuar la conversación con nuestros jóvenes católicos en cada uno de los puntos que han planteado. Confío en que el Señor guiará este diálogo, que sospecho que será importante no sólo para ellos sino para todos nosotros en esta iglesia local. A lo largo de la historia de la salvación, el Señor ha usado a los gustos de David y Esther, jóvenes y relativamente inexpertos, para humillar al orgulloso y salvar a su pueblo. A lo largo de la historia de la salvación, el Señor ha usado a los gustos de David y Esther, jóvenes y relativamente inexpertos, para humillar al orgulloso y salvar a su pueblo. Damos gracias a Dios de que él continúa hablando al corazón de los jóvenes y los ha preparado “para un tiempo como este” (es 4:14).
OFFICIAL Archbishop Bernard Hebda has announced the following appointments in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis:
Effective September 17, 2018 Reverend Jimmy Mathew Puttananickal, CFIC, appointed chaplain to Regions Hospital in Saint Paul, and parochial vicar of the Church of Saint Mary and the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, both in Saint Paul. Father Puttananickal is a priest of the Congregation of the Sons of the Immaculate Conception.
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SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
LOCAL
SLICEof LIFE
DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
Feed my sheep
Deb, left, and Duane Kaczmarek feed sheep on 11 acres they own near Northfield that they call St. Isidore Farm. They bought the property seven years ago and chose to name it after the patron saint of farmers. Parishioners of St. Agnes in St. Paul, both are retired and have lived on the farm for the past two years, raising free-range sheep and chickens. “I don’t think anybody doing small-scale farming at our time in life can do it without divine intervention of some kind,” said Deb, 67, noting that she and Duane pray every morning before starting their day of farm chores. “This is hard work. It’s not the sort of thing people usually do in retirement. It’s brutally hard work, and we knew going in that it was an unorthodox retirement choice, and that we would do the best we could do, and we would be relying on ... divine assistance to keep our noses above water, which we will do as long as we can.”
LOCAL
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 5
Clergy abuse survivor at Cathedral Holy Hour: ‘God has not abandoned us’ By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit God has not abandoned the Church, and he joins his people in their deep sorrow in the midst of the abuse scandal that has swept over the U.S. Church, a local survivor of clergy sexual abuse told more than 700 people attending a Holy Hour at the Cathedral of St. Paul Sept. 15. “My fellow Catholics: During this abuse crisis, have any of you wondered where God is, and how he is feeling? I have,” he said. “I came to the conclusion that God has not abandoned us. In fact, I believe he is crying right along beside us.” Introduced by Archbishop Bernard Hebda only as “a vibrant defender of our Church and of the faith,” and who wished not to be named publicly, the survivor stood at the lectern of the Cathedral of St. Paul Sept. 15 and delivered a 10-minute reflection on pain, sorrow and hope. “Every one of us here today has somehow been affected by, is grieving over, and is on the journey toward healing and restoration,” he said. “I truly believe God is here today and joins us in our sadness. His tears are of a Father who loves us.” He spoke at the beginning of a Holy Hour of Reparation and Prayers for Healing held in response to the current sexual abuse crisis. The 11 a.m. liturgy included exposition of the Eucharist and the praying of the seven “penitential psalms” for healing for abuse victims/survivors and healing in the Church. The penitential psalms — Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143 — are those in which the psalmist acknowledges his sin and asks for God’s forgiveness and mercy. The psalms were sung by cantors and the congregation. Praying the psalms was “a way of making
REORGANIZATION CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
During the hearing at the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Minneapolis, Archbishop Bernard Hebda gave a statement not as a lawyer, he said, but as the shepherd of the archdiocese. “I need to say once again that I am truly sorry,” he said. “I know those words — as well as my promise of prayers — may ring hollow for many and will never be enough. Still, I am so sorry for the horrific things done to you by people you should have been able to trust. As a bishop, as a priest, as a Catholic and as a human being, my heart aches when I think about the resulting harm to you, your families and so many others.” The archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2015 amid mounting claims of clergy sexual abuse following the Minnesota Child Victims Act, which lifted for three years the statute of limitations on historic claims of sexual abuse. In what U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel, who oversees the case, described as a “longer than expected” process during the hearing, the archdiocese and a committee representing victims/ survivors filed competing plans in 2016. In December 2017, Kressel denied both plans and ordered the parties to return to mediation. On May 31, they announced that they had reached a consensual plan. In the settlement, $170 million is from insurance carriers, including $20 million from parish insurers. The archdiocese
DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
Archbishop Bernard Hedba incenses the Eucharist in a monstrance at the beginning of the Holy Hour of Reparation and Prayers for Healing at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul Sept. 15. Next to him are, from left, seminarians Joseph Nguyen and Timothy Tran, and Father Tom Margevicius, director of the archdiocesan Office of Worship. reparation for the sins that have been committed,” Archbishop Hebda told the congregation. The arrangement for Psalm 51 was composed by Father Jan Michael Joncas, a priest of the archdiocese, and published in 1989. Among those attending the hour-long service were many families with young children and dozens of priests. Archbishop Hebda presided over the liturgy, with Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens also present. Archbishop Hebda called for the Holy Hour Aug. 31 in a wide-ranging statement about the current sexual abuse crisis. The Holy Hour coincided with the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, a Marian feast day
contributed $35 million from the sale of property, unrestricted cash, reserves not required to cover claims in its general insurance fund and benefits plan, boarddesignated funds and a pending estate settlement. Nearly $3 million of the settlement came from voluntary pledges from some parishes and priests. The plan includes a provision that ends all litigation against parishes arising from 442 claims that were part of the settlement. The archdiocese will also pay $1 million annually for five years to the trust established for distributing funds to victims/ survivors. Tom Mertens, the archdiocese’s chief financial officer, testified during the hearing that the archdiocese is prepared to fulfill its commitment. A trustee appointed by the committee representing victims/ survivors will determine the proportion of the funds each claimant will receive. A portion of the funds is expected to be distributed by year end. The archdiocese will likely be formally discharged from bankruptcy in December. More than 25 victims/survivors and their family members attended the hearing. In his testimony, Archbishop Hebda told them that their “persistence and courage have made a huge difference” in keeping children safe, and he thanked them “for helping our Church change for the better.” “I hope this resolution brings some measure of justice to you,” he said. “Yet, I know that no
amount of money will make up for the horrors you experienced and the far-too-frequent failures by priests and bishops — inexcusable failures that went on for way too long.” He continued: “Many of you have told me how difficult it is to believe. I find that devastating. I personally find such strength in my belief in a God for whom nothing is impossible. I wear this cross as a reminder of that” — he gestured to his pectoral cross — “that the greatest good can come from the greatest evil. It gives me hope that it is indeed possible for hearts to mend, suffering to ease and trust to return. As we take our next steps, be assured that that will be my hope and prayer for each of you who are survivors.” Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul attorney representing some of the victims/survivors, called the plan confirmation “a turning of a page” in survivors’ journeys, and he told them they should feel like they have taken steps to protect children. “You called us because you didn’t want it to happen to others,” he said. “I want all of you to own this and realize what this means in the long arc of our lives.” Bob Swiderski, 70, a clergy abuse survivor who grew up in Hector, said he reported his abuse to the archdiocese and the Diocese of New Ulm 39 years ago, “looking for help and answers.” He didn’t receive it, he said. “Today was the first affirmation [of] that request that I’ve heard,” he said of the confirmation hearing.
that acknowledges Mary’s suffering during her son’s crucifixion and death. Archbishop Hebda expressed gratitude for people who are working on local restorative justice efforts and ensuring parishes and schools are safe, and for people in the broader community who have assisted the archdiocese’s efforts and provide accountability. “In the presence of our eucharistic Lord, I recommit myself and our Church to the work of protecting from the scourge of abuse our children, our youth and our vulnerable sisters and brothers,” he said. “It is that work that will give greatest honor to the stories of this morning’s speaker and all who have suffered abuse in our local Church.” During the survivor’s reflection, he thanked Archbishop Hebda. “During the relatively short time you have been in our archdiocese, you have had to lead the flock during very difficult times,” he said. “We are a Church in need of a strong and compassionate shepherd. Your commitment to transparency and to a zero tolerance of abuse of any kind laid a firm foundation upon which to build.” To priests, deacons, religious brothers and sisters, and seminarians, the survivor said, “you are on the front lines daily” in helping people heal, and that he understands that, because of their vocation, they are sometimes looked at “in the same light as those who are actually guilty of committing the atrocities.” He encouraged all Catholics to show compassion to and be patient with victims, and understand that it may take decades for them — and the Church — to heal. And to victims, he said, “words cannot begin to describe the feelings and effects of abuse that we have suffered.” When he finished his remarks, he and Archbishop Hebda embraced.
in BRIEF Albertville woman professes first vows with Carmelites in Lake Elmo LAKE ELMO — Sister Seraphine of the Heart of Jesus (baptized Brigetta Ann Roden), 26, professed first vows of obedience, poverty and chastity in the Discalced Carmelite Order Aug. 15 at Our Lady of Divine Providence. With the vows, Sister Seraphine also committed to the community’s cloistered life of prayer and contemplation. Prior to entering the Carmelites, she was a member of St. Albert in Albertville and studied Catholic Studies, mathematics and business at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. She is the daughter of William and Lois Roden.
Sister at Sharing and Caring Hands named community’s regional superior MINNEAPOLIS — Sister Marilyn Umunnakwe, a member of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of Christ, has been named the new regional superior of her order in Freeport, Illinois. She’s been serving families and children at Minneapolis nonprofit Sharing and Caring Hands since 2014, but she will leave in October for her new role. She worked as an advocate for families as they transitioned from homelessness to stability at Mary’s Place, a 100-unit transitional housing program run by Sharing and Caring Hands. She also worked with children after school at its Children’s Center. She said that seeing “families move on and when they come back to say thank you” was the most rewarding part of the work.
St. Agnes students receive inaugural $1,000 John Nasseff scholarships ST. PAUL — The Aim Higher Foundation granted the first 22 $1,000 John Nasseff Scholarship Fund scholarships to students at St. Agnes School in St. Paul Sept. 12. The scholarships honor John Nasseff, a Catholic philanthropist who supported the school and died in February. Tom Walrath Nasseff’s longtime friend and colleague, and Thomson Reuters vice president of facility operations founded the scholarship fund.
LOCAL
6 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
Basilica parish celebrates 150 years of prayer, service in the city By Susan Klemond For The Catholic Spirit The Basilica of St. Mary’s most lasting structure isn’t the wooden shed where its first parishioners attended Mass in 1868. Nor is it the majestic co-cathedral where 13,300 parishioners now worship on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. Rather, its leaders say, it’s the Basilica community, who, for 150 years, have worshipped, served, welcomed immigrants and raised generations of Catholics while continuing to look outward to the needs of the city. “The Basilica would not be what it is without the involvement of the people — not just on our parish council, the finance committee and our trustees — but ... the people that make up the Basilica,” said Father John Bauer, its rector and pastor. The Basilica of St. Mary kicks off its 150th anniversary celebration the final weekend of September with two Masses celebrated by Archbishop Bernard Hebda Sept. 30. Over the next year, the parish will host a sculpture exhibit, Basilica wedding and school reunions, and a St. Vincent de Paul outreach program celebration. On Oct. 4, 1868, several hundred members of the newly formed Immaculate Conception parish — which was later renamed the Basilica of St. Mary — gathered for the parish’s inaugural parish Mass in a shed at the corner of North Third Street and Third Avenue in Minneapolis. It was the first Catholic church in Minneapolis west of the Mississippi. The shed was attached to the parish school, which had opened two years earlier and was staffed by sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. Over the next four years, as parishioners built a new limestone church on the property, they also helped their founding pastor, Father James McGolrick, launch a St. Vincent de Paul Conference to serve parishioners in need. That laid the foundation for later parish ministries and charitable outreach, according to Msgr. James Reardon, a former Basilica rector who, in 1932, chronicled the parish’s history to that point in a book,
PHOTOS COURTESY THE BASILICA
ABOVE Construction of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis around 1909. RIGHT The first building of Immaculate Conception parish, which would later become the Basilica parish. “The Basilica of St. Mary of Minneapolis.” Those early parishioners’ 21st-century counterparts still serve persons in need, although their focus goes well beyond the families of the parish. Its St. Vincent de Paul ministry continues today, offering emergency relief to the homeless, refugees and others. By the 1890s, the growing parish needed a new church. In 1903, Archbishop John Ireland, archbishop of St. Paul from 1888 until his 1918 death, proposed building a Minneapolis cathedral designed in the Beaux Arts style by Emmanuel Masqueray, who was drawing up plans for the Cathedral of St. Paul. The archbishop also changed the parish name to the “Pro-Cathedral of
St. Mary,” “Archbishop Ireland intended for both the Cathedral and Basilica to be more than just houses of worship,” said Johan van Parys, the Basilica’s liturgy and sacred arts director. “He wanted the cathedral presence to make a difference in both St. Paul and Minneapolis.” From the beginning, the “pro-cathedral” (nicknamed “The Pro”), was recognized as something significant for Minneapolis. In 1908, an estimated 20,000 Catholics and non-Catholics attended a celebration as Archbishop Ireland laid the structure’s cornerstone at 16th Street and Hennepin Avenue, Msgr. Reardon wrote. In 1913, Protestant and government leaders attended a civic dedication of the structure the year before its solemn dedication. In 1926, it was the first U.S. church elevated by the pope to the status of a minor basilica. As Pope Paul VI added “Minneapolis” to the name of the Archdiocese of St. Paul in 1966, he also raised the Basilica to its current status as co-cathedral to the archdiocese’s principal cathedral, the Cathedral of St. Paul. In 1975, the Basilica was named to the National Register of Historic Places. Ecclesial and historical significance, however, didn’t protect it from structural deterioration. By the 1980s, the building, damaged by water and age, needed massive repairs and restoration. Staff and parishioners considered tearing it down, but instead, they organized a capital campaign, van Parys said. Then, in 1995, they staged the first Basilica Block Party on the Basilica grounds to attract younger Catholics and fund building needs. The concert series still meets those goals, Father Bauer said, as it raises funds for The Basilica Landmark, a separate nonprofit focused on Basilica preservation. One reminder of the Basilica’s humble beginnings is a statue of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, brought from the previous church and now located near its main doors. “There has been a sense of trying to better people’s lives,” van Parys said, “and that has evolved over the years.”
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SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 7
Seminary, parish react to bishop role with joy, sense of loss
BETANCOURT CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 what’s happening. So, you take care of this.’” A week later, on Sept. 18, the Vatican announced the appointment. That morning, Bishop-elect Betancourt called his parents, Gloria and Miguel, who live in his hometown of Ponce, Puerto Rico. It was 6 a.m. “It was my first phone call after the announcement,” he said. “Of course, they were asleep yet. And then, I just woke them up to this news. ... They were very happy and very supportive.” His mother answered the phone. He recalls she told him: “This is the mission that the Lord has given you. I’m confident that you will do the work of the Lord there, and serve and love his people.” His vocation to the priesthood began in high school, a short time after he had veered away from his childhood faith. Growing up, the family — including his two sisters, Gloria and Glorimar — attended Mass every Sunday at Good Shepherd in Ponce. But, that changed when he became a teenager. “Sometimes, I would just skip Mass, stay with Dad at home,” he said. “And then, Mom and my sisters would go to church.” When he started attending a Catholic K-12 school, Colegio San Conrado, he returned to the faith, and it grew deeper. He joined the parish youth group, sang in the choir and became an altar server. He continued deepening his faith in college, where he attended the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan and studied natural sciences. “Sophomore year, being so active in church, I started questioning if I had a vocation for the priesthood,” he said. “I just realized that I need to give Jesus a chance.” He wanted to go to seminary that year, but his parents advised him to stay where he was and finish his degree in natural sciences, which he did in December 1991. The next month, he joined the Servants, a religious institute founded in 1981 in Puerto Rico with ties to the German Schoenstatt movement. He now is the local superior of its St. Paul community, the Casa de San Jose. “The charism of the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the devotion to the Blessed Mother attracted me,” said Bishop-elect Betancourt, who was ordained a priest in Puerto Rico in 2001. “And, the third important thing was the strong sense of community, the fraternity.” Since joining the community, he has only lived apart from it for one year, when he was studying in Rome. So, being in Hartford without other members of his community will be an adjustment. Currently, he is one of six members in St. Paul, with all of them — three priests and three brothers — living at St. Francis de Sales. “This is new for me,” he said. “I know that I am going to be living very close to the archbishop’s house, and he lives with other priests. We talked about it, Archbishop Blair and I, about the sense of community. So, we’ll try just to kind of figure it out.” He said the members of his community “are just thrilled and excited” about his appointment, and they plan on coming to his ordination, as well as have a celebration in Puerto Rico. His parents and sisters plan to attend his ordination as well. The timetable for going to Hartford was somewhat accelerated, with the archbishop wanting him there in November for the celebration of the archdiocese’s 175th anniversary. After that, he will focus on assisting the archbishop in meeting the pastoral needs of the people there, including Latino Catholics. He thinks his background in both language and culture will be an asset. But, he also emphasized his desire to connect with
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Bishop-elect Juan Miguel Betancourt Torres prays during Mass at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity Oct. 19, 2017. all Catholics in Hartford. “When I was in Rome, I was always meeting people from different countries, and I had a lot of friends from different countries,” he said. “Still today, we keep in touch. So that’s very important for me.” Bishop-elect Betancourt earned a bachelor’s degree in theological studies in 2000 and a master of divinity degree in 2002, both from the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. In 2005, he received his sacred Scripture licentiate from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. Prior to teaching at St. Paul Seminary, he was a professor of sacred Scripture at the Pontifical University of Puerto Rico and a professor of sacred Scripture at Regina Cleri Major Seminary in Puerto Rico from 2005 to 2006. Bishop-elect Betancourt has been a board member of the National Conference for Seminarians in Hispanic Ministry since 2009 and a liaison for foreign seminarians at the St. Paul Seminary since 2008. He also has served on the archdiocese’s presbyteral council. Among his strengths, Bishop-elect Betancourt said, are “a willingness to serve the Church” and a “joyful character.” He also describes himself as “a good listener” and someone who “likes to pray.” “The strongest asset is my willingness to serve the Church,” he said. As he looks forward to his new role, he also will continue to look back at his 12 years of ministry in the archdiocese. He is known at the seminary for his joy and boundless energy, and Msgr. Aloysius Callaghan, who was there when he began teaching in 2007 and recently retired from his role as rector, said that he wants Archbishop Blair to have a guest room ready for him when he comes to Hartford for visits. Overall, there is a sense of loss at the seminary, which is shared by the bishop-elect. “There’s sadness, of course,” he said. “There’s a sense of grief. And, there’s the normal fear of leaving what I love, what I have, for something that is completely new and unknown.” He added, “I plan to enjoy every single minute with the people that I have here, both at the seminary and at the parish, and my religious community. ... Archbishop Blair and the priests that I’ve met and the people that I’ve met are very happy, and they have assured me that they will help me with what I need, and they have assured me that I will love it there.”
Like many of the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity staff, Lisa Flood, Bishop-elect Juan Miguel Betancourt Torres’ administrative assistant, found out the news of his bishop appointment the morning of Sept. 18 in an email. When she opened it, she cried. “I’m so sad for our loss,” she said. “That’s the first thing that struck me. I’m very happy for him and for the Church at large, but he’s great in his role here. He will be missed.” She had glimpsed the priest quietly leaving the seminary the day before with an overnight bag; with the announcement, she then understood why. He had flown to Hartford, Connecticut, to be present when the Holy See made the news public. Flood admires the bishop-elect’s willingness to discuss challenging subjects, his sense of humor, and his ability to connect pastorally and personally with the seminarians. “He’s so compassionate with the men here,” she said. “He’s careful to make sure they fit the criteria we need to have them fit. But, he sees them all so individually.” Bishop Andrew Cozzens, who has known Bishopelect Betancourt since 2004 when the two were roommates while studying in Rome, said he was hoping his longtime friend would fly under the Vatican radar so as to continue in his assignment at the seminary. But, he also realized that Bishop-Elect Betancourt is the kind of leader the Church needs. “I’m not surprised, because I know what kind of wonderful priest he is, and what character he has as a man of God,” Bishop Cozzens said. Like others on the seminary staff, Bishop Cozzens will miss Bishop-elect Betancourt’s “joyful presence” in the seminary’s hallways and classrooms. The seminarians, he said, will miss him, too. “He does have real skills as a formator, and I think already at the seminary, the men who have him as a formator are very sad that they’re going to lose him because he has been so endeared to them by the individual care he shows,” Bishop Cozzens said. Deacon Andrew Zipp has had Bishop-elect Betancourt as his formator since arriving at the seminary in fall 2015. “He means a ton to me,” Deacon Zipp said. “He’s been there throughout some of my challenges here at the seminary … and he’s stood beside me as a father.” When sharing the news with daily Massgoers at St. Francis de Sales in St. Paul Sept. 18, parish business administrator Steve Carter said, “It’s joyful for him, it’s joyful for the Church, but for us, we’re giving up something.” For the past 12 years, Bishopelect Betancourt has worked to unify the two parishes of St. Francis de Sales and St. James, which officially merged in 2014. When he arrived in 2006, the two parishes had been without a pastor for two years. “It was a difficult time for the parish. They had not had a regular priest for years, so it brought some stability,” Carter said. “He brought a lot to the parish in terms of meeting those challenges.” Linda Martin, 72, a longtime St. Francis de Sales parishioner, said Bishop-elect Betancourt knows his parishioners by name and visits with them regularly. She added that he “always seems to find the right words to make you feel good at the end of the day” and gives clarity to Church teaching. “When we got the announcement in church, my jaw literally dropped,” Martin said. “It’s wonderful to see somebody with his skill and his grace to be appointed to such a wonderful position.” — Dave Hrbacek and Matthew Davis
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8 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
NATION+WORLD
CNS
Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens poses for a photo Sept. 20 with delegates prior to the start of the Fifth Encuentro in Grapevine, Texas. The Sept. 20-23 event was a gathering of more than 3,200 Hispanic Catholic leaders and about 125 bishops from across the country. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis sent 22 delegates.
Ospino: Encuentro reflects ‘energy, maturity’ of a Church ‘here to stay’ By Norma Montenegro Flynn Catholic News Service The thousands of Hispanic Catholic ministry leaders gathered in Texas for the Fifth National Encuentro shared views on the maturity and presence of their diverse community, and held dialogues on the dreams and challenges that they face. The contributions of Hispanic Catholics to the Church and society show the beauty and excitement of their people and culture, but it can be messy and complicated at times, as Catholic leaders expressed in a panel dialogue during the second day of sessions at the Sept. 20-23 gathering. The coming together of Hispanic Catholic leaders from around the country reflects a mature Church, said Hosffman Ospino, a theologian at Boston College and a member of the Fifth Encuentro’s organizing committee. But he also sees that as the community is becoming bolder, there is also a sense of excitement and “messiness.” “All these processes of the encuentros since 1972 reflect the energy and a maturity of a Church that is here and is here to stay,” Ospino said. However, the “messiness” is the challenges that must be overcome, such as a fragmented Church, a Church that struggles to embrace the Hispanic community, and the young leaders who are transforming the Church. While talking about the ways to move forward and continuing the collaborations and outreach that they have gained within their parish and diocesan communities, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, stressed the importance of a pastoral conversion. “We have to not only allow the spirit to convert our hearts, but also our strategies, our methods and our structures, whether it’s at
the parish level, diocesan or national,” he said during the plenary session. Another participant, Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, stressed the importance for non-Hispanic Catholic organizations to continue opening doors, providing opportunities and embracing Hispanic Catholics. Ospino also highlighted the leadership of Hispanic women, which was evident during the Encuentro process, where they played a central role in organizing the Encuentro on all levels. “It is women who are leading the way, but at the same time, the downside of this is that we still fail to recognize and affirm that leadership role of Latino women in our Church,” Ospino said. The Fifth National Encuentro, also called V Encuentro, is a process of missionary work, consultation, leadership development and community building that seeks to develop better ways in which the Catholic Church in the United States can respond to Hispanic Catholics. Over 3,000 Hispanic ministry leaders participated in the event, representing their parishes and 159 dioceses, as well as other national Catholic organizations and groups. Hispanics represent about 40 percent of U.S. Catholics and nearly 60 percent of millennial Catholics, according to research from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. During the afternoon sessions, representatives for each of the 14 episcopal regions — in which the dioceses of the United States are geographically divided — reported the results of the small group consultations they held throughout the day. The task was to highlight the areas that most need “accompaniment” and obstacles for Hispanic Catholics in 28 ministerial areas such as
vocations, evangelization, Catholic education, family life, immigration and care for immigrants, among others. Among the most pressing issues mentioned by participants was outreach to youth and young adults and creating spaces within their communities where they can feel heard, engaged and supported in taking leadership roles. Young Latinos face challenges such as feeling abandoned and lonely, said a priest-participant. Struggles such as family separations and social media often play detrimental roles in leading them down a path of alcoholism or drug abuse. “Families in crisis lead to youth in crisis,” declared the priest. Pastoral accompaniment during this somber time for the Church in the U.S. amid the clerical sex abuse crisis was also addressed. Sister Ruth Bolarte of the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey, voiced the concerns and the response of Hispanic Catholics in the episcopal region that encompasses Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The crisis has brought up a lot of pain, confusion and questions, and at the same time it is an opportunity for the community to support their bishops and priests through listening, sharing accompaniment and communication, said Sister Bolarte, a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who is director of the diocese’s Office for Cultural Diversity Ministries. “Through liturgy and prayer, we respond with a spirit of forgiveness and penitence so we can open those windows of hope, recognizing the pain but at the same time recognizing the opportunity, and what can be done. We want to defend our faith and we want to move forward,” Sister Bolarte said.
After meeting pope, cardinal says he’s hopeful about addressing crisis By Greg Erlandson Catholic News Service Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston struck a determinedly hopeful tone after his longawaited meeting with Pope Francis to discuss the growing sexual abuse crisis in the United States. “I myself am filled with hope,” he said, “but I also realize all these things might take purpose and time.” The cardinal spoke following a noon meeting Sept. 13 at the Vatican. Cardinal DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was joined in his meeting with the pope by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors; Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, vice president of the USCCB; and Msgr. J. CARDINAL Brian Bransfield, general secretary of DANIEL DINARDO the conference. “The Holy Father is the important figure for us in this,” Cardinal DiNardo said. “He sees the problem all over the church and throughout the world.” While the cardinal did not want to discuss the specifics of the private meeting beyond a statement released by the U.S. bishops, he did describe the encounter as “very, very fruitful.” “It was lengthy, and we shared a lot of thoughts and ideas together,” the cardinal told Catholic News Service, “so I found the meeting very good from that point of view.” “The pope is well informed,” the cardinal said, “and he’s also very, very attentive to what has happened to abuse victims in the Church in the United States.” It had been a whirlwind week for the cardinal. He arrived in Rome Sept. 12 following a meeting with the U.S. bishops’ Administrative Committee, which consists of conference officers, regional representatives and the chairs of all the conference committees. Its task was to set the agenda for the November general assembly in Baltimore of all of the country’s bishops. Cardinal DiNardo originally announced Aug. 16 that he was requesting a meeting with Pope Francis. The request followed the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report on sexual abuse cases in six Pennsylvania dioceses and the announcement of credible allegations of child sexual abuse committed by Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, the former cardinal-archbishop of Washington. In his statement Aug. 16, Cardinal DiNardo said the USCCB Executive Committee had established three goals: “an investigation into the questions surrounding Archbishop McCarrick; an opening of new and confidential channels for reporting complaints against bishops; and advocacy for more effective resolution of future complaints.” When asked about the three priorities after the meeting with the pope, the cardinal said: “I think we can make movement on those things. I think we have to do it step by step.” Since Aug. 1, Cardinal DiNardo has issued five statements responding to various aspects of the sexual abuse crisis and has called for greater transparency and accountability in the Church, particularly on the part of the bishops. When asked what role there could be for Catholic media, he said they “have to tell the truth, and they have to tell the truth in a way that is very balanced.” Acknowledging the anger among some commentators, he said the task of Catholic media is “speaking the truth, but never forgetting the role of charity.” When asked where he finds hope during the current wave of scandals and controversy, he said, “Our trust is in the Lord.” “Even the pope today mentioned the cross, that you need to … be crucified with the Lord — that’s the only way you can deal with this, go through it.”
NATION+WORLD
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
HEADLINES uPope visits Baltic nations. Pope Francis traveled to the eastern periphery of Europe to honor a faith that withstood a Nazi invasion and five decades of communist dictatorship and now is striving to help people live in freedom as authentic disciples of Christ. The pope’s visit Sept. 22-25 to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia came in the year the three Baltic nations are celebrating the 100th anniversary of their declarations of independence after World War I. While declared Soviet republics in 1940, the countries were occupied by the Nazis during World War II and then lived under Soviet rule from 1944 to 1990. uN.J. cardinal won’t attend synod, asks to remain home at ‘time of crisis.’ Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark told the people of his archdiocese Sept. 21 that Pope Francis has granted his request that he stay at home to remain with them during this “time of crisis” in the U.S. Church. The Synod of Bishops will meet Oct. 3-28 at the Vatican to focus on “young people, faith and vocational discernment.” On Sept. 15, the pope added Cardinal Tobin and other cardinals, bishops and priests to the list of members of the Synod of Bishops elected by national bishops’ conferences. The pope’s other American appointees include Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago and a priest of the Diocese of Honolulu. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had elected as their delegates to the synod: Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, conference president; Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, USCCB vice president; Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut; and Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles. They also elected Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, but he is listed by the Vatican as an automatic member since he is part of the synod’s permanent council. uDetroit Archdiocese welcomes investigation into Michigan dioceses. Michigan’s attorney general has opened an investigation into the handling of sexual abuse by clergy in all of Michigan’s seven Catholic dioceses, as well as any attempts to cover up those claims dating back to the 1950s. The Archdiocese of Detroit responded by saying it welcomed news of the
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investigation, pledging to cooperate fully in bringing to light all claims and helping victims of abuse receive justice and healing. Michigan officials are the latest to announce an investigation of clergy sexual abuse in the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury report. Other states where public officials have announced investigations are Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York and Tennessee. uPolice arrest Indian bishop, charge him with rape. The Sept. 21 arrest of Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar came a day after Pope Francis accepted the bishop’s request to be relieved of his duties during an investigation. An Indian nun accused the bishop of raping her four years ago and then sexually abusing her multiple times over the following two years. Bishop Mulakkal claims the accusations are baseless and aim to deflate the disciplinary action he had initiated against the nun. uRetired Green Bay Auxiliary Bishop Robert Morneau of Green Bay withdraws from public ministry. In a letter dated Sept. 14 and addressed to Bishop David Ricken, the head of the diocese, Bishop Morneau stated that he failed to report to authorities an incident of priest sexual abuse of a minor in 1979. “As a result,” wrote Bishop Morneau, “this priest was able to abuse again several years later. ... I intend to spend my time in prayer for all victims and survivors of sexual abuse and I will do corporal works of mercy in reparation for what I failed to do.” uIn letters to German cardinal, retired pope defends way he stepped down. Retired Pope Benedict XVI expressed his displeasure with the way a German cardinal publicly criticized his stepping down as pontiff, and he defended taking the title “pope emeritus.” In two private letters from the retired pope to German Cardinal Walter Brandmuller, former president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, the pope defended the way he handled his resignation and warned the cardinal of the negative impact his public comments could have. The German newspaper, Bild, obtained copies of the letters written in November 2017, but blurred Cardinal Brandmuller’s name in photos. The New York Times named the cardinal and also published translated excerpts from the letters Sept. 20.
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uStanford University to remove saint’s name from some properties. California’s Stanford University will strip the name of 18th-century Franciscan friar, St. Junipero Serra, from some of its properties but keep a street named after him. It announced the changes Sept. 13, saying in a statement that the saint, canonized in the U.S. during Pope Francis’ apostolic visit in 2015, established a mission system that, while part of California history, also was one that “inflicted great harm and violence on Native Americans.” uCatholic Charities distributes disaster relief to areas hit by Florence. The Carolinas were hard hit with record rainfall and flooding rivers from tropical storm Florence after it made landfall Sept. 14. At least 24 people died in stormrelated incidents, and tens of thousands of homes were damaged. Catholic Charities USA has set up its website donation page and text-to-give platform to help individuals and families impacted by Hurricane Florence. Those wishing to donate can text CCUSADISASTER to 71777 or call 800-919-9338. uVatican brings together world’s meteorite curators. Rocks, mineral debris and even dust from space are kept in special collections, museums and laboratories all over the world, and the Vatican Observatory took the first small step to help curators make a giant leap in coordinating their efforts globally. Staffed by a team of Jesuit scientists, the Vatican Observatory held the first ever workshop on the curation and conservation of meteorites and extraterrestrial samples Sept. 10-13 at the observatory headquarters in the gardens of the papal summer residence. uBishop Bransfield retires; pope orders investigation of allegations. Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Michael Bransfield of WheelingCharleston, West Virginia, and has instructed Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore to conduct an investigation into allegations that Bishop Bransfield sexually harassed adults. Bishop Bransfield had headed the statewide diocese since his episcopal ordination and installation in February 2005. In 2012, Bishop Bransfield criticized what he called “false hearsay statements” that were made during a Philadelphia trial of two priests on sex abuse-related charges.
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THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 9
Vatican signs provisional agreement with China on naming bishops By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service For the first time in decades, all of the Catholic bishops in China are in full communion with the pope, the Vatican announced. Pope Francis lifted the excommunications or irregular status of seven bishops who had been ordained with government approval, but not the Vatican’s consent, the Vatican announced Sept. 22. A few hours earlier, representatives of the Vatican and the Chinese government signed what they described as a “provisional agreement” on the appointment of bishops. “With a view to sustaining the proclamation of the Gospel in China, the Holy Father Pope Francis has decided to readmit to full ecclesial communion the remaining ‘official’ bishops ordained without pontifical mandate,” the Vatican said, listing their names. The pope also included in the list Bishop Anthony Tu Shihua, who, before dying Jan. 4, 2017, “had expressed the desire to be reconciled with the Apostolic See,” the Vatican said. Regularizing the bishops’ status, the Vatican said, Pope Francis hopes “a new process may begin that will allow the wounds of the past to be overcome, leading to the full communion of all Chinese Catholics,” some of whom steadfastly have refused to participate in activities or parishes under the leadership of bishops not recognized by Rome. In recent years, most bishops chosen by the government-related Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association have sought and received Vatican recognition before their ordinations. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said in a statement that “the objective of the Holy See is a pastoral one: the Holy See intends just to create the condition, or to help to create the condition, of a greater freedom, autonomy and organization, in order that the Catholic Church can dedicate itself to the mission of announcing the Gospel and also to contribute to the well-being and to the spiritual and material prosperity and harmony of the country, of every person and of the world as a whole.” The nomination and assignment of bishops has been a key sticking point in Vatican-Chinese relations for decades; the Catholic Church has insisted that bishops be appointed by the pope, and the Chinese government has maintained that would amount to foreign interference in China’s internal affairs. Although Greg Burke, director of the Vatican press office, said the agreement is pastoral, not political, it is seen as a step in the long efforts to re-establish full diplomatic relations between the Vatican and China. The two have not had formal diplomatic ties since shortly after China’s 1949 communist revolution.
10 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
Are our kids safe? As new abuse scandals rock the U.S., safe environment policies — and their enforcement — in the spotlight By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit
T
his past January, standing in the Ramsey County Courthouse lobby following a six-month check-in on the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ safe environment efforts, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Archbishop Bernard Hebda introduced Tom Johnson as their jointly selected ombudsman. A former Hennepin County Attorney, Johnson had been involved for decades in childsafety efforts, both in law enforcement and advocacy. He was a founder of CornerHouse, a nonprofit that changed the way children who are abuse victims are evaluated by experts worldwide. He had also served as the executive director of the Minneapolis-based Council on Crime and Justice, a nonprofit focused on improving the criminal justice system. Now, he was taking on a new role as an independent, confidential advocate for survivors who were seeking help in healing, but who didn’t feel comfortable turning directly to the Church or its resources. With the courthouse’s iconic onyx statue “Vision of Peace” a giant behind them, Johnson, 73, said it was, in part, his friendship with survivors of clergy sexual abuse, now adults, that motivated him to take on the role. At the time, he said, he wasn’t sure what it would entail. Now, nine months later, he’s been contacted by about 15 survivors, he said, and he has helped them navigate the resources they need to heal. For some, that includes counseling; for others, it’s the words “I’m sorry” from a Church representative. His role is also critical to accountability and transparency in the archdiocese’s safe environment efforts, at a time when, across the United States and elsewhere, those qualities in the Church’s handling of clergy sexual abuse are in question. He said that one of the common motivations for survivors coming forward is that they don’t want abuse to happen again. Johnson said he feels confident in the archdiocese’s current child protection efforts and trajectory. “It will be healing to those people to know that everything that is feasible had been done to prevent that [in the archdiocese],” he said.
Task Force review Johnson’s confidence comes from changes the archdiocese has made in its safe environment efforts since 2014, following a local scandal that raised questions about how well the archdiocese was implementing its policies on safe environment and abuse reporting. In response, the archdiocese commissioned a Safe Environment and Ministerial Task Force to review the archdiocese’s policies and enforcement related to clergy misconduct, including child sex abuse, and to recommend improvements. Over the course of six months, that task force — a team of seven lay people who established
themselves as a nonprofit organization independent from the archdiocese — reviewed thousands of pages of documents and interviewed 32 people. Their March 2014 report outlined five “serious shortcomings in the archdiocese’s implementations of the Dallas Charter” — the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 2002 document establishing policies around clergy sexual abuse — and six recommendations of how the archdiocese could remedy them. The shortcomings included concentrating too much power for decision-making in one or two individuals with insufficient oversight; inadequate co mmunication within the archdiocese and with the faithful that allowed important information to be “compartmentalized”; insufficient or outdated record keeping; lack of a means to audit and measure policy compliance; and an insufficient reporting system. The task force’s first recommendation was for the revision of the archdiocese’s safe environment organizational structure. That included merging two clergy review boards and establishing a lay person to be the archdiocese’s delegate for safe environment — a position that had been formerly held by priests.
Former cop in top role That job is what brought Tim O’Malley to the archdiocese as the director of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment in September 2014. A former judge and Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension superintendent with FBI experience, O’Malley was tasked with overhauling the archdiocese’s safe environment efforts and implementing the task force’s recommendations. In November 2014, O’Malley added Michael Campion, also a former BCA superintendent and a former director of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, to his team as assistant director. In February 2016, Janell Rasmussen joined the office as its deputy director. Like O’Malley and Campion, she had also worked at the BCA, where she coordinated the state’s AMBER Alert program. Along with members of the archdiocese’s Office for the Protection of Children and Youth, which O’Malley oversees, that team has worked to improve polices, record-keeping and oversight related to safe environment efforts. They’re guided by the requirements of the Dallas Charter, as well as additional protocols established in 2014 as part of a settlement agreement with “Doe 1” and in 2015 as part of a settlement with the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office. The latter settlement extended oversight of the archdiocese’s safe environment efforts to Choi’s office until 2020. Johnson’s ombudsman role is a requirement of that settlement agreement. Also part of the settlement agreement is compliance among parishes and schools with the “Essential 3,” mandatory requirements the archdiocese enhanced in 2015 for all employees and volunteers. The “three” are passing a background check, signing a code of conduct and completing safe environment training. Schools and parishes are also required to include safe environment training for students in their school and faith formation curricula; if parents ask that their child opt out, they receive a packet of safe environment education materials. As principal of St. Bartholomew in Wayzata, Patrick Fox has an insider’s view of what the archdiocese’s safe environment policies look like in action. Safety has always been a priority for school leaders, he said, but archdiocesan requirements have affected the strategy for how the school puts that into practice — and for the better, he said. Fox has more than 10 years of experience working with the archdiocese’s safe environment efforts. Before he began working at St. Bartholomew five years ago, he had been principal of St. Michael Catholic School in Prior
Lake. In the past five years, he said, he’s noticed that “more emphasis from the [OPCY] office has been focused on helping parishes and schools implement and track” requirements. The archdiocese’s policies and procedures “bolster preventative measures,” he said by email. “Anyone who wants to be on our campus and interact with children knows they need to comply. Naturally, some folks feel it’s not fair to force them to jump through these kinds of hoops. Our job is to help them understand that training and E3 requirements help keep kids safe.” The training includes VIRTUS’ “Protecting God’s Children” program, which was first created by the National Catholic Risk Retention Group in the late 1990s in response to growing awareness of instances of clergy sexual abuse. Used in the archdiocese since 2004, the training aims to prevent abuse by knowing warning signs, controlling access to children, observing children’s and adults’ behaviors, and communicating concerns. Clergy, parish and school employees, and volunteers must retrain every three years. Each parish and school in the archdiocese has a designated safe environment coordinator who ensures employees and volunteers comply with the Essential 3. “The most common feedback I receive is from folks who, at first, aren’t enthused about attending a VIRTUS training session,” Fox said. “When completed, however, they let me know the subject matter was heavy, but better than expected, and the training created a more comprehensive awareness of how to keep kids safe.” At Totino-Grace High School in Fridley, E3 compliance is a time-consuming task. Before the archdiocese mandated the E3, the school was already completing criminal background checks on its staff and volunteers. This summer, major building renovation work was underway at Totino-Grace. Among necessary logistics was the coordination of criminal background checks of the construction company’s workers who would be on site. The precaution was redundant, said its president Craig Junker; students were already banned from the renovation site, making it unlikely that workers would encounter them. However, the school would rather err on being overly cautious, he said. More onerous has been coordinating E3 training for the 170 engineering mentors some of its students work with, sometimes only via web. It’s expensive for the school, Junker said, but it’s important to do.
‘Cover-ups will not be tolerated’ Brian Short was the vice-chairman of the Safe Environment and Ministerial Standards Task Force. When it completed its work, he didn’t want to deal with the topic again, said Short, CEO of Leamington Co., a holding company, and a former U.S. magistrate judge. But, he was asked to join the archdiocese’s board of directors and lead the audit committee, which oversees the archdiocese’s safe environment efforts. “One of the things I’ve insisted on with first, Archbishop [John] Nienstedt and now Archbishop Hebda [is that] we have a real, functioning audit committee that will monitor compliance, monitor all the risks that the archdiocese faces,” which, he said, range from clergy sexual abuse to IT breaches and slips and falls. “The key to all of these things is to have policies in place that are real, and procedures in place that are in fact followed, and to have people in place who can monitor. ... That’s what the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has in place now.” Because of his work on the task force, Short knows intimately that policies are insufficient without enforcement and oversight. He calls O’Malley’s hiring and the revamping of the archdiocese’s safe environment office “the key to everything.” “We don’t need to write a set of rules that say
THE PAST F
MAY 25, 2013 Minnesota Child Victi years the statute of limitations on h The first survivor to file a civil lawsu the statute was lifted was Doe 1, a Adamson, a priest of the Diocese o assignments in the archdiocese.
JULY 2013 Media reports allege tha mishandled allegations of sexual m top canon lawyer, Jennifer Haselbe
OCTOBER 2013 The St. Paul Police investigation, and the archdiocese’ Laird, resigns. Archbishop John Nie archdiocese, establishes a new Ep Standards and names Father D. Reg then teaching at the University of S Whitt commissions a Safe Environm Task Force to study the archdioces misconduct, and to make specific r policies and procedures.
NOVEMBER 2013 The archdiocese Kinsale Management Consulting, to back to 1970. The firm reviews 3,333 in April 2014.
DECEMBER 2013 The archdiocese credibly accused of abuse. As a res names would be added in the follow Andrew Cozzens is ordained an aux Archbishop Nienstedt announces t touching a boy’s buttocks while pos photo. He steps away from ministry county attorney ultimately declines Archbishop Nienstedt returns to mi
JANUARY 2014 Archdiocesan offic allegations that Archbishop Nienste misconduct with adults. Bishop Coz this investigation shows the need fo “independent structure” to review that he believes this investigation s structure.
Also in January 2014, the Ramsey C prosecute an individual related to a police continue the investigation, u that year to expand the manpower
MARCH 2014 The Safe Environmen Force publishes its recommendatio
OCTOBER 2014 The archdiocese se 17 child protection protocols to pre healing and establish full transpare require the archdiocese to continue had in effect, such as prohibiting pr child in his automobile unless supe requiring archdiocesan leadership adopting a whistle-blower policy co The Doe 1 protocols also require th publicly disclose substantiated clai the names of clergy with credible c
JANUARY 2015 The archdiocese fil mounting number of claims against the Minnesota Child Victims Act. In equitably distribute its resources am claimants’ instances of abuse occu mid-1980s, and all of the men have ministry.
JUNE 2015 The Ramsey County Atto finished its investigation of the arch criminal charges against the archd children in the Curtis Wehmeyer ca Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piché resign 1 Bernard Hebda is named a tempora role Pope Francis later makes perm
DECEMBER 2015 The county attorn civil charges with a 24-page agreem measures the archdiocese had alre promised to implement, as well as t oversight of those measures.
JULY 2016 The Ramsey County Atto charges.
MAY 2018 The archdiocese and att survivors in its bankruptcy announc that includes $210 million for 442 vic
SEPTEMBER 2018 The $210 settlem bankruptcy court. Survivors are exp trust by year end.
FIVE YEARS
ims Act passes, lifting for three historic claims of sexual abuse. uit against the archdiocese after victim in 1976 and 1977 of Thomas of Winona who also had
at archdiocesan leaders misconduct and abuse. Its former erger, was the main source.
Department launches an ’s vicar general, then-Father Peter enstedt, then head of the piscopal Vicar for Ministerial ginald Whitt, a Dominican priest St. Thomas, to the role. Father ment and Ministerial Standards se’s handling of clergy abuse and recommendations to improve
hires an independent firm, o review its clergy records dating 3 files before it completes its work
discloses a list of 33 priests sult of the Kinsale review, other wing months. On Dec. 9, Bishop xiliary bishop. A week later, that he has been accused of sing in 2009 for a confirmation y while police investigate; the s to press charges, and inistry in March 2014.
cials launch an investigation into edt had engaged in sexual zzens stated in August 2018 that or the establishment of an allegations against bishops and should still go before such a
County attorney declines to a specific legal violation, but ultimately receiving funding in April dedicated to it.
nt and Ministerial Standards Task ons.
ettles with Doe 1, committing to event abuse, promote survivors’ ency. Some of those protocols e certain measures that it already riests from having an unrelated ervised. New protocols included to meet with any survivor and oncerning the report of abuse. he archdiocese to continue to ims of sexual abuse by clergy and claims under investigation.
les for bankruptcy amid the t it brought forward in the wake of n filing for bankruptcy, it aimed to mong survivors. Most of the urred between the mid-1950s and been permanently removed from
orney’s Office announces it has hdiocese, and it files civil and diocese for failing to protect ase. Archbishop Nienstedt and 10 days later, and Archbishop ary leader of the archdiocese, a manent.
ney and archdiocese settle the ment that outlines child protection eady implemented or has the county attorney’s office’s
orney’s Office drops the criminal
torneys representing victims/ ce a joint plan for reorganization ctims/survivors.
ment plan is confirmed in U.S. pected to receive funds from its
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018 • 11
abuse shouldn’t occur. We all know that,” said Short, a parishioner of Assumption in downtown St. Paul. “What’s changed [since 2014] is that there is a commitment to create a set of practices and enforcement mechanisms coupled with review, overview, of those mechanisms that create a commitment to compliance, and a culture where cover-ups will not be tolerated.” And, he said, when allegations of priest misconduct are made, real investigations are conducted to get to the truth of the matter, not to prove that the priest is innocent. That includes greater disclosure than most organizations would require, he noted. The names of priests are published in The Catholic Spirit and on the archdiocese’s website if they are under investigation for child sexual abuse, even before allegations are deemed credible.
MRB ‘incredibly high quality process’ As recommended by the task force, a single board reviews allegations of clergy misconduct and abuse, and it makes recommendations for a priest’s fitness for ministry to Archbishop Hebda. Known as the Ministerial Review Board, the board also oversees the archdiocese’s monitoring of priests who have been removed from ministry because of abuse or misconduct. Among the board’s 12 members is Patty Wetterling, the mother of Jacob Wetterling, who was abducted, abused and murdered in 1989. A longtime child safety advocate, she knew O’Malley from his work on her son’s investigation, and she praised his 2014 selection to overhaul the archdiocese’s safe environment efforts. In July 2016, she joined the MRB. “People complain all the time about the problem, but this is an opportunity to do something about it,” she said. The Catholic Church “has recognized that there’s a problem, and there needs to be a place to report these crimes, and there needs to be a process for what happens,” she said. In the case of abuse that happened decades ago, law enforcement may decline to prosecute because it’s outside the statute of limitations, or because there’s insufficient evidence. The archdiocese still investigates those claims and determines what to do with the accused. “It’s an incredibly high quality process,” Wetterling said. “This group is addressing it more deeply and comprehensively than really any organization I’ve seen. I think that’s pretty amazing.” Even if a priest who is removed from ministry is not found guilty of a crime, he would still go before the Ministerial Review Board to receive a determination if he is suitable for ministry. Some priests have returned to ministry when the review board approves, others have not. If an allegation of child sex abuse against a priest is substantiated, the archdiocese enforces a “zero tolerance” policy, and he will never return to ministry. In some cases, such as that of Curtis Wehmeyer, the Holy See has removed the priest from the clerical state, or “laicized” him. The archdiocese began disclosing names of credibly accused clergy in 2013. It currently lists 94 men, 33 of whom were accused of abuse that occurred outside of the archdiocese. Of the others, 55 were removed from ministry in 2003 or before. The archdiocese’s leaders are clear on all of their published materials and in their presentations that all allegations of abuse should be reported immediately to law enforcement. When the archdiocese is notified of an abuse allegation by someone other than law enforcement, it is O’Malley’s responsibility to notify or confirm that law enforcement has been notified. The archdiocese never begins an investigation until law enforcement has completed its own. As part of the 2014 Task Force recommendations, the archdiocese has also established a policy that prohibits retaliation
against anyone who reports, in good faith, abuse of a minor or suspicion of clergy misconduct. The Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment also aims to provide resources for victims/survivors in the archdiocese. Among Rasmussen’s roles is victim advocacy; she helps local survivors access free counseling through Canvas Health, and she connects them with the appropriate point-person in another diocese if the abuse occurred elsewhere. After undergoing an internal review of the Office for the Protection of Children and Youth earlier this year, Rasmussen determined that the office needed to be restructured. Previously, four people held different roles within the office. Now, four people will each serve as a point person for a geographical section of the archdiocese, as well as be a specialist in a certain area of the office’s work. Rasmussen wants Catholics to know that the Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment is listening to feedback it receives from the survivors, parishes, schools and other Catholic institutions it serves. “The primary reason for the [office] reorganization is because in talking with the, parishes, the victims, the safe environment coordinators, everyone, we heard that we needed to make changes in order to make this more effective,” she said. “And that’s exactly what we did, and we did it in bringing in everybody to provide their input and feedback on making it the most successful.” Advising that process are a dozen people who work in every facet of the archdiocese. Among them is Fox at St. Bartholomew. “The [Office for the Protection of Children and Youth] has responded well to results of parish and school audits and feedback from sites,” he said. “We are at a state of reviewing the entire process to ensure parishes and schools continue to meet or exceed the prescribed requirements.” The office has heard that it has been perceived as more punitive than collaborative, as in parishes are more likely to receive a letter notifying them of a policy infraction than accompaniment in the policy integration process. Rasmussen said that the new staff organization aims directly to address that. Paula Kaempffer, director of learning at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, said that one of the things the team is exploring is whether to offer modified training for abuse victims/ survivors. She’s been told by survivors that some of the material in the VIRTUS training is too difficult to watch. “I remember [while] seeing it for the first time, we had two faculty and one pastoral staff person walk out because they had been abused,” she said. “It just triggers immensely because they show two perpetrators in it, and it’s really hard to watch. It’s hard to watch for anyone, I think.” A sexual abuse survivor familiar with the archdiocese’s safe environment efforts told The Catholic Spirit that the E3 training raises people’s awareness about abuse, and that they can’t assume any place is safe. She hopes that increases reporting of suspicious behavior. “We can never catch them all,” said the survivor, who asked that her name be withheld, “but I think we’re doing much better than we have in the past.” She added: “There have been great strides made in our archdiocese. Putting Tim O’Malley and Janell Rasmussen in the OPCY office staff ... has really moved it forward. I think the openness of the archbishop to suggestions has really moved it forward. The 17 protocols, they’ve gone over and above that. I do think that it has raised the awareness of folks to report what’s happening. If you even question something, say something.” The Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment audits parishes and schools twice a year, and each year it conducts 43 on-site audits; all schools and parishes are visited at least once every seven years. Parishes and schools are also obligated to complete an audit each time there is a change of a pastor or leader.
Audit accountability As part of the Dallas Charter, the archdiocese’s safe environment efforts are audited annually by the USCCB’s Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection. While that audit process has been in place since the Dallas Charter, the office has received deeper scrutiny from independent external audits conducted by StoneBridge Business Partners, a firm from Rochester, New York. As part of the archdiocese’s settlement agreement with Ramsey County, StoneBridge has been hired to complete three comprehensive reviews of the archdiocese’s compliance with the settlement agreement. StoneBridge released its results from its first audit in January 2018 and found the archdiocese substantially compliant with the settlement agreement. Among its findings was that 92 percent of the approximately 2,500 people for whom the Essential Three is required were in full compliance. O’Malley and Rasmussen said that they investigated the outstanding 8 percent and found the issue frequently was due to incomplete paperwork, or a parish employee or volunteer being unavailable to complete retraining, due to circumstances such as maternity leave. Every six months, archdiocesan representatives also file a report with Ramsey County on their compliance with the settlement agreement, and they appear along with Ramsey County Attorney’s Office representatives in court for its review. At each hearing, the judge has found the archdiocese in substantial compliance with the settlement agreement. While the audits, as well as Ramsey County’s own evaluation, have determined the archdiocese has continued to improve and enforce policies, Johnson said he’s identified three things as ombudsman he would like to see from the archdiocese: emphasis on reaching out to the abuse survivors who are claimants in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy; outreach to people who made allegations against Archbishop Nienstedt during the archdiocese’s investigation, as well as the release of the investigation’s findings; and improvement in the archdiocese’s safe environment training for children. However, those things don’t detract from the good work the archdiocese has done, he said. He thinks one of the “most critical” changes made since 2014 is having experienced lay leaders at the fore. He said O’Malley and his team have been quick to respond to any request or issue he’s brought to them. “I strongly believe that the victims/survivors have to be central to the archdiocese’s thinking about how to respond to past instances or how to move forward with this,” he said. On Sept. 25, the archdiocese’s plan for Chapter 11 reorganization was confirmed by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge. Speaking to victims/ survivors following the hearing, their attorney Jeff Anderson said that the archdiocese is “safer and cleaner than any other diocese in America.” He credited survivors — and their courage — for compelling the archdiocese to strengthen its child protection efforts. “Know that you have ... the gift of having saved another child from the horror that you and your families have had to endure,” he told them. Anderson told The Catholic Spirit that the archdiocese still can make improvements — something Archbishop Hebda and other archdiocesan leaders have acknowledged. In his testimony during the Sept. 25 confirmation hearing, Archbishop Hebda thanked victims/survivors for “helping to change our Church for the better.” “You have been the catalyst for needed change,” he said. “The practice, procedures and audits we have adopted to stop future abuse may not be enough to restore your trust or belief in the Church — understandably so — but the changes you insisted upon are keeping kids safe now. Thank you for that.”
12 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
FAITH+CULTURE
Nuts about Newman
BLESSED JOHN HENRY NEWMAN John Henry Newman (1801–1890) was born Feb. 21, 1801, in London. An Anglican priest who served at Oxford University’s campus church, he converted to Catholicism in 1845. He was ordained a Catholic priest two years later and made a cardinal in 1879. He died Aug. 11, 1890, at the age of 89 and was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.
Orthodontist hopes Oct. 9 event spreads his love for 19th-century English cardinal By Sam Patet For The Catholic Spirit
R
on Snyder knows not many Catholics have heard of Blessed John Henry Newman. But he’s hoping to change that. The 60-yearold orthodontist is organizing an event in October that will celebrate the 19th-century British convert’s life and enduring legacy. Blessed Newman has been “very inspiring to me,” Snyder said, noting that Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles has referred to him as “the greatest Catholic mind since Thomas Aquinas.” Snyder, a parishioner of Our Lady of Grace in Edina, was introduced to Blessed Newman in 2007 when he began pursuing a master’s degree in Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. An orthodontist by day who desired to deepen his faith, Snyder took evening classes over six years to complete the degree. His first class was taught by Don Briel, the founder and longtime director of the Center for Catholic Studies and a Newman expert, who died in February of leukemia. As part of Briel’s class, Snyder read several pieces by Blessed Newman. “He’s compelling to read,” Snyder said. “His Catholic theology is so rich, and it’s all deeply grounded in Scripture.” Born in 1801, Blessed Newman was an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism at age 44. A theologian of the highest caliber, he penned dozens of works that are still influential today, including his autobiographical “Apologia Pro Vita Sua” and “The Idea of a University.” By the time he graduated in 2013, Snyder had taken two more courses on Blessed Newman and written his master’s thesis on him. But this wasn’t enough. Snyder knew he had only begun to plumb the depths of Blessed Newman’s thought. And he realized the engaging discussions he enjoyed with classmates and professors would soon
DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
Ron Snyder of Our Lady of Grace in Edina poses with a bust of Cardinal John Henry Newman from the University of St. Thomas’ Center for Catholic Studies. come to an end. So, as graduation approached, he invited some classmates to join him for a discussion group on Blessed Newman’s writings. They met at Sweeney’s Saloon in St. Paul — a decision that led Snyder to dub the group “Newman on Tap.” They quickly realized, though, that the bar’s boisterous atmosphere wasn’t ideal for the intellectual, faith-filled discussions they were having. So they began meeting at Snyder’s house in Apple Valley. Five years later, they’re still meeting there. Between six and 12 people participate each month, Snyder said, although he’s amassed an email list of about 70 people who have attended at some point. Each gathering includes a discussion of a piece by Blessed Newman — typically one of the hundreds of sermons he wrote — and plenty of time for fellowship. While Snyder isn’t able to provide an on-tap selection of beverages, he makes up for it with homemade pizzas. “It’s incredible,” Snyder said, reflecting on the group’s longevity. “It’s the energy of these kids. They love it.” The “kids” are the other attendees — young adults in their 20s and 30s. Snyder knows he’s the oldest in the group by a couple decades. But he doesn’t mind, and neither do the other participants. Among them is 30-year-old Justin Shay, a middle school religion teacher at Transfiguration Catholic School in Oakdale. Also a 2013 alumnus of the Catholic
Studies master’s program, he was one of the original students Snyder invited to participate. “He’s kind of like a fatherly figure to all of us,” Shay said about Snyder. “To see the way that his faith has shaped his whole life, and then how Newman has played a part in that, I think is very rich for our group.” Like Snyder, Shay appreciates Blessed Newman’s intellectual rigor and effortless deployment of the English language. But what always strikes him is Blessed Newman’s relentless focus on holiness. “There are months that I get finished reading the sermon and I think, ‘I need to go to confession,’” Shay said. “That’s what a good sermon should do.” Emily Meuer, 22, couldn’t agree more. A software developer who attends the Church of St. Paul in Ham Lake, Meuer started attending Newman on Tap this summer. “He really calls people on to sanctity,” Meuer said about Blessed Newman. “He’s not just calling people on to strictness and to a joyless existence, but he really understands virtue.” Synder hopes an upcoming session of Newman on Tap will inspire more people to learn about his heavenly hero. On Oct. 9 — Blessed Newman’s feast day — Newman on Tap will feature Mass with Archbishop Bernard Hebda and a presentation on Newman by David Deavel, an assistant professor of Catholic Studies at St. Thomas. The event is 6:30 p.m. at the University Club of St. Paul, 420 Summit Avenue. There’s no cost to attend, but space is limited and reservations are required. “It will hopefully be a large gathering, so more people can be introduced to the great wisdom and insight that [Blessed Newman] has to offer,” Shay said. For more information about Newman on Tap, contact Ron Snyder at rsnyder@snydersmiles.com. For reservations for the Oct. 9 event, visit eventbrite.com and search “Newman on Tap.”
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 13
FROMAGETOAGE
White-collar retirement
In recent months, four priests of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis retired: Father Robert Fitzpatrick, Father Bob Hart, Father Jack Long and Father Dennis Thompson. They’re all between the ages of 65 and 70 and have served as pastors of local parishes, but that’s where their shared experiences diverge. Catholic Spirit reporter Matthew Davis interviewed the four priests about their varied ministries and plans for the near future. Longer versions of the stories can be read at TheCatholicSpirit.com. Portraits by Catholic Spirit photographer Dave Hrbacek. — The Catholic Spirit
u FATHER ROBERT FITZPATRICK
u FATHER BOB HART
F
B
ather Robert Fitzpatrick witnessed the waves of change after the Second Vatican Council during his formation for the priesthood in the late 1960s. He was part of the first class of seminarians to enter after the council began in 1962. Having studied the council from its birth, he said he has condensed his understanding of the three-year event down to a couple of sentences: “[In] the Church I grew up in, God is law, and if God is law then religion is about rules. The council went back to the Scriptures and said, ‘No, ... God is love,’” he said. After his ordination in 1973, he served as an associate pastor of St. Olaf in downtown Minneapolis until 1977. He then built a large youth ministry program at Holy Spirit in St. Paul as its associate pastor from 1977-1984. His longest assignment was as pastor of St. John the Evangelist in Little Canada from 1984-2005, where he oversaw the construction of a new parish school building. In 2005, he was named pastor of St. Rose of Lima in Roseville. When it clustered with nearby Corpus Christi in
2012, he took the helm of both parishes, helping them navigate their new relationship. In 2015, Father Fitzpatrick was placed on ministerial leave due to allegations of sexual abuse. The allegations were ultimately found not credible, and he returned to ministry, but he said it was a difficult time that taught him patience. “The hard part was sitting out sevenand-a-half months waiting to come back,” he said. “The best part was the fact that there wasn’t a soul in either parish who would believe it, and they were so angry that a false accusation could stand.” Father Fitzpatrick grew up in New Jersey and attended Catholic schools. When he was a teenager, his family moved to Minnesota and then to South Bend, Indiana. He began studies at Nazareth Hall in St. Paul, then the archdiocese’s college seminary, followed by St. Paul Seminary. He was ordained at St. Richard in Richfield. Now 69, Father Fitzpatrick retired primarily to care for his 97-year-old mother in Little Canada.
eing a lifelong Catholic, Father Bob Hart had a certain impression of the priesthood by the time he was in his 40s — until a talk by a priest wearing lay clothes made him rethink the vocation and his own possibility of joining it. “He just seemed ... pretty laid back and down to earth,” said Father Hart, now 70, who was ordained a priest in 2000 at age 51. That man, Father Jim Smith, later left the priesthood, but he taught Father Hart about his ministry, and that — coupled with involvement in social justice outreach as a parishioner of St. Raphael in Crystal — eventually pointed Father Hart to the priesthood. At age 45, Father Hart decided to enter St. John Vianney Seminary in St. Paul, where he embraced community and faced the challenge of diving back into academics, having been out of school two decades. After his ordination, Father Hart dedicated his ministry to the poor. His first assignment was as an assistant priest at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, where he often served as master of
ceremonies for liturgies with Archbishop Harry Flynn. There, Father Hart also got involved in Project Home, a nonprofit that finds places for homeless men and women to stay, when the Cathedral would host its guests each winter. In 2002, Father Hart became pastor of Transfiguration in Oakdale — a promotion fast-tracked because of his professional background in management with Prudential Insurance in Plymouth. Highlights there included hosting a Feed My Starving Children mobile packing site and helping a low-income neighborhood, he said. In 2011, he took his final assignment as pastor of St. Patrick in Inver Grove Heights. He said he particularly enjoyed parish mission trips. He also ministers at Trinity Sober Homes in St. Paul. A Chicago native, Father Hart came to Minnesota to attend then-College of St. Thomas in St. Paul. He earned a degree in quantitative methods in 1970. In retirement, Father Hart plans to assist at parishes in the summer, but will spend winters in Phoenix.
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FROMAGETOAGE
14 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
u FATHER JACK LONG
W
hile Father Jack Long always appreciated working with lay staff in his 40 years of ministry, he said their vital roles became more evident in his final two assignments — both parishes with more than 3,500 households. He refuses to micromanage, he said. “If I’m going to hire a janitor, I’m going to hope that he knows the ins and outs of a boiler, because I don’t.” He retired after serving five years as pastor of St. Stephen in Anoka and 12 years as pastor of St. Vincent de Paul in Brooklyn Park. He said the give-and-take of working with others has been among the many joys of his priesthood. Father Long, 68, grew up knowing that many hands make light work. His father had a bar in Minneapolis and later Osseo, and Father Long helped to
u FATHER DENNIS THOMPSON clean it. After completing a degree in elementary education at the University of Minnesota, he joined the first pretheology program at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul. He then studied at the St. Paul Seminary and was ordained in 1978. Father Long began his ministry first at St. Peter in North St. Paul as an associate pastor from 1978-1982, then as associate pastor of Guardian Angels in Oakdale from 1982-1983, then its parochial administrator from 1983-1987. He taught at St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights from 1987-1991 and served as pastor of St. Joseph in Hopkins from 1991-2001. He hopes to spend retirement reconnecting with family, particularly his 17 grandnieces and grandnephews.
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ather Dennis Thompson hasn’t been a member of the Franciscan order for 15 years, but he considers himself “a Franciscan at heart.” “I love the Franciscan spirituality, and I always enjoy still reading books and things on Francis,” said Father Thompson, who left the Franciscans to become a priest of the archdiocese in 2003. Despite that change — which he made to be closer to family — he still takes a Franciscan approach to ministry. A Minneapolis native, he joined the Order of Friars Minor Conventual in the 1980s. In 1986, he was ordained 20 minutes from his home at St. Bonaventure in Bloomington, a Conventual Franciscan-run parish. After his first assignment in Terre Haute, Indiana, Father Thompson returned to
St. Bonaventure from 1991-1995. Next, he was pastor of now-closed Most Holy Trinity in St. Louis Park from 1995-2002, followed by St. Michael in Farmington from 2002-2014. He then took a sabbatical in Ireland and Scotland to learn about his heritage. When he returned, he ministered as parochial administrator at St. Margaret Mary in Golden Valley from 2015-2016, pastor of Immaculate Conception in Lonsdale from 2016-2017 and pastor of St. John Neumann in Eagan from 2017 until his Sept. 1 retirement. Father Thompson, 65, said his older brother’s death last year at age 66 factored into his decision to retire. He is currently assisting 92-year-old Father John Clay, pastor of St. Stanislaus in St. Paul.
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SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
At 100, Holy Family’s roots strong By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit
THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 15
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efore the turn of the 20th century, Catholic immigrants fleeing persecution in Lebanon were settling in St. Paul, but they had no church of their own. They were members of the Maronite Church, an eastern rite Catholic Church in communion with Rome. They initially worshipped with Roman Catholics at St. Michael on the city’s West Side, but, when Maronite Catholics at St. Maron in Minneapolis offered to share their pastor, they made their own worship space in St. Michael’s basement. For 15 years, that was where St. Paul’s Maronite Catholics celebrated the liturgy. That changed in 1918, when the Lebanese settlers purchased a former Lutheran church for $2,250 and established Holy Family Maronite Catholic Church in St. Paul. The parish is celebrating its 100th anniversary Oct. 13 at a sold-out event at the InterContinental Hotel in St. Paul. The parish of 200 families seems small and tight-knit, which lifelong parishioner Stephen Abbott appreciates. “You go on Sunday and you pretty much know everybody there,” he said. “Whether you’re 90 or 9, you know everyone. That’s pretty cool because you can’t find that everywhere.” Abbott, 34, hopes to see the parish thrive well into its second century. He worked on a video for the centennial, interviewing parishioners of all ages. He felt inspired by older members’ approach to parish life. “That was their spiritual, their family [and] their social life,” Abbott said. “They had a simpler life and even tighter community than what we have.”
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Holy Family’s former church on East Robie Street in St. Paul was built in 1950. The parish moved to Mendota Heights in 2009. Holy Family’s pastor, Father — or “Abouna” — Emmanuel Nakhle, said parishioners’ connection to their Lebanese heritage remains strong. After the Lebanese Catholics established their parish, the church building’s maintenance problems soon wore on the community, so they built a second church at the same location in 1950 on East Robie Street in St. Paul. In 2009, Holy Family parishioners moved the parish to its present location in Mendota Heights to be closer to many parishioners’ homes. Holy Family has become well known for its fall Lebanese dinner, as well as its Lenten fish fries with Lebanese side dishes. Many other meals, including regular breakfasts after Sunday Masses, mark the calendar. “Other than the church, this is the busiest room,” parish office manager Carolyn Marker said of the social hall. “It’s a great opportunity for people to spend time with each other [and] get to know each other.”
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16 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
FOCUSONFAITH SUNDAY SCRIPTURES | FATHER JAN MICHAEL JONCAS
The ugliness of hoarded wealth
One of the most memorable characters in Charles Dickens’ 1861 novel “Great Expectations” is Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster jilted at the altar, perpetually in mourning for what might have been and wearing her decaying wedding dress every day for the rest of her life. She directed that the remnants of her wedding breakfast and cake remain rotting on a table in her dilapidated mansion. Here is how we meet Miss Havisham early in the novel: “Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly waxwork at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress, that had been dug out of a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if I could.” Truly a pitiable, if not horrifying, figure! Where Miss Havisham is an imaginative creation of a novelist, the American aviator, film magnate and entrepreneur Howard Hughes (1905-1976) presents an all-too-real-life example of a pitiable if not horrifying multi-millionaire. A founder of the Hughes Aircraft Company and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Hughes lived the last decade of his life in absolute privacy in the penthouses of various luxury hotels, unseen by anyone except a few aides. When he finally died in 1976, his six-foot-fourinch body — exhibiting long hair, beard, fingernails and toenails — weighed barely 90 pounds, with malnutrition and possible drug use contributing to his death from kidney failure. The sacred author of the Letter of St. James presents just as horrifying a picture of the fate of the wealthy as we note in the cases of Miss Havisham and Howard Hughes. Of the several men named “James” (Jakobos) in the New Testament, the authority behind this letter seems to be James, “the brother of the Lord” (Mk 6:3; Mt 13:5), although most Scripture scholars hold that it was probably written by a disciple who admired James as the Christian authority most loyal to Judaism after James had been executed. Although the text presents itself as a letter addressed to “the twelve tribes in the dispersion,” it has the character of a homily preached to Christians strongly identifying with their Jewish heritage. The author has already raised the theme of wealth twice
FAITH FUNDAMENTALS | FATHER MICHAEL VAN SLOUN
Bread for the journey
Eucharist as viaticum is holy Communion given to a person when death is imminent. The word “viaticum” is derived from two Latin roots. The principle meaning of “via” is a street or a road, and the secondary meaning is to make a journey or go on a march. “Cum” is a preposition that means “with” or “along with.” When combined, the translation is “to go down the road” or “make a journey along with someone.” The person who is dying is about to make a journey, hopefully to heaven. If the trip is made by one’s self, it would be lonely and frightening, and without a set of directions or a map, and traversing unfamiliar space, arrival at the final destination would be uncertain. But if, as a person dies, the person has a companion, the journey will be pleasant, and if the companion knows the way and can serve as an escort and guide, the person who has died can travel worry-free, assured of a safe arrival at the final destination. When Jesus comes to a person in the Eucharist shortly before death, Jesus resides with the person and remains on standby to be his or her traveling partner. Having come down from heaven to live on earth (see Jn 6:38a), and then after having returned to heaven at the time of his ascension (Lk 24:51), Jesus knows the way. In fact, Jesus is “the way” (see Jn 14:6). Jesus promised, “I will come back and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be” (Jn 14:3). After receiving viaticum, Jesus fulfills this promise by accompanying and leading the deceased to the Father’s house where a place has been prepared for the traveler (Jn 14:2). Last rites for a person who is close to death are three sacraments,
earlier in the letter (1:9-11; 2:1-9) and in the passage read at Masses Sept. 30, he mounts an impassioned attack on the wealthy, picturing their fate as did the prophets and Jesus himself. First, the rich are reminded that “you can’t take it with you” — their possessions and cash rot and corrode, and by hoarding these earthly goods, they are storing up worthless “treasure.” Second, not only will these time-bound treasures not prevail into eternity, they are a present testimony to unjust behavior: The wealthy are only able to accumulate these goods because they have unjustly defrauded their workers. (It should be noted that in Jesus’ day, the cultural assumption was that wealth can neither be increased nor decreased, only re-distributed; if some people disproportionately possess the goods intended for all, that must be the result of shameful greedy behavior.) Finally, living in luxury has so dulled the perceptions of the wealthy toward God’s intentions for human society that they actively oppose the righteous one whose very life is a condemnation of living only to accumulate possessions and power. I think most of us are made acutely uncomfortable by the message of James 5:1-6. We want to claim that we are not part of the “1 percent,” and that therefore this message doesn’t apply to us. However, in Pope Francis’ 2013 apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium,” we are confronted with the message of the Letter of James updated for our culture and times. The Holy Father writes: “[S]ome people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.” In the same vein, in a 2015 speech to grassroots organizers in Bolivia, Pope Francis asserts: “[B]ehind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea ... called ‘the dung of the devil.’ An unfettered pursuit of money rules. That is the dung of the devil. ... Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy. It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater; it is a commandment.” What good news can we derive from today’s message in James 5:1-6? That through prayer, reflection and faithful membership in the Christian community, our hearts and our behaviors can change under the influence of grace. We can move from selfishness to selflessness under the Holy Spirit’s tutelage. We can lay up for ourselves “treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Mt 6:20). Father Joncas, a composer, is an artist in residence at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.
not one, and if at all possible, they are to be received in a preferred order: reconciliation first, the anointing of the sick second, and Eucharist as viaticum third. If the person is conscious, alert and able to swallow, the last sacrament is to be the Eucharist. Viaticum assures the person of the privileged presence and special assistance of Jesus throughout the dying process and on the journey to heaven. Viaticum is the sacrament of “passing over” to the Father. “It is the seed of eternal life and the power of the resurrection, according to the words of Jesus: ‘He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day’ (Jn 6:54). The sacrament of Christ once dead and now risen, the Eucharist is here the sacrament of passing over from death to life, from this world to the Father’” (Cf. Jn 13:1; Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1524). The Catechism continues: “Thus, just as the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Eucharist form a unity called ‘the sacraments of Christian initiation,’ so too it can be said that penance, the anointing of the sick and the Eucharist as viaticum constitute at the end of Christian life ‘the sacraments that prepare for our heavenly homeland’ or the sacraments that complete the earthly pilgrimage.” The Code of Canon Law states that “the Christian faithful who are in danger of death from any cause are to be nourished by holy Communion in the form of viaticum. Even if they have been nourished by holy Communion on the same day, those in danger of death are strongly urged to receive communion again” (C. 921.1 and 921.2). Father Van Sloun is pastor of St. Bartholomew in Wayzata. This column is part of an ongoing series on the Eucharist. Read the series at TheCatholicSpirit.com, and read Father VanSloun’s other writing at CatholicHotdish.com.
DAILY Scriptures Sunday, Sept. 30 Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Nm 11:25-29 Jas 5:1-6 Mk 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 Monday, Oct. 1 St. Therese of the Child Jesus, virgin and doctor of the Church Jb 1:6-22 Lk 9:46-50 Tuesday, Oct. 2 Guardian Angels Jb 3:1-3, 11-17, 20-23 Mt 18:1-5, 10 Wednesday, Oct. 3 Jb 9:1-12, 14-16 Lk 9:57-62 Thursday, Oct. 4 St. Francis of Assisi Jb 19:21-27 Lk 10:1-12 Friday, Oct. 5 Jb 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5 Lk 10:13-16 Saturday, Oct. 6 Jb 42:1-3, 5-6, 12-17 Lk 10:17-24 Sunday, Oct. 7 Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Gn 2:18-24 Heb 2:9-11 Mk 10:2-16 Monday, Oct. 8 Gal 1:6-12 Lk 10:25-37 Tuesday, Oct. 9 Gal 1:13-24 Lk 10:38-42 Wednesday, Oct. 10 Gal 2:1-2, 7-14 Lk 11:1-4 Thursday, Oct. 11 Gal 3:1-5 Lk 11:5-13 Friday, Oct. 12 Gal 3:7-14 Lk 11:15-26 Saturday, Oct. 13 Gal 3:22-29 Lk 11:27-28 Sunday, Oct. 14 Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Wis 7:7-11 Heb 4:12-13 Mk 10:17-30
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
COMMENTARY THE LOCAL CHURCH | PAUL RUFF
A dark time of illumination
“It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible — and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: ‘Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’”
(Eph 5:12-14) As a Church, we are collectively going through what seems like a very dark time, and I think that you sense, as I do, that we are not likely to get through it for some while. New waves of revelations come out. They include news about profound sins against God’s people: first, the sins against victims of abuse, who have felt they have had to privately carry the traumatic injuries and the displaced shame; and second, and more generally, sins against the faith and trust of the faithful. These revelations have exposed the actions of some of our bishops, who have hidden things in the shadows rather than bringing them into the light, thereby seriously compounding the damage done to those victims and to our trust in the Church at large. They have also exposed conflicting accounts of individual and corporate culpability, which cast a shadow of doubt and confusion on us all. This all compounds the burden of our very many good priests and bishops who work with love and dedication to serve God and his people. Yet, as dark as all of this seems and viscerally feels, it is important to remember that this “darkness” is not new, and we are actually experiencing the darkness being made visible. These present revelations are painful steps into the light. When first reading some of the published details of the sexual assaults by clergy in Pennsylvania, I was nauseated, enraged and then a bit numb. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking of 1 Kings 18:40: “And Elijah said unto them, ‘Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.’ And they took them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.” There was a protective impulse in this fantasy: My feelings were “just.” But there was also an indulgence of my own brokenness: My own self-righteousness and hate were activated. Each of us needs to have room for our own anger, our grief, our revulsion and our fear, as we try to journey from despair and rage into hope and faith, and
THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 17
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Rather than praying as a Church that nothing more is revealed because it would overwhelm us, I would suggest we pray for the light to shine to on all that has been kept in this shadow’s darkness.
from grief to grace. Meanwhile, each of us must heed the call out of the shadow of sin and into our own purification and conversion, so that we can individually and corporately — as the body of Christ — stand in the light, and then call our Church out of the shadow and into the light, whatever the cost. “The shadow” is a powerful psychological and spiritual image. The shadow is the part of us that we want to disown. It can be composed of past injuries, immature ego states, character flaws, disowned needs, past misdeeds, disowned powers and gifts — all of which have not yet been confronted and integrated. Though not always sin itself, it inclines us toward sin. It is the parts of me, the parts of us, that we want to hide away. Until it is faced, owned and brought into light, what we hide in the shadow will not be redeemed and transformed. It occurs to me that there are three main temptations we as Catholics face in these tumultuous times. Along with our temptation not to look at what hides in the darkness, there is also a dangerous temptation to believe the shadow’s assertion: that when the light begins to shine on it, looking at it will be our undoing, and that our own shadow — or the shadow of the Church’s worst sins — is a true identity. We need to bravely look at this temptation and walk through it if we are to heal. Last month’s “Magnificat” spoke to this with a quote from Simone Weil, a French philosopher and mystic of the last century: “The self (false self) is only the shadow which sin and error cast by stopping the light of God, and I take this shadow for a being.” A third temptation is to distract ourselves by selfrighteously focusing only on “their shadow,” instead of also reflecting on our own need for conversion and purification. That temptation may also be to become self-focused and thrash around in the darkness of our own fears and indignation, meanwhile forgetting to be aware of the injured and vulnerable around us, who may be in greater danger of being lost in this dark passage. Faith and hope need to light our way and help us strengthen each other. In my work over many years as a psychologist, including my work with victims of criminal sexual behavior, I am no longer surprised by human sin and misdeeds. In my work with the Church, I am no longer surprised by its corporate desire to look away from its own shadow and to too quickly say, “It’s OK, we’ve handled it, trust us.”
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And, after 60 years of being me, I am no longer surprised by my own failings, sins and blind spots as a husband, father, friend and psychologist. Alongside this, I have had the privilege of witnessing — in myself and others — that when we walk through our sin, shame and fear and into the light, we are no longer identified with our worst injury or deed. Such healing can be a moment of surprising growth and transformation, which can lead to the emergence of new gifts and capacities which had been hidden in the shadow. Rather than praying as a Church that nothing more is revealed because it would overwhelm us, I would suggest we pray for the light to shine on all that has been kept in this shadow’s darkness. May we come into light that can help us see and heal the wounds of all of our brothers and sisters in Christ’s body who have been sinfully and criminally injured, and who have been left to walk in a “valley of darkness” not of their own making. May we open ourselves to light that can reveal our sin and help heal the moral integrity of our Church in its capacity to live out its mission. May we receive light that can call us into our own growth as members of that body and illuminate new gifts within the Church — the laity and the clergy, women and men — as we seek new ways not just to protect, but also to authentically live out the Church’s mission. Certainly, prudent and just measures need to be taken. An investigation conducted by lay experts in forensic investigation into the particular case of former-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been suggested, and it seems one very advisable and important first step. Such an investigation would need to have the complete freedom to follow the threads of that situation wherever they lead, even if that is to the pope himself. Each particular situation deserves such careful and fearless scrutiny, with professionally trained laity playing key roles. Men who have willfully violated the role with which they have been entrusted need to step down. But, simultaneously, we must resist our own worst, reactive impulses. Right now, things are looking darker because the light is illuminating what has been hidden. In that sense, the reality is becoming painfully lighter. We are experiencing an illumination that can lead to better informed protections for the vulnerable, and to healing for those whose lives were darkened by criminal sin against them. It is a call for healing of what lies in the darkness for each of us. And, it is an opportunity for transformation and the emergence of new gifts and ways of being Church together as clergy and laity if we can heed God’s call, as St. Francis did in the 13th century, to courageously and humbly “rebuild my Church.” Ruff is the assistant director of human formation and staff psychologist at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul.
COMMENTARY
18 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
YOUR HEART, HIS HOME | LIZ KELLY
A deep-rooted antidote to scandal-mania
The stories are soul-crushing. A little girl, excitedly anticipating her first Communion, meets with the parish priest. As he quizzes her about the meaning of the sacrament, her little mind gets tongue-tied on the word “Eucharist,” and shy thing that she is, she blushes and drops her eyes to the floor. Then Father says to her, “Come, sit in my lap ...” This precious soul is forced to receive her first Communion from the very priest that abused her two days earlier. She goes through the motions, but she is numb, frozen in fear, having literally been robbed of a robust and meaningful relationship with her spiritual father, her body, her sexuality and, most devasting of all, the Blessed Sacrament. Now repeat this story — or something equally devastating — over and over again. It’s unspeakable. As regards the grotesque allegations that Church officials ignored, mishandled or even covered up cases of abuse, the question must naturally charge through your mind: “What in the world were they thinking?”
CATHOLIC WATCHMEN | BEN TLOUGAN
As Christ loved the Church
“As Christ loved the Church.” As a husband, I need constant reminders of this phrase from Scripture. Wanting to be a good spouse, I decided I needed to have a better understanding of God’s design for husbands, so I started studying what the Bible had to say about it. That inevitably led me to Ephesians 5:21-32, where St. Paul gives a brief but important description of what the marriage relationship should look like. You know the one: It includes “wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord,” and “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her.” I could write a long article based on this passage, discussing the use of “submission” and the truth of the roles of husbands and wives, but I simply want to focus on verse 25, which tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. This is a simple statement on how to love your bride. Whether you are a priest, religious brother or married man, the call is the same, even though how it is lived will vary. What does St. Paul mean by “gave himself for her”? We tend to think of it as Jesus’ death on the cross, and we think to ourselves, “Yeah, I’d die for my bride.” But that’s only a part of what St. Paul is getting at. To explain this, we need to look to other verses St. Paul wrote, Philippians 2:5-8: “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” In this passage, St. Paul gives us the abbreviated
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There is Atonement sufficient to the wound, and he rose from the dead so that I could not just stand where he once stood, but also follow him down into Jerusalem, and into the fullness of life, passion, death and resurrection.
It pierces the spirit. How many more stories like this must we endure? Can there be atonement sufficient to cover this sweeping level of corruption and suffering?
A violent wind This month I’ve been thinking a lot about a story I heard from a religious sister some years ago. The campus on which she taught got a new groundskeeper, a young man with tremendous energy, if little experience. Along a walkway she took every day, he planted some new trees: beautiful, fierycolored maples. She watched every day as he watered the young trees, and they flourished, exploding in color in their first full fall season. But the following summer, there was a tremendous windstorm and every single one of those trees blew over and died. In over-watering the trees, they were not allowed to struggle sufficiently. Their roots were sluggish because they had never been forced to go deep in search of sustenance, so they could not withstand the storm. The young groundskeeper did not know that they needed to struggle — to search and fight through that dense, black earth, so that
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[St. Paul] is telling us to make ourselves nothing, to put our wives’ needs before our own comfort, to daily die to self and take the form of a slave. version of the Gospels. What we find is that the giving we think of — Jesus’ death on the cross — is not the first sacrifice and is, though very important, only a portion of what he gave for us, his Church. His first sacrifice was stepping down from heaven; it was setting aside his own desires and putting ours first. Jesus didn’t have to come to earth. It wasn’t for his sake that he was born in a manger and lived a life as the God-man; it was for ours. It was his love for us that caused him to not grasp onto his equality with God, to empty himself, taking the form of a slave, and coming in human likeness and appearance. In one translation it even says, “He made himself nothing.” This, in a nutshell, is what St. Paul was getting at when he told us to love our wives as Christ did the Church. He is telling us to make ourselves nothing, to put our wives’ needs before our own comfort, to daily die to self and take the form of a slave. Each of us men has this call, whether to our wife or the Church. We all have a bride we are to put before ourselves. It is this process of putting our bride first that sanctifies us and prepares us for eternity with God. The reason I need reminding of it is because it doesn’t come naturally. Therefore, I need to be reminded to step outside of myself and recognize when I’m not putting my bride first. As brothers in Christ, we have a responsibility to hold one another accountable to loving our brides as we are called. We must be honest with ourselves as we humbly ask, “How am I loving my wife today?” Tlougan is an Army veteran, a Catholic convert and a Catholic speaker living in the Twin Cities. Connect with him at fb.me/godlaughed.
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
their roots would go deep in search of water. Jesus wept over Jerusalem; I have stood on the very spot. Surely he weeps over his Church now — in our tears and most especially in the tears of the multitude of holy, faithful priests we know. And, of course, our tears are not enough. By all means, if you are called to write letters, sign petitions, fast and pray, make Holy Hours in atonement, work for reform, fight for transparency, do those things. But let’s not forget that the tears of Jesus took him into the heart of Jerusalem, where he stood before his accusers in silence. His broken heart walked him through those ancient stone streets battered by an angry mob, along the Via Dolorosa and up the hill to Golgatha. His crushed spirit took him into the very depths of hell. But because he was willing to struggle through the darkest fathoms of human experience, those tears became our redemption. There is Atonement sufficient to the wound, and he rose from the dead so that I could not just stand where he once stood, but also follow him down into Jerusalem, and into the fullness of life, passion, death and resurrection. Let’s pray the abused are restored in their relationship to God the Father, and for the rest of us — merciful God, give us pure hearts and deep, deep roots. Father Almighty, the storm is ferocious, overdue, necessary. Don’t let it blow me over; let my roots reach deep for your living water. Kelly is the author of six books, including the awardwinning “Jesus Approaches” (Loyola Press, 2017) which has been chosen by the U.S. Catholic Book Club as its October 2018 selection. She is a parishioner of St. Michael in Stillwater. Visit her website at lizk.org.
LETTER ‘I confess to almighty God ...” While attending Mass in various parish churches over the past couple of years, I have noticed that the Confiteor is often not said at the weekday Masses. I also noticed at one of the churches that it wasn’t even said at the Sunday Mass. Mass is grounded on the very ancient Jewish custom of confessing before sacrificing, and it has been found in the oldest liturgies. The present Confiteor goes back to the 13th and 14th centuries. Before Vatican II, the Confiteor was said two times at Mass, as it was considered that important. It was said first before offering sacrifice, and then before the priest and people could receive holy Communion. It is time for the Church to be more firm on this matter: Once it was so important that it was said two times during Mass, and now it is often dropped completely. William Petermeier St. John, Dayton v
Father Tom Margevicius, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Worship, responds: The current Roman Missal (the Ordinary Form of the Mass) has three options for the Penitential Act: the Confiteor; the text that begins “Have mercy on us, O Lord,” to which the congregation responds, “For we have sinned against you”; or the three-fold invocations with the Kyrie (“Lord have mercy … Christ have mercy … Lord have mercy”). The priestcelebrant has the freedom to choose whichever of these he prefers. On some Sundays, especially in the Easter season, the entire Penitential Act can even be replaced with a sprinkling rite, and in some other Masses, such as a funeral or wedding Mass, the Penitential Act is omitted entirely. The Confiteor is normally required in the Extraordinary Form (pre-1962 Mass), but our current Missal offers other options because historically the Confiteor was a later addition to the Mass; it was not commonly part of our liturgy for the first 1,000 years of Catholic history. The current Missal continues to offer the Confiteor as an option but now also offers some of the liturgy’s other, more ancient forms.
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT • 19
CALENDAR Dining out
FEATURED EVENTS Miriam Dinner — Oct. 2: 6–8 p.m. at Holy Cross, 1621 University Ave. NE, Minneapolis. Archbishop Bernard Hebda and Father David Blume, director of vocations, invite women ages 16-35 discerning consecrated life to join them for dinner and prayer. Consecrated women will share their vocation testimonies. It is typical for women discerners to be accompanied by a pastor, consecrated religious or youth minister. RSVP online by Sept. 28 at 651-962-6890 or stpaulvocations@10000vocations.org. “The Spirituality of Eating: Joining Food, Faith and the Life of the World” by Norman Wirzba — Oct. 4: 7:15 p.m. at the University of St. Thomas, McNeely Hall 100, 2115 Summit Ave., St. Paul. Wirzba is the Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Theology at Duke University. James Ennis, director of Catholic Rural Life, and John Mesko, executive director for Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service, will offer commentary. Sponsored by St. Thomas’ Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy. stthomas.edu/ murphyinstitute. Archdiocesan Candlelight Rosary Procession — Oct. 5: 7 p.m. at Minnesota State Capitol, 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., St. Paul. Participants will gather 6:30 p.m. at the Capitol to process to the Cathedral of St. Paul in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary. Archbishop Hebda will lead the procession, which will end with prayer and benediction at the Cathedral. archspm.org/ archspm_events/candlelight-rosary-procession. Catholic Watchmen men’s pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine — Oct. 6 at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Meet at 7:30 a.m. at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center, 777 Forest St., St. Paul. Bus will depart at 8 a.m. and return at 8 p.m. $20 cost includes lunch. Register at archspm.org. For more information, contact Enzo Randazzo at randazzov@archspm.org or 651-291-4483.
St. Patrick of Cedar Lake steak/chicken cookout and silent auction — Oct. 5: 5–9 p.m. at 24425 Old Highway 13 Blvd., Jordan. Sponsored by First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association. stpandc.mn.org. Father Reiser Knights of Columbus spaghetti dinner for vocations — Oct. 6: 4–6:30 p.m. at Epiphany, 1100 Hanson Blvd. NW, Coon Rapids. epiphanymn.org.
Music Evensong — Oct. 14: 7 p.m. at Guardian Angels, 8260 Fourth St. N., Oakdale. Prayer in honor of Blessed Oscar Romero. guardian-angels.org.
Parish events Holy Name fall rummage sale — Sept. 27-29: 4–8 p.m. Sept. 27; 9 a.m.–7 p.m. Sept. 28; 9 a.m.–noon Sept. 29 at 3637 11th Ave. S., Minneapolis. churchoftheholyname.org. St. Mark’s rummage sale — Sept. 28-30: 9 a.m.– 4 p.m. Sept. 28 and 29; 9 a.m.–noon Sept. 30 at 2001 Dayton Ave., St. Paul. saintmark-mn.org. St. Francis of Assisi Feast Day celebration — Sept. 29: 10 a.m. at St. Francis of Assisi, 16770 13th St. S., Lake St. Croix Beach. stfrancislscbmn.org. St. John the Baptist fall fest fun run — Sept. 29: 9 a.m. at 835 Second Ave. NW, New Brighton. Pre-register at raceroster.com. St. Joseph craft and bake sale — Sept. 29-30: 8:30 a.m.–7 p.m. Sept. 29; 8 a.m.–1 p.m. Sept. 30 at 1154 Seminole Ave., West St. Paul. churchofstjoseph.org. St. Thomas Women’s Club garage sale — Oct. 3-5: 1–9 p.m. Oct. 3; 8 a.m.–8 p.m. Oct 4; 8 a.m.–1:30 p.m. Oct. 5 at 20000 County Road 10, Corcoran. saintsppta.org. St. Bernard’s Men’s Club booya — Oct. 6: 9 a.m.– 5 p.m. at 141 W. Geranium Ave., St. Paul. stbernardstpaul.org. Booya festival — Oct. 7: 11 a.m.–3 p.m. at St. Mary, 261 E. Eighth St., St. Paul. stmarystpaul.org.
Prayer/worship Healing Mass with celebrant Father Jim Livingston — Oct. 2: 7 p.m. at St. Michael, 16311 Duluth Ave. SE, Prior Lake. stmichael-pl.org.
Women’s weekend retreat — Oct. 5-7 and 12-14 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake. franciscanretreats.net. Married couples retreat — Oct. 12-14 at Christ the King Retreat Center, 621 First Ave. S., Buffalo. kingshouse.com. Women’s Day of Reflection — Oct. 13: 8 a.m.–3 p.m. at Transfiguration, 6133 15th St. N., Oakdale. With author and spiritual director Elizabeth Kelly. Register transfigurationmn/org.
Conferences/workshops RCIA network fall team training — Sept. 29: 8:30 a.m.–noon at Our Lady of Grace, 5071 Eden Ave., Edina. The training event topic “Involving the Parish Community in the RCIA” with speaker Michael Ruzicki. Jackie Graham at 612-709-8588 or jacquelynsgraham@msn.com. olgparish.org.
CALENDAR submissions DEADLINE: Noon Thursday, 14 days before the anticipated Thursday date of publication. We cannot guarantee a submitted event will appear in the calendar. Priority is given to events occurring before the next issue date. LISTINGS: Accepted are brief notices of upcoming events hosted by Catholic parishes and organizations. If the Catholic connection is not clear, please emphasize it in your submission. Included in our listings are local events submitted by public sources that could be of interest to the larger Catholic community. ITEMS MUST INCLUDE the following to be considered for publication: uTime and date of event uFull street address of event
Marriage Tool-Time Tune-Up — Sept. 30, Oct. 14 and Oct 28: 6 p.m. at Guardian Angels, 8260 Fourth St. N., Oakdale. 651-738-2223. guardian-angels.org. Bible Study: Ephesians — Tuesdays Oct. 2-Nov. 20: 7:30–9 p.m. at Carolyn Hall, across from the Church of St. Mark, 2001 Dayton Ave. St. Paul. An eight-week study by Jeff Cavins and Ascension Press. stmark.xyz. Bible study: Ephesians: Discover Your Inheritance — Tuesdays Oct. 2-Dec. 11: 10 a.m. or 7 p.m. at St. Paul, 1740 Bunker Lake Blvd., Ham Lake. An eightweek study of Ephesians by Jeff Cavins with Thomas Smith. churchofsaintpaul.com. CoWorkers in Christ gathering — Oct. 5: 8:30 a.m.– 5 p.m. at Embassy Suites, 2800 American Blvd, W., Bloomington. bit.ly/worklifepeace. NAMI Hope for Recovery — Oct. 13: 9 a.m.–3 p.m. at St. Richard, 7540 Penn Ave. S., Richfield. strichards.com.
Schools Totino-Grace High School open house — Oct. 9: 6:30–8:40 p.m. at 1350 Gardena Ave. NE, Fridley. totinograce.org.
Retreats
St. Agnes School pre-K-12 open house — Oct. 11: 6:30–8:30 p.m. at 530 Lafond Ave., St. Paul. saintagnesschool.org.
Women’s midweek retreat — Oct. 2-4 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake. franciscanretreats.net.
Benilde-St. Margaret’s School open house — Oct. 15: 6–8:30 p.m. at 2501 Highway 100 S., St. Louis Park. bsmschool.org.
uDescription of event u Contact information in case of questions ONLINE: thecatholicspirit.com/ calendarsubmissions
MAIL: “Calendar,” The Catholic Spirit 777 Forest St., St. Paul, MN 55106
Speakers Pro-life gathering — Oct. 1: 7–8 p.m. at Holy Family, 5900 W. Lake St., St. Louis Park. Education on pro-life issues from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. mccl.org. Pro-life gathering — Oct. 2: 7–8 p.m. at All Saints Social Hall, 19795 Holyoke Ave., Lakeville. mccl.org. Pro-life gathering — Oct. 2: 7–8 p.m. at St. Albert Parish Center, 11400 57th St. NE, Albertville. mccl.org. “Examining the Intersection of Faith and Politics” with Michael Lee — Oct. 4: 7 p.m. at St. Frances Cabrini, 1500 Franklin Ave. SE, Minneapolis. cabrinimn.org. Pro-life gathering — Oct. 11: 7–8 p.m. at St. Peter, 1405 Highway 13, Mendota. mccl.org. Pro-life gathering — Oct. 15: 7–8 p.m. at St. Peter, 1250 S. Shore Drive, Forest Lake. mccl.org. Holy Name Society fall meeting — Oct. 8: 5:30– 8 p.m. at St. Albert the Great, 2836 33rd Ave. S., Minneapolis. RSVP Cain Pence at caino@cainpence.com.
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PRAYERS Mary, Mother of God, and of the Church, thank you for prayers answered. JHP NOTICE: Prayers must be submitted in advance. Payment of $8 per line must be received before publication.
VACATION/FAMILY GETAWAY Knotty Pines Resort, Park Rapids, MN. 1, 2 & 3 bdrm cabins starting at $565/week. www.knottypinesresort.com (800) 392-2410. Mention this ad for a discount!
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Merriam Park Painting. Professional Int./ Ext. Painting. WP Hanging. Moderate Prices, Free Estimates. Call Ed (651) 224-3660.
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20 • THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
THELASTWORD
Comics show eternity and everyday life from an angelic perspective
W
By Susan Klemond For The Catholic Spirit e’re not privy to what our guardian angels say about us, but artist Louis Hall, 54, enjoys imagining their conversations and antics in the comics about life, faith and eternity he creates primarily for young people. “I don’t think we spend enough time on earth thinking about heaven,” said Hall, a parishioner of St. Joseph in West St. Paul. “I really wanted to illustrate images of what life is like in heaven to get people thinking.” Hall’s goal for what he calls his “weirdly Catholic,” single-panel comics is to make readers aware of angels, the faith and the consequences of their actions. After circulating his more than 175 comics on social media for six years, he self-published a book of them last year called “Angelic Twaddle.” With the help of his wife, Becky, and their six children, Hall united his artistic ability and youth ministry experience to develop and market the comics designed to provoke thoughts and laughs, as well as serve as youth group discussion materials. In 2011, Hall prayed for a way to use his artwork to reinforce the Gospel with young people. “I was also formulating an idea that would travel well through the latest technology, whether it be Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest,” said Hall, who works as a corporate creative director. Inspiration came from Hall’s often visual explanations of the faith in response to his children’s questions. “I’ve been always aware angels are creatures given to us by God to help us,” said Hall, who believes he’s had encounters with divine providence and angels. Hall, who has long worked in other artistic media, started drawing the comics by hand, but now he uses an iPad. The comics appeal not only to teens and young adults, but also adults and younger children, even if the children don’t fully understand them, he said. Hall seeks to create unique comics that are light hearted (“twaddle” means “silly talk or writing”) and playful, but he also aims to address young people’s questions about Jesus, suffering, science and freedom. Some comics imagine the role of angels in actual events, such as the 1981 attempt to assassinate St. John Paul II. Others touch on relevant topics, including video games and dating. “I’m very much interested in capturing their imagination,” Hall said of teenagers. “I didn’t want it to come across as just another variation on our Catechism, but I wanted to sneak up on them.” Hall said his comics are meant to be funny, but they’re more like illustrations in an instruction guide than a comic strip. Explanatory text and questions drawn from
DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
Louis Hall works on a comic Sept. 17 at his home in Mendota Heights.
‘A TRUTH OF THE FAITH’ Oct. 2 is the feast of the guardian angels. The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls angels’ existence “a truth of the faith.” According to St. Augustine, ‘“Angel’ is the name of their office, not of their nature,” which is spirit, meaning they do not have bodies as human beings do. The Catechism continues: “As purely spiritual creatures, angels have intelligence and will: They are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendor of their glory bears witness.” The Catechism adds that “the whole life of the Church benefits from the mysterious and powerful help of angels. ... From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.” That angel protector is known as a guardian angel.
the Catechism and YOUCAT youth catechism accompany each comic. A discussion guide he hopes more youth groups will use with the comics is available on his website, angelictwaddle.com. Parents may also find the comics and “Angelic Twaddle” useful for explaining the faith. Brad and Beth Tressell, both 43 and members of St. John Vianney in South St. Paul, saw Hall’s comics on Facebook and bought “Angelic Twaddle” for their four children. The comics present Catholicism and truth in a lighthearted way, Beth said. “It’s a good reminder that supernatural things are happening even when we don’t see them,” she said. Kids are drawn to comic strips, Brad added. “It’s an easier way to read using faith in comics to open a topic or teach something,” he said. Hall hopes to find a publisher for “Angelic Twaddle” so he can help more young people become aware of angels’ roles in their lives, forming their consciences to understand God’s spirit among them. “I think it’s very healthy when we know there are bigger things going on than just ourselves,” he said. “In today’s world, young people get so focused on themselves and they become the center of their whole world. ... I’m just trying to drive home that we’re not alone.”
COURTESY LOUIS HALL
Single-panel comics from “Angelic Twaddle,” a comic series created by Louis Hall, a parishioner of St. Joseph in West St. Paul.