The Catholic Spirit - September 28, 2017

Football and character 7 • Health care bill 9 • Retirement planning 16-19 September 28, 2017 Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

U.S. MARTYR BEATIFIED

More than 20,000 attend ceremony for Father Stanley Rother — Page 10 People hold placards with an image of Blessed Stanley Rother ahead of his Sept. 23 beatification Mass outside Oklahoma City’s Cox Convention Center. Blessed Rother, a priest of the Oklahoma City archdiocese, was murdered in 1981 in the Guatemalan village where he ministered. Attendees included distant Rother cousins from Minnesota. CNS

ALSO inside

Priest addresses racism

Pregnancy center moves

Confronting transgenderism

In lecture at St. Kate’s, Fordham professor calls for the Church to do more to create a racially just society.

— Page 6

Options for Women moves to highly visible spot in Stillwater, hopes to draw more traffic.

— Page 8

Catholic leaders highlight dangers of belief that gender identity is independent of biological sex.

— Pages 12-13

2 • The Catholic Spirit

PAGE TWO

September 28, 2017 OVERHEARD

in PICTURES

“People are making a big deal about the chainsaw, but I’ve already given my life to God and that’s what brings true joy.”

Carmelite Sister Margaret Ann Laechelin dismissing the Internet fame she attracted after Miami-area police posted a video to Twitter Sept. 12 of her in full habit using a chainsaw to trim branches off a fallen tree after Hurricane Irma tore through Florida. It was the first time she had used a chainsaw; she watched YouTube for instruction, she told Catholic News Service.

NEWS notes

40 Days for Life underway in St. Paul People praying for an end to abortion are invited to participate in the local 40 Days for Life campaign in front of Planned Parenthood, 671 Vandalia St., St. Paul. The event began Sept. 27 and runs through Nov. 5, with daily prayer taking place from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. For more information, call Pro-Life Action Ministries at 651-797-6363.

SPECIAL CONFIRMATION Bishop Andrew Cozzens confirms Patrick Rzepecki during the annual Mass for Persons with Disabilities at the St. Paul Seminary Sept. 17. At right is his aunt and sponsor, Mary Chapman. Both go to Our Lady of Grace in Edina. The Mass “was absolutely wonderful,” said Patrick’s mother, Sheila Rzepecki, who noted that Patrick and Chapman, her sister, are very close. “To see both of them and the joy it brought to them was so powerful for our family.” Four others were confirmed at the Mass: Mark Roster and Joseph Tvrdik of Immaculate Heart of Mary in Minnetonka, Alexandra Pham of St. Agnes in St. Paul and Mackenzie Doyle of St. Patrick in Oak Grove. Father Eugene Brown/ For The Catholic Spirit

Clergy abuse survivor info group begins Oct. 4 An information series to help victims/survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their families and friends will be held 6:30-8 p.m. Oct. 4, 11, 18 and 25 in the conference room at 9001 E. Bloomington Freeway, Bloomington. The focus will be on emotional support and information to increase knowledge. Two professional facilitators will lead the group.

For more information or to register, call Deb Riba at 952-881-9883.

Acclaimed author to speak at St. Kate’s Oct. 4 New York Times best-selling author Kathleen Norris will speak at St. Catherine University 7 p.m. Oct. 4 at The O’Shaughnessy auditorium, 2004 Randolph Ave., St. Paul, on how spiritual grounding and practice can help navigate the era of fake news and the manipulation of fear for political ends. The event is free, but tickets are required. To RSVP or for more information, visit www.oshag.stkate.edu or call 651-690-6700.

St. Thomas hosts Reformation conference Oct. 7 The University of St. Thomas will host “From Conflict to Communion: Commemorating the Reformation with New Eyes,” 9 a.m. to noon Oct. 7 at McNeely Hall 100, 2115 Summit Ave., St. Paul. Featured speakers include Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Dirk Lange of Luther Seminary, Christian Washburn of the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity and Lutheran Bishop Patricia Lull of the St. Paul Area Synod.

To register, visit www.stthomas.edu/asc/tommiecentral.

DOROTHY DAY DEMOLITION Workers begin demolition of Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Dorothy Day Center in St. Paul Sept. 13. The center had served the poor and homeless since 1981. The demolition will make way for the construction of a six-floor, 50,000-square building that is part of Dorothy Day Place. This $100 million project also includes Higher Ground St. Paul, which opened in January. Its second phase will include the St. Paul Opportunity Center, which will connect people to services, and the Dorothy Day Residence, which will provide 177 permanent housing units. Catholic Charities hopes to complete construction in 2019. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

ONLY ON THE WEB and social media In the wake of natural disasters, including Hurricane Maria in the Caribbean and a Sept. 19 earthquake in Mexico, Catholic charitable agencies, religious orders and parishes are helping to rebuild cities and lives. Read victims’ stories of survival, perseverance and hope at www.TheCatholicSpirit.com.

The Catholic Spirit is published semi-monthly for The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis Vol. 22 — No. 18 MOST REVEREND BERNARD A. HEBDA, Publisher TOM HALDEN, Associate Publisher MARIA C. WIERING, Editor

Bishop Cozzens leads men’s pilgrimage Oct. 14 Bishop Andrew Cozzens will lead a men’s pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Oct. 14.

Cost is $20 and includes transportation and lunch. Buses will leave from the archdiocesan chancery at 777 Forest St., St. Paul. To register, visit www.thecatholicwatchmen.com.

Seminary offers Archbishop Ireland lecture Oct. 16 Sister Katarina Schuth will offer insights on the last 30 years of seminaries and theological schools and the new challenges ahead in the Archbishop Ireland Memorial Lecture 7:30 to 9 p.m. Oct. 16 at the 3M Auditorium, Owens Science Hall of the University of St. Thomas. She will draw on material in her new book, “Seminary Formation: Recent History, Current Circumstances, New Directions” (Liturgical Press, 2016). Sponsored by the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, the event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.stthomas.edu/spssod.

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September 28, 2017

FROM THE BISHOP

The Catholic Spirit • 3

The Church, young people and the role of parents

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s Catholics, we have to be alarmed by statistics that show how many of our young people are leaving the Church. Researchers say that now fully half of our young people leave the Church after high school, and some say that only 7 percent of millennials raised Catholic still actively practice their faith today — meaning they’ll attend weekly Mass, pray a few times each week, and say their faith is “extremely” or “very” important. We are in danger of losing a generation of Catholics.

There are many reasons that people point to for explaining this sad truth, but there is also important research that points to the solution. Christian Smith of the University of Notre Dame has been studying this question for years, and his studies point to one clear factor that statistically determines whether or not young people will stay in the Church when they become adults: parents. The single greatest predictor of whether or not young people will practice the faith when they enter adulthood is the degree of religious commitment of their parents.

The results of his various studies are dramatic. His studies show that it was not enough for parents simply to practice their faith, and much less to practice it intermittently. Young people who stay in the Church say that their family regularly talked about religious topics in the home, that faith was “very important” to their family, and that they themselves were regularly involved in religious activities. These parents saw their own faith not as something they occasionally did, but who they were.

It used to be the case that it was enough to bring your children to the Catholic school or religious education program for them to begin to receive the Catholic faith. Today there are many more challenges to being a believer, since the culture young people encounter does not see the world from a Christian perspective. Studies show that unless parents have created a Catholic culture in the home, the children will succumb to our society’s non-Christian way of seeing the world when they become adults. The parish, the school and the youth program are all helpful, but parental religious influence is the condition of possibility for other influences.

This means that parents must be able themselves to witness to the importance of their personal relationship with Jesus and why they choose to follow Church teachings. It also means they must be intentional about handing on this faith, not just taking the children to Mass every Sunday, but speaking about the faith at home, praying together as a family and giving credible ONLY JESUS witness to a Catholic worldview. The good news is that if they do this, the chances of their children practicing the faith when Bishop Andrew Cozzens

La Iglesia, los jóvenes y el papel de los padres

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omo católicos, tenemos que alarmarnos por las estadísticas que muestran cuántos de nuestros jóvenes están dejando la Iglesia. Los investigadores dicen que ahora casi la mitad de nuestros jóvenes salen de la Iglesia después de la escuela secundaria y algunos dicen que solo el 7 por ciento de los milenios católicos aún practican activamente su fe hoy — lo que significa que asistirán a misa semanal, y dicen que su fe es “extremadamente” o “muy” importante. Estamos en peligro de perder una generación de católicos.

Hay muchas razones que la gente apunta a esta triste verdad, pero también hay una investigación importante que apunta a la solución. Christian Smith, de la Universidad de Notre Dame, estudia esta cuestión desde hace años, y sus estudios apuntan a un factor claro que determina estadísticamente si los jóvenes se quedarán o no en la Iglesia cuando sean adultos: los padres. El mayor predictor de si los jóvenes practicarán la fe cuando entran en la edad adulta es el grado de compromiso religioso de sus padres.

Los resultados de sus diversos estudios son dramáticos.

Sus estudios demuestran que no basta con que los padres simplemente practiquen su fe, y mucho menos para practicarla intermitentemente. Los jóvenes que permanecen en la Iglesia dicen que su familia hablaba regularmente de temas religiosos en el hogar, que la fe era “muy importante” para su familia y que ellos mismos estaban regularmente involucrados en actividades religiosas. Estos padres veían su propia fe no como algo que ocasionalmente hacían, sino quiénes eran.

they grow up are about 90 percent. The bad news is that if they don’t do this, the chances of their children practicing the faith when they grow up are about 20-30 percent.

Smith and his fellow scholar Justin Bartkus give examples of ways families are successful in handing on the faith. They locate four essential aspects: 1. Successful parents are able to give their own narrative about why their faith is import to them — “the why.”

2. They are intentional about establishing a religious culture in the household and eschew autopilot in order to achieve these aims — “the how.”

3. They give good content, meaning that they expose their children to religiously significant practices, relationships and experiences — “the what.”

4. They help their children to interpret the world through the eyes of our faith.

Thus, children are not simply exposed to religious content but begin to understand its central significance in their parents’ lives and in their lives. The Catholic faith becomes a profound reality that daily shapes a household and the lens through which we interpret the events of our lives.

Smith and Bartkus also point out ways parents fail in faith transmission.

Gaps in the consistency of religious practice are deadly to handing on this worldview. They give today’s ubiquitous example: If you don’t go to Mass on the days you have a sporting event, you have taught your children that sports are more important than Mass. Thus, when society challenges the importance of religious belief at all as they grow, they will know it is a matter of convenience, not deep belief.

Smith and Bartkus are clear: “Even very slight inconsistencies or inauthenticities in a parent’s conviction that Catholicism is true and necessary and indispensable to family life can undercut children’s perception of the viability of Catholicism as a worthwhile commitment.” They point out that the essential work of the parents cannot be outsourced. If they send their children to a Catholic school, but don’t bring them to Mass on Sunday, chances are 70-80 percent that the children will end up not practicing their faith at all.

The challenge of passing on the faith to the next generation has gotten more difficult in our age. But this challenge actually brings us back to the heart of the Gospel. When reading the Gospel, we find many ways that Jesus calls us to place him first, loving him and serving him in our daily lives. He commands us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (Lk 10:27). If we do these things intentionally with our children, they too will grow up desiring to love and serve him.

Solía ​​ser el caso de que era suficiente para traer a sus hijos a la escuela católica o programa de educación religiosa para que ellos comiencen a recibir la fe católica.

Hoy en día hay muchos más retos para ser un creyente, ya que la cultura que los jóvenes encuentran no ve el mundo desde una perspectiva cristiana. Los estudios demuestran que a menos que los padres hayan creado una cultura católica en el hogar, los niños sucumbirán a la manera no cristiana de nuestra sociedad de ver el mundo cuando se convierten en adultos. La parroquia, la escuela y el programa de la juventud son todos útiles, pero la influencia religiosa de los padres es la condición de posibilidad para otras influencias.

Esto significa que los padres deben ser capaces de ser testigos de la importancia de su relación personal con Jesús y por qué eligen seguir las enseñanzas de la Iglesia.

También significa que deben ser intencionales en la entrega de esta fe, no solo llevando a los niños a la misa todos los domingos, sino hablando de la fe en casa, rezando juntos como una familia y dando testimonio creíble a una visión católica del mundo. La buena noticia es que si lo hacen, las posibilidades de que sus hijos practiquen la fe cuando crecen son alrededor del 90 por ciento. La mala noticia es que si no lo hacen, las posibilidades de que sus hijos practiquen la fe cuando crezcan son alrededor del 20-30 por ciento.

Smith y su colega Justin Bartkus dan ejemplos de cómo las familias tienen éxito en la entrega de la fe.

Localizan cuatro aspectos esenciales: 1. Los padres exitosos son capaces de dar su propia narrativa sobre por qué su fe es importar a ellos — “el por qué.”

2. Son intencionales sobre el establecimiento de una cultura religiosa en el hogar y evitar el piloto automático con el fin de lograr estos objetivos — “el cómo.”

3. Ellos dan un buen contenido, lo que significa que exponen a sus hijos a prácticas, relaciones y experiencias religiosamente significativas —“el qué.”

4. Ayudan a sus hijos a interpretar el mundo a través de los ojos de nuestra fe.

Así, los niños no están simplemente expuestos al contenido religioso, pero empiezan a comprender su significado central en la vida de sus padres y en sus vidas. La fe católica se convierte en una realidad profunda que cotidianamente forma un hogar y la lente a través de la cual interpretamos los acontecimientos de nuestras vidas.

El desafío de transmitir la fe a la siguiente generación se ha vuelto más difícil en nuestra época. Pero este desafío realmente nos lleva de nuevo al corazón del Evangelio. Al leer el Evangelio, encontramos muchas maneras en que Jesús nos llama a colocarlo primero, amándolo y sirviéndole en nuestra vida cotidiana. Él nos manda “amar al Señor tu Dios con todo tu corazón, con toda tu alma, con todas tus fuerzas y con toda tu mente; y tu prójimo como a ti mismo “(Lc 10, 27). Si hacemos estas cosas intencionalmente con nuestros hijos, ellos también crecerán deseando amar y servirle.

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

September 11, 2017 Deacon William Heiman, appointed to exercise the ministry of a permanent deacon at the Church of Saint Patrick in Edina. This is a transfer from his previous assignment to the Church of Saint Therese in Deephaven.

September 14, 2017 Reverend Douglas Ebert, appointed as Parochial Administrator to the Church of Gichitwaa Kateri in Minneapolis. This is an addition to his current assignment to the Church of Saint John Neumann in Eagan.

September 18, 2017 Reverend Robert Hart, appointed as Minister to Clergy – Chemical Dependency. This is in addition to his current assignment as pastor of the Church of Saint Patrick in Inver Grove Heights.

4 • The Catholic Spirit

LOCAL

September 28, 2017

SLICEof LIFE Caruso’s Crew From left, University of St. Thomas sophomores William Beers, Matthew Pohlman and Ryan Keisling cheer for the Tommies in their game against St. John’s University Sept. 23 at Target Field in Minneapolis. The three men are part of Caruso’s Crew, a group of seminarians at St. John Vianney College Seminary. The name refers to St. Thomas Head Football Coach Glenn Caruso.

St. Thomas won the annual meeting between the two teams, 20-17. The game drew 37,355 fans, which more than doubled the previous Division III football attendance record, set last season.

Dave Hrbacek/ The Catholic Spirit

LOCAL

September 28, 2017

Symposium explores health care challenges

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit Health care reform, transgender theory and the opioid epidemic were featured topics at a Sept. 20 gathering of Minnesota’s Catholic bishops and lay leaders at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

Co-sponsored by the Minnesota Catholic Conference and the Catholic Health Association of Minnesota, “Healthcare in Minnesota: A Symposium Considering Contemporary Challenges” brought together local and national experts to speak about the emergent health care topics.

In opening remarks, Jason Adkins, MCC executive director, said that the three seemingly unrelated topics of health care coverage, addiction and the nature of the human person were actually linked through an understanding of a healthy human ecology.

The morning event began with a three-pe rson panel on federal health care reform, with a focus on its potential effects on the poor and vulnerable. Meghan Goodwin, a policy advisor for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, outlined Republicans’ efforts in Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and the bishops’ advocacy on the proposed changes.

“The Catholic bishops of the United States have consistently advocated for access to decent health care that safeguards and affirms human life and dignity from conception until natural death,” she said.

Goodwin said that the bishops have viewed the series of proposed health care legislation, including the Graham-Cassidy bill, as “morally problematic” because the bills would fail to serve the poor and vulnerable. That particularly applies to the bills’ proposed cuts to Medicaid, she said. The Senate is unlikely to meet a Sept. 30 deadline to pass a health care bill.

“This is more about spending on health care than it is about developing a robust health care policy,” Goodwin said about the proposed health care bills. (Read more about health care repeal on page 9.)

Patrick Ness, public policy director for the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation in St. Paul, said that Medicaid has been important to people’s access to health care in Minnesota. The Amherst H. Wilder Foundation is among several organizations, including Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, that have formed This is Medicaid, a campaign to protect the federal-state insurance program for people in need.

As a safety net, Medicaid serves 690,000 families with children, 200,000 single adults and 180,000 people with disabilities and seniors over the age of 65.

“Medicaid has been working for 52 years, and we need to continue that partnership,” Ness said. “This

child and adolescent psychiatrist at the University of Oklahoma, whose research supports the view that biology, not cultural influence, determines gender identity.

Dr. Sally Satel of the American Enterprise Institute talks about the opioid crisis at a health care symposium Sept. 20 in St. Paul. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit is our decision. This is a choice we’re going to make as a country in the next 11 days around how we care for one another through health care.”

Medicaid reflects Catholic social teaching in principles such as a preferential option for the poor, human dignity and the common good, he said.

State Sen. Michelle Benson, a Republican from Ham Lake and chair of the state Health and Human Services Finance and Policy Committee, offered a contrasting view of government’s role and spending priorities.

When it comes to health care, she said, states should have more control than the federal government. The Affordable Care Act has caused some businesses to close because providing health insurance was unaffordable, she said, and it has granted government too much control in individuals’ health care decisions.

“The Affordable Care Act has destroyed the individual insurance market and left no private path, which is why public programs become so much more important,” Benson said.

She said that efforts have to be taken to address the $20.1 trillion national debt, and that the government “cannot promise everything to everyone forever without ever paying the piper.”

Transgender theory Franciscan Sister Renee Mirkes of the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha, Nebraska, used research on gender dysphoria to explain a Catholic response to secular trends in the area of gender.

She emphasized that gender dysphoria, an inconsistency between a person’s biological sex and his or her subjective experience of his or her gender, is a psychological issue and one that should be treated with therapy, not hormone replacement therapy and surgeries. (Read more about transgender theory on pages 12-13.)

A theological ethicist, Sister Renee outlined the research of Dr. Paul McHugh, under whose direction Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore stopped performing sex reassignment surgeries in the 1980s, and Dr. William Reiner, a

Sister Renee also explored transgender theory as an increasingly important religious liberty and conscience rights issue, and said that more robust conscience protections are needed for medical professionals who object to “transition therapies,” such as prescribing hormoneblocking drugs to a child who wants to live as the opposite sex, as well as for school administrators who don’t think it’s wise to accommodate transgender bathroom and locker room situations.

Opioid epidemic The final topic the symposium explored was the Church’s response to opioid abuse, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Panelist Dr. Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C., said law enforcement has limitations in regulating the crisis, and the medical field feeds the situation by leaning toward prescribing opioids rather than other means of pain treatment. She also said psychiatric issues and other underlying causes can lead to opioid addiction.

Father John Stabeno of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey, touched on that need. It stems from a “spiritual bankruptcy” created by an abandonment of responsibilities, he said.

Father Stabeno, who has worked in the area of addiction for more than 30 years, said it behooves the Church to serve as a “triage” for addicts, often mired in isolation.

State Rep. Dave Baker, whose son died of an opioid overdose in 2016, gave a local and personal perspective on the opioid crisis. He sees legislation as crucial for improving the situation, but he also sees the need for the Church and society to be ready to help addicts.

“If not, we’re going to miss the opportunity,” said Baker, a Republican from Wilmar.

He added that people should not treat addiction as a “moral failing” or the person as a problem to solve.

Adkins told The Catholic Spirit that the symposium was “an opportunity for a start to the conversation” on these issues.

“We know how some of these things have been discussed on the national level; it’s important to bring them down to Minnesota and what do they mean here and how can we as a Church respond,” he said. “Pope Francis is calling us to be a field hospital, and there’s a lot of hurting people on a number of issues.”

The Catholic Spirit • 5 in BRIEF GLENCOE

Police clear Father Devorak Glencoe police have completed an investigation and no charges will be filed against retired New Ulm diocese priest Father James Devorak for a child sexual abuse allegation from 1994. Father Devorak has denied any wrongdoing and the police said that he cooperated fully in the investigation. Father Devorak had been in ministry in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis until the New Ulm diocese removed his authority in July. If the New Ulm diocese reinstates Father Devorak and he wants to return to ministry in the archdiocese, the Ministerial Review Board would review the case and make an independent recommendation regarding his fitness for ministry, according to a statement from the archdiocese.

MINNEAPOLIS

All Saints receives official designation for Latin Massgoers Beginning in November, All Saints will have an official designation as a personal parish for those who prefer Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite. Archbishop Bernard Hebda announced the decision in a Sept. 23 letter to the parish. Since 2013, the parish has been in the care of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, whose priests celebrate the extraordinary form of the Mass, which is in Latin. As a canonical designation, a “personal parish” typically serves a particular ethnic group or rite. Archbishop Hebda said All Saints will continue honoring its Polish heritage, but the new arrangement welcomes Latin Massgoers to join the parish. Pastoral care for all parishioners will continue, and sacraments may also be celebrated in English as requested for individual circumstances. The parish currently offers two Masses in Latin and two Masses in English each weekend. The designation takes effect on the parish’s Nov. 1 feast day.

Risen Christ school honored Risen Christ Catholic School received the La Familia Hispanic Heritage Award Sept. 23 from the Latino American Today newspaper for fostering Hispanic culture and community. Recipients were recognized at the La Familia Latino Family Festival and Expo. Risen Christ President Michael Rogers and staff members, board members and school families attended the ceremony.

ST. PAUL

St. Kate’s security officer shoots self, lies about black assailant St. Paul Police arrested St. Catherine University public safety officer Brent Ahlers, 25, who falsely reported a shooting on the campus Sept. 12. The officer accidentally shot himself in the shoulder with his own handgun, which he was carrying against university policy. The university fired him Sept. 14 for the false report, which included him describing the “shooter” as black. “I want to be clear that St. Catherine University strongly condemns racial discrimination, racial stereotyping and racial profiling of any kind. The statements attributed to the former employee concerning the race of an alleged suspect are deeply troubling and do not reflect our values,” St. Catherine President Becky Roloff said in a Sept. 14 statement.

UST mourns student’s tragic death Students at the University of St. Thomas held a prayer vigil Sept. 21 for junior Ria Patel, who died in a Sept. 17 car crash in northeast Minneapolis. The university also observed a moment of prayer before the Tommie-Johnnie football game Sept. 23. A Hindu funeral was held Sept. 23 at the Anderson Student Center. Police arrested Sept. 19 a 21-year-old male suspect in the crash. He was charged with two counts of vehicular homicide Sept. 20.

6 • The Catholic Spirit

LOCAL

September 28, 2017

Priest: U.S., Church need to deal with racism’s deep roots

By Susan Klemond For The Catholic Spirit The United States will only heal from racism and become a just society when Americans honestly address racism’s underlying causes, Father Bryan Massingale said Sept. 20 in a lecture at St. Catherine University in St. Paul.

“There are many ways to talk about racism as a political issue, a sociological phenomenon [and] a cultural divide, but at its deepest level, racism is a soul sickness,” said Father Massingale, a racial justice scholar and professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University in New York. “It’s a profound warping of the human spirit that enables human communities to create communities of cold, callous indifference to their darker brothers and sisters.”

The lecture, “To Redeem the Soul of America: A Moral Vision for a Movement Against Racism,” was cosponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the Myser Initiative on Catholic Identity at St. Catherine University, and St. Peter Claver parish in St. Paul. The event was part of St. Peter Claver’s 125th anniversary celebration, and the parish’s gospel choir performed before Father Massingale’s presentation. About 850 students, members of at least 25 Catholic parishes and others attended the event or watched nearby on monitors.

The United States hasn’t had an honest reckoning with its history, said Father Massingale, author of “Racial Justice and the Catholic Church” (Orbis, 2010).

Although laws have changed, underlying cultural meanings and values have changed less, leaving racism still entrenched in society, he said. That’s one reason Martin Luther King Jr. called for pulling up the roots of racism to morally and ethically transform American society, he added.

As part of this transformation, he said, the Catholic

Social ethicist Father Bryan Massingale speaks on racism Sept. 20 at St. Catherine University in St. Paul.

Courtesy Ann Papenfuss Church in America needs to see that it remains a predominantly white institution, and it didn’t adequately confront racism in the 20th century.

The country’s post-civil rights period has been short compared to the total history of African-Americans’ experience of inferiority, and pain and injustice remain, Father Massingale said.

If people don’t treat the deeper meaning of racism in the “national soul,” it finds new form and expression, he said.

“At the core of [the] soul of America, there is deep ambivalence on the part of this nation to the condition of African-Americans specifically and people of color in general,” he said.

Although the U.S. Catholic bishops have called racism a “radical evil,” the Church in America hasn’t developed a radical response that employs not only charity but

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justice, Father Massingale said.

America has never had a vision for a racially just society, he said. To contrast, he pointed to King’s vision of people peacefully relating to each other across their differences.

To effectively confront racism, Father Massingale offered several steps, including naming it, humbly asking that it be removed, encountering others who are different and prayer.

“We are healed of our biases only through encounter, and that means putting ourselves in the way of having difficult two-way conversations and not running when they make us uncomfortable,” he said.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda, who led a closing prayer, said he was familiar with Father Massingale’s writing, “but to hear him actually speak in such a provocative way and such a truly Catholic way, that reminds us who we’re supposed to be.”

Attendee Dave Swinarski, 68, agreed that discussing racism can be uncomfortable.

“It’s a step that we can’t fear, because it’s part of who we are,” said Swinarski, a parishioner of St. Joseph in Red Wing. “We need to discuss it and be able to talk about it to all people so that we can be more accepting.”

Corinna Turbes, 30, also attended the lecture. “I’m really interested in how to have these conversations and what are some thoughtful ways to bring up this conversation in a way that really can affect public policy in a meaningful and just light,” she said.

Despite challenges in overcoming racism, Father Massingale said there is reason for hope.

“The society we live in is the result of human choices and decisions,” he said. “This means that human beings can change things. When humans break, divide and separate, we can — with God’s help — also heal, unite and restore. What is now does not have to be. Therein lies our hope and our challenge.”

LOCAL

September 28, 2017

The Catholic Spirit • 7

App, booklet aim to connect football with character

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit Corporate consultant and Catholic Rich Chapman is continuing his effort to bring character and virtue to the football field. His short booklet “The Greater Game” was released last year and distributed to 20 Minnesota high school football teams. The book features quotes from NFL players and coaches, and this football season it has made its way into 160 prep programs, both public and private.

Chapman first delved into writing in 2014 when he co-authored the book “All-Pro Wisdom” (Hidden Creek, 2014) with former NFL and Cretin-Derham Hall High School standout Matt Birk about character and virtue as they relate to football.

The feedback was positive, so Chapman decided to keep going.

Drawing on some of the same sources who appeared in the book, he came out with a smartphone application the following year featuring inspirational quotes from NFL players and coaches, plus further reflections and questions about character. Like the booklet, the app was called “The Greater Game.”

It was designed for high school football players, with coaches brought in to help inspire their team members with the daily messages. One of those coaches, Jeff Ferguson of Totino-Grace High School in Fridley, suggested that Chapman put the messages in print. “‘The Greater Game’ is about what we learn through playing the game,” said

Chapman, a parishioner of Our Lady of Grace in Edina. “It’s not about the game of football, ... it’s about what we learn by playing it. I thought if we could equip a coach with the right messages to create some conversation with young men, it would be a way to shape their lives.”

Reading stats about how influential coaches can be in the lives of young people, Chapman thought it made sense to provide a tool to help coaches influence their players in a positive way.

Starting with football made the most sense, given his background with the sport and the high number of participants.

“Football is unique in that it involves more players than any other sport,” Chapman said. “A lot of these football teams have 60, 80, 100 members.”

This year the booklet is going into the hands of at least 7,000 athletes, more than 25 percent of the state’s high school football players. Some of them play for Catholic schools like TotinoGrace, which started using “The Greater Game” app last year.

“We’ll use that and have one of our players speak about it on a daily basis to our team,” said senior linebacker and team captain Joey Linders, of a routine that takes place at the end of every practice. “I spoke on one [lesson] that was talking about the hard times. It just happened that day that we found out that two of our players can’t play the rest of the year [because of injuries]. So, it coincided with what was actually happening in certain people’s lives.”

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Look for The Catholic Spirit advertising insert from

PROLIFE ACROSS AMERICA in all copies of this issue.

Rich Chapman holds a copy of his new book, which he is distributing to high school football programs in Minnesota. Dave Hrbacek/ The Catholic Spirit Linders’ message that day was a quote from Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, who appears several times in the booklet and was Birk’s coach for several years, including when Baltimore won the Super Bowl in 2013 with Birk as the starting center. Linders told the team that “after the darkest hour is when the light shines the brightest.”

That quote helped the two injured players, both juniors, see that if they do their rehab faithfully, they can get back into the lineup next year to try and shine brightly on the field.

Ferguson said the value of the booklet and the app for him is reinforcing what he and the coaches are saying and doing to build a strong team culture and positive atmosphere.

“It’s nice to have it,” he said. “And,

I’m proud to be part of that [effort to bring it to football teams]. A lot of the stuff we’re doing, we’ve always done.

But, you always look for new ideas, whether it’s new ideas on how to block a play or new ideas on how to reach kids. What’s nice is it’s fresh, it’s daily and even if we don’t bring it up in practice, hopefully kids are looking at it [on their own].”

For the public school teams, it’s a chance to introduce character and virtue to boys who might not be getting those messages at home, Chapman said.

“I want to be in the public schools,” he said. “We want to get to the fringe, we want to get to kids who might be from a broken home, might not go to church.”

As the app and booklet keep catching on in public schools, Chapman hopes to reach more football programs, including those outside of Minnesota.

From there, he wants to expand to other sports and include girl athletes.

Ferguson is on board with the plans for expansion of “The Greater Game.”

“Extend it to girls; I have four kids, three of them are girls,” he said. “I told him [Chapman], ‘Football’s a great place to start. But, don’t end it there. How about basketball, how about soccer?’”

With $500,000 in donations from several local companies, Chapman plans to move forward with his vision, starting by reaching out to prominent male and female athletes in other sports, and then tailoring the app to individual teams.

8 • The Catholic Spirit

LOCAL

September 28, 2017

St. Croix Valley pregnancy center marks 30 years, moves to new location

By Anita Draper Catholic Herald Beginning Oct. 1, as many as 70,000 cars will pass by Options for Women in St. Croix Valley every day.

That’s when Project Life, a pregnancy care center celebrating its 30th anniversary, hopes to move into its new location on Highway 36 in Stillwater.

Re-branded as Options for Women, the center will be visible from the new St. Croix River bridge connecting Minnesota to Wisconsin, which opened Aug. 2.

About 60 percent of the center’s clients are from Minnesota and 40 percent are from Wisconsin, said Executive Director Pat Burns.

“With this new location, we are also expecting an increase of 30 percent in unplanned pregnancy clients reaching out to us on an annual basis,” she said.

The targeted demographic is women between 18 and 24 years old.

“This area will be very visible to that age group,” she added.

Thirty years ago, the center was little more than a place for women to get pregnancy tests; back in August 1987, the director “was operating from her own kitchen table,” said Burns, who has been with the organization for 12 years and has served as director for two years.

Over the years, it has grown and developed, always in response to the needs of its Twin Cities-area clients.

Much of its success Burns attributes to 15 years of volunteer work from its medical director, Dr. Mark Druffner, a parishioner of St. Michael in Stillwater.

“I started when it was called the St. Croix Valley Life Care Center, and that was before they had ultrasound,” Druffner said. With the help of the Hudson Knights of Columbus, the center obtained an ultrasound machine and training to use it; under Druffner’s guidance, its medical services have expanded.

Project Life offers free, confidential and truly comprehensive care. Its objective is to remove any impediments to choosing life, and it also provides support for mothers until their children reach age 2.

Clients have access to pregnancy and STD testing, but also many other resources, including affordable housing; spiritual, emotional and material support; pregnancy and parenting classes; free on-site prenatal care; referrals for addiction treatment; medicine, even if they can’t afford it; and help securing insurance coverage in time for delivery.

“We used to think they just need some baby clothes, and it’s so much more than that,” Burns said.

“Everything that’s been placed in front of us, we’ve tried to address. That’s just what has really inspired me just to meet all of those needs — and certainly there are some things that we can’t provide, but what we can provide is the emotional support and the referrals.”

Sometimes barriers to life “are as simple as, ‘I come

Pat Burns stands in the lobby of Project Life’s new home in Stillwater.

Dave Hrbacek/ The Catholic Spirit from a Catholic family, and I can’t tell my parents,’” Burns said. “We’ll help you tell your parents.”

Recently, the center has offered another service for vulnerable women; Druffner is one of the first doctors in the Midwest to provide abortion pill reversals.

Women who go to Planned Parenthood, for example, and take an abortion pill to end their pregnancies can, if they have a change of heart, go to Druffner for help.

Abortion pills block progesterone receptors between the mother and the baby, Druffner explained. Without progesterone, the baby is aborted. But, if within 12 to 24 hours the mother changes her mind and takes highdose progesterone, it can block the effects and save the pregnancy.

Progesterone can be administered by either injection or tablet; Druffner has been using tablets. Reversals aren’t always successful, he said, but it is a chance to prevent an abortion.

For a pregnancy care center, one challenge of straddling the state line is the law.

“It’s really been important for us to stay on top of both the Minnesota laws and the Wisconsin laws, and to just be that St. Croix Valley voice to serve all the demographics that we work with,” said Burns, a parishioner of St. Patrick in Hudson, Wisconsin.

Another, greater challenge — a difficulty for a number of pro-life resource centers across the Twin Cities metro area — is finding medical help. Burns knows of four centers searching for nurses; one

vacancy has been open for more than a year.

“It’s time to step out of our comfort zones and be bold for the Lord and for the unborn,” she said. “If you have that passion and you are pro-life, ... get involved.”

Druffner echoed that call.

“I would like to encourage and challenge pro-life physicians to get involved as medical directors and not be afraid of it,” he said. “That’s the main limitation, if our doctors aren’t willing to volunteer their time and be available.”

Access to medical care “is the backbone of what we’re doing here,” Burns said. No matter how many programs and curriculums she buys, they would simply not be able to provide the services they do without Druffner’s expertise, she said.

Financial support is one of the center’s greatest needs, Burns said. The center’s leaders have launched a capital campaign to fund the move.

“We’re just so, so excited about this move,” Burns said, adding that she sees the new center as the next step in the progression of the pro-life ministry.

“If you’re not moving forward, you’re stagnant,” she said. “We have had a continuum of growth, and we’re excited about the next 30 years, just continuing the legacy.”

Editor’s note: A version of this story first appeared in the Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin.

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U.S. & WORLD

September 28, 2017

Bishops’ requests on repeal bill go for naught The U.S. bishops’ effort urging senators to protect the poor and amend the Graham-Cassidy bill, meant to replace the Affordable Care Act, became a moot point as opposition to the bill stiffened amid frantic rewriting to get critical senators’ votes and ultimately led to a decision not to vote on it.

By mid-afternoon Sept. 26, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said the measure would not be put to a vote.

Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine said they would not vote for the bill, which doomed the legislation. The bill, which was being considered under budget reconciliation rules, needed only a simple majority to pass. But in addition to the 48 members of the Democratic caucus lined up against it, the three GOP defections made passage unlikely before the Sept. 30 deadline.

“We urge you to think of the harm that will be caused to poor and vulnerable people and amend the legislation while retaining its positive features,” the bishops said in a letter to all U.S. senators dated Sept. 22.

Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana co-sponsored the legislation.

“Without significant improvement, this bill does not meet the moral criteria for health care reform outlined in our previous letters and must be changed,” the bishops said. That criteria includes respect for life and dignity, honoring conscience rights, access for all, and a high-quality plan that is affordable and comprehensive.

The Graham-Cassidy bill would have repealed the ACA and replace it with block grants for the states to spend as they see fit. The block grants’ size, though, would shrink over time and disappear altogether in 2027.

The bishops, in their letter, said the bill’s provisions to restrict federal funds from abortion were “praiseworthy,” because they would “finally address grave moral problems in our current health care system.”

But they took the bill to task for giving block grants to states “in place of premium tax credits, cost-sharing subsidies and the Medicaid expansion,” saying that arrangement would only harm the poor.

The bishops criticized the measure’s Medicaid “per capita cap” because it puts an “insufferable burden” on poor and vulnerable Americans. They did praise the bill for correcting “a serious flaw” in the ACA by ensuring “no federal funds are used for abortion or go to plans that cover it.”

“We also applaud that Graham-Cassidy redirects funds from organizations that provide abortion,” they said. They had called on senators to amend the bill to address its flaws but retain the pro-life provisions.

The letter was signed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of

Vatican signs treaty to ban nuclear weapons amid N. Korea concerns

Demonstrators lie on the floor in protest Sept. 25 as the Senate Finance Committee holds a hearing on the latest Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act on Capitol Hill in Washington. CNS New York, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities; Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the Committee for Religious Liberty; Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, Florida, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; and Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, Texas, chairman of the Committee on Migration.

The bishops’ objections to the bill were voiced by 3,000 religious leaders who signed a letter from the Interfaith Healthcare Coalition opposing the bill.

“As faith leaders, it is our duty to care for and minister to people in our communities. As senators, you have a similar duty to care for your constituents,” said the letter, issued Sept. 25. “Please focus on bipartisanship rather than political posturing, oppose Graham-Cassidy, and extend CHIP and DSH funding.”

CHIP is the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is administered by the Department of Health and Human Services and provides matching funds to states for health insurance to families with children who have incomes that are modest but too high to allow them to qualify for Medicaid. DSH is the Disproportionate Share Hospitals Program, which allows hospitals to get at least partial compensation for treating indigent patients.

Allowing those programs to lapse, the letter said, would “allow the health of America’s most vulnerable people to face unnecessary and immoral obstacles.”

Among the Catholics who signed the letter were Sister Simone Campbell, a Sister of Social Service who is executive director of Network, the Catholic social justice lobby; Holy Cross Sister Joan Marie Steadman, executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious; Mercy Sister Patricia McDermott, president of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas; and Sister Patricia Chappell, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, who is executive director of Pax Christi USA.

Pope expands scope of marriage, family institute To better prepare priests and pastoral workers to help meet the challenges families face today, Pope Francis is strengthening the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family and changing its name to the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for the Sciences of Marriage and Family. The new institution is to expand and deepen the types of courses offered as well as take “an analytical and diversified approach” that allows students to study all aspects and concerns of today’s families while remaining “faithful to the teaching of Christ,” the pope wrote.

The re-foundation of the institute was issued “motu proprio,” on the pope’s own accord, in an apostolic letter, “Summa Familiae Cura” (“Great Care for the Family”). Dated Sept. 8, the feast of the

in BRIEF VATICAN CITY

By Julie Asher Catholic News Service

Catholic News Service

The Catholic Spirit • 9

Nativity of Mary, the letter was released at the Vatican Sept. 19. The original institute for studies on marriage and the family was established by St. John Paul II in 1982, after the 1980 Synod of Bishops on the family called for the creation of centers devoted to the study of the Church’s teaching on marriage and the family. While the central institute is based in Rome, there are branches around the world, including in the United States at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Given the newer gatherings of the Synod of Bishops on the family, those held in 2014 and 2015, and their call for a more pastoral and missionary approach to modern family life, Pope Francis wrote there is a need for greater reflection and academic formation in a “pastoral perspective and attention to the wounds of humanity” while keeping the original inspiration for the old institute alive.

The Holy See ratified and signed the new U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and the high-level Vatican diplomat who signed the treaty told a U.N. conference that the Catholic Church supports efforts “to move progressively toward a world free of nuclear weapons.”

Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Vatican foreign minister, signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations Sept. 20.

In a statement, he said, “The rising tensions over North Korea’s growing nuclear program are of special urgency.” More than 40 other countries also signed it. The treaty would enter into force 90 days after at least 50 countries both sign and ratify it. It bans testing and efforts to develop, produce, manufacture, acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons o r other nuclear explosive devices. The United States and other countries possessing nuclear weapons did not take part in the negotiations and do not plan to sign the treaty.

WASHINGTON

Vatican diplomat recalled from U.S. during child-porn investigation A member of the Vatican diplomatic corps serving in Washington has been recalled to the Vatican where he is involved in a criminal investigation involving child pornography. The Vatican press office said Sept. 15 that it was notified Aug. 21 by the U.S. State Department “of a possible violation of laws relating to child pornography images by a member of the diplomatic corps of the Holy See accredited to Washington.” The Vatican said the priest’s identity and other details are covered by “investigative confidentiality” during the preliminary investigation stage. The Vatican yearbook lists the nuncio, Archbishop Christoph Pierre, and three priests — an Indian and two Italians — as making up the diplomatic staff at the Washington nunciature. After receiving the notification from the State Department, the Vatican said, “the Secretariat of State transmitted this information to the promoter of justice of the Vatican tribunal.”

The promoter of justice is the Vatican’s chief prosecutor. “The promoter of justice opened an investigation and has already commenced international collaboration to obtain elements relative to the case,” the Vatican said.

— Catholic News Service

10 • The Catholic Spirit

U.S. & WORLD

September 28, 2017

Martyred priest ‘always served those most in need’

By Tony Gutierrez Catholic News Service Wearing a red and black traditional Guatemalan shirt that had belonged to martyred U.S. priest Father Stanley Rother, Ronald Arteaga traveled from his village of Santiago Atitlan to witness the Sept. 23 beatification of the pastor he knew as “Padre Aplas.”

Even though Arteaga was only 10 when now-Blessed Rother was martyred in 1981, he remembers “he was always with the people of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, and more than that, he identified with our indigenous population.”

The sleeves on Arteaga’s shirt had to be rolled up because, as he recalled, Blessed Rother was a tall man.

“He learned to speak Tz’utujil, the language of my people, and he always served the people most in need,” Arteaga said.

When Blessed Rother was killed, Arteaga recalled, it “broke the hearts of the entire village,” but “we had hope that he would receive this honor, and thanks be to God that this day has arrived.”

An estimated 20,000 packed the Cox Convention Center from across the country and throughout the world to witness the beatification of the native Oklahoman who would become the first U.S.-born martyr. Ordained for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City in 1963, Blessed Rother went to the archdiocesan mission in Santiago Atitlan. He was gunned down in his rectory by three masked men in 1981.

Pope Francis recognized the priest’s martyrdom last December, making him the first martyr born in the United States and clearing the way for his beatification.

“We’re amazed at the size of the crowd and delighted so many people are interested in celebrating his life,” said Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City during a media availability. “He’s a local hero whose reputation goes far beyond Oklahoma.”

Father Don Wolf, a cousin of Blessed Rother, made an appeal for continued support of the missions the martyr served in Santiago Atitlan and Cerro de Oro. “For the people of his parish in Santiago Atitlan and Cerro de Oro and all of us here in Oklahoma, he has led our eyes unwaveringly to the kingdom of God,” Father Wolf said.

It was for Father Wolf’s ordination in May 1981 that Blessed Rother made his last visit to the United States, which Father Wolf said is a distinction that links his priesthood to his cousin’s.

“At ordination they invoke the saints; ... at my ordination we had one,” Father Wolf said. “It’s an enormous inspiration and an enormous challenge — the kind of service his priesthood embodied is the kind of service that I strive to.”Francisco “Chico” Chavajay, program coordinator for Unbound Project in Guatemala, was only 1 when Blessed Rother was killed, but grew up in San Pedro, which is near Santiago

A reliquary holding a relic of Blessed Stanley Rother is seen during his beatification Mass Sept. 23 at Oklahoma City’s Cox Convention Center. CNS

Watch a video interview with Archbishop Harry Flynn about his friendship with Blessed Rother at www.TheCatholicSpirit.com.

Atitlan, knowing who “Padre Alpas” was and the impact he had on the community.

“My family benefited from the hospital he founded because one of my sisters went to the hospital when I was 8 years old, and we didn’t have access to a closer hospital,” Chavajay recalled. “If it wasn’t for his work, it would probably have been a different story for my sister.”

Chavajay now works for Unbound, a U.S.-based organization founded in 1981 by five lay Catholics, including one who had worked with Blessed Rother in Guatemala. Unbound works with children and the elderly in poor and marginalized communities throughout the world. In Guatemala, Chavajay is responsible for serving more than 60,000 families.

“For us, he’s like an angel we have in heaven to support this cause,” Chavajay said. “We feel that Padre Aplas’ hand and prayers in heaven are helping guide us in this life to continue bringing the Gospel and salvation to our brothers and sisters in need.”

Seminarians Estevan Wetzel and Ian Wintering from the Diocese of Phoenix traveled to the beatification with a group of fellow seminarians attending St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver. They were introduced to Blessed Rother’s story through their Oklahoma brothers.

“His ordinary ‘yeses’ came with a great faith that at the end allowed him to receive a martyr’s crown,”

Wetzel said.

Seminarians from Phoenix typically complete their Spanish immersion program in Antigua, Guatemala, which is near the Santiago Atitlan mission. Wintering hopes to visit Blessed Rother’s shrine when he studies there next summer. He said he pulls inspiration from the slain priest’s “humility and simplicity.”

“I know how broken I am, and how humble he was,” Wintering reflected. “I seek his intercession because being a ‘nobody’ priest, he rose to glory by following God’s will, and I hope to do that in my own nothingness.”

Sister Gabina Colo, local superior of the Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist in Houston, brought her community to the beatification.

“He was a missionary in Guatemala — he gave his whole life to the people of Guatemala,” Sister Gabina said. “Since we’re from Guatemala, it encourages us to be missionaries here in the United States, so we can follow his example.”

Father Guillermo Trevino traveled from the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, for the beatification. Serving in an area that relies heavily on agriculture, Father Trevino was impressed by Blessed Rother’s “ordinariness.” The future martyr was raised on his family’s farm.

“The thing is he was so ordinary, but he had great gifts. In Guatemala he’d be working the farm,” said Father Trevino, finding inspiration in his example. In particular, he pointed to a line the late priest uttered that illustrates the devotion he had to his flock: “The shepherd cannot run.” “Can I do this?” Father Trevino said he has asked himself.

Dolores Mendoza Cervantes knew Padre Aplas in Santiago Atitlan. Her father, Juan Mendoza Lacan, helped him to translate the Bible into Tz’utujil, and was himself killed less than a year later on June 22, 1982. Cervantes came to the U.S. at 16 because she had threats on her own life, but pointed out as a result of their efforts, “all the newer generations can read the language.”

She now lives in Danube, California, with her husband, Robert Cervantes. They said the government at the time considered teaching the Tz’utujil to read a threat.

“Father Stanley and my father-in-law were brave enough to stand up to them,” Robert said. “They knew they were going to be killed someday, but that didn’t stop them from translating the Bible into Tz’utujil.”

Chris Heiman, 60, was among Catholics who traveled from Minnesota for the beatification. A parishioner of St. Mathias in Hampton, Heiman accompanied Maralee Rother, 88, whose late husband was a second cousin of Father Rother.

“It was so amazing to see so many people come together for the life of one man,” Heiman said.

— The Catholic Spirit contributed to this story

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U.S. & WORLD

September 28, 2017

The Catholic Spirit • 11

Cardinal Dolan: Honesty about Church’s flaws might win back fallen-away members

By Peter Finney Jr. Catholic News Service New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan suggested to more than 400 priests of the state of Louisiana that humbly and openly sharing the “wounds” and shortcomings of the Church might bring those who are alienated back to the practice of the faith.

Using the image of the Church as “our supernatural family, which we, as priests, are called to image,” Cardinal Dolan told the opening session of the threeday Louisiana Priests’ Convention that human weakness has been a part of the Church from the beginning.

“The Church is not just our family — it’s also a dysfunctional family,” he said Sept. 19 during what is one of the largest statewide gatherings of priests in the U.S. “Everybody today talks about dysfunctional families. Have you ever met a functional one?”

Cardinal Dolan, who spoke on the theme of “Shepherding Today as Priest, Prophet and King,” said in the jubilee year of 2000, St. John Paul II “apologized publicly” 54 times for “the specific sins of the Church.”

“That’s more than once a week,” Cardinal Dolan said.

“And Pope Francis surely has done so.”

The cardinal said while the world is “ever ready to headline the flaws of the Church,” the dynamic changes when “her loyal members are more than willing to own up to them.”

If that happens, people estranged from the Church “might just take a second look,” he said.

“Their favorite caricature of the Church is as a corrupt, arrogant, self-righteous, judgmental hypocrite,” Cardinal Dolan said. “I sure don’t have any problem admitting that, at times, it can be tough to love the Church because of her imperfections. The mystical body of Christ has lots of warts.”

However, Cardinal Dolan noted, it is clear from the

Acts of the Apostles, in particular the conversion of St. Paul, that “Jesus Christ and his Church are inseparable.”

When Saul was blinded and knocked off his horse on his way to Damascus the voice he heard was, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

“He didn’t say, ‘Why do you persecute my people?’ Nope. ‘My followers?’ Nope. ‘My disciples?’

Nope. To be rather blunt, Jesus and his Church are the same. Christ and his Church are one. Jesus Christ and his Church are synonymous,” the cardinal said.

Cardinal Timothy “My brother priests, as we DOLAN consider the priesthood, preserving the unity of Christ and his Church is perhaps the most significant pastoral challenge we shepherds face today,” Cardinal Dolan said. “I’m not telling you anything [new] — you’re all on the front lines. The dominant opinion and sentiment that we face today is, ‘We want Christ; we want nothing to do with that stupid Church.’”

A YouTube video by evangelical Jefferson Bethke — “Why I hate religion but love Jesus”— “went viral with 27 million views” because of that sentiment, he said.

“Such is the popular and the successful crusade now to annul the spousal bond between Christ and his bride, the Church,” Cardinal Dolan said. “We hear this all the time, right? ‘I prefer spirituality to religion; I want the Lord as my shepherd, as long as I’m the only one there; I want Christ as my king in a kingdom of one; I’ll believe, I won’t belong; God is my father, and I’m the only child; Jesus is my general, but there’s no army.’

They want Christ without his Church.”

Cardinal Dolan said Pope Francis has made it clear

that a Christian cannot be “a nomad” but is someone who “belongs to a people, the Church. A Christian without a Church is something purely idealistic.”

“We live in a world that often considers belief in God a private hobby, at best, a dangerous ideology, at worst,” Cardinal Dolan said. “The Church is considered superstitious, irrational, backwards, useless, counterproductive, out of it. So, what do we do, my fellow museum pieces?”

Cardinal Dolan suggested to the 435 priests that they evangelize by developing “a theology and a practice of the Church as a family.” He said it’s not a new idea; it’s one that also resonates with the Jewish community, which is experiencing similar challenges of keeping young people within the practice of their faith.

Cardinal Dolan said the late New York newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin once wrote: “We Catholics might not be very good at being members of the Church, but we never leave. We’re all just one chest pain away from going back.”

“Not anymore, I’m afraid,” Cardinal Dolan said. “I don’t know about you, but every time the Pew Research Center puts out a new study, every time CARA (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate) announces more statistics, I, as a priest, a shepherd, a prophet and a king, hold my breath because the percentage of people who claim to be ex-Catholic or ‘none’ rises a couple of points.”

If people with a cynical or jaded view of the Church experience priests who “prize honesty and humility” and are “contrite and eager” to reform the flaws of the Church, then they may begin to view the Church as “a warm, tender, inviting family.”

“If we’re not afraid as priests to show our wounds — the wounds of the Church, the wounds of our family — maybe the other wounded will come back,” Cardinal Dolan said.

Group issues what it calls ‘filial correction’ of pope’s teaching

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service Several dozen priests, scholars and writers have published what they described as a “filial correction” of some of Pope Francis’ teachings about marriage — ­ particularly about access to the sacraments for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics. The letter originally was signed by 40 people and delivered to Pope Francis in August; the writers said they did not receive a response, so they released it publicly Sept. 24.

The Vatican press office had no comment about the letter.

U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, former

head of the Vatican’s top court, and German Cardinal Walter Brandmuller, former president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, did not sign the letter. Along with two other cardinals who are now deceased, they publicly released in September 2016 a critical set of questions, known as “dubia,” that they had sent to Pope Francis about his teaching on the family.

The new letter accuses Pope Francis of “the propagation of heresies effected by the apostolic exhortation ‘Amoris Laetitia’ and by other words, deeds and omissions of Your Holiness.”

“Amoris Laetitia” is the document

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Pope Francis released in 2016 reflecting on the discussions and conclusions of the meetings in 2014 and 2015 of the Synod of Bishops on the family. In the document, Pope Francis affirmed Church teaching that the sacrament of marriage is the bond of one man and one woman united for life and open to having children. However, the document also encouraged parishes and priests to reach out to couples whose marriages have failed, reminding them that they have not been excommunicated.

In “Amoris Laetitia,” Pope Francis asked pastors: to accompany those who have remarried civilly; to check if their

sacramental marriage was valid or if they could receive a decree of nullity; and to lead them in a process of discernment about their responsibility for the breakup and about their current situation in light of Church teaching. The document seemed to open the possibility — in certain cases and after the discernment process — of allowing them to receive absolution and Communion even without promising to abstain from sexual relations with their new partner.

The “filial correction” lists what its authors see as seven “false and heretical propositions” in “Amoris Laetitia” and asks the pope to reject them publicly.

12 • The Catholic Spirit

B

efore Oct. 14, 2015, Emily Zinos admits she didn’t give much thought to transgenderism. At that point in time, the mother of seven and parishioner of Holy Family in St. Louis Park considered the ideology, which advances the claim that gender and sexual identity are not inherently tied to biological sex, to be a “fringe issue.” In her estimation, it was something that played out in celebrity tabloids and progressive academic circles, but certainly had no direct impact on her or her family.

An email from the principal of Nova Classical Academy, a public charter school in St. Paul where Zinos and her husband, Nick, enrolled several of their children at the time, announced that was about to change.

Under pressure from the parents of a newly enrolled kindergarten student who claimed to be “gender nonconforming,” the grade school principal announced that Nova would be “taking steps to support [the new student]” by introducing transgender ideology into the classroom. Through books like “My Princess Boy,” children as young as 5 would be introduced to the idea that their sexual identity was independent of their biological sex.

The decision, made with no prior notification to parents despite Nova’s long-standing record of parental involvement in curriculum selection, quickly divided the tight-knit school community. Parents like Zinos protested, but the Nova administration remained steadfast. School officials said they were legally obligated to accommodate the requests of the new kindergartner’s parents. The school paid for transgender ideology training for teachers and provided presentations for parents. Eventually, Nova adopted a “gender inclusion policy” that mirrored the recommendations of transgender activists.

Emily and Nick had a deep affinity for Nova, and had sent their children to the charter school for 13 years since it first began operating. But the were not willing to subject their kids to what they considered a warped vision of human sexuality. With heavy hearts, they joined several other parents and pulled their kids out of the school.

“I had no idea that [transgender ideology] would move so powerfully or so quickly into my family’s life,” Zinos said.

No longer fringe Zinos’ surprise is understandable. Only five years ago, if a male kindergarten student were to claim he was a girl, his behavior would have been classified as “gender identity disorder” according to the then-current edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, known as the DSM. At the time, the DSM considered gender identity disorder to be a mental health condition to be treated, not an identity to be affirmed.

But in its most recent edition of the DSM, published in 2013, the APA replaced “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria.” The change stressed that the incongruence between biological sex and gender identity should no longer be considered a disorder, and was only a mental health concern if it caused “distress.” If a patient exhibits gender dysphoria, the APA now recommends “gender-affirming therapy,” a “therapeutic stance that focuses on affirming a patient’s gender identity and does not try to ‘repair’ it.” “Gender-affirming therapy” includes options up to and including hormone treatment and sex re-assignment surgery.

The APA’s shift, which came after transgender activists petitioned for changes to the DSM, correlates with the rapid and widespread ascendancy of transgender ideology in American society, culture and law over the past few years.

In June 2014, Time magazine declared in its cover story that transgenderism was “America’s next civil rights frontier.” Transgender ideology is portrayed as the new normal throughout pop culture, be it through positive characterizations in television programs like Amazon Studios’ “Transparent” and Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black,” or profiles of “trans” people by publications as varied as Glamour and Sports Illustrated. Target, which announced in 2016 that customers and employees would be able to use whatever bathroom facility “corresponds to their gender identity,” now sells “preferred pronoun” buttons so individuals can convey the pronoun with which they prefer to be addressed, independent of their biological sex.

Transgender ideology has also been normalized through legal and political channels. Among other moves, the Obama administration included transgender hormone treatment and sex-reassignment surgery as required coverage options for health insurers receiving federal financial assistance, removed restrictions on transgendered individuals from serving openly in the armed forces, and pressured public schools into accommodating transgender students’ bathroom preferences at the risk of losing federal funding.

Although the Trump administration rolled back some of these provisions, pending court cases could solidify their standing, establishing a constitutional right to gender self-determination and mandating an accommodation. In other cases, government entities may feel emboldened by the Obama administration’s advancement of transgender ideology.

For instance, the Minnesota Department of Education has approved the use of a “transgender toolkit,” a 29-page document including many of the Obama administration’s transgender guidelines for public schools. Despite public opposition to the “toolkit” and the fact that the Obama executive order is no longer in effect, the department is supporting the document’s use in Minnesota public schools.

Switchin

Transgender ideolo

By Jonathan Liedl • F

Rejection of a gift This explosion of transgender ideology into mainstream politics and culture may be a relatively new phenomenon, but according to Jason Adkins, executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the deeper agenda driving it is not.

“Transgender ideology is the latest part of the push to create a gender-neutral society,” said Adkins, whose work promoting the public policy initiatives of Minnesota’s bishops has underscored the expansion of transgender ideology in state politics. Adkins cites same-sex marriage and so-called “third-wave feminism” as other currents in this movement, which he said seek to “erase all societal distinctions based on sex,” replacing them with a concept of sex as something interchangeable and subjectively determined.

Such a view of human sexuality, Adkins said, is rooted in a “false anthropology” that gets who we are wrong, and therefore distorts one’s relationship with God. “Transgender ideology rejects the truth that we are a body-soul composite, and that our biological sex is not incidental to who we are as people, but is a gift from God,” he said. The Catechism of the Catholic Church underscores this truth, teaching in paragraph 2392 that each individual’s personal dignity is derived from his or her created status as a man or woman.

“Each of them, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept [his or her] sexual identity,” the Catechism teaches.

Pope Francis has frequently condemned transgender ideology, characterizing it as an exploitation of the human person as God created him or her, and “the annihilation of man as the image of God.” And there are those in the scientific community who share Pope Francis’ negative assessment of the claims of transgender activists.

The American College of Pediatricians, a group of predominantly Christian doctors who work with children, released a review of scientific studies surrounding transgenderism, and found that the clinical approach advanced by activists and increasingly adopted by mental health practitioners “is founded upon an unscientific gender ideology, lacks an evidence base, and violated the long-standing ethical principle of ‘first do no harm.’”

Other critics of transgender ideology from the scientific community include Dr. Paul McHugh, who served as the psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where sex-reassignment surgery was pioneered.

Johns Hopkins abandoned the practice after research found that it was not improving the mental health of patients, and McHugh continues to speak out against it as a solution to what he maintains is a psychological disorder.

When it comes to gender dysphoria and children, McHugh frequently cites research that shows that most — as high as 80 to 95 percent — of such children grow out of feeling that their biological sex doesn’t correspond to their perceived gender. A 2016 article he co-authored in

“The New Atlantis” stated, “...there is little evidence that the phenomenon of transgender identity has a biological basis. There is also little evidence that gender identity issues have a high rate of persistence in children. ... There is a clear need for more research in these areas, and for parents and therapists to acknowledge the great uncertainty regarding how to interpret the behavior of these children.”

Proponents of transgender ideology argue that they are promoting a liberated understanding of sexuality, one that frees individuals from repressive societal dictates. But Catholic experts point out that this view extends from a flawed understanding of human freedom.

“This is a freedom separated from truth,” said Father John Floeder, a professor of moral theology at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. “It evacuates the world of objective meaning and goodness.”

Father Floeder also argues that despite transgender activists’ assertions that “they do not define what a person is or what they should do,” transgender ideology implicitly advances the normative idea that each and every human being “has the freedom to define [him or herself],” a deeply flawed conception of human nature.

September 28, 2017 • 13

ng sexes?

ogy and the Church

For The Catholic Spirit

iStock/MHJ

Reshaping society Pope Francis has characterized this coercive tendency of the transgender movement as a form of “ideological colonization,” in which influential countries spread transgender ideology by tying it to incentives like foreign aid.

But this dynamic also plays out within a country itself.

Institutions and individuals in America face increasing pressure to accommodate transgender ideology — or risk serious professional and economic backlash.

North Carolinians found this out in 2016. After lawmakers passed a measure that, among other things, would require municipalities to conduct bathroom usage based on the given sex of individuals, the Tarheel state found itself in the midst of a high-level, highly coordinated boycott. Bruce Springsteen and other bigname musicians canceled concerts. Gov. Mark Dayton barred Minnesota state employees from making workrelated trips to North Carolina. PayPal pulled-back a planned 400 employee expansion into the state, and sports organizations like the NBA and NCAA canceled major national events.

One estimate placed the total amount of revenue lost

due to this backlash at just over $395 million. Under this staggering financial pressure, the North Carolina legislature acquiesced, and repealed parts of the controversial bill in April.

MCC’s Adkins doesn’t find such developments surprising. “Transgender activists are very strategic, very organized, very well-funded, and they know how to work within institutions,” he said. He also points to a new wrinkle in their advocacy —the emergence of what has been called “cultural cronyism,” or the alliance between progressive social causes with large corporations.

“The shock and awe of cultural cronyism makes it difficult to speak out,” he added, noting that “fear of being labeled a ‘bigot’ shuts down critical thinking and common sense.”

This dynamic may be playing out within the mental health professional community in Minnesota. Several Catholic therapists and counselors in the Twin Cities were contacted for this story, and while each acknowledged their concerns with transgender ideology and its widespread acceptance among the top levels of the mental health community, none of them were willing to go on the record, for fear of professional repercussions.

According to Adkins, this type of unspoken coercion played a role in the Minnesota State High School League’s December 2014 decision to pass a “transgender student athlete policy,” opening the door for students to compete on gendered sports teams based on their perceived sexual identity as opposed to their biological sex. Despite serious public resistance to the proposal, the MSHSL passed the measure by a 19-1 vote, with only a narrow exemption secured for private Catholic schools.

Adkins noted that the athletic directors who supported the measure were not necessarily dyed-in-the-wool progressive activists, but were in many ways pressured by the fear of litigation. This pressure has also likely contributed to decisions by groups like the Boy Scouts to admit members based on subjective sexual identity, Adkins said.

“We’ve reached a cultural tipping point, where reasoned arguments about policy carry no weight with even normally, fairly well-educated folks,” he noted.

And there may be implications for Catholic institutions ahead. As the conversation concerning transgenderism shifts from mere legal equity to mandated accommodation, as it has, for instance, with same-sex marriage, Adkins points out that the Church will increasingly come in the movement’s cross-hairs. For example, Catholic hospitals could risk losing federal funding if they refuse to perform sex reassignment surgeries. Catholic colleges could also face similar repercussions if they require students to live in dormitories that correspond to their given sex.

In many cases, such as the MSHSL transgender policy, religious freedom exemptions allow Catholic entities to operate in a way that is faithful to an authentic understanding of human sexuality. But Adkins pointed out how fragile these can be.

“People should not feel comfortable [about the exemptions holding up],” he said. “Federal First Amendment protections have been gutted, and people are at the mercy of what state constitutions and state legislatures create or determine.”

While the broader culture may not yet subscribe to gender ideology hook, line and sinker, Adkins notes that the window for action is closing, and politicians are hesitant to increase religious liberty protections.

“Religious liberty is now a dirty word,” he said, arguing that Republican politicians’ reticence to taking stances for traditional sexual ethics can be connected to the business community’s growing alliance with progressive social causes. “No one wants to touch this issue with a 20-foot pole.”

Souls at stake As a longtime hospital chaplain at North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale and now pastor of St. Paul in Ham Lake, Father Jim Livingston knows transgenderism is an issue with which Catholics are wrestling. He’s had recent conversations with parents of a transgender adult, parents of a child with gender dysphoria and a teacher of a transgender student. All want to do what’s best for the individuals struggling with their gender identities and their families, while affirming their Catholic beliefs in the good of creation and the immutability of gender.

In his work as chaplain, Father Livingston also ministered to men and women he suspected of being transgender, although none raised the subject in their conversations, he said.

Father Livingston is concerned about the social and moral impacts of a transgender ideology that tries to coerce people into recognizing a biological man as a woman, and vice versa. He finds this especially troubling with children. It’s confusing for young people’s formation to be compelled to acknowledge a person is a gender that’s different from his or her sex, he said.

“Children have the right not to be exposed to a world full of lies, and I do believe it’s a lie to accommodate a person’s perception of themselves [as the opposite sex] in a public manner,” he said.

He is also troubled that people who resist the cultural pressure to affirm and embrace the new transgender ideology risk their jobs and professional opportunities, and he acknowledged that people who feel this pressure are put in difficult situations. He thinks that shouldn’t be the case.

“It’s like the story of the emperor without any clothes,” he said. “Everybody accommodated the emperor’s perception, except for one person [who] said finally, ‘That’s crazy,’ and it fell like a house of cards.”

Adkins said his deepest worries about transgender ideology hinge on its potential to alienate people from a right relationship with the creator God. He is concerned for individuals who are rejecting the gift of their Godgiven biological sex and, in doing so, may also be pulling away from the life of grace.

“We’re losing souls,” Adkins said. “People are mutilating themselves, they’re sterilizing themselves, and they’re in despair. They’re cutting off their connection to grace.

Wittingly or unwittingly, they’re rejecting God’s plan.

Those struggling with gender dysphoria urgently need our prayers.”

And the data suggest that the reach of transgender ideology is growing. According to the Williams Institute at The University of California, Los Angeles, 1.4 million adults in the U.S. now identify as transgendered, double the number from five years ago.

The exponential growth of those identifying as transgendered substantiates claims that transgenderism may be acting as a “social contagion,” a behavior that becomes more widely adopted as it becomes visible. There have been multiple reports of entire peer groups making pacts to “transition” together. Zinos, the mother who pulled her kids out of Nova Classical Academy, noted that shortly after the school welcomed and accommodated the transgender kindergartner, another elementary school student claimed that she was transgendered and is receiving treatment accordingly.

Adkins said that the lay faithful are looking to the Church for guidance, pointing out that one of the most continuously visited pages on the Minnesota Catholic Conference’s website is an article from 2014 entitled “Transgender person, human dignity and our response.”

“This issue speaks to the very heart of the human person,” he said. “We’re way behind on helping people understand how the way they’ve been created is a gift to be cherished and stewarded, not a problem to be overcome. Until people acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and we are not, we’re not going to get anywhere.” Adkins added that the Church needs to get better at speaking to people’s hearts, rather than just their minds, and that Catholics can help demonstrate the truth of the gift of sexuality by living it out in credible and creative ways. The Church’s response to the sexual revolution, including teachings such as St. John Paul II’s theology of the body, is a rich foundation, but he believes it now needs to be applied more explicitly to the specific challenge of transgender ideology.

Father Floeder agrees that it will take more than words to present a compelling alternative to transgender ideology. “We need to reject and argue against these ideologies, but at the same time, we also need to understand and reach out to individuals.”

— Maria Wiering contributed to this story Read more about Emily Zinos’ work with Ask Me First, an organization fighting transgender ideology, at www.TheCatholicSpirit.com.

14 • The Catholic Spirit

FAITH & CULTURE

September 28, 2017

Abortion survivor, St. Gianna’s daughter among October pro-life speakers

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit In 1977, Melissa Ohden survived a failed saline infusion abortion.

“Four days I soaked in that toxic salt solution,” said Ohden in testimony in Washington before a U.S. House of Representatives committee in 2015. “On the fifth day of that procedure, my biological mother, a 19-year-old college student, delivered after her labor was induced. I should have been delivered dead that day as a successful abortion.”

Two nurses at St. Luke’s Hospital in Sioux City, Iowa, where the failed abortion was performed, gave Ohden medical care to survive, according to Ohden’s House testimony. Ohden said she later learned from another nurse there that her medical care was an anomaly; nurses were typically required to leave babies from failed abortions in a formaldehyde bucket.

Ohden is among speakers who will be presenting at pro-life events in the Twin Cities in October, designated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as Respect Life Month. Other speakers include a former abortionproviding doctor, a daughter of a saint and a pro-life college leader.

Ohden will present at the WomenSource gala Oct. 6 in Brooklyn Park. Dr. Anthony Levatino, who quit performing abortions in 1985, will speak at the Pro-Life Action Ministries banquet Oct. 9 in St. Paul. Dr. Gianna Emanuela Molla, a daughter of St. Gianna Molla, will speak at the Gianna Homes Oct. 27 banquet in Minneapolis and an Oct. 28 symposium on end-of-life issues in St. Paul. Maddie Schulte, a 2014 St. John Paul II Champions for Life award winner, will speak at the annual awards banquet Oct. 27 at St. Peter in Mendota.

Jean Stolpestad, director of the Office of Marriage, Family and Life for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, said she encourages Catholics to take advantage of the impressive local lineup of speakers.

“Hearing the beautiful witness of our brothers and sisters vivifies our actions and connects us to each other in the body of Christ,” she said. “It enables us to respond to others with joy and love with a purity of intention.”

Abortion survivor Ohden started the Abortion Survivors Network in 2012 to provide education on failed abortions and its survivors. The organization also offers support for abortion survivors.

She wrote a book on her experience as a survivor, “You Carried Me: A Daughter’s Memoir” (Plough Publishing House, 2017), which details her journey to find her biological parents and offer them forgiveness.

Ohden told the House committee that the abortion was “forced upon her [mother] against her will” and that her maternal grandmother, a nurse, did the delivery. After discovering Ohden’s survival, “she [the grandmother] demanded that I be left to die.”

Ohden’s pro-life work has led to appearances with

control,” Levatino said. “In those nine years, I saved hundreds of women from life-threatening pregnancies, and I did that by delivering them — by ending their pregnancy by delivery — either [by] induction or cesarean section.”

He never needed to kill a baby in the process, he said.

A saint’s daughter

Dr. Gianna Emanuela Molla, daughter of St. Gianna Beretta Molla, greets Pope Francis at the Festival of Families during the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia in 2015. Molla is among pro-life leaders speaking at events in the Twin Cities next month. CNS file photo media outlets including Fox News and Eternal Word Television Network. She holds a master’s degree in social work and works with people who have experienced domestic violence, sexual assault, mental health issues and substance abuse. Her presentation at the WomenSource gala benefits the Anoka-based pregnancy center.

Doctor’s conversion Levatino, who will speak at the event benefiting St. Paul-based Pro-Life Action Ministries, said he could never look at abortion the same after his daughter Heather’s death in 1984.

A board certified obstetrician-gynecologist, Levatino performed more than 1,200 abortions between 1977 and 1985 in New York and Florida. His abortion procedures included second-trimester saline abortions and dilation and evacuation abortions.

In a 2016 interview with pro-life nonprofit Live Action, Levatino said he continued performing abortions after Heather was killed by a car at age 5. His view started to change, however, after performing a routine dilation and evacuation abortion, when he paused after he had finished.

“I really, for the first time in my career, looked at that pile of baby parts sitting on a table,” Levatino told Live Action. “All I could see was somebody’s son or daughter, and suddenly this was looking really different to me.”

Levatino, who became pro-life in the following months, became even more convinced of his principles while working with high-risk pregnancies in Albany, New York, for almost a decade after he quit performing abortions.

“We hear all the time how abortion, especially lateterm abortion, is necessary to save women’s lives.

Nothing could be further from the truth,” Levatino told Live Action.

“I saw hundreds of really severe pregnancy complications — cancers, heart disease, intractable diabetes out of control, toxemia pregnancy out of

Gianna Emanuela Molla, who will speak for two Gianna Homes events, has dedicated her life to speaking of her mother, St. Gianna Molla.

An Italian medical doctor, St. Gianna experienced pregnancy complications with her fourth child in 1961 and had been advised by her doctor to have an abortion, since the pregnancy threatened her life. She decided to continue the pregnancy and risk her life for the child. She died in 1962 a week after giving birth to a daughter, Gianna Emanuela.

St. John Paul II canonized St. Gianna in 2004 for her heroism in that decision and her holy life. After her father’s death in 2010, the daughter, Dr. Gianna Emanuela Molla, a geriatric doctor who had stepped away from her profession to care for her father, began speaking around the world about her saintly mother.

She will be the keynote speaker at an Oct. 27 gala supporting the Minnetonka-based memory care residences Gianna Homes, which was named for her mother. She will also be the keynote speaker the following day at “Take My Hand, Not My Life,” a symposium with two panel discussions on end-of-life issues. The panel lineup includes University of St. Thomas philosophy professor Michael Degnan, Patheos writer Dr. Tod Worner, St. Mary’s University of Minnesota theology associate professor Susan WindleyDaoust and Mother Maria Francis of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The symposium is being organized in collaboration with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota Catholic Conference, Curatio, Catholic Medical Association and the Order of Malta’s Minnesota Delegation.

Champions for Life winner returns A former St. John Paul II Champions for Life award winner will speak at the annual award banquet sponsored by the Office of Marriage, Family and Life.

Maddie Schulte, a 2014 recipient, has been active in the pro-life movement since 2010. Schulte founded a pro-life group at Mahtomedi High School and became the president of the pro-life club at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, where she plans to complete degrees in business management and political science in 2018.

Schulte serves as a regional coordinator for Students for Life of America. She also gives pro-life presentations and volunteers with pregnancy resource centers.

“Since she was a young girl she has outwardly lived her conviction that all life is sacred,” Stoplestad said of Schulte. “Maddie is one of our homegrown heroes for life.”

How to have hope: Pope Francis gives point-by-point guide

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service Young people should love, believe and follow their dreams, never despairing because Jesus is always with them, Pope Francis said Sept. 20 during his weekly general audience in Vatican City. Continuing his series of audience talks on Christian hope, the pope gave extensive advice on how to teach people, especially young people, to remain full of hope. No matter “where God has planted you, hope. Always hope,” he said, offering the following advice: • Enemy No. 1 is not out there somewhere, but inside oneself. “Don’t make room for bitter or dark thoughts.”

• “Believe in the existence of the most noble and beautiful truths” and trust that God, through the Holy Spirit, is ushering everything toward the good, toward “Christ’s embrace.”

• Believers are not alone in their faith. There are others who hope, too. “The world goes on thanks to the vision of many people who created an opening,

who built bridges, who dreamed and believed, even when they heard words of derision around them.”

• Never believe the struggles here on earth are “useless.” God never disappoints and he wants that seed he planted in everyone to bloom. “God made us to flower, too.”

• “Wherever you are, build!”

• When life gets hard, and “you have fallen, get up.

Never stay down. Get up and let people help you to your feet.”

• “If you’re sitting, start walking!” Start the journey.

• “If you’re bored stiff, crush [boredom] with good works.”

• “If you feel empty and demoralized, ask if the Holy Spirit may newly replenish” that void.

• Work for peace among people.

• Don’t listen to those “who spread hatred and division.”

• No matter how different people are from one another, human beings “were created to live together.

With disputes, wait patiently. One day you will discover that a sliver of truth has been entrusted to everyone.”

• Love people. Respect everyone’s journey — whether it be troubled or down the straight and narrow, because everyone has a story behind them.

• Every baby born is “the promise of a life that once again shows it is stronger than death.”

• “Jesus has given us a light that shines in the darkness; defend it, protect it. This unique light is the greatest richness entrusted to your life.”

• Dream of a world still not seen, but will certainly come one day. Think of those who sailed oceans, scaled mountains, conquered slavery or made life better for people on earth.

• Be responsible: “Every injustice against someone poor is an open wound,” and countless generations will come after you have lived.

• Ask God for courage every day. “Remember Jesus conquered fear for us” and “not even our most treacherous enemy can do anything against faith.”

September 28, 2017

FAITH & CULTURE

The Catholic Spirit • 15

Elevating conversation Catholics engage in dialogue on race, religion

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit

C

ynthia Bailey Manns said she could feel the racial tension in St. Louis following the Sept. 15 acquittal of former police officer Jason Stockley, who shot and killed Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011 after a police chase.

Stockley is white; Smith was black. The verdict incited protesters who reportedly threw rocks at the mayor’s house and blocked highways.

The director of learning for St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis, Manns was visiting St. Louis to prepare for a Spiritual Directors International retreat in 2018.

Among the tasks was discerning whether or not to still hold the conference in St. Louis, given its racial unrest. The committee decided to go forward with having the conference there, which Manns believes will be a “healing presence for all.”

“I feel very strongly that it was very prophetic that we were here [during the verdict], because it gave us a chance to really see what’s going on in St. Louis,” Manns said.

She said that although the pain from policeinvolved shootings of black men — including the highprofile 2014 Acooa shooting of Michael ELLIS Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson — remain palpable there, the situation isn’t that different from what people face in the Twin Cities or elsewhere.

“As a country, we are very torn,” she said.

She believes the light being shed nationally on racism is good, but that much work remains to improve relations between people of different races, religions and cultures. She has sought to do her part by collaborating with a team at St. Joan of Arc and forming a program to address racial issues. It’s one of several initiatives around the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in which Catholics are seeking to bridge gaps between people of different races and cultures.

Parishioners of St. Joan of Arc formed a core team to build an anti-racist community in 2016. The parish also participates in an ecumenical 12-church consortium promoting anti-racism efforts.

“We’ve developed some listening tools to help hear each other in those conversations, to listen on a deeper level,” Manns said.

St. Joan of Arc’s events have included watching and discussing films that deal with race issues. It also is among organizations partnering with the Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul supporting the current exhibit “RACE: Are We So Different?”

A new program, Sacred Conversations Series, launches at St. Joan of Arc Oct. 21.

Described by organizers as an event “to learn foundational skills of ‘civility’ and a

Students from St. Mark’s Catholic School in St. Paul and Al-Amal Islamic School in Fridley play a game at Merriam Park in St. Paul May 24. The students started writing letters to each other six weeks earlier, then set up a day to meet, talk and play together.

Dave Hrbacek/ The Catholic Spirit process of holy listening that can be used in our encounters with others,” Sacred Conversations aims to help participants understand the importance of “sacred speech” and recognizing the “sacred in each other,” Manns said. The program addresses “how do we come from space of what we understand versus trying to convince, or shame or blame,” she added.

A similar effort has been underway at St. Olaf in Minneapolis since 2004. The ecumenical group Discussions that Encounter meets biweekly at the Phillips Community Center in Minneapolis on second Thursdays of the month and St. Olaf on the fourth Thursday. The group, normally an even number of Caucasians and African-Americans, focuses on the experience of racism and overcoming it in Minneapolis.

“The biggest point that we emphasize is use your heart, not [just] your head, in the conversation, so when somebody says, ‘This is my experience,’ you don’t try and argue them out of it,” said Bill Keatts, a St. Olaf parishioner and one of the leaders for Discussions that Encounter.

He acknowledged that it can be hard for people to have that sort of dialogue, but he normally sees the conversation warm up. Sometimes the discussions have run late and continued in the parking lot.

“What we’re trying to do really is have the conversation and as a result of that, have people be moved to action in whatever way they can,” Keatts said.

“People either have gotten involved in existing activities or have the inspiration to go start something.”

St. Olaf parishioners have been working with those from St. Thomas Beckett in Eagan to host the parish’s own Discussions that Encounter event Oct. 29.

Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ social advocacy program Sowers of Justice, a network of about 3,000 people around the region who are working for justice in economics and society, has recently offered opportunities for dialogue and learning about race.

Acooa Ellis, Catholic Charities’ director of advocacy, said it draws Catholics in the

pews as well as state legislators.

“There’s a lot of issue education, and oftentimes when we’re doing that, we’re also coupling that with Catholic social teaching, so folks understand the connection between those issues,” Ellis said.

Through Sowers of Justice, people have been able to engage in conversations about real-life situations. In 2016, the program hosted presentations and discussions on incarceration and cycles of poverty. Sowers of Justice also partners with Discussions that Encounter at St. Olaf, which included a conversation on white privilege in the past year.

“I have observed more people wrestling with their role as agents of change on this front,” Ellis said. “I hope that in some way our discussions have offered language, resources and food for thought to support their passion to create positive change.”

She hopes to help people come out of their comfort zones when talking about race. The isolation fostered by contemporary culture remains an obstacle to improving race relations, she said.

“Grace and humility are essential,” Ellis said. “They build the trust necessary to wrestle together. We must be willing to simultaneously honor good intentions and own that our actions have real consequences, sometimes different than we would hope, however wellintentioned. Both are hard and complicated by the intense emotions that accompany a topic like race.”

Catholic schools are also helping students engage issues around cultural and religious differences. St. Mark’s Catholic School in St. Paul launched a fifth-grade pen pal program with Al-Amal Islamic School in Fridley last year. The students exchanged letters, which included learning about each other’s religion.

“We just wanted to do something to bridge the gap,” said St. Mark’s fifth-grade teacher Rachel Ogard, who helped to organize the effort.

The pen-pal relationships culminated in a friendly soccer match last spring in St. Paul. The schools plan to continue the program this school year.

“It went even better than I could imagine,” Ogard said. “I think the community got a lot out of it.”

St. Mark Principal Zach Zeckser expected his students to get the most out of the project, but he found out the expectations were mutual.

“I thought that we were going to be extraordinarily beneficiary compared to them, but they [Al-Amal staff] said, ‘Oh no. ... This is huge for our kids and for our parents to meet some Catholics,’” Zeckser said.

Good dialogue around race and religion can start as simply as it did for the fifth graders from St. Mark and AlAmal: by showing an interest in one another.

Ogard observed the students were comfortable talking to each other and sharing about each other’s faith. They talked about wanting to become friends, she said.

“If that’s what these kids are getting out of this, I’m very happy with that,” she said.

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16 • The Catholic Spirit

RETIREMENT PLANNING

September 28, 2017

Retiree fills life with prayer, spiritual direction for others

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

I

n 2006, Al Boll was looking forward to retirement from his software job at Thomson Reuters in Eagan, but he had no plan for how he would spend the influx of time.

It turned out that the answer was years in the making.

It started with a deepening of his faith prompted by a Bible study at his parish, St. Paul in Ham Lake, and then turned into a new vocation as a spiritual director and membership in a lay Carmelite order.

Boll, 76, and his wife, Patricia, joined St. Paul in 2004, but had already been part of a Bible study there for five years. Digging into Scripture inspired him to take the Church’s authority more seriously, he said.

“Through the Bible studies — and especially the study on the Acts of the Apostles — I could see where the authority of the Church came from. It’s all through the Bible, from the very beginning. That ... made such a big difference,” he said.

He felt compelled to go to confession, which he hadn’t been doing regularly, and went to St. Mary of the Lake in White Bear Lake, which is near his home in Scandia.

“I told my story about my conversion in confession,” Boll recounted. “The priest offered to be my spiritual director. I had no idea what that meant, but I said, ‘Sure, I’ll try it out.’ That was Father Roger Pierre, who had been a pastor there for many years.”

Boll and Father Pierre met once a week, and, later, once a month. The priest died in 2013, but Boll has applied one key practice Father Pierre taught him to his retirement.

“He insisted on daily prayer for anyone he was directing,” Boll said. “He recommended that I use the Magnificat [publication]. It has the daily readings, morning and evening. He said, at a minimum, read the psalm in the morning and the psalm at night. So, I did.”

Boll also started reading the works of St. John of the Cross, which fueled a fascination with the 16th-century Carmelite friar and doctor of the Church. He’s since read his complete works several times.

“Every time I read it, I get something different out of it,” he said. “At that time, what was important was the ‘dark nights,’ the dark night of the senses and the dark night of the spirit or dark night of the soul.”

While his prayer life was deepening, he stumbled into his first opportunity to give spiritual direction.

When the weather cooperates, Al Boll of St. Paul in Ham Lake likes to read and pray on the deck of his home in Scandia.

Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit It occurred two years before he retired, and began with an office that was too hot. He left his first-floor office to look for some cooler air. He found an empty cubicle on another floor and let colleagues in nearby offices know of his temporary occupancy.

Among them was a woman he had met years earlier, when she was right out of college and interviewing for a job at Thomson Reuters. She now was a manager, and the two began a conversation after he stopped in.

“She was having a problem with one of her kids,” Boll recalled. “I stayed and I talked a little bit, and we said a little prayer.”

Boll left that brief conversation wondering if he could do more. He felt God prompting him to go back and talk to her again, so he did. That turned into weekly meetings over the lunch hour.

Then, two years later, he reached his retirement day.

He figured she would naturally seek out someone else for conversation. But she had other ideas.

“I said, ‘What do you want to do?’” he recalled. “She said, ‘Well, can we talk on the phone?’ I said, ‘OK.’ So, she called me every couple weeks. After a while, I said, ‘You know, you really should get a spiritual director of your own.’ And, she said, ‘Al, that’s you.’ And, I said, ‘Well, I meant a real one — one with credentials.’ And, she said, ‘No, you’re great for me.’”

The two are still talking today, and Boll has since

taken on more directees. He generally meets with about a half dozen people at a given time, some retired and others a long ways from it.

He says he doesn’t know why people come to him, but it’s become his niche in retirement. His days also include rosary and Mass, either at St. Peter in Forest Lake or St. Mary in Stillwater. He also attends regular events of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, which he joined in 2011. The local community is called Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, and it meets at St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony. In June, Boll made a permanent profession to the community, founded in 1562 by St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila.

He said the order has pushed him to more and deeper prayer, and that, in turn, has paid dividends in spiritual direction. Though he has no formal training, he believes the writings of Carmelites such as St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila have created a solid foundation from which to draw. He also refers to a small book on spiritual direction by the American Trappist monk Thomas Merton and encourages people he works with to read it, too.

But, perhaps the biggest influence on his life goes back more than three decades, when he decided to turn to Alcoholics Anonymous to help him face a problem with alcohol.

“I drank from high school until I was 40 years old,” he said. “Finally, I just said, ‘I can’t do this. I have to quit. I can’t drink.’ Someone told me that if I go to AA, AA will teach me how to be happy without alcohol.”

He continues attending weekly meetings, with 36 years of sobriety now under his belt. He also sponsors another person and gives spiritual advice to others at the meetings.

The background in AA is something he considers invaluable when it comes to helping others. He said that experience motivated him to help the woman at work while at Thomson Reuters.

He also said that AA complements his faith.

“The spirituality of AA is basic Christianity,” he said.

“I was struck by reading the doctors of the Church, the Carmelites especially, how much it was like AA spirituality.”

As for others nearing retirement, he offers simple advice on figuring out what’s next: “Prayer. Ask him [God]. Be open to hearing what he says, how he moves you.”

September 28, 2017

RETIREMENT PLANNING

The Catholic Spirit • 17

Spiritual preparation can make retirement happier

By Bridget Ryder For The Catholic Spirit

R

etirement is great — but then, sometimes it’s not.

While many retirees gladly turn off the lights in their offices and never look back, others find the transition from regular work difficult, even to the point of inciting anxiety and depression. Research has found that many retirees experience an initial boost in health and happiness after retirement that is followed a few years later by dissatisfaction and declining health.

As such, retirement can be considered a crisis. “[Developmental psychologist] Eric Erickson describes different stages of life and that there are choices at each stage — a crisis that needs to be addressed,” said Joe Pryble, a Catholic therapist at Quo Vadis Therapy in New Brighton.

According to Erickson, a pioneer in psychological theory, the essential crisis of older adulthood is overcoming despair to accept one’s life and reach a sense of fulfillment.

“It’s a time of transition, and it’s one in which a lot of people tend to look back over what they’ve created and produced and what their legacy will be for the next generation,” Pryble explained.

Looking back with faith can give retirees a perspective of hope.

Father Rinaldo Custodio, 80, has been enjoying retirement since 2005. He lives at the Leo C. Byrne Residence for retired priests in St. Paul. He says that staying active, having a variety of hobbies from golf to cards, engaging in part-time ministry and practicing regular prayer have made his retirement satisfying. He also still makes an annual retreat. In preparation for his last retreat, he decided to write his life’s story. He thought it would be two pages, but he ended up writing many, many more. Then he read it.

“I said, ‘This is not my doing. There’s a hand here,’” he recalled.

“We’re on a journey, and there’s a hand that’s directing it.

When people reach retirement, that’s the wisdom.”

Father Rinaldo Custodio

iStock/Meilun The exercise allowed him to see how God had been acting in his life. He also knows the deep insight he received from his writing was only attainable at this later stage in his life.

“We’re on a journey, and there’s a hand that’s directing it. When people reach retirement, that’s the wisdom. They see their life’s journey. There’s so many areas where one has made a difference,” said Father Custodio, who was ordained a priest in 1962. “When you’re young you only see part of the journey, not as much as an older person.”

For anyone feeling at a loss in retirement or wanting to discover where God has been leading, he recommends spiritual direction. Acting as a spiritual director is one way that Father Custodio continues in ministry even as a retired priest.

“I would listen to where they’re at and help them to move forward from where they’re at,” he said, adding that God is always the one truly directing.

He also suggested becoming involved in something like Cursillo, a retreat with ongoing support groups.

Pryble agrees that retirement can be a time of great spiritual growth.

“See it as a time to expand oneself in new ways and to continue that experience of wonder at what God has given,” he said.

While reflecting on the past, retirees also need to stay engaged in meaningful activities and relationships.

“Look at it as the next phase. What will I be producing and what will I be doing for the next generation?” Pryble said. “Be intentional about what you want to make with this time.”

In Erickson’s theory of human development, the task of adulthood is supporting the next generation. This pursuit doesn’t need to stop at retirement. Parishes can be great outlets for retirees wanting to continue to give to younger generations.

Father Custodio thinks retirees can be very helpful in their parishes by teaching faith formation and the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, as well as volunteering in other areas. He has also seen retirees use their time to serve the poor through programs such as Loaves and Fishes, which organizes free meals at sites throughout the state. Coaching sports is another way retirees can stay meaningfully engaged.

“They have the time, and if they have the interest, they are great role models and mentors,” he said.

For developing hobbies and socializing, retirees can find groups for senior citizens in their parishes. Father Custodio’s last parish assignment before retiring, St. John the Baptist in Savage, had a seniors group that offered trips to local shrines, attended Twins games and toured Catholic churches in Minnesota. Pribyle also recommends retirees not limiting themselves to seniors’ groups.

Another resource for those who have just retired or are considering it is life coaching or therapy. Both therapists and retirement coaches can help retirees prepare for and make a smooth transition.

“Preparing for it, educating yourself and getting a sense that this is a new time in life is important,” Pryble said.

18 • The Catholic Spirit

RETIREMENT PLANNING

September 28, 2017

Considering an independent senior living facility?

Eight things to think about before the move

4. Know thyself. Experts say to look beyond the

basics of affordability and safety. “As we get older we become more and more who we are,” Grant said.

Seniors need to make an honest assessment of their intellectual, physical and social needs, and whether or not an independent living facility can help them meet them.

By Bridget Ryder For The Catholic Spirit

M

oving into an independent senior living facility is not something all seniors consider when they retire, but it’s an option they might want to put on the table sooner rather than later. Anne Marie Bartlett, director of care coordination at Twin Cities-based senior care and housing organization Saint Therese, points out that with 285,000 Minnesotans turning 65 years old by the end of this decade, planning and education about senior living options are essential.

To get the ball rolling, here are eight things seniors will want to consider when it comes to independent senior living.

1. Affordability. Senior living facilities, even for

those who are independent and healthy, can be expensive, said Les Grant, associate professor and director of the Center of Aging Services Management at the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. Seniors will not only want to look at their own income and assets, but also will want to consider whether or not a facility participates in governmentfunded programs such as Elderly Waiver and Housing Support that can help qualifying seniors pay for rent and medical care. Senior Public Housing, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, could also be an affordable option for some seniors.

2. Waiting lists. Facilities can have waiting lists, said Bobbie Guidry, vice president of Housing and Community Services at LeadingAge Minnesota. A

“She’s spent a lifetime looking after me. Now I can return the favor.”

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5. Options. Independent senior living facilities come “It is sort of like buying a house; you have a feeling this is the place you can envision living.”

Anne Marie Bartlett

in a variety of forms. Some can be as basic as condominiums with age restrictions while others can offer a host of amenities. “People might want to inquire if it’s a registered housing-with-services center,” Guidry said. “In Minnesota, assisted living is a program, not a place.” A housing-with-services center may offer meals, housekeeping, transportation and in-home health care that residents can purchase as needed or desired.

6. Family. Seniors may also want to think about

iStock/BrianAJackson senior can’t necessarily expect to be able to move in the month after he or she decides an independent living facility is the right choice. Shopping around and getting on a waiting list can be a smart move. The waiting list for senior public housing can be years long, Grant said.

3. Neighbors. Seniors should also consider how they

feel about having only fellow seniors as neighbors.

Grant said that he used to be against these “segregated communities” of older adults, but now he sees advantages to them. Housing exclusively for seniors can provide them with neighbors who look after each other, friendships and a way to expand their social circle.

whether the facility will allow them to host their family for visits, celebrations or overnight stays. Some facilities have party rooms and guest rooms that residents can use, Guidry said.

7. Location. A good location means different things to different people. Guidry pointed to several factors to consider, including proximity of family, climate and easy accessibility to volunteer opportunities beyond the senior campus.

8. Faith. Senior living facilities can also support

residents in their faith. “There are a good number of faith-based organizations,” Guidry said. “Some Catholic facilities offer Mass daily.”

Ultimately, seniors have to trust their instincts in considering a senior living situation, experts said.

“It is sort of like buying a house,” Bartlett said. “You have a feeling this is the place you can envision living.”

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RETIREMENT PLANNING

September 28, 2017

The Catholic Spirit • 19

Grandparents say their role has never been more crucial than today

By Sarah MacDonald Catholic News Service

Grandparent resources

C

atherine Wiley, 71-year-old grandmother of 10, believes the role of grandparents has never been more crucial than today.

“Today we are faced with considerations that our parents and grandparents could never, ever have imagined,” Wiley told more than 5,000 grandparents at the national shrine in Knock, Ireland.

At a Sept. 10 Mass for grandparents, Wiley, founder of the Catholic Grandparents Association, said the Church should establish a world day of prayer for them in recognition of their role in sustaining and passing on the faith. She suggested the date be July 26, the feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne, grandparents of Jesus.

“We know our faith sustains and enriches us, and we want more than anything for our children and grandchildren to know and love that faith, that steadfast love of Jesus Christ that guides us through difficult times,” she said.

Wiley told Catholic News Service she thought it was “hard to be a grandparent in this day and age.”

“We live in a disposable society,” she said. “When grandparents are healthy and fit, everybody wants them, but when they are not so healthy and fit, and they become a burden to the family, it is a different story altogether.”

She said grandparents deal with “fragmented families, divorced families and all sorts of combination families ... but we are doing our best. The art of being a grandparent means you have to navigate your way through and keep the peace and be unobtrusive, but hold your own as well.”

Wiley, who along with her husband, Stewart, has established branches of the Catholic Grandparents Association in Britain, the United States, Australia and the Philippines, as well as Ireland, told congregation members at the Mass their presence at the pilgrimage for grandparents sent “a very important message” to their children and grandchildren of what the Church and faith means to them.

The Office of Evangelization in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis offers a variety of resources and events for Catholic grandparents on topics ranging from passing on the faith to starting a parish grandparent ministry.

For more information, visit http://rediscover. archspm.org/the-gift-of-being-grand.

“We know our faith sustains and enriches us, and we want more than anything for our children and grandchildren to know and love that faith, that steadfast love of Jesus Christ that guides us through difficult times.”

Catherine Wiley iStock/Kuzmichstudio Among those who participated in the Mass was Jessica Casey, 12, of Charlestown, Ireland. She brought laughter and smiles to the faces of many of the congregation with her poem to one of her grandmothers, Helen McGrath. She prayed that God would keep her grandmother safe because she still had to teach her “how to take a selfie and hashtag on Twitter.”

Accompanied by her other grandmother, 72-year-old Angela Casey of Charlestown, Jessica told CNS she has her grandmother on speed-dial on her mobile phone because just hearing her voice makes her smile.

Marilyn Henry is national coordinator for the Catholic Grandparents Association for the United States. The 67-year-old and her husband, Deacon Ken Henry, have 11

grandchildren, ages 2-19.

Their parish, Prince of Peace in Houston, approached the Catholic Grandparents Association and invited it to help with the children’s Liturgy of

the Word.

“So, one Sunday a month, our grandparents are the ones who take the children for the liturgy,” she said.

The growing network of grandparents’ groups is now present in 25 states in the United States and provides “support to each other through prayer and meetings” on issues like distance grandparenting.

“I really do believe Catherine’s words that we are the future of the Church, because the Church is going to die if we don’t promote it. Somehow, we missed the generation between us and our grandchildren. It was our fault; we expected that they would pick up on the faith like we did, but that hasn’t happened in most cases,” Henry said.

But there is still hope, where grandparents are willing to help out, she said.

“When I expressed concern to my daughter that if she didn’t teach her kids something they would end up with nothing, she replied, ‘Mom, that’s why we have you!’”

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20 • The Catholic Spirit

SUNDAY SCRIPTURES

Sunday, Oct. 1

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Nell O’Leary Alt

Readings

• Ez 18:25-28 • Phil 2:1-11 • Mt 21:28-32

iStock/kasto80

God is not a personal prayer vending machine I used to pray out my fixed, rigid request list. I considered God to be my personal prayer vending machine. Prayer in; prayer answered.

Maybe you’ve done this too?

Please send me just the right husband. Not too pious, not too rowdy, not too far away.

Please let me ace this test. Blind the grader if need be. I just want an A. And I’d like to get recognition for my unseen work, please. It’s OK if that recognition is public and grand.

While we’re at it, make that one friend stop annoying me.

In carving out God’s to-do list, I felt gratified. I had prayed (check), been introspective (check) and been honest (check). My prayer life, however, was not only lacking the listening portion, but an openness to being changed by the very act of praying.

It’s his grace we receive, not our requests granted.

September 28, 2017

It’s in enduring surrender when all we want is certitude that we can find our assurances of his presence. These priests and elders saw St. John the Baptist, Jesus’ own cousin and a holy prophet, in their midst. They heard his heart; they didn’t change their minds (Mt 21:32). What a contrast to the son who replied to his father, “‘I will not,’ but afterwards changed his mind and went” (Mt 21:29). He changed, and so can we.

My prayers sound a little different now that I’ve fallen to my knees in desperation a few times.

Let me be a bigger vessel for your love.

Work on my heart to do your will.

I’m a flawed, failed woman. I want to cling to my old ways of presenting God with the options I’d like him to fulfill for me. But maybe, if we can avail ourselves of his graces, and live open to change, we can enter into the kingdom. Even after we snarl and

snap out a “no” to his request to do his work in this world, this vineyard. Even after we seal up our hearts, fooling ourselves into feeling in control of our lives.

Even then, we can change our minds, believe him, and say “yes.”

If you’ve stayed the stubborn course in your life on one matter or another, take it to our Lord in adoration. Take sins to him in the sacrament of reconciliation. Take your cleansed person to him in the Blessed Sacrament. He’s big enough to let us flounder our way back to him.

O’Leary Alt is managing editor for Blessed is She, a ministry for Catholic women, as well as a recovering lawyer married to her law school love. They live and breathe baseball with their four kids in St. Paul. She blogs at www.wholeparentingfamily.com.

DAILY Scriptures Sunday, Oct. 1 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time Ez 18:25-28 Phil 2:1-11 Mt 21:28-32 Monday, Oct. 2 Memorial of the Guardian Angels Zec 8:1-8 Mt 18:1-5, 10 Tuesday, Oct. 3 Zec 8:20-23 Lk 9:51-56

Wednesday, Oct. 4 Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi Neh 2:1-8 Lk 9:57-62

Saturday, Oct. 7 Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary Bar 4:5-12, 27-29 Lk 10:17-24

Thursday, Oct. 5 Neh 8:1-4a, 5-6, 7b-12 Lk 10:1-12

Sunday, Oct. 8 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time Is 5:1-7 Phil 4:6-9 Mt 21:33-43

Friday, Oct. 6 Bar 1:15-22 Lk 10:13-16

FAITH FUNDAMENTALS

Father Michael Van Sloun

The godparent’s role in baptism When the time for an infant baptism arrives, it is also the time for the parents to select the godparents.

This is a matter of tremendous spiritual importance, and the parents should use a number of spiritual criteria to make their choice.

According to canon law, it is the duty and privilege of Catholic parents to pass on the gift of faith to their newly baptized child, and likewise, it is the duty and privilege of godparents to assist the parents with this all-important task. A person cannot give what he or she does not have. Therefore, the single most important factor is whether the person is an active, practicing Catholic.

To be a godparent, the person must be a fully initiated Catholic, one who is baptized and has received the sacraments of Eucharist and confirmation. In order to be of sufficient maturity and

Monday, Oct. 9 Jon 1:1—2:1-2, 11 Lk 10:25-37

Tuesday, Oct. 10 Jon 3:1-10 Lk 10:38-42

Friday, Oct. 13 Jl 1:13-15; 2:1-2 Lk 11:15-26

Wednesday, Oct. 11 Jon 4:1-11 Lk 11:1-4

Saturday, Oct. 14 Jl 4:12-21 Lk 11:27-28

Thursday, Oct. 12 Mal 3:13-20b Lk 11:5-13

Sunday, Oct. 15 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time Is 25:6-10a Phil 4:12-14, 19-20 Mt 22:1-14

A godparent helps the godchild to practice and persevere in the faith. capacity, the godparent must be at least 16 years of age. And very importantly, it should be a person “who leads a life of faith in keeping with the function to be taken on” or, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, the godparents “must be firm believers.”

A firm believer is someone who has faith and trust in God, is a disciple of Jesus, is a member of the Church, belongs to a parish, prays regularly, attends Mass, is a frequent recipient of the sacraments, attempts to conform his or her life to the Gospel, is growing in virtue, gives good example and is a loving, generous and caring person. The godparent’s faith need not be perfect, but it must be a priority and active.

Next, according to the Catechism, the godparents must be “able and ready to help the newly baptized ... on the road of Christian life.” “Able and ready” means someone who is eager to serve, who will joyfully embrace the role and who can be available to have regular contact with the child.

“Help” is offered to facilitate growth in the Catholic faith, and it can be given in a wide variety of ways: to pray with their godchild, pray for their godchild, teach prayers, take their godchild to church, help

their godchild prepare for other sacraments, be present for the celebration of future sacraments, possibly serve as the confirmation sponsor, give good example, offer spiritual support and encouragement, do good works with their godchild and extend special kindnesses to their godchild. It is extremely beneficial for godparents to read, explain and reflect upon sacred Scripture with their godchild, particularly the life of Jesus, as well as other characters and events of the Bible. It is also worthwhile to discuss the lives of the saints. A godparent helps the godchild to practice and persevere in the faith.

There are several other considerations. There may be one or two godparents: one male sponsor, the godfather; or one female sponsor, the godmother; or one of each. According to the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, “A sponsor who is married must be married in accord with the laws of the Church.”

Additionally, canon law states that a baptized person from a different Christian denomination may only serve as a witness and not as a godparent. A parent may not be the godparent of his or her own child, and anyone bound by a canonical penalty may not serve as a godparent.

Father Van Sloun is pastor of St. Bartholomew in Wayzata. This is the sixth column in a series on baptism.

Find the series at www.thecatholicspirit.com and read more of Father Van Sloun’s writing at www.catholichotdish.com.

THIS CATHOLIC LIFE • COMMENTARY

September 28, 2017

YOUR HEART, HIS HOME

Liz Kelly

Yoked, not burdened Some years ago I developed this little habit when traveling alone: When boarding an airplane or a train, I would ask the Lord to give me the least desirable seat, the one no one else wanted, next to the crying baby, for example. I cannot count how many times I have been seated next to a young mother traveling with a small child.

One woman was from India and had already been traveling for more than 24 hours with a baby just learning his first steps. She was clearly completely exhausted, and it wasn’t long before she and her child were fast asleep. But at some point, the boy awoke and started to make for the aisle. I caught him and ended up holding him while he played with my rosary beads for at least another hour while his mother slept. When she

woke up with a start looking for her son and saw him tucked in my lap playing contentedly, the relief and gratitude on her face was palpable.

On another flight from Alaska to the Lower 48, I was given a seat next to a very young boy traveling alone — leaving one parent to join another in another state. The flight attendant let me know this and she tended to the boy, allowing him to make a last phone call to his father with her cell phone before takeoff. It wasn’t long before we were in the air and they were selling earphones for the in-flight movie. I bought some for the boy and myself, got us plugged in and situated, and we watched a kids’ movie together. Before too long, he was asleep on me, and the flight attendant, who kept careful watch, would occasionally come by to see if anything was needed. When he awoke, we played with his cars and coloring book and the five-hour flight passed without incident. When we landed, the attendant came to escort him off the plane, and I noticed at baggage claim that he was with a woman, probably his mother, and he pointed to me as his mother leaned in to catch what he was saying. I waved and he waved back. His mother mouthed “thank you” in my direction.

Sometimes, I think we imagine that our acts of charity only count if they are bothersome and difficult.

FAITH IN THE PUBLIC ARENA

Jason Adkins

Combating racial disparities Racial disparities continue to persist in American life.

As a response, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently instituted a new initiative to fight racism in all its forms.

Though racism — irrational animus toward others based on their skin color, ethnicity or race — is a sin within the human heart and cannot be fully eradicated by public policy, we can work in the public arena to mitigate its effects.

Combating racial disparities will require overcoming policies championed by both the political right and left that entrench established ideological and economic power structures. In other words, it requires the wisdom of Catholic social teaching.

The effects of racism can be measured in many ways, but one way to look at them is the degree to which African-Americans and other persons of color are excluded from social, economic and political participation in American life.

The possibility of participation in the economy, in cultural life and in politics is, according to the Church’s social doctrine, a necessary condition for human flourishing. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it: Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design.”

Fostering racial justice Laws remain on the books that, while not necessarily discriminatory on their face, disproportionately affect persons of color.

The policies that exacerbate racial disparities and deny social participation are found primarily, though not exclusively, in three areas: education, criminal justice and the family.

For example, too many children of color are trapped in underperforming schools and, as a result, there is a significant achievement gap between white students and students of color, particularly African-American and Latino students.

As education is the great ladder of opportunity,

Ask Congress to protect young people from unnecessary deportations Ask Minnesota lawmakers to co-sponsor the Dream Act of 2017 The Dream Act of 2017, S. 1615 and H.R. 3440, was recently introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. It is intended to protect immigrant youth who entered the United States as children and know America as their only home. Many of the estimated 780,000 individuals this bill would protect are contributors to our economy, veterans of our military, and leaders in our parishes and communities.

The bill would offer qualifying immigrant youth “conditional permanent resident status” and a path to full, lawful and permanent residency and eventual citizenship.

As Catholics, we have long supported “Dreamers” as we believe in protecting the dignity of every human being, especially our children. The legislation helps prioritize border enforcement resources toward those who actually present a danger to our communities.

Call your representatives in Congress and ask them to co-sponsor and support the Dream Act of 2017. Find their contact information under ”Take Action” at www.mncatholic.org. denying children the right to a good education puts a significant barrier in their path to social, cultural, political and economic participation.

Kids need a lifeline, and giving families greater choice in education is a top civil rights imperative.

Similarly, kids trapped in failing schools and who lack hope often turn to a life of crime, which is known today as the school-to-prison pipeline. And because of overly punitive sentencing policies that helped politicians win elections, we’ve imprisoned many non-violent people unnecessarily, particularly African-American men, when what they really needed was treatment, counseling or a job.

Putting more people in prison will certainly limit crime in the short term, but not without other long-term costs.

The Catholic Spirit • 21

It only counts if it hurts. Maybe I have more patience for the crying child than someone else, but if I do, it is only because in that moment, I am best yoked to Christ.

My burden is light only because he is carrying the lion’s share.

On a train trip, I got seated next to an active meth addict who was beyond obnoxious. When he found out I was Catholic, I thought for a moment his head might spin around on his neck. His behavior became even more egregious, and I could see other passengers moving to other train cars or turning their backs while they turned up the volume on their headphones, disgusted by the insults he was hurling at the world in every direction. I get that; I wanted to move, too. We don’t all have the same gifts and that’s all right. But that’s not a free pass to turn your back on those in need.

Rather, it’s an invitation to think about the ways Christ has made your burden light, and the ways that you can serve others in joy that perhaps others cannot.

Lord, let me always remember that my yoke is first yours, and let me get to work.

Kelly is the author of six books, including “Jesus Approaches: What Contemporary Women Can Learn about Healing, Freedom and Joy from the Women of the New Testament” (Loyola Press, 2017).

Fortunately, public officials on both sides of the aisle now recognize these costs, and Minnesota has led the way in criminal justice reform during the past few years, enacting policies such as “ban the box” and drug sentencing reform.

But more can be done, such as reconsidering the length of probation sentences imposed on offenders who have shown good character, as well as identifying ways to eliminate the collateral consequences of a conviction that impede access to education, employment and housing.

Imprisoning large numbers of African-American men during their prime education and earning years has severely harmed their long-term economic prospects, as well as their ability to marry and form families. Many of these men are considered unmarriageable and, as a result, 70 percent of African-American children are born out of wedlock to women who are often not even partnered, let alone married.

A major difference in the percentage of white and black children born to married parents (64 to 30) is perhaps the most significant cause of racial disparities, and one that creates a cycle of poverty and exclusion that leads back to the school-to-prison pipeline.

According to the Institute for Family Studies, “Black children in the United States enjoy less family stability than white children, experiencing close to twice as many family transitions — union dissolutions and partnership formations — as white children. Family instability is associated with a host of negative outcomes ranging from asthma to obesity, and from teen pregnancy to substance abuse. It is also negatively linked with fundamental predictors of success in adult life like educational attainment. For these reasons, black children’s family instability is an important part of the U.S. stratification story.”

Similarly, welfare reform was meant to encourage marriage and foster family stability, but it is often structured in ways that do not encourage marriage, and sometimes even discourage it. That needs to change.

The data are in: Family structure matters to child well-being, and a kid needs both his or her mother and father to play an active role in his or her life.

To be sure, combating racial disparities is a complex and challenging problem. Other issues, such as discrimination in employment and housing, and the creation of barriers to economic mobility by the monopolistic behavior of businesses and industries, also play a role.

But to decrease the reality of an economy of exclusion and foster greater social participation by minorities and persons of color, education, criminal justice and marriage are important places to start.

Adkins is executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference.

22 • The Catholic Spirit

THIS CATHOLIC LIFE • COMMENTARY

THE LOCAL CHURCH Father John Paul Erickson

Whose English?

Explaining the potential for new Mass translations Certainly one of the more obvious outcomes of the Second Vatican Council was the reform of the liturgy, that is, the public prayer of the Church. As enunciated in the first published document of the council, “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” an explicit goal of these reforms was the “full, active and conscious participation” of the people of God in this public prayer, especially in the holy Mass.

To aid in this kind of participation, which is at its root a union of mind and heart with the mysteries being celebrated, the council paved the way for a greater use of the vernacular in the liturgy. Very quickly after the council’s conclusion, the revised rituals and liturgical

WORD ON FIRE

Bishop Robert Barron

Peter Claver vs.

Immanuel Kant One of the greatest heroes of the social justice wing of the Church is, quite rightly, the 17th-century “slave of the slaves,” St. Peter Claver. Born in Barcelona, Claver joined the Society of Jesus and was known, even as a young man, as a person of deep intelligence and piety.

Spurred by what he took to be the direct prompting of the Holy Spirit, the young Spaniard volunteered to work among the poor in what was then known as “New Spain.” Arriving in Cartagena, he saw the unspeakable degradation of the captives brought in chains by ship from Africa, and he resolved to dedicate his life to serving them.

We have a wonderful letter that Peter Claver wrote to his Jesuit superior in which he vividly describes apostolic work that he did among the slaves, just after they came ashore in Cartagena. He speaks of hopeless people staggering off the ships, stark naked, starving, and disoriented. Many were so sick that they were barely able to stand. Peter and his colleagues brought them fruits and water, and then, he tells us, they contrived to build a crude shelter, using their own coats and cloaks.

For the dying, they lit a fire and threw aromatic spices

Editor’s note: The Catholic Watchmen column, which typically appears in the second issue of the month, will return in October.

September 28, 2017

texts of the Latin Church were translated from Latin, which remains the official language of the Latin Rite Catholic Church, into the many vernacular languages of the world. The vast majority of Latin Rite Catholics (including us Roman Catholics) throughout the world now worship in their own, native tongue.

The translation of official liturgical texts is no small thing. The law of prayer is the law of belief, and how we worship both proclaims and shapes how we understand our faith. Our Holy Father Pope Francis recently announced a change in canon law that puts much of the authority to translate liturgical texts into the hands of episcopal conferences, or groups of bishops organized around a geographic area or nation.

The move, announced by means of a papal document entitled “Magnum Principium” (“The Great Principle”), was a concrete and important sign that our Holy Father means it when he speaks of his desire and intention to bolster the authority of episcopal conferences, the result of his long publicized admiration for synods and his awareness of the conciliar call for a greater autonomy of local shepherds.

While the Apostolic See will still have the final say on whether or not a translation from Latin into the vernacular of a geographical area is acceptable for liturgical use, it is expected that the new rules and regulations will guide the Holy See toward a fairly predictable acceptance of the translations offered by local conferences and local shepherds.

What does all this mean for the weekly worship of Catholics? On its face, not much. Liturgical texts already translated will not be re-worked anytime soon. But over

time, and by that I mean over years and decades, the recent change in law could be experienced by the faithful in increasingly dramatic ways.

The principles of translation embraced by one set of bishops in one area of the world may be quite different from the principles embraced elsewhere. Mass in English in the United States could someday sound rather different than Mass in Canada, Australia and the British Isles, and I don’t just mean which syllables will be emphasized. Of course, the structure of the Mass will almost certainly remain the same, but words and gestures and local adaptations could be increasingly distinct depending on the part of the world in which you are worshiping and the pastoral prudence of local shepherds.

While liturgical diversity can seem at times to represent a challenge to the unity of the Church, both locally and universally, it is of course essential to remember that the sacred liturgy has been celebrated in many, many different and legitimate ways throughout the millennia. Indeed, the Latin Rite of the Church itself is but one rite among many within the Church, and we need to be on guard against any fossilizing of the liturgy, or the romanticizing of a particular era or style of liturgical worship.

Time will tell how the changes effected by his holiness impact the daily worship of Christians. In the meantime, let us pray for the unity of the Church and for hearts that long to worship in spirit and in truth.

onto the flames so that the sufferers might have a bit of comfort and delight before they died. He adds that they employed friendly gestures and signs to communicate concern to those with whom they shared no common language: “This is how we spoke to them, not with words but with our hands and our actions.”

I cannot imagine any decent person today who wouldn’t understand and deeply sympathize with everything that Peter Claver did on behalf of these poorest of the poor. They would be justified in seeing him as a 17th-century anticipation of Mother Teresa.

However, as we continue to peruse Claver’s letter, we discover something that many today would find puzzling, even off-putting. Immediately after caring for their physical and psychological needs, the saint commenced to instruct the slaves in the rudiments of the Christian faith. Once the new arrivals demonstrated a fundamental understanding, Claver continues, “We went on to a more extensive instruction, namely, about the one God, who rewards and punishes. ... We asked them to make an act of contrition ... finally ... we declared to them the mysteries of the Trinity, the incarnation and the Passion.”

In other words, just after ministering to their bodies and their troubled minds, he ministered to their souls.

Now don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t exactly recommend that one move to evangelization quite as quickly as Peter Claver did. And I don’t think it’s either wise or fair to propose the Christian faith to those who are physically weak and psychologically traumatized.

Nevertheless, it is eminently clear that the great saint, the slave of the slaves, did not drive a wedge between the Church’s “social justice” ministry and its evangelizing outreach. He most certainly did not think that his care for the marginalized began and ended with attention to their worldly needs. In fact, Peter Claver was proudest of the fact that, in the course of his work

with the slaves, he baptized upwards of 300,000.

I bring this up because I’m concerned that afoot in our society and even in our Church today is the unhappy tendency to separate what Peter Claver kept very much together. How often we hear some version of this: “Well, it doesn’t really matter what people believe, as long as they are decent and tolerant,” or of this: “Being a Christian finally comes down to helping the poor.” Ideas, doctrines and dogmas seem to be, at best, private convictions and, at worst, sources of division and oppression.

But all of this reflects not the Church’s authentic self-understanding, but the Kantian prejudice that has formed the modern consensus. The massively influential philosopher Immanuel Kant held that religion is basically resolvable into ethics, and that everything else that preoccupies religious people — liturgy, sacraments, prayer, etc. — is all essentially about making us morally upright people.

But as Pope Benedict XVI reminded us, the Church has three fundamental and mutually implicative tasks: to care for the poor, to worship God and to evangelize.

Each of these calls out to the other two, and all forms of reductionism in their regard ought to be avoided. Keep in mind, too, that Pope Francis, whom no one could ever accuse of indifference to the physical and psychological suffering of the poor, also speaks of those on the “existential margins,” which is to say, those who are alienated from God and unacquainted with the Gospel. The “field hospital” of the Church, and how vividly that image calls to mind Peter Claver’s work, is meant for those who need care in body, mind and soul.

Therefore, yes to social justice! And yes to evangelizing! And down with Kantian reductionism!

Father Erickson is the director of the Office of Worship for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and pastor of Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul.

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

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CALENDAR

September 28, 2017 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.

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

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

St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Fall Festival — Oct. 1: 11 a.m.–4 p.m. at 2201 Third St. N.E., Minneapolis. www.stjohnsminneapolis.webs.com.

St. Thomas Women’s Club Garage Sale — Oct. 4-6: 1–9 p.m. Oct. 4; 8 a.m.–8 p.m. Oct. 5; 8 a.m.–1 p.m. Oct. 6 at 20000 County Road 10, Corcoran. www.saintsppta.org.

Steak/chicken cook-out and silent auction — Oct. 6: 5–9 p.m. at St. Patrick of Cedar Lake, 24425 Old Hwy 13 Blvd., Jordan. www.stpandc.mn.org.

St. Bernard’s Mens Club Annual Booya — Oct. 7: 9 a.m.–1 p.m. at Rice St. and Geranium St., St. Paul.

Our Lady of the Rosary and Fatima event — Oct. 7: 8:30 a.m.–6 p.m. at St. Michael, 451 Fifth St. S.W., Pine Island. Retreat and celebration commemorating apparitions’ 100th anniversary. www.stpaulstmichael.com/our-lady-of-fatima.

Pro-life gathering — Oct. 10: 7–8 p.m. at St. Joseph, 41 E. 1st St., Waconia. Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life education presentation. www.mccl.org.

Prayer/worship

calendarsubmissions

FAX: 651-291-4460 MAIL: “Calendar,” The Catholic Spirit 777 Forest St., St. Paul, MN 55106

Find fall festivals in the 2017 Parish Festival Guide thecatholicspirit.com/festivals

Parish events St. Pius X Concert Series — Sept. 29: 7–8 p.m. at St. Pius X, 3878 Highland Ave., White Bear Lake.

Featuring 14-year-old pianist Matthew Bennett.

Polka Mass — Sept. 30: 5 p.m. at St. Richard, 7540 Penn Ave. S., Richfield, followed by food and dancing in social hall. www.strichards.com/events/mass-3-38.

Feast Day Celebration — Sept. 30: 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m. at St. Francis of Assisi, 16770 13th St. S., Lake St. Croix Beach. 10:30 a.m. pet blessing, 11 a.m.

Francis Family Fun 5K followed by food, silent auction and more. http://stfrancislscbmn.org.

Blessing of the Animals — Oct. 1: 1 p.m. at St. Richard’s, 7540 Penn Ave. S. Richfield. www.strichards.com.

Blessing of the animals — Oct. 1: 1 p.m. at Basilica of St. Mary, 1600 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis. www.mary.org.

Healing Mass with Father Jim Livingston at Holy Name of Jesus — Oct. 3: 7 p.m. at 155 County Road 24, Wayzata. www.hnoj.org.

Red Mass at Assumption — Oct. 7: 6 p.m. at 51 Seventh St. W., St. Paul. For lawyers, judges and others involved in the administering of justice and their families. www.archspm.org.

Archdiocesan Marian Consecration — Oct. 13: 5:30 p.m. Mass at Cathedral of St. Paul, 239 Selby Ave., St. Paul, followed by 6:30 p.m. candlelight rosary procession. www.archspm.org.

Conferences/seminars/ workshops Behold eight-week series for women ages 21-29 — Thursdays Sept. 28-Nov. 16: 7-8:30 p.m. at Our

The Catholic Spirit • 23 Teens — Oct. 14: 1–4 p.m. at Loyola Spirituality Center, 389 Oxford St. N., St. Paul. www.loyolaspiritualitycenter.org.

Lady of Grace, 5071 Eden Ave., Edina. www.archspm.org.

An Architect for All: The Story of Victor Cordella — Sept. 30: 1–2:30 p.m. at Holy Cross, 1621 University Ave. N.E., Minneapolis. www.pacim.org.

Schools

Read Between the WINEs fall book club — Weekly Oct. 1-Dec. 17: Small groups read and discuss “When Women Pray: Eleven Catholic Women on the Power of Prayer.” www.catholicvineyard.com.

Totino-Grace Open House — Oct. 2: 6:30 p.m. at Totino-Grace, 1350 Gardena Ave. N.E., Fridley. www.totinograce.org/discover_tg.

Aging with Dignity — Oct. 3, Nov. 7, Dec. 5: 7–9 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood.

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

Cadet Coffee and admissions informational sessions — Oct. 5: 9–10:30 a.m. at St. Thomas Academy, 949 Mendota Heights Road, Mendota Heights. www.cadets.com/admissions.

Catechetical Institute Fall Life Skills Course — Thursdays Oct. 5-Nov. 30: 7–9 p.m. at St. John the Baptist, 835 Second Ave. N.W., New Brighton. www.archspm.org.

Rectors’ Bowl XVIII — Oct. 7: 7-10 p.m. at the University of St. Thomas, Palmer Athletic Field, 2115 Summit Ave., St. Paul. St. Paul Seminary “Sons of Thunder” against St. John Vianney “JAXX.” www.stthomas.edu/spssod/about/events.

Archdiocese Young Adult Cookout — Sept. 30: 11 a.m.–2 p.m. at Moir Park, 10320 Morgan Ave. S., Bloomington. tiny.cc/diocese.

Speakers

Return 2017: How to Draw Your Loved One Back to the Church — Thursdays Oct. 5, 12, 16 and 26 and Nov. 2, 9 and 30: 6:30–8:30 p.m. at St. Vincent de Paul, 9100 93rd Ave. N., Brooklyn Park. $50.

Register by Sept. 30. www.archspm.org.

Life After Trauma: Heart, Soul and Spirit — Oct. 7: 7 p.m. at Basilica of Mary, 1600 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis. Cindy Parsons of The Wounded Warrior Project and Matthew Sanford, founder of Mind Body Solutions. Free. www.mary.org.

St. Paul Street Evangelization: Providing an Avenue to Share Your Faith — Oct. 4: Noon– 1:30 p.m. at archdiocesan chancery, 777 Forest St., St. Paul. www.archspm.org.

Everyone Leads: How to Revitalize the Catholic Church — Oct. 9: 7–8:30 p.m. at St. Thomas More, 1079 Summit Ave., St. Paul. Chris Lowney on his book “Everyone Leads.” Hospitality to follow. www.morecommunity.org.

Great Conversation: Living Wholeheartedly — Oct. 5: 10 a.m.–1 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

How Do We Help to Evolve an Integral Church?

— Oct. 10: 7–8:30 p.m. at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, 700 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul. Hosted by CCCR and Council of the Baptized.

Pottery classes: Shape of the Divine — Oct. 5, Oct. 12, Oct. 19: 9:30–11:30 a.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

Restoring Resilience: Blending Science and Wisdom to Sustain a Healthy Mind, Mood and Heart — Oct. 11: 1 p.m. at Basilica of St. Mary, 1600 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis. Henry Emmons on regaining and sustaining resilience. www.mary.org.

WorldWide Marriage Encounter Weekend — Oct. 6–8: 7 a.m. Christ the King Retreat Center, 621 First Ave. S., Buffalo. www.wwme.org.

Living God’s Love: Refresher Course for Married Couples — Oct. 14: 9 a.m. at University of St. Thomas, O’Shaughnessy Education Center, 2115 Summit Ave., St. Paul. www.archspm.org.

Miriam Dinner — Oct. 12: 6–8 p.m. at Lumen Christi, 2055 Bohland Ave., St. Paul. For women ages 16-35 who are discerning consecrated life. Register by Oct. 9. www.10000vocations.org/events.html.

Nurturing Spiritual Development in Children and

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24 • The Catholic Spirit

THE LAST WORD

September 28, 2017

Fast friends

From left, Tom Rasmussen, Amy Lippert and Craig Johnson of Guardian Angels in Oakdale go for a run around Colby Lake in Woodbury Sept. 25. They belong to a parish running club. Photos by Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

Guardian Angels’ runners club combines exercise, fellowship and mission

G

By Kateri Schmidt • For The Catholic Spirit

uardian Angels parish in Oakdale has discovered a unique way to foster relationships, promote healthy living and fight poverty: a runners club.

When Craig Johnson, a newly minted running aficionado and leader of the special planning committee at Guardian Angels, first conceived of the idea, he hoped it would help parishioners achieve their health and wellness goals in a fun, social environment. It quickly morphed into something more.

In 2015, just a few months after its founding, the club connected with World Vision, a Christian organization dedicated to eradicating poverty worldwide. Guardian Angels became the first Catholic church in the United States to join Team World Vision in its quest to provide clean drinking water to people in Africa.

In addition to its annual fall festival walk/run and World Vision events, the GA runners club meets for 5K “fun runs” about once a month, usually at Colby Lake in Woodbury. The club has around 25 active members of all ages and walks of life, from recent college graduates to retirees. At 69, Johnson is the oldest member.

The skill level also runs the gamut, from seasoned marathoners to people who are working toward their first 5K. Around 10 of the members are dedicated World Vision runners who participate in longer races including the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon. The rest are simply there for the camaraderie and exercise.

Despite the age differences, “there’s a real cohesion within the group,” Johnson said. “One of the principles of being a member of a parish is that the broad experience which we all get is the Mass, but the way we meet and connect with individuals is through small group activities, and the runners club is one of those small group activities.”

A former alpine skier, Johnson relishes the chance to exercise outdoors in Minnesota’s changing seasons. And he makes a connection between running and his Catholic faith.

“Running is very spiritual,” he said. “As you’re running you’re thinking of all kinds of things that are of a spiritual nature. ... It’s a microcosm of this idea of self-sacrifice.”

Co-founder Tom Rasmussen, who ran more than 30 marathons between 1996 and 2007 before a knee injury forced him to retire to shorter races, echoed these sentiments.

“When you’re out running on a familiar path, you don’t have to think about running, and what happens is your mind is liberated,” he said. “Your mind is just able to wander, and it can wander into relationships, it can wander into problems.

“It takes some major mental game to get me out the door and training, so having a higher purpose to run has made it more enjoyable.”

Amy Lippert

TOP From left, Craig Johnson, Amy Lippert and Tom Rasmussen gather before a run.

BELOW Lippert laces up her running shoes.

It’s a wonderful way of just escaping.”

About the GA runners club, he adds, “It’s a spirit-filled environment” and a way to welcome a diverse group of people — especially young people — into the parish community.

One such person is Amy Lippert, who, at 29, provides a youthful presence in the club’s leadership team and has quickly become its most energetic coordinator.

More than anything else, Lippert is motivated by the mission of Team World Vision, she said.

She raised $10,000 for the cause by running her first-ever Twin Cities Marathon last year, and has already topped that amount this year.

Both she and Johnson, along with two other members of the club, will run the Twin Cities Marathon Oct. 1, followed by the New York City Marathon a month later.

Lippert’s dedication to the cause is a constant source of inspiration for her clubmates.

“I had been looking for a bigger cause to be a part of since I was 20,” she said, “and when I heard [about Team World Vision] I knew that this is what I was called to do.”

As she runs, Lippert pictures the faces of her two foster children and prays fervently for the mission. It is the only thing that keeps her going, she said.

“I hate running,” she said. “It takes some major mental game to get me out the door and training, so having a higher purpose to run has made it more enjoyable.”

Her fellow Twin Cities marathoner, Adam Gunderson, a 34-year-old father of four whose wife encouraged him to join the GA runners club, brings it back to the benefits of running and the joy of being connected to the parish community.

“There are a lot of amazing people out there who are willing to drop everything to help you achieve your goals,” he said. “All you have to do is ask.”

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